Little People Pants

This funky fabric is from Palngun Wurnangat an independently owned Aboriginal women’s organisation based in Wadeye, Northern Territory. They make all of my favourite fabrics! 

This one is called 'Little People'. There's a cool set of photos here of how they print it, too:

I was lucky on the day of the art fair as this particular bit of fabric was on the sale table - I got 3 metres of it! I've made a lot of dresses lately, so I thought I would make a matching skirt and top out of it. I felt like it needed a long, big skirt, and a top with sleeves. But I don't have anything in pink or purple, so I decided to make pants. What a shame! 😏

It was fairly simple to cut out and fit quite well. 

But it turned out that the pants didn't quite accommodate my curves. They fit VERY well on the back, but were a little low. I had to unpick the darts and sew a yoke in, a curved addition, to bring the back up to the level of the waistband. 

Obligatory pocket!

And I was off to brighten everyone's day at work again.

#lovelypennypatterns

Shorts to Skirt Refashion with a bush chook

A friend donated me this pair of shorts to do as I liked with them.

 They had an initial printing session, but I felt that they were missing something...

 So I decided to turn them into a skirt. I cut the leg seams open, turned them inside-out and sewed straight lines down the front and back.

 It made them into a nice little skirt.

#lovelypennypatterns

Dragon Age Inquisition Cosplay - Orlesian Skirt

My Dragon Age Inquisition cosplay has been only a thought for a couple of years now,  but I'm determined to finish it in 2019. So I got the pattern out one night and cut out every piece of the layered skirt.

Layer 1 - Underskirt

I scrounged some fabric from my many boxes and made a simple, full-length, A-line skirt that I could wear on its own, separate from the cosplay.

See the odd black pattern on the back where I JUST ran out of fabric? Ha ha! This pattern uses a lot of fabric.

Layer 2 - White cotton underskirt.

Looks like I mostly forgot to take a photo of this in progress, but you can see it on the final skirt.

Layer 3 - Moth wings

These were the complicated part of the skirt, because I had elected to do them in satin for the more formal ballgown look. And satin is slippery.
I did them as separate 'petals', so that the layers and drape would look more like the original gown. 

Once sewn, all of the moth eyes were fabric printed on using the lino cuts I had designed and carved for this project.

It's always a slight risk printing directly onto your finished, sewn product, but I was confident. As long as I let the black dry before I put the copper on, it would turn out fine.

Each part was a top layer, sewed together with a bottom layer, and turned through so that the seams were on the inside. A lot tidier than simple hems, particularly with the satin.

It was a LOT of sewing with very slippery fabric....

And I had it draped everywhere!

But it was coming together according to my plan.

I sewed the wing designs on rather than paint them, so that the effect was subtler. 

Lots and lots of pinning followed, trying to work out how the individual layers would hang. The white underskirt and all of the satin were sewn together as a single skirt, with a substantial, solid waistband to hold all of it up.

But can you see how it all came together?

I think you can really see the moth wing effect at the front!

The finished skirt! 

Just the matching corset top to make, and the hand-painted stand-up butterfly collar.....

#lovelypennypatterns

Refashion from black and white pants to skirt

Remember these pants? Well, I do wear them, but only sometimes because they still weren't quite right. In the crotch. I think if I had used a pattern when I cut them down from the bigger size I probably could have avoided this, which is a less learned for next time.

But I still love the fabric that I printed, so I decided to turn it into a long skirt and make use of all of those pockets on it.  

I unpicked the inner seams to start off with. 

There's a lot of fabric, so I didn't even have to fill the gaps. Just straighten the inner seams.

 And there we have it, a new skirt. All the pockets and none of the unhappiness.

#lovelypennypatterns

Printing leaves and stencils onto eco dyed clothes again!

I did my last fabric printing day before my craft stall last week - and boy was it hot out in the carport! The weather is stinking up here, I can't wait for the rain to come.
As before, I had some plain clothes and some shirts that I had dyed that hadn't come out with strong patterns that could use something extra.
The metal circle printed well on this linen top, but everything else is a bit vague.

None of the stencils that I had suited, so I went and clipped a small palm frond from the garden instead.

I rolled paint over the top of it to create an outline and was very happy with it.

Looks like a different shirt now, huh? Very tropical!

What I did on another shirt was to then turn the leaf over and press it down to create a print.

I love the detail that came through.

I'm not responsible for the dye on this shirt, but I'm really happy with the overall look now.

And with this other one, too. Layers of leaves on this one.

The leaf got a lot of use!

 Other shirts got lino prints.

Simple but effective. I thought about layering colours of these prints, but decided it was too much.

And of course my favourite - the bush chook. Though I printed them in brown this time instead of black.

To get the two colours I tape over the legs, print the body, and then remove the tape to do the second colour.

The brown goes well with the eco dye.

Not to mention on other colours.

 My sundew stencil also got a workout.

 These pants are now officially funky - pity they're too small for me!

 A few little arrows on this one in the small blank bit. The bike chain links printed well on this shirt.

 These may need some more work, but they remind me of gardening around my place.

Hopefully someone will enjoy owning them as much as I have enjoyed making them.
#lovelypennypatterns