Witch Wardrobe. No Lion.

I always loved the little flute player Kokopelli from the petroglyphs and he shows up time and time again in my arts and crafts.
I had painted kokopelli on this brown t-shirt many moons ago but he was about to fade into oblivion. I love the cut of this shirt and it was still in good shape. Oh what to do, what to do. I decided to go over all the white lines with embrodery in a pale yellow embroidery floss.  I love the way it turned out, but it was well after dark when I finished it.

So I used the dress I wore a few days ago and wrapped it as a skirt. You can see the whole outfit on the photo gallery page.

While I was working on the shirt I tried to remember what I used to wear it with. Then I remembered I had a brown tulip shaped skirt that had worn so bad I tossed it.  So I thought just maybe I'd swing by M & L Fabric in Anaheim and see what they had in the way of brown fabric.

I'm glad I went because the whole store was having a 20% off sale. My original plan was to go with cotton, but I wanted the skirt to be more durable than that, so I was quite happy to find some nice brushed courdoroy in a rust/brown tone for under $3 a yard.  I got three yards to make an A-line skirt. Hopefully enough will be left over to make a vest or something too.

It seemed like I remembered them having some plaid fabric for $1. a yard in flannel, which I thought might make good underwear.  Well, I had misremembered, and it was plaid, but more of a woven textured fabric.  The catch was you had to buy the whole piece, and there was 5 yards, so I may get a skirt out of that.

I found some flesh toned fabric for panties that feels like tricot, though it was in the t-shirt fabric flat folds.  And I got some matching lingerie elastic, which is a bit hard to find at most fabric stores. I couldn't resist some purple camo flannel to make some boys shorts out of either. And I also got a t-shirt fabric printed with beige lace.

I got a few more yards of print fabrics too.  I'm happy to say the fabric I got will make about 2 skirts, 2 vests, 6 pairs of panties, and still have some to spare, all for about $33. with the discount. Now I just have to find time to sew. I'll take photos of the fabric tomorrow when it's light out. I generally pre-shrink everything so there are no unpleasant surprises later.

Hope you are enjoying my fashion journey so far.

Some days I don't have the time or energy to do anything fancy. And I think it's unfair to women to have to come up with an all new outfit every day. So here I am wearing the skirt I fixed yesterday, along with a purple t-shirt I silkscreened. After I finished the shirts my boyfriend said, "Those look like our two cats." And sure enough, without realizing it, my shirt design looked a lot like the painting I'd done of our two cats a few years ago.
And that is something you'll never get from a store bought off the rack clothing item.  The personal connectedness of having made it yourself.

With the outfit I'm wearing some beads in a long strand I strung, and a hair barrette I made.  I have a lot of things in my stash. A lot of them are prototypes I made to sell on ETSY that I never listed. I bet you have a lot of stuff stashed away too that you've forgotten that would look great on you.

My design plans changed directions about six times today. I was getting so frustrated. But I grabbed this dress I'd made in high school in the 70's. During that time, patterns that you could wrap and tie in many ways were all the rage. This was a combo dress/ wrap skirt. It's polyester and I swear that stuff never dies. But it's so slippery I never wore it much.  It's kicked around here for years. I've doubled in size so the thing didn't even go around me anymore.

So today I grabbed it and sewed one single seam and in minutes converted it into a flirty little sundress. Hop over to the gallery and see the photo.

I also embellished my sandals with silver metal hearts.

I topped off the outfit with a ribbon headband I'd woven so long ago, I don't even remember the technique anymore. I made the necklace also out of copper chain and wire.

Once I got done being frustrated I had a lot of fun.
It got me to wondering how many clothes could be easily mended but we either can't figure out how to fix them, or we are just too busy to do it, or we lack motivation.

I as watching a video at 3 AM which pushed me into a state of creativity to follow through with an idea I've been kicking around for years. Namely, to use all my artistic skills of sewing, knitting, crocheting, mixed media, fiber arts of many kinds and other skill sets I've gained through home, through college and through the university of life. So I jumped out of bed this morning way more excited than I've been in a long time, and dug through my drawers and clean laundry bag looking for things I've made myself.  So here are the rules: Everything I wear for one year must be sewn from scratch, repurposed from already owned items, or embellished by me in some way.

So my first outfit has a skirt I made for a belly dancing costume, a t-shirt I painted for a dance group I wanted to start, and yarn hair ties I made to sell on Etsy but never got around to listing.

I had thrown a pair of heels away yesterday because the uppers were cracked and peeling. So I dug those out of the trash and started glueing beads and baubles to them. 

I've had fun wearing this outfit today.

I'm going to give myself a week to make my own unmentionables though. I've knitted socks but I think I gave them all away. I know I have a bra pattern around here somewhere.

And somewhere I have a shoemaking book too. Well, one day at a time, right?