StefCo♥

Handmade undies. High waisted. Super comfy. From Quarry event shirts and other things. Awww’yeah. 

I call the blue ones my “Sh’bangies.” 

I had this little idea for a long time that I wanted to make a classy dress that looked like a quilt. Which is a pretty easy thing to do, seeing as how quilting fabric is rather abundant, so I finally went ahead and did it.

Mostly made out of fabrics from my Nana’s Stash. <3

(Yet another pair of armwarmers! Lovely, lacey armwarmers.)

It’s after the holidays and I have lots of posts to make on holiday gift creations. But before that, what I want to talk about today here is something that is incredibly exciting! And that is new years resolutions.

For the last few months I have been pondering this idea that I randomly sort of thought about one day and have been getting more and more excited about implementing it. It is going to mean being more crafty, creative, and creating better blog posts! As well as being more, you know, sustainable, eco friendly, intentional, and all that other hippie dippie lovelyness.

By the end of 2012 I want at least 85% of my wardrobe to be hand made.

This means that after the new year I will go through my entire wardrobe, count how many articles of clothing I own, and tally how many of them are hand made, partially hand made, or factory made. I will then, throughout the year, begin replacing more and more of the factory items with handmade items.

I would like to make a lot of things myself—which is one reason why I’m doing this. To really push my personal creativity and personal productivity. I would also like to support fellow artisan crafters by purchasing their goods as opposed to corporate companies.

I realize that there are some blurry lines when it comes to what is truly “hand made” and what isn’t. For instance, there are some really great screen printers who make amazing art… on factory made shirts. There are also some amazing clothes to be made by simply altering factory made clothes. I’m going to count these sort of items as 50% hand made in the tally of things.

Things that are made mostly from scratch or raw materials are the 100% hand made items. And then obviously, store bought factory made items are 0% hand made.

Because my purpose for doing this also extends to my desire to be more eco friendly as well as less supportive of extortive big company practices I’m also going to as much as possible source the raw materials that I use in my own hand made goods from companies that use good practices, or (even better) from recycled materials. This means more domestically spun yarn for knitting, domestically woven fabric for sewing, purchasing such things from local stores, and scavenging free piles and thrift stores for other materials.

I also hope to make regular blog posts about my progress with this and really stick with it for the whole year. Maybe next year I’ll even step it up a notch and go for the 100%, though right now I’m trying to be realistic about what I am going to be comfortable and happy with, and that means holding on to a few articles of factory made goods. I do not, however, plan on purchasing any factory made clothing in 2012. The last bits of clothing that I received for Christmas this year (which includes mostly socks and long underwear, which DO count in the clothing tally) are the last ones I hope to purchase or have purchased for me.

So expect updates on this, as well as regular updates on other crafty endeavors, in the future!

Happy New Year everyone!

I’ve made many a pair of tiny bloomer at this point. So many that I’m not even going to blog about them all. However, these are some other kinds of bloomers that I was commissioned to make for my sister and dear friend Kira.

The fabric is super soft, drapey, and comfortable. But the biggest pain in the ass to work with ever, so I unfortunately don’t really plan on continuing to make these.

Something you may or may not know about me is that I am secretly not-so-secretly a huge nerd.

This is a costume I made for Oregon Country Fair this year. Which, if you are not familiar, is not a renaissance fair or anything like that. But definitely a fun place to get dressed up.

Literally everything in these pictures I made, either from scratch or (in the case of the cape) through altering already made items. I made up the patterns for the hooded vest, the underbust tailvest, and the hot pants (accidentally the best things I have ever made). The blouse was some simplicity costume pattern for a nightie, which I altered to be a shirt. I made the headpiece and the vest closure as well, from random items found at the craft store.

Hot. Action. AmIRite?

Around a year and a half ago, my sister decided she wanted to get rid of a bunch of clothes. She was, however, having a difficult time letting go of her old t-shirts which she had sentimental attachments too.

I, of course, suggested she make a quilt of them, and promised her I would help since I had experience with these kinds of things. She, of course, thought I was a genius.

The two of us worked together for a couple of weeks putting together the quilt top. And then life happened, and before we could finish the quilt the quilt top got put away into a storage bin. Occasionally, I’d hear my sister talk about how she needed to finish that someday… or maybe pay someone else too.

I, of course, secretly snuck that quilt top out of that storage bin the day before her birthday and frantically quilted it. (After having planned to do this all year for her birthday, and then forgetting until the day before that it had been my plan all year.)

Here is the result. A lot of this quilt I do have to credit to my wonderful sister Clea. She is the one who had the awesome t-shirts, picked out the colors for the rest of it, and did quite a bit of the sewing for the quilt top. I still wanted to post about it here in my blog, though, because it is an incredibly awesome quilt.