Cropped Linen Top (++ How to make it!)

Lately, I've been trying to work out of my stash, rather than ordering new fabric. This fabric is something I've held onto for about 5 years, so I suppose it was about time I use it. The reason I held onto it was that it was a gift from my first internship, working for a lady in Chicago. It was unpaid, but she gave me cuttings of some of her fabrics - really amazingly unique stuff. This is a double weave linen, a beautiful burnt orange color on one side and light tan on the reverse. It's loosely woven and crumples in the most delicious way, as linen often does. It also has a great sheen and iridescence. I decided to make an airy little high-low hem shirt with some frayed edges to take advantage of the looseness of the weave.  

As I've been trying to make more videos, I'm learning a lot about how much I need to improve what I'm explaining! Legitimately, guys? I have no idea what I'm doing in this tutorial-making-process. How fast is too fast to speed things up? Is it better to jump cut than to do 8x speed? Am I under-explaining or giving too much detail? These are the questions.

But I guess, maybe I'll get better with time.  Check it out - let me know what you think! 

Follow along:

                     

Indigo Blue Handmade Dress (Plus a DIY Tutorial!)

While I hate getting dressed up in my day-to-day life (hi, leggings), I do really love the occasion to get fancy and have a good time - as long as it is occasional. This, I will note, is a huge shift from my style about 6 or 8 years ago (history of which is well documented on this blog). I used to love wearing heels - when I had nowhere to walk to. Now, comfortable shoes dominate my life, and tight dresses kind of make my stomach hurt. Is this what getting older feels like? If so, I'm into it. Comfort all the way, please!

That said, we have 3 weddings to attend this fall, and I'm a huge fan of getting dressed up for weddings, because they don't come around all that often. And if you're wearing heels, it's usually just for a few hours. (Spoiler alert: I don't wear heels even then.) But due to my style and taste changing, weight loss, and finding different priorities to ask of my clothing, I don't really have much wedding-appropriate attire. So obviously, I need to make a few dresses between now and November. :)

This is a little dress I made over the course of a weekend out of some lovely indigo-dyed cotton twill. I got the fabric in Chicago at the same place I picked up the fabric for this other dress - along with lots of other fabric you'll see being used sooner or later. I think all told this dress cost me about $5 in materials.

Part of the reason this dress came together so quickly was that I was using pattern pieces from my wedding dress! Having a princess seamed pattern that fits well makes designing so much quicker - I just frankensteined the pieces a little bit to make this high-necked sleeveless cut and low back.

And of course, it has pockets! If you're making your own clothes, putting in pockets is a must. 

Okay and finally.... here is a tutorial for it! I'm working on improving my video skills, and I think I can get a lot better at explaining how to do things. But I want to learn by doing, so I'm going to probably keep making imperfect tutorials and get better as I go! Hope you enjoy and maybe learn something! :)