And moving swiftly on...

My last post was full of ambitious plans for spring/March and here we are on the 19th April and, as the recent radio silence might suggest, I have to tell you that I accomplished pretty much none of them. The last six or seven weeks have gone something like this:

- Minor illness (just a cold, but ugh, it seemed to go on forever)
- Apathy about sewing anything for warmer weather because it was so. damn. cold. and wintery for most of March, which turned into:
- Apathy about sewing anything at all for any reason, or really doing anything other than sitting around in a miserable heap. (I don't know why, I just had a serious case of the Idon'twannas for a couple of weeks about literally everything that wasn't essential to survival.)
- The Return Of The Major Withdrawal Symptoms, and all the fun times that go with them, which I am just now bouncing back from.

In the midst of all that, I feel like I've pretty much missed the window for sewing for Spring! Over the last couple of weeks, I have managed a few easy, essential projects for my wardrobe:

PJs in pink gingham

I made a couple of pairs of PJs (one capri length pair for spring/autumn, one pair of shorts for summer) in pink gingham using my trusty PJ TNTs (capris: Burda 8721, shorts: Ottobre 05-2011-02).

Navy cardigan and curved hem jumper

I also made two quick and easy repeats from a 3m piece of textured navy knit, using Simplicity 1733 to make a cardigan and Ottobre 02-2016-05 to make a lightweight sweater with a curved/hi-lo hem. I've made exactly this combination of patterns from a single piece of fabric before, and it worked out so well and I've worn those garments so often that I barely even thought about it before I slapped the patterns down on my fabric. The more I sew, the more I love having a library of reliable, repeatable patterns as well as having the constant novelty from my pattern magazines etc.

Although it barely merits a mention on the creativity scale, in the midst of all my misery I did also manage to work through a basketful of tiny, annoying sewing jobs: hemming trousers that I bought unhemmed, fixing seams and hems in garments that had come apart in the wash (and, I must tell you, of the half a dozen things that needed repair, only one of them was hand-made -- it's the RTW stuff that falls apart!) and cutting down/hemming a pair of RTW trousers into shorts.


Even though I didn't get around to the larger, more ambitious projects on my sewing plan, wardrobe-wise I do have almost everything I need for Spring. Everything else -- and in particular my plans for a raincoat -- will just have to wait until I start thinking about cooler weather sewing again after the summer.

For now though, I'm starting to think ahead to summer sewing. I've only two absolute essential garments that I absolutely must make this year: a lightweight cardigan, which should be straightforward and quick, and a pair of shorts, which requires me to re-open the whole question of making trousers that fit and is therefore not straightforward at all. D:

My list of wants (rather than needs), is much longer and potentially more interesting, and covers a little bit of everything from outerwear (I have a slightly odd cotton fabric to turn into a lightweight blazer), to summer skirts and dresses, to woven tops. First up, though, I still need to choose and make a project for my April magazine challenge, and most likely that is what I'll be back with next. :D

Easy finished things

My sewing week was divided between (a) sewing really easy things; and (b) getting ready to sew one of the jackets I picked out for Spring.

Simplicity 1733 cover and line drawings

First, on the easy side of things, a cardigan. In my Spring plan I said I'd picked out a pattern from Burda 10-2014 for this. Alas, it turned out I'd made a mistake writing down how much fabric I had and I was 40cm short of the (serious fabric hog) requirements of that Burda pattern. After a brief dive into the pattern stash, I came up with the alternative of View D of Simplicity 1733, an older (OOP) Khaliah Ali pattern that I originally bought for the twist front top/dress view.

Simplicity 1733 view D in grey, front view on Flossie

I made a straight size 16 with no adjustments. Construction was extremely quick and straightforward, although I must admit I deviated substantially from the instructions. I pretty much never want to set in sleeves with a knit, much preferring to sew them in flat, and I am even less likely to set in sleeves if it's a raglan pattern.

Simplicity 1733 View D in grey, side view on Flossie

I am particularly pleased with my fabric/pattern combination. My knit is quite slinky and the cardigan therefore drapes rather nicely. It's probably more of a decorative layer than a warmth-imparting functional piece, insofar as the knit is almost sheer and not exactly warming. I think that suits the pattern though -- I wouldn't want to make it up in a bulkier knit because it's really quite voluminous. On the other hand, it was the work of the devil to hem the thing because the fabric will NOT take a crease at all, in any way, and there were what felt like miles and miles of hems to do. 

Ottobre 02-2016-05 "Fog" sweater, appropriately in grey. (Technical drawing from Ottobre magazine)

Due the pattern change, I had an unexpected excess of fabric. In the interests of efficiency and my overlocker being threaded in the right colour already, I decided to see what else I could sew immediately. After some pattern Tetris false starts, I settled on a repeat of Ottobre 02-2016-05, a simple layering top with a hi-lo hem that I have made once before. I again left off the side zips because when I am ever going to unzip the sides of a knit top? Never, is when. This is one of those "I didn't know I wanted this until I made it" garments, I think, so I'm pleased I came up with the idea.

A green tote bag for spring (pattern is Daphne by artsycraftsybabe)

And finally, my last easy project of the week was this tote bag in spring-like shades of green, which I made more or less on a whim on Saturday.

The rest of my sewing time this week was taken up with working through the early stages of the first of my outerwear projects of this year, Burda 08-2016-134. As of this morning I've got all the pieces cut out and I just have to summon up some enthusiasm for applying a ton of interfacing before I can get started sewing next week. More on this soon, no doubt, and probably a lot of progress shots on my Instagram this week as well. :D