Back in the saddle

Thank you to everyone who left comments on my last post. I usually try to respond to comments straight away but my success rate in doing so the last few months has not been good. If I don't get around to replying straight away it always seems weird to come back to responding to them a fortnight later. So, yes, sorry for not responding, but your thoughts are honestly much appreciated!

Leaving aside the state of the world (which is frankly awful) on a personal level my news is almost all good (again!). I suddenly started to feel better about a week after my last post and over the last 10 days have started to feel as well as I have all year. Things are definitely looking up! :D As a result of feeling so much better, I resurrected quite a few of my summer sewing plans and got stuck in.

As I often do, I eased myself back into sewing by working on some easy knits with familiar patterns, starting with two t-shirts:

Two easy tees. Pink is Cosy Little World Jasmin; Red and white is Ottobre 02-2013-02

I actually cut the pink tee out a month and a half ago on a rare good day but then never felt up to doing anything with it. The pattern is the Cosy Little World Jasmin Tee, which was a pattern I used for the first time last year and made three times. I still love the two blue tees I made with this pattern and wear them often (the third one I made using a cheap white knit and, even though I pre-washed the fabric, it shrank and distorted horribly the first time I washed the finished tee, boo).

The red and white tee is made using a pattern I was obsessed by in 2013/2014 but haven't made since January 2015, Ottobre 02-2013-02. It's a really nice little kimono sleeved top that is intended to catch and puddle at the hip. I added a little rolled over cuff to the sleeves.

Neither of these came out perfectly -- the pink has a little mistake in the neckband, and I managed to just catch the tiniest snippet of the fabric of the red and white one in my overlocker blade and had to do a little repair. I would have preferred if they had come out perfectly, of course, but I'm not going to worry about invisible-from-a-metre-away mistakes on inexpensive t-shirts.

StyleArc Estelle cardigan in a slightly weird hole-y knit

My last easy knit for the summer was made using a slightly weird olive green knit. I dithered about what pattern to use but to be honest it should have been a no-brainer. I absolutely love the StyleArc Estelle pattern, and have worn the three I've already made to death. This version probably doesn't have quite the same all season usefulness that the previous three versions have had, seeing as how it's full of holes, but I still think I'll get a lot of use from it this summer. The hole-y fabric was actually the cause of my only problem making this garment, insofar as it took a very long time and three complete re-threads of my overlocker to find the right tension settings at which it would actually, you know, sew the damn thing together and not snap the threads/stop stitching/snarl up. I got there in the end, but not before I earnestly considered what would happen if I flung either the overlocker or the pieces of my cardigan out the window of my sewing room.

My new cross-stitch kit is underway

Next up: Garment-wise, the next thing I want to make is a couple of fairly straightforward woven tops. I need to spend some time tracing patterns though before I can get started with anything properly interesting (and I promised someone I would trace a pattern for them as well, so I must get on that ASAP). I've also started my new cross-stitch kit, the very first little bit of which you can see above. More generally, though, I am just sort of picking up the threads of the rest of my life that I let fall in March-May, so I feel busy busy busy all day at the moment after months of barely getting out of bed. Time passes so much more quickly when you have stuff to do, so I'm really enjoying it :D

January Projects Post, plus February plans

I have been rather dilatory about blog posts for the second half of January. This is mainly due to the fact that my time for anything enjoyable, including sewing, in the second half of the month has been much reduced by (more of the same old) illness. When I did feel well enough to sew or knit, a lot of what I have been doing has been slow going and/or part of a bigger project, or else a not-very-interesting pattern repeat. Thus, this post, which I plan to do each month this year just as a catch-all of things that don't deserve a post all of their own.

Garments: I didn't make much in the way of clothes this month. However, I did manage to knock out a couple of easy pattern repeats:

Burda 11-2005-127 and Ottobre 02-2013-02, both very easy pattern repeats

On the left, a pair of Burda 11-2005-127 yoga pants in blue, a pattern I made up previously in December 2014. I have nothing to say about the pattern beyond: A+, would sew again, just like last time. These are very unphotogenic yoga pants, though. They look much better in person.

On the right, yes, that is yet another Ottobre 02-2013-02 "Summer Basics" tee. That is my 11th use of that pattern. It wasn't my first choice for this fabric at all. I bought this border print as a "panel", and I had a plan in mind for it thinking I was getting a 1m piece. What actually arrived was a scant and badly cut 85cm piece. I was not thrilled, and I am still not clear to what extent this was as a result of me misunderstanding of the fabric description and how much is the fault of the vendor (the very uneven cut, at least, was entirely their fault). At any rate, my original plan was out, and as I was feeling grumpy about the whole thing I flung this pattern on it and cut it out as it was all I could think to do with such a small piece. I kind of regret this decision because once I got over my grump I realized it would have made an interesting contrast piece in a Grainline Linden sweatshirt or similar but, eh, too late now. As it turns out though, the biggest problem with this top is that the fabric is very itch inducing, so I'm not sure the way I used the fabric in the end matters when thinking about garment longevity -- I just can't stand itchy clothes.

My February garment sewing plans are a bit vague at the moment, even though I have a whole huge list of things to make in my sewing queue. The problem is that I find it hard to think about sewing for spring when we've actually got snow on the ground at the moment, but I really don't need much more in the way of winter clothes. Plus, quite a few of my favourite and most enticing projects are at the more difficult and labour intensive end of the scale, and thus the whole continuing-illness thing becomes a stumbling block. I'll have to see how I get on, I guess.

Quilted quilt blocks ready to be sewn together with sashing

Quilt: Since my mid-month update, I've been quilting the individual blocks in dribs and drabs and then trimming off the excess batting/backing. It's actually been a nice project while I've been feeling ill because it's a perfect project to sew in very short bursts. Each block only takes a couple of minutes to quilt and a couple of minutes to trim, and thus even if I only felt up to venturing into my sewing room for 10-15 minutes I was usually able to get a couple of blocks done in a day. I was also able to do a bunch of different shapes when I was quilting: some I stitched in the ditch, some have just lines across the block, and a half a dozen are quilted with big concentric circles. That said, I have to admit I was totally over the quilting process long before I'd done all 36 blocks and was glad when I finished them up. At this point, there are really only two more tasks left: putting the blocks together with sashing and then binding the outer edges. Thus, I'm hoping that the World's Slowest Quilt will become my first finished quilt during February.

Alabama Chanin style "Bloomer" stencil on knit, testing out different threads and stitches

Hand-sewing/embroidery: I'm still pursuing the Alabama Chanin and hand-embroidery thing. I decided a useful way to spend some time was to make some samples of AC-style embellishment using knits. I dug out a couple of large-ish scraps of knit in two shades of blue (left over from a raglan tee I made in October 2013) for which I had no other use, made a list of "samplers" I wanted to make, and got started. You can see my first finished sampler above, which was a test first and foremost of this method on knit (I had previously only used the stencils with wovens when I made a couple of little calico bags) and of some different weight and colour threads. It turned out very ugly as a result of the mix of thread colours! I'll be carrying on with my samplers for a little while, mainly because I'm still percolating a much bigger plan for where I want to take this next. More on this soon.

My Nurmilintu scarf. You'll have to take my word for the existence of the lace section, since I couldn't get it to come out in the photo

Knitting: This is my Nurmilintu scarf (Ravelry link) in progress - it's about 40% done, I guess. I'm really enjoying knitting this even though my first lace section, one of three in the pattern, turned out really badly. I was fine (as you would hope) on the long pointy bit of garter stitch, but as soon as I started out the lace section I had to rip back the first three rows 4 times. Mostly, this was because I didn't understand how to read the chart, which meant I got the pattern all wrong initially. After consulting a more knowledgeable friend, I at least understand now what I should be doing, although I don't always seem to manage to actually do it. As I got further into the lace pattern, I realized I had I made multiple mistakes in several rows that didn't seem fixable short of wholesale ripping back, which I kind of couldn't face. In the end, I decided I could live with my mistakes and kept going. Thus my first "lace pattern" section is perhaps more properly described as "a section with some randomly spaced holes". Still, I love the yarn, the colour and I've decided I can live with the imperfection, especially since, as the image above demonstrates, the lace isn't really all that visible. I am a pretty slow knitter, so I suspect most, if not all, of February will be taken up with finishing this project.

A pile of pompoms

Random: For sick-and-insomnia-ridden-and-in-charge-of-a-credit card reasons, I recently bought a 99p (with free postage) pack of pompom makers from an eBay vendor in China. Pompom makers + an assortment of cheap, nasty and brightly coloured yarn I once obtained from the front of a knitting magazine = one afternoon spent gleefully and pointlessly making pompoms. I made some in plain green (on the right, idk why they look like they're glowing) and then experimented with various ways to make them multicoloured (green and white halves on the left, and then mixing two or three colours in the rest). I like the giant pink and purple one (bottom left) best, though I have no idea what to do with any of them now I've made them.

Mini-wardrobe: Tops (Ottobre 02-2013-02, Ottobre 02-2013-16, Pauline Alice Carme)

Part 2 of 3 of my mini-wardrobe. This time, the three tops I made. I am reserving most space to talk about making the Pauline Alice Carme blouse at the end.

Ottobre 02-2013-02 (again!) in white and black polka dot

If I had very little to say about making the white shorts, I have almost nothing at all to say about making the black and white polka dot top. This is Ottobre 02-2013-02, and it is my ninth iteration of the pattern. In fact, I made a version of it last week (my paintbrush top). (I did update my official review if you're interested). The reason I make this pattern so often is that, well, for one I really like wearing these tees, but also because it requires pretty much exactly 1m of fabric with little wastage, so it's very economical. This fabric is from Tissu. It's a viscose/cotton/lycra mix and it has a very nice texture. Total cost of this tee: £8.50.

Ottobre 02-2013-16 "Duo" in white jersey and white stretch poly satin

You might be thinking to yourself: why is this a different pattern number? Is that not the same t-shirt? And yes, it mainly is, except Ottobre gave this version, which has a whole two extra lines of stitching (plus a pocket, which I didn't use because I don't like pockets on tees) a different pattern number and a different name. I made my version in a scrap of white jersey left over from my blue and white raglan tee from earlier this summer and some stretch white poly satin also from Tissu. As usual my only major pattern alteration was to add 5cm cuffs to the sleeves. This time I made them in the satin fabric for that extra bit of contrast.

This was quite a problematic make for all that it's my tenth version of this very basic tee. The first iteration, I decided to change the position of the upper/lower bodice line a little as otherwise it was going to bisect my bust more or less at the apex, which is not such a great look. However, I lowered it too far and the proportions looked just a little bit off. Then I didn't get the stretchiness/width ratio right on the lower section in the (not very stretchy) stretch satin, and it was rather tight across my hips. Also, my overlocker went mad as I was stitching the horizontal body seams so I had a couple of places where the stitches were too loose and almost visible. This was the point where I was like, eh, this is not working, and hastily made the polka dot top.

However, once I decided that I didn't want to make a completely different sixth thing, the challenge became to make this top work, to paraphrase Tim Gunn. Luckily, I still had half of the 1m of stretch satin I'd bought, and all the problems I had had a single easy solution. The white jersey section was too long, so I just cut off a bit of it plus the lower satin section and tossed it, recut and re-sewed a new satin section and sewed them together. It took about 20 minutes and hey presto, the actual top that I had planned on and that I really like. Although on Flossie here it looks like a straight tee, it actually just catches on my hips and puddles the way the polka dot version does. Cost: £5 (for the stretch satin, basically, since the white jersey was in my scrap bag and therefore notionally "free" in my head).

And finally, the top I am most excited to have made for this competition, the Pauline Alice Carme. I've reviewed this properly on PR, so here I'll just mindlessly blather.

Pauline Alice Carme in black cotton lawn

The Carme is my first step towards my Ultimate Goal of making a million woven collared, button shirts/blouses of all descriptions. Well, not a MILLION, but a lot, anyway. I am going to blather MORE about my shirt-making intentions some time this month because I have decided that August should be the Month of Shirt-Making. This Ultimate Goal is actually one of the main reasons I got into garment sewing in the first place. Historically, shirts and blouses have been a huge problem for me to buy RTW. In short: RTW shirts and blouses are terrible and their manufacturers should feel terrible. On the other hand, the reason I haven't ventured into this is that shirt-making is FINICKY. There are so many details (collars, cuffs, button-holes, etc) and so many of them are really front and centre obvious if you get them wrong. However, I suddenly kind of realized I wasn't going to get any better at any of those details by never working on them, or by waiting forever and ever to see if my weight/size will stabilize. At about the same time, I stumbled across the Carme blouse and immediately bought it.

Pintuck yoke newly cut out from prepared fabric, and in situ in the blouse

What attracted me to the pattern was the pintuck section, which reminded me strongly of a blouse I still have in my sewing room for future copying purposes after I wore it to the point of death and beyond. Actually making the pintuck section was surprisingly enjoyable. The pattern has you make a simple pintucked rectangle and then you cut out the yoke section once it is done. It's a lot of running back and forth from the iron to the machine, but I found I really enjoyed the process of creating it. However, I am not sure I 100% love the proportions of the yoke section on my body. It definitely looks better on the (petite, slim) pattern creator and many of the smaller busted pattern users I've seen on the internet. I don't hate it, though!

Back of blouse

Other things I really like: the shaped hem, the fancy button placket (MUCH easier than I thought it would be and although the outcome isn't quite as perfect as I would have liked it is good enough for me to be happy), my simple black star buttons, my amazingly perfect set-in sleeves (I am getting GOOD at setting in sleeves!).

Sleeves rolled up with tab, shaped hem more visible from the side view

Details that didn't work out quite as well as hoped, though: the collar and cuffs, the button-holes and the fit. Fit-wise, I used my Ottobre woven tee pattern to help me pick a size and adjust the pattern. Ostensibly I am a 42 shoulder and a 42 hip for this pattern but uh, no. I made a 44 after comparing and still didn't feel like it was an overly generous pattern. I did an FBA and lowered the dart SUBSTANTIALLY (it's up around your underarm as written and I don't think my bust apex was EVER quite that high). I also added 2.5cm of width to the bicep and 2cm to the width of the cuff (it turns out I have huge wrists! WHO KNEW). If I made it again, I'd add a smidgeon more width to the bicep and also some additional space through the upper back since I find the fit to be tight. I'd also lengthen the sleeves CONSIDERABLY. I thought I'd done a good job of measuring the sleeves/cuffs to get them to come out the right length on me, but no, actually, I did a terrible job and these sleeves are just as annoyingly short on me as many a RTW blouse. Clearly, that is something I am going to have to work on figuring out. In this particular case, I am not too massively upset about the too-short sleeves since I fully intend to wear them rolled up with the button up tabs 99% of the time.

Sleeves rolled up, buttons undone -- more realistically how I will wear it 90% of the time

As far as the other less successful details, some of it was inexperience (especially the button-holes, it took me a while to figure out how to get a good result from my buttonhole foot/sensor thingy, etc) and some of it I am pretty sure is that the instructions for this pattern don't use a method conducive to an A+ finish. I am going to do some reading on getting better results for cuffs and collars because eh, no, I'm going to have to do better that this for me to be happy with shirt-making outcomes. My finishing on this is totally unremarkable -- I swapped out my overlocker thread for black and overlocked all the seams, including the yoke seam. I was going to do French seams on the body at least but when it came down to it I decided not to bother. I'm not sure how you could finish the yoke/body seam any other way that overlocking, actually.

Fabric-wise, I needed 1.8m of this plain black cotton lawn for this top. On the one hand, using 100% cotton lawn was a great idea from a "novice shirt sewer" perspective. It was super well-behaved, could be ironed into perfect pintucks, and was very easy to sew. On the other hand, it's a little bit stiff so it tends to stand away from the body, which I don't prefer from a wear perspective. I do tend to like my tops a little drapier and body-skimming. There are drapier cotton lawns, and I would probably want to find one if I were going to make this again (or use a blend with more drape) even though it would make wrestling with the details of the pattern that much more complex.

My fabric was from eBay and set me back £5.50/m, so about £10 in total. The buttons were from the Cork Button Company and were stupidly expensive (everything on the internet in Ireland is stupidly expensive). So, around £15-ish probably altogether. I also bought the Pauline Alice pattern as a PDF for €8, of course, although I generally don't track pattern costs in my overall costs (for no very good reason, other than that I used a lot of magazines which makes it difficult to apportion cost).

Overall, I'm really pleased with the outcome of making the Carme blouse. It looks just like I imagined with the skirt and shorts, and it was a really good way to dip a toe into shirt-making.

Up next, my final mini-wardrobe post will be my outfit photos :D

Stick it in a box marked 'done'

I'm back from a week in the UK and I have a pile of finished things to blog about.

Mainly I was in the UK for hospital appointments (alas, I'm still a medical mystery. My specialist was like "I know it's emotionally and psychologically difficult not to have a diagnosis after all this time and to be told you probably have something very rare" and I was all HAHA OH GOD, DO YOU THINK? DDDD:) but also, more happily, to see where I'll be living (mid-renovation, still doesn't have a kitchen, but otherwise looking A+. Room ear-marked as sewing/spare room has a HUGE window and is light all day). I am moving towards the end of the month but for some reason my belongings are taking several days to get to me, so it'll probably be the first week in August before I am set up to sew in my new place.

In the meantime, though:

Jitterbug socks in Colinette 400 sock yarn

While I was away I finished a pair of socks that I started way back in something like the first week of April. The only reason it took so long to make them really is that I started on bamboo needles and promptly snapped one in half while shoving it in my handbag halfway through the first sock, and then it took FOREVER (well, a month) for my replacement metal needles to arrive in the post. (To be fair, I accidentally ordered them from Bulgaria so it's no wonder it took a while.) At any rate, I had managed to finish the first sock before I left, so I cast on the second sock in Dublin airport on Monday morning and finished all bar the toe grafting by the time I got off the plane back in Dublin Saturday lunchtime. Overall, they're definitely an improvement on my first Socks of Terribleness, although still highly flawed in places. The yarn was lovely: Colinette Jitterbug 400, which is 100% merino wool, in the "Cinnamon" colourway (I don't know why cinnamon, since it's more purple than anything). I made the super simple sock pattern that comes with the yarn and used about 85g of a ~160g ball of yarn, so I should be able to get another pair of short socks out of it if I am careful. (This is good, because it was STUPIDLY expensive for a single pair of socks otherwise!).

"Paintbrush" jersey print and the Ottobre 02-2013-02 tee that I made from it

Since I got home, I've been busy with a couple of other little projects. I took advantage of the cheaper postage in the UK and ordered a couple of pieces of fabric I wanted for my mini-wardrobe thing and while I was at it, I saw this viscose/cotton jersey print in an eBay shop and HAD TO HAVE IT. It was one of those things where the impulse to own it bypassed my brain and went straight to my finger on the button on my mouse to click "buy it now". I bought 1m (£5m + £3 p&p) to make a t-shirt, inevitably using Ottobre 02-2013-02 (yes, that's version number 8 but who's counting them at this point). I don't know that I would have been 100% as excited if I had seen the fabric in person before I bought it, although I love the colours and print just as much in person. I'm less happy that the finish of the fabric is that almost fluffy soft texture that you get on some viscose/cotton blends that will probably pill horribly after a half dozen washes. Still, I do love the t-shirt I made and it goes AMAZINGLY well with my new turquoise shorts.

I also made new cushion covers for the massive 65cm square cushions that live on my bed. I have already bought a purple blind for my new house and a purple striped duvet cover. I was contemplating my current (green) cushion covers and then remembered I had this geometric patterned purple fabric in my bag stash. It's another "eBay seller describes what they are selling very badly" buy, this time from early 2013, and I got like 2.5m for £0.99 plus p&p (£5 in total). The reverse is just some plain white cotton drill bought for £1/m from Standfast. The most expensive thing on this cushion cover are the zips, which I stupidly bought 80cm long (expensive) instead of 65cm long (cheaper) because I wrote it down wrong on my notepad at some point and never corrected it. >:(

Other than all of that, I am READY for the mini-wardrobe thing. I have everything all lined up and waiting to start on Tuesday.  I have a confirmed date for my actual move from Dublin and I worked back from that to when I need to stop sewing and start packing. I concluded I need to make my entire mini-wardrobe by the 14th of July, although worst case scenario I can sew on the 15th/16th a bit if I need to. Just as well everything I picked out is so (relatively) easy and quick to make! I think what I'm going to do is to burn through all the easy stuff first so that I can spend more time on the Carme blouse at the end.

Two finished objects -- and one of them I sewed!

Unfortunately, neither of them are very exciting, but on the basis that nothing exists if you don't blog about it...

Knitted scarf from an Aldi kit in purple

First (and most unexciting of all) another super quick little knitted project, for which I used a kit from Aldi. It's a weirdly bobbly fashion yarn in Cadbury's Dairy Milk purple. I actually love it, but a work of knitting genius it is really not: 11 stitches of garter stitch, keep going until you run out. Even I managed that without too much difficulty!

Scarf hung loose, also, assorted detritus in the background

Sadly, it's a bit shorter than I really like in a scarf if I'm going to wear it hanging, but I do like it rolled up like in the first photo in the neck of my grey winter coat, so it's at least still useful and it was €4.50 for the kit so I don't really care. (Not sure why I took this photo without moving the box that is waiting to go to the tip and my knitting bag out of the way, but never mind!) Now I just have to convince myself not to start another new easy project but to get on with finishing the Purple Jumper Of Doom. :|

Item no. 2, and officially the first garment I've produced in my new flat, and it's yet another iteration of the Ottobre 02-2013-02 "Summer Basics Tee". For anyone keeping count, why yes, this is version number 7 I've made. I might be slightly obsessed with this pattern.

Ottobre 02-2013-02 version number 7 (no, really) in blue polka dot cotton jersey

I had to re-trace my pattern for two reasons. First, I use really cheap thin tissue paper to trace at the moment and frankly 6 uses was as much as it could take. It was more tape than tissue at this point. I really need to find something better to copy patterns I want to re-use onto, though what that would be I have no idea since I balk at the horrible cost of swedish tracing paper. Second, there was a sizing issue. Previous versions were a fairly straightforward 48 shoulders-to-bust, blending to a 46 at the hip. This version started off a 46 shoulder-to-bust, 44 hip, but after a series of surgeries ended up around a 44 shoulder, 46 bust, and 42 hip. The surgeries did not improve the finish I got, but whatever, this is just a t-shirt for around the house, I can live with a mediocre finish.

I have a whole laundry list of alterations of this top at this point -- neckline narrowed by 4cm (unfortunately, I did 3cm on this top and it JUST flirts with showing my bra strap, which I hate) armhole dropped by 2cm, different neckband application, 5cm cuffs to finish the armhole rather than a bound edge. The newest change, suggested by a friend of mine, is a skinny banded hem finish rather than the usual twin needle hem that I do, top stitched (as was the neck band) in order to prevent it from curling over.

Cuffed hem, top stitch to stop it curling up.

I wish I could have made my band a little less skinny, but alas, I had an allegedly 1m cut that was the most mis-shapen 1m I have ever seen. It was 94cm along one selvedge and 106cm down the other. I was lucky to get the top, neck binding, cuffs and even a skinny hem band out of it. It came from Tissu, who usually do a much better job with cutting, and it cost £4 for a metre (with free p&p because I bought it with a bunch of other stuff).

After my 7 iterations, I've made 3 cotton jersey (including this one), and 4 slinky jerseys of various descriptions. Overall, I think it makes up best in the slinkier stuff with good recovery. The cotton jerseys slowly stretch of the course of the day so you start off with it catching at the hip as intended, and by the end of the day it's hang down over your butt.

Next up, I am tracing ALL THE GARMENTS IN THE WORLD, since I have three separate new patterns that I want to make from magazines this month. Luckily I quite like the tracing process, or at least I don't object to it.

Terrible selfie to finish off!

One Last Project & Summer Plans

I had one last little sewing project I wanted to get done before I packed up my sewing room for good in this house. My last project is something very familiar: an Ottobre Woman 02-2013-02. No, I'm not tired of this pattern yet, even though this is my fifth that I have made, including the wearable muslin that I wear every week without fail (I love the colour, even if the actual sewing leaves a lot to be desired).

The fabric is this rather nice self-patterned synthetic jersey. You can actually see the pattern in the fabric better in the detail shots -- it's quite subtle. I bought this fabric from eBay, from the woman who was selling her late mother's fabric stash for months before last Christmas (I bought a LOT of fabric from her. A LOT. At one point I felt like maybe I should just empty my bank account into hers, is what I'm saying.) It was one of those things where I was buying two or three other pieces from her auctions that week and nobody else had bid on this piece, and my bid on it sort of... snuck in there /o\. The reason I originally hesitated was the piece is so HUGE -- 5.25m -- but at £2/m including p&p it was so cheap I thought I might as well get it. I used just a metre for this top.

I changed the pattern a little. The first change was unintentional -- the pattern was still folded back from where I'd changed it to be narrower at the waist for the wedding outfit top and I didn't notice until I'd already cut it out. Oops. The other thing I did was add a 5cm wide sleeve band (using a 10cm wide piece of fabric and folding it in half) instead of just binding the sleeves.  I think this turned out really nicely and I will definitely be using it again.

I also tried a different method of attaching the neck band and LOOK! It isn't stretched out! I am MADE OF GLEE that I might finally have cracked my neck binding problem. \o/

This top was part of the Wedding Belles 6PAC. I had planned to scratch it but it only took an hour to whip it up today. I could not be more pleased to have it available to wear with some of my other items. Overall, this was a great note to end my sewing in this house.

In two weeks exactly I'll be settling into a temporary home in Dublin. A small selection of projects plus my sewing machine are all coming with me to Ireland for the summer, but the rest of my stuff including my serger and my excessively vast fabric stash are going into storage until I find a proper place to live and get my belongings shipped over. I don't have a lot of space in my car so spontaneity with my sewing plans has had to be exchanged for careful planning and organizing.

Here then are my summer sewing plans:

The first order of business: finish off my two collections from earlier in the year.

The Earth & Spring collection was all browns and reds. I have another lovely linen fabric to use to make a second jacket using New Look 6911. That will finish off the "collection" since I am scratching one piece of it altogether  (a red jersey top) making it a 5PAC rather than a 6PAC. This jacket is really intended most of all to go with the semi-circle skirt I made from McCall's 5431 in darker brown.

The second piece is a skirt using the remnant of the fabrics I used for my wedding outfit jacket which will finish off my Wedding Belles collection (instead of another jersey top as I'd originally planned). I don't have a huge amount of either the linen or the lining I picked out, so it had to be a simple skirt. I've picked Simplicity 8664, which I've made a couple of times before. That will give me the option of wearing the jacket and skirt as a suit, or wearing the skirt with some white linen blouses I already own or the top I made for the wedding.

Moving on from my 6PACs, I also need some PJ shorts for summer. This is kind of the most boring project ever, but if you need PJs, you have to make PJs! I've made this Ottobre pattern before and I really like them.  I'm going to make one pair of shorts and then see if I can play with the pattern and make one pair knee length. The fabric for this is cute -- a blue and white border print.

Also a border print is the fabric I've picked out for the Lorenna Buck Maxi Skirt. This is a free pattern I found while idly surfing the net. I am going to have to grade it, but since it's not so much a pattern as a tutorial it shouldn't be a problem. The fabric is, ugh, a georgette, so I'm already anticipating weeping buckets over it, but it's such a great print/colour and I so want a floaty maxi skirt like that for a hot summer day (assuming we HAVE a hot summer day ever) that I am willing to suck it up.

Finally, I've included a mini collection of three items: a skirt and two blouses. Here is my inspiration for the skirt:

From Alterations Needed

This is from the blog Alterations Needed. I love her outfits, even though the blogger and I could not be further apart in terms of size, body shape, and clothing budget. I saw this outfit and was smitten by the skirt. Investigating further, I found that it is from Nordstrom's and costs a horrifying £170 (plus postage!). Also, even if I had that sort of cash (spoiler: I will NEVER have this kind of cash to spend on a skirt) this blogger is very petite and on me, as on the Nordstrom's model, the skirt would hit mid-thigh which, no.

I'm not going to make an exact copy, because those kind of pleats at the waist do me no favours. Instead, I picked out a Burda pattern and I'll fiddle it to make a two colour skirt. The other reason for picking that particular pattern (Burda 03-2010-123) is that it includes a fly front, and fly fronts are on my list of skills to learn this summer.

Also on my list of things to learn how to do: collars, cuffs and general shirt-making techniques, and so to go with the skirt I've got a blue glazed cotton and a white cotton herringbone shirting fabric to make up as blouses using a Burda pattern from 05-2012. I can never have too many white and blue blouses and those will go with various other things already in my wardrobe in addition to this skirt.
Overall, I feel like I have a good mix of projects planned for the summer: some easy, some more time-consuming; some repeats and some new skills. Enough to keep me going this summer, anyway!

The Wedding Outfit! (New Look 6911, McCalls 5431, Ottobre 02-2013-02)

In exactly a month I am going to be in London getting ready to celebrate my friends N and L who are having a civil partnership ceremony. I always say they are getting married but unfortunately they will actually miss the transfer from the "civil partnership" to being "married" by a few months, which is a shame. Anyway, it's not a traditional sort of wedding, but I wanted to wear something floofy and summer-wedding-y, and the bigger challenge was I also wanted to make it 100% myself. Since I am moving to Ireland in 2 weeks and will not have Flossie (my dressmaker's dummy) or my camera with me, I had to take photos today:

The Wedding Outfit: Jacket (New Look 6911), skirt (McCall's 5431) and top (Ottobre 02-2013-02 hack)

This oufit is made of three pieces: a turquoise 100% linen jacket made with New Look 6911, my first ever piece of clothing that could even remotely be described as 'tailored'; a semi-circle skirt made with McCall's 5431 in white taffeta and white and turquoise georgette, with a white polycotton lining; and a white 'silk touch' jersey with stretch lace in white, made with a hack of my favourite jersey top pattern, Ottobre 02-2013-02. I also previously made the clutch I will be carrying.

I made the skirt first. It's a pattern I've made and reviewed before and liked a lot the first time. Since the size 20 was a little bit big, this time I made the size 18 which fits much better. As before I made the skirt up straight out of the envelope with no pattern adjustments. However, this time, I upped the complexity quite a bit in terms of fabrics used and the number of layers.

Skirt: Clockwise from upper left: front view, side view with ruching, textured taffeta layer, lace hem on taffeta layer with cotton interlining

There are basically three layers of fabric. The top layer is a lightweight polyester georgette in white with turquoise flowers, bought as a remnant from eBay. The waistband and the second layer are made of textured white taffeta, also bought from eBay though this time by the metre. It's officially curtain fabric, apparently, but eh, whatever. I bought the textured taffeta rather than plain because I wanted a fall back plan in case the georgette overlay didn't work. As it is, it's very pretty but you can't really see it.

The taffeta was also polyester which is gross against the skin and also even the two top layers together weren't totally opaque, so I decided to underline the taffeta layer in inexpensive white polycotton (using my favourite underlining/bound seam method, which produced gorgeous results every single time). At the end I hemmed the taffeta layer with white lace on the inside. The overlay is loose over the top of the skirt (rather than sewn into the seams), so it has a bound slit where the zip is so you can take the skirt off, and I used french seams throughout. I used 48mm wide lace on the hem of the overlay and ruched the bottom 13cm (including the lace) up the side seams in order to create the frothiest skirt I could.

Inside: white polycotton underlining with bound seams

Sounds great, right? But actually, oh my god, that OVERLAY. I am NEVER EVER doing anything with georgette again. It was a nightmare from start to finish. It slid around when I was pinning the pattern and trying to cut it and I ended up having to recut one panel from a very scant amount of fabric. It shredded every time I tried to manipulate it. When I hung the skirt overnight, the bias stretch went crazy and the hem ended up all over the place (hence the deep lace at the hem, it covers a lot of wavy hem sins). To be honest, I was so sick of the overlay at the end that only the fact that I would be deeply uncomfortable in a plain white skirt at a wedding and didn't have the time or money to make a whole new skirt saved this skirt from being a wadder. In the end though, I am pretty happy with it. It's twirly and frothy and wedding-y in the extreme!

For a break, the next thing I made was the much easier top. This is just the same Ottobre Woman pattern I've made several times already but again with a little bit of a hack for wedding purposes.

Wedding top, hacked Ottobre 02-2013-02 (front and back view)

The standout feature of the Ottobre top is the relaxed curve of the side seam and the fact it's intended to puddle at the hips. I wanted to make the top so it would not be quite so full at the waist so that it would fit better under my jacket. I just re-drew the side seam to be straighter and sewed it up. The big hack was a reprise of my previous Maria Denmark Kirsten Kimono Tee hack. I moved the seams at the shoulder and introduced a second fabric that covers the top of the shoulder to about the shoulder blade.

Fabric wise, I really wanted silk jersey for this top. Then I saw the actual price of silk jersey (£30/m, anyone?) and went with something a little less bank account breaking. The fabric is called "silk touch" and it's a very nice lycra jersey that does, indeed, feel like silk. On the back, I used a floral stretch lace in white, having learned from the previous attempt to do a yoke that it would work better with a stretch fabric. Both fabrics are from Tissu, easily my favourite online shop for knits.

The top went together really easily and quickly except for the neck binding. I am in despair over my neck binding problems. They always stretch out and I just don't know how to prevent it when I'm sewing. It drives me insane.

The very last thing I made was the jacket, mainly because I really had to work up my courage to make it. And yet, it was way easier than I ever expected and I looooove the outcome, even if it's not without problems. You can read my Pattern Review here, but here are some extra thoughts. Also, totally co-incidentally, I happened to make this while the Natural Fibre competition is on, and while I have exactly zero expectation of getting even 1 vote, I decided to put it into the competition
just for a laugh.

I am really pleased with the pattern I chose because, as mentioned previously, it allowed me to use a previous attempt at an armhole princess pattern as a starting point. It's also really really simple -- there's literally nothing to do except construction seams and seam binding. I am kind of amazed at how good my life decisions were as far as this jacket is concerned.

Seam binding on the inside of the jacket.

For instructions, I did use the New Look instructions, but I also used two PR courses for further assistance: Create a Jacket Muslin and Sew a Designer Unlined Jacket, both by Angela Wolf. I got them ages ago in the sale (and they are on sale right now as well!). I wouldn't pay full price for them, but I am happy with what I got for the lower price I paid back in January-ish.

Is it weird that I almost like the inside more than the outside? The seam binding is all done with a Liberty cotton print that I got from the factory shop in Lancaster. I am no fan of Liberty in the ordinary run of things -- I tend to find the prints fussy and old-fashioned -- but there's no denying that it makes some gorgeous bias tape for seam binding.

The main fabric is 100% linen from Fabrix, which is my actual local-ish fabric shop also in Lancaster. I have to admit I squealed when I found the perfect linen to match the georgette skirt, and not even too painfully expensive. The linen was GORGEOUS to work with, except for a slight tendency to shred that the seam binding happily covers up. The only problem is that oh my GOODNESS does it ever crease. It's going to look like a RAG by the end of the day at the actual wedding. The photos above were taken STRAIGHT after I ironed it, and it still looks creased like you wouldn't believe.

Without buttons; the sleeve problem

The buttons in the main shot are not actually sewn on yet. I don't think they are the buttons I am going to use in the end. Too big, not the right colour. I'm tempted to go for something other than buttons -- maybe snaps? Or hooks? Still thinking about this, anyway.

As far as problems go, I really only had one, and that was easing one of the sleeves in. One of he sleeves went in PERFECTLY, but the other kept getting tiny snags, which you can see above on the right. I unpicked the worst of it and managed to massage it down to just these two tiny pleats, but the fabric was starting to fray very badly so I couldn't risk unpicking it again. You really can't see it on the finished garment, but I know it's there and it annoys me. However, it's a HUGE boost to my confidence that I got the sleeves in as well as I did -- I had visions of being there for multiple hours just setting the sleeves, but it really wasn't anywhere near as time consuming or difficult as I thought.

Gosh, this has been a mammoth post. Overall, despite all the problems with the skirt and the nerves I had about making a jacket, I'm really genuinely thrilled with my wedding outfit. It's not perfect, but it's good enough that I won't have any qualms about wearing it. One last note: the cost. Definitely not cheap, is all I am going to say. For just the fabrics plus the lace for the skirt, it hit around £60, and that's without taking into account patterns, the muslin for my jacket, overheads, etc. I was kind of aghast at this until I started thinking about what I would have had to pay for an outfit if I had bought it. Bear in mind I can rarely get fitted jackets that actually FIT unless I go to Pepperberry. The closest thing they have to my jacket is this little lightweight blazer, which I guarantee would not be made with half the care that I put into mine, and oh, by the way, costs £65. So, I am calling my outfit a win, even at £60+. :D

Made: Two tops for Earth and Spring 6PAC (Ottobre 02-2013-02 and New Look 6025)

This week so far I've made two tops that are part of my Earth and Spring 6PAC. They're both patterns that I've used before.

Ottobre 02-2013-02 "Summer Basic Top" in red and white fan print cotton jersey, front and back view

First, I made another Ottobre 02-2013-02, the "Summer Basics Top" that is currently my Very Favouritest Pattern Of All. This is my fourth version! It took me basically the entire time my Easter Monday dinner cooked to make it from pressing the fabric to snipping the last thread -- about 1hr 40min in total. I had a problem with my binding strip not being as stretchy as I expected so I had to recut it longer but other than that it was easy.

The red and white jersey I used was from eBay at a price of £4/m including p&p, plus the usual overheads, and as usual this top took pretty much exactly 1m. I'm going to say abou £4.50 for this top in total. The fabric is a little bit thinner than I would like but it's fine for warmer weather (should we ever have any, that is). I've nothing else to say about this really -- this is the joy of a TNT, I guess: you can just crank out yet another version without really having to think about it.

New Look 6025 in pink floral print, front and back view. The hem is straight in real life, honest.

This woven top is more or less view B of New Look 6025, except at the shorter length (like view C). This a very simple, almost-a-TNT pattern that I like a lot. I've used it once before, the same view/length and everything, right at the very beginning of my garment sewing adventures. When I made the first one I used a size 18 and did a (dodgy) FBA that somehow resulted in me cutting the armholes strangely. I actually still like that top as long as it's tucked in, weird armhole shape notwithstanding. If I wear it untucked the hemline looks terrible -- it rises in the centre front because of some combination of the dodgy FBA and futzing with the shoulders to raise the neckline, and also the fabric REALLY didn't like being folded twice and top-stitched at the hem. It made the hem weirdly inflexible and causes the top to stand away from my body. This time I overlocked, folded up once and topstitched the hem, which worked much better.

New Look 6025 side view and inside view of French seam and overlocked/folded hem

On this occasion I made a size 18 straight out the envelope. It fits OK -- it's comfortable and it doesn't pull over the bust -- but probably would have fit even more nicely with a bust dart, if I'm honest. I don't know why I persist in pretending anything without bust shaping is going to work for me. That said, I don't mind the fit on this one and I did manage to improve the neckline considerably compared to the first time I made it. Last time I ended up pulling the shoulders up because once I cut it I realized it was far too wide and low at the neckline. This time I cut the neckline 4cm narrower. I left the depth as designed at centre back but raised the centre front by 4cm as well. I think it might have been even better if I had made the neckline slightly narrower still because it still peek-a-boos my bra strap a tiny bit, but it's quite wearable.

This fabric has been in my stash almost as long as I've had a stash. I bought in May 2012 from eBay. It was only 110cm wide and I had just under 2m. The reason I was clinging to it was that, well, first, it is maybe a little more pink than I was totally prepared for, and second, the drape and texture of this fabric is divine. It's sort of soft and fuzzy, I love it, and I've had it long enough now that the pink has grown on me. It's some kind of cotton blend, nothing extraordinary I'm sure, but it really goes brilliantly well with the beige straight skirt from this collection, drapes beautifully and is generally a great piece of fabric to use in this 6PAC. I actually wasn't going to use it because I was doing that thing where I wanted to "save it" for something better, but since my motto at the moment is JUST SEW IT, I did.

Kimono sleeved tops are super wasteful on 110cm wide fabric, though. I can fit both sides of this pattern onto a 150cm wide fabric, but with 110cm I just end up with a big empty space left over that isn't really big enough for anything. The pattern envelope claims you need at least 2m of 110cm wide fabric. I started with only 1.8m ish but I had more than enough fabric. I ended up with a few scraps just about big enough for waistband facings or pocket linings. I'm going to write the whole cost of the fabric off to this top though, so that's about £5.90 inc. p&p plus overheads, so about £6.50 overall. Time-wise, it took me about an hour to trace the pattern and cut out the fabric and two hours to sew, hem and finish it off -- I did French seams which always takes some extra time and I really took my time over the neckline binding to get a nice finish. French seams are my favourite seam treatment in little tops like this. It makes the inside so neat.

So that's two more pieces of my Earth and Spring collection ticked off! I have made a decision on the final top to go into this collection -- I'll be using Burda 01-2013-130. I also decided against doing the second Ottobre tee that was in my plan for the time being -- I feel like I have enough for now. Here's the updated collection image:

I've traced out the pattern for the jacket (New Look 6911) now, but I keep staring with horror at the pieces. It's not that it's unduly complicated, it's that I'm really kind of terrified of the princess seam FBA. Luckily I have done ONE before, semi-successfully, so I'm not starting from zero. It's still unnerving though. I will probably end up doing the Burda blouse first just out of fear of the jacket. I do need to get on with it though, because I want to be able to make the same jacket pattern for The Wedding Outfit in a few weeks.

Reviewed: Ottobre 02-2013-02 "Summer Basic" Top

Ottobre 02-2013-02 "Summer Basics"

On my list of TNT patterns and possible TNT patterns one of my easier decisions was that the Maria Denmark Kirsten Kimono Tee, which among other things has the advantage of being free, would be my kimono sleeved knit TNT. I like the pattern, I've made it twice and can easily imagine making it many more times. However, it is close fitting and while I like that about it, sometimes I want a t-shirt with more volume to it. Enter the spring/summer 2013 issue of Ottobre Woman, where among the many patterns I liked was a very simple kimono sleeved tee with a relaxed shape called the Summer Basic top.

I made a wearable muslin in turquoise cotton jersey earlier this week and fell in love. It ended up very rough and ready (just turned and zig-zagged the neck and arms, no hem at all on the bottom, some weird seams because I had to do some reshaping of the armhole, etc.) but I wore it on Wednesday all day and loved it. On Thursday, I therefore made two more in black and white to go with my black straight skirt. I'm going to make another in red to go in my Earth and Spring 6PAC. I also went through my queue for the year and slapped this pattern in anywhere where I had thought I might want a simple knit top, so I'm expecting to make MANY more this year. Each top is about an hour long process from uncut fabric to the last threads snipped (sewn mainly on the overlocker) -- the most time consuming part is sewing the bindings.

Two Ottobre Woman 02-2013-02 "Summer Basic" tops

Pattern review (also on PR):

Pattern Description: From the magazine: "The look of the cap-sleeve jersey top can be easily modified by he choice of colour, material and fabric pattern. The top is fairly loose around the waist but fits snugly at the hips." In addition to 02-2013-02, this t-shirt is also listed as 02-2013-16 in a colour blocked version with a small pocket.

This one is my absolute favourite -- the jersey is drapy

Pattern Sizing: Sizes 34-52. Normally my Ottobre size is a 44 top with a large FBA and a 46 waist and hips. As this is a kimono sleeved top and the shoulder size is less important, I decided to go with a cheater's approach. I used a size 48 through the shoulder and bust and tapered down to a 46 waist and hip. It's important to get the waist and hip right in you want the top to fit as the pattern is designed.

Did it look like the photo/drawing on the pattern envelope once you were done sewing with it? Apart from my design changes, yes, very like.




 

Check out my non-matchy side-seams though /o\

Were the instructions easy to follow? Yes, they are brief but perfectly adequate. The top is so simple though there's hardly any need to read them if you've made at least one knit top before.

What did you particularly like or dislike about the pattern? What appealed to me about this top was principally the shaping of the pattern pieces, skimming the upper body, loose over the midriff and then blousing at the hip. I had no dislikes.

Fabric Used: A cotton jersey and a viscose jersey with lycra. The absolute best thing about this top is that you only need a little piece of 150cm wide fabric even if you're using the largest sizes of the pattern. You certainly don't need more than 1m and I squeezed my original wearable muslin out of an 80cm scrap.

This is what it looks like "unscrunched" -- long even on me!

Pattern alterations or any design changes you made: The neckline of this pattern is wider than I like and risks being the sort of top where you spend the whole day pulling it back over your bra straps. I therefore redrew the neckline 4cm closer to the neck but kept the depth of the scoop intact. I made only one alteration for fit, increasing the armhole by 2.5cm in depth to accommodate my large upper arms. It's notable that I DIDN'T make my standard length adjustment to this top. Ordinarily I add 4-6cm in length to Ottobre patterns because I'm 5'8" and Ottobre's patterns are designed for a height of 5'6". In this case I didn't need to add any length at all even though the top naturally scrunches up around the hip. Shorter sewists might find that the length, unadjusted, produces a lot of fabric around the waist and hip. Note that the shape of the pattern pieces means it would be a bit awkward to take the top up at the hem if you dislike the length after you have cut the fabric.

 


Would you sew it again? Would you recommend it to others? I'm absolutely in love with this pattern and how the finished garment looks on me. I suspect this may become my all-time favourite tee pattern. I would recommend it to anyone looking for a simple relaxed fit t-shirt.

Conclusion: For me, this is the ultimate potato chip pattern: I really can't just make one!

Floral version! Managed to avoid a flower/boob combination!

Extras

Costs: I made three versions, each using 1m of fabric -- a wearable muslin in turquoise (not shown) at £2.15/m from eBay; a black and white floral cotton jersey at £4/m from Tissu; and a white and black check viscose and lycra jersey at £5/m also from Tissu. The only other thing I needed was a little bit of cotton stay tape and thread, so these were very inexpensive tops to make.

Back of the floral version. My side seams don't match on this either.

Nitpickery:

+ You have to love finding a pattern that you want to make a million times. I definitely got better at making it by version 3 as well.

- The only really hard part is the neck and armhole binding, and yeah, that's really not perfect on ANY of the tops I made, but got better as I went along. The problem is stopping the necklines from stretching, which I find annoyingly difficult.

+/- The hardest thing about this pattern is actually that I just want to keep making it. I do not really need to make every piece of jersey I own into a little kimono sleeved tee. Really, I don't.