Handmade by Carolyn

golden brown

10/05/2017 7:07 pm \ 67 Comments \ Carolyn

hello! I’ve made this new blouse… I was having trouble thinking of a way to describe the colour, since the only thing coming to my mind was those white puffball fungi that upon “puffing” send forth a little cloud of smelly spores that are just about exactly this colour. Then Craig came to the rescue, suggesting “golden brown” Oh, yes, that is SO much nicer! Why is my brain sooo….? um, weird and mundane and lacking in poetic nuance?!

Fabric; a silk crepe from Tessuti fabrics in Melbourne, bought during a previous years’ trip over there with Mum and Cassie. I’ve had it marinating in the stash all this time, awaiting the perfect blouse pattern. I think this was happily, and accidentally, IT!

obligatory back view…

Pattern; the Sudley by Megan Nielsen patterns. Tim and Sam gave it to me for Christmas, after I had requested the Dove blouse pattern. Did I mention already that the Dove is perpetually sold out?? yes I believe I did. Clearly my boys encountered the same issue that I have had …. timing, it seems, is everything!! However, the Sudle is a nice little pattern, very simple, and I think I will use it a lot too.

This is actually the second Sudley I have made. I also made a dress that has now been assigned to Cassie when I realised it was just going to be a little too, er, young for me. I expect it’ll show up on ye olde blog here sometime…

Alterations: The Sudley is a very young-at-heart style whereas I am more of a hoary-old-beast-at-heart; so I made a few minor design alterations to “old” it up a bit. I opted for the plain neckline, and jazzed up the plain sleeves by running a loop of skinny elastic through the sleeve hems to gather them softly up, and made a separate bias rouleau loop “bow” which is purely decorative and just sewn on to the hem with a few firm stitches through all layers.

I also cut the lower hemline to have a curved “shirttail” line to it. The hems and the neckline are all finished by hand, because I really wanted to have a smooth clean stitch-free expanse of fabric with absolutely no visible topstitching anywhere. This is about as invisible as I could get.

Oh; one thing I did, which I would recommend for this type of neckline; you stay-stitch all around the neckline and the keyhole opening, obviously to stabilise it, however! to further help keep the neckline straight and true I kept a little bridge of fabric intact at the top front edges of the keyhole where the ties were to be attached, and maintained it throughout most of the blouse’s construction, and only cut through it at the very last minute, when turning and hand-stitching the bias binding down on the inside. I think this simple precaution really helped to keep everything true.

All seams throughout are French seams, except for the armscye seams which I just ran through the overlocker to finish. Picking my battles here! This silk, while absolutely divine and a dream to wear, was actually not much fun to sew! However! The ~~puffball spore~~, I mean, lovely golden-brown is a perfect colour for autumnal me, also I think this style of blouse suits me and I’m going to enjoy wearing it a lot. It’s going to go with TONNES of my other clothes.

Details:

Top; MN2004 the Sudley blouse by Megan Nielsen patterns with minor modifications, silk crepe
Skirt; Vogue 1247, ivory curtaining fabric, details here and my review of this pattern here
Shoes; made by me, my own design, details here

Skirt below; Vogue 8363, canvas, details here

Location: Eagle Bay, Western Australia

Wearing it out to dinner recently, with my “bookshelf” skirt. I think they go together quite nicely!

And my clogs have received a much-needed makeover! The ivory pleather part of the upper has got so worn and was starting to pull badly around where it was nailed to the soles…. I’d already fixed it once but finally acknowledged that if I wanted them to last a lifetime, and I think they can! then it was time for action. One thing I’ve learnt about making my own shoes is that if something needs a little mending or attention then it REALLY pays to get onto it very quickly. Mum had given me an ivory leather clutch years ago “for shoes” and it was juuuuuust big enough so I could cut out new pieces. I used my punch that I bought in Copenhagen, and upholstery thread in ivory to sew up and down all around, and hammered on the new uppers.

Now they’re as good as new!! in fact; I reckon BETTER!

Posted in: sewing \ Tagged: blouse, daily outfit, Megan Nielsen, MN2004, shirt, shoes, Sudley, tip, top

terracotta axel skirt

04/05/2017 5:11 pm \ 22 Comments \ Carolyn

Hey! I’ve made this new skirt. Actually I’ve made lots of new things lately and just haven’t yet blogged them… oops! Getting onto that, asap! Hehe, actually a good thing about me-made May is that it kinda forces me to blog as yet unblogged things that I want to wear that day. Well it means I have to, otherwise… what would I link to?? *horrified gasp* O, the shame of having nothing to link to!

Pattern: the Megan Nielsen Axel skirt. I bought this pattern a few months ago, on one of the several occasions I’ve wandered into Potters Textiles in fruitless search of the Dove blouse pattern. The Dove seems to be a pattern that is perpetually sold out… yes, I could have bought a pdf but I kinda had my heart set on a paper pattern. Mostly because I adore Megan’s illustrations that she does for the envelope. Aren’t these adorable? I also have another, different Megan Nielsen pattern that I have recently finished too… but that shall wait until another day and its own separate blog post…. 😉

I made the short, straight version 2 only without the waist ties because this one is actually just my trial version of the pattern… I was toying with the idea of using it for one of my Melbourne fabrics and just wanted to test it out for fit first. This is a pattern designed for firm fabrics with some stretch, because it is a tight, form-fitting pattern, but in quite a nice way I think. The style actually reminds me a LOT of the figure-hugging little pencil skirts we used to wear to high school in the 80’s. Btw, and going off on a random tangent… if you want to see a daggy homemade mockup of my old school uniform; I put this one together for a school reunion a few years ago…

Fabric: a stretch polyurethane laminate “pleather” from Spotlight. I’d originally bought several metres of this stuff on superDUPER special; I had the thought of making either shoes or a raincoat… then I went off it and shoved it away and out of sight. As you do! I’ve made quite a lot of things out of this stuff in the past, here, here, here, here and here! Some have been more successful than others and so I have a bit of a love-hate relationship with the stuff 😉 When I was searching for something to run up a muslin/trial thing I thought “oh what the heck this’ll do”, made it up, and you know what?! I’m actually liking how it turned out, like, A LOT! It’s like an old-fashioned love story; fabric and pattern met, eyes locked across the room, hearts went a-pitter-pat, the stars aligned, fireworks exploded, champagne corks opped, they rode off into the sunset together and are bound to live happily ever after.

Some details: I cut the front on the fold so as to eliminate that unnecessary centre front seam; also, to accommodate my ahem, pear shape; I pro-actively graded out from an S waist out to an M at the hips. And I’m pretty happy with the fit. See, this is why we sew! Style-wise; it’s an extremely simple, no-fuss, zero-drama design, with absolutely no closures; just the simplest of bands for a waistband that you pull up over your hips. Not even kidding, this took me like a few minutes to whip up, tops.

simple stretch waistband

I’ve learnt in the past that this pleather doesn’t hem well… so I just cut a sharp clean edge using my rotary cutter, and angled the seam allowances inside the skirt so there’s no danger of them peeping out under the lower edge.
Also, it’s tricky to press, but does look about a thousand times better if you do… it’s best to press on the underside and use scrap fabric when you’re going over the seams, the plastic right side of the fabric will soften and melt ever so slightly and I found I had to peeeeel off the pressing scrap after pressing. So it’s best to be quick and not let the iron linger on for too long! Some more of my tips for sewing with leatherette or pleather are here and here

Details:

Skirt; MN 2207 (Megan Nielsen Axel), terracotta polyurethane laminate “pleather”
Top; own design variations on the Epaulette cut & sewn from the Japanese pattern book “she has a mannish style”, also called “she wears the pants” by Yuko Takada, apricot crepe, details here
Shoes; designed and made by me, details here

Location: along the South Perth foreshore

Posted in: sewing \ Tagged: Axel, daily outfit, Megan Nielsen, MN 2207, pattern review, skirt, tip

in which I talk about my shoes…

26/04/2017 11:25 am \ 41 Comments \ Carolyn

… as in, literally, I am talking about my shoes!

So, yes; I have actually had this YouTube channel for aaaaages, and now I’ve added the link to my other social media buttons at top right. It’s been a sad neglected little thing, barely used, except for once six years ago! forgive me father, it’s been six years since my last confession… 😉 when I joined in that worldwide accents and pronunciation thing-y that a lot of bloggers did … that was fun! Although I thought that list didn’t have nearly the variety of words it could have had and there could have been more interesting questions too… the one about throwing toilet paper all over someone’s house still has me going “whaaaaat?” Anyway that lonely little vlog is no longer an only child 🙂 If I sound a bit nervous it’s because I am! Definitely it feels super weird to sit all by yourself, except for one curious pussy cat…! and talk to your computer, just so unnatural. Well more accurately you’re sorta talking to your own reflection really which feels like a very awkwardly self-involved thing to do. Also, one thing that really stands out to me after I’d listened back to myself is that I have to learn to speak up louder! Honestly, I am a very quiet person, but the volume thing? I really should know that by now… I’ve been getting the “speak up!!” feedback my whole life. That Seinfeld episode about the “low talker”? yep, that one hit pretty close to home for me!

HOWEVER! having said that, I think I should do more vlogs, it’s a good self-development tool in my quest to overcome the aforementioned “low-talking” and my shyness, maybe even help with my longterm horror of public speaking… so maybe when I make my next pair of shoes I’ll throw together another one. Yes, I am currently planning another pair of shoes… and steeling myself to cut into some of my precious fish leather that I bought in Iceland *eeeeek!! the thought of cutting into it sounds terrifying! but I think I’m as ready as I’ll ever be.

Posted in: shoes \ Tagged: shoes, vlog

gingham Kalle dress

19/04/2017 2:38 pm \ 38 Comments \ Carolyn

My new dress! Hehe, seems like I’ve got new stuff coming out every day lately but actually this is not new at all! really, it’s months and months old!! but it is new to my blog here. And the pattern is brand new to the world too, so… “new”, with caveats. The pattern is Closet Case patterns’ newest release, the Kalle shirtdress. I have been SOOOOO looking forward to wearing my version here only like ALL SUMMER LONG, welcoming it into my rotation of little dresses, cos you know how I love wearing my little dresses! I made it back in October when Heather kindly asked me to be a tester for her new pattern. SO I made it, bam! and like a good little tester I sat on it and didn’t wear it, well, not publicly, anyway! waiting for the go-ahead from Heather. Finally!

So, yes, it’s a adorable little pattern, I really love it. Heather says it is her most requested design yet, and I can well believe it! her own personal first white version was utterly delectable and had me all drool-y want-y too! The pattern has three variations; I made the dress version C but with the half-length button placket of version B. Except I used snaps because they were just handy. I also added three pockets to mine, one breast pocket, and two inseam side pockets… my curved-bottom breast pocket is a lot smaller than the one in the final version of the pattern, because the tester version was pocketless and I just added one for fun and visual interest. I see Heather has added a breast pocket to the final version of the pattern, yay! and as for the hip pockets, well I mean, who doesn’t LOVE hip pockets?! Hehe, I tried to not have my hands shoved into them in all my pictures, you know, to show the dress as it’s been designed but they just crept in there every now and again. I’m sorry, it’s just… pockets! I couldn’t help it!

The design is beautifully breezy and very comfortably roomy… I love the cute little cut-on sleeves with a simple cuff, the petite collar has prettily feminine proportions, and the exaggerated lower hemline looks quite dramatic and really cool, imo. That one big box pleat in the back is fabulous, and a pretty dramatic feature too, yes? love how the folds balloon out and down to that gently shaped back hemline. In fact I love all the features and the shape of the dress, full stop. It’s like the perfect little summer shirt-dress. I’m going to wear this one a tonne, for sure, and and probably going to make a tonne more too!

Fabric; a 100% cotton seersucker gingham. This is, um, it’s a little embarrassing… ahem, but it is actually an old tablecloth that I bought from the op shop in Toodyay, when I went there with Sue and Nicki on an alpaca-finding mission, a few years back now! Hohhhh, yeah!! “Tablecloth” might give one the urge to squeal “ew, groooosss!” but I assure you it was well washed, has no stains, and is in fabulous nick. The fabric is actually beautiful; crinkly, crisp and strong, but with a soft lovely drape. They just don’t make tablecloths like they used to!

Alterations: I pretty much made it up exactly to the pattern, because obviously I was testing! and needed to give accurate feedback. However I did do a few very minor little things…

a) as mentioned previously, I added three pockets; a curved-bottom breast pocket, and two inseam side pockets

b) for the lower hem I didn’t bother with bias tape to finish it, just turned up a skinny hem twice and hand stitched it in place. I know bias tape is an excellent choice for curved hems in certain types of fabrics, in fact sometimes it’s just about essential; but I found it just wasn’t necessary for my seersucker. Plus, I wanted my hem to be light and floppy and breezy, without any of the stiffness that comes with the extra fabric and seams.

c) for visual interest, I cut the front plackets, the sleeve cuffs, breast pocket and outer collar on the bias, although the under collar is on-grain, for stability.

d) not an alteration, but I inverted the back pleat on mine, so it’s set the same as for the little cropped shirt version A. Which, by the way, is OMIGODSOCUTE. I need to make one of these!

e) also not really an alteration as such, but Heather has reduced the neckline size by a few inches, so my collar doesn’t sit as close to my neck as it would do in the final pattern.

Note; also an excellent design for cat-cuddling

Sophie!! it’s hard to tell, but she’s being made to “wave” to the camera

Details:

Dress; the Kalle shirtdress by Closet Case patterns, gingham cotton seersucker, also my tutorial for adding inseam side pockets is here
Hat(below); Vogue 8844, ivory corduroy, details and my review of this pattern here
Shoes; made by me! details here

below; before I could “reveal” it I sneakily did wear it once or twice anyway… 😉

location: Bunker Bay, Western Australia

Posted in: sewing, Uncategorized \ Tagged: Closet Case files, daily outfit, dress, Kalle shirtdress

“bookshelf” skirt

18/04/2017 3:32 pm \ 21 Comments \ Carolyn

Hello! I’ve finished the second part of my little autumn wardrobe-lette… a new skirt! using a printed, upholstery-weight cotton canvas from the Fabric Store in Melbourne, the fifth fabric from the top in this pic of my Melbourne acquisitions…

I absolutely fell in love with this print at first sight, in fact the very minute I spotted it I GRABBED IT! Not even counting the rather yummy autumnal colours… it reminds me of bookshelves, stacked not quite full, with the colourful spines of the books tipping over a bit into the gaps between them. I love libraries, in fact it’s been a lifelong daydream of mine to have a room that is completely lined with shelves of books, from floor to ceiling, and a big squishy armchair right in the middle of the room, either faded rusty-red or bottle-green velvet, can’t decide but either would be nice, big enough for me plus at least one cat, and with one little curly-legged side table just big enough for a stained glass lamp and a cup of tea perched on top. *sigh*

Wait, where was I? oh yes ahem…SKIRT.

Pattern; Vogue 8363, one I’ve used many times before, actually I’ve just counted and have made it TWELVE times previously! You can look at ALL of them by clicking here….

Some of the many reasons I love this pattern so are; a) gorgeously deep slanted side pockets, in fact I can’t help noticing I have my hands shoved deep deep down into those pockets in, only like, every single picture. They’re just that wonderful, I simply can’t resist! Also b) straight side seams, making it a nice one for pattern matching, c) double darts in the back which lend themselves very nicely to the wide hips/narrow waist/slight sway back adjustment that I usually make. I tend to use view D for the pockets, which has a button front placket at the centre front; I obviously eliminate this though and instead have an invisible zip closure at the centre back. I also like to cut the skirt part roughly two sizes up from the waist part, because I like that boxy with nipped in waist silhouette on me.

Also, this time I added belt loops because I decided all that psychedelic tipping-stripe-y action could probably benefit by being visually reined in with a solid, sombre, no-nonsense belt. Now it’s finished and I’ve worn it thus, I think yep, this was a good idea

Partly because I stingily didn’t buy much of the print, and also partly for the same visual grounding reason as having a belt: I cut the pocket bags in a thick chocolate brushed twill, a small bit of leftover fabric harvested from Craig’s old pair of chocolate moleskins and which I used to make this skirt, also Vogue 8363.

Inner workings; I had to piece the chocolate moleskin to get pieces big enough for the pocket bags, but the seams are tucked down deep in the pockets… I used plain black cotton for the waistband facing and pocket facings. Because I’m a bit of a stickler for matching threads, I switched threads on BOTH my sewing machine and overlocker several times during the making of this skirt!

Above, I spaced it to turn up the hem exactly between two horizontal stripes in the print. The lower edge of the skirt is finished in bias cut black cotton, the same as for the inner waistband and pocket facings. See that little tiny row of mustard stitches along the top? I initially started hemming with black thread to match the bias; but quickly realised that even though I made my stitches as tiny as tiny could be, that row of minuscule black dots did show up on the right side of the skirt if you looked closely enough, and I didn’t like it!! So I switched to the same mustard thread that I’d used in other seams, which disappears nicely into the print.. so they’re pretty much invisible on the right side, which is the main thing!

Above; I chose a mustard invisible zip. When it came to placing the belt loops, I put two on the front, spaced just outside the waist-shaping dart; and three on the back, the outer two just outside the outer waist shaping dart, and one in the centre back. It abuts the waist closure, which I wondered would make it difficult to put in the belt; but it doesn’t, it slips through just fine and isn’t a bother at all. Oh, and waistband closure? there’s a wide hook/eye stitched in under there.

Also, darts?! One of the most serendipitous things I discovered about this print is that you can barely make out any darts at all! can you even see them in the above picture?? they’re just buried there in amongst those higgledy-piggledy books. WIN!

I’m wearing today paired with my basic black Tshirt because I wanted the skirt to take centre stage in this, its own dedicated post… but I also think it looks quite nice worn with the, as yet one other piece in my autumn mini-wardrobe, the apricot top. Actually, I only picked up the apricot crepe because of this fabric!

sorry for the blurriness. Clearly I’m busily dashing off on a very important mission… like, to get the leaf blower

Details:

Skirt; Vogue 8363, printed cotton canvas, my review of this pattern here
Black Tshirt; self drafted, details here
Belt; had this for about 30 years
Black s hoes; designed and made by me! details here

Above picture:
Apricot top; the epaulette cut and sewn, pattern no.4 from “she has a mannish style” by Tuko Takada, details here
Brown and ivory clogs; also designed and made by me, details here

Also; on Eagle Bay beach, Western Australia… Every time we come down here I have to walk along the beach and clamber over the rocks each day. This is one of my favourite places on Earth.

Posted in: sewing, Uncategorized \ Tagged: daily outfit, skirt, Vogue 8363

bunny top

16/04/2017 5:29 pm \ 18 Comments \ Carolyn

I’ve made a new little top… I really wanted to debut it today seeing as it’s strewn with beautiful bouncing bunnies. A bunny-tastic, rabbit-iferous Easter-rockin’ top! 😀

You know when you go to Spotlight for a handful of bits and bobs, not including fabric, but you grab a bit of fabric anyway just so you can pay for everything at the fabric counter and save yourself from queueing at that hideously long queue at the front checkout? No? Just me then… 🙂 #anyexcuse #addictedtofabric #ineedhelp

Well, this was a result of one of those times. I do really love this though. I mean, I don’t know if I’ve ever been to a fabric store and not spotted something I really love?! seriously! but I do manage to restrain myself most of the time. In this case, the soft, washed out, almost-antique-y ink drawing-like look of the bunny print is really beautiful to my eyes, it’s a novelty print and pretty cute but I think it’s also still quite sophisticated in feel. The print is more like a dirty charcoal than black, and the background has a sort of marled oatmeal/ivory blotchiness to it, which is very much my best sort of white. The selvedge says it’s a linen mix, although truthfully think the linen content is not huge.

Pattern; the epaulette cut and sewn, pattern No. 4 from “she has a mannish style”, or “she wears the pants”, by Yuko Takada. I know, I just made another of these very recently… which is why I used it probably, it was handy to pluck out from my pattern stash again, and I didn’t have to put any thought into going through my top patterns searching for a different one. #lazybum Although, to be fair; I knew it’s loose-fitting unstructured lines would be perfect for the flimsy floatiness of the fabric too.

Because the fabric is almost sheer, I lined the body part of the top with a pale coffee-coloured jersey knit, that I bought yeeeeeears ago at a Morrison sale. I’ve used little bits of it here and there, namely for this lingerie set, and also for this one too.

I cut the lining to be the same size as the shell from the armpit up, and just a bit slimmer in the body so the shell could skim over it better. I put quite a bit of thought into the best way of lining it.. should I line it or underline it? have the bottom edge enclosed? neckline binding or clean edge? line the sleeves too? eventually settled upon this way and think it’s turned out a pretty good way to line a loose top like this one. No bindings; it’s attached at the neckline and the sleeves, but otherwise floats freely and separately inside the top.

Construction method is as follows …
Firstly, sew the shoulder seams of the shell, likewise the lining pieces. With this fabric being pretty flimsy and virtually see-through, I finished all seams very close to the stitching with my overlocker.

Pin the shell and lining right sides together around the neckline, stitch and finish.
Understitch.

Sew the side seams of the shell, and separately, the side seams of the lining

Pull the lining inside the shell, wrong sides together and keep both layers together, raw edges even, when stitching the sleeve in the armscye. Sew the sleeve seams, pin sleeve cap in the shell/lining armscye right side of sleeve to right side of shell, stitch and finish edge close to stitching.

Hem the shell and lining separately. I chose to invisibly hand-stitch the lower hems in place.

For the sleeve hems; I really like the raw sheer edge and the way it gently rolls up, and wanted to keep this look, however the knit does fray a little. So I made an attempt to employ something similar to what I’ve seen Sasha of secondopiano do… I was so impressed that Sasha unravels a length of the fabric filament and uses it to properly cast off the edges of her knits in the knitting way! Or is it crochet? I just checked… it’s crochet! Her work looks so beautiful and perfectly finished. Well, I didn’t manage to crochet my edges here, I tried! but failed… I really need to get myself a teeny tiny little crochet hook I think! so instead I did a sort of cheat’s version… I threaded a sewing needle with the same beige all-purpose thread I’d used to sew the top together, and loop-stitched through each loop to finish the edge. It’s secure, it won’t fray and it’s pretty much invisible, and I love how this turned out. Thanks for the brilliant idea, Sasha!

OK, I have no idea what promoted this mad bunny pose… I’m gonna go with too much amaaaazing hot-cross bun?! Or maybe… not enough amazing hot-cross bun? Yep, that sounds far more likely… better hop off and eat another one! 😉

Details:

top, the epaulette cut and sewn, pattern No 4 from “she has a mannish style” or “she wears the pants”, by Yuko Takada, soft linen-mix knit. My previous versions of this pattern are here, here and here
Skirt; Vogue 1247, red velveteen, details here and my review of this pattern here
Shoes: black clogs made by me, here; white oxfords below, also made by me, here I almost cannot believe I have TWO me-made pairs of shoes to choose from when deciding what will go with an outfit… I feel like my self-made shoe collection is taking OFF!!!!

Posted in: sewing \ Tagged: daily outfit, She Has a Mannish Style, She Wears the Pants, top, tutorial

couture pour bébés

14/04/2017 4:49 pm \ 17 Comments \ Carolyn

Hello!

Lately I’ve been making some cute little baby suits!

We have two friends who have recently welcomed babies into their lives, both boys, and I decided to make some little hoodie suits for them. Aren’t these the cutest?? It was soooo haaaaard to choose which cute little jersey print to use! there were so many super sweet and adorable little prints available.

I agonised a bit, would the Mums prefer funny/cute? or would they prefer chic/cute? You can’t always predict what people are going to want for their babes, in the end I stuck with the safe option and went with the neutral coloured chic/cute… but just couldn’t resist the bear ears on the hoodies! So there is a little bit of funny/cute going on. I hope the new mothers don’t mind this… because I think the bear ears are adorable!

Pattern; Butterick 6372. For both sets I chose to make a bear eared hoodie, zip fronted with long sleeves, and separate trousers. There isn’t a pattern for the hoodie with long sleeves, but it’s pretty easy to juxtapose the onesie pattern piece with the armscye that allows for long sleeves, with the vest pattern piece that has the little pockets and a shorter, swingy silhouette. Yes, I put in the side pockets!!! Completely useless obviously, nearly every single family member who has seen them has asked “but what are they going to put in there???” but they’re so cute that just like the bear ears, I just couldn’t resist adding them.
Fabrics; cotton jersey from Spotlight. Both are bear prints, which fits in with the bear ears thing going on with the hoodie… am I putting too much thought into this, or what?! Anyway, I love both of them equally. Baby T is a bigger baby so the beige “bears camping” one is a bit bigger for him, and the smaller, ivory “bears in the woods” set is for baby J. To be honest, I’m seriously thinking of getting some of this fabric to make a Tshirt for myself… would that be weird?? I would just have to be vigilant to never wear it while visiting!

It was such fun making these, took me right back to when I used to make cute little baby clothes for my own bubs! I love fiddling about with the smaller and easy to manage pieces and everything goes together so fast and easy! the only difficulties I had was with the zips for the front opening. I don’t really like these ones all that much, they’re called “invisible separating zips” but they were the only ones I could get that were even halfway suitable, as in a) separating, b) the right colour and c) lightweight and “petite” enough to be ok for babywear. Also it is NOT FUN putting zips into flimsy, lightweight jersey fabric. I just went as slowly and as carefully as I could, being super careful not to stretch the fabric out very much, and I think they turned out ok. The zip for the smaller, ivory hoodie had to be trimmed a little in length, and you can’t cut any off the bottom, because you’d lose the separating part! So I trimmed it from the top and was careful to firmly secure the top edge into the seam so there’s no risk of the zip-pull flying off the top. I’m speaking from bitter experience there… it’s an old old old war wound, and don’t ask!! Just that my number one rule with invisible zips is usually; NEVER cut the top off!!

OH! I forgot to blog about this before, in fact I just checked and I made this back in February! bad blogger! but I also made another little work dress for Cassie, another Named patterns Inari tee dress. This is my fifth Inari made, my third for Cassie, she loves the style just as much as I do! Also it’s like a perfect little design for work, plus being easy and comfortable to wear, and quick to run one up. I incorporated the same sleeve-widening alteration I devised previously, to counteract the “raise your arms above your head and oh look! now everyone can see your knickers!” effect of this design.

Fabric: a piece of mid-blue suiting fabric from the small stash given to me by my friend L, when she cleaned out her garage. It’s got that distinctive vintage feel to it; cuts like a dream, a lovely weight, a bit heavy and with a texture almost like brushed wool. I overlocked the raw edges inside, with the exception of the hem edge which I finished with a Hong Kong seam in mid-blue linen, from my stash. Since the inside hem edge of this design is often glimpsed while you’re wearing the dress, I think it’s therefore much better to finish it with some beautiful, “meant to be seen” finish, than just roaring it through the overlocker. I stitched this down over the edge, before slip-stitching the hem invisibly in place.

Other alteration, the addition of inseam side pockets. Well, duh. 🙂

SaveSave

Posted in: sewing, Uncategorized \ Tagged: baby clothes, babywear, Butterick 6372, Cassie, dress, hoodie, inari

apricot split

08/04/2017 10:22 am \ 31 Comments \ Carolyn

SO! On my recent trip to Melbourne with Mum, Cassie and Tiffany; I picked up my autumn/winter wardrobe! Obviously, it was all in 2D form, oh except for a pair of Italian leather boots, whoops! well I am allowing myself to buy shoes every once in a while now… 🙂

I absolutely freakin’ LOVE fabric shopping in Melbourne! so much choice! so many beautiful fabrics, everything of gorgeous quality; and it’s SOOOO difficult to narrow it down to what you can actually fit in your suitcase. I joyfully made a zillion plans, followed by a realistic estimate of my time and what I want vs what I actually need, and ended up buying the small pile pictured below. Plus a coupla pieces of Liberty jersey for pretty colourful underthings… not pictured because their colours didn’t “go” with this autumnally photogenic colour palette here, hehe.

the spoils from Melbourne; aka, my autumn 2017 collection…

First up; this top! the third fabric from the top…

Split high-low hems are everywhere this season, and the more I saw the more I WANTED! Fortunately, this is an ultra easy thing to rustle up yourself using whatever basic pattern you already have lying around, it’s only a matter of working out your proportions…

Fabric; a heavy apricot crepe, from the Fabric Store in Melbourne. It’s thick, quite heavy and sponge-y in texture, slightly stretchy, and actually quite warm.

Pattern; modified version of the Epaulette cut and sewn top, pattern No.4 in the Japanese pattern book “she has a mannish style”, also known as “she wears the pants” by Yuko Takada, This is fairly unexciting, but a terrifically useful basic, go-to, loose, boxy top pattern; I’ve made it twice before, for myself here and once here for Cassie.

I cut the neckline and all pieces as is, and diddled about with the lengths to get the look I wanted… as follows:

side seams; 16.5cm, the remainder left open as a split
sleeve length; 37cm from apex of sleeve cap to lower edge, and with an extra 5cm for a deep hem
Front length @ side seam; 28.5cm
Back length @ side seams; 37.5cm
both front and back I allowed an extra 6cm for a nice deep hem.

For the split hem, I laid the hem allowance outside, right sides together and sewed up the side edge, then turned the corner out and invisibly slip-stitched along the overlocked edge inside, for a clean neat finished appearance on the outside.

Neckline; I cut the facings from a thin, woven raw silk for minimal bulk, the self fabric would have been way too thick for this! Interestingly, this fabric was also originally from the Fabric Store in Melbourne, bought a few years ago.

And, done! I really really REALLY love this, and can see myself wearing it a lot, and with a lot of different outfits. Actually, I originally envisioned it as a kind of cropped oversized tunic to wear layered with a long-line, slim-fitting, buttoned up white shirt with the shirttails hanging out the bottom, over tapered capri pants. However: two things; a) it’s too hot for an ensemble like that just yet, which is actually a very good thing because b) I am currently bereft of a long-line, slim-fitting buttoned up white shirt! so maybe I’d better get cracking and make one of those too?!