fitzfabulous

Card by Rar Rar Press, Chicago.

My mister has a fantastic auburn stash growing under his nose. And I have a fabric stash growing under a terrarium (it sits atop a bookcase, stuffed with folded fabric).

Totally just added to it. 70 degree weather (!) inspires all kinds of growing. And whenever the Joann has a 50% off the clearance fabrics sale, I totally stock up on basics and stuff for baby gifts. Some sewers advocate a five yard minimum when buying fabric for unknown purposes, but I’m more of a two-yard sewer. I don’t wear big dresses or full skirts, so two yards - esp. 60-inch fabric- is usually enough for pants, A-line skirts and most tops for me.

Too bad they didn’t have any plain denim. I’ve been itching to make a warm weather denim wrap dress using the BurdaStyle Desira pattern I’d lengthen like this one I already made for my favorite little girl.

Jojo did have:

Weird white cotton with red print of pheasants and old-timey looking couples. Will line something. Or turn into a blouse.

Gray lightweight twill for a Desira wrap dress.

Wine colored polished cotton. Some kind of summer dress.

Brown cotton with subtle black stripes and little dots for a spring top - the Ellinor Sew Along with Nikkishell.

Eggplant crepe backed satin. I really have a purple dress problem.

And this black stretch terry for one of these outfits, thrifted in a ratty Chicago spot:

Also bought this McCall’s pattern because of the hats.

I’ve been wanting to use two angora sweaters I managed to shrink to copy my favorite Kangol furgora jeff cap but have had zero luck finding a pattern. This little cap (E) is sweet and close enough for now. Will try it out using a chunk of heavy denim from this Freecycled bag of scraps.

Anyone know where to find great hat patterns?

I’ve gotten the hang of etsy after getting sick of ebay. True, I once sold a thifted pink jumpsuit w stirrups on ebay for $153 after a fierce bidding war, but then I got stuck with big listing bills and zero sales too many times. I’m too cheap (or too small-potatoes?) for America’s favorite auction site.

So I’m on the etsy bandwagon. Better late than never. I’ve had some luck selling fun stuff I found thrifting that didn’t fit me right or is pink or doesn’t fit my narrow reporter uniform standards of everyday dress. And I love the hunt for fantastic design, weird details and anything made in countries that don’t exist anymore.

A happy pair of metallic shoes (too small!) is going out in the mail.

So is a bluebird dress (blue not in uniform).

And some Wrangler jeans (too wrong for short legs).

Proceeds will send me to P-h-i-l-a this summer to see the rest of the Fitzs. And that love of Fitzs overcomes my shame at the thought of self-promotion, so take a look at the old fitzfabulous.etsy.com and see what’s been hiding among Chicago’s overlooked thrifting gems. Some are already listed; some are coming soon.

That’s fabulous.

Thanks to a lovely lady on Chicago Freecycle I’ll call L (since I didn’t ask permission to quote her) who gave me a giant bag of fabric pieces her photographer-husband once used as drapes. When she found out I did Wardrobe Refashion, she threw in a few shirts and a vest.

I don’t wear a lot of pastels, so this stash will work so perfectly for mockups. I’ve been wanting to copy this Kangol Fur-gora hat using a black angora sweater that I wrecked in the wash and an ancient hat pattern.

And I have a hoodie pattern I want to use with menswear fabric so it’ll go to work with me. And then there’s the Minna dress from BurdaStyle I’m not sure will work on my body.

And. And. And.

Sweet!

Refashioners, forgive me.

Shopped this weekend in Philadelphia with my best shopping buddy, my sister. On her cue, we went to Gaffney’s Fabrics in Germantown Friday to get her a few yards of cotton prints. The little girl’s ready to learn to sew, and I thought the Anda dress on BurdaStyle would be a simple, rewarding way to get started. I brought her a printout of the Minna dress, too. We’re both going to give that one a try by cutting it down into a tunic top.

To my surprise, she picked giant, modern floral prints. Giant white daisies on kelly green cotton; blue and yellow on a chocolate blend; white loops on a rich, red polished cotton that has a solid red border on one end. I bought myself some red and brown lightweight for Minna tops, a silver threaded black knit for some kind of basic dress and as much of this black, gray and purple jersey as they had:

Right - the forgiveness. We also went to Daffy’s Saturday after a lady date to the opera together. I bought two pairs of jeans, brand new and right off the retail rack. They’re beautifully dark, they fit like a glove and they were on sale. Plus, Daffy’s is different from TJ Maxx or Marshalls in that its overstock is mostly European, so the jeans were made in Turkey and Italy. I felt good about not buying more cheap Chinese crap, and then I felt good that I had to really talk myself into buying these staples. And then I congratulated myself on putting back a pair of dark denim pants for the sole reason that they looked like something (unlike jeans) I could actually make.

I also considered a linen blouse with a lovely ruffle detail, (which shouldn’t be too hard to copy) but it didn’t fit. All the best, since I blew my Get out of Jail on the jeans.

The Wardrobe Refashion really has become a way of life for me. Buying new just isn’t exciting. Buying quality clothes and fabrics I can tailor to my own body are both very exciting. Watching my sister step into this world is so great, too.

Beautiful chocolate cashmere sweater with Banana R. label, thrifted at Chicago’s best Salvy for $.90. Special mister declared it too girly for him. I’m cuter than shapeless brown, so I declared it too frumpy for me. However, the lovely cashmere and dark color were gorgeous and worth salvaging. So I decided to alter the heck out of it until I liked the way it fit. Once I had it pinned, I was confused about what to do with the sleeves, since the shoulders were too broad for me. It was my mister who came up with the solution — flip the sleeves so the kimono style contrasts with the fitted bodice.

Here I am, wearing the Before, inside out.

But before you flip it inside out and pin it up, carefully cut the shoulder seam holding on the sleeves.

Then carefully cut off the ribbed cuffs.

Now put on the sweater body inside out and pin it up to fit as you like. I started with my waist measurement and pretty much drew straight lines up to the sleeve line and down to the bottom. I wanted a snug fit. Baste your chalk lines, try the thing back on and then sew. Serge, or use a long narrow zig zag so you don’t pucker the stretch knit. Worst case, slide a strip of newspaper under the seam to prevent the fabric from stretching, the tear it right off after sewing.

**With sweaters, try to sew before cutting any fabric; the knit is less likely to unravel. Once you like the fit, trim away the seam allowance. Finish the edges as you like; I did a wider zig zag close to the original allowance.

Grab ahold of one excised sleeve. Matching the existing seams and right sides facing each other, pin the skinny end of the sleeve to the armhole. Gently stretch the sleeve to fit if necessary. Baste, fit and sew it. Trim the allowances as above.

Trim the bottom edge of the sleeve , fold or roll it under, and sew as unobtrusively as you can to hem it fast. I made facings from the bits I chopped off while tightening the bodice — trimmed off the existing seam and sliced each bit down the middle so I had a 1-1.5″ strip. Guess you could also use pretty ribbon or something to face the edges.

Two strips faced the side seams, and the cut off edges became a facing for the flat edge that nearly covers my hand.

Oi! Cute cashmere with the kind of sass that’ll go anywhere.

Still thinking about scooping out the neck… someday.

The pink wool Jantzen halter suit

I hate Chicago’s western suburbs. Sadly, this is where I work several days a week. Can’t walk anywhere, and many of the people there think they’re pretty darned entitled. I say “darned” because I’ve just given up profanity for Lent. Monday was a terrible day for many reasons, among which I couldn’t walk to the strip mall next to my office building because there are zero sidewalks. Had to drive the .12 miles to Trader Joe’s for a few bottles of wine.

All that aside, I took myself to the only Salvation Army I know out there in the DuPa, which is somewhere along Roosevelt Road. Struck gold there. White roller skates. Various cashmere sweaters. Jumpsuits. A vintage pink Jantzen wool bathing suit with a halter top. A red angora hat with a button on the top. A black velvet vintage hat w feather.

Some of this is going straight into my wardrobe. Some will have work done before becoming part of the daily repertoire- the light green sweater dress will have to be darkened, beaded purple cashmere sweater taken in a bit. The rest is destined for fitzfab @ eBay as soon as I pull my act together to post it all.

My mister gifted me Christmas tickets to see Dolly Parton at the stunning Chicago theater at the end of February. What an absolute doll. Reading about Dolly and listening to her bluegrass stuff on library CDs is preempting a lot of my crafting. But Dolly, the brains behind the title of this post, I think, would appreciate a “new” outfit on me, clearly something sparkly. Otherwise, how will she see me in the balcony?

A cousin gave me this stretchy red jacket thing in a bag of hand me downs.

As you can see, it’s covered in square red sequins, and it doesn’t fit me right. I feel as dowdy in it as one with a bosom badly covered in red sequins can possibly be. It closes in the front with hooks and eyes. They constantly catch on the garment’s stretchy foundation. But the red is glorious and would match the cowboy boots I also plan to wear that evening. And it’s Dolly, for crying out loud, who herself has taste that’s a mess of glorious and awful.

So I’m thinking about lopping off the sleeves and finishing them as caps, and pulling the sides in a little bit to make a kind of top to throw over a denim skirt or dark jeans. Will not wear the star top in a mockery of America.

Wardrobe Refashion is full of good ideas, so of course, I threw the dilemma to them. Will document the sequined surgery here once it’s completed.