GIVEAWAY: Pattern Magic Book
Who here likes fashion, reading, and free things? Wha — all of you? Really? Well you are in luck, loyal readers, as we have a copy of the book Pattern Magic to giveaway (read and reviewed in issue 12!!) All you have to do to win is leave us a comment on this post telling us about a DIY project gone horribly awry. The one that makes us laugh the most gets the prize.
July 11th, 2011 at 9:56 am
Here is a legendary story from the family vault
When I was about 9 years old, my parents had gone out and I was left with my sister (a common occurance). While she was rocking out in her room to The Butthole Surfers (it was the eighties) I knew I could pretty much do anything I wanted. So, I took this particular chance to play with my mom’s beautiful 1920’s singer machine - still in it’s original table and all. When my sister finally came to (probably when the album, Hairway to Steven, ended) she found me with the sewing needle stuck right into my pointy finger, through the nail, and halfway through my finger. Alright, so this probably doesn’t seem very funny. What is funny is my material of choice. Maxi Pads. As I was sewing, the paper would come off the bottom of the maxi pads and my little nine-year-old hands hands would get stuck to that sticky strip, making it hard to keep them away from the needle. Don’t worry, I was fine. Nothing a bit of polysporin, a band-aid and a freezie couldn’t fix.
To this day, my parents tell this story calling it my first “Period Piece” (insert groans here).
July 11th, 2011 at 10:08 am
well, my absolute favorite pair of jeans ever had died. they ripped right up the leg…
so i tried to make a jean skirt… which went horribly wrong and resulted in a barbie-like tight mess that was anything but complementary.
SO, i turned the now skirt into a stuffed whale for my brothers birthday.
maybe this wasn’t a complete failure… because the whale is very cute.
July 11th, 2011 at 2:17 pm
When my mom was in high school, her family was going through some tough financial times, so she decided to give her wallet a break and make her own prom dress. She had done some sowing projects before, so she felt pretty confident going in. She took her measurements and bought a beautiful fabric and got to work. When the last stitch was in place, she put the dress on and discovered she’d forgotten to include the seams in her measurement. The dress went from a classy fit to a super sexy and scandalous fit. It was too late and expensive to start over so she rocked the ridiculously tight dress, but she’s a beautiful woman so I’ve no doubt it was a real hit.
July 11th, 2011 at 2:26 pm
One year, I decided to make my sweet boyfriend a pair of mittens for his birthday, even though 1) we live in Vancouver and it’s not very cold, 2) he’s a grown man who does not wear mittens. I was so intent on having them done in time for his birthday that I didn’t notice that they were approximately 400% larger than necessary. (The first clue should have been the solid week and 5 balls of yarn it took to knit them).
The resulting mittens looked like comedy props. They were bigger than oven mitts and half as fashionable. You can see a photo here: http://www.juniordeluxe.com/2009/09/mitten-botch.html
I hope this made you laugh. I’m starting fashion school in the fall and I’m pretty sure that Pattern Magic + sewing assignments will equal more crazy mistakes.
July 12th, 2011 at 7:40 pm
once i was trying to cut a pair of my old jeans into shorts, but i cut them too short. as a result, they looked like weird tiny little skirt which i obviously could not wear unless i wanted my whole butt exposed to the world. so i sewed (i use the term ’sew’ loosely; my stitches are uneven and sloppy; i can’t sew to save my life) up the bottom and sewed on a ribbon on both sides to make a strap and thus i made a mini-purse type-thing. terrible. i never take it out, but for some reason i still have it.
July 13th, 2011 at 10:35 pm
Ever since I was small, my dad has always been the resident seamster in my family. My mum wasn’t all that great at working the sewing machine so he was the one who used to hem my pants and mend my things. I remember when I was 8 and my dad taught me some basic stitching (I found the sewing machine way too scary then).
Believing myself to be an expert stitcher, on Father’s Day of that year I decided to make a special handmade gift. My dad was a blue-collar worker but this didn’t stop him from wearing an extensive array of suits. I noticed that something was missing though. In cartoons on TV, debonair men usually had this fabric inside their breast pocket which, I later learned was a pocket square. The problem was, I didn’t know it was a square. I had always thought it was triangular!
So off I went to my bedroom with a needle and white thread. I didn’t want to touch my dad’s pile of fabric, worried that he would find out and spoil the surprise. So being the genius I was, I used my own white linen bed sheet to make his “pocket triangle”!
When I gave it to my dad on Father’s Day, there was this short moment when he just inspected my handiwork…and then he laughed. By then I was getting a bit annoyed that he was making fun of all my hard work but then he explained to me that he was just SO HAPPY about his gift.
In retrospect, I guess I’m glad he didn’t point out my obvious error as he opened his gift. I probably would have been crushed and tremendously embarrassed!
Oh and if you were wondering, yeah I eventually got into huge trouble by my mum for cutting up a piece of my bed sheet… Let’s not talk about it, K?
August 6th, 2011 at 12:31 am
Funny, I just bought both books: Pattern Magic 1 &2 They are GREAT. Wish there was this sort of thing available when I was a kid! Oh well, I will see if I can catch up! In order to use this book you need to understand about slopers and stuff, and if one had a sewing dummy to work on, one could probably gain a fair understanding of pattern drafting quite quickly, in a hands-on way that is probably the best way to do it. It’s all about imagining an effect and then setting about to achieve or interpret it in three dimensions.