‘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!
Details:
Top; pattern 4, the epaulette cut and sewn from the Japanese pattern book “she has a mannish style” by Yuko Takada, organic cotton sateen fromSpoonflower, in a print designed by su_g
Skirt; the vestiges of Vogue 1247, kinda. Actually just a plain pencil skirt… organic cotton sateen from Spoonflower, in a print designed by su_g
Tights; my own design, black stretchy polyester… my tute for making your own custom-fit tights pattern is here
This is too much fun in one outfit. Love it!
thanks so much, Graca!
The time spent working out pattern placement was well worth it! I noticed right away that you must have taken some care with it, to get the motifs centered & complete but without repeating colors too near each other. It looks great!
thank you Ciara! xx
Super, super cute Carolyn!!! Your choice of patterns truly allows the gorgeous fabric to sing!! And Congratulations on being a part of Spoonflower’s roundup of makers!!! 🙂
thank you so much Lisa! I can’t wait to see what the other Aussie makers do! xx
This is awesome! So colorful and fun! The placement of the pattern pieces is very clever, I admit that this is the first thing I checked and then admired when I noticed that the bottom didn’t repeat the top 🙂
thank you Carmela! xx
What a cute outfit, Carolyn! The colourfl print works so well with the clear patterns’ lines. I love this even more because of your meticulous work. The linguistic intricacies are interesting to read about.
thank you SaSa! xx 🙂
This made me laugh mostly because I just finished reading an update on the romance author who trademarked the word “cocky” and has been terrorizing other romance authors the last couple months.
I’m glad it gave you a laugh, at least!
Just love your outfit. Had a ball going along for the read. You’re a girl after my own heart, I just love all that prep work . It makes my heart sing.
aw, thanks so much Wendie, that’s a really lovely comment and totally made my day xx 🙂
That is amazing fabric! Love it.
thank you Irene!
That is stunning! All the effort with the pattern placement has really paid off. I love the print but would never have considered it for a garment until I saw this.
thank you Catherine! I completely fell in love with the fabric the instant I saw it, just made me smile 🙂
Awesome and stunning. Truly Australian. Love it. I need to see whether I can get some fabric sent to me and/or whether the postal and customs fees will be crippling. Anita from Basel
thank you so much Anita! I do feel like it’s really Australian too, in a good way 🙂
Yesss. That print is gorgeous, what a cool quilt or tapestry it would make, too! It’s light hearted without the slightest bit of cutesyness. As always, it took a retrained pattern and impeccable construction to elevate into wearable art. Nice transition into cooler weather, too.
thank you so much Sanni! the print really does make it, I think; no further fussiness required 😉
From one member of a “scolding”, Well done!
That outfit looks spectacular! What’s not to like about being covered in cockatoos?
This is great, lovely the simple silhouettes of both the skirt and the top and the fabric is just amazing!
Would you say a confident beginner would be able to use the She has mannish style sewing book? I love the look of it but I’ve heard many things about how difficult Japanese sewing patterns (to the non-Japanese speaker) can be!
I love this fabric! I love that epaulet top too – it’s like a slightly fancier t-shirt and I really like the bell sleeves. I have made it once, like you sans the actual epaulets. The tracing was a nightmare on that packed pattern sheet but so worth it. I’m wearing mine now at work actually.
I cannot begin to imagine how difficult this fabric was to pattern match, and your description of the process makes so much sense. Having said that, it is gorgeous fabric and you have produced a gorgeous outfit.
So striking and the pattern matching appears perfect and effortless! Xx
Gorgeous outfit. My favourite birds over 600 flew over our property last night