make12 Archives - Handmade by Carolyn

nani Iro Encounter dress

11/02/2022 11:04 am \ 4 Comments \ Carolyn

Hello! I’ve made a new rather beachy little dress!

I bought this beautiful fabric over two years ago, the last time we were in Japan and Yoshimi took us to her favourite craft store; Yuzawaya in Kichijoji, it’s quite close to the Studio Ghibli museum and we popped in on our way. It is a nani Iro double cotton gauze”Encounter”; and it’s so pretty! but in a sparse, painterly way that I think it’s not too pretty for me.

I used a pattern from the Stylish Dress Book by Yoshiko Tsukiori; dress F which I have made several times before. It’s my favourite from the book, because it is so subtly stylish in a very quiet and cute way without tipping into too cute (for me). My favourite thing about it is the shaped, open sleeve design, with little ties. I squeezed in seam side pockets, of course; and actually used up practically every scrap of my 2m of fabric. I have enough left for a face mask but didn’t get around to making that yet.

I’ve been dreaming about finally wearing this beautiful fabric for so long, finally cutting into it and making something that I know I am going to love was a joy; I almost feel like I’m cheating on my “use30” pledge?! But of course it’s not really cheating. Adding this 2m to my current tally of 8; and I’m up to 10m for the year… 20m to go!!

For the facing, in the past I’ve just tended to overlock the edges of a facing like this… however I’ve often found an overlocked, interfaced edge to be quite irritating when it’s rubbing against soft skin all day long. So this time I went to the effort of finishing off the facing with a strip of self bias-binding. I can already attest that this tiny little innovation is a huge improvement!

I also added a fun new label, that I bought to treat myself at the beginning of this year… the idea of a time stamp on my clothes just took my fancy! Yes, I am indeedy a bit of a nerd about things being orderly and documented/tallied in a well organised fashion – obviously! What is this blog if not just a further manifestation of my obsession?! These cute labels are from Kylie and the Machine; the coolest of cool label makers out there. I don’t mind being cool occasionally, if it fits my current fancy.

This is the first outfit in my “make 12”. It’s a bit quick and casual, but I’m so happy I finally cut into this precious, very loved fabric; plus it could not be more perfectly suited to my current lifestyle, so all is good. I hope to be making more exciting and involved things for future contenders.

Posted in: sewing \ Tagged: daily outfit, dress, make12, Stylish Dress Book, use30

“autumn tree swirl”: lingerie set

22/01/2022 6:10 pm \ 1 Comment \ Carolyn

Hello!

I’ve made a new lingerie set for myself, using the very last remains of this gorgeous autumn tree swirl cotton jersey. It’s pretty special, since it was designed by Cassie; and is actually available in her Spoonflower shop, should you be interested… I’d made a romper for Theo out of the original 1m piece late last year, and this is squeaked out of the leftovers… there is zero left now!

I used my MakeBra pattern, which has been renamed I think since I bought mine… it is now DL 03. At the time I saved myself money by buying a single size, and since then I’ve gradually tweaked the sizing a smidgen here and a smidge there, and finally have the absolutely perfect fit at last. Namely, about 1 cm has been shaved off the “rise” of the cups, each side of the centre seam of each cup, and also the position of the cup cut-outs has been moved about 0.5cm further away from centre front of the band.

The undies are Ye Olde Faithful; the Cloth Habit Watson brief pattern, with my usual mods, outlined here.

I was cutting these from scraps so couldn’t do much creative in the form of pattern-matching, but I did cut out and hand-applique on a couple of extra trees onto a bra cup to continue the visual look of the little trees in the print. It just looked a bit chopped off without them and I couldn’t stand it!

I bought all elastics from Homecraft Textiles as well as the rings and sliders… and the underwires, underwire channelling, hook and eye tape, and the foam I used to construct the cups were all from the original “ivory” colourway MakeBra basic kit that I bought a few years ago.

I have a sorta funny story regarding zig-zagging the foldover elastic… it was extraordinarily difficult and messy this time and I had so much trouble. It wouldn’t feed through the machine, and when I did manage to drag it through as gently as I possibly could it became horribly stretched out. As well the stitches looked all jagged and uneven, and the tension was all over the shop. I painstakingly unpicked way more hideous zig-zagging than is good for anyone’s mental health, and tried so many different settings on my machine… none of which seemed to work. I was near despair and at one point seriously considered actually hand stitching ALL the foldover elastic. You REALLY know you’re desperate when… !!! I actually DID hand stitch it along the top edge of the bra, and it looks really pretty too so I didn’t even re-do that bit when I finally worked out the problem. Oh, what was the problem? I hear you ask? Well, I finally noticed that I was using a denim needle to do the job. I substituted a stretch needle, and whammo; perfect zig-zagging immediately ensued. Who knew, eh? *facepalm*

The fabric I had already of course… and since I originally had 1m from which I’d cut out Theo’s romper, I’m counting this lingerie set took maybe 50cm. Meaning, so far for the year I’ve used 1.5m from stash, and I have 28.5m to go in my little #use30 challenge for this year, yay!
Oh, btw, I’ve given some thought to my “thing” for this year… other than the aforementioned #use30frommystash; which I optimistically to have achieved fairly early on?! I hope! Anyway; I’ve decided to just go with something that extremely open-ended and that’s to simply make 12 things. No other criteria necessary other than to put it plain and simple; I am hoping to make 12 pretty and/or interesting outfits of some sort for myself this year! Pretty achievable, I think!

I’ll be filling up these little dummies as each new outfit transpires… 🙂

Posted in: sewing \ Tagged: cloth habit, lingerie, make12, makeBra, makeBra DL03, use30, watson

#use12 capsule wardrobe

30/12/2021 8:54 pm \ 6 Comments \ Carolyn

Ta da! IT IS DONE…

I can finally present, in entirety, my #make12, or #use12, capsule wardrobe… yes, that funny little project I’ve been chipping away at all year… hurray! Phoar! I cannot be more thrilled with this funny little collection, right here! And how it all worked out in the end, with just a few minor nudges and fudges here and there.

The pieces

from left to right; all pieces linked to their own blog post:

raspberry suiting mini skirt

pale blue damask summer skirt

blue corduroy flared skirt

yellow blouse

moss green swing tee top

chocolate brown, wide leg trousers

salmon pink tee

forest green LS merino tee

avocado green jacket

white, appliquéd blouse

mint green leafy dress

teal green clogs/ shoes

and I also got out a bonus set of underwear Thanks to my sewing buddy Jane for modelling these! She’s such a good sport 🙂

the aforementioned nudges and fudges: I used all of my fabrics bar one; my precious green fish leather from Iceland… however I used some of another green leather from my stash for the shoes. At the same time, I used the yellow for underwear, so used the last leftovers from another project for the yellow top, so that was kind of a bonus too.

does the capsule work? So, I had great fun dressing up and mixing and matching all the pieces as much as I could. There could be some combos I missed? but this is as far as I got before exhaustion set in… but I’m so excited to get them mingling all together like this! My beautiful new teal clogs do go with absolutely everything, which is cause for great celebration!! however since some of the outfits are quite wintery, I put on my black tights and black boots for some of the looks, because that is how I’ll wear them in reality.

Phew, that’s a lot, eh. More outfits that even I thought possible! Now I’m completely exhausted! and also have a vaguely over-indulged feeling, like maybe I shouldn’t add any more clothes to my collection for a while…?! but of course I still have fabric in my stash, and I still have plans too! It might be a good idea to focus on more things for others though, for a while 😉

Thoughts? I think the thing I like the most about all these pieces is that many of the fabrics were precious in some way; souvenir buys, or gifts from family and friends; that I was too frightened to cut into, for some reason or another. I really wanted to force myself to finally enjoy these lovely pieces, and to wear and appreciate them. At the same quite a few of the fabrics were smallish, leftover, orphan scraps in my stash, that were too big to throw away, and were just sitting there taking up space. I feel really good about finally clearing some of these out and usefully; if that makes sense! I did try to choose a set of colours and textures that I thought looked nice together, and it’s really exciting seeing that most of them really do play together as nicely as I was hoping.

I already know I’ll wear a lot of these outfits, maybe not all of the combinations that I put together here “speak” to me, but just playing with everything like this gave me lots of ideas. Of course, several of the earlier made pieces have already gone into heavy rotation, and been worn all year long, while some things are nigh on brand new and not been worn at all!

I think this is the second capsule wardrobe I’ve ever made, and doing it was just as much fun as the first time. I wouldn’t even mind having a go at another one next year?? maybe?? Do I even dare?! It would have to be very very different from this one… but the cogs are already turning 😉

For the time being though, I am satisfied.

Posted in: fashion, sewing, shoes \ Tagged: capsule wardrobe, make12

a yellow Perth top and some teal clogs (shoes)

30/12/2021 12:50 pm \ 1 Comment \ Carolyn

Hello! I’ve made a couple more items for my #use12 mini capsule wardrobe that I proposed for myself at the beginning of the year, in fact the last two items! So I’m essentially finished! Apart from a big mix-y/match-y dress up session that I’m planning… quite excited about that, actually! I’ve purposely held off up until now!

So the second to last item is a mustard-yellow Perth blouse… this pattern was our first offering from our own little Carolyn & Cassie Pattern Co. My new blouse is actually kind of a blow-in, sort-of/not-really but yeah, sort of. Let me explain. See, I had a small piece of mustard yellow jersey in the original #use12 lineup, with which I thought I’d be able to make a simple little top. However I just didn’t have enough of that fabric, no matter which way I looked at it. So, if you remember I made a set of yellow underwear with the scrap instead. Yes, it was a scrap, originally leftover from my yellow Jade skirt, which I’ve worn a tonne, btw. Anyway, I used the scrap, yay! but I didn’t have my little top. Fast forward to when I made myself a dress for my niece’s yellow themed 21st, and I actually had enough scraps leftover from that, that I thought I might be able to do a little top after all. And I did! I managed to cut out a Perth top, with shortened sleeves. And I now have zero left of that yellow fabric too. So; I kinda used up both the scraps, and got my yellow top for the capsule in the end too. Clear as mud? I thought so. Never mind, Just me rambling.

Not much else to say really! I double topstitched all the seams throughout, which gives a sort of casual utilitarian look; and used a small, natural wooden button for closure. I already had the yellow thread in my stash too, from when I made the dress!

The last item for my #use12 is my new pair of clogs!

I’m so so happy with these! although I have to confess that these were quite a departure from my original intentions too… see I’d originally proposed to use a piece of the precious fish leather that I’d bought in Iceland to make a pair of oxfords. I still want to do that. However, just at this stage I don’t think I’m quite ready enough for that project…. I had this bottle green leather in my stash though, that I’d bought in the Fabric Store in Melbourne during one of our girly trips over there. I ordered a refill clog kit from leather needle thread, without leather, and bammo! bob’s your uncle.

Actually, I said I’m happy with these, and I am! but truth be told I think my leather was just a shade on the flimsy side? and the ankle strappy bit flops in when I’m not wearing them, whereas the ones I’ve made using leather supplied with the kit – obviously superior! – does not. So I’m thinking of going in retrospectively and applying a lining to the straps to stiffen them up. I think this will be quite easy actually, and I have some very thin pig leather that is supposed to be used to line shoes that I can use for the purpose. I bought this from Skindhuset in Copenhagen during one of our trips there.

I might not though, because I’m not sure if my worries are just me being nit-picky… which is quite probable. We’ll see ….

Anyway… next up! the capsule wardrobe in total!

Posted in: sewing, shoes \ Tagged: blouse, Carolyn & Cassie Pattern Co, leather needle thread, make12, Perth, shoes, top, use12

embroidered white top

05/03/2021 10:33 pm \ 10 Comments \ Carolyn

hello!

so, short side note; but I didn’t post any yearly resolutions/intentions here previously. I did on instagram though. Whoops! Anyway, I did actually make a little resolution, and here’s the lowdown…

at the beginning of the year I was thinking about how I really enjoyed doing my “make 12” last year so I decided to do it again but this time with a little more flexibility ; I chose the above 12 textiles from my stash with the idea I’d make a sort of unplanned mini capsule wardrobe of 12 things. Early on I optimistically thought I’d be able to do one thing per month but of course moving house, well, moving two houses as it turned out! and our new pattern were all pretty major and stressful events that ended up taking every ounce I had… and before I even knew it it’s March already!

spot the paw… ^

Anywhoo! For patterns/designs I’m just gonna decide as I go …! My 12 fabrics are a hopefully interesting and eclectic mix, including wool, corduroy, damask, drill, jersey, heavily embroidered something, and even some precious fish leather that I bought during our trip to Iceland years ago…

And I made my first thing!

also… paw

This particular fabric is a piece given to me by Mum years ago when she cleaned out her stash, a heavily embroidered and appliquéd cotton that is absolutely beautiful and absolutely my cup of tea! As it turned out, it was not one piece of fabric, but several already cut out into shirt pieces. Mum had obviously planned to make a shirt and already cut out a back and two fronts, but I decided to switch them around, and have the one back piece at the front; and the two front pieces at the back!

…she’s been quite needy today; came and plonked herself up against me so hard and close, it was so very sweet! This furry love was just so comforting and I needed it today too 🙂

Apart from that it’s all fairly standard, I left the selvedges at the bottom of each piece because I thought it looked so weird in a way that I really like… and I attached selvedges pieces to the ends of the sleeves too to get the same effect here. I stitched the button plackets on the (old) fronts simply down onto each other, and cut a new neckline into the (old) back so I could wear it comfortably as a front. The neckline is finished with a bias binding, that I cut from an old cream coloured business skirt of Craig’s.

love a good bias binding 🙂

You know how sometimes you make something and you just put it on straight away and don’t want to take it off? Well, that is how I feel about this new top! I absolutely love it!