Hello friends and welcome back! It is finally December and the countdown to graduation has begun especially because i’ve applied to college, ordered my cap and gown and most importantly completed my senior project!
For my senior project, I decided to focus on upcycling old clothing items and it turned out great! I had to write a research paper, do 15 hours of practical experience, make a website and present a ten-minute speech in front of judges. All of this took some planning, so before I could get started I went to Pinterest. Pinterest is one of my places to find new fashion design projects, and it for sure helped for this one. I searched up ways to upcycle old clothing items for a long time. I looked up how to redo old jeans because I wanted to make my bell bottoms hip. I looked up how to redo shirts to make them look more fashionable, but I couldn’t find anything I liked and then it hit me. I was watching Mamma Mia: Here We Go Again! for the third time and I was obsessed with Donna and the Dynamos outfit in the closing number so I decided to recreate and modernize the bell sleeve top and decorative bell bottoms. I had this dress with beautiful bell sleeves that I absolutely loved, but after a few washes, it got a little too short for my liking. With inspirations from Mamma Mia and the 70’s I decided I was going to make a crop top. For this you only need a few supplies: An old long top or dress Pins Fabric Scissors or a Rotary Cutter Ruler or Straight Edge Measuring Tape Serger This was a very simple task actually because of my dress form. With my dress form, it marks where your waistline is so with my pins I marked where I needed to cut. If you do not have a dress form that’s okay, that is where your straight edge and measuring tape comes in handy. First, you need to try on your top or dress and measure what length you would like your crop top to be after that, lay your top on a flat surface and use your straight edge to add pins. When you are measuring, make it about ½ an inch longer than you like so you can finish your seams in the end. Whether you use the dress form technique or the measuring technique you now can cut along your lines of pins. Try and make this line as straight as you can to help your finished product be as beautiful as possible. Once you are done cutting you can serge the edges, this technique is basically a heavy duty stitching on the edge. If you are lucky and your top is white or black you don’t need to do anything else. If your shirt is not one of those colors you may need to further finish your edges. With this, you will take the serged edge and fold it to the inside and pin. After this, you can make a basic stitch around the hem of the shirt to ensure it looks complete. After I completed the super simple top I had a lot of fabric left and I loved the fabric so much I decided to spice up my bell bottoms. For this, I cut a band of fabric and sewed it around the edge of my pants. For this, all you need to do is measure how far around your bell bottoms are and decide how thick you want the band to be. Once you have cut the fabric out all you have to do is pin the fabric on and sew a basic stitch around the hem of the pants. Once I was finished with the whole outfit I felt just like a Dynamo. This project has definitely been one of my favorites, not just for how easy it was to make, but for how stylish I looked in it. If you have an old dress or top or some old jeans you can spice them up with a few pins and some needles. I hope this helped you save some money and made you feel like the Dynamo everyone wants to be! Well, that’s it for this blog, so... Sew you later!
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Hello friends and welcome back to the 3rd year of my blog, Sew Cool! I started this blog, along with my fashion design career, as a sophomore. I am now a senior with two gold medals from the FCCLA state competition and a gold medal from the FCCLA national competition. This year I decided to take a break from competing in fashion design and focus on my senior project and senior year.
In the first few weeks of senior year I have realized that it is hard! Every week is a consistent rotation of AP classes, college applications, essays, extra curricuriculars and so much more. Everyone says senior year goes by the fastest so despite all of the stress, I’m trying to have fun and soak up the last bit of high school. Senior year also has a lot of good things. At football games you automatically get to stand in the front of the student section, you do not have to walk up the mountain of the parking lot anymore and senior projects are actually really fun! For my senior project I am combing recycle and redesign and fashion design to upcycle old clothing. With the fashion industry being the second most polluting industry in the world I wanted to help change that. Everyone wears clothes and everyone has clothes, so, what do you do when you’ve outgrown, ripped or you simply don’t like them anymore? Often times you throw them away and sometimes you donate them, but what if you could change them into something new? This year I’m going to teach you how to turn something old and dated into something new and trendy. Pinterest is a great place to start exploring different ideas. The YouTube channel Coolirpa is also a great outlet where they buy clothes and redo them with step-by-step instructions in a video format. I am trying to mush all these ideas into one into my blog. Throughout the year I will be picking different projects to test out myself and then share with you all about the process and if they really worked. This year I can’t wait to see where the blog takes us and I can’t wait to see what things we can make new again. Sew you Later, Madi Beddingfield Hello friends and welcome back to another Sew Cool blog, this time I will be talking to you about this years FCCLA state competition and my project.
For the past two years I have competed in the FCCLA State Leadership Conference and this year I competed in Fashion Design... again! I explored other STAR events to compete in but my heart just kept returning to fashion design so I went for it again in hopes to bring home another gold medal. This year I made my very own prom dress and honestly I can’t believe I did it and I am not 100% sure I realized how hard it was going to be! I had to decide what style of dress I wanted, what colors I would like to incorporate and most importantly figure out what type of fabric I was going to use. I first made my mood board which is where you compile things that inspire you for your look or collection. I included some of my favorite designer, Zac Posen’s work, a picture of the floating lanterns from Tangled and I even included some school spirit week pictures in there. From my moodboard I knew I wanted my dress to be blue and wanted it to be something that was flowy and something to give the illusion I had a full skirt on the bottom. I looked at local stores like Hobby Lobby and Foam and Fabric but I could not find anything I was truly in love with so I began to search online. I was able to find this online store called Buy the Piece that sells all types of fabrics. I found a light blue, sheer, polyester fabric so I bought eight yards of it which was way more than I need. I then was unable to find a lightweight fabric to go underneath my dress so I decided to go look at Hobby Lobby. I found a navy polyester lining and I bought six yards of it, again way too much. I began to cut out my fabric pieces and shortly after began to sew them together. For the light blue fabric I used a french seam to ensure there was no raw edge shown. For the navy fabric I used a basic seam to put the lining together. In the end I used a basic seam to put together the lining and the sheer overlay. I also made a hand beaded belt to make my waist to appear smaller. For the belt I used a navy polyester fabric with a satin finish and I hand beaded it. I used jewels that Ms.Seager had laying around her classroom and was able to make a cool design. After completing my dress I put together my portfolio which contained 46 pages including my sketches, fabric samples, my future career path, goals and more. Then with the help of Ms.Seager, I wrote my speech that was about 4 pages long and was filled with puns and my whole process. I competed against 4 other people at state and I can honestly tell you I was terrified from start to finish. I was the last of the students from Roberson to compete, but as soon as we were all done we took a trip to the mall where we went bowling. We all traded in our business wear for some bowling shoes and it is safe to say, I should stick to sewing. When the award ceremony began I was more nervous than a cat in a room full of rocking chairs. We were all very lucky to come home with gold medals meaning we all scored a 90 or above on our projects and seven out of nine of us got a trip to nationals. Unfortunately I did not qualify for nationals, however I did receive fourth in my category and was awarded with a gold medal! State was an unforgettable experience and I am so glad it got to do it with my girls and Hunter by my side! Can’t wait to do it all again when we go to Atlanta this summer!! Well as I sign off of my last blog of the year I hope everyone has a great summer and I will write to yall next school year, sew you later!! P.S. I got accepted into the Fashion Institute of Design and Merchandising in California to follow my passion and study fashion design! Hey friends, welcome back to another blog! This time I am going to talk about the sketching process.
When coming up with a great idea, it is always beneficial to be able to transform what is in your brain to a piece of paper. For some people, sketching is super easy and can be done in two minutes, unfortunately I am not one of those people. When I first began learning how to sketch I started off by drawing croquis. Croquis are an outline of the human body and it explains what parts of the body needs to be bigger or smaller. For instance, the hips are typically the widest part on the drawing and the neck is the slimmest. After getting your croquis drawing down, you can start drawing actually garments. When you first start drawing garments, it helps to put a croquis underneath so you can get the correct shape for you clothes and model. This is one way you can sketch a person with clothing. There is also another way you can sketch a person without using a croquis. You have to first get the body shape right. The collar bone and the arms are drawn as what looks like a pentagon, but it is missing the bottom part. For the upper body portion, it is like a trapezoid missing the bottom as well. When making floor length dresses you don't even have to worry about drawing the legs which is great. Although, if you do decide to make legs, it is important to make them long and skinny to give the allusion that your model is super tall. Watercolors for me are the easiest component to sketch with. Watercolors are very forgiving if you mess up; all you have to do is add a little more water and it disappears. Watercolors typically come in two types; pencils or a pallet. Personally, I believe the pallet is harder to use by itself, but when you mix it with the pencils it helps add a little more coloration. When shading the garment before you start to use water, it is important that you do not just color in the whole garment. You have to draw streaks across the garment and add a little more color around the edges, waistband, and hem for shading. Once you start adding water it is important to have a clean brush and use a good amount of water. If you start adding water to your blues and then move to your arms and face without cleaning your brush, it can cause bleeding and discoloration of the piece. Learning how to sketch is the easy part, but actually sketching is the most difficult and takes a lot of practice. For many of us, it is not something you can do in one try it takes time to become good at it. Do not worry if your sketches are not an exact replica of Zac Posen’s sketches; it takes some time to get that good. Also, just a little PSA for everyone the Fashion Show will be taking place March 24, so make sure to mark your calendars. More information to come. Sew you later! Hey friends! Welcome to another Sew Cool blog where this time I’m teaching you step by step how to make a bodysuit from an old dress.
Hey guys, it’s Madi Beddingfield, and this year I will be continuing my blog from last year, Sew Cool.
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