June 2018 - Handmade by Carolyn

scraps cardigan

24/06/2018 3:54 pm \ 50 Comments \ Carolyn

A couple of years ago, I went down to help Mum clean out her “doing room”, the obvious outcome of such an exercise being that I then took home an embarrassingly huge amount of fabric and yarn supplies to add to my own stash…. we did manage to throw some stuff out! Not much though!!

This is just the wool. All scraps and leftovers …. scary, huh?

There’s no rhyme nor reason to the colours or thicknesses of wool there, it’s just a completely random hodge-lodge of odds and sods and bits and bobs. Hmmm, well you know me…. CHALLENGE ACCEPTED!!!

See, I reasoned there had to be at least ONE cardi in there.. somewhere…! it just had too be found! So I selected a bobbly, chocolate yarn and just cast on…

And I found it! a cardigan, I mean 🙂

I picked out a mostly autumnal colour-palette of warm golden mustards, greens and browns though there is a pretty solid presence of randomly thrown in purples, greys, orange, chartreuse, raspberry and pink too. Some of the yarns are tapestry wool, some are real knitting wool. Around all edges is a border of the same, bobbly chocolate yarn; which I’m pretty sure that Granny used to knit a set of three matching jumpers for my brothers and me when were all quite little…

Apart from the crazy mix of wool, it’s a pretty basic stocking stitch cardigan with a rib border along all the edges. I made-up my own pattern, loosely inspired by the free Miette pattern in that it is cast on at the neckline then I increased stitches at four places to create raglan sleeves; all knit in one piece, and with a single wooden button closure at the neckline. With a bit of careful measuring and halving and rationing out of yarn I made sure the two sleeves are reasonably identical to each other, a small modicum of order and method! but otherwise the colours in the body are pretty random.

knitting under the strict eye of my supervisor…

So, yay! for what is basically a freebie!! It’s kinda crazy but I’m very happy with how it turned out.

I did sort of write down a pattern, but it’s in such extreme shorthand that even I can barely work out what I did now! Sometime, when I’m feeling super enthusiastic, I might even have a good look at my notes and transcribe them into something resembling a pattern. Until then…!

Details:

Cardigan; my own design
Trousers; the Closet Case patterns Sasha trousers, grey stretchy stuff, details here
Tee; Closet Case patterns Nettie, details here
Scarf (on the rocks); knitted by me, details here
Socks; knitted by me, details here
Boots; Francesco Morichetti, from Zomp shoes

I’m wearing it today too! with the same Sasha trousers, my grey Vogue 1152 dress and my new kicks from Trenery 🙂

So, nothing to do with knitting or what I’m wearing, but I was cleaning out my phone, and found this picture of some apples I bought a couple of weeks ago… how cute are these?? they called them Mothers Day apples at the grocer. I bought some for myself since my own mother is away at present 😉

Posted in: knitting, Uncategorized \ Tagged: cardigan, Clara, daily outfit, Knitted, knitting, own design

coupla delicious merino tees…

13/06/2018 3:41 pm \ 26 Comments \ Carolyn

So, every now and then I tell myself that I’m not going to make any more winter tees since I have quite a nice little collection, really. And I think I really should be making do with less; wearing what I have, more. I tell this to myself quite firmly. But then also every now and then the fashion-loving side of me is dreaming up some outfit and identifies a few colour gaps, and thinks, if only I had a mustard tee? or a nice navy blue…? And that fashion-loving side can be a terribly convincing wench, especially when I’m standing in the Fabric Store in Melbourne, with Mum and Cassie, fingering the diviiiiiiine merino collection for which the Fabric Store is justifiably famous. On our last trip over, suitably enabled, I bought a few pieces. There may be a few other colours that came home with me and are still lurking in Le stash, too…

If I’m allowed to toot my own horn for a bit, I really feel like I’m nailing the tee-construction front at last, which is nice. I have my tried and true pattern, and my technique is pretty solid now. My tried and true pattern? well, my paper pattern was originally the Nettie, but I’ve sliced off here and added on there; and generally butchered it so much that literally nothing of the original remains. Interestingly, I originally used to use a Burda pattern for my tried and true Tshirt pattern, and heavily modified that too. Then I mislaid the Burda, and started using the Nettie instead. Then, at one point I found my old Burda pattern again, yay!! So, of course I had to overlay them, just to see. And hilariously found I’d modified these two, completely different patterns to be basically the same, final pattern, in the end. Hahaha.

blue tee has a wider neckline and lower scoop than the gold one

I’m just laying my construction out here in the interests of documenting my “sewing journey” – ha! – just because this, my current go-to method for making a plain tee nowadays, is one which has been working pretty well for me.

Seams: first I stitch a seam using a medium-long straight stitch, and stretching the fabric slightly as I go. This is partly a basting step, really. Then I go over it with my overlocker, which is both the “finishing bit” and also a reinforcement of the first stitching.

Order of construction; shoulder seams first, and once they’re overlocked I go over and top-stitch the seam allowances down to the back, about 5mm from the join. Then I put in the sleeve caps (no topstitching) and press the seam allowances towards the sleeve. Then stitch the side seams in total, from the bottom hemline right along to the wrist edge of the sleeves. Next step is to measure the neckline… sometimes I cut a low scoop neck, sometimes I leave it a bit higher, depends on my mood at the moment … and cut a strip for the neckline, 95% of the length of the neckline, plus 2cm for the joining seam; width; I generally like about 4cm, resulting in about a 1cm finished width. Stitch it in a loop and insert it, as per this tute. I then go and back edge only! top-stitch the seam allowance of the strip down to back edge of the tee about 2mm, or quite close to the join, to stabilise and strengthen this area and help prevent it from stretching out.

The sleeve edges and hemline edges; variously, I like to either add a strip, of whatever width takes my fancy at the time, or to fold the edge under in a traditional hem and stitch it using a twin needle. I’ll either overlock the edge and simply top-stitch it with the twin-needle, leaving the overlocking showing inside; or do the double fold and baste first before twin-needling if I can be bothered, which is not so often. In the case of my mustard tee, this time I actually could be bothered. If doing the strip method; it can be cut EITHER to 95% the length of the edge for a “pulled-in”, sorta sporty look, or the same length as the edge for a smoother, more sophisticated look (I think) For my gold-y mustard tee, I did a strip edging (same length) for the sleeves, and the twin needle finish for the hemline; while the navy blue tee has a strip edging (again, same length) for both the sleeves and the hemline.

It’s probably hard to tell, but I used the navy blue fabric inside out, because it was a little more intense in colour and duller on the wrong side, which I preferred. The right side of this merino knit is a touch lighter and shinier. For this reason I kinda wish I’d used the wrong side out for the mustard tee, too. Oh well, next time!

I’m wearing the mustard tee/charcoal outfit today, in fact, right now, because basically I finished it and HAD to wear it straight away! THIS COLOUR IS TOO TOO BEAUTIFUL, OUI???? The navy blue tee/red skirt/tartan scarf outfit above was put together just for experimental styling purposes, and to model it for this post; but I adore that one too so I think I’ll be wearing that tomorrow 🙂

Details:

Tees; kinda Closet Case pattern Nettie, kinda my own design; fine merino knit
Skirts; both the Paprika patterns Jade skirt, details of red one above here, charcoal one below here
Tartan scarf, above; made by me, details here
Coat, below; McCalls 5525, charcoal wool, details here
Tights; my own design, black polyester stretch, details here and my tute for making your own custom fit tights pattern is here
Boots; Roberto del Carlo, from Zomp shoes

also, on a completely different, not-even-sewing related, random note; I was outside by the clothesline with Bessie, taking pictures of her wearing my new tees, and noticed these teeny. tiny, weeny little mushrooms growing in the seat of the jarrah chair I keep by the clothesline, to put my laundry basket on. How cute is that?? I guess we have been getting a lot of rain lately!!

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Posted in: sewing \ Tagged: Closet Case files, daily outfit, Nettie, own design, top

seagull set

10/06/2018 3:48 pm \ 18 Comments \ Carolyn

O hey!!

So, what to make when you just want a super quick and easy project? usually I would reply joyfully and with complete confidence “a lingerie set!”. And I mean, I know I’m really going to enjoy wearing this, what turned out to be a nice and very pretty set, in my opinion, and I really love it, and all’s well that ends well. But I guess every now and then I need to remind myself to never ever get blasé about inserting elastic. Honestly, when all goes smoothly then it’s all so easy and you wonder what all the fuss is about; when it doesn’t then, just saying; zig-zag stitch on thin stretchy jersey, in matching coloured threads is the ABSOLUTE PITS to unpick. THE PITS, I SAY!!!

Pattern; both bra and two pairs of matching undies are the cloth habit Watson, definitely my favourite tried and true nowadays. Construction of bra modified to have a full lining with all concealed seams, as per my tutorial here, and undies altered so as to not have the horizontal crotch seam, as per usual.

Fully lined… and it’s difficult to see, but I always under stitch the front V of the bra/lining, so as to keep the lining nicely tucked inside

Material; seagull printed cotton jersey from Spotlight… so pretty, I couldn’t resist the instant I saw it! It’s a nice quality and I think the duck-egg blue and soft teal wavey/wonky stripes are really lovely, and of course seagulls are pretty apt for a beach-loving girl like me! I bought it on a trip there with Cassie… she bought some too, for a Tshirt, I think? Lining is a soft thin, polyester; white elastics and findings from Homecraft Textiles; raspberry mini-bows made by me and recycled from a previous set.

I’m including this picture of the back of the bra; because for a long while now I’ve been putting the rings and sliders in this position, which is back to front from how it’s recommended in the pattern. I’ve tried it with the findings at the front, but found this way uses less elastic, and sits more comfortably for me. Yes, you do have to have the straps adjusted to the right length before you put it on, but I just like it this way, for the moment.

I made my usual two pairs of matching undies

Pretty raspberry mini-bows! I’ve probably said it a million times, but navy/pink is one of my all time favourite colour combinations! Now for a brief post-mortem, if you don’t want to read a good whinge, stop now!

So, my biggest mistake was absent-mindedly picking up a length of navy blue underbust elastic and inserting it fully to the lower edge of the bra, with two passes of zig-zag stitch PLUS a single row of basting stitches too, including requisite thread changes for colour … before remembering that “oh yeah, I had actually gone out and bought some white elastic for this set and the blue elastic was supposed to be for a different set I have cut out right now …. *grrr* what a dweeb. That took a good hour or so of unpicking in front of the telly… to get back to square one…

The other mistake was to try out a shortcut I’d thought of in my head by stitching the picquet elastic on the undies, jersey side up . i.e. elastic underneath; and stitching with a negligible seam allowance on the cotton jersey, to avoid having to trim it after the first pass of zig-zag stitch. This was a big mistake for two reasons; firstly, turned out I’d stitched too close to the picquet edge and stitched it FULLY DOWN! but couldn’t see that I’d done this because it was underneath, and secondly, the jersey edge kept wanting to buckle and slide underneath the needle, because it didn’t have enough of a seam allowance to the right of the needle to stabilise it going underneath my machine foot. Yes, I should have gone slow to check that all was going well, but I arrogantly zoomed ahead, struggling with the buckling but making it work with SHEER BLOODYMINDEDNESS and a smattering of judiciously applied cursing; and stitched a whole waist elastic on before conceding that indeed, this was a disaster. Result, another lengthy session with the seam ripper. See comment in the first paragraph about unpicking. Moral of the story; don’t try to shortcut this step! I’ve learnt my lesson!

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Posted in: sewing \ Tagged: cloth habit, lingerie, watson

jenny overalls/jeans/trousers

08/06/2018 5:36 pm \ 31 Comments \ Carolyn

I’ve made some rather cra-a-a-a-zy, and yet rather out-there groovy-baby jeans!

And they double up as overalls too! should I ever feel the urge to wear a pair of overalls… 🙂 Sneaky conversion between the two by way of a few flat buttons inside the waistband coupled with buttonholes on the bib and straps… #havingmycakeandeatingittoo

So, these are the Jenny overalls/trousers pattern by the ever clever and uber-cool Heather of Closet Case patterns. Actually I made TWO pairs of Jennys!… but first things first; this blue denim pair are my first. To be honest I don’t know if I’m ever going to blog my second pair because I’m suffering from a retroactive hate for the fabric I used… but we’ll see! Heather asked for us to make them with the bib if at all possible, since she wanted to check out how the bib bit looked on chests. So I bravely went there. Initially I was pretty sure I would prefer to wear them as jeans, but now I’m actually a bit torn since the bib bit is rather cute?! I’m just not sure if I’m “cute” enough to get away with it, you know? I think I have a good grasp on what my style is, and “cute” is likely a stretch for me. I’m keeping my options open, but so far I’ve only worn them out in the wild sans bib #notbrave

The upper part of the legs I cut from a piece of blue cotton denim that was given to me by my friend L when she cleaned out her garage, but it was a smallish piece, not big enough for the whole jeans. So obviously, I had to make up the difference somehow. Remember my maisa jean jacket? well I actually kept all those leftover bits, most of them were the original pockets and waistbands; and I had great fun cutting and arranging and cobbling them together to make up the diff… all that patchwork does make the legs a little heavy, because of the double layers of fabric in the pocket buts, plus embroidery and rivets and belt loops, but overall (haha, see what I did there) it’s not too bad! My love of how they look outweighs the weight… if that actually makes sense!

I’ve worn them a couple of times already, whoops! It’s not that long ago I would not allow myself to wear things until I’d blogged them; must be mellowing out in my old age, hmmm. They’ve actually attracted several individual, real-life compliments from random passers-by on both occasions… this is extremely rare for me, and it’s pretty nice to hear!

In the below picture you can see the closure; a lapped zip in the side seam and disappearing inside the pocket. I really love this discreet and clever feature, although being right-handed I find it a little awkward to do up that waistband button situated where it is slightly to the back of the right side of my body. On subsequent pairs I think I’ll probably switch this closure to the left side of the trousers. Having said that though, the instructions for inserting the lapped zip are outstanding! I’ve inserted about a million lapped zips in my time, to the point where I barely follow instructions anymore, however I followed these ones to the letter, without “thinking about it” (you know what I mean) and my lapped zip is immaculately and perfectly aligned. I should follow directions more often!

Details:

Jeans/overalls; the Jenny overalls by Closet Case patterns, cotton denim and recycled old denim jeans
Tee; the Nettie by Closet Case patterns, white jersey, details here
Cardigans; both the Miette, a free pattern by Andi Satterlund, details of the red one here, the mustard one here
Shoes; made by me, details here

Soooo; I usually like to get at least one ” out in the wild and actually wearing it” photo of the things I make… well, ~~the little monster~~, I mean; Clara, and I were waiting for Craig to finish scoping out Bunnings (baby door for the patio at the beach house) and on the spur of the moment I just propped my iPhone up in the grass outside. Bam, photoshoot, DONE!!! Who needs a fancy camera and a tripod, anyway?! Oh, OK, if I’m going to even pretend to be a blogger then I guess I gotta keep up appearances, at least some of the time… 😉 Anyway it’s not a particularly good shot of my jeans, more like flipping’ terrible; but on the other hand Clara happens to be looking rather beautiful in a wolf-prowl-y sort of a way… Please admire that her coat is looking momentarily spiffy and fluffy and washed and brushed! #didntlast

btw, people often accuse her of giving side eye in my pictures.. it’s only because her eyes are actually half blue, half brown! which makes for a particularly side-eye-y sort of optical illusion!

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Posted in: sewing, Uncategorized \ Tagged: Clara, Closet Case files, daily outfit, jeans, jenny, jenny jeans, trousers, Wardrobe Refashion

a chattering of cockatoos

06/06/2018 4:29 pm \ 29 Comments \ Carolyn

‘Ello, cocky!

First things first, I have some very exciting news! For one month starting now, Spoonflower are offering a 10% discount on purchasers of ANY Spoonflower fabric by using the code “carolyn10” at checkout. Pretty awesome, huh?! I’m beyond thrilled to be able to pass on such a cool offer to anyone who reads this blog!

Now, if there’s anyone still left reading who hasn’t raced off already to scroll through the millionty-and-one gorgeous prints on offer over there…. my new outfit; and how gorgeous is this particularly amaaaazing print, huh?

my PS tute for making your photos coloured/B&W like this is here

Fabric: cotton sateen, the gorgeous print designed by su_g on Spoonflower. I was contacted recently by Allie, of Spoonflower who asked me if I would like to be a part of their roundup of “makers of Australia”… would I?! well of course I was totally honoured to be invited! and immediately raced over to Spoonflower to check out the Aussie offerings, and discovered there were SO MANY really lovely designs, it was super hard to choose just one… however I just kept coming back to this one and in the end couldn’t resist its humour, its artistry, and of course its Aussie tongue-in-cheekiness.

The Andy Warhol-inspired portrait grid of the humble cocky, designed by by su_g on Spoonflower caught my eye and made me laugh straight away; subtly Aussie, artistic, and witty with a bonus irreverent swipe at the serious art world on the side! So fun and actually it’s rather fabulous too, yes? those lovely bright beautiful colours, I knew whatever I made with it I just couldn’t go wrong! but ultimately decided its amaaaazing eye-catchiness would be the best set off by the most basic of simple shapes, a plain little pencil skirt, and rather featureless top… yes all very plain, all the better to perfectly showcase that chatteringly gorgeous print!

So, did you know that the the collective noun for cockatoos is a chattering? other acceptables are a clattering, a cluttering, a crackle, and last and least excitingly, a family…. I like chattering, personally 😉 and did you also know the term for a group of seamstresses is a “scolding” haha! Hilarious!! NOT how we like to think of ourselves, usually! Unfortunately there isn’t one for bloggers, as yet; but writers have a “worship of writers”… which is weird, no?! But I digress… #yetagain

oh, I also added two new pairs of black tights to my current stable … boring? yes… most worn things in my winter wardrobe? also yes… I use black polyester stretch from Spotlight, the pattern is self-drafted. My tute for how to make your own pattern for tights is here

Patterns: the top is pattern 4, the epaulette top, sans the epaulettes; from the Japanese pattern book “she has a Mannish style” by Yuko Takada… I’ve made this top up five times previously so obviously I love it!! here, here, here, this one for Cassie and lastly here. The skirt; so I keep calling this Vogue 1247 but really I’ve adapted and fine-tuned to the point where it barely has any of its original lines so I feel a bit of a fraud describing it thus. It’s basically just a very plain, darted pencil skirt with a straight waistband and central back zip.

Thoughts… so it does look quite a simple project… deceptively so! she declares with a dramatic twirl of her moustache!! Just kidding, it really was; though I ended up deciding to take the annoying, time-consuming, but ultimately necessary step of tracing full size copies of all my pattern pieces; both sleeves and a full size front skirt piece, both back skirt pieces, and front and back blouse pieces… why? TO FACILITATE THE ALL IMPORTANT PATTERN MATCHING TETRIS, OF COURSE!!! Given the size of those cockatoo motifs, which are actually quite large, well it took a little bit of doing, that’s all I can say…

My plan, in a nutshell; the back has a white dividing line down the centre back of both top and skirt; I knew it would be basically impossible to pattern match around the zip any other way; and then the front of both skirt and top has the opposite, a panel of cockatoos centrally aligned down the centre front of both top and skirt. Little bit of a difference twixt front and back, not a very obvious one…

I also carefully arranged the pieces so there would be a full cockatoo square at the lower hem of both skirt and top… I didn’t want for a row of cockatoos to be chopped in half! Same with the sleeves, and I also managed to arrange the sleeves so my favourite two cocky-portraits were the placed centrally on each sleeve. Obviously I also wanted for the colours to be somewhat “random” and not have an obvious double-up between top and skirt, or either side of the skirt back… It was actually pretty fortuitous than I managed to get all this just how I wanted… super lucky actually… there lots of re-arranging of pattern pieces and sighing and brow-furrowing and even a short period of time when I thought I’d have to order more fabric in order to not completely stuff up *wipes sweat from brow * very fortunately I eventually got the layout I wanted!!

Hehe, I realize now that was a rather looooooong nutshell! with probably a lot of introspective agonising that makes no sense at all, but well; it does to me. In a much more succinct nutshell; laying out the pattern pieces took almost as long as to make the outfit!!

Construction; I fully underlined the bodice and the skirt with pure white cotton voile; bought from Spotlight during one of their “buy the whole bolt and get 40% off sales” I find plain white voile to be one of the most useful fabrics to have on tap, so there was that time Spotlight announced this oft-repeated sale when I took the bull by the horns and just went for it! The cotton voile adds some structure and body to the sateen, which probably doesn’t have quite enough on its own to be a fitted skirt, really. The blouse could have gotten away without underlining, I think; but I opted to treat it the same for the sake of continuity, to give the top and skirt the same visual heft. The sleeves however, are not underlined. And if deep hems are a sign of quality, then yay! ‘cos my hems are DEEP!!

Lastly, because I love to be reminded of the provenance of things, if I can then I like to attach interesting selvedge info on the inside somewhere, in this case, the left side seam on my top…

And lastly lastly, because this bit of awesomeness is really worth repeating… for one month from now, Spoonflower are offering a 10% discount on purchasers of this, or in fact ANY Spoonflower fabric by using the code “carolyn10” at checkout. If you’ve ever been even a little bit tempted to try Spoonflower out then maybe this small incentive could be that time?!

I hope you enjoy looking through all the amazing and gorgeous designs over on Spoonflower as much as I, and thank you so much to Spoonflower for this very kind, generous opportunity and offer!