own design Archives - Page 27 of 55

Bright roses, tops n tights

08/07/2013 5:58 am \ 39 Comments \ Carolyn

Y’ello 🙂
I’ve been making stoof. Please bear with me while my photo-taking catches up…
Firstly, my new top of stretchy cotton sateen. I must be dreaming of spring already, I think!
This is a stash-busting success story. I fell deeply in love with this autumnal gold/orange/scarlet/khaki rose-print fabric from Tessuti’s in Melbourne last year, and threw down my credit card with blithe abandon. So my colours! Close-up, the print has that slightly scratchy spotty appearance of an old polaroid. Love it.
Difficulties arose when I got home and had to come to terms with the fact that for some dumb reason I had bought only 70cm. I have no excuse for this insanity. Yes, I was an idiot. I’m blaming that state of mad fabric drunkenness brought on by places like Tessuti’s. Note to self: get at least a metre from now on.
So I made a simple little pull-on Tshirt top because fortunately you don’t need much metrage for this style. This is the bodice from a dress pattern, Burda style magazine 08/2009, 128; elongated a bit. I have made this pattern up twice before, firstly as a dress and then as a top just like this one, so I already know how much I love this flattering boat-neck style. It has bust darts in the front and two long vertical darts in the back for shaping. No zip or closure is needed because the neck opening is wide enough so that you can just pull it on over your head.

I could not make the sleeves as long as the pattern intended, as in my previous two versions. This is the very longest I could get from out of my meagre piece. I would really prefer them to be about 12cm longer, but meh. I can cope.

Details:

Top; Burdastyle magazine 08/2009; 128 modified to be a top, stretchy cotton sateen, my review of this pattern here

Skirt; Burdastyle 10/2010, 136 (the Karl Lagerfeld skirt) lengthened, black suiting gabardine, details and my review of this pattern here

Tights; black merino wool, made using my own custom fit tights pattern, my tutorial on how to draft your own here

Shoes; Django and Juliette, from Zomp shoes

Some notes on the finishing details for this top:

The neckband is finished with facings. I always always under-stitch facings on a garment that I wish to look sorta dressy, or just not-so casual. Top-stitching always makes things look a bit more “casual” imo, and often you want an edge that smoothly and cleanly rolls under to the inside, with no top-stitching or anything visible on the edge. Under-stitching (the red stitching in both photos below) always provides a nice clean and minimal look on the outside; and safeguards against facings popping up and out.

After under-stitching, the facings are stitched to the sleeve cap seam allowances just inside the previous sleeve cap stitching, and stitched-in-the-ditch down to the shoulder from the right side of the garment, to hold them firmly in place.

But wait, there’s more…

While I am really enjoying wearing my crazier leggings and tights, I guess we all agree that plain black tights are kinda the most useful type to have, and a must for winter, right? So I made a second pair identical in every way to my previous pair. I am wearing these in the photo above too.
And I have made two little Tshirts too, one for me, and one for my husband, both self-drafted and custom-fit, using the very last of my 100% merino wool stash, bought from the Fabric Store in Melbourne last year. Now we have matching his-and-hers thermal tops, haha. Quelle romantic, non?

Random picture of the neckband, constructed using this method. Appearing here for no better reason than for me to feel good about the increasingly better finish I am achieving nowadays. The centre back is still a wee bit bobbly thanks to the extra thickness of fabric in the joining seam there, but it’s getting there. Practise is benefiting the quest for perfection!

Posted in: Uncategorized \ Tagged: Burdastyle magazine 08-2009-128, Craig, daily outfit, own design, seams, tights/leggings, top

Supreme Commander Servalan

29/06/2013 8:25 am \ 63 Comments \ Carolyn

Put him on the fastest scout ship available and send him here. No flight plan is to be filed.

That’s against Bureau standing orders, Commissioner.

Who do you think wrote those orders, Borr? I did. So do as I say, and do it now.
(source)

So, what on earth, or should I say … off earth, is going on here?
Well, we are going to a Sci-fi party, and it’s been a while since I made something ridiculously glamorous so I decided to embrace my inner superbitch, and go as Supreme Commander Servalan. This requires some mega-fabulous frocking up and I get to behave like an obnoxious vamp all evening.
DOUBLE WIN! I can hardly wait! 😀

source

“I find unsophisticated clothes quite amusing. Like unsophisticated people. Obvious, but amusing.” (Servalan)

It’s been a while since I clapped eyes on Servalan doing her evil thang on the small screen… I checked out this video and also this one for a trip down memory lane, and to re-acquaint myself with her style. She has the most amazing and dramatic wardrobe. I chose this dress above from out of the plentiful fabulosity. It’s winter here. It’s cold. I want to be covered up!
I bought some cheap and rather temperamental silver-foiled, slightly stretchy stuff from Spotlight and two packets of crystal beads in different sizes and got drafting. I drafted the pattern myself and have provided more extensive details below, if anyone is interested in all that technical mumbo jumbo 🙂 but basically I used the idea behind the gathered hole design from Pattern Magic.

Speaking of Pattern Magic, I received an email from Anna-Brit, who is curating The Pattern Magic Index. This site is aiming to bring together makers and enthusiasts of the series with images of people’s creations and link-backs. If you have used any of the books in the Pattern Magic series to make things and would like to be included on the site, then send her an email at thepatternmagicindex(at)gmail(dot)com.

Details:

Silver sandals from Zu, from donkey’s years ago

Drafting and construction details:
I started out with my custom fit Tshirt pattern and spliced it with my plain little skirt pattern, and lengthened; to get a front and back. Then cut out a portion from the side front to be the flat beaded section at the waist. The remaining portion is cut and splayed out as per the gathered hole instructions in Pattern Magic 1.

The back is quite plain and featureless, basically a fitted Tshirt dress. Like Servalan’s dress, the skirt has a long slit in one side, for walking ease. Unlike Servalan’s, which has a centre back zip, mine has enough stretch for it to be a pull-over the head affair.
The sleeves are based on my plain Tshirt sleeve, with the side seams tapered out in a gentle arc to a wide wrist, in a bell shape.
The neckband is a plain rectangle, cut to fit the neckline measurement, and sewn on using this method. It is interlined with a piece of old cotton towelling, cut from a (clean) old towel. Sounds deeply unglamorous, right?! but I didn’t have any batting on hand which, yes, would have been ideal, and didn’t want to spend money on invisible things like that in a costume and the towelling was the perfect thickness and stiffness for the job. It is securely stitched to the neckband facing around all its edges on the inside.
The beaded section is done on two layers of the fabric for stability, and then with a layer of plain woven white cotton sewn underneath, to contain all the threads and for extra strength.
Being so shiny it’s hard to tell, but the fabric is actually almost sheer! so I made a little attached slip/liner dress as well, using the same pattern pieces, shortened and the front without the gathered feature, obviously. This is attached to the shell of the dress at the armscyes and the neckline, and conceals those gathering edges and that white bead-backing fabric inside.

I didn’t hem the sleeves or the hemline. The fabric is blessedly not frayable, and anyway, it’s a costume!! I will be lucky if I get to wear it more than a handful of times, really.

I have a little anecdote about this fabric too… we have a History. About twelve years ago I put up my hand to make half of about fifty costumes for little girls, including Cassie, performing an Abba number in a dance recital, and this was the exact same fabric I was given to work with along with the breezy advice to “just run them up on the overlocker”. I didn’t have an overlocker back then, so borrowed my sister-in-law’s brand new overlocker.
Man!
That experience nearly put me off overlockers for life! There is just something about this fabric … I destroyed almost one whole costume’s worth of fabric, just trying to get the settings for this fabric right on the overlocker. Nothing seemed to work. Either the seam was too loose and looked wobbly, bobbly and like a messy nest of loose and tangled threads; or too tight and threads were snapping left, right and centre. I re-threaded that machine countless times. Luckily it was not my own machine, if it had been mine I might even have heaved it into the bin in a rage…. When I finally hit on a setting that gave me a nice neat looking seam with no bobbly bits anywhere; the seam would just pull quite wide apart when any pressure was put on it. I was tearing my hair out. Finally, I hit upon a plan of attack; I overlocked using the setting that “looked” real nice but pulled apart under pressure, which was for “looks” only, then went back over every seam with my regular sewing machine using a straight stitch, which was actually holding the seam together.
Finally, success!
Just before the dance recital, I surreptitiously checked out the costumes made by the other lady … and they all had the pulling-wide-apart seams! I was new and didn’t want to rock any boats so just kept quiet and hoped for the best. Luckily no little girls’ costumes fell apart on stage!
Obviously, I sewed this dress using the described double-sewing method 😉

Posted in: Uncategorized \ Tagged: costumes, fancy dress, own design, Pattern Magic

Navy and white striped Tshirt; 6 different ways

05/06/2013 3:29 pm \ 23 Comments \ Carolyn

A striped Tshirt seems to be the wardrobe staple of a certain kind of girl, a very stylish and chic kind of girl, that I think is not very like me. I mean, I like to think of myself as a non-conformist, but sometimes you find yourself latching on to a current trend almost without noticing! The striped Tshirt is being touted as a “classic”, but I reckon it is a more accurately described as an ultra-fashionable item, that ipso facto will probably go out of fashion in a few years, like everything else. Whichevs, for the moment it is IN. And I found myself making one. And wore it and wore it!

I looked back through my old photos to find these pictures of different outfits incorporating my navy and white striped Tshirt. It has appeared in a supporting role in plenty of other outfits too, but these ones are all “new” to a 6 different ways post. Five of these outfits are from previous me-made or self-stitched months; the first photo is a portion of one I used as my profile pic for a year!

Below: at left; the plain practical lines of the Tshirt play off well against the overblown silhouette of a pouffy white skirt, and at right; this is probably the “trendiest” out of all the outfits here…. worn with a beige trench coat, a long skinny knitted black scarf, and with khaki skinny jeans tucked into bikie boots.

Below at left; the Tshirt’s first appearance here on my blog, worn with greige corduroy jeans, a jersey scarf and hand-knitted socks, and at right; worn pinafore-style underneath my favourite charcoal grey pattern magic dress, with matching navy blue tights.

Below left; grunged down for a day of sweaty cross-country hiking with charcoal grey shorts and hand-knitted socks, at right, for a rainy winter’s day, the stripes stand out against the pale colours of a light grey longline skirt and a boxy little ivory jacket

It’s funny really that this Tshirt turned into such a favourite, since it was initially just an afterthought, thrown together using the leftovers of some rather low quality fabric. My newer striped Tshirt is made with much nicer and meatier fabric, so I am hoping it lasts even longer, at least until the trend fades away! 🙂

Posted in: Uncategorized \ Tagged: 6 different ways, own design, top

Boring black Tshirt

30/05/2013 7:02 am \ 29 Comments \ Carolyn

The penultimate day of me-made May, and I have a post planned to ~~spew out some vitriol~~ reflect on my experiences. Only kidding there. I have no vitriol, of course. Well, very very little 😉 hehe, but seriously, I am going to be throwing a party that it’s finished!!
But ahem, my outfit. I am wearing another sorta new, but not actually new thing, today. I sorted through my Tshirt drawer. And found this batty Pattern Magic top sitting there, sad and unloved and in need of a makeover. I made it a year ago, using bright blue cotton jersey, dyed brown. The resulting colour is a great colour for me, a very dark and quite rich chocolate brown that is almost purple in a certain light.

before

Great colour.
Not such a great top, though.
I wore it a couple of times and each time felt just a bit too… weird in it. The pokey-out bits required pulling into place and arranging just so in order for them to not look Very Weird. Mind you, I’ve nothing against “weird”, but there’s weird and there’s weird, if you know what I mean. There’s interesting, avant-garde, attractive weird, and then there is just plain weird. Don’t worry if you don’t see the difference there, I know what I mean.
But hmm, still a great colour. And there was a fair bit of fabric in it…

after

I half winged it, using my custom-fit Tshirt pattern. I had to piece a new bit in the lower edge of one side, and angled the hem a bit to encompass this, a smaller, pieced-in bit would have looked too bitsy. It’s still a bit bitsy probably, but this was the best I could do! And I do really like that slightly angled hemline. I hemmed the lower edge using the blind hem stitch, only on the outside; so it’s decorative close-up.

The sleeves also had to be pieced to get any length to them, and were stitched inside and underneath the existing narrow hem of the top’s armscye. It has the effect almost of a tank with a little cap sleeve underneath, and then with a longer sleeve underneath that. The sleeve hems are angled too; shorter at the underarm seam than on the outer arm.

Sorry if it’s boring now, compared to the before. The good news is that I will actually wear it now, being no longer, you know, weird.

min 6C, max 17C do not let that sunny blue sky deceive you, it is blinkin’ freezing! and we had heaps of rain this morning!

Details:
Jeans; Burda 7863 modified, ivory stretch denim, details here
Top; my own design, blue cotton jersey dyed brown
Jacket; Vogue 7975, thick woven wool, with silk lining and black braid edging, details here
Socks; handknit by me to a 60’s pattern, details here
Boots; nylon, from Zomp shoes

my family mmm13, Craig is wearing this shirt, Cassie is wearing these handknit socks, and Sam is wearing this hoodie

Craig’s shirt; Burda 7767 modified, green cotton, details here
Cassie’s socks; handknit by me to a 60’s pattern, 2ply yarn, details here
Sam’s hoodie; self-drafted, blue/grey jersey, details here

Posted in: Uncategorized \ Tagged: daily outfit, MMM13, own design, top, Wardrobe Refashion

Black tights and striped Tshirt

29/05/2013 6:05 am \ 42 Comments \ Carolyn

So yesterday I mentioned I would need some black tights to see me through winter… well I made some, tout de suite. Nothing like striking while the iron is hot!
I used some lovely fine-knit black merino wool fabric, bought from the Fabric Store in Melbourne during our last visit, and my own self-drafted pattern. Yah, nothing else to say about these really. There’s no doubt I will wear them tonnes and tonnes. I’m making a promise to myself that I will still wear my more colourful and interesting tights at least as frequently.

I also made a new striped Tshirt too; since my old navy and white striped Tshirt has been worn so much it’s had it and is now my PJ top. I decided that a striped Tshirt, like the black tights, is another “need” for my wardrobe. A must-have. I know I know *cringe* must-have lists are a dime a dozen and sometimes appear to encompass everything under the sun: but I believe it takes time and trial and error to work out what really constitutes a must-have for an individual. I think that these two pieces are both must-haves in the wardrobe, for me 🙂
I used my custom fit Tshirt pattern, (the pattern that used to be Burdastyle magazine 06/2011, 120, altered completely beyond recognition), and a white and grey striped cotton jersey from Fabulous Fabrics. I stabilised the shoulder seams with Seams Great, many thanks to velosewer for this :). The raw edges of the sleeve and lower are overlocked, then folded under once and stitched with a twin needle, taking care to have the stitching inside and out appearing within the white stripe.

For the neckband; instead of a vertical or bias striped band, this time I decided I wanted the clean look of a plain white band. So carefully cut the strip and folded and basted it so the band is the exact width of the white stripe. The thinner grey stripe appears just inside the fold.
I attached the neckband using this method, and topstitched the seam allowance down to the body of the garment afterwards.

min 9C, max 20C, sun, cloud and a smidge of rain today!

Details:

Tshirt; self-drafted, khaki and white striped cotton jersey

Skirt; Burda style magazine 10/2010, 136 modified, (the Karl Lagerfeld skirt) black suiting mix, details and my review of this pattern here

Tights; self-drafted, black merino wool knit: my tutorial for drafting your own custom fit tights pattern is here

Shoes; Django and Juliette, from Zomp shoes

in my family’s mmm13 today; Sam is wearing this hoodie, and Cassie is wearing these handknit socks.

Sam’s hoodie; self-drafted, blue/grey cotton jersey, details here
Cassie’s socks; handknit by me to a 60’s pattern, 2ply wool, details here

Posted in: Uncategorized \ Tagged: daily outfit, MMM13, own design, Sienna, tights/leggings, top

Paprika legs

28/05/2013 6:38 am \ 31 Comments \ Carolyn

I have made some new tights! and now I have paprika legs. You know, paprika, the hot n’ spicy stuff.
I like the idea of hot spicy legs 😉 you see, my initial impulse was to go with “oompa loompa” legs, but it seemed a little… er, silly? Ridiculous? Too close to the bone?! I prefer the poetry of paprika!
Taking part in me-made May has once again taught me that I have plenty of me-made clothes. So much that I really don’t need to be sewing fripperies for myself. I am going to devote myself from now on to sewing two types of things: challenging sewing, for fun and self-fulfillment; and replacement or maintenance sewing, making essential things that I actually really need.
This is part of the latter.
The colourful RTW tights and leggings I was wearing last year and the year before have finally gotten hole-y enough to be embarrassing and are now retired to become pool-socks. You know, when stockings get old you use them to put powdered pool chemicals in, tie off and then sit them in the swimming pool. So the chemicals can dissolve slowly without getting hoovered up by the creepy crawly.
I bought this rich burnt orange polyester knit last year, specifically for tights when the time came.
I used my own self-drafted pattern, and the piece was big enough to squeak out two pairs. So I made one pair from each of the “sides” so one pair is marginally darker and redder, and the other pair is lighter, a bit more “pumpkin” than red. The differences are very slight. The pair I am wearing here is the left-hand “redder” pair. I figure I will wear these exclusively until they get a hole, and then I can start on the reserve pair.

Verdict: well, the colour is bright but I LOVE it, and think it will fit in beautifully with my autumnal colour scheme. I think cheerful tights will always have a place pepping up the sombre drab neutrals, the blacks, charcoal and browns that are the backbone of my winter wardrobe. So these will be useful.
Now, I just need a black pair, and I think I will be all set for a me-made, warm legged winter…. 🙂

Details:
Tights; self-drafted using my own tutorial for making custom fit tights, rusty orange polyester knit
Top; half of a self-drafted twinset, leopard print knit, details here, and see this twinset styled in 6 different ways here
Dress; the gathered hole from Pattern Magic, charcoal fabric, details here
Shoes; Francesco Morichetti, from Zomp shoes

in my family’s me-made efforts today; Craig is wearing this shirt again, Cassie is wearing these hand-knit socks, and Sam is wearing this shirt…

Craig’s shirt; Burda 7767, striped cotton with yellow facings, details here
Cassie’s socks; knitted by me to a 60’s pattern, 2ply wool, details here
Sam’s shirt; Burda 7767 modified, navy and white check fabric, details here

Posted in: Uncategorized \ Tagged: daily outfit, MMM13, own design, Sienna, tights/leggings

Aries

29/03/2013 1:16 pm \ 38 Comments \ Carolyn

Aries; the ram.

But… where is the
ram?? Well I am wearing him! In the form of my pure wool felt cardigan/jacket. Baa-aa!

And I did take a picture
of this inquisitive flock of girls while I was driving up the driveway to my parents’ place this morning. We are here for a big family Easter
shin-dig 🙂

My cardigan was until very recently, a voluminous
drape-y wrap, which I bought in New Zealand a few years ago. The fabric is so soft and snuggly,
making it beautifully warm and cosy, and I’ve always loved this deep olive
colour. But the shape, while very fashionable
at the time that I bought it, eventually became very not. I’m not going to
show you any pictures of me wearing it, as it was. Especially with my hair… so just picture Samwise Gamgee in
LOTR and you’re getting a pretty good idea! So unfortunately I have not worn it for aaaages and knew I
never would again either looking like that; but I still loved that soft wool and thought it definitely
deserved a second wind.

I like it all over again now. I think it turned out sorta like an unstructured
tweed jacket; a casual, playful, loose and floppy version of the landed
gentry’s countrywear, like a cheeky, irreverent, younger brother of the same, if you
like. And I still have my souvenir from New Zealand, in a newly wearable style 🙂

Details:

Jacket; based loosely on Simplicity 4698,
deep olive felted wool, refashioned from an old wrap

Skirt; my own design
based upon Vogue 7303, white stretch lace, details here

Tshirt; self drafted,
white cotton jersey, details here

Socks; handknitted by me,
to a 1960’s sock pattern, details here

Shoes; Francesco
Morichetti, from Zomp shoes

Warning; technical sewing blahdy-blah from here on 🙂

There were a few little holes, which I darned before doing anything else.

The new design is
partially based on the pattern Simplicity 4698 with major alterations. Needed partly because of a severe lack of
fabric, and partly because the felt is so thick and spongy it just would not
suit a properly lined and tailored suit jacket anyway. I have made this pattern up previously four times I
think, only one of which I still have

The pieces were all
reduced in size a lot, basically to match
the regular cardigan size that I wear, and the back princess seams and outer sleeve seams were eliminated.

I made it as a completely
unlined cardigan, with welt pockets. The sewing lines of the welt are stabilised with a strip of corduroy.

To reduce bulk, because
the fabric really is very very thick! the pockets themselves are just a single
layer inside, sewn directly to the jacket front invisibly by hand. I used lots of tightly spaced, tiny
stitches around the pockets but hid them inside the felt so they only show up as the faintest shadow on
the right side of the
garment. I edged the entire front,
collar, hemline and sleeve hems by turning under a tiny roll of fabric under
the edge and slip-stitching by hand.
At the roll-point of the collar I switched the turn under to the other
side, to allow the front turnback of the collar to lie flat and true. Those overlocked seams are remnants of original seams.

On the inside, I hand
slip-stitched all the new seam allowances down to “disappear” as invisibly as possible
against the cardigan, for a neat and tidy inner finish. Maybe neater than the original overlocked finish, I think 😉

The buttonholes are all
embroidered by hand using 2 strands of embroidery floss, and the buttons are
nacre; sewed on upside down because the rough hewn wrong side of the buttons
was stylistically perfect for the rustic style I was going for.

It is quite a simple
re-fashion, basically a wrap front cardigan has been transformed to a suit
jacket style cardigan. Not exactly
earth-shattering stoof here. But I
am happy, since the new style means I am in love with it all over again and
will get a few more years wear out of it!

Posted in: Uncategorized \ Tagged: cardigan, daily outfit, darning, jacket, own design, Simplicity 4698, Wardrobe Refashion

Cut-out things

09/03/2013 8:30 am \ 23 Comments \ Carolyn

I made this little lace jacket/cardi/top thing many years ago, probably ten years ago! way before I started my blog, but even though it has appeared here a coupla times I’ve just realised it’s never been shown, as it were. So here it is, up close and personal.
The design is my own, perhaps copied from something I saw in a magazine, I think. It only took up a very small piece, about 50cm of embroidered cut-out linen from Fabulous Fabrics. The sleeves are just little caps, extensions of the armholes. All the raw edges are simply encased in self-made bias binding of white cotton, and at the waist is a drawstring in an inner casing, both also made from bias cut white cotton strips. The neckline closes with a button and a little ribbon loop. I used a tiny length of pale lavender satin ribbon for the loop because I didn’t have any white at the time, and it’s always bugged me that it’s not white. Not so much that I’ve ever changed it, though!! so I guess it’s not that much of an annoyance to me, reeeally. You can’t even see the ribbon when it’s buttoned up anyway 🙂
It’s still going strong, probably because it doesn’t get worn a whole bunch! but I’ll never toss it out. It’s nice to have as a hot weather “cardi”, for when I want to look smart. And I’ve discovered it goes really nicely with these cut-out ballet flats… (woot)