2014 Will be a Year for Making

I have committed to joining Sarah over at Goodbye Valentino in a year long Ready to Wear Fast.  What does that mean? Well there are a couple of hundred of us participating, and we have agreed to refrain from buying any clothes for all of 2014.  We will sew (or knit) everything - allowable exceptions are shoes, socks and underwear.  I was pretty much heading this way anyway, as my tall plus sized middle aged self was getting damn frustrated trying to buy clothes.  I have already made 2 pairs of stretch pants, 3 tshirts, 2 skirts, a blouse and some pj pants in 2013.

So this week, even though I need to start sewing clothes, instead I made this purse:

I really love it, and it will go nicely with my black/grey/white SWAP capsules.  It is from a pattern on Craftsy called Out and About Hip Zipper Bag.  The directions are very nice and clear, and I even inserted 2 zippers with no swearing!

Thursday night while I watched Project Runway Allstars, I did the alterations for making some tops using Simplicity 1805.  I actually ended up altering the pattern pieces for a different view than I intended, but I think I will just make the one I altered, and do the other view later.

Frankenpattern! This is the story of my life.

I cut out the fabric yesterday.  It is a grey cotton jersey, but man, somehow the rows of knit stitches were diagonal across the fabric, so I refolded about a million times trying to get some straight lines to cut along!  Hopefully the top works out ok, even if slightly crooked still.