November’s meeting was fantastic with 44 members turning out, amazing Christmas quickies projects members showed how to do, fantastic show and tell items that showcased new members, new talent and new levels of talent for some! A lady named Sheila MacDonald also donated some wonderful fabric and sewing supplies that our members were delighted to have. Thank you Sheila! More will be posted later from these events in the form of pictures, links and so on… and sooner than last month’s content! Apologies from a very busy person! 🙂

This month’s Monthly Spark idea is to sew “garments” which’s patterns is “essentially” one piece. “Garments” can be something worn, or not if you want to try a bowl holder, or other household items, or whatever you can come up with. What is “essentially”? Essentially, it means you can do the garment without any other pieces you might choose to add, like pockets, trims or other decorative features. If you need something like a string to make it work, that’ll be OK as you’d just buy the string, not make it in a pattern.

Some people will have sewn things with only one piece in the pattern, but others might not have. For either, here are some options for you to consider, from simple to more exotic. Click on pictures to enlarge.

BANDANAS AND HEADBANDS
Bandanas are triangular, or triangular-ish, while headbands are long rectangular-ish.

SKIRTS
These are circular, or circular-ish.

SCARVES
These are elongated rectangular-ish, with a lot of ways to wear!

NECK WARMERS
These tend to be shorter rectangular-ish than scarves, but can be more chic. They are often knitted, but can be sewn like this Craftsy blog entry shows. I am planning on making some of these. There’s a simpler tutorial here but I think it’s oversimplified.

SHAWLS AND WRAPS
These can be anything from triangular-ish to square-ish, to rectangular-ish, and more likely quadrilateral-ish. Here’s a nice one below, with a handle put on, but you could really just cut two slits to create a less attractive handle, so it falls in the “essentially” leeway allowed. 🙂

And speaking of wraps, how’s about

WRAP PANTS
This site has a nice tutorial to make what’s seen below. You’ll have to fit it to you, though, of course.

SQUARE SCARF WRAPS
This is more about how you wear a square Hermes scarf sort of garment than anything else, but it counts. Sew a square and wear creatively! This site even has cards you can print out to remind yourself of all the creative ways you can wear a square! If you like this sort of thing, you’ll never have sewn so many squares in your life, and can have a wardrobe of it, too!

COVER-UPS
These rectangles are like the square scarfs in that they give new meaning to “it’s all in how you wear it”. I’m not going to post pics of beach cover ups cause most are just pics of women’s crotches with fabric for background, and most of you would know what I’m talking about.

UNDERWEAR
Did you know you could make underwear can be made in one piece?

THONGS
But seriously. Why sew underwear when you can sew thongs??? I was going to bring these for Christmas quickies, but I thought of them as underwear and not sexy thongs, so I didn’t. People probably wouldn’t want to get underwear for Christmas, but thongs, if from the right person? Probably a small hell yeah! These might save you a small fortune in the long run if you make your own. I’ll blog more about it in the future when it’s colder out and we might need something slightly hot to warm up our lives. 😉

DRESSES
Dresses? One piece dresses? Am I serious? Definitely! Here’s the Armhole dress and Whirlaway that Butterick had in the good old days seen below. You’ll have to figure it out, though, as it’s no longer sold.

CAFTAN OR VIKING COAT
I’m not sure of the proper name or pattern for these, but one looks like what’s below. There’s a tutorial here. Men were intended to wear these as well as women. You can try modifying the Whirlaway dress above with this to add sleeve if you want.

JAPANESE APRON
You will need one of these for cooking sushi. 😉

TOPSY TOWEL
OMG!!! I want to do this to ALL of my towels! Here’s how.

BUTTONED CHAIR COVERS
OMG2!!! Try making this by these instructions! I need to get some chairs for my apt!

WHAT ELSE CAN YOU THINK OF?
Those are just some ideas to get you started. I’m sure there are a LOT more out there. Please feel free to share ideas in the Comments section. And anything you make that you have a picture of, please share as well! I can’t wait to see what people come up with, whenever they do it because these Monthly Spark ideas are only timely for when we share them, not when you do them.

HAVE LOTS OF FUN!