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

Small things

Sometimes it's really satisfying to just whip up a pile of easy little things. In the last few days I've made:

1. PJ shorts (using larger scraps)

Ottobre 05-2011-02 'Sweet Dreams' PJ shorts made with remnants

These pyjama shorts are repeats of an easy-peasy pattern (Ottobre 05-2011-02 'Sweet Dreams') that I've now made 8 times including these versions. Rather boring, but necessary as I just got rid of a couple of pairs and I operate on a one-out-one-in rule with PJs. I'm always happy too to use up some of the bigger scraps lurking in my basket.


2. Simple woven slips

I made some half slips to go under skirts/dresses I have either already made or that I'm planning to make in the next few weeks. To make these I more or less followed Gertie's half-slip tutorial, without the lace or the bow. They're just single seam rectangles with a hem and a lingerie elastic waist -- dead simple stuff. I did add a side vent on the green one for extra movement ease. I didn't think of this in time to do so on the navy one, but it's short enough (due to fabric constraints) that my stride isn't restricted. This was also partly a scrap busting exercise as the navy viscose slip was made with the remnants of the (difficult to sew) fabric I used very recently to make a shirt.

I don't know why, but my camera REFUSED to take a decent photo of either of these, maybe in protest over how boring it was?

The green cotton one came out all right but the navy one is definitely not the prettiest or best made thing ever. My experience with the shifty, shreddy viscose was not particularly any easier this time around for all that I was just sewing it into a tube. On the plus side, that particular fabric is now all gone and I never have to sew with it again. I really don't care overly about the flaws given the function of a slip precludes it being seen by anyone but me!


3. Another Jasmin tee

Cozy Little World Jasmin tee in white

I could tell you a long boring version of why I needed to make a white t-shirt this week, but suffice to say: my decision to buy an inexpensive white tee in order to "free up time to sew more interesting things" turned out to be nothing like a good plan. Anyway, I've been wearing both of my two previous Jasmin tees in the recent spell of hot weather (!!) we've been having in England and I really love them. I didn't even hesitate to pull this pattern out again for another version this week. For a knit, this fabric is awfully prone to crease! You'd never know I pressed this specially to take the photo!

4. Wanderling progress

Another thing I've been doing is forcing myself to really just get on with finishing my Wanderling jumper. It's been lurking around in my knitting bag for months sans sleeves and I was almost entirely sans enthusiasm for finishing it. I'd pick it up every few weeks and knit a centimetre or two and then grind to a halt again. It wasn't that I don't like the jumper, I was just being bored/lazy/unmotivated/all of the above about it.

Wanderling jumper progress as of this morning (11th May): body and one sleeve done, just about 5cm into the second sleeve

Even though it's now totally unseasonal, I've decided this is going to be the month when I just hammer my way through the tedious stocking stitch that I have left to do and finish it already. I am thus happy to report that the Wanderling current status is: one sleeve done, second sleeve underway! I can't see any reason why I won't finish this month provided I keep plugging way.

Next up: I'm mired in pattern indecision on my summer outerwear project (a linen jacket). I keep thinking I've made a decision and then backtracking. In the meantime, I've got some other less paralyzing projects to start on, including a couple of summer skirts.

A fistful of t-shirts

This weekend I was a t-shirt making machine! I made four in total from three different patterns.

Cozy Little World Jasmin line drawing (because the details are all but invisible on my versions!)

First up, let me introduce what is possibly going to be my new favourite t-shirt pattern. I saw someone's version of this pattern, the Cozy Little World Jasmin T-shirt, on Instagram last June and liked the look of it so much I bought it immediately even though I knew I wouldn't be making it up until this spring. The pattern maker is French, but this particular pattern is also available in English (her other patterns seem to be French only). It's a bit limited in sizes -- 34-44 with similar measurements to Burda -- but otherwise it's a decent pattern. It's only a few pages so not too much sticky-taping nonsense is required and the PDF goes together well. Also, it's only 3 Euros so it's kind of a bargain in these days of US$15-18 t-shirt patterns from indies.

The two Jasmin t-shirts I made this weekend

I made the size 44 and I can therefore inform you that yes, it is perfectly possible to get the largest size out of a single metre of fabric with just a few little scraps remaining, even when you have to lay out your pattern in such a way as to make sure you don't end up with big circular blobs directly over your bust, as I did with the blue and white version.

I made this pattern up more or less unadjusted except for adding 2.5cm in length to the body. On the navy polka dot version I made the sleeves a little longer than the cap sleeves in the pattern (about 4cm extra) but because of the way I had to cut the tie-dye version (due to the aforementioned giant blobs over bust issue) I barely squeaked the cap sleeves out of the fabric.

What I really like about this tee is the shape. I've made a lot of reasonably close fitting tees, but I hadn't found a loose-fitting tee pattern that I really liked yet. It's hard to tell from static shots on Flossie, but this top has such a great shape. Made up in the right knit this top is just about the perfect summer top for me -- swingy and comfortable but not ridiculously voluminous. You can just about see the fullness at the front hem, and of course the back is even looser due to the gathers, but somehow it doesn't have that 'giant square tee' feel that a lot of full hemmed tops can have. It also just hangs really nicely. As you can tell, I'm definitely very smitten with this top and might end up making a million of them, though I think it's definitely one to make only with the drapier end of your knit stash. (Also, I saw some versions made up with striped fabric and eh, I'm not convinced by that at all. I think it's better in non-geometric patterns or plains.)

(A minor digression: I was originally going to make up a MyImage pattern (M1504 from the spring/summer 2015 issue) with the blue tie dye fabric, but I got half way through tracing out the pattern and was like, okay, no, this is STUPID. Why is it asking me to cut massive bias strips in a knit? What do the instructions even MEAN? What the hell are all these 5cm wide heavily interfaced facings doing on a simple t-shirt? Ugh! I have basically given up on the idea that I'll ever make anything from most of my MyImage magazines because so many of the patterns seem to have these sorts of problems. Life is too short and I have plenty of other, less painful, patterns.)

Burda 06-2004-114 -- very dull and not wholly successful navy V-neck tee

My third tee uses an extremely boring Burda knit pattern 06-2004-114. I picked it simply because I wanted to try out another V-neck pattern. Normally what I do is graft any new necklines onto my much adjusted basic t-shirt pattern sloper. However, I decided I would try out the fit of this top as it was. Big mistake! It's not a good fit at all compared to my sloper tee. The sleeve is particularly weird -- it has the highest, most pointy sleeve cap I have ever seen in a knit. As far as the reason for making this -- the V neckband -- was concerned, I found sewing the point of the V-neck neckband onto the t-shirt body very tricky and despite considerable unpicking and resewing (or maybe because of this) it's still not perfect now. It's probably a minor improvement on the previous Ottobre V-neck-without-a-V I made, though. I might try this neckband again grafted onto my sloper next time.

Ottobre 02-2013-13 'Lemon Juice' tee in black and cream stripy knit

And finally, my last t-shirt from this weekend is made with a pattern I have used before, the "Lemon Juice" tee, Ottobre 02-2013-13. I made this up previously in 2014 in a blue and white stripe and wore that version to death over two summers. It's cut on the bias and, as I'm extremely fond of a diagonal stripe, when I decided it was time to replace it I immediately started looking for interesting striped fabrics with which to make version 2. I eventually came up with this variable width black and ivory stripe in December and it's been lurking in my stash waiting for spring ever since. It's quite an odd pattern -- you cut it on the fold to get the side drape (on the right in the front view) and then it narrows at the hip so it clings there and hangs as shown on Flossie --  but I really like how it turned out and I always enjoyed wearing the previous version. I think this version is probably better than the original one I made because the variable width stripe fabric is more interesting and dramatic.

In conclusion: t-shirts galore for the summer!

Next up: I have one more t-shirt to make, but the fabric has gone missing in my sewing room somewhere (!) so that will have to wait until it turns up. In the meantime, I was all excited in my last post about my planned grey denim jacket... except that I suddenly thought to check whether that pattern requires a stretch fabric (it does) since my denim is not at all stretchy. I'm a bit frustrated because I had a whole list of possible Burda patterns to fall back on and when I checked them they were ALL written for stretch! So that is going on the back burner for a bit because I'm annoyed with the whole thing (and with 2012!me for buying non-stretch denim, which is actually very hard to find a use for, it turns out).