Monthly Archives: April 2021

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cool new top

23/04/2021 11:27 am \ 6 Comments \ Carolyn

oh hey! I made a new top.

This is the Harmony pattern by FibreMood; and I really loved it upon first sight; the interesting, sailor-inspired bib collar and slightly old-fashioned sleeves with a wide, buttoned cuff. I think it has a vaguely Edwardian air about it and I am totally on board with this idea!

I used a beautiful silk/linen mix that I bought from Fabulous Fabrics ages ago… btw, I’m on a use-my-stash-only kick, since out move when I realised just how much fabric I have. Spoiler alert; it’s a LOT and I seriously want to get my supplies down to a much more manageable level. Like, to about a quarter of what I have now! Yes, very embarrassing, I know! but there it is and I’m making good headway, believe it or not! Yes, I know I haven’t posted much here lately, but I’m making a lot of toiles for Cassie’s and my new pattern and I’ve managed to harvest/cull quite a bit in the process. But, I’m getting sidetracked here… back to my top!

You’re supposed to gather the bodice into the bib, and also gather the sleeves into the cuffs; instead I carefully measured and folded mini pleats in these areas which I think suits my quite crisp fabric a lot better. I really love doing pleats in lieu of gathers, actually and have done it in quite a few garments in my time. I won’t call it “age-appropriate”, because I’ve become wary of that divisive term in recent years so I will just describe it instead as “personal-style appropriate”. That’s better!

The design actually uses an unexpected lot of fabric, and I didn’t actually have enough… I solved this problem by cutting the bib facings on the selvedge, and joined them in the middle. This enabled a much more efficient layout of the pattern pieces and of course you can’t even see the facings anyway!

The pattern advises you to put buttonholes on the shoulder closure; I did stitch them on during the making but I unpicked them when I realised buttoning and unbuttoning up on my shoulder like that was going to be pretty darned awkward; and I installed pretty pearl-headed press studs there instead. The sleeves have self-fabric looped button closure too, but they are wide enough I can easily slip my hands through without having to fiddle with those, and the cuffs can stay firmly and securely buttoned the whole time. I used pearl look-alike buttons here. Yes; all of of this from my stash! I’m so glad I could finally “marry” all of these items together into one pretty garment!

Details:

Top, the harmony blouse pattern by FibreMood, ivory silk/linen
Trousers; the Sasha trousers pattern by ClosetCore patterns, stretchy cotton denim, more details here
Shoes; made by me using a Shoe Camaraderie kit, details here

Posted in: sewing, Uncategorized \ Tagged: Clara, daily outfit, fibre mood, harmony, top

progress on wardrobe capsule…

10/04/2021 12:04 pm \ 2 Comments \ Carolyn

I’ve made some more things to add to my little make12/capsule wardrobe….

I think I got this rather smallish scrap of very nice damask upholstery fabric from my friend N when she cleared out her stash… I fell in love with the pretty ocean-blue colour immediately and the scrolling curls in the damask reminded me of seam foam… I thought there might be enough for a little skirt. And there was… JUST!! as in, I literally had the smallest quarter handful of scraps leftover after I’d finished with it!

I started out by cutting my skirt block as well I could. This left me with a micro-mini that would barely cover my knickers in wearing, so I put my university level mathematics to good use, calucating the exact width I could cut the side pieces into in order that they could fit around the entire hemline of the mini evenly and making maximum use of the very limited area. And I think I did it! I found that I could have a little bit of extra width on the last pieces to be cut, and I used these at the centre back, where I think it’s nice to have a little bit of extra length anyway. So there is a very subtle high-low hemline going on at the back too, as well as a slight curving out of the centre-back seam which give the skirt a little “kick” at the back.

With a basically finished skirt, I realised I had a small rectangle leftover that I thought would be big enough for a pocket facing, so I slipped a little pocket in the horizontal skirt seam.

It has the aqua damask at the back of the pocket, for a nice uniform look when you peek into the pocket on the outside, and the remainder of the pocket is made of the cream coloured gingham I used for my recent little top, which I’ve just now realised I haven’t blogged yet Whoops! I will get to it! it’s a prototype for Cassie’s and my newest pattern which we are working really hard on getting out very soon, I hope. Anyway, the pocket lining is from the scraps from that.

Due to lack of fabric, I finished the hemline and the waistline of the skirt using a bias bound finish… this was cut from an old shirt of Craig’s. So really, the only thing I had to buy new for this project was the zip! I hand stitched the bias bound hemline but the waistband I topstitched on my machine. The pocket is handstitched on the inside to the skirt. I love both my labels; this green one is Japanese, organised for me by my friend Yoshimi.

pocket in action… and boy do I miss my white wall in the old house!! I had to borrow this one from Cassie 😀

Next up!

I’ve had this too-big-to-throw away scrap of yellow cotton jersey leftover from when I made last year’s mini-skirt and I thought I’d be able to get a little T-shirt out of it. However I was too optimistic! and no matter how creatively I arranged it, even a little top was not going to happen. Well, maybe it could, but not without horizontal seams like I did in the skirt and in my opinion, in a jersey this is just not a good look.

Anyway, obviously I turned to my favourite old standby for smallish cuts of jersey fabric and made a set of underwear… I used my old favourite the Watson pattern by cloth habit, and managed to get two pairs of undies for one bra, which is my preferred ratio.

I did my usual adjustments to the pattern, like fully lining the bra as outlined in more detail in this post here. Also, I always cut the front of the briefs to be one piece to incorporate the outer crotch, so as to avoid that awkward horizontal seam at the front. All elastics and bits and pieces were already in my stash, and the little white bows were recycled from an old, also me-made, set from the past. I always recycle the bits that I can!

These are the second and third things in my make 12/capsule wardrobe that I proposed for myself, using all fabrics/notions from my stash. I kind still kinda wish I’d had enough of the golden-yellow fabric to make a top, because I really like the idea of a yellow top in this particular capsule, but I suppose I can still make a top at some stage in the future. Obviously I’m going to wear the underwear a lot, so it’s all good really. I’m super happy with the little skirt too, it’s exactly the kind of thing I will wear both winter and summer. I’m pretty happy it has a pocket too!

Details:

Top; from Burda 4/2014/115, details here
Skirt; my own design, old leftover damask from a friend
Shoes; made by me, details here

Underwear; the Watson pattern by cloth habit, leftover yellow jersey