Clara Archives - Page 3 of 6 - Handmade by Carolyn

mustard pietra shorts

10/09/2019 7:35 pm \ 9 Comments \ Carolyn

Hack attack!

Despite initial appearances, my new shorts are actually based upon the Pietra shorts/pants pattern by Closet Case patterns… I loved this pattern immediately, loved the high waisted flat front with no waistband, and those cool side panels with pockets. However, I was not quite so much in love with the elasticated back … or perhaps I should specify I was not quite so much in love with my own rear view in the aforementioned elastic waist version of the pattern?!

Yes, I did make up a test version with the elastic waist first … for version number one, I cut up an old linen dress given to me by Mum. Unfortunately I decided I’m tragically allergic to elastic waistbands, with the one and only exception of pyjama bottoms. Although looking at these pictures now my rear view is not as offensive to me as it was when I first looked at them! at the same time, I am still much happier with the rear view of my second, non-elasticated and more streamlined version.

side view…

I was pretty sure I would be able to alter, modify, wrangle a de-elasticised waist with a bit of finagling… putting an invisible zip in the centre back seam and removing a whole lot of real estate from the back waist area, retaining that lovely flat front and pockets completely.

the front view looks exactly the same as the original, unsurprisingly since this is basically unaltered…

I shall now proceed to explain my butchery… and please note that these measurements laid out here are tailored to my own personal waist measurements and will obviously be different for other people. Specific measurements for each of these modifications can best be determined from your own waist and hip measurements.

I removed 6cm from the waist of the back piece; and actually swung the side edge out towards the hem edge at the same time, adding a bit of flare to the back view of the shorts…

I also removed 2cm from the top/back edge of the side pieces, tapering off to nothing at the top edge of the pocket. This wedge was also removed “mirror-image” from the front facing, shown already stitched on at the left…

I put a dart in the back piece… while my picture illustrates it to be 10.5cm, I actually stitched it a bit longer, closer to 11.5cm at its end point

… the dart is situated 10cm in from the centre back raw edge and is 3cm in width at its top edge

… I used the existing back waistband piece to cut my two new back waistbands to fit the new size…

… inserted an invisible zip into the centre back seam. Note, the centre back seam is essentially unaltered, except that the back waistband now has a vertical centre back seam too.

Because I whimsically fancied something a bit different for the back of my waistband, specifically a V-shaped cut-out effect at the centre back … I put in the zip a bit lower and stitched the top edge in an angle like so… Yes, I’m very much oversimplifying here, because making my two sides exactly identical actually took aaaaages and some super precise measuring. I even unpicked one side completely and re-did it because it’s amazing how even 1 or 2mm difference will show up as a glaring inconsistency. Hint; making a little paper template made it a lot easier to get everything perfectly mirror image; which yes, seems super obvious in retrospect!

corners trimmed and turned out…

I hand stitched the waistband self-facing down with tiny fell-stitches…

To finish; the side seams were pinned, and the already-understitched front facing was wrapped around over the top and over the back waistband piece.

Side seams were then stitched, corners trimmed and seam allowances finished etc. before pulling the whole thing right sides out. And that’s it!

Oh! of course, the ever important fabric notes… this is actually just a super cheap cotton drill from Spotlight… I LOVE the orange-y mustard colour of course, SO MEEEEE! and the random vertical dashes. The pattern sorta reminds me a lot of this felted wall hanging I made, many moons ago; my vision was of a sort of poem carved by an artistic cave man, in a language or alphabet wrought in colours and strokes of differing lengths and groupings. This is still hanging up in our front room! and you can read more about it here

Details:

Shorts; both the Pietra shorts/pants pattern by Closet Case patterns
Drapey white top; based on the loose drape top no.1 in the Japanese pattern book “drape drape”, by Hisako Sato
Hat; Vogue 8844, in khaki drill
Plain white tee; Nettie tee by Closet Case patterns, white jersey

Posted in: sewing \ Tagged: Clara, Closet Case files, daily outfit, own design, pattern tutorial, pietra, shorts, tutorial

a pink pinny

30/08/2019 2:51 pm \ 19 Comments \ Carolyn

So, I loved my red velveteen pinafore so much… it’s such a lot of fun to wear. I can’t believe I worried a little that I was too, er mature, for such a garment and I thought I might become the butt of mutton-dressed-as-lamb commentary but you know what? I wasn’t, and I’ve throughly enjoyed having a “pinny”. So I made another! though I believe this is an improvement even upon its predecessor’s near-perfection because the pockets are a tonne better, in my opinion.

Again, I used the pauline alice Turia dungarees pattern for the bodice section, and modified so the bottom part is a skirt. I put the pinafore on and pinned carefully so as to achieve the ideal proportion to suit my figure, but it actually turned out identical to the shape of my red one! I’m really really happy with the shape and length of this, it’s absolutely perfect for me,I think…

I really love the front bib pocket of the Turia pattern, I think it’s super cute.

For the pockets, I got out the pattern pieces for Vogue 1115; the shape construction and placement of these pockets is also close to perfection, in my opinion! I like my pockets to be a bit bigger, but instead of cutting the pockets bigger, I simply stitch the with a 6mm (1/4″) seam allowance instead of the regular 15mm, and boom! I have bigger pockets!

Fabric; cotton corduroy in the most totally divine shade of dusky pink!! I saw it on Potters’ Textiles instagram and raced in immediately to snap some up! Then, for some bizarre reason that I have absolutely no explanation for, I bought only 1.5m. Sure; it’s quite wide; but still I was struggling to cut my pinafore out of such a small piece, especially since you do have to be strict about following the corduroy’s nap when laying out your pieces. To be honest; I totally would have cut my pockets bigger, but was dealing with mere scraps after getting out my big, important pieces first. Anyway, I did get everything I wanted successfully, thank goodness… Normally you’d think, oh I can always get more fabric! but while I was buying it the lady in the store specifically mentioned that they were nearly out!

Like with my red pinny; I chose to line this one fully. I cut the lining using three of Craig’s discarded old business shirts. I’m kind of a stash-busting mission lately; really making an effort to reduce pieces in there that have been kept “just in case”; and particularly; fabrics/garments from my refashioning bag. I carefully harvested all the buttons off the shirts first, of course…

these matching sets of buttons are quite valuable if you make shirts for the menfolk in your life; particularly the shirts that have those mini-buttons often found on the sleeve plackets and button-down collars. It’s almost impossible to find the two sizes in complete matching sets like this in haberdashery stores.

So you’d think there’s loooooooads of fabric in 3 shirts; and surely more than enough to line a little pinafore?? but of course unless I want my lining to be a heavily patched/seamed, and therefore rather bulky thing, I could really only use the largest swathes of fabric from the backs of the shirts, and still had to join! But that’s ok; I still feel good about using up at least a little bit more of the refashioning bag! The lining for my straps was harvested from one sleeve.

THIS! is a cautionary tale…. so, when you’re making welt pockets, and you come to the all-important, ever-so-precise task of cutting the welt opening in your dress fabric? It’s a good idea to check that your lining fabric has been flipped up out of the way first. Yeah. *kicking myself BAD over this disaster…. I used my rotary cutter, and cut the most beautiful clean neat welt pocket opening through the front of my pinny…. AND THE LINING UNDERNEATH AT THE SAME TIME TOO. Fortunately this only happened once, on just one pocket I mean, and I realised straight away. If I’d done it for both pockets, I would have seriously considered replacing the lining, for real. Anyway; I bandaid-ed the problem by ironing on a strip of iron-on interfacing and indulging in some furious and thorough zig-zagging. Not the most beautiful of repairs, but experience has taught me that this is both a durable and efficient method of fixing a cut like this.

Miraculously, I unearthed a very small length of pink, bias cotton cotton voile from my stash, that I made so long ago I barely remember it. But it was just enough to finish the hem!! STOKED!!!

So happy with my pinny!!!!! I’ve worn it a couple of times already, and am over the moon with it!

I am wearing it here with one of my wool-mix Nettie tees, probably one of my most worn winter tees! my self-designed and -made black tights, and my favourite motorcycle boots.

Now… for something completely different!

Recently I had a conversation with my good friend E. Now, E is one of my closest friends, we’ve been so for decades and I hold her opinion in high regard. At the same time! she doesn’t even know I have a sewing blog really, and though she knows I have an instagram account I’m totally sure she has never looked at it… why? because the topic of our conversation on this day was about her recent holiday with her husband, and as an extension of that; how she feels super strongly that “instagrammers” are ruining the world and are just beyond despicable, in her eyes. In her own words; she despises instagram, because people are obsessed with taking their pictures in the most beautiful places and are thus destroying these places for everyone else, in both the taking of the photos, and the damage they do while doing so. And not to mention they look ridiculous in their ballgowns and long tresses blowing in the wind, out on the moors, or in front of a particularly picturesque cottage, that’s not even their cottage, or whatever….. Now… on the one hand I can certainly see her point, especially when it comes to people monopolising key beautiful tourist spots, setting up tripods and preventing other people from enjoying the view because they are prancing around right in the middle of it. Our conversation didn’t even touch on people leaving rubbish behind, or treading on and damaging delicate flora or anything physically destructive like that! though of course that is a problem too. My friend blames instagram completely for all this.

Now of course, I have thoughts! I personally love instagram! though I can see too that all of her points have validity. I know exactly the type of instagrammer to which she is referring… I have seen them myself too. And secretly thought how silly it all looks. And I know I might well be accused of being one of “those prancers” sometimes…!! HOWEVER; I would argue not! since I take great care to take my own photos in complete private. I think this is something not many readers of my blog or viewers of my instagram understand about me; I am actually a very shy and quiet person; and would be terrified to take photos of myself in front of other people. I need complete isolation! If there were other people there enjoying the view and taking their own pictures or whatever, you can bet your bottom dollar I am NOT going to be getting in their way, or taking my own pictures. So while the evidence is there on my blog that I do indeed take pictures of myself in beautiful locations, I’m not really making a spectacle of myself in the action of doing it; if that makes sense.

It’s always felt logical to take photos of my new creations in my favourite spots. It just gives me lots of pleasure to make this happen. Should I stop? because I’m being ridiculous? or continue because it gives me joy? rhetorical question btw, no need to answer… I don’t even know why I’m going got all this effort to explain myself really, except maybe to lay out my own thoughts coherently. Did she strike a nerve? maybe. I have a sense of the ridiculousness of it all, even while I’m doing it. But at the same time, I want to take pictures of my clothes, and I like the idea of nice photos, though my commitment to this waxes and wanes. I did actually go for a fairly long period of time where I only took pictures in my own garage, or in our own house and garden. I don’t know if it even went noticed on my blog here because I am fortunate to have some quite picturesque corners in my garden, but yes; I went off the idea of ” real” photos “out and about” for nearly a year…

And obviously; I am super opposed to damaging the environment in any way. If I love a beautiful spot, I definitely want it to stay beautiful for the future! Leave only footprints and take only pictures. Am a big proponent of that.

I’m not sure what the right answer is, but I guess I should just continue to be super vigilant and careful about taking my photos only when alone. It’s easy to “say”, like many people do in this time of (over?)-sharing; that I don’t care what other people think of me, but obviously that would not be true!

What a weird, double life I’m living! Maybe I should just delete all this?!

Posted in: sewing \ Tagged: Clara, daily outfit, own design, pauline alice, pinafore, pockets, turia, Vogue 1115

a raincoat for Cassie

25/08/2019 7:07 pm \ 7 Comments \ Carolyn

Yes, I may be modelling it here, since maybe I stole it for a few days after finishing it, hehe, but this raincoat was always for Cassie and is now safely residing in her wardrobe, where it should be! I ended up finally giving it to her a coupla weeks ago. Luckily I had taken photos of me wearing it because it’s just not so easy anymore to take photos of her, now she’s moved out of home… *sob* She popped over today for some Mum/daughter time and I asked her how it’s been. She says it’s waterproof, it’s a good size to wear over regular winter clothes which is just what you want from a raincoat, and she loves it, all three of which are always very gratifying to hear!

Materials; So, I’ve had this beige pleather in my stash for aaaaaaaaages, so long that I barely even remember buying it! although I do remember it was from Spotlight. I’m in a real stash-busting frame of mind lately, so TIME TO GET THIS STUFF MADE UP AND OOOOOUUTTA THERE! It’s pretty hideous stuff to sew; slightly stretchy and with that “sticky-ness” of pleather so it doesn’t move nicely under the sewing machine foot at all. I used strips of tissue paper for each and every top-stitching seam… see here for my tips on sewing leather or pleather

Lining fabric from the deep stash; have no idea now whether I bought it originally or whether it was one of Mum’s throw-outs. I used a slightly different beige lining fabric, also deep stash; for the sleeves. All three zips, hood cord, cord stops and eyelets are all from Spotlight.

I couldn’t find the same seam sealer I’ve used for all my other raincoats; BCF is now stocking the above sticks of wax for the job. I couldn’t help thinking they were basically candles without the wicks and maybe I could use one of the many candles I have already! but bought one anyway. It proved not very easy to use, since it was quite “firm”, not really soft enough for the job; and you have to rub it quite vigorously over the seam to get it insinuated into the stitch holes which seemed to stretch the fabric out a little. Then, I tried melting it a little in a (real) candle flame, before dripping it over the seams, then eventually moved to softening the wax stick in the flame just a little before commencing to rub it in. The last wasn’t particularly easy either, because the wax only stayed softened for about five seconds away from the flame before it hardened up again, and needed another “soften” in the flame; but in the end I decided this was the best way to get the wax well-worked thoroughly into the seam holes.

But it works! the raincoat is waterproof and that’s the main thing. Though if I had a choice, I would probably choose the chemical seam sealer over the wax stick… actually I only just had a thought; I have some real beeswax somewhere, and wonder if this would actually work better? It’s quite soft naturally and so might prove easier to massage into the seams…. something to think about trying next time!

Pattern; is my own. I’ve made this up three times previously, my first go is here, my second, also for Cassie! is here, my third is here. I’ve added little improvements and modifications each time I’ve made it up; this one is, dare I say, the nicest yet… although it’s always had the most awesomely practical and deep pockets, if I do say so myself! I gave this one a big upgrade when I lined it fully with golden beige polyactate lining fabric. This makes it quite delicious to wear, and makes me wish I’d properly lined my own raincoats with something more traditionally “dressmaker-y” like this. I lined my first and second raincoats with a soft mesh, which is very nice, but the lining fabric is definitely silkier and far more luxurious against the skin. Again… next time!

o hey you gorgeous thing! fluffy photo bombers are always welcome!!

I also gave it an internal pocket, just a simple patch pocket on the left breast; simple but extremely useful. Yes, ahem; I am realising this raincoat IS most definitely far nicer than my own! I should have kept it! jk

.. cheekily wearing it “out” another day! I wore it to the sewing guild meeting with my dp studio “Eve” dress, my handmade black tights, and the booties Craig bought for my last birthday present…

Posted in: sewing \ Tagged: Cassie, Clara, daily outfit, own design, raincoat

terracotta skirt; 6 different ways

22/08/2019 3:17 pm \ 7 Comments \ Carolyn

I’ve loved this skirt so much! but it’s been worn and worn and worn and the placky-dack fabric got so crazed and brittle in places towards the end there, I’ve finally been forced, forced I say! to bid it adieu; because my husband was like, that skirt is AWFUL. And I had to sadly admit; dear, thou speaketh the truth.

I made it two years ago, using a plastic-fantastic polyacetate/vinyl stuff from Spotlight, and the Megan Nielsen Axel skirt pattern. It most definitely got its magic number of 30 wears… just. It was fairly shredded towards the end of its life, but it got there! I’m giving this awesome little terracotta workhorse a little salutary send-off by reminiscing about some of my favourite outfits in which it featured… Six outfits, to be precise… and everything else I’ve made in the outfits here is linked to its original construction post.

Above; at left; ok, being real here; this is not the most awesome “outfit”, per se; but this OOTD pictures holds a special place in my heart because it was Clara’s first feature on my OOTD blog… LOOK AT THAT LITTLE SCRAP OF PURE CUTENESS!! SO TINYYYYYYY!! sigh. If only they could stay so little and cute like that. But without the puppy-insanity, thanks…. I’m wearing the skirt here with my leather sleeved/wool/silk top, my trusty homemade tights (as always) and my heeled black booties…

At right; I really love this outfit, and wore my caramel suede cardigan with the skirt quite frequently… also with my pink Pattern Magic twist top, ye olde homemade black tights, and my favourite motorcycle boots that I wear practically all winter long…

Both these outfits above were from my spring 10×10 challenge from two years ago, during which the skirt proved its workhorse-ness to me most satisfactorily! At left; worn with my mustard silk crepe blouse, itself another of my creations using a Megan Nielsen pattern, the Sudley…. and also my own handmade white oxford shoes.

At right; worn with my blue-check hoodie from a Burda pattern, my navy edged white Nettie tee, my black tights and, yet again, the favourite boots….

Above, at left; I love the colour combination of this outfit, so much!! wearing the skirt with my teal-blue Nettie tee, my paprika tie-front cardigan, my mustard raincoat, the homemade black tights and my KronKron shoes that I bought during our holiday in Iceland…

At right; I discovered this outfit combo quite late in the skirt’s life, sadly, because I absolutely love it so much I definitely would have worn it over and over again if the skirt had lived a bit longer! My wonky apricot striped T-shirt from a Burda pattern, and my olive suede tunic-tee, from another Burda pattern. Same old black tights, and the little suede booties Craig gave me for my last birthday. Love these !!

Sooooo, this skirt has been pretty great, so I’m a little sad it died, but you know what? Time to cultivate a new favourite. What will take its place in my little skirt-loving heart, I wonder? I can hardly wait to find out 🙂

Posted in: Uncategorized \ Tagged: 6 different ways, Axel, Clara, Megan Nielsen, MN 2207, skirt

black Clementine

12/08/2019 10:52 pm \ 12 Comments \ Carolyn

Oh my gosh, I am so behind! I’ve made this new dress … and have worn it and why have I not blogged it? I used to have quite a strict rule about not wearing something until I have written a blog post for it, but things have been so hectic and complicated lately.

So I received a length of beautifully soft, perforated black suedette fabric from Minerva, and also the Clementine dress pattern, the inaugural pattern from a new pattern company, Forget-Me-not patterns and the marriage of these two items bore the most satisfactory fruit; this delightfully witchy-chic and I think rather elegant little number… I only had 2m of the suedette fabric which was technically not enough to make the dress I wanted to, but somehow I made it work! with some sneaky patching together here and there. Specifically, the side front and side back panels have a waist seam, and the back panel has a centre back seam. Not that you’d ever know that wasn’t completely intentional if I hadn’t pointed it out, right?!

The Clementine is a terrifically versatile pattern, a fit and flare style with princess seams, designed for a stretch knit, and includes a top and dress variations, with either a scoop neck or a cowl neck option. Also three different sleeve lengths marked too.

I went, very predictably I’m afraid, for the dress option, with the cowl neck, and the three quarter sleeve length…

My suedette, being perforated, is actually a little bit “peekaboo” close-up, so I chose to underline my dress completely with some very thin, beige/greyish-ivory knits I had in my stash already. Two slightly different fabrics, of an annoying length each of which wasn’t really enough on their own to be useful enough for anything much so I was mighty pleased with myself when it occurred to me I had “just enough” of each combined to cut out my underlining! I clean cut the suedette and the beige knits using my rotary cutter and left them unhemmed, since the fabrics are all non-frayable and quite stable; however I did opt to hem the sleeve hems since these areas are subject to a bit more stretch and strain. Each of the underlining pieces was cut to be 5cm shorter than its corresponding outer shell piece. I stitched each seam, before overlocking the raw edges in a second pass. The pattern is reeeeally economically designed for minimum fabric wastage, with a 6mm seam allowance. Highly approve of such thriftiness! although it doesn’t leave any wriggle room, should one wish to indulge in a bit of post-cutting size-fudging/alteration, ahem! fortunately I went with my recommended size and feel like the sizing is just right.

I am completely in love with that s0ftly draping cowl neckline! It’s my favourite feature of the dress!

At the back neckline I overlocked the raw edge of the suedette shell self-facing, turned it down over the underlining, and simply topstitched it in place…

I was quite pleased with myself when the front facing/underlining turned out quite clean and neatly done; I cut the front underlining the right length so as to stitch to the lower edge of the front self-facing, right sides together, and then when I stitched the shoulder seam I sandwiched the back shoulder edges in-between the front and its self-facing, so all raw edges are neatly hidden inside.

I liked the idea of the dress being middy length, so lengthened all pieces by 15cm at the lower edges… this is the very maximum I could get out of my metre-age! I was actually kicking myself I had not ordered more fabric, but was rather chuffed I managed to make it work, yay!

And that swish factor! I love a dress with a bit of swish!

I have to say; Clara was being so sweet the day I took these pictures! I was down south alone with her on this particular week, and setting up to take photos of my new dress and she just snuck over and plopped herself down loyally at my feet, without even being asked… I was so touched! although the little nose touching my hand in the first picture make me suspect she thought a treat might be in the offing; poor girl, it was not!

I am wearing the dress here with my self-made tights – think I might need to make a new batch of these before winter ends!; and the boots Craig gave me for my last birthday. It’s funny, I didn’t actually think these would get a tonne of wear since I have several pairs of black booties/boots; but I’ve enjoyed wearing them so much this winter. Maybe even my most worn pair of boots for the year?… maybe?!

Posted in: sewing \ Tagged: Clara, clementine dress, dress, forget-me-not patterns

dog treats

19/07/2019 10:57 am \ 12 Comments \ Carolyn

Recently I made a large batch of dog treats for Clara and she’s completely obsessed! And I, unlike many bloggers, do not use that word lightly! She would do absolutely anything for these, and what’s more they cost roughly a third of what we’ve being paying for dog treats up until now… so I thought I’d record my recipe for posterity…

this is her “super attentive and totally focused on me” face…

We’ve gone through a metric tonne, give or take, of dog treats in our quest to train this adorable, but quite feisty little wench… I must say I don’t remember Sienna ever being such a handful but maybe like having babies, you forget. Anyway,… she had a definite favourite treat, that’s proven quite difficult to lay our hands on because it seems to be perpetually sold out. This elusive treat is like a rusk; it’s made with real beef, and sometimes has cranberries and rosemary in it too. It’s also pretty expensive. Anyway I decided, how hard could it be??

I made up my own recipe and it was staggeringly successful! I’d googled “dog treat recipes” and the options that came up, well WOOF; and I don’t mean that in a good way. Most of them didn’t even have meat in them, while still claiming to be a tasty “treat” for your dog. I mean, Clara likes not-meat things too, but meat is definitely her very favouritest thing in the whole wide world to eat! In the end, I got inspiration from a baby-rusk recipe, of all things. This one to be specific; although if you look at it you’ll see it bears zero relation to mine here.

Without further ado!

Dog treats:

500g minced beef
2 cups plain flour
1 large egg

Cook mince in a frying pan, stirring constantly so as to keep it all broken up and no lumps. If mince is very lean I sometimes start with a little water to keep things moving and avoid the mince sticking to the pan; but usually the meat’s own juices are sufficient… When cooked let it cool to lukewarm. Tip mince into a food processor with the flour and blend thoroughly… it should end up with a mealy/breadcrumb-y texture. When thoroughly “crumb-y” add the egg and pulse again, the mixture should form a good dough-like texture that is not sticky and can be rolled out easily. If it is a bit sticky, knead in a touch more flour. Roll out, cut into shapes, and bake at 180C for 15-20 minutes or until golden brown and quite hard. The length of cooking time depends on how thick you’ve rolled it… I rolled to about 4mm, and this yielded a HUGE quantity of bikkies.

Obviously you don’t need to cut fancy shapes, because this is the time-consuming bit really; you could just cut into a grid of squares and separate them for baking. Also, this is quite a basic recipe; I just wanted to sound her out to see how it all worked out before getting into gourmet territory. For the next batch I plan to try some variations:

To be added at the same time as the flour and blended in::

1/4 cup of dried fruit, such as apples or cranberries,

and/or 1tsp dried herbs, such as rosemary, sage or parsley

My only regret? That I do not have a dog-bone shaped cutter. I do though, plan to address this awful travesty…

obedience!!!!

Posted in: Uncategorized \ Tagged: Clara, recipe

black and cream Eve dress, dp studio

30/06/2019 7:23 pm \ 17 Comments \ Carolyn

Not very long ago, I was contacted by dp studio, a pattern company whose offerings I’ve always found super interesting and intriguing… I bought a few of their patterns last year but am still yet to find time to make them up… eek!! Anyway, they wanted to know if I would like to review one of their latest. Would I?! Omigosh, yes!! They have recently brought out a new thing… something called a “kit couture” that is a collaboration between dp studio and Hamon, a fabric and haberdashery store in Paris. The kit comes in a rather beautifully packed box, and includes the sewing pattern, fabric, and all notions and bits and bobs you needed to finish making it. Very luxe. I was so excited to try it out!! They didn’t have my first choice, but I did like the look of the kit they offered me quite a lot and I anxiously awaited its arrival.

Did not disappoint!! The kit I received was for Le 912, the Eve dress, described on the box as “Robe effect portefeuille a manches longues” Oh, how I wish I could speak French! everything sounds so much lovelier and more poetic than in English… the translation is “dress with wallet effect and long sleeves”

The fabric from Hamon is absolutely lovely; a 100% viscose with a beautifully soft and floaty hand to it, and a loose flowy, silk-like drape. Divine!! Even better, the print is super pretty; black flowers and leafy tendrils on a creamy background. I think this creamy ground suits me quite well, my “white”, so to speak; so I was very happy with this. The kit also contained a lightweight, fusible interfacing, a stable, fusible stay-tape for the bias cut opening edges and the shoulder seams; and length of perfectly colour-matched satin ribbon for the belt/tie. Oh! and a reel of perfectly colour-matched, cream coloured thread. This was actually overlocking thread rather than all-purpose thread, but I found it quite nice, not woolly; and to be absolutely fine for the purposes of sewing this very delicate fabric.

I really enjoyed making up my dress. Lately – well I mean, once I’d got my mad, rough knitting bag project out of my system; I’ve been more in the mood for careful, quietly lengthy and dedicated sewing projects; something that takes time and effort, and maybe even requires unpicking and re-doing things over and over until I get them right. I think it’s the process of making Kelly’s wedding dress that has brought this new mood for meticulous perfection upon me. Will this be the case from now on? possibly not! but it is right now so I’m contentedly riding that wave in serene and unhurried happiness.

I initially made long; bias cut ties, seen above; using the black/cream print for the waist tie, which is actually what the pattern instructions tell you to make. Ultimately though, I didn’t like these so substituted the included cream coloured ribbon tie instead, which is really much nicer in the end; prettier, softer, and easier and more comfortable to wear too.

Craig heartily approves of the dress which I found slightly surprising. After all, the dress is quite “covered up” and not figure hugging or the least bit “sexy”; and Craig usually prefers this sort of thing… #husbands However, he really likes this one; called it “classy” and “really nice”. Well OK then!!

One thing the kit did not include was a required button; but I’m perfectly ok with that since I have about a billion buttons and absolutely zero need to ever buy buttons again in my lifetime. I used a tiny, “pearl-with-a-shank” button for the closure.

Yesterday, we went to the city and my reluctant-photographer husband Craig kindly took a few pictures of me, for my blog. Well, that was an unusually nice surprise! Hurray!! Afterwards, I regretted a little that we hadn’d taken Clara, since she goes so nicely with the dress. #dressingtomatchyourdog #itsathing #promise

So I couldn’t resist another picture at home, this time including my very worthy little accessory, hehe

Details:

Dress: le 912, the “eve” dress by dp studio, cream/black viscose
Shoes; Vitullimoda, from Zomp shoes
I also wore my hand-knitted cardigan all day, because it was a COLD day! Jo Sharp Tweed Coat, shortened, in Jo Sharp Silkroad DK tweed yarn in colour Peppercorn (col 425), blogged here

Posted in: sewing \ Tagged: Clara, daily outfit, dp studio, dress, eve, eve dress

the mother-of-the-groom, plus a gorgeous bridesmaid

03/06/2019 6:55 pm \ 26 Comments \ Carolyn

So, I made my own outfit for Tim and Kelly’s wedding too, of course! I’m posting about this outfit before the wedding dress, partly because I’m waiting for the professional photos … a social media blackout was imposed for the wedding, although of course I was far too occupied chatting to all our friends and relatives to even think about taking out my phone a lot of the time anyway!! I did take a coupla snaps during our getting-ready period, and during the reception, but for about 99% of the day my phone stayed firmly silent, neglected and untouched in my bag. And honestly, that’s the way important celebrations should be done anyway, I think!

If there’s a nice professional picture of my outfit from the wedding, I will edit later to put it here. But in the meantime these’ll do…

I used Vogue 1537, a Kay Unger design. I bought this pattern ages ago and have always wanted to use it for some special occasion outfit. What could be more special than my son’s wedding?!!

I knew in my head exactly the fabric I wanted to make it out of… textured damask or brocade ideally a nice warm light pink, though actually dark pink, would have been ok or anything even remotely pink would have been considered actually. Yes, pink is my current obsession, I may have mentioned that once or twice before, hehe…. anyway, do you think I could find anything even vaguely pink? of course not! despite the fact that pink is allegedly the colour of the season and although I scoured through every single fabric shop in Perth and Tokyo, and even hunted through the offerings of several online stores with the single minded determination of a sniffer dog. Ultimately a failed sniffer dog with absolutely nothing to show for a heckuvva lot of sniffing though, sadly…

I found a few damasks at Fabulous Fabrics, less than a handful of colour choices, and the colour that was the most acceptable to me was this ruby red silk. Admittedly, it is a lovely colour. I did consult with Kelly as to whether she thought it too bright – I didn’t want to be be too conspicuous!! and luckily she gave it a big thumbs up 🙂

The dress has a fairly plain front, which I love! with a shallow scooped, wide neckline giving a 60s-chic, almost Jackie Kennedy feel to it! The visual interest here is in the back; a deep low V with wide straps to hold the two sides stable, and which also fortuitously happen to hide one’s bra strap. Handy!

The dress has neckline facings, and is fully lined with deep navy/gunmetal blue lining fabric, also from Fabulous Fabrics.

I bought the deep maroon zip from either Spotlight? or Fabulous Fabrics? … I can’t remember which now. Often one store doesn’t have quite the colour I need so I’ll just quickly stop by the other and hope for a better match there!

I attached a small length of ribbon with a press stud so to hold the bra strap securely under. Remember the lingerie set I made specifically to wear with this ensemble? Now you can see why although my outfit is not navy blue, how it matches perfectly!!

The sheath dress as it is drafted turned out way too boxy for my tastes, in fact I’m willing to bet money that the model on the pattern cover has the dress nipped in at the back with a big peg or two! – and I ended up bringing it in through the back princess seams by several inches to give it a lot more shape through the waist. I also had cut the dress longer by 5cm all round, and just had to trim the hemline off shorter around the front, to make the shaping adjustment possible.

The coat!! I do LOVE the dress but the coat HAS to be my favourite part of the ensemble! It is single breasted, with three quarter sleeves, with arrowhead tabs and self-covered, decorative buttons – more about these infamous things later!, a deep, curved collar, and lovely deep deep patch pockets with flap openings.

It too is fully lined with the same navy/gunmetal blue lining fabric, and I stitched in one of my new labels…

spare button attached inside….

I loved making this, and wearing it, and I think I will be able to wear it again in the future, even over jeans or dresses for daywear every now and then. I will see!

I went all out with the bound buttonholes…

oh the button saga! sooooooo, as I’ve mentioned in a previous post, I covered 100 11mm buttons for Kelly’s dresss, and thought what this ensemble reeeeeeeally needed was also self-covered buttons, because after all the entire thing is all in one fabric and some other non-self-covered buttons would have just looked a bit random, probably not quite matching, and just scream “homemade”. So I ordered some 28mm buttons from the same vendor from which I purchased Kelly’s buttons. And waited. And waited. And waited!! For about three weeks! and I was just getting more and more worried, finally with only just over two weeks to go until the wedding, I thought that if they’d been lost in the post as I suspected they had, then I’d better order more NOW or the replacement order was just not going to get here on time. So I contacted the vendor with an emergency request to send me some more 28mm buttons by the very fastest postage service possible with a tracking number, and she did so. And to my great relief the replacement buttons turned up with just a week to the wedding! Phew!!

As I did with the bridal buttons; I spray painted the bare buttons with red spray paint, leftover from my Queen Rutela cosplay; which helps make the smooth metal surface a bit “grippier” and easier to cover. They covered up perfectly, and I could finally finish my outfit, in plenty of time for the wedding. So relieved!

there’s that spare button!

Dressmaking details now, er addressed, haha; the following is story time… please feel free to stop right now if the sewing details are all that is of interest. Fair warning:

So, the previous modelled photos are obviously a bit of a pre-enactment, and the above mirror selfie in which I am all made-up and coiffured as befits the mother-of-the-groom status about to be undertaken, was quickly snapped on the day while waiting for my uber, … it was such a busy day!! In fact it was a super busy week beforehand too, come to think of it. Kelly’s family came over from Adelaide during the week, and we had a delightful dinner at the Boatshed Restaurant with her parents on the Thursday night, actually overlooking the jetty where Tim proposed to Kelly which was nice! Then on Friday evening, we had a big family dinner with both parents and all of our kids, and T & G who are the other groomsman and bridesmaid alongside Sam and Cassie.

On the day itself, Craig and I walked Clara early, then I had my hair appointment, then quickly came home and threw on my outfit and headed straight to the hotel to “get ready” with all the other girls! though obviously I myself was ready by that point, Kelly had kindly invited me to be a part of the girly fun and I was really excited to join in with them too. Craig had already headed in separately for his own “getting ready” session and photoshoot with Tim, Sam and the other groomsman T, before he had to nip out and come back home to meet the dog sitter, pick up Craig’s parents and bring them in to the hotel where they were checking in for that night.

The hotel room where the girls were getting ready was a scene of quietly controlled pandemonium. Kelly had booked a suite with a living area, coffee table and desk area; the coffee table was piled high with snacks, fruit and drinks and just general crap; and the desk was absolutely chocka with hair and makeup paraphernalia… Flowers, dresses, shoes, and overflowing suitcases were stacked up in the dressing room. Not to mention the room was bursting with people too! Kelly, Cassie and G (bride and bridesmaids), L and me (mothers of the bride and groom respectively), H (Kelly’s sister), the hairdresser, the makeup artist, Shosh the photographer and a male videographer whose name I was told but which is now lost to me in the excitement of the day… everybody bustling and chatting and working and laughing and manoeuvre-ing around each other taking pictures… so much fun!

Cassie went and sat on the window sill to be out of the way, and she looked so pretty I couldn’t help snapping a picture…

we hung the wedding dress up in the window for Shosh to take some detail shots and I took a picture of her, taking a picture of the dress #someta …

Kelly putting on her jewellery… she was supposed to be wearing a bracelet belonging to an aunt for her “something borrowed”, but there was some miscommunication, I’m not sure what happened, but I ended up lending her my own bracelet … Shosh took a picture of me putting it on Kelly’s wrist, I’ll post it when I get it!

also, my three at the reception… my heart was fair dinkum bursting with pride when I took this one!

Cassie made her own dress, and it turned out just beautiful!!

oh did I mention I made the other bridesmaid G’s dress? She looks absolutely lovely yes? I think so, and I’m so grateful to her for her charm and natural beauty, making my dressmaking look far better than I deserve. To be honest, I wasn’t very happy with this dress, it was actually a bit of a nightmare and once or twice I nearly despaired of it and seriously considered heaving the whole thing in the bin and starting over from scratch… however it came together in the end and on the night G’s radiant demeanour made it look far more lovely than I could have hoped for! Thank goodness for gorgeous young girls!!

Essentially, I used the same patterns I used for Kelly’s dress; the bodice from Vogue 9239 (above left) and skirt modified from Vogue 1032 (above right), all custom fit to G. Style-wise, for G’s dress I obviously cut the skirt pieces so as to not have a train, and the back pieces are cut so as to have straight up princess seams at the back and not have that weird seam curve in to centre back. I made the initial muslins to include that curve and we all agreed that it was, ah, unattractive… The front and back skirt pieces were all cut so as to have a straight-as-possible waistline seam at the top, attaching it to the bodice. I altered the seams on the bodice so as to join up to the skirt princess seams, and of course did a FBA for both G and K. Both girls I had to custom fit quite extensively from the pattern, and I think I did a pretty good job here if I say so myself, because the fit is spot on! We discussed the neckline for G, and settled on a wide, off-the shoulder V neck, which is absolutely lovely on her.

The slightly stretchy, navy blue crepe was bought from Homecraft Textiles? I think? and unfortunately it was pretty awful to work with. It did NOT want to iron flat and smooth and just seemed to shrink back slowly into a natural, very slight crinkle that just looked like it needed a good press all the time. So you’d give a good solid press, and an hour later it would once again look just like it had been rolled up in a plastic bag for the last few days. Also the neckline, despite extremely careful hand-basting and stay-stitching and under-stitching, just wanted to curl outwards, both front and back, in a way that fair dinkum drove me absolutely crazy and almost broke me, to be honest. I’m pretty sure I shed actual tears over this, at least once, although it’s all a blur now because I had “moments” over just about everything to do with sewing for this wedding #iwishiwaskidding. I tried everything I could think of to fix the aforementioned curling, ultimately the only thing that worked was a very subtle hand-done gathering stitch along the under-stitching line, which I drew up just very slightly and fastened off each end at each endpoint of the V, front and back. Sounds like a pretty tacky way of dealing with it, I agree, but I was desperate and in the end this actually seemed to do the trick. Hallelujah!

I did the narrow rolled hem by hand, which took about as long as you’d imagine #aLONGTIME The navy/gunmetal blue lining fabric from Fabulous Fabrics is the same that I used for my own outfit, navy blue zip from Spotlight.

When she was dancing she did a few twirls that really brought the dress to life for me and it really made me so very happy to see it looking so absolutely lovely in these moments… so I asked her to do an extra one for me at the end of the evening. Thank you G, for making this thing look actually amazing!!

Ohhh! I also made a tie for Craig! using leftovers from my outfit, so we can be all lovey-dovey match-matchy, hehe #SOnotus Well, I just thought it would be a nice idea. And while I had doubts he might actually want to wear it, he did, which I thought very nice of him 🙂

Of course the tie is properly made, with a padding, and an underlining as well as a lining because I do actually know how to make a tie! Also, many years ago I made a free pdf pattern for Burdastyle, it’s not a very sophisticated pattern by today’s pdf standards, but I’m thinking about polishing it off and making it more up-to-date for today’s seamster with much higher pdf expectations! However it does work perfectly well and my instructions, while sparse, do work! particularly if you’re not a beginner. Anyway! I slimmed down the shape because you know, even fashions in mens ties change and the width of that one is… well, wi-i-i-de in a most unfashionable way!

Aaaagh! One last thing, before I forget! I am sooooooo behind here… this one is not even wedding related?!

I made a new walkies-bag for Clara, to hold all her poo-bags and treats, here she is in all her haughty supermodel glory… I used the leg from some old jeans, the loop at the top is harvested from the double top-stitched side seam of the jeans so it’s super sturdy; and I also used one of the zips from the large bag of randoms Mum gave me a few years ago. It’ll be a miracle if I can actually get through that bag, but I’ve made a bit of headway over the years!

Hey Clara-banana!!!

So that’s all! at least until the wedding dress post, and that is going to be a HUUUUGE one, I’m sorry! I’m afraid that one’s going to take quite some time for me to put it all together… #gatheringstrength