DH 6PAC

Well! with SWAP behind me, and photos in, the big reveal is on Monday the 20th.  DH (Dearest Husband) has been rooting me on the whole way, and said my collection was top notch. I think the word excellent has been used. :-) He's just grand.  So I was sort of energetic to jump into a Summer 6PAC which turned into a double....for an ambitious 12 pieces.  Then I noticed DH had a few items on the docket, that i wanted to tackle for him, and decided, i didn't want to merely "squeeze" them in, I wanted to "Take them on". SO............. we are placing the 2 summer 6's aside and we are going to do a DH 6PAC.  So let's see what we have:

"Shoulder Taps Gone Wild"

He recently purchased a really nice riding jacket, brown leather with fringe. Good for the spring chill in the mornings.  It is a "Bon Jovi" style. That aside, it is really nice........except for ........... well it has shoulder taps that practically loop up to his ears! LOL.  So that's project number one.

Native American Denim Jacket.

We were both inspired at the same time by Indian Village Mall.  He had come across this website and showed me their clothing items. I fell in love, too.  So he would like a denim jacket with embellishment on the shoulder yokes.

Native American Poncho.

He saw mine from SWAP and wanted one :-)

Civil War Period Shirt.

He likes history, and Gettysburg.  We are looking for the right pattern and then will shop for the fabric.  That one will be fun.

Beading Embellishments

He has two strips of beads to be installed onto a black leather pullover shirt/jacket.  He got some inexpensive black leather pants off EBay for me to cut up to make the strips for braiding that will frame the beads when I install them on the shoulders of the shirt.

Quilt.

He liked the quilt I made. My Butterfly Quilt.  I told him he could pick out fabric and I would make him one! He will pick out 8 complimentary fabrics and 1/2 yard each.  Let's see what he comes up with!  He's got a great sense of style.  He will have his own unique quilt.

So that's my DH 6PAC that I will be working on until they are complete.  There is *one* pair of pants that I have cut that will take two hours to sew that I will "squeeze" in for myself, but the rest is the DH 6PAC.

Cheers!

JDol

SWAP Entry 2013 Final Pix.

I have now finished my very first SWAP (Sewing With A Plan) 2013. I had a lot of fun joining in this adventure.  You have seen my posts along the way.  I am making this post merely of the collection as a whole all in one post.  Photo submissions start on May 10th and close on May 18th.  I'm not sure when voting occurs, how it is handled, or any of those logistics.  That info will be revealed as time draws nearer.  I am so excited to see everyone's collections!  We were all given some sneak peeks of some, and then there are some quiet members who will unveil at the end.  Everyone has so much talent this will be hard to vote - I'll want to vote for so many of them.  I'm glad I joined the Stitcher's Guild Forum when I did - Last Sept/Oct, because I jumped in on a winter 6PAC sew-along, which gave me a little boost of confidence to join the SWAP 2013.

So here is the Collections Photo:

Photo #1

#1A: Top #1.  Self Designed and Drafted Top.  Della Buckskin Faux Leather from Warehouse Fabrics Inc.  Side zip, fringe, self fabric lace, modesty panel.

#1B: Bottom #1.  Matching Faux Leather Pants Burda "Bella" #6011. Della Buckskin from Warehouse Fabrics.com.  Fringe added. (not in pattern)

Photo#2

#2: Top #2.  3rd piece of ensemble: Self Drafted Halter inspired by a photo of a Harley Davidson Halter top.  Matching Faux Leather.  Self designed and weaved beading accents,  Back has embroidery of wolf. (next photo)

Photo #3

#3: Back of Self Drafted Halter with wolf embroidery. Design is from Embroidery Library

It's called Autumn Wolf

Photo#4

#4: Bridging Poncho with this collection

Photo #5

#5A: Top #3.  Same Self-Drafted Halter pattern (inspired by a picture of a Harley Davidson halter).  Completely hand painted with self designed artwork. (butterflies) Piece 3 of my wine denim ensemble. (piece 2 was a Moto Jacket which is not included in this SWAP)

#5B: Bottom #2.  Wine Denim trousers: Burda "Bella" #6011.  Fabric is: Wine Denim from Fabric.Com

Photo #6

#6A: Top #1. Purchased Plain Denim Shirt and embellished with yoke accent fabric (Southwest Decoratives), fringe, and 3 embroidery designs: a Sun Dancer Kachina, Rain Dance Kachina and a Wolf Diamond on the back. Designs from Design Library and Embroidery Library.

#6B: Bottom #1.  Black Denim Tiered Skirt from a XOX Skirt Tutorial from Weekend Designer.  Pattern was modified to include waist band, and to match photo that came with the tutorial.

Photo #7

#7A&7B: Back of Shirt and Skirt

Photo #8

#8A: Top #2.  Red Denim Vest  Butterick B5402. 10 oz. Red Bull Denim from JoAnn's. Made Cut-Off Sleeves., Embroidered Front pockets and back.

#8B: Bottom #2.  Matching Red Denim Jeans McCall's Palmer Pletsch M5894 Boot cut. Outfit designed to match my motorcycle.

Photo # 9

#9: Top #3.  Showcase the Silver Spandex Turtleneck pattern for the cooler days, also matches my motorcycle. Fabric (Dancewear from JoAnn's) Pattern: Kwik Sew/Kwik Serge 2900 view A.

Photo #10

#10: Bridging Poncho with this collection

Photo #11

#11:  Denim Skirt detail.

Well, That's it...

My SWAP 2013.  See you next year.

PS.  I'm onto a Summer 6PAC along with a JDol 6PAC starting May-July.

Cheers!

JDol.

Red Motorcycle Outfit

Well, I took some photos last week of my SWAP motorcycle outfits modeled with my motorcycle.  Liked the Faux leather a lot, but while I love that wine denim outfit so much, just didn't like how it coordinated with my bike.  My bike is Deep Red and Silver or Maroon/Gray.  Looking at the photos, I pictured how nice it would be to have a red denim outfit with a gray shirt, that would match the bike.  Grabbed a swatch of the 10 oz red bull demin from JA and checked it out with the bike paint - looked nice to me, so let's go for it.  For the Gray/Silver shirt I used Shiny silver spandex - like the dance wear fabric.  Oooooh so comfy.

Used Patterns:
McCalls Palmer Pletsch M5894 Bootcut Jeans,
Butterick B5402 Connie Crawford Denim Jacket  I used cut off sleeves....
and for the shirt - Kwik Sew/Kwik Serge 2900 view A.

Mostly snapped photos of the vest.  just concentrated on sewing the jeans, and then just whipped up the shirt.

Chose to embroider the vest. Wanted to go with the Native American theme of my bike, so chose a Dream Catcher for the back and feathers for the front pockets.

Started as I always do - cut the pieces, iron the pattern pieces, cut the fabric.  Sometimes I am unable to do that all at once, depending how many pieces, and what not.  I am still a floor cutter, I do not have a cutting table.

 

It took quite a while and the span over two days to decide on the embroidery designs  First decision was the Dream Catcher for the back of the vest.

 

Next was deciding whether I wanted anything on the front, and if so, what?  Another day and found a design of feathers that would work for each pocket.  I would need to make a second copy in reverse of the design so there would be one for the right and left pockets.

 

 

Embroidering away..........

 

Front right and left ready to move on...

 

Collar installed...

 

Along with facings

 

Add the Buttonholes... Do you ever get nervous here?  I do not have a huge amount of button holes under my belt, and still get nervous because by the time you get them the project is all together, so one false move and..... let's not go there.......  So I use my sensor setting...

 

 

Place the button in the back of the foot and Ms Jamome automatically sews the right size...

 

Here is a trick I picked up form a Utube video some time ago I wish I could state the source, but it was so long ago, and such a random find... anyway, it was to put a pin in the beginning and end as a stopper, so there were no accidents as I cut the button hole.  It has worked famously every time.

 

Jeans I took 3 photos..  #1...

 

 

#2...

 

#3,,,

 

The shirt is a loose fitting Mock neck, LS shirt in Silver spandex - took no snaps of that construction. Whipped that one up in between lunch a movie.

 

The final results exceeded my expectations. yielding an outfit that matches my bike.  I like that idea.  Bike is a 2001 Honda Shadow Aero 1100.

 

 

 

Cheers!

 

JDol

 

 

 

 

SWAP Wearable Art

A JDol Creation for my SWAP Denim Motorycle Outfit...

A lot if inspiration went into this project.  First and foremost my comrade IndigoTiger from my Favorite Sewing Forum gets mega kudos for inspiring me to paint this halter.  She does stenciling on her Tee's and after seeing her latest Cave Horse Stencil Tee (Max is on that link, too) I had to give stenciling a try.  So I did on the jacket in a previous post in February.  I enjoyed it, and remembered all those years ago when I used to paint acrylics and dabbled in watercolor.  My painting artist was awakened, and now I have another way to personalize my clothing.... I found I like to mix stencil with much freehand painting. Way too much fun!

I was inspired by this Harley leather Halter

 

Already made one Halter from this inspiration picture (see below)

 

 

So since I was able to acquire more of this wine denim and wanted to make a halter for my SWAP denim motorcycle gear collection, I decided I wanted to paint it. Now, what to paint on it?  Much deliberation and I decided on butterflies (my new fancy)  So here I go with a blank canvas again... takes me a while to get going in one direction when there are millions... so got over to JA's for more paints and found some spray paint - Yes! that would be perfect for the background... I like the misty soft gradient nature that would build on the base.  Then I found spray on glitter - Yes! had to have that, too.  I was well on my way.

 

I cut the pieces and sewed the back pieces together, and began to paint my background

 

It sort of goes on and soaks in very fast.  I worked with it, and a few coats....

 

 

Then painted the glitter on...

 

 

So, Now to let the background dry a good 4 plus hours....

 

Sewed together the font pieces, and painted them.  This is the first coat - it soaks in after it goes on...  I think by the time I was done, I had more of a solid shade on the underneath of the vest, than on the top of the vest.  Not thrilled with that; I was hoping for a more opaque spray paint job for the back ground.

 

 

Below is the after shot....

 

 

Making the stencil for the main butterfly on the back of the vest.  Now mind you, I was in the kitchen looking at the finished back panel, visualizing different images and trying to figure out what kind of butterfly design I was going to paint on the panel, so I'm staring at the panel on the floor on the newspapers "drying" and DH comes in and says - "Nothing like watching paint dry"... LOL...

 

 

Got the basic down, now to play...  I had inspirations from this Butterfly Pictures Website and went on to paint the main butterfly.  The whole image was going to come along as I was inspired to make each next step....

 

 

Butterfly Done

 

 

Next inspiration...

 

And finally the end result:

 

 

So that is the rear panel.  I am letting the two front pieces dry overnight.  We'll get more pix as we proceed to the front pieces.  I also want to top this off with another shot of glitter - I like that added sparkle.

 

The Next Day...

 

Well, I'm working on the front pieces today, (painting)... So far so good...  The pieces dried overnight, so my "canvas" is ready... See below what I mean that the paint seemed to coat through to the underside more than the top side?  There must be some sort of primer available to prime the fabric to avoid that... Wrong side is shown first below.

 

 

 



 

Okay, so off to drawing a little bit of an outline of my butterfly... yes you can barely see it in real life, too....

 

 

So painting the first side then wanting the second side to come out reasonably mirrored, I traced the first image mirrored onto the Stabilizer Paper, to cut a quick template...

 

 

I basically laid the paper on top of the wet paint first to get a general outline.

 

So now have both sides painted the base image.

 

 

Now to go to work on the painting - Fun!

 

Here is my result...

 

 

The picture doesn't grab the glitter paint that is what you see the gold as.  I think this top looks real nice in person.  I want to add a little some thing more to the sides... not sure If I'm going to add some kind of glittery swirls, or some green stemmed flowers...  It's a big decision... still gotta ponder... the gold swirls will enhance the butterfly, and the green stemmed flowers will bring more color... need to determine what I am going for on the front... The back is very colorful....so do I want to keep that theme or ???.... anyway, I'm really enjoying this, and can't wait to sew it all up and see how it looks modeled with the pants. 

 

It's supposed to be sunny and 50F next Friday, so I am hoping to model my new outfits on my motorcycle... I have 4 outfits now. (well this will round out the 4th) 2 spring and 2 summer.  I need to get more of that brown knit and make a long sleeve tee to wear under the fringe faux leather top.

 

Later

 

Okay, so paint dried, and installed side panels...

 

 

Then the zip on front pieces...

 

Oh yeah....BTW I decided on glitter flowers with butterflies on the sides of the big butterfly. Just a little accent.

 

So, sewed up all the top stitching/hems and we were all done. 

 

Now I have a piece of Wearable Art.

 

Final Pix:

 

 

 

Hip Hip Hoo-ray!

 

Cheers,

 

JDol