It’s February 14th – Valentine’s Day!! I hope everyone is having a fabulous day! We keep it pretty low-key at our house but we do make sure that everyone knows how cherished they are.
I was busy in my studio last week writing a tutorial for the Card Condo and making a tunic for my daughter.
First off, the tunic. It started off as this skirt. My sister found it at a thrift store years ago, and gave it to me when she was cleaning out her own sewing studio. It sat in my fabric stash until I rediscovered it last week. It was a fairly standard long full skirt made from a drapey polyester.
Except check out the C-R-A-Z-Y print on that fabric! Rockets, and planets, and space aliens. The style of the images reminded me of the A-Ha music videos from the 80’s. (I’m kind of perplexed why the designers chose this print for this style of skirt. I suppose that’s why it ended up at a thrift store.)
Inspired by the print, I decided it should become a 1980’s-ish tunic for my daughter, drop-waist with a ruffle at the bottom. I finished the edges of the neck and armholes with bias tape made from cheap-o black chiffon. I used some of the same bias tape where the ruffle is attached.
The basic construction is really very simple. I had planned on writing up a tutorial, but it seems that I made every stupid mistake in the book and found myself ripping something out at each step. For instance, I very carefully cut and measured and gathered the fabric for the ruffle at the hem. I stitched it on and THEN discovered that I had stitched it on wrong side out. DOH!
The end result is pretty cute, though, if I say so myself. I know it doesn’t look like much on the hanger. Trust me when I say that it’s cuter on the little girl. (I just haven’t had a chance to get a picture of it on her yet.) To give you a sense of scale, it hangs down to about mid-thigh on her.
And do these Valentines count as sewing? They were inspired by the stitched doily Valentines by Shabby Chic Crafts. The only doilies I had were really big, though, and I was feeling a bit stingy with my M&Ms. So instead I used a heart doily Sizzix die that I layered over some lightweight vellum. We used a Sharpie to write a Valentine’s message on the back.
And the biggest sewing accomplishment this week was writing up the tutorial for the Card Condo I showed you guys last week. I have some photo editing to do, and then I’ll post it.
What’s up for this week? Honestly, not much of anything until I can clean up a little bit. My studio is at the point where I cannot walk through it anymore!! I hold no illusions that I’ll get it completely cleaned, but I’m hoping for a few square feet of floor space.
Great tunic!!!!!