Deer+Doe Archives • Jessica Smith Creates

April 18, 2018August 22, 2022

Aqua Wedding Guest Outfit

Hey everyone! I’m going to try to post my backlog of projects, so this is the start… this isn’t quite a year old yet, but I do have pictures of it (unlike many of my other projects), so here it is!

Last spring I was invited to my cousin’s wedding. He’s the first of my cousins on my dad’s side to get married, so it was a big deal for the family. So I made a full outfit.

I had intended to make a dress, but I didn’t end up with that. I made a Onyx top and a Fumeterre skirt. My rationale was that I had two days to make this, and I wanted to make the pieces wearable in real life too… If I had made it this year, I’d probably have replaced the Onyx top with the Ogden cami (more on those in a future post), but I had just made a lot of Onyx’s and I knew they’d fit me well.

So, it started with scouring the Fabric.com website for suitable fabrics, and I ended up getting three yards of this lovely seafoam rayon sateen by Telio, which is sadly not stocked anymore.

I cut out the same size of Fumeterre that I had for my two tone version that I posted last year, but when I was sewing it up I realized I didn’t really need to put in a closure, that I could just use elastic in the waistband, so I decided to make it as simply as possible so no pockets and no closure. I did add a half lining, so that there would be some amount of protection. I think I hemmed it by machine, which was messy, but its also on the floor, so no one is gonna see it.

Then I cut out the Onyx top. And this is when I realized that I did not have enough fabric left to come out with a standard version. I made alterations so that it had a yoke on the front and the back, which solved the problem, and made an easy way to use facings , which I then burrito’d into the yoke. I used the same lining fabric from the skirt as the yoke fabric. Sewing it together occurred when I was super hungry and dying, since it was the day before I left for a work trip, but it was all put together!

So then the painting. While I was on the work trip, I painted suns and dots onto the skirt and the top, using Jacquard Lumiere copper paint, which is my favorite paint in the history of ever… Then I let them dry and I ironed it, which is supposed to set the paint and also keep the fabric supple.

The wedding was lovely, and I still love both pieces. I wear the skirt more than the top, but I think its because I love flowy skirts sooooooo much!

July 20, 2017August 22, 2022

Belladone Opposites

Remember the contest I talked about early this year?

I also picked up the Deer and Doe pattern Belladone, which I am in love with!

(Granted, I fall in love with a lot of patterns…)

But seriously, I’ve made 2.5 of these in the first quarter of the year…

The ice blue one is version 2, and the green skirt is version 1, but I am combining them for this post, along with the bonus of the skirt I made from the same pattern (Version 2.5). Because they’re all done, with almost no changes between the versions, so why not? And though I know I should make some more adjustments, I didn’t pause in between making these.

The Belladone is one of those patterns that I’ve seen around for so many years, and yet I haven’t gotten my hands on it mostly due to the shipping from France thing. And I don’t have many paper patterns from indie companies (read: none), so I couldn’t really see buying the paper patterns. But so many people have made fantastic versions, and I wanted to join the legion!

I made the cutaway back version for both dress options, and I had to make one (rather large) adjustment, which I assume has to do with my broad rounded back. I had to sew a huge dart from just underneath the overlay to the armscye. And now the back lies smoothly against mine! The hem was also “very long” on me, meaning at knee length, but I prefer my skirts to be a bit higher, so I went back and hemmed each version a couple inches.

Version 2 (which was finished first) is made from an ice blue cotton with neon slubs woven in (that aren’t visible from more than one foot away), and is fully lined. Granted, that means its mostly interlined for the bodice, and then actually lined for the skirt. Version 1 has a chambray bodice (woot for scraps!), and what I think is a cotton/poly lawn (woot for scraps part 2!). And then I made a skirt version out of the same wax print cotton that I made my Uganda dress out of a few years ago. I had just barely enough to make it happen, but it’s infinitely more wearable than the dress is, which is a great thing!

I made up Versions 2 and 3 for my this big conference in Seattle, since I don’t have much of what you might call “business casual” and then decided to alter them. The skirt only got hemmed a bit higher, but the ice blue dress got a stencil treatment. I laser cut a stencil with a vaguely floral geometric design, and I used silver Jacquard Lumiere paint to put it on the waistband. The design is not terribly visible, even though I used a Micron pen to outline it a bit, but I like the small amount of definition it gives to the dress.

Because Version 2 was fully lined, I didn’t need to bias bind the neck or armscyes, but when I finally finished Version 1, I had to bias bind them, which I did in a lovely green, and I’m considering stenciling the waistband with a gold fabric paint. We’ll see what happens in a couple weeks.

These are wonderful dresses/skirts though. They worked well for the transition from winter to summer, and so far are doing well for actual summer too! Wait until I show you my hack of this! It’s going to be awesome (judging by the wearable muslin, at least)!

June 8, 2015August 19, 2018

Overdue T-shirts

It’s high time I show you these t-shirts. It’s been two months. And I love three out of four to death. So these are definitely long overdue.

Now I’m thinking about the fine on my library card…

First up is a plain Nettie t-shirt.

Remember the brown one I made last year?

It’s almost the same pattern but with a bit more room around the midsection. It really means I spend less time picking it out of my lovely belly rolls when I sit down.

Come on, I know I’m not alone in that.

But this time… it’s turquoise.

Or aqua. Some people like to tell me that my sense of color is wrong. I’m going with turquoise.

P.S. Whoever owns the eBay shop that I bought this fabric from: I need more of this. Lots more in every color. It feels like butter. Or nothing. Whichever is your ideal texture. I’m going with butter. I don’t even know what its made of. But its that awesome!

Okay, second:

The Nettie top for a dress. Using the ultimate fabric from above

Basically I took my Nettie top pattern, chopped it an inch from the “waist” measurement, added wide elastic, and then this skirt bottom.

Actually this was an ultimate refashion of me mades. The waistband elastic came from a skirt that I made before I understood that a rectangle elastic skirt looks painfully awful on me if the “lining” and the outer fabric are both puffy and not at all drapey. And the skirt came from a Big 4 dress that just didn’t look right. Mostly because the top looked a bit, how should I put it… mumsy. Now I’m 23. That’s a perfectly okay time for a person to be a mum, but I feel like many don’t want to look like theirs. Cause that’s what this dress did for me. It made it look like I had saggy breasts and no waist. So I unpicked the skirt, and used it here!

Isn’t that better?

Super comfy and has become my long car ride dress. Because it’s awesome.

Third one:

Plantain

So a few years ago I made leggings out of this odd fabric from Walmart. And I had a lot left. And I couldn’t figure out what to do with it. So I made a Plantain. Not my favorite, but it is summer now. And that shirt is hot. Perhaps when it gets a bit cooler? My last one fell apart, so I couldn’t compare, but the last one was arguably destined to fall apart. My serger needs some more tinkering.

It’s still kinda a meh look for me. I think that my opinion on Plantains is that the sleeve is awesome, and it’s a great pattern to hack, but on me I much prefer a Nettie to a straight up Plantain.

And lastly:

A grey Bronte.

I got this spongy grey wonderfulness a few months ago, and I knew it was destined to be a Bronte. In all fairness, it should have been a sweater. That’s the kind of sponge I’m talking about. But I looked past that and made it up to be my most favoritest top ever. Or at least this month.

Note: favorite fabric is the turquoise, and this is the favorite shirt. Just to be clear.

I think I might have added some extra room to the bust, since it was creating deep lines in the first one, and I winged out the below-bust to give me some belly room, like with the Nettie.

It’s super comfy, and great when the air-conditioning makes you want to wear winter clothes in the middle of summer. Because if you do, then you die when you go back outside, so… I like this option better.

Well, there’s my t-shirts! I’ll do my MMM15 round up soon.

But first I should find that library card…

June 3, 2014

Wrapping up May with a Bow

Well then, it’s been a few days… but I have completed Me Made May, successfully!

And I have now moved successfully!

What I haven’t done successfully is take pictures of the last two weeks of outfits…

Will you forgive me for that?

Let’s start with the week-ish that I did get pictures for:

Day 12: The corset belt, which is quite uncomfortable and tends to squish inward to my waist, because I didn’t interface it with anything. Something I should think about fixing.

Day 13: Anna subtle cosplay, for the fun of it! Me made sweater, which is gaining sleeves soon, and a me made skirt, which I just hemmed that morning. And then donated my mini-sewing machine to charity. I’m gonna miss that little buddy… but not at all.

Day 14: I wore my Claudia vest! This is almost precisely what I had been planning to use as my Claudia costume, but with a different tank underneath. I was delivering cookies to some of my favorite professors, and then helped out at work!

Day 15: My second sleeveless Archer came into rotation, and I went fabric shopping! Who doesn’t love that!

Day 16: I made this Plantain t-shirt in the morning, and paired it with my folded mini.

And there ends the pictures.

Honestly the next two weeks weren’t super special.

For one thing, I wore jeans almost every one of the days.

So let’s continue:

Day 17: My family came into town for graduation, and so I wore my Mint and Navy sweater in preparation for the cold restaurant.

Day 18: Graduation day!! I wore my dress, which fit me even better than when I had made it. My family did get some pictures, but none of the ones of just me turned out okay, so we don’t get a picture here. But it was lovely!

Day 19: Out around my hometown – meaning getting groceries for my mom. I wore a grey cropped crochet sweater I hooked in high school. One of these days I’m going to post about some of my pre-blog makes, and I’ll show it to you then!

Day 20: I wore my green sleeveless Archer again!

Day 21: My green long sleeve sweater got worn today.

Day 22: Newly cropped Belle Mock-2 made and appearance for a mall-walking adventure.

Day 23: I visited a friend and cozied up in my pink Anna sweater

Day 24: The floral sleeveless Archer reappeared.

Day 25: I shortened the sleeves on a previous green-grey sweater make, and then wore it today…

Day 26: … and again today! But today I packed away all of my clothing, except what I would be wearing for the rest of the week, so I had limited options from then on.

Day 27: My plantain shirt reappeared, after I fixed some seams and the neck binding, though I’ll need to redo some of those seams again.

Day 28: My drapey light blue shirt came out again, and I must say, it’s quite comfy, for being made when I had no idea what was going on with clothes-making.

Day 29: My mint and navy sweater got lots of wear this year, as it reappeared today.

Day 30: The green-grey sweater came up again.

Day 31: And on the last day I was actually moving, so I didn’t wear a me-made until my pajama pants that night, made in 9th grade. They’re a bit short, though I doubt it’s because I grew. I was exhausted, and crashed at about 9, so they were still worn for enough time to count!

Later this week I’ll work up some statistics and perhaps reassess plannning… But I’m happy that I made it through the entire month! It feels a bit weird now to not be wearing me-mades all the time, but it’s nice to bring back the variety that my RTW wardrobe can contain.

Bye for now! And congrats and thanks to the other participants! It was great being able to see what other people were making!