Sew What? Week Two bag and Tute

I'm seeing a pattern emerging here. The first week of the Sew What challenge I made a flamenco practice skirt. This week the challenge was a bag with words on it, and I made... a bag with words on it... for my flamenco shoes. The knit I used this time was a cotton t-shirt of my sweetie's that had seen better days.
Here's the finished article:



(And nope those aren't proper flamenco shoes. Those are my faithful beige Aldo's that I love love love. Proper Flamenco shoes are the next step).
The words on it are Dentro Y Fuera (inside and outside - and how you move your hands).

I slung together a tute, though I'm pretty sure you could work it out yourself! You could totally make this from a little person sized shirt and put little person sized shoes in it. Maybe a PINK shirt and maybe baby BALLET shoes. Maybe.

Anyway, the first thing you'll need is a t-shirt. If it has a cute graphic on it then so much the better.
Got it? Goodo. Now whack a few inches off of the bottom all the way around. Like ziz:

Take the piece you've just chopped off and ruffle it but good! Comme ca:

Next, take the rest of your shirt, turn it inside out and do this to it:

So you have a big tube shape.

Jam the ruffle between the two layers, then pin and sew:

Then turn it right-side-too and admire your ruffled bottom. tee hee.

Next is the step I forgot to take a picture of. But all I did was sew a tiny button hole (just one) about two and a bit inches down from the top of the bag.
So that when I folded the top of the bag to the inside (to form the casing for the ribbon) the button hole was on the outside: which is easier to see than explain:


Then I sewed the casing down (not worrying about the raw edges - yay for knits!), threaded the ribbon through the casing with a safety pin and a bit of mild cursing and VOILA!
A bag for putting my sweaty shoesies in after stomp stomp clapping.

Oh and the words (which I will totally admit were and afterthought), I added using the leftover scraps of a Colour Your Own T-Shirt kit that my bear has.

It Twirls!

So, I'm one down in the big Sew What Challenge. My chosen material for the month is knits, I have a bit of it in my stash (some from half-done projects that went catastrophically wrong), and it's crazy cheap at Fabricland right now too.

This week the challenge was a skirt for mama or child in your fabric type or denim.
I made a skirt for myself because my sweetie gets a little twitchy when I mention dressing Teddy in girl clothes.


It's a skirt for my Flamenco class; now PROPER flamenco practice skirts are long and SUPER SUPER twirly and sometimes ruffly (some of my favorite things) but as we are just learning we need to be able to see our feet and leggies in the mirrors. So this skirt is knee length. But it does twirl! See:


And I'm actually fairly happy with it. The back has an extra gore/panel for more swishiness and it feels like you HAVE to swing your hips and wiggle when you wear it.
But using knits is... an experience? I chose them because I was hoping to learn something through the process and so far I've learned why I generally avoid them.
That said, the finished project is much more forgiving than it feels like it's going to be when it's in progress (if that makes sense?).
I'm hoping by the end of the challenge I will have learned to love knits or at least learned some really good new swears.
Can't wait to see what those girls have up next!
x

Dance with the one that brung ya...

You guys! You see before you a FLAMENCO DANCIN' FOOL!
See, remember way back when I scored this scarf from the goodwill? My inner six year old demanded it because it looks like a flamenco scarf?
Well that got me thinking.
Thinking that I've always wanted to try Flamenco dancing. And how come I haven't? And dude I should get on that.
So I found a school with a 6 week total-rookie, can't-dance-at-all beginner class and I signed up. Then I had to wait for two weeks for the first class. Which was last week. I was so brutally nervous that I thought I was going to barf and I only just barely made it up the rickety stairs to the studio.
But I did.
And I LOVED it. I wasn't any good, but I LOVED it. And nobody else was super awesome at it either. It was heaps of fun in the way that learning new stuff always is, and Flamenco itself is so girly. No wait, I don't mean girly, I mean womanly (gah, that word makes me cringe), but it's grown up and powerful and super feminine. And really, I LOVED it.
Tonight's class was EVEN better. I CAN'T wait for next week.

If you've ever thought "huh, I bet it would be fun to learn flamenco (or whatever)". Then you totally should. (If you're in T.O. then these guys are lovely).

Hey talking of stuff that's girly, look at the ridiculous thing I made!



It's a petticoat, to make my skirts puffier. And it's almost impossible not to twirl around in it as soon as I put it on. It's loosely based on an Anthro one that Gertie posted about here.
I'm thinking of a tute for it too (it's just rectangles), and I'll be throwing together the Swimmy tute tomorrow or Friday (I bought the most ridiculously cute swimwear knit today, I can't wait to show you!)
UPDATED - You guys! Gertie has a tute that I didn't see until after I made this. It's GREAT. And Gertie is so cute I could put her in my pocket.

And lastly, about the title, I am going to be resigning over at WR and holding on to see how things shake down. Which might seem incongruous as I've also signed up for The Thrifty Garde Robe. I am genuinely impressed at ninjaEema's proactiveness (wait proactivity? -nicity?) in starting the new blog and I'm totally checking it regularly, I feel like I want to post at WR while I still can. To dance with the one that brung me, it you like.