in the folds Archives - Handmade by Carolyn

check out the checks!

23/08/2021 8:05 pm \ 2 Comments \ Carolyn

Hello! I’ve made a cool new outfit! At least, I think it’s pretty cool, anyway. I think it’s got a strong 80’s vibe; it reminds me vaguely of what the dancers were wearing in Spandeau Ballet’s “To Cut a Long Story Short” video. Oh boy, that takes me back, it was such a favourite of mine.

The fabric is a beautiful wool mix boucle from Minerva…it’s lovely and soft, with a nice, slightly bubbly texture to it, and I love the strong red and green check on a black background. So cool! It did fray like mad, so my first step was to finish all the raw edges on my overlocker

For the skirt; I used an old pattern from the actual 80’s, Vogue 1834, and partially lined it with black silk, from my stash. I’ve made this skirt once before … it can be seen here

The top is the In The Folds Collins top pattern, which I’ve made twice before; here and here. I cut this from the scraps from the skirt, and only just managed to squeak out the pieces! thus the complete lack of pattern matching. This does annoy me a little bit, but actually I had no choice at the time.

When styling it, I decided I like the ensemble best when the top is tucked into the skirt, because otherwise the wide flared top overwhelmed the skirt, and you can’t see any details of it. And this is such a beautiful and unique skirt design! it really demands to be seen. I mean, the top is pretty cool too, but for me this outfit is all about the skirt.

Having said that, though; the top is still pretty cool too, and I really like it worn out over a mini skirt, like here. This is a simple little mini that I made a few years ago, using a tartan wool that I bought in Tokyo during our last holiday there… you know, back when we were allowed to travel *sob*

The beautiful wool fabric is stable and pliable, and was great to sew up but it did fray like mad, so my first step was to finish all the newly cut, raw edges on my overlocker… I also finished some of the raw edges inside the garments such as the bottom edge of the waistband, and the neckline of the top; using bright red, bias cut cotton… this was leftover from my own Yallingup dress that I made for myself here… Want to see a fun video on the making process of this ensemble? If so then that’s great! because I made one! and it can be seen here on my YouTube channel. 🙂 It also includes footage of me leaping about like a loon, so there’s that too…

Posted in: sewing, Uncategorized \ Tagged: Collins top, daily outfit, in the folds, skirt, top, Vogue 1384

golden Collins

13/12/2019 5:39 pm \ 4 Comments \ Carolyn

I’m now desperately trying to blog everything I’ve made this year, within this year… so fair warning: brace yourself for an onslaught of making-spam…

First of all; this little dress!

I actually made this back in September! but cold weather and general lack of… shall we say? love? for the dress prevented me from wearing it for a while, or obviously blogging about it before. However all is now well, because the dress has easily reached its 30 wears, and is probably going to go on to at least 300 wears before I say sayonara to it… how is this so? you may ask… since devoted followers (ha!) of my daily ootd blog will have no doubt noticed it has made not one single appearance over there. I shall now explain… yes, I had not much love for it once I’d finished making it, which is strange because it actually ticked a number of very good boxes; it feels very nice to wear, very comfortable, and it is well made if I say so myself. I think it was the colour; yellow should suit my Autumnal self; but I decided this particular yellow was too close to my skin tone to really look good on me. I thought I might dye it, sometime. But before that happened, the weather warmed up a bit, I took out my old summer nightie to wear to bed and was saddened to see that a hole, that I had fixed up twice before, quickly reappeared in such a ghastly, final manner I had no choice but to ditch it. Yes, very sad, and I was too busy to make another nightie straight away … what to wear? then I noticed this dress perched on top of a pile of summer dresses, waiting to be noticed. I was like, well that will do for now, as a stop-gap. But you know what? I’m really enjoying wearing it!

Fabric; a pale yellow quilting cotton from Minerva, printed with gold snowflakes. I think it’s part of their Christmas range. My previous nightie was made of quilting cotton too, and so I’m accustomed to the feel of it. It’s very comfortable! soft and lovely against the skin. I’ve discovered that quilting cotton makes GREAT nighties! Since I’d intended it to be a proper dress, I have to admit it did turn out a leetle bit over-engineered for a nightie; it’s got facings, pockets, inset strips to define the seams. A bias bound hemline, for heaven’s sake.

Some deets:

Pattern; I used the Collins top pattern by In The Folds; I’ve previously made this once before, to make this palm leaf lace top here. This time, I lengthened the appropriate pieces to make it dress-length. In doing so, I extended the front and back diagonal lines right down to meet at the hemline in a nice neat V. I decided to highlight this feature, by insering an inset strip into the seamlines, just like I did with this dress. The bias cut contrast strip is mustard silk crepe; same stuff I used for my Fibre Mood Faye dress.

I’m rather thrilled with the sharpness of that point!

Cutting my “outer” pieces had used basically every last scrap of the snowflake fabric, so I unearthed a short length of soft yellow silk dupion from my stash; a remnant in merited from my grandmother.

From this; I cut my neckline/armscye facings, the voluminous pockets, and the bias cut strip I used to hem the dress,

For the button at the back of the neck; well I didn’t even really need to make an opening, since I’ve always found I can slip this dress on and off without un-doing the button! but I’d made provision for it, so needed to finish it off…

I took out one of the leftover buttons I’d covered in ivory crepe for Kelly’s wedding dress (self-covering button kit purchased here) and painted it with some gold paint. This itself is leftover from when I made my Queen Rutela costume; I used it to paint my “jewellery” and my “hair”

So that’s it! I have a wonderful nightie and have enjoyed wearing it a lot, since it’s basically like a proper dress. Actually, it’s kinda half nightie, half dress… I think of it as loungewear. I can take out the bin without worrying what the neighbours might think, haha. Maybe I’ll even eventually dye it like I originally planned, and wear it out one day!

Details:

Dress/nightie; the Collins top by In The Folds, in printed quilting cotton
Lilac shoes; made by me at a Shoe Camraderie workshop, details here

Posted in: sewing \ Tagged: Collins top, dress, in the folds, own design, pyjamas

white palm leaf lace

23/05/2018 1:22 pm \ 45 Comments \ Carolyn

So, we were going to Bali to attend our friends L&L’s wedding in early May… and I decided I wanted to make a special new ensemble to take away with me. Not to wear to the wedding, because, well … is ivory still a no-no for a wedding guest? I’ve always thought so, but then I did notice a few white-ish ensembles at the wedding anyway. So maybe times are a-changing… but I digress.

In any case, I took a different dress to wear to the wedding.

So… this outfit. Craig and I were planning some special dinners while we were in Bali, because this was a meaningful holiday for us for a reason totally unrelated to our friends’ wedding… it’s our 30th wedding anniversary this year! and the last time we were in Bali was for our honeymoon. When we heard L & L were planning their wedding there, we decided we’d make this trip a kind of second honeymoon for ourselves. And I wanted something new for the occasion 🙂

I bought the very unusual lace fabric from Tessuti’s in Melbourne, during my girls’ trip over with Mum and Cassie. It’s quite a dramatic fabric, very stiff and with a “painted” feel to it… I will admit to a small “what was I thinking?” moment afterwards! but some of my favourite ensembles have come out of crazy, challenging fabrics, so I try not to let that impede the hurtling of the creative train~~wreck~~ at all…

I underlined throughout with a creamy cotton voile, that I bought from the Morrison fabric and clothing sale… honestly one of my favourite sales to go to here in Perth, though it is very much a lucky dip. You can get amaaaaaaazing bargains, at the same time there can be a lot of weird and horrible stuff too that you simply can’t believe Morrison would ever use for their beautiful clothing line! But it’s nearly always super cheap, so well worth a look in! This creamy-coloured voile was $10 for a whole roll. Awesome sauce!!

Patterns… the skirt is my regular ol’ standby Vogue 1247, lengthened, with the pieces spliced to eliminate the horizontal seams. btw, Sanni asked about this pattern and how it’s keeping, and the truth is that it is indeed getting pretty tatty!! I really should trace it on something tough to preserve it because it really is a winner and no doubt I will be using it, yet again!

The top is the Collins top, by Sydney designer In the Folds. Emily put out a call on IG for contributors to a kickstarter to help her to get a print run of her previously pdf only patterns, and since she had been kind enough to send me the Acton dress pattern a year ago I wanted to pay it forward … the reward was this pattern! which of course I am super thrilled about. It’s a pretty popular pattern, and I thought its exaggerated swing shape would sit out nicely in the stiffish lace, and make a cool counterpoint to a little fitted miniskirt underneath. I underlined both garments throughout, with the exception of the raglan sleeves, which are just the lace.

Neckline bound with self-made bias binding, from the same cream cotton voile as the underlining.

To keep things light, I just trimmed all the raw edges inside with my pinking shears

The lower edges of the lace are just trimmed evenly with my rotary cutter, the voile is hemmed with a narrow, 1cm hem.

Skirt waistband; cut from a different piece of thicker, naturally crinkle-y, cafe-au-lait cotton, also bought from the Morrison fabric and clothing sale. For closure on both skirt and top I used small mother-of-pearl buttons, found in Le Stash.

Do you wanna hear something funny? See that trapezoidal piece at the back, lower edge of the top? I cut that piece out upside down… with the palm leaves pointing UP instead of down like they are everywhere else… not once, but twice! Once was bad enough, but I couldn’t believe my own stupidity when I found myself doing the same thing, a second time! *facepalm and it was an absolute miracle I had a large enough piece leftover to cut it out a third time in one piece since I really had bought only just enough of the lace in the first place. It is very slightly off-grain… but hey! at least it’s the right way up!!

wot is this pose then, eh?

So that’s it! I really reeeeeally love it, but then again I’ve always had a predilection for white lace things. This one is not too sweet or “young” for me, but just nicely sophisticated enough, I think. I wore it to two separate dinners in Bali, and the tropical feel of the palm leaf motifs combined with the cool airy breeziness of lace and voile in the humidity of Bali made it the most perfect of perfect things to wear for our special outings.

Verdict; very happy 🙂

Oooh! before I forget! a post script/public service announcement… I recently received an email from the Great British Sewing Bee! *cue excited squeal when I had a split second of thinking they were having an Aussie version.. however sadly, NO…the email was to let me know that the next UK season is open to applications and asking me to spread the word. I mean, if we had one here I would love it if someone let me know about it! so I’m like, OK! Also, if we did have one here I would be SO onto that in a hot minute, and if you’re lucky enough to live somewhere where you do have these things, well what are you waiting for?!

THE GREAT BRITISH SEWING BEE is looking for a new collection of brilliant amateur sewers for the fifth series of BBC Two’s The Great British Sewing Bee. For more information or to apply please go to: www.applyforsewingbee.co.uk

Closing Date: Midnight May 28^th 2018

Details:

Top; In the Folds Collins top, in a stiff lace underlined with cotton voile
Skirt; based on Vogue 1247
Sandals; (white) designed and made by me, details here
(turquoise) la Soffita di Gilde

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Posted in: sewing, Uncategorized \ Tagged: Collins top, daily outfit, in the folds, skirt, top, Vogue 1247

acton dress, in the folds

10/11/2016 7:54 pm \ 27 Comments \ Carolyn

Hello, I’ve made a new sundress. Hmmmm, how do I love thee… let me count the ways. It’s easy. It’s breezy. It’s the palest of soft cloud-grey with teeny ivory stripes. It’s crinkly-linen-tastic on the outside, and lusciously silk-lined on the inside. It’s a midi length #currentcrave The skirt can be styled in multiple different ways.

That’s a lot of different ways.

Pattern; a few weeks ago Emily, the designer behind In the Folds contacted me, asking if I would like to review her new pattern, the Acton dress. Obviously I said yes! I love trying out new patterns! and this one looked like so lovely and elegant for summer, long clean lines, an interesting skirt, tres chic

Fabric; a crinkly linen bought at Tessuti’s in Melbourne a few years ago during a trip over there with Mum and Cassie. I remember I was going to make a shirt for one of my boys from it, but it wasn’t really the best fabric for that and I ended up buying pinstriped linens for them all instead, which was far more suitable. And by doing so, I then had the fabric all for my own selfish little self, while maintaining the virtuous position of having actually bought it unselfishly for someone else, mwahaha. My dress is fully lined with an ivory, silk crepe from Fabulous Fabrics. Actually leftover from my Ruby slip; and I just needed to buy a little more to get out the pieces.

For the straps and the ties; I used 1.5mm wide, white grosgrain ribbon. The pattern provides pieces and instructions to cut these out as bias-cut strips, but I chose to make them the ~~cheat’s~~ easy way. I overlocked all raw edges inside the dress, and hand-stitched the hemline in both skirt and lining

Thoughts and alterations: the pattern has two variations, or four if you count the fact that the bodice has two variations, and the skirt another two. Along with the fact that the skirt on variation B can be tied differently in several different ways itself, that adds up to …um, let’s just say “lots” of slightly different looks, to suit lots of different tastes, pick your favourite. I love having options like this in a pattern!

I made my dress with skirt B and bodice A that has a lower back. As recommended in the pattern, I used the skirt A pieces for my lining. There is an invisible zip in the CB seam, but with the lowered back of bodice A, I have found I can actually just slip the dress on and off over my head without having to zip it up or down. BONUS!! and darn that perfectly aligned invisible zip!

skirt wrapped and tied at front

The pattern is only available as a pdf; which I reckon is absolutely brilliant for those of us who want something NOW, however has the unavoidable downside that you have to tape all those pages together *sad trombone* If you’re printing out both skirt options as I did, because I was using skirt A pieces to line skirt B this is a whopping 64 pages in total. Yes, that’s a lot! Though, this is the entire pattern, and if you’re making the skirt unlined you wouldn’t have anywhere near that many 🙂 Also, of course you can always go the A0 route; take the file to a copy shop like Officeworks and pay a small amount to have it printed on three A0 size pages. This reduces the amount of taping to almost nothing. Me being the impatient bod that I am, yes: I printed at home and taped… and I save time and tape by cutting out and only taping together the bits that I absolutely have to.

I used to find pdf’s a bit of a pain but the instant gratification is undeniably a big plus and I consider myself an expert at this taping biz now.

skirt wrapped and tied at back

My measurements put me at a size C, and as mentioned, I can just slip the dress on over my head. I do have narrow shoulders it’s true, and my crinkly fabric does have a tiny amount of give, but the bodice does have that easy-wearing, loose-ish fit, which I reckon is a good thing for summer, or if you want to wear it over a Tshirt as I am pictured below. I found it necessary to do just a slight small bust adjustment; I did this by the simple expedited method of flattening the bust curve by shaving about 1cm off of the bust curve. Not very scientific, but it works fine for me…

skirt wrapped and tied at back

I also lengthened my outer skirt pieces about 7cm at the lower hem, to give a nice long midi skirt, just because I’m currently in a midi sort of a mood. A mood for midis 😉 Speaking of the skirt, let’s get into these skirt variations… what are these different ways in which it can be styled?

skirt loose and untied

Firstly, there’s just with the side pieces hanging down completely loose and with the ties tied up in themselves to keep them up off the floor. This is easy and comfortable, excellent for large Christmas dinners! and gives that sort of loose, flowy, “Lagenlook” to the dress.

Secondly and thirdly, wrap and overlap the side bits around to either the front or the back of the dress… (in photos higher up) I’m undecided as to which of these I like the best. They both look equally cool, I reckon. Craig likes them wrapped to the front (below).

skirt wrapped and tied at front

Finally; I’ve been seeing all the cool, fashion-conscious kids of the world wearing their long-line spaghetti strap midi dresses with a little cap-sleeved Tshirt on underneath, so thusly decided to give it a whirl (below)… and I really love it like this! It was too hot to wear it in Broome with the additional layer underneath, but right now in Perth our sorta-warmish-but-not-hot springy weather means it’s simply perfect to wear a sundress with Tshirt, for that little bit of extra coverage. And the ties, for this “look”, I just tied them very loosely at the back without “wrapping” the side bits over each other. This does look nice too, I think, more casual and allows the long sleek lines of the dress to hang more gracefully. I actually think this could be my favourite way though it’s a close one. I do really like the way the skirt can be worn such a lot of different ways and plan to mix it up every time I wear it!

skirt not wrapped but loosely tied at back

Now, for some business-y notes. Emily kindly offered me an affiliate link for the Acton; and while up until now I have earned not one single cent from my blog and I have often said I wouldn’t do affiliate links, I have decided it’s time to give it a go. So my links to the Acton pattern will pay me a very small commission if someone chooses to buy it through that link. Please bear in mind that the commission paid to me is NOT an additional cost to the pattern; if you buy the pattern the price is exactly the same whether you buy through my link or otherwise. I just wanted to explain that just in case anyone was unsure and was wondering how it works. If you have enjoyed reading about and looking at my sewing projects over the years and also wish to buy this pattern, then please do not rule out this option 🙂

The Acton dress pattern is available from Emily’s site here; and you can also read more about Emily, an honours graduate in fashion and textiles from the University of Technology Sydney, and her other designs here

loosely tied at back

Details:

Dress; the Acton dress by In the Folds, in grey striped crinkly linen, lined with silk crepe
Tshirt; the Nettie, white jersey, details here
Hat; Vogue 8844, ivory corduroy, details and my review of this pattern here
Sandals, in the beach pics; designed and made by me, details here
Clogs; in the garage pics; designed and made by me, details here

I took these beachy photographs on Cable Beach in Broome; a place which captured my heart during our holiday a few weeks ago and from which I did NOT want to come home. I’m not even joking. I’m getting that happy, eternally-summer vibe all over again, just looking at these pictures *sigh* Minimums 25C, maximums 32C every day; huge beach, squeaky white sand, almost completely deserted. Heaven!! I want to go back!!

Bonus picture; husband was intending to stay well out of the way but still managed to inadvertently photobomb, haha

LATER EDIT: the dress has had a minor update! I sliced off the wings, angling from the waist seam in a straight line out to the unaltered hemline… so the dress still has those lovely handkerchief points in the hemline, but is a little more streamlined about the waist and hips.

LATER EDIT:

the dress has had another update!

fairly major this time… it’s been worn quite a lot and I was getting a little bit tired of it… so it got rather summarily dunked into the dyepot… from which it somehow managed to emerge totally transformed into something newly amazing and magnificent to my eyes… I’M SO IN LOVE WITH THIS DRESS ALL OVER AGAIN!!!!