Mortem's Tricks or Treats: Two Legged Wardrobe Evolution

*Updated with new photos*

The people who know me, or at least met me more than once will see that I very rarely wear pants/trousers... or whatever two legged clothing pieces; I own one pair of wide leg yoga pants that can easily be worn outside without committing a serious faux pas. In total I have 5, if you count leggings and pj pants; 2 leggings, and 3 pj pants... but you'll never catch me wearing the other two pj's, unless you see me at the mailbox outside of the house.

Anyway, I digress.

Since my simplicity-sew-along had to be postponed due to the lack of funds to purchase the remaining yardage, I decided I'd dive into another long awaited project. Bloomers! Which would mark a very important point in time for my wardrobe; the day I start wearing something other than skirts. <insert shock and awe>.

I'm a bit rusty when it comes to the flat pattern drafting of pants... in fact, flat pattern drafting in general is so rusty in me the gears take much effort to crank. Thankfully, bloomers are a very forgiving and super basic style... my mistakes won't be so profoundly obvious if I make them.

Drafting fitted capris and then widening.

I was not in the mood at all to lay out my satin sheet to cut it in order to make these bloomers... call it feelin' lazy, or not wanting to deal with two hyper inquisitive cats not letting me work on the floor.

No, those aren't stains; the odd blotches are part of it

I dug through my hand-me-down fabric given to me by my husband's colleague and took out the most... interesting (yeah, let's go with that) printed polyester silk fabric.

The picture is the wrongside, it has a slight sheen on the right side; I am not sure why I went with all of this at all, to be honest... the very fact it was a form of silk should have deterred me from even attempting to work with it, but even so I used the right side for the right side. So I guess this rules out boredom, because while I still breezed through it, using cotton or some other sturdier material would've made this exponentially quicker.

Poe is feeling up to the challenge, too

Regardless of how I initially felt about the material, I was quite surprised how well it worked as a bloomer.

It's still not my taste, but I can see them easily worked into a steampunk or carnival ensemble. I would like to sell them; it's all complete, each seam is serged and finished. Made to sit on top of the hip at 32 inches (approx. 81 cm), but can comfortably expand up to about 38 inches (approx. 97 cm). The length is about 18  inches (approx. 46 cm) including the ruffle, and sits at knee length on someone 5 ft tall. I'm selling them cheaper than I would normally, so get them while they are available!

If any of you are interested in them please email me with inquiries at: mari.mortem@gmail.com

Mortem's Tricks or Treats: The Romantic Hobble-- Step 2: Drafted and Cut

URGH!

Let me start of by saying I hate having to take my time with projects.
But I've been purposely taking my time with all my projects lately because our disposable budget was blown with an abnormally high electric bill, preordering Guild Wars 2 for the both of us and some other rather expensive extras.
We predict that 3 months of austerity will bounce us back up to the "comfortable" line.
So I need my projects to keep me entertained every so often, for a little bit!

So, without further ado, I give you the second progress report on the romantic gothic hobble skirt I planned out in a former Creepy Crafty Crusades post.

Drafting panels

Today I spent my time drafting, cutting and marking.
It occurred to me while doing all this that, while it is totally possible to sew without the aid of short cut tools... I totally hate it.
I realized how much I missed having all my sewing tools during the drafting stage...

Thankfully on fabric the curves look a little more "curvy"

If I wasn't using a textile as forgiving as stretch velvet, I would shudder at the sheer blockyness of my pattern-- and with this I would personally prefer that then disproportionate hand drawn curves as they may throw me off; I miss my french curve rulers, and my quilting grid rulers...

My next step is to serge the individual pieces, and begin ruching the side panels.

A bonus complaint: I forgot to buy pins and only had three to work with while marking the pattern onto the fabric... time consumtion FTW... ??