Flamingos

Flamingos!

I’m delighted that I can post about this dress, now that it has gone live on the Simple Sew Blog. You can read there about how I hacked the Stylish Shell Top pattern into the perfect summer dress – cool and pretty.

I’m particularly pleased that this fabric didn’t drop into Stash, and I was able to use its flamingo fabulousness within a few weeks of purchase. I’m not really one for novelty prints, but this one called out to me from the moment I saw it. Maybe it’s because, even with the flamingos, there’s a lot of floral in there too.

Summer pretties!

I’m currently in full holiday sewing flow. I’ve finished another dress, and need to get it photographed. I’ve got no iron here, though. Of course – who needs to be ironing on their hols? So it may be a bit wrinkly when you get to see it…

And I’m in the process finishing off a couple of Project Pants knickers that didn’t quite make it into Me-Made May. They got sewn together, but lacked elastic.

As for the maroon poppies dress from my previous post, I’m still thinking about it.

Summer Teasers

I finally got around to making something that wasn’t knickers! Unfortunately I can’t really show much of any of these makes, the first one, because it was a skirt for my sister and I totally forgot to take in progress photos, the second one because I’m really not sure about whether I like it or not, and finally because the third one is a Simple Sew Blog make, and I’m waiting for it to get posted. But I can tease both of my own garments!

Firstly, the skirt for my sister. She basically gave me a sarong thing that she liked, and asked me to make a wrap skirt out of it. With the elephants at the front.

Loved those elephants

It was a challenging project, partly because I was totally self-drafting, based on measurements only, partly because she lives 50 miles away from me, and we didn’t have many opportunities for fitting, partly because the elephants were in the middle of the fabric, whereas they needed to be at the outer sides of the skirt, partly because the edges with the square motifs were just too small to get a skirt back out of in one go, so I had to piece two half-backs together. I foolishly failed to take In Progress photos, otherwise you could see what a stunning job I did of pattern matching that back. It truly is a thing of beauty! Anyway, she was very happy with the finished skirt, and all was well, but I think that’s the last bit of selfless sewing I’m going to do, because it’s all too stressful!

Anyway, onto my own makes… I’m still all about the dresses, and I need a few more that are comfortable for the summer, but still office-friendly – no spaghetti straps, hemline approximately in the knee area, that sort of thing.

For my first one, I was inspired by this gloriously garish Flamingo fabric, that I bought at the London Stitchers Meetup, when they did a Walthamstow Shopping trip last month. I was all set to stick to my fabric diet, but these birds were impossible to resist. I surprised myself, because I’m not normally a novelty print kind of a gal, but I think it found its way into my heart more because it’s basically a floral.

It’s so much brighter in real life!

I didn’t want this resting in my stash for long, so it came out when I was contemplating my Simple Sew Blog make. Here’s the neckline of it…

Hands up, I could have placed those flamingos better.

I totally love this dress. It’s very me!

Having got started on the Simple Sew Flamingo dress, I decided it was time to finish a nearly two year old Work In Progress.

I bought this fabric on holiday and immediately cut it into a ThriftyStitcher Shell Top Lengthened Into A Dress. I sewed the facings together, and then lost all impetus to do any more. It was sat in my pile of things I should be getting on with, making me feel guilty every time I glanced in that direction. When I pulled the bag out, the fabric was all scrunched up, and looked like rags. So I had to iron it, just to see what the pieces even looked like (Can I just mention, the *only* ironing I do is when I’m sewing!). It didn’t take long to sew together, I really don’t know why I didn’t do it sooner.

Not quite right

But when I tried it on, I just didn’t like it. So for now it’s sitting on the Naughty Step, while I contemplate what to do about it. It might be that simply lengthening it without putting in any shaping wasn’t the right treatment, and I need to add darts or a waist tie, to make it work. Or if that doesn’t work, then I may cut it short to make back into a top. Or maybe I need to tweak the neckline somehow. I just don’t know. I’m going to be taking it on holiday to see if I can work something out with it, because I hate to waste a project.

So there we go. It’s a case of Watch This Space…

Another Simple Sew Stylish Shell Top, plus a skirt

My post has gone live on the Simple Sew Blog now, so I can share these two makes:

Way too hot for these!

The top is another iteration of the Simple Sew Stylish Shell Top, made with a beautiful minty green chambray from Doughty’s Online (supplied by them specifically for the blog – Thank you so much!). I hacked a stand-up collar onto it. Go to the blog to see how.

The skirt is another of my self drafted straight skirts, which I narrowed to pencil proportions! I used a scuba fabric from Fabricland UK, which doesn’t seem to be available on their website now. I’ve still got a load of it left, which I don’t really know what to do with, to be honest. I love the print, and I wondered if I could make a matchy matchy  jacket with what’s left. But the fabric is really hot to wear, so I’m not convinced it would be a good idea!

Both these makes were conceived before the heatwave, and I have to say, I don’t have a lot of use for either of them right now – I think they’ll be much more welcome in the autumn.

Return of the Sewjo!

There’s nothing like a blogging deadline to motivate a person! After promising to get this sewn up for AGES, I got given a deadline, so I just had to get on with it. And what do you know, after the doldrums of the Winter, I’m feeling all enthused again…

The Simple Sew Blog has been featuring the delights of the Stylish Shell Top, and different bloggers have been showing how versatile it is. This is my contribution.

A Shell Top, with Sleeves!

It’s been great to be sewing again!

One Week, One Pattern 2017

I’ve always loved OWOP, and it seemed to be a two-yearly kind of thing, but this year, the very lovely Sheona of Sewisfaction kindly hosted it, running from 25th November to 1st December and it was an amazing week of seeing lots of brilliant makes and hacks on Instagram.

Of course I wanted to join in, but what pattern to choose? I’ve used the Belcarra collection and the McCalls straight skirt before, so that was out. I could have gone for my self-drafted straight skirt, but I’ve only got three of them. I also thought about my Shannon collection, but I’d only got four of them. So it had to be the Thrifty Stitcher’s Shell Top – with a massive five of the same! They were a bit summery for November/December, but they are very layerable with cardigans. So that was that decision made.

Here’s the photo collage of all seven days. Inevitably there were a couple of repetitons, but I tried to change the styling.

In other news, the sewjo is in hibernation, but I’m trying to keep making, with the 100 Day Dress100 Day Dress, with knitting and crochet, and I’ve also been working on a Simple Sew make, but getting through the pattern-futzing stage has been hard going! I think I’m ready to  sew my toile. Hopefully it will be about right and not need too much tweaking, and that will give me encouragement to get on with the “real” one.

 

A misty autumnal shell top

I went to the Great British Sewing Bee Live event on Saturday,  and of course I felt the need to wear something that I had made. Something new. That thought didn’t hit me until Thursday, so I reached for one of the Works In Progress, to save myself some time. I’d already cut out a Shell top from the rather pretty cotton I’d bought in France, a month or more back, and now was the perfect time to get down to sewing it.

The colours are perfect for autumn

I was using my trusty Shell Top pattern from Claire-Louise Hardie (the Thrifty Stitcher). I’ve used it before, and I’m always going to love it. I cut the neckline about 5cm lower than usual, to see how it looks, and I’m happy with it.

Unfortunately I am the world’s most rubbish blogger, and I largely failed to take any photos at GBSB Live. It was a brilliant exhibition, and I bumped into loads of lovely people and made some new sewing friends, but I had no pictures that show the new top in action.

So when the Gentleman Friend suggested a walk at Wisley Gardens, I shamelessly pulled the top back on, and asked him to photograph me!

There was a sculpture exhibition on

 

But it was the light in the glasshouse that inspired him the most.

 

The dappled sunlight is quite flattering

And a full length view, with hibiscus, suits my love of a massive floral!

It was the ideal top for the weekend, which was gorgeously sunny and warm, but today everything’s feeling very autumnal, and I suspect that was its last wear of the year. It’ll be time for tights and jumpers now.

The Jardin Fleuri dress

If you’ve been keeping track, you’ll remember that I returned from my holiday with three new pieces of fabric, and I was determined to get them sewn up as soon as possible, as they are too pretty to not be wearing. This lovely jersey was top of the list.

Ain’t she purty?

It was a panel, 1m long, and 150cm wide, and in my head it was always going to be a sleeveless sundress. It’s therefore a bit unfortunate that we’ve scarcely seen any sun since I got back from France!

I had had plenty of time to mull over my design ideas, and I’d decided to try a Shannon dress/shell top mash-up. I like the simplicity of the Shannon shape, and it fits well into a short length of jersey like this one. But my attempt to make it sleeveless, with the Hillbilly dress, was not a complete success. I thought the Shell top pattern could sort out the armhole/shoulder shaping more effectively.

I could have done it all by tracing the patterns together, but I was impatient and lazy, and marked the shell pattern straight onto the fabric. In fact I made the neckline a little lower, because this is supposed to be a sundress, right? I needed to blend the underarm a bit, but overall I think it’s turned out ok.

I used a Frixion iron-off pen

I knew I would need to have some binding for the neckline and armholes, but I wanted it to be hidden binding, rather than the on-view binding of a t-shirt, like the Shannons I’ve done so far. I carefully cut the selvedges of the jersey, where there was no printing, to create 2 metres of cream binding. It was about 1½cm wide, which was pretty much what I needed.

It was enough, but only just!

Because I wasn’t using a t-shirt band finish for the neck and armholes, I didn’t need to use the altered construction sequence, the way I had done with my other Shannons, so from here it was a simple case of sewing the shoulder and side seams, then attaching the bindings. I hand stitched them down.

Adding the binding

I did the tiniest hem I possibly could, and then waited for some sunshine for photography purposes.

Which came along this weekend – hooray! I went for a picnic with the ex gentleman friend, and got a bit of crocheting done (I’m up to 28 squares now). And I made him take some photos for me.

Picnic at Thundry Meadows

We also met these lovely creatures.

They were very friendly and gentle and quite fluffy

Getting up close & personal

What do I love about this dress? It’s so pretty!!!! And it’s making my tan look even stronger. Also, it’s been really low waste. I’ve got one long scrap that’s about 15cm wide, and I’m keeping this to use as a t-shirt neck band for a future refashioning project.

Would I do anything differently next time? Get a time machine, make this dress before my holidays and seriously mess with the space-time continuum.

Holiday projects round-up

I’m back from my holidays, and I thought I’d lump together all my remaining holiday projects in one post – both the finishing-off jobs and the long-running ones.

The watercolour floral top – finished

I went to the summer Sewmance festival in June and one of my purchases there was this gorgeous floral lawn from the Fabric Godmother.

I knew I wanted to make it into a shell top using my now tried and tested pattern from the Thrifty Stitcher, and that’s what I did. This cotton was a dream to sew.  I completed the top quickly (I really know what I’m doing with this pattern now!) apart from the hemming which I left as a holiday job. It took next to no time.

I really love this outfit!

And it works tucked in too

***

The Banksy Hoody – finished

I had a black t-shirt with Banksy’s  Fallen Angel printed on it.  This t-shirt has been adapted to death, and I don’t wear it anymore, but i really didn’t want to lose the stencil.

So I put it on a hoody.

I cut out the printed bit and attached it with a load of cross stitches, because the diagonal stitching keeps a certain amount of stretch in the fabric, so it wouldn’t pull the sweatshirt fabric out of whack. You can’t really see the cross stitching here because it’s all in black, you’ll have to trust me!

I put it low down on the back, to be sure the hood wouldn’t obscure it.

My sister said I look like a Pink Lady! 

***

Granny Squares Crocheted Blanket – started, very much not finished

I took a load of yarn with me, thinking I might  try knitting a jumper but i really don’t enjoy knitting –  it’s too slow for me! I felt the urge to start crocheting again though. Being in Bretignolles reminded me of my mum and my mamie (my French grandmother), and my aunts and great-aunts, because this is where we have all been holidaying since I was a baby, well since mum was a baby, and earlier! I’ve got family all around me here. Sitting in front of the house with my sister, crocheting, I realised I was doing exactly what my mum did 50 years ago, sitting with her sister, crocheting (and probably Mamie and her sisters 80 years ago). Mum made a massive red white and navy granny squares bedspread for here, and although I’m trying to avoid creating long-term projects that take up storage space in my little flat, I wanted to try and make one for myself.

I’ve done the maths and I need 285 squares. I’ve got 20 so far! I said this was a long-term project, didn’t I?! I’m also making sure I sew in all the ends as I’m going along, because I don’t want to get to the “end” of the crocheting, only to have to sew a million ends in. I want to be able to finish the last treble stitch and think “Done!”

***

Beading a t-shirt – started 

Actually I started this project a few weeks ago, as a bit of train sewing, on the trip to Walthamstow, it must have been. I started with some biggish beads ganked from a Primark bracelet. I couldn’t find the rest of the bracelet beads to bring with me so I brought my pot of black seed beads.

As soon as I got started I knew it was going to take forever! I’m treating this as a long-term project too. I can do an inch or two here and there and it might be done by Christmas!

***

And finally…

Fabric Shopping

I found Tissus du Renard in le Chateau d’Olonne, which is a big out of town store.

On the route de Talmont, just past Lidl, if I remember correctly

I was a bit amazed at the size of it – I’m used to tiny little fabric shops where everything is piled up to the rafters! This was spacious, airy, well-lit and well laid out. It also has a big furnishing fabric section and wools, embroidery and general craft supplies. Once I’d found my way around and sussed out how they’d organised it, I was able to have a good hunt for my sort of fabrics. I hit peak floral!

On the left, it’s a beautiful lightweight cotton lawn, destined to be another shell top. In the middle it’s a jersey floral panel (I think it’s my favourite out of these three, and I’m going to make it into a dress as soon as I get home). On the right, a soft viscose poppy print.

I admit this is a total fail on my No Buying More Fabric goal, but I’m trying to think of these as souvenirs rather than Stash. I’m pretty much determined to get two of them sewn up this week, at least.

 

Not quite a UFO

I’ve been trying to de-clutter my flat. It’s too small for All The Stuff. This has meant re-discovering things. I genuinely thought I’d thrown out this leopard print chiffon and the bits of top that I’d started to make from it in 2014, but as it turns out, I’d just put it all in a bag and forgotten about it.

When I did come across it, I realised I didn’t want to make that top any more, so this is not really a UFO, because the original make from this chiffon is now gone. I was happily throwing it into the fabric scraps bag, when I realised that there was quite a big chunk of fabric left over, and I could make my now go-to shell top from it, if I cut it on the cross grain. Actually that worked a lot better with the print, which would thereby run vertically rather than across me.

Presenting the Mournful Leopard Top*

The fabric is really slippery, and I mostly resolved the cutting and sewing problems that generates by a heavy use of pins. I sewed everything on my overlocker, because I love how it sews and neatens at the same time, and because I was aiming for speed and wasn’t going to faff about with French seams.

I’ve added a purely decorative button and loop closure at the back. I don’t need it for access, because I can get the top on fine without it, I just wanted something a little different, and as I mostly wear my hair up, I thought it would add a nice bit of detail. The button is actually one of the table sprinkles from the Dressmakers’ Ball – I’d picked a few of these up as a souvenir (because the goody bag wasn’t enough!) and although they aren’t really good enough to be used as buttons normally, because they are quite lightweight they worked well with this fabric. I’m not going to be using the button much (at all), so the lack of quality isn’t going to have any significant impact.

The other change I made was to lengthen the top by 10cms, and I’m really happy with how that came out. It’s long enough to tuck in, if I want to, but also it’s a good length to have loose.

Cool for the Summer

The fabric is very lightweight – I can scrunch this top down and hold it all in my fist – and it’s going to be great for hot summer days, both in the office and on my holidays. I’m off to France and I’m currently planning my packing, as well as my sewing/crafting projects while I’m there.

…

* This top’s name comes from the fact that back in 2014, the original top was all cut out and sat on top of my sewing machine, for a considerable time, waiting for me to get on and just sew it. I mentioned to someone that it kept looking at me mournfully, and from then on in my head it was the Mournful Leopard. I know it’s not the same top, but the name has stuck.

MMM17 – Week 4½ – The final reckoning

And so we come to the end of May. It’s been a lot easier this year, mostly because I have a larger wardrobe of me-made clothes to play with. Which is great!

My pledge was to wear me-made outfits for the whole of the month, with the exception of undies, tights and shoes. I’m very happy to report that I managed this without any difficulty. My personal challenges were:

• To make sure I photo-documented each day’s outfits and again I managed this, posting on instagram every day. I was a bit late posting my weekly round ups here, but I suspect that is probably no bad thing.
• To dress with a bit more care, especially with regard to jewellery and accessories. To be honest, that basically boiled down to handmade jewellery and hair clips. Although I don’t have a lot of handmade jewellery it was enough to keep me going and it encouraged me to start playing with beads again.
• To get on with some making. That was largely done in advance of May, but I did get a new top finished and I’ve beaded a t-shirt although I didn’t actually wear it. I also started a shirt of which more later.

This felt like a proper summery outfit!

The White Swiss Dot Top
This top was a work in progress that I had started last summer. I had a beautifully light Swiss dot cotton, that I had always intended to make into a Shell top. I wanted to use the pattern from the workshop I did with the Thrifty Stitcher, making the Hong Kong top. I did all the cutting out, but I didn’t have quite enough fabric to cut the front facing on the fold. That’s OK, I told myself, I can easily make the facing from two pieces and sew them together. Unfortunately I wasn’t paying attention when cutting and I totally forgot to add a seam allowance, so was going to need to piece the front facing from three bits, instead of two.

And it didn’t get much further than that…

Until Friday of last week. I was going to a fabric-buying meet-up on the Saturday and I wanted something to wear that would be light and comfortable for a hot day. I pulled out the bag with all the white top pieces and got down to some sewing.

The first thing I did was to piece the front facing to make sure that it was going to work. Once that was done it was a really easy and quick sew. I was having to remember the instructions from two or three years ago, but really this is one of the simplest things that a person can make. I still get very excited by the magic of bagging out!

I wanted to work out what needed to be changed about the pattern. I knew that I needed to adjust the shaping of the sides, under the arms. I’d not made a note of it when I finished the Hong Kong top. So that has now been recorded. I managed to confuse myself with the markings on the side seam, which led to a bigger bust dart than is strictly necessary, and a slightly shorter top. I’ve now corrected the pattern so that I don’t make that mistake again. I also think I need to lengthen the pattern because the top is just a bit too short to tuck in to a skirt, and because it’s a light fabric it’s short enough to get blown up by even a gentle breeze, revealing more than anybody really needs to see. I’m not going to worry about that too much for now, but my plan is to keep an eye out for a suitable cotton that I can use for a border to extend the top a little further.

Anyway, that’s the story of the White Swiss Dot Top

Back to MMM musings and reflection. I wanted to consider which items I didn’t wear this month, to see if there’s any reason why not. When I checked, I found there were three skirts that didn’t make the rotation, one of them because I need to fix the waistband and the other two because I didn’t have the right top to go with them at the time. There was also one dress that I didn’t wear because it wasn’t really weather-appropriate. I’m pretty happy with that – I think it means my handmade wardrobe is flexible enough.

I did find I was using my refashioned and embellished t-shirts quite a bit. I wore eight of them, a couple of them twice in the month. I would like to think that when it comes to me made May next year I will have a few more handmade tops that I can use. I could make a distinction between t-shirts where I have genuinely carried out some refashioning, usually to rework the neckline to make it more comfortable, and t-shirts where I’ve simply added some decoration, without actually changing the shape or structure of the garment.

So now on to the last of the photo compilations:

Day 22 – Treble pink! The Watermelon Belcarra blouse with the self-drafted pink polka dots skirt, and baby pink pearl earrings & bracelet set.
Day 23 – The aforementioned Hong Kong top, with the unremarkable black pull-on skirt. I’ll be honest, that skirt was made almost entirely so that I could have more than one option to wear with this top. The jump ring earrings completed the outfit. The Tuesday Teaching Twofer was all repeats : the crystal embellished t-shirt with the black self drafted cropped leggings and the pink moustache skirt.
Day 24 – I was wearing repeats but in a different combination. It was the navy Juliette blouse with the giant floral half circle skirt, accessorised with the jump ring earrings and the seaside bracelet.
Day 25 – The NotSkater dress along with the earrings from the Little Fishies set.

Day 26 – Back in the Bonkers Zoë Dress, because it’s nice cool cotton. Accessorised with the iridescent blue earrings.
Day 27 – This was the meetup day and the debut of the White Swiss Dot Top. I wore it with the Paisley Leftovers skirt, which I’d  had to fix, because its exposed lace zip was proving to be a bit dodgy. I decided to replace it with a safer concealed zip. Also the Little Fishies jewellery and a me-made flower hair clip.
Day 28 – The Dress of Many Colours with the lemons bracelet and a pink flower hair clip.
Day 29 – The blue roses dress, worn with the iridescent blue glass earrings
Day 30 – A home kind of outfit, as I took today off work. It was the imperfect polka dots belcarra (with the imperfect dots on show) with the unremarkable black skirt.
Day 31 – And finally… the Hong Kong top again, and the counterintuitive black birds skirt, accessorised with the jump ring earrings and the seaside bracelet.

I’ve been totally happy with my wardrobe choices for the month. I don’t have any wardrobe orphans or major gaps so I’m counting this as a successful Me Made May. I was a bit sad as it came to an end because I love being part of this worldwide challenge and I’ll miss seeing everybody’s daily contributions, but I’ve got a whole load of new Instagram friends to follow and it makes life a bit easier to open up my rtw wardrobe again.

As always, my thanks go out to the lovely Zoe of So Zo, for creating this wonderful challenge that brings so many sewers together each year.

Roll on May 2018!