Monthly Archives: May 2014

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white linen Olive blouse

14/05/2014 10:55 am \ 36 Comments \ Carolyn

Hi peeps; new blouse!
Amity of Lolita patterns emailed me a few months ago asking if I would like to test their new blouse pattern, the Olive. Thank you so much Amity! I lurve trying out new patterns! I finished it a little while ago and have been sitting on it; awaiting the go ahead to Reveal. And ta da! Apparently I’m part of a “blog tour”. This is a new thing for me. No, I hadn’t heard of a blog tour before either. It’s kinda exciting 🙂
The Olive blouse is a fitted blouse with a waistband, pleated peplum and elbow length sleeves. It has two variations; view A has a draped chiffon overlay, vertically aligned flounce and a rolled chiffon flower on the front, also with or without a little gathered frill on the sleeves too. View B is, literally, the no frills version. Closure for both versions is by invisible zip in the side seam.

So, I did make view A, with the overlay and flounce. Although I left off the flower and the sleeve frills. The sleeve cap is pleated into the arm scye with six teensy little pleats. Tres cute, non?!

My measurements put me at a size 6, however a quick recce of the pattern pieces decided me to size up to an 8, and I am glad I did. It is quite close-fitting. Linen is a fairly unforgiving fabric with zero give to it however, so I reckon if I was using something like a stretch sateen then the given size would probably be fine.

OK, so that’s what my blouse used to look like! It can be seen from the very top picture that it looks a little bit different now. It’s been de-flounced. Sadly I’ve realised I’m not a flounce kinduvva person. I de-overlayed it too. To replace the flounce I made shaped button- and buttonhole-bands for the left bodice seam. This is fully functional and fully button-and-unbuttonable but since I still use the invisible zip to get it on and off the button band is effectively decorative.

I really like mine with the button band, sort of casual and therefore more suited to my fabric choice; a fine-grade white linen from Fabulous Fabrics, the same fabric I used for my patchwork Zsalya dress, with white buttons also from Fabulous Fabrics. I think it’s still quite feminine looking with the sleeve length and the pleated peplum. but has a certain something else to it now, I don’t know what. Dentist? A rumpled one, after a long hard day at the drill. Yes. OK, I’m totally on board with that. A little known fact is that I do actually have dentist blood running through my veins.
Anyway, whatever it is, I do think it turned out very “me”!
But I jest. Seriously now the blouse is a classic style and so therefore quite versatile and would work with lots of fabrics. The jazzy style A in satin or silk would be a very pretty evening blouse and the plainer style B in sateen or crepe would make a very smart option for work.
Since I acknowledge that I do have about a zillion white shirts I am toying with the idea of dyeing it. Or maybe not. I’m dithering.

Details:
Blouse; modified Olive blouse by Lolita patterns, white linen
Skirt;skirt “m” from shape shape by Natsuno Hiraiwa, dusky pink linen/cotton, details here
Thongs; Havaianas

Posted in: Uncategorized \ Tagged: daily outfit, Lolita patterns, olive, pattern review, top

Olive Frankenstein skirt

12/05/2014 5:49 am \ 36 Comments \ Carolyn

I am notoriously bad at tossing out old scraps of fabric. Particularly if I really really like the colour.
And I really really like olive.
So; after finishing my patched pockets skirt I still had some promisingly largish pieces of grey-green corduroy and olive-green moleskin leftover, and I unearthed from my “useful scraps” bag the remains of a different pair of grey-green corduroy pants that both my boys had worn at the age of eight to ten or thereabouts. Yeah, I keep stuff a long time. The knee areas were a bit thin in them all but there was still some nice sturdy fabric to be had there. And the colour!

oh ok I agree, doesn’t look very promising…

So I’ve made a little skirt; just a casual knock around kinda of a thing. It is patched together from three different fabrics but it still looks quite plain I think since the colours are so similar to each other. I’m pretty chuffed with it! Of the pluses of working with old unwanted textiles; it’s green, it’s economical, you can sew to your heart’s content unfettered by fear of failure. If you’re reworking with the constraints of an old garment it exercises the ol’ brain cells a bit. And so a successful outcome feels like a mega bonus!

The boys’ old cords had kinda cool, oversized patch pockets on them that I’ve always liked and kept because I thought they might come in handy one day. I used these pieces with the pockets still in situ. Some of the leg fabric of these pants had previously gone into making the Green parliament, here. I also added some oddly shaped patch pockets to the back of my new skirt too, just because the back was a bit boring-looking without them.

Technically speaking; I used the upper skirt pattern pieces of Vogue 1247 to cut the waist to hips part with the waist-shaping darts but the overall shape of my skirt is more A-line than the pattern. This is pretty much my favourite “little skirt” silhouette at the moment.
I used an invisible zip in the back, an old button harvested from something else long forgotten, long ago, and plain white cotton to face the waistband, I made a bias strip of the same plain white cotton to finish the lower raw edge, turned up the lower edge once and stitched in the ditch by machine to hem. I reckon this is the best hemming method for thick fabric since bulk is minimised by only turning up once and a bias strip looks a lot neater and prettier than overlocking. Also if you are short on fabric you can still get a nice deep hem without losing length off the skirt. .

Details:
Skirt; my own design based upon Vogue 1247, made from three old pairs of jeans
Shirt; my own design variations upon Burda 7767, deep olive linen, details here
Thongs; Mountain Designs

this picture just because it made me laugh… o well hello there!

Posted in: Uncategorized \ Tagged: daily outfit, own design, patchwork, photo-bomb, Sienna, skirt, Vogue 1247, Wardrobe Refashion

White linen Zsalya dress with patchwork

07/05/2014 1:12 am \ 58 Comments \ Carolyn

Hello! I’m wearing a new dress. The cool fingers of winter are tickling at the edges of our days so obviously I had to make a light and fluttery, floaty white linen thing for myself. It was only logical * 😀
Actually, the truth is that I made it a while ago now! when we were still getting very hot weather and I have worn it several times already. The pattern is the Zsalya from Kate & Rose patterns. Kati emailed me to ask if I would like to test one of their lovely new range; thank you so much for the opportunity Kati! It was so hard to choose just one! The Zsalya is a dress or top pattern with two sleeve variations, and I made the dress with short sleeves.
I knew straight away I would love this design. It has no closure, you just slip it on over your head and it is easy breezy, and as cool as. In all senses of the word. 🙂
The sleeves are quite cute. I like how they are tightly gathered in at the top which lends them a sweetly pert and boxy shape, and they have a pretty petal-shaped hemline.

The neckline is so clever. I think it’s my favourite feature of the dress. When I first looked at how open it was I considered putting in a little rouleau loop and button closure, but you know what? there is absolutely no need. Gape-age just doesn’t happen, thanks to the clever design. The crossover yoke is open so you can get your head through quite easily, but once the dress is on it all sits nicely flat and closed with a safe and demurely high neckline. Clever!
I edged the neckline with a patchworked strip of bias cut cotton scraps; this was simply sandwiched between the yoke and yoke facing before stitching them together.

I made my dress in a handkerchief grade linen from Fabulous Fabrics, and the patchwork border is comprised of various scraps from previous projects. I was inspired by this image. About once in a blue moon I actually find a need for those bitsy odds and sods of leftover cottons that are pretty much good for nothing, that I hoard like a crazy old fabric-obsessed miser. This was one of those rare occasions. Vindication!

The patchwork panel is backed with a white linen facing to stabilise it.

I added in-seam side pockets 🙂

Really, even though it looks blustery as all get-out in these pictures and it was, it was also quite insanely hot and muggy on the day I took them. So a loose little linen number was actually just what the Fremantle doctor ordered! I was getting bored with all my summer dresses so it was nice to have an excuse to make a new one. Summer dresses are such fun, both to make and to wear. And even this late in the season it’s always nice to have a fresh and new-ish summer dress waiting in the wings of the wardrobe over winter 🙂

* Mr Spock, of course

Details:
Dress; the Kate & Rose Zsalya dress, white linen with patchwork details
Thongs, Havaianas