The Oompaloompa Tunic

Hello Friends,
  Life is crazy. We all know this. And we all know the best cure for crazy is some sewing time. I stole some time from all the packing and made up this tunic that had been bubbling away in my head all summer. I used the super simple pattern from Happy Homemade Sew Chic and promptly made it as complicated as I could.

  Since it was a plaid, of course the yoke had to be cut on the bias, and I had to ignore Sanae's advice (which I can't find now) on how wide in the body it was and cut it according to the pattern measurements, also ignoring my own gut saying "That's really wide!!!" when I'd seen what I'd cut. A massive maternity moo moo was not the look I was going for.

  Despite all this it was the perfect soothing project I needed to work on. The gathers made me look like I was expecting, so I changed it to big chunky pleats across the front and back then shirred the life out of it to give me some waist definition. What makes playing with fabric so relaxing? I really enjoyed working on the puzzle of this top and am VERY happy on how it turned out. Even if it doesn't look so fabulous in the photos.

Look at the great poof and flare this has! 

Steam your shirring afterwards and it really makes it gather! This fabric was probably at the top end of gathering weight because it didn't really do much on the pleat sections since it was three layers of fabric.

Another random fact is look how much bias tape I had left over! Talk about a perfect stash bust!

Look at that little tail! Whew!

Tada! Another project off my FESA list!  When my guys saw it they promptly dubbed it the Oompaloompa tunic. It reminded them of this.

So how about you? Do you ever love something that maybe isn't the most flattering thing to wear? Is working on a sewing puzzle soothing or frustrating for you?

PS! It's the last day of 50% off my entire Etsy shop! I promise I'll stop spamming my Twitter and Facebook accounts after this. :) I know how much we all want more patterns and fabrics and how hard it is to resist a sale!

Stripy Fall Stashbusting

Yippee! I finally got to sew something fun! It fits into my FESA plans and it is Stashbusting! Win Win Win! Do you want to see it?

 There are those mornings when you drag yourself out of bed and don't want to fight with your clothes. I was spoiled with all my easy throw on summer dresses and wanted something for fall and winter. When I found this gorgeous teal and grey strip remnant at a thrift store I thought it would make a nice cropped sweatshirt or something. Then I got it home and realized it matched perfectly with a remnant of gorgeous cotton interlock in my stash!

Yes, I'm feeling full of sass in this!

I used Cake Pattern's Hummingbird Top for the bodice lengthening the sleeves as much as I could with the yardage I had. As you can see it wasn't much. I cut 2 inch wide strips for the bands for the neckline and sleeves. I really like the neckline on this top. 

For the skirt I kept it simple. I serged all the remaining fabric into a tube, quartered it and pleated the front and gathered the back. I just eyeballed the pleats and kind of like how the five little pleats turned out. Easy peasy.

I didn't hem the bottom and the sweatshirt fabric had enough body that I didn't need to reinforce the waist seam. I sewed it on just my serger and it took about an hour. I can't tell you how delighted I am with this color combo and comfort. I think this will see a lot of wear with my Espresso leggings and sweaters!
How's your fall sewing going? How often do you reuse your patterns? I find myself often reaching for this top or the Cabarita pattern when I'm wondering what to do with my knits.