Killing the Pile of Shame, piece by piece

I rummaged around in the Pile of Shame last yesterday looking for a couple of quick projects I could finish. In a jiffy I eradicated two items from the Pile and elevated them to Wardrobe.

I’m calling this an ‘ip’. It was a slip that I made over a year ago that never fit right on top. Never finished, never worn. In a handful of minutes I cut off the bottom half, sewed some elastic to the waist, and presto, a nice soft silk half-slip (or ‘ip’) for wearing under dresses that are just a little bit see through in the bright summer sunlight (remember poor, media-naive Diana Spencer who didn’t realise why this photographer wanted her to pose in the sun?).

Thing two was a maxi skirt that I bought over a decade ago in a junk shop in Woodland, California. It’s made of a wild and lurid bird, butterfly and flower print raw silk. I wore it to a Dirty Three concert in San Francisco and thought I was the coolest thing ever. Problem is that it was, and always has been, too long, so I haven’t worn it since. It took maybe an hour to mark a new shorter length, hem it and tack down the side seam allowances that never sat flat.

And I’m wearing both today. Yay!

Cold, cold, cold

When the weather is cold, I hibernate. Not much sewing happens, really. It’s counter-intuitive to have so much stuck-in-house time without oodles of snipping and seaming and pressing.

Another effect of the changing season is being thrown into confusion about what to wear. How did I stay warm last winter? But more importantly, what did I make?

I’m almost done on a grey wool bolero and five new patterns arrived in the post from two very lovely etsy vendors. Here are two:

I reckon the left one made in winter-weight stuff will work nicely, and a couple of slips made from the one on the right will help me master the fine art of layering.