fabrics-store.com Archives - Handmade by Carolyn

Menswear: collarless white linen shirt

08/07/2010 4:06 am \ 6 Comments \ Carolyn

I made this new 100% linen shirt for my husband, at his request.
Using Burda 7767 again, with the usual custom fitting modifications.
The design variations this time are in the collar, there isn’t one!! And in the pocket. I made a double welt pocket with a loop button closure. I included a picture of the inside to prove that it is indeed a working pocket! A clothing feature that I loathe is “fake” pocket designs, such as a welt pocket that isn’t actually a pocket at all, but a decorative detail; massive pet hate.
Of course now I’m looking at that picture and thinking I should go back and properly finish the inside pocket edges with Hong Kong seams… might still do that… I’ve never “learnt” how to make a welt pocket, or followed any instructions on how to make one, as I don’t have any patterns that feature this detail. Instead whenever I’ve wanted to put one in I just follow my instincts and make it up as I go along.
Now, on a related note, I occasionally, not frequently, borrow my husband’s clothes. Well, (sheepishly) he goes to work early, they’re hanging in the wardrobe in all their desirable menswear glory just looking perfect for some outfit I have in my head, and I figure they’re fair game… This is a shirt I can see myself appropriating on a regular basis. Well, for one thing, all the fashion style magazines advise on the essential-ness of “the basic crisp white shirt” in a well-dressed woman’s wardrobe, do you think I have one??!! I need a classic crisp white shirt. Until the time comes when I get around to making one for myself (I have about a zillion projects lined up before I get to that one!) I’m nicking Craig’s new shirt.
Expect to see it in future outfit posts!

Posted in: Uncategorized \ Tagged: Burda 7767, Craig, fabrics-store.com, mens shirt

Menswear; linen shirt no. 3

01/04/2010 1:30 am \ 12 Comments \ Carolyn

Here is my husband’s new shirt. It was made using Burda 7767 (again, such a great pattern!) with the fit variations I perfected making the last shirt. I altered the collar size slightly; the pattern comes with three collar variations and this one is midway between the two smaller options. I also rounded the pocket and added a pointy arrowhead collar flap. The other day I saw a man’s shirt with a single welt pocket and a button with a tiny fabric loop; it looked really cool and I’ve filed it away for a future shirt…
The double topstitching here has a slightly different gap this time. I’m super happy with my topstitching in this version, it’s as close to perfect as I can get it. Topstitching is a real meditative process; you’re hunched over the machine, eyeballing your first row of stitching and just mentally gauging and controlling that second row at an dead even gap…. almost as good as yoga. Except yoga you’re supposed to be concentrating on nothing. And with topstitching you’re full-on concentrating. OK, not quite the same. But it’s still kind of the same outcome, a calm stillness in which all other stimuli is blocked out.
Hmm, sewing as a therapeutic meditative tool; yeah, moving right along…
I used linen, part of the batch that I bought online a few months ago. I chose caramel brown contrasting thread and blotchy brown and cream, tortoise-shelly like buttons as a contrast. I just love brown and blue together. I think he will be able to wear this shirt as a business shirt, because it’s linen and quite classical in its detailing, but it will still look fine as a casual shirt, because of the colour; sort of reminiscent of the classic Levi’s chambray shirts.

Details:
Shirt; Burda 7767 with minor variations, mid-weight “crown blue” linen

Posted in: Uncategorized \ Tagged: Burda 7767, Craig, fabrics-store.com, mens shirt

“Moody Milkmaid” … refashioned

31/03/2010 9:30 am \ 10 Comments \ Carolyn

Call me crazy. I am crazy. I’m insane. Sometimes I swear I am a complete and utter lunatic. I took my photos this morning and posted about my skirt (see below). I even posted on Wardrobe Refashion. I kept looking at the photos. I wasn’t happy. My skirt looked somehow unsatisfactory. The original Celine skirt has a waistband. I knew this. I made a conscious decision when I made my skirt that I wouldn’t have a waistband. I didn’t want to do a complete knock-off, for heaven’s sake. But my skirt looked … wrong.
So I attacked it. I know! Crazy! After finishing up in the office, I took up the unpicker and removed the facings from the skirt. By some miracle there was just enough of the port wine linen left to make a waistband. Ironed on the interfacing. Took in the waist darts front and back to bring the top up to waist level. Attached the waistband, sewed a buttonhole, and added an old button. You know what? It looks so much better now. Celine’s Phoebe Philo was right. The waistband was necessary.
(This photo was taken about seven hours after this morning’s photo. Crazy woman!)

Details: same as this morning!!!

Posted in: Uncategorized \ Tagged: fabrics-store.com, own design, skirt, Wardrobe Refashion

“Moody Milkmaid” skirt

31/03/2010 4:44 am \ 2 Comments \ Carolyn

I know I’m not the only one to be completely inspired by the Celine spring/summer 2010 collection. A deceptively bare collection, almost monastic in its simplicity but oh-so stylish and oh-so now. Minus the fussy design details and opulent prints that have marked recent collections of other designers, marking defiance in the face of economic crisis; what Celine has realised, in a perceptive streak of genius, is that women do not want to look “fancy” in times of financial hardship, but casually glamourous in well constructed and quietly tasteful apparel.
This skirt first caught my eye when I saw it in Vogue, and I instantly wanted something sort of like it. Not wishing to buy new fabric I made do with scraps and leftovers. This is the tawny port linen, left over from the shirt I made for my husband here. The contrasting bias binding I used for around the hemline and for the welt pockets is leftover from the crown blue linen that I used for my husband’s new shirt, which is nearly-but-not-quite-finished, (should be able to show this off tomorrow.) I’m pretty proud of this skirt since I drafted the pattern myself!
I really like how in Celine’s styling of this outfit the bottom of the white shirt worn can be seen poking out of the bottom of the skirt, a sort of ersatz petticoat effect. I don’t have a shirt long enough for this look, and besides I made my skirt longer than the Celine version which is way too short for my tastes anyhow, so I wore my skirt today with a long petticoat underneath to get the same feel. Looking at my picture I think I look a little milkmaid-y. My husband suggested “The Hills are Alive” as a title.
Btw, my hemline looks a bit wonky in this photo, please let me point out this is thanks to my posture and the way the skirt is sitting, and the hemline is actually PERFECTLY straight!!

Details:
Skirt; drafted by me, linen
Petticoat; Metalicus
Top; Cotton On, tossed out by my daughter and rescued by me
Shoes; Sandler, op shop

Posted in: Uncategorized \ Tagged: fabrics-store.com, own design, skirt

Pattern Magic; toile 2, detsubori top

16/03/2010 8:35 am \ 5 Comments \ Carolyn

Actually that should read toile 2, and er, 3 as well, as I had a hiccup in the making of this one and had to start over.
Thanks to the wonderful and inspirational Karin of ancien-nouveau who was so incredibly helpful to me with Japanese terms I managed to decipher that the name of this project is (I think) detsubori. My (uneducated) guess is that this translates to perhaps “sail-collar” or some such, as that is how it looks. I drew out the first version of the pattern and made up a toile out of some very cheap and nasty fabric bought for toile-making purposes. In the making of this toile I initially sewed all the back darts inside out, so they had to be unpicked and re-done; beginner’s mistake and I don’t think of myself as a beginner any more and was pretty cross with myself, grr…. Kept on with the toile and put it together properly this time…. For some reason known only to me-in-the-past, I finished this toile off with sew-on snap tape and finished the sleeve holes with bias binding, haven’t a clue why as the fabric didn’t suit the blouse and really is a bit nasty…. Sometimes when I get into sewing mode I’m like a robot and later on even I’m like “what was I thinking?…”and was pretty much finished…

It suddenly hit me like a thunderclap that this didn’t look much like the picture in the book. Yeah, I’d made another boo-boo. See the unpicker pointing to the bust dart in the photo? Yeeeah..those bust darts aren’t supposed to be there. At all. The pattern is supposed to be drafted to eliminate this bust dart… Oh…right, and this is not un-pickable… (get out the paper and start drawing out the pattern again…)
Finished the second toile in like half the time of the first, so there had to be some advantages to all my blunders first time round. Here is the second toile, note no bust darts… the sail is on the other side this time, well variety is the spice of life…

So I had some linen to make my husband another shirt and I managed to squeeze the pieces for the detsubori top out of the leftover fabric, except for the sleeves… I made it into a little crossover top with a waist tie and a single button and little cap sleeves in a contrasting white, see the nautical colour scheme? that’s the influence of the “sail”. I wonder if it translates to something completely different!!
In the front-view picture I’m holding up the sail as it has an annoying habit of going “flopsy” (that’s a highly technical sewing term, I’m sure advanced seamstresses would recognise). It has been interfaced with quite stiff interfacing, but it still doesn’t stay up as smartly as the toile version. Probably this is because linen is a much heavier and denser fabric that the light polycotton I used for the toile. When I launder it I’m planning to give it a hefty spray of starch to keep it standing to attention.

Posted in: Uncategorized \ Tagged: fabrics-store.com, Pattern Magic, Sienna

Borrowing from husband’s wardrobe, again…

15/03/2010 7:01 am \ 5 Comments \ Carolyn

Woot, for autumn! I think the hot weather has finally settled down after a last scorcher on Friday and I’m in the mood for some of my cooler weather gear and some cooler weather colouring….
This skirt has been a winner; it was wonderful to reach for during the hottest days of summer as its so light and airy, and I’m thinking its cheerful hues will carry me through the cooler months too. When I first bought this floral fabric I was a little afraid it wouldn’t be particularly versatile as it’s such an eye-catching print, but I’ve been proven wrong as I’ve worn it in so many ways; for today I decided to put it with the linen shirt I made recently for my husband (he’s going to get a surprise when he sees it here today!), worn as a kind of light coat unbuttoned and belted at the waist. I love the colour combination of the deep port-wine shirt/coat with the bright reds/pinks of the skirt; feels so autumn-y, vibrant and rich, a fortuitous marriage for sure!
I’ve often expressed how much I love menswear to be worn by women; I think it can be a very sexy and feminine look, especially when paired with overly feminine garments like this blowsy floral skirt….

Details:
Skirt; Vogue 2894, floral cotton
Camisole; Country Road
Shirt/coat; Burda 7767, port wine linen
Belt; had since teenage years
Sandals; Micam by Joanne Mercer, from Hobbs
Nail varnish; Crimson Sparkle, Revlon

Posted in: Uncategorized \ Tagged: Burda 7767, fabrics-store.com, Fabulous fabrics, mens shirt, skirt, Vogue 2894

Fabric stores now off limits…

18/02/2010 4:13 am \ 5 Comments \ Carolyn

OK. Yesterday I mentioned buying new fabric online and promised pictures today. Well. I took a picture of the linen I got from Fabrics-store (my husband’s shirt from yesterday is on the top):

I also got some Kaffe Fassett shot cotton from purlsoho, because I’ve seen this cotton in the flesh (cloth?) at Calico and Ivy so know for a fact how gorgeous it is, and it was so cheap compared to Calico and Ivy…!

Pretty excited about that fabric.
Then I remembered my fabrics bought at the post-Christmas sales at Fabulous fabrics. I’ve made up most of it in preparation for my autumn wardrobe, but I also made a few whimsical purchases with no definite projects in mind, this is what’s left…

Even since my post-Christmas shopping spree I’ve also made a few random fabric purchases from both Fabulous Fabrics and the Spotlight sale for winter…

I also have this monstrous looking bag of possible re-fashions. It’s presently coming in handy for propping open my laundry door and stopping it from slamming shut when the sea breeze makes its welcome appearance. So it’s er, useful, of sorts? oh I’m just kidding myself, just looking at it fills me with guilt…

All of this fabric is starting to weigh heavily on my mind. I think perhaps I should just admit defeat with some of the refashions bag and just donate it to the op-shop. And, new rule, I simply CANNOT buy any more fabric until I’ve used all of this up. Sure, I’m working through slowly but surely, but still… from now on I’m not to even enter a fabric store, except to buy zips, buttons and other essential haberdashery, but ONLY to finish off stuff, and must not get distracted by any gorgeous new fabrics that will catch my eye and send me into a planning, designing frenzy…
Oh, and to tempt and torture me, fabrics-store sent me this swatch card of their available linen colours:

How yummy is that? All but a few of these colours I think would look great in my wardrobe and would suit me…. sigh.
Oh, and something I’m very excited about getting in the mail a few days ago:

I ordered this a few weeks ago after reading about it on several of my favourite blogs. I’m planning to work my way systematically through the patterns. It’s mostly in Japanese, so will be quite a challenge, but the illustrations are quite clear so I think I’ll cope. Stay tuned…

Posted in: Uncategorized \ Tagged: fabrics-store.com, Fabulous fabrics, purlsoho, Spotlight

Menswear, linen shirt no. 2

17/02/2010 3:05 am \ 8 Comments \ Carolyn

I made my husband another shirt!
The fabric; well I got brave, and in a first for me bought some fabric online. I felt quite strange about this as I have never bought fabric without feeling the weight and thickness of it for myself, but I’m pretty happy about my purchases. In fact I’ve bought quite a bit, post pictures tomorrow…
I used Burda 7767, the same as for his last shirt here, with a few minor adjustments. For fitting considerations I curved the side seams a little for a better fit and increased the body and sleeve width at the underarm. For design considerations I curved the corners of the pocket and cuffs, added a pocket flap, and topstitched with narrow double stitching. I used black thread throughout for a contrasting look, and for the topstitching. What can I say, I really like contrasting topstitching! Maybe next time I’ll make him a shirt with matching topstitching … hmm, maybe not. I don’t think I could resist putting my own little spin on any of the stuff I make..
I was a bit more careful with the topstitching of the sleeve plackets this time and I think the finish is pretty good if I say so myself….;D! I bought little shiny black buttons to finish it off.
I really love this rich port-wine colour on him, I think it really suits him and it goes beautifully with his stone coloured linen pants, with a black belt.
(In case anyone’s curious, he requested that his head be cropped out of the photo! I thought he looked quite handsome and is too sensitive but I can sympathise as I very often contemplate doing same to my photos too…)