daily outfit Archives - Page 10 of 70

some noice new basics…

31/08/2020 1:37 pm \ 3 Comments \ Carolyn

I’ve had this post sitting just as a draft for weeks now and just keep adding new tees to it but I’m rapidly coming annoyed with myself that when I wear one of them I have to write “not blogged yet” in my ootd blog. So I’m hitting “post on this thing right now. I know I know, so ridiculous!

A long-term goal of mine is to have a full complement of colour range in my winter tees; so every time The Fabric Store has an online sale on their merino I tend to hop on and pick up a coupla new colours. Then that luscious new fabric just sits there in my stash for a few years. Occasionally I admire the pretty colours and dream about how wonderful it’s going to be when it’s done. Of course winter is nearly over, so it seems like the perfect time for me to finally get going! Actually, it’s not such a silly plan of attack really, because it’s right about now that I become so heartily sick of my winter wardrobe that I don’t want to wear any of it, so it’s been rather nice to have a few new things to inspire me!

First up, above: a gorgeous strawberry-milkshake pink – technically Rose pink – new Pattern Magic twist top, from the first Pattern Magic book by Tomoko Nakamichi.. I’ve made this design up several times before and have loved each and every one. I love this one too, though I kinda wish I’d made the straight-grain sleeve just a leetle bit wider because while it’s fine while I’m wearing it it’s hard to squeeze my hand through the sleeve and pop it out the other end! I had actually anticipated this and made it a few cm wider, but it’s still a wee bit snug. Wearing it here with a skirt made using Vogue 1247, and a scrap of denim given to me by a friend cleaning out her stash… details here

Secondly, a new heavily modified Nettie tee, with a collar variation that I’ve used before, and love. Yes, it might look boring but I absolutely know this is going to get worn to death! This is in the Vanilla colour way. which I think is my perfect white. I made this one with the sleeve and lower hems finished with a self-band, as per this method.. worn here with my newest skirt, my sunshine-yellow Paprika Patterns Jade skirt, details here

Thirdly, another heavily modified Nettie using this stunning burnt orange merino, actually colour Paprika from the Fabric Store…Worn here with my Sabrina mini-skirt, made with a beautiful herringbone wool tweed, inherited from my grandmother’s stash, details here

Fourthly; yet another modified Nettie, made with this Avocado merino from the Fabric Store; with a slightly wider and higher collar… to be honestly I’m not totally sold on the collar, it’s maybe a scant 1cm too high and I haven’t ruled out cutting it off and shaving off that little bit! mostly just for appearance sake, I may even be glad of the height when the weather is cold again. We shall see, we shall see… worn above with my blue Sasha trousers, also a Closet Core pattern, and blogged here.

Anyway, I really like how fresh my little collection of new basics is looking right now!

Posted in: sewing, Uncategorized \ Tagged: Closet Core patterns, daily outfit, Nettie, Pattern Magic, top

golden yellow Jade skirt

11/08/2020 12:34 pm \ 3 Comments \ Carolyn

… sooo, while I was knitting up my new blue-flecked jumper I was all the time envisioning it worn with a brightly little coloured little skirt. Only problem was that I currently did not have such a thing in my wardrobe.

Ta da!! Problem solved.

I got out one of my favourite little winter skirt patterns, the Paprika patterns Jade skirt, and bought a length of cotton jersey from Spotlight in the most perfect shade of bright golden yellow. I’m having a bit of a thing for this colour at the moment actually, since I also bought a few new cushions for our couch in this exact same colour too, and turfed out a few of the old, drab, neutral ones. I’m in the mood for BRIGHT! and FUN! and CHEERFUL! I think my new skirt hits the spot beautifully!

This is my fourth time making up this little pattern, I love it so much. This time, I added a gold coloured jeans zip to the centre back seam… it was a pity I couldn’t find one with a gold coloured tape too but you know, options are severely limited here in Perth. NYC we are not!

I’ve always thought the only downside to this otherwise perfect pattern was the lack of pockets, and to be fair it’s damn near impossible to add them “nicely”. I took a punt with this skirt and stitched some patch pockets onto the back. I’m pretty sure they’re going to bag out and look terrible very quickly, especially if I actually use them?! lol, but I figure that when that happens I’ll just take them off. Maybe I’ll substitute pockets made of more sturdy fabric, we’ll see. Actually, to be honest, this cotton jersey, while it is indeed the most perfect colour! is none too stable full stop, and so I’m not sure how long the skirt’s going to last. In retrospect I should have used a different lining fabric, so it’s my fault. I’m hoping it will be good for at least this winter and spring, and I’ll be on the lookout for better fabric to make up another!

Details:

Jumper; the raglan sparkle sweater pattern by Krysten Ritter via We Are Knitters, in 100% merino superwash, details here
Skirt; the Paprika patterns Jade skirt pattern, cotton jersey from Spotlight
Tights; my own design, made in black stretch poly, details here
Boots; Roberto del Carlo, from Zomp boutique
Striped sweater below; my own design, made using a yarn advent calendar by Dingo Dyeworks, details here

this is how I wore it yesterday… I’m pretty happy it looks really nice with my striped jumper too!

Posted in: Uncategorized \ Tagged: daily outfit, Jade, Paprika Patterns, pockets, skirt

fluffy blue speckles

10/08/2020 3:33 pm \ 2 Comments \ Carolyn

Oh hey! I’ve just finished knitting a new jumper. Perfectly fluffy and perfectly relaxed and slouchy, the most wonderfully comfortable lounge-able thing you can imagine. This is the We Are Knitters sparkle raglan sweater, a design by Krysten Ritter, in the “sprinkle blue” colour way. It comes as a kit with everything you need to make it all packaged up neatly in a lovely brown paper bag. It’s was the absolute hugest treat to come home and find this on my doorstep! a really delightful present to cheer myself up during a sorta low spell.

And it was truly such a joy to knit! unply-ed, unspun “fleece type yarn and giant fat needles meant giant fat stitches too, so it knitted up super fast. Quick gratification, for sure.

And how beautiful are these wooden needles? They look so cool… so much prettier than my old metal ones. I wondered if they’d be a tinier bit “stickier” than metals; and yes they were, but not so much as to be annoying or a problem.

The yarn is We Are Knitters “the meriwool”; absolutely gorgeously squishy stuff!! 100% merino, and supposedly treated with a superwash treatment to make it machine-washable. This is awesome news because I already dropped a bit of chocolate on it… whoops! I didn’t risk the machine was yet though, I’m too frightened! I just gave it a spot hand-wash just very gently rubbing wool-wash into the chocolate-y smudge and the spot came out alright. When I do get brave enough to toss my sweater in the machine I’ll come back and update on whether this worked out just fine or whether it was disastrous… but I’ll be allowing myself a few more wears first, just in case!

So; there was a slightly negative thing with my kit… when I checked out the requisite five balls for my size I noticed that one ball was from a different dyelot than the other four. This one ball had noticeably less blue sparkles in it that the other four balls. Not too much of a problem, I thought; I’ll just use that one divided evenly over the sleeves; as in, two rows of the majority dyelot, two rows of the odd-one-out, and repeat; for each sleeve. This worked out ok, I think but as I was doing the front and back of the sweater I couldn’t help but notice that as well, one ball of the majority dyelot seemed to have considerably more blue in it that even its fellow three balls from the same dyelot. You can see this at the top of the sweater in the lower picture, below. It wasn’t obvious when you were looking at the balls together, but once I’d knitted practically the whole ball it did start to stand out a little bit.

above, I’m wearing it back to front compared to the below picture… the pattern front and back are exactly the same as each other so you can wear it either way, which I really like btw! I’ll probably wear it like the below picture because I prefer the way the sparkles appear on this side…

Oh, the other thing I’m posting about here is this skirt… this is the Sabrina skirt by Forget-me-not patterns that I made last year in a lovely orange-brown herringbone wool that Mum gave me once. I recently added pockets to this, as posted here, and now I’m posting it again to point out that I’ve shortened it too. This involved a fair amount of unpicking an intricately stitched walking vent, just so I could stitch up again closed. Lol, the things we do! However, I’m much happier with it this length. I really like my winter skirts to be on the shorter side, and realistically I’m never going to wear this thick woollen skirt in the warm weather! The other, hidden bonus is that initially I stitched the burgundy-coloured lining hem in orange thread, a. because it’s the thread I used to sew the skirt in and I couldn’t be bothered changing it, and b. I didn’t have any matching burgundy thread at the time anyway. Now I DO have some burgundy thread, so once I trimmed the lining I stitched the new hem in matching thread. Yay! for tiny good things!

Look, with regards to the uneven-sparkle issue with my sweater; it’s fine really: I’m not actually bothered because I’m really very happy with it, and I even like that the body is a touch more blue than the sleeves and therefore has a slight visual point of difference. Sometimes I’m a bit more obsessive about how an apparently random distribution of decorative elements can then appear not so random in the end result; a foible of the design process that a regular person probably wouldn’t even notice but which can at times send my weird brain into a frenzy of debate about whether I should unravel the whole thing and start again. However, I shall NOT do this, because I knit for joy, not self-flagellation… and I am content to just enjoy my sweater for what it is. Which is fluffy and warm and pretty and wonderful.

Details:

Sweater, the sparkle raglan sweater design by Krysten Ritter, in a kit from We Are Knitters
Rust skirt; the Sabrina pattern by Forget-me-not patterns in an old herringbone wool passed down by Mum? I think? shorted and with pockets added. initially posted here
Turquoise skirt; adapted Burda 2/2015;109 denim from my NYC holiday, details here
Black tights, my own design, black stretch polyester, details here

yeah, unless it was pointed out, which I JUST DID of course! you can’t even really tell in real life. I’ve really got to learn to not point these things out…

Posted in: knitting, Uncategorized \ Tagged: daily outfit, hand knitting, jumper, Knitted, knitting, sweater, we are knitters

I made a little red top

03/08/2020 3:25 pm \ 4 Comments \ Carolyn

… hot on the heels of my turquoise skirt, I whipped (k-chshhhh!) up a little top!

This is made from the leftovers from this little skirt, that I wore to near-death last year. I still have that little skirt actually, but don’t wear it as much nowadays. It needs replacing, to be honest #plotting … Early on I was like, sure I have plenty of leftovers for a little top! story of my sewing life, actually. You know, it always looks like a lot of fabric, and then once you lay down your sleeve piece, which is far bigger than you thought, always, then it’s not quite so do-able. Anyway, I did manage to get a little top out of it in the end, but it’s a little on the cropped side and the neck is more turtle than my originally planned cowl.

But I still love it! I think it’s cute and it’s one of my favourite colours.

The most exciting thing to me about the top is actually these other photos of it… I’d taken it down to Bridgetown when I went down for a few days, for Mum’s citizenship ceremony… and one day I took some pictures of it for my daily outfit blog. And unknown to me, while I was taking pictures, a kangaroo crept up there into my background. How cool is that?! A wild animal! This is an absolutely first for me, even though roos are pretty common around Mum and Dad’s house they’re usually so shy! Though, this particular one is not extremely shy actually; she has a new joey and just seems to be taking it easy for a while, she’s been hanging around the house area, not venturing very far and sleeping for much of the day. But I still consider it pretty lucky that she moved into my pictures! Thanks, darling!

Oh, whoops, forgot to mention some of the all-important sewing deets; fabric originally bought from KnitWit, and the pattern is mostly self-drafted rectangles, except for the armscyes and sleeve caps for which I used Burda 4/2014;111 … only chosen because I just so happened to have it out to cut out a new one.

This is Thing 7, from my “new year’s resolution” collection of 12 that I set for myself:

Details:

Top, mostly self-drafted, sleeve caps and armscyes from Burda 04/2014;111
Skirt at top; Vogue 1247, outback wife cotton, details here
Jeans; Closet Core patterns Sasha trousers pattern, cut with wide legs, cotton corduroy, details here

Posted in: Uncategorized \ Tagged: Burdastyle 4/2014-111, daily outfit, own design, top

I made a turquoise skirt

01/08/2020 11:43 pm \ 6 Comments \ Carolyn

Enough said!

Well actually, I guess I can say a little more… so I bought this turquoise denim in New York City during my holiday in the United States with Yoshimi last year…. and who could have guessed how much the world would change during this short short time?? Crazy… I’m still reeling to be honest! Anyway, I did have such a wonderful time and am very happy to have made up my first thing from some of the fabric that I bought. Don’t worry, there’s lots more! I got this in a little shop whose name now escapes me, sadly; though I’m forgiving myself for forgetting since it was kind of an overwhelming day. Honestly I’ve never seen as much fabric in my entire life as I did on that day of fabric-shopping in NYC!

have a squizz at those pockets!!!

The fabric was cut wildly off-grain, which meant I had a bit less than I thought, but fortunately I had enough to make this skirt using mostly Burda 2/2015; 109. This is a pattern I’ve attempted once before; I made it up using yellow linen which was quickly deemed a giant fail and converted into a top, and I must say it’s been a great little top! Anyway, I still had faith the pattern had great skirt bones. And I’m glad I gave it another chance since this little skirt is fantastic and I love it!

I did make a few mods though… namely, the wrap nature of the skirt is gone, because I felt the denim would be too stiff to make a nice wrap and tie belt; also I didn’t have enough of the denim for something like that anyway. Instead I made the skirt to have a fixed waistband and a centre back zip closure; a pretty straightforward mod. I also stitched down some of the pleats to make it a little more fitted. I wondered if I’d have a matching zip in my stash, and you know what? I did! Miraculous!! It was from a large bag of colourful zips that Mum had tossed my way, once upon a time. I’ve used up quite a lot of them over the years! This one is really very “vintage”, so much so that I zip it up and down quite carefully.

I used white thread for all the topstitching; I really love how subtle this looks. And I cut the contrasting inside waistband and bias to finish the hemline from an old shirt of Craig’s. I’ve harvested from this very same shirt previously, to bind the quilt that his Mum made for Arthur, here.

That shirt still has quite a bit of fabric leftover still to use for other things, which is fabulous; because it’s beautiful quality stuff!

This is thing 6, from the collection of 12 I tasked for myself at the beginning of the year. Yay, I’m halfway through!!

Details:

Skirt; Burda 02/2015; 109, turquoise denim
Top; Burda 04/2014; 111, in a slightly stretchy bobbly stuff, details here
Tights, made by me to my own design
Boots; Roberto del Carlo, from Zomp boutique

(below)
Jumper; hand knit by me, my own design
Raincoat; made by me, new and not yet blogged! eeep! I’m so behind!

… nothing to do with sewing, but lately I feel like I have so few good hair days I reckon it’s worth documenting when I do have one, even if it’s courtesy of the salon and not my own doing at all! I’ve been trying to grow my hair out all natural, a whole year later and I think I almost like my hair again. Finally, a light at the end of the tunnel!

Posted in: sewing, Uncategorized \ Tagged: Burdastyle 02/2015-109, daily outfit, own design, skirt

a pretty outfit (cielo and sixtine)

05/07/2020 12:38 am \ 7 Comments \ Carolyn

So I made an oh-so pretty, fluttery, flower-strewn outfit of the most perfectly spring-worthy persuasion! but wait… am I not currently still on the downwards slope to the dark dank pit of winter? well yes, so we are just barely into July, and I am OVER winter already. *sigh*

Really I expect I’ll be making winter-y things soon but I just don’t feel like it right now, and I just want to think about fun summery things still. Terrible, isn’t it? Anyway, I bought this lovely rose-y rayon-linen in Spotlight, back when Perth was sort of half in isolation. I’d been feeling very down, gone shopping for some essentials and just spontaneously decided buy something pretty and non-essential at the same time, to cheer myself up. As it turned out, we had hardly any cases of the covid-19 virus in Perth, which is of course wonderful; but we were all as terribly worried at the time as if there were and buying something lovely lifted my spirits quite a lot at the time.

I cut out the ruffle-tastic new Sixtine skirt by Coralie Bijasson patterns and then had just enough left for a plain little top, which is the best counterpoint for all that ruffle anyway. I’d recently had success making the Closet Case patterns Cielo top for Cassie so traced out the next size up for me. And I really love how they go together! The Sixtine pattern is a simple, completely symmetric, true wrap skirt, with the most amazing ruffle and a half action going on. Actually when I say ruffle and a half, that is quite literally what it is; there’s a ruffle, and then another half of that same ruffle on top. Ruffle and a half! And my fabric worked out so nice! it is quite fluid and soft, which was just right for the ruffles; they have just exactly the right amount of body and zero limpness.The Cielo top is a great little basic, I can already tell I’m going to make stacks more. Simple, but perfectly so.

I don’t really have much else to add, both these patterns are unambiguously straightforward designs with no tricks to speak of. With the Sixtine skirt, I think you were supposed to place the buttonholes and buttons so the buttons popped out on the outside of the waistband when buttoned up, but I used very plain sheer flat ones from my stash, both ancient and inherited and not very pretty, so I positioned them so they button up on the inside of the skirt.

Oh, I also finished the lower hemline of both ruffles using the triple-stitched narrow hemline, explained in this post here.

I have one more sort of interesting thing I can say about sewing this; normally when you’re cutting things out from a print you carefully make sure all your pattern pieces are aligned with the “up” side in the same direction, yes? Well I would definitely do that for fabric with a nap, but for a fabric with a print I’ve often preferred the look when I do not adhere strictly to this rule, but lay pieces so as to alternate up and down placement. That way you avoid that “double-ing up” up of an identical motif that can look absolutely terrible and obvious when it occurs in a pieced garment. Obviously this really only works if the print doesn’t have an obvious “right way up” design, but while it’s only a little thing it can make a noticeable difference. As soon as I looked at my pictures here I could see a couple of instances where an upside-down motif is not too far away from a right-way-up motif, and if they’d been both oriented the same it would have looked strange. So I’m glad! I hope I explained that OK!

Anyway, I love this new ensemble and honestly can’t wait til the weather is hot again so I can actually wear it. In the meantime perhaps I should start finally turning some attention towards more wintery projects (sigh)

Details:

Top; the Cielo top by Closet Case patterns
Skirt; the Sixtine skirt by Coralie Bijasson patterns
Shoes; both super old now but still much loved

Later edit; so I added some pockets to this skirt! They’re patch pockets, with a slightly gathered top, drawn in by a little olive ribbon, which I happened to have in my stash. They’re simple but of course useful. Who doesn’t like a little bit pf practicality along with their floomph?!

Here’s a brief overview…

the pockets are cut to fit my mobile phone in, and are about 3cm wider at the top…

I snipped a little hole in the outer layer of the upper hem/casing..

the gathering ribbon emerges from this hole

align the raw ends of the ribbon inside with the raw edges of the upper pocket hem/casing

ensure the ribbon ends are stitched down firmly along with the pocket… gently pull up the excess pocket width at the top and tie off the ribbon…

camouflaged but not totally, and I think it looks kind of pretty when you do notice it 🙂

Posted in: sewing \ Tagged: cielo, Closet Case files, coral bijasson, daily outfit, pocket, pockets, sixtine, skirt, top

crimson rosellas

24/06/2020 2:48 pm \ 17 Comments \ Carolyn

{Sooo, what’s going on? It’s actually been well over a month since I made this dress, took these pictures and half wrote this whole post too so maybe I should say something about my absence. Later.

Meanwhile, over to 6-weeks-ago me …}

This fabric is so cute! I absolutely love it! well I love the pattern too of course, but I’m going to start with the fabric… I bought it at Spotlight last year, it’s a Jocelyn Proust design. Actually, Spotlight is on a roll with great Jocelyn Proust designs at the moment… there are lots of absolutely gorgeous ones and it’s nearly impossible to choose just one. Fortunately when I got this one it was the first one I’d seen, as well as the only one in the store at the time, so I was just like WOW! I love this! *grab* *buy* A coupla weeks later and there were now lots of really beautiful Jocelyn Proust designs in the store from which to choose… but I think I still would have chosen this one!

It’s cotton drill; such practical stuff, and nice to both sew and wear, and I absolutely couldn’t resist the colours … I love navy blue and raspberry pink together. Also; crimson rosellas. Any Aussie-specific print is going to catch my eye in the shops and I think this one is really cute.

The pattern is the cover dress of the Burda 07/2018 magazine, dress 118; I’d earmarked it as a must-make from the first flick-through of the magazine… then as soon as the crimson rosella fabric came into my life I was like bingo. The design of the dress is quite interesting, with a sort of faux bib-front look to it, a raised faced section both front and back of the dress with set-in side panels that help form the pockets. It’s hard to explain actually, but you can get an idea of how the front sits out over the side panels in the side view shot above. The “sitting-out” bits have long, oddly shaped facings, that I managed to miraculously cut out from a fairly small piece of navy blue cotton drill, the final leftovers from these Issey Miyake pants from a few years ago. I only had to piece together one little bit on both facings. The pattern stipulates a lining, which I decided to leave off because I want to wear mine in the heat of summer… so I needed a way to finish off the armhole edges. I drafted some facings by just splicing the side pieces together, tracing the raw edge, and cutting the subsequent facings to be the same width as the other facings, for a matching look inside. All edges inside are finished on the overlocker, with matching bone-coloured thread, mostly because I couldn’t be bothered changing the overlocking thread to navy from the bone I used for the fabric itself! but in the end I really like the look of contrasting colour here.

The dress is drafted as a petite design, so I checked the burda size charts to see what changes I might need to make. I decided to add in 2cm length to the bodice area of the dress on all pieces, did a quick pattern mockup and this was just the right amount, I think. The pockets would have just been sitting that little bit too high on me, otherwise. I love the pocket design on this dress too, but if I made it again I would make them just little bit deeper, maybe 2cm or so. They are ok the way they are, but you know. When it comes to pockets, size does matter!

The pocket linings are also cut from the same navy blue cotton drill.

I love the design; it is just slightly on the boxy side which I like for a summer dress. You’re supposed to put in a whacking long invisible zip in the centre back seam, which I did, very obediently. And then discovered, as you do; that I can actually slip the dress on over my head without having to undo the zip. Of course!

Oh, and I ended up re-hemming the dress to be about an inch shorter. That doesn’t sound very much, but I think it looks a lot better, even that small amount made a difference! From just verging on slightly frumpy to Jackie O chic in just an inch!

This is the fifth thing made from my #make~~nine~~ that is really twelve, list of 12 designs and fabrics that I promised myself at the end of last year. Hmmm, what should I make next?!

Details:

Dress; Burda 07/2018;118, cotton drill
White oxford shoes, made by me, details here
Black tights; made by me, details here
Black boots; made by me, details here

So… what’s been happening, indeed… well LOTS in the world obviously. From the perspective of our family here, we lost an important, elderly family member at the beginning of June, and it’s been a very emotional and rather difficult time for us, separately and on top of everything else. By “everything else” I mean the continuing and not inconsiderable anxieties of Covid-19, and the very important “black lives matter” movement – for which I am obviously pro – and just some other family stuff, so mmm. It’s been a lot. I don’t want to go on and on about it because this is my just-for-fun sewing blog and not a “let’s offload all one’s emotional baggage upon an innocent world” blog, and I prefer to dwell on the positive.

With regard to the BLM movement, so I’ve been buying fabric! supporting indigenous makers. I’m just going to copy and paste here what I already wrote in instagram…

I’ve been thinking about the best way to show my support for blacklivesmatter and as a fervent sewing peep I think using more indigenous textiles is a good start… I was so excited to receive my first purchase the other day… this beautiful piece of fabric, “Tjilkamala Rockhole” designed by Alice Nampitjinpa… this talented lady recently won a collaboration with Gorman clothing with another piece of beautiful artwork so I’m extra excited my first purchase should be from such an amazing artist! …
.
This piece was produced by @ikuntjiartists and purchased through @flyingfoxfabrics and I’m so grateful these cooperations exist to make indigenous work accessible and available to us…
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I am humbled and inspired by my country’s rich and ancient indigenous culture that has survived here for millenia … I wish to learn how to better honour and protect the Aboriginal people, as well as acting to create a kinder and more respectful future for everyone here in this beautiful country I am so grateful to call home … I’m looking forward to researching and buying more indigenous art fabric, and, if I’m allowed a rather shallow final note, cannot wait to sew something lovely to wear from it, too! #sewing

AND

I’m so thrilled this beautiful length of art fabric has arrived! This print is “Mandem” designed by Eva Nganjmirra and printed on linen by @injalakarts a wholly Aboriginal owned and governed community art centre in the Northern Territory… and from whom I purchased this piece. .
I can’t wait to trawl through my patterns and make something hopefully worthy enough to do justice to this beautiful work.
.
#sewing

ALSO… in the meantime, I also participated in me-made May last month, as usual. I pledged to wear 100% me-made, including my shoes and underwear, because why not? I have plenty of me-made things to wear! I was happy to achieve this, and to also mix and match my existing wardrobe so as to not repeat anything during the month either, apart from obviously black tights and a few of my shoes. There was only one tiny fail at the end there, where I neglected to wear me-made shoes for the final two days of the month, because we’d gone down south and I just decided oh to heck with it.

Here are my outfits for the month. Absolutely everything made by me, except for the boots on the last two days of the month 🙂

Posted in: fashion, sewing \ Tagged: burda 07/2018 118, daily outfit, dress

pink Axis

29/04/2020 11:50 am \ 11 Comments \ Carolyn

I absolutely love this, my new dress!! for several reasons, upon which I shall now proceed to wax lyrical…

The pattern is the Axis dress by Papercut patterns… I’ve loved this pattern company for several years… for one thing their packaging is absolutely the most beautiful of all. I know that seems like a shallow sort of a reason to buy a pattern but hey, it’s ok to be shallow when you want to be. I think we’ve all deserved that right! The patterns are printed on nice crisp brown paper, and the instructions are printed on the same paper as the pattern pieces. You cut them off and accordion-fold and glue them together to make up your little instruction book. This is a pretty fun crafty little thing to do before you make up your pattern!

Secondly, Papercut patterns are a New Zealand company, and I have a soft spot for the land of the long white cloud. Also I love to support fellow antipodeans.

Additionally, Papercut Patterns have always had this indefinable aura of the cool-girl about them, and who doesn’t want to be a cool girl, hmmm? to be honest I’ve sometimes thought some of the designs are a little … basic, but at the same time that wonderful packaging makes it worth paying for those of the designs that are more individual, if that makes sense. By the way, absolutely nothing wrong with basic patterns! and from what I’ve observed in the sewing world it’s often the most ordinary of patterns that seem to be the biggest and most popular sellers. So there you go.

In any case, I love the Axis pattern, I happen to think it’s pretty unique, and it appealed to me immediately. I also have their Sapporo pattern, and hope I can get around to it finally this year!

My fabric is a really gorgeous, slubby cotton from Fabulous Fabrics, a Christmas gift from Cassie last year. Actually we’d been shopping there together and I almost bought it for myself before Cassie stopped me, and reminded me that she needed to have a Christmas gift for me! She knows me so well!

This fabric is the same stuff from which I’ve made: this set, this dress, this dress, and this dress too; each of them just in a different colour way. You can see how much I love this fabric! I have bought some of practically every colour way it’s ever come out in, and all of these things have got worn a LOT in their time.

I made my dress to have the A-line skirt version, but I also added in the front walking slit too, which is really supposed to just be put into the straight version of the skirt, so you can walk normally of course. I take very big strides while I walk, so I did the walking slit AND the A-line cut. Rebellious!! I cut my top as a size 3 and the skirt graded out from the size 3 waist to a size 4 at hip level. This is why I make my own clothes!!

The Pocket is something I will often try to bung in to a pocketless new thing somehow, if possible… in this case I decided the best sort of pocket for this sleek, body skimming style could be a patch pocket. Craig thought they might turn out to be a mistake, spoil the line, but I stuck some on anyway, figuring I could take them off if they looked awful. But I really like them! both how they look and obviously they’ll be practical even if you can only fit slimline things like a phone, credit card and maybe a key in there… I kinda pictured them standing out from the body at the top edge rather than laying flat on the body, and fine-tuned the exact amount of “stand-out-iness” and placement in pinning trials. They are simply top-stitched in place; my slubby cotton is quite “sponge-y” and so the stitches sink into it quite beautifully.

I had not quite enough fabric to cut out the dress completely… those back bodice pieces are HUGE and you need to cut out FOUR of them! but I had nearly enough that I managed to make it all work. There is just the tiniest amount of pink voile pieced in at the top of the front facing shoulder strap.

With the front slit, you’re just supposed to turn under the seam allowance in a single layer and top-stitch it down but I finished mine with a little facing. I think this adds a small but nice amount of weight to the hem, and balances it out against the heavily faced bodice area. The facing is stitched on, trimmed, graded, turned under and under stitched, and hand slip-stitched in place at the same time I did the hem.

Look at that perfect zip!!

hmmm, so why has Carolyn just posted two sets of near identical pictures of the zip?? so maybe you can just barely detect that the zip in the second set does look a little bit pink? compared to the first? Yes, there is a little disaster story there… I originally put in that cream coloured zip above, patting myself on the back that I had a mostly suitable zip in my stash already and didn’t need to pop out and buy a new one. I even took all my pictures here with that zip in. Then I was re-pressing this brand new dress and putting it away, and what should happen but to my horror the zip just casually split open underneath the pull. Aaaagh!! I simply could NOT believe it! My brand new, perfect dress!! I tried and tried to tease the teeth back together, resurrect the zip, but it was truly stuffed and there was nothing for it; I just had to unpick the wrecked zip, and head into Spotlight to buy a new one… since I sadly did not have a second suitable zip in my stash. I made my trip worthwhile though, by picking up a little range of new threads and some more zips that I knew I’d need in the future. I tried to nobly restrain myself from buying more fabric too, but failed in such endeavours. Well, I needed to cheer myself up! You just do sometimes, you know?! Especially when one suddenly needs to replace a BRAND NEW ZIP in a BRAND NEW DRESS 🙂

I think the problem was too much bulk in the back waistband/skirt junction, since I had stupidly tread quite light while trimming the seam allowances in there… The waistband is a single piece foldover one, interfaced fully, so you end up with triple thickness of interfaced waistband, interfaced seam allowance and interfaced self-facing, add in a skirt seam allowance too, and that’s a fair amount of bulk at that junction. The zip “looked” perfectly fine, but the bulk of fabric hard up against the zip pull did make it difficult to pull up and down past that point and I’m not quite sure how it happened but it all proved too much for the mechanism. When I inserted the second new zip I aggressively trimmed away a lot of that bulk inside before stitching in the invisible zip, and this helped a lot, I think.

Anyway; zip drama notwithstanding; I still really really love this new dress! we’re still getting warm enough days every now and again that I can wear it now! and even in slightly cooler weather it’ll be still be nice with a little white tee worn underneath too.