Christmas pressies; a sewing marathon

Tim and Kelly…

As usual, I made Christmas presents for my family… I started late October, so I was giving myself plenty of time, or so you’d think!  I’m a fairly efficient seamster, and I still only just finished a few days before Christmas!  it’s been a little intense and stressful, actually; every year I underestimate how busy the lead-up to Christmas is and how I just don’t get as much time to devote to sewing presents as I thought.  Plus, I’m a lot more finicky and particular – maybe excessively so?! about my sewing now too.  I think this is a good thing, but I have to accept that I’m taking longer to make things, and should start sooner!  Or maybe make less?

Anyway, it got done!  *phew

Listing everyting in the order I made it…

First thing to get made was a shirt for Tim… He has a job now where he has to look smart, so I decided to make a business shirt… I bought the really lovely deep maroon, mini-scale gingham cotton shirting from Tessuti’s in Melbourne, and used Burda 6874, my kinda go-to shirt pattern since I semi-retired Burda 7767.  d’you know I made that pattern 37 times… can you believe it?!  that tissue paper was wearing pretty thin in some places and in some other places I’d trimmed off the cutting lines altogether, woopsies!!

what sleeve placket…? of course I busted a gut matching those teeny little checks everywhere, took me two days before I could see straight again…

I made the buttondown version… see how the collar up there buttons down onto the shirt?  This is what qualifies it as a buttondown, folks!  I don’t wanna get all grumpy and pedantic here, being Christmas and all, but the number of times I’m reading about someone’s very lovely, but NOT A BUTTONDOWN shirt erroneously labeled as such and have to hold myself back, because we all hate a little lecture, right? I’m gonna stop right now otherwise I’m going to become that painful lecture-r.

this is the inside of the shirt… I’m pretty proud of my flat-felled seams… and I use the burrito method for the yoke so that’s all nicely enclosed too

All seams are flat-felled, using my own tutorials here and also this one here… yes you can flat-fell every single seam in a shirt! and it’s so much better and nicer… although I’m starting to realise that this is probably why what used to take me maybe two days to make a shirt…  now takes me double that time at the least! but anyway.  My guys appreciate the tailoring, so I’m happy that they’re happy.

Sam’s shirt…

I’m just SUPER happy with how my buttondown collars are looking nowadays!  It’s pretty hard to get that sitting just right and perfectly symmetrical; and I think after all the shirts I’ve made I’ve finally got it down…

Next up; I made a matching top for Kelly.  I’ve previously made matching tops for the two of them and noticed that they wear them together a lot! yes, it’s super cute…  I did a little bit of subtle inquiring as to whether matching clothes were still something they liked before I went there and got a positive response.  Alright then!

I had to be far less subtle about fitting it though!  I’d previously taken Kelly’s measurements for when I made a Kelly anorak for her… it’s impossible to do this without it being obvious! and made a block for her, using my Pattern Magic book to help me.  Yes, this is a pretty involved thing to do, requiring protractors and algebra and such-like! but honestly I’ve always found it to be a hugely worthwhile exercise when drafting new patterns.  Then I mocked up a quick plain bodice, and got her to try it on, and made the necessary changes.  In Kelly’s case, the block fitted but the armhole/bust dart had to modified considerably… the famous full-bust adjustment.  I regret now that I didn’t take any pictures of the mock-up bodice and the changes I made because it was a new learning curve for me that I wish I’d documented!

For Kelly’s top, I’d chosen the asymmetrical cowl top from Pattern Magic 2; the shape of the cowl is dictated by the shape of the facing.  It’s always a bit of a challenge to draft your own patterns, but well I love a challenge! and I knew the shape of this top would be super flattering for Kelly and suit her beautifully…  I cut the pieces on the bias and inserted a maroon invisible zip in the left side seam, so it zips down undone… however Kelly says she can squeeze into it without having to undo the zip which is cool.  I think the bias-cut is what gives it that little bit of stretch.

Next up! a business shirt for Sam! He has also started a new job which requires business dress everyday… I’d noticed a lot of young men wearing gingham shirts while we were in Melbourne… a good sign that gingham is super on-trend! so hot right now! which is basically why I bought gingham for both my boys in the first place.  It’s a bugger to pattern match though, even worse than stripes! gnnnnnnn  but oh well…

Again I used Burda 6874, flat felled seams throughout, same links as for Tim’s above… aaaaand so not much else to add.  Both Sam and Tim have been working out some lately, so I think I’m going to have to make some small adjustments to their shirts in the future.

Next up!  I made some little things for Cassie, she needs more work clothes so this was another practical gift really.  I made three things for her…. I just want to say here; it might seem unfair that I made one top plus TWO skirts for her, when compared to just one shirt for each of the boys, but it really does even out because the TIME I spent making these three little separates is actually the same as the time I spent on EACH of the boys’  shirts.  I know, crazy right?!  it’s all that tailoring bizzo that takes so much time…

Likewise, Kelly’s top needing a block made, plus the fitting muslin, plus drafting a pattern, also took about the same amount of time as making three tried and true things for Cassie!

Anyway; Cassie had already chosen this lovely crackle-y hand-painted cotton from the Fabric store in Melbourne while we were there, and I secretly bought the mustard gingham printed silk from Tessuti’s while she was looking elsewhere.  So the little top was a surprise!  The crackle print really is gorgeous, it is hand painted in Zambia and has that handmade naturalness to it…  LOVE this but pattern matching those hand-painted stripes was never going to happen!  of course they are all different widths and thicknesses which just adds to the charm of course.  I just shut down my inner-obsessive for a little while and did my best… at least I got the centre back seam to match!

The other little skirt is a cityscape print, maybe New York City by the looks of that Lady Liberty in there!  We’d seen the fabric in the upholstery section of Spotlight, so she’d known this one was coming too…

for both skirts I bound the lower hem seams using some leftover purple pin-striped linen, the leftovers from when I made this shirt for Craig a few Christmas’s ago.

I have also taken to binding the bottom edge of the zip and stitching it down to the seam allowances… often the bottom edge of a zip has a slightly scratchy bit which can be extreeeeeemely irritating when you’re wearing it… so I’ve taken to doing this whenever I made an unlined skirt with an invisible zip.  Such a small thing that greatly increases the comfort factor when wearing the skirt!!!

  

Oh! patterns!  I used the Inari tee pattern for the little top and Vogue 8363 for both of the skirts, and since I’ve made both of these patterns for her several times already they were super quick and easy to run up. For both skirts I added belt loops so she can cinch in the waistline a bit; in self-fabric for the Zambia striped one, and in black denim for the cityscape one.

Next up! a short-sleeved white shirt for Craig! also using Burda 6874 and a white cotton broadcloth from Spotlight, this was intended originally to be the same as this little shirt that I made for him a few years ago and which happens to be his most worn shirt … then just before making this I’d whipped up my little yellow/black&white lingerie set and had the gingham ribbon sitting out, and suddenly had this brainwave as to how I could use a bit more of it! I stitched the gingham ribbon carefully down the button line of the button placket, and used a little bit to trim the pocket.

To match this gingham detail, I lined both the collar and collar stand with some cotton gingham that I’ve had for aaaaages, and used black buttons to finish the shirt.  Note; IT’S A BUTTONDOWN SHIRT!  Also, of course it’s nowhere near a clone of the other white shirt any more but I still think he’ll wear it a lot…

Next up! a pullover/sweatshirt for Craig!  truth now… I was running out of time, and steam! and this fair near killed me!

Craig with a much much smaller Sam and Tim…

So, once upon a time, nearly twenty years ago, we went on a summertime camping trip down south and it was blooming’ freezing, our tent nearly blew away, we got rained on, hailed on and fair near froze to death!  In pure survival mode, Craig drove to the nearest town bought a red sweatshirt that he has since LOVED and worn about a million times, almost to bits since it’s getting reeeeeeally worn and threadbare now.  At some point he asked me to make a clone of the famous sweatshirt…

Of course it’s easy to clone a sweatshirt, but the challenge is in finding suitable fabric! I found this blue marled French terry in Spotlight, and while the colour is a teeny bit blah and the texture is not as nice as his original sweatshirt, it’s going to make a reasonable stop-gap until winter rolls around, the winter fabrics come into the shops, and hopefully I can find something nicer.  I busted a gut finishing off all the seam allowances off beautifully inside though… imitating the exceptionally beautiful finishes that were in the original.  For the pockets and bias binding I used some of the leftover navy/white gingham that I used for Sam’s shirt, above.  The pockets are French-seamed and the rest of the seams have an interesting amalgamation of HongKong bound AND flat-felled seams… not sure if my method is the same as in the original but I worked out a way to do it and took a few pictures along the way.

First, stitch the seams, then figure out which way you want the seams to be stitched down and apply bias binding to the topside of the seam allowance… ie. to stitch along the same stitching as previously you will be pinning/stitching along the UNDERNEATH,

OR alternatively you can save yourself a step here and stitch the bias binding on at the same time as you’re stitching the seam; your choice.

Press the garment seam allowances open, then press them to the side where they will be felled, with the bias binding on top.  From the other, right side, of the garment, pin through all layers.

With the right side facing up, topstitch the garment to the seam allowances plus binding, through all layers, just to the side of the garment seam…

view on the inside…

Keeping the bias binding free and clean, trim and grade the garment seam allowances…

Turn under and press the raw edge of the bias binding down so as to encase the seam allowances of the garment, pin in place.

With the bias binding facing up, and following the previous stitching as a stitching guide, topstitch the pressed edge of the bias binding down.  Since you’re using the previous stitching as a guide, the width of your double-topstitching will be nice and even from the outside.

Voila!  Such a nice neat finish!  at first I thought it might be overkill, but it is rather classy, if I say so myself; looks pretty good both inside and outside.  I will definitely be using this one again!

As seen above, I also applied bias binding all around the zip tape and stitched it down with double top-stitching the same way to match… this really does make a nice, neatly finished look when the zip is down.  Which it will be, most of the time.

And, last but not least!  I also made a few more little hardback notebooks… just fun little things, however I do know that the recipients do actually use notebooks regularly so I know they will be useful too!  I used mostly a mixture of leftover and old papers; from old scrapbooks, some with the children’s scribbles still on them!  I’m sentimental that way  😉 , various papers, musical paper, some pale coloured wrapping paper, writing stationery; just lots of different stuff.

The notebooks are covered variously with linen, velvet, printed cotton.  The one I made for Mum is covered with raw silk hessian.

So! Yes, it was quite a lot of stuff to make and I was working on it all like billy-o from touching down after Melbourne right up until I finished right on the wire only two days before Christmas…  I’ve been thinking about this… why am I taking longer to achieve less nowadays?  and I think it’s because I used to be happy and content with a slightly more unfinished approach… slapdash is maybe too strong a word? whereas now I am far more, possibly excessively? finicky and particular about perfect finishes on the insides.  I think I’m ok with this…  I feel like well-finished clothing is what I’m into right now.

However, to avoid the Christmas stress maybe I need to start making Christmas presents a LOT sooner!  Each year I start way ahead of time and think by doing so will relieve the stress, each year I get super stressed out and have at least one “I CANNOT DO THIIIIIIS!!” moment.  But I did.  And now for a break from deadlines!!

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