Hello! So, in the never-ending saga that is my making journey, blah blah blah; I want to try and make at least one thing per month for no reason other than it satisfies my creative desires. This is kinda important since lately I actually seem to make a lot of things that don’t satisfy me creatively at all … strange, huh? anyway, it’s just something I want to make time for, for my own personal happiness.
It doesn’t have to necessarily be “useful” or practical either… just something that I want to make, just because. While also being entirely from the stash, the other important proviso of course!
Something that’s bothered me for a while is that I have practically zero purple clothing… and nothing purple in the stash either. Also, today is the 10th anniversary of BTS debut, and being a reasonably recent fan (more on that later) I thought I could observe this milestone and fill the gaping purple hole in my wardrobe at the same time.
I had some cherry red cotton corduroy, originally from Mum’s stash… and I also have plenty of old jeans. I think these ones were also Mum’s actually! Thanks, Mum!
Plans were made, patterns were perused, discarded, dyes checked out. I worked out I could cut out the Named Maisa jean jacket from my corduroy, and also get a little matching skirt out if I cut some of the pieces from the old jeans. To make everything purple, I would dye the cherry red corduroy with navy blue dye, and the blue jeans would get a red dye bath, This may or may not have been a disastrous adventure, but you know me, nothing ventured, nothing gained. I was so excited to see how it was going to go!
Stuff cut out. Here are the bits and bobs. The leftovers (middle right) are, I’m proud to boast; practically nothing. I did save some of them for another little project, yet to be realised…
I made up the body part of the Maisa jean jacket first, and overlocked the edges of the other red jacket bits, for dyeing.
I cut out a few extra pockets… I wasn’t sure where these would go exactly but I just cut and dyed them anyway, thinking I’d find the right spot for them eventually.
The second stage was to make the skirt. The design is my own, that I’m planning to make into a pattern for mine and Cassie’s tiny little company this year, if possible! It has deep pockets, and no zip, instead closing over a hip pocket. I made this completely including lining, before dyeing it as a whole in the same dye bath as the jean jacket body, just with a little bit of extra blue added. I used a green lining fabric (why not, ’twas in the stash) and some leftover pink linen from my Lennox dress to line the waistband. This is how they turned out after the dye job. I’m really happy with how (to my mind) gorgeous the colours look together!
Last step was to construct the jacket sleeves and collar, and dye these and the rescued jeans pockets in a red dye bath. I’d added a tiny bit of blue to this bath too, on a hunch; and am quite happy with the level of purple achieved. Then I finished the jacket construction. The two extra corduroy pockets got stitched onto the denim sleeves of the jacket, and the rescued denim jeans pockets got stitched to the body of the jacket. Of course I’m thrilled to have some useful pockets on the jacket!
Some details: I used copper jeans buttons, these were the only things bought new for the project. For the most part, I used black thread or a dark khaki thread for the skirt lining and some other parts; and navy blue overlocking thread throughout. For the skirt; I had two purple buttons already in my stash, which was handy.
Final verdict; well of course all that strong red turned out more raspberry than purple; though the jacket sleeves are decidedly purple. I still love it though! and am very excited to wear it a lot during winter. Although I “wanted” purple; raspberry is of course one of my favourite colours; so how could I not be happy?!
* “borahae” actually kinda translates to “I purple you”, and is a BTS thing… So I’ve been a low-key fan for a few years, but it wasn’t until I started making wedding dresses and spending a lot of time listening to youtube videos and bingeing on BTS Run while I hand stitched tiny lace motifs onto silk and tulle bodices that I really got into them a lot more. Then during the making of Lainey’s wedding dress, I finally finished viewing the entirety of BTS Run and of course anyone who has watched the show knows you cannot help but eventually became hopelessly addicted! Aaah! I’m not going to say any more, because it’s a little bit embarrassing, at my age! but anyway there it is. I’ve said it now! 💜
Hello!
I used a raw silk hessian from Le Stash… this is leftover from when 
Oh man! I have been unable to post here for quite a while and was starting to wonder; could this be the end of Handmade by Carolyn…? Fortunately my clever husband worked the problem out. Then I wrote a whole post and posted it, and it just disappeared, poof! into the ether. So upsetting! I’m going to try for a second time, so hopefully this time it will not!
This year, my friend Raina gave to me a couple of bags of fabric that she’d been hoarding for years, finally sensibly throwing them out… or should I say.. throwing them my way? I really should throw out a lot of my fabric too but not only am I not sensible, I’m also such a sucker for a lonely, unwanted piece of fabric that is just screaming out to be made into something wanted and loved… *sigh*
After I’d cut it out I decided to tizzy it up a bit with a spot of embroidery… I was going for the bikini emoji so tried embroidering yellow French knot “polka dots” over the pink but they sadly turned absolutely terrible so OFF they came! It’s ok, I happen to think the pink bikini by itself is super cute and I’m very pleased with it. I was little worried the satin stitch would skew in the wash, but it’s survived several washes already and come out totally unscathed so I think it’s going to be quite stable!
