This page is intended to be a table of contents for the unusual stuff that I make. I mean, obviously there's no point in putting up a page on the shirt I made with Vogue pattern #666, where I followed the directions exactly and made it in a recommended fabric. But I spend a lot of time making things, whether to a pattern or not, that are more costume-y than strictly practical - my pirate coat is an example of that. Made using the Simplicity Pirates of the Caribbean pattern, which I will look up someday, the coat is just that - a coat. It's all it does, and that job could have been done just as well by something more mundane. Probably better actually, as then I wouldn't be sewing 26 buttons onto a coat. And yet, it's an awesome coat, and just one of the many things you get to have when you make things, rather than just buying them in the stores. I recommend wearing that coat with the lace cuffs I made years ago when Victorian was in fashion again.

Which is just a way of saying that there's so much more that you can do with clothing if you're willing to a) sew, and b) play with concepts. Play mix and match (though you should never, ever pair a loincloth and a tunic) and see what works. Even using just the patterns available in the books (and bear in mind that almost all of them have a costuming section) you can come up with something much more distinctive than off the rack.

That is not to say that I don't start somewhere and move into something else quite quickly. I have more than a few items that started out done to a pattern and wound up something much more special than that. The fact that I cannot adapt a flat pattern to save my life, particularly in the arms, has only a little to do with that. Sometimes I use the pattern to give me a basis for the idea I really wanted to do, as was the case with the cutwork vest, and sometimes I start out with a pattern and decide to take a detour partway through - this is why I have not one, not two, but six different garments that started life as a Donna Karan tunic pattern. Those garments range from the two versions of the actual shirt through a medieval chemise and dress to a medieval tunic and a bellydance coat.

As things seem to require adding to this page, it will be updated. This isn't a goal-oriented process.