Tag Archives: Own Design

Aquarius

31/01/2013 10:00 am \ 76 Comments \

… the water bearer!
So this dress incorporates the design from page 56 of Pattern Magic 2, by
Tomoko Nakamichi.  It is described as “a flip turn draped design tie appears from the
slit in the front bodice for a complex and beautiful effect.”
When I was playing with ideas for the Aquarius theme I had in my head; I imagined that front panel as a swimmer shooting out of the watery waves that are embroidered around the hem of the dress, up the front of the dress, and diving back into the water at the neckline.  Yeah, I do occasionally have an overactive imagination….  🙂

To represent the Aquarian waves I embroidered a running stitch sine wave around the lower hem of the dress, and on the full-length front panel.  I originally had lazy-daisy water droplets going down the side of that front panel too… but the family veto-ed that one,  thought they were naff.  Hmf!  😀
I do like the visually peaceful hypnosis of sine waves.  Design-wise I’ve used them before.
And Aquarius is sometimes represented with a waves vaguely reminiscent of sine waves too.
The deep blue fabric is slightly rough and slightly crinkly cotton from Fabulous Fabrics.  I absolutely love this stuff.  It feels like it’s going to be so comfy and easy to live it.  When I found it in the store I bought some in each of the four colours!  This blue is the first piece to go under the knife scissors  🙂

I really like this longer length too.   I’ve already got a few short dresses and I wanted to go with something different this time.  I think it’s quite elegant, and the proportion of skirt to bodice lend the dress a more graceful and refined silhouette.

Details:
Dress; partly self-drafted, based on the flip turn design from page 56 of Pattern Magic 2, by Tomoko Nakamichi, blue cotton
Sandals; la soffitada Gilde, from Zomp shoes

Construction blah blah blah…
I drafted the dress a little differently from that suggested in the book… in this case I gave the dress a long darted true A-line skirt with satisfyingly deep deep inseam pockets.  To fit the back skirt to my slight swayback, I sewed modified darts in the skirt, and folded pleats in the bodice at the same position.  This allows the bodice to blouse out nicely from out of a fitted waistline.  The front skirt and bodice have the same dart/pleat thing happening.  This is a waist-slimming trick  😉

It is photographed here on Bessie who is bigger than I am, so it does blouse out more blousily on me.  The back of the dress is quite plain…

The dress is put on and taken off with a long invisible zip in the left side seam, and that long front panel is invisibly stitched down to the dress at the waistline.

The front neckline has to accommodate the flip turn tie, so I finished it with a narrow hem.  The back neckline and armscyes have interfaced facings.  The bodice slit has been finished like a letterbox opening, with a hemmed rectangle of facing fabric.  Like a welt-less and pocket-less welt pocket, if that makes any sense.  After wearing the dress for a few hours the pokey-out end ceased diving obediently into the water, and instead kept slipping sneakily back inside the dress, so I anchored it firmly in position on the inside along the sides of the letterbox opening.  It’s not going anywhere now!

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Drape-ity drape

19/01/2013 11:00 pm \ 53 Comments \
I have made a new top and a new skirt!  and am combining the two new garments in one post; since they kinda go together so well and all, and actually the skirt is so… well, bland and basic that frankly it doesn’t deserve its own post. My top is a modified version of the loose drape top, pattern no. 1 from drape drape, by Hisako Sato.  I used a soft slightly crinkly white cotton jersey, bought from the Fabric Store in Melbourne during my most recent trip.  Regarding the design; I really loved those lovely soft drapes of that front and back neckline, however, like JenC noted in a comment, this top made up as per the pattern is a … er, raaaather revealing garment.  As in, very very revealing.  The photographs in the book have been carefully selected, but it’s plain to see that the model is a hair’s breadth away from being topless.  And more, the top would be falling off one’s shoulders, only like, all the time. 
But I thought it would be pretty easy to alter the pattern to be less revealing while still maintaining the essence of those beautifully soft falls of fabric at the neckline.  I took out a good 20cm in width from the horizontal line of the front drape, and close to 30cm from the back drape, re-drawing in the armhole and side seams to be the same as the original, tapering out to the same hemline, and keeping those neckline edges cut straight on the cross so as to keep the self-facing as part of the same pattern piece, on a fold.  Terrific design feature btw, for those frightened of finishing knits this is an excellent easy way out!
Reducing the width has given me a top with the same flavour that attracted me to the original, but with coverage… yes, I may have some nice lingerie now, but I don’t want to be modelling it out in public for everyone on the street!
The side seams are flat felled, and I hand slipstitched the facings and armhole bindings in place for a smooth clean look on the outside.  I also added lingerie straps to the shoulder seams inside to prevent the top slipping off my shoulders, since in spite of taking out a whole lotta drape it is still that kind of design!
And I’m very happy with the result.  Such a cool and elegant design.  I can see this being lengthened very successfully, to make a simply gorgeous little cocktail sheath; how lovely would that look? 
The skirt.  Less exciting.  But ironically, its the bland and boring stuff that often turns into the amazingly useful and versatile stuff too, though; don’t you think?  The skirt is self-drafted, and identical in every way to this charcoal skirt from a few years ago, that has been utterly indispensible for layering and mixing and matching in my handmade wardrobe.  Indispensible, I tell you!  I used a piece of mystery fabric, part of the bundle given to me by my friend C from her late mother’s stash, and it is also the leftovers from this little Pattern Magic jacket.  Thus qualifying it for an itty bitty stash-busting garment!  Actually the top was also made using an itty bitty piece of fabric, less than 1m, but since I bought that fabric only three months ago I don’t know if it truly qualifies as “stash”  What do you think?  How long should fabric be in the stash before one can safely attribute it Stash Status??  One month?  Six months?  More than a year?
But the skirt is a definite stash-buster… goodness only knows how old that fabric is.  This grey side is the reverse side to that I used for the “wearing a square” jacket, a smooth, blue-grey colour, with a double-knit look to its texture.

Details:
Top; modified version of the loose drape top, pattern no.1 from drape drape by Hisako Sato, white cotton
Skirt; my own design, blue grey double-knitty type of stuff.
Sandals; c/o Misano

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Perchance to dream

27/10/2012 11:00 pm \ 19 Comments \

I have made some rather daggy baggy shorts, but
don’t worry.  Style has not flown
out the window.  After today, these are my new summer
PJ bottoms!
I used a too-small-for-anything-else piece of polycotton, crazily colourful and wildly patterned; given to me by my friend C from her late mother’s stash.  It is very nice for summer PJ’s really; light and flowy yet closely woven and sturdy.  One just has to be careful about looking at that rather garish floral print.  Which I think I can manage, since I will be tucked up in bed with my eyes shut for most of the time I’ll be wearing it.

kidding! it’s actually rather luscious, don’t you think?

I made these using my usual pattern, adapted from off an old pair cut up yonks ago for this very purpose and from which I have made all my PJ bottoms for the past few years.
With added pockets naturally…. because; well, when it comes to the question of pockets in a garment, if one can then one does, amiright?
I gave them a decorative fly front, and found three purple buttons in my stash that are a pretty good match!
With regards to my white shirt here: no, that is not
sleepwear; but more a lame attempt to disguise the fact that I am, tut tut,
actually wearing my pyjama bottoms out in public; shock, horror.  Really for the top half of my PJ’s I’ll
be downgrading one of these little tees.   I opted not to wear said little tee out today because together
they really do unmistakably scream “PJ’s!!”  It’s the elastic waistband I think  (shudder)  Even
for Australia, even for the beach….. yeah, no.
Actually I had almost forgotten I even had this lovely
white shirt… which is pretty dumb of me since it is kinda perfect for the delightful spring weather we are having.  It’s
not too hot for it yet, and it gives really good coverage from the sun. I have
rediscovered my love for this shirt since seeing Merche’s truly fabulous version of this pattern.  Isn’t it great that
we can simultaneously wear our shirts on opposite sides of the world, despite
having opposite seasons?
a moment of reflection…  
Details:
Shorts; self drafted with the help of an old pair of
PJ’s, polycotton
Shirt; Burdastyle magazine 10/2010, shirt 102, lightweight
ivory cotton, details and my review of this pattern here
Hat; pilfered from my husband
Sienna; is wearing her own PJ’s as well…
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Of the palest blue

21/10/2012 11:00 pm \ 44 Comments \

I still have one or two really lovely pieces of fabric given to me for pressies last Christmas, as well as from my birthday last year (blush) Beautiful fabrics that I have been too chicken to take the scissors to.  I know, ridiculous, right?!
Including a length of luscious powder-blue silk from Fabulous Fabrics, given to me by Cassie. 
This is a pure silk, but an unusual silk like none I have ever come across before.  The texture is very slightly rough and “grab-y”, almost suede-like; but somehow it still manages to be ripply and totally divinely soft against the skin.
No kidding, it’s like wearing a pale blue whisper.  
I’ve given staaaacks of thought as to what to make with it… and eveeeeentually made a decision.  Hey, I’m a Libra yo.
I really love my billowy black shirt, made last year.  It is so easy to wear and I feel so so good in it.  I feel like it is really flattering.  I love the shawl collar, the elegantly draped and gathered sleeves.  It is close to being perfect, and I wanted to make another one sorta similar, with a few modifications.

When I laid my pieces out on the fabric and realised I was going to end up with an unacceptably large piece of leftover fabric… aaagh!  More scissor-phobia and had to immediately pack it all up for a bit more thought.  And finally came up with a plan; yes, I still wanted my shirt, but I thought I might be able to squeeze a little petticoat from the leftovers… and I did!  Just!!!  And I have absolutely NO leftovers! Whooeee!
I had to cut the two back bodice pieces of the petticoat on the cross, and piece together one of the shoulder straps, but whoa!  Self high-five!  The high that comes with achieving zero waste in a project is pretty darn extra euphoric, yes?  No??
Hmmm.   
Maybe I need to get out more  😀

The nitty-gritty:
For my shirt/tunic: I used the same basic shirt pattern as for my billow-y black shirt, with some minor fitting modifications too; the bodice is based on Burdastyle 10/2010, shirt 102 (my review of this pattern is here), the shawl collar is adapted from Burda 8218, and the sleeves were partially based on those of my black blouse for which I used Burdastyle 5/2010 dress 101.  But I have to confess I didn’t use the pattern piece this time but drew a different one.  The sleeves have a shallower sleeve cap, are shorter, slightly more slim-line and not quite as bell-shaped; as the sleeves on my billow-y black shirt.

Another modification was to make it a tunic top rather than a shirt, with the front cut in one piece and with a half opening.
below; insides-ies…
The beautiful pearlescent marquise-diamond shaped buttons were a gift from the lovely ElleC, thank you ElleC!  Snipping these buttons off of their card was another little hurdle that made me hesitate for a day or two, gathering strength; but eventually I forced myself to acknowledge that my new silk tunic was deserving of the very best buttons too  🙂  Initially I sewed them on vertically but they popped open like nobodies’ business, so I re-sewed them on the horizontal which helps them stay buttoned up.
For my petticoat: I used Burda 8071, a terrific basic pattern I have used ten times before; for ten different dresses and petticoats.  This is the eleventh!  To see a gallery of my previous versions of this pattern, go here  🙂  The bodice is lined with ivory silk charmeuse, leftover fabric from this top.
All the seams in both garments are French seams and all other raw edges are finished with HongKong seaming, in a lightweight ice-blue cotton leftover from this shirt.  The one exception to this is the armscye seams in the tunic; I initially finished them with HongKong seaming but decided they were too bulky and made a bit of a hideously unacceptable lumpy-bump on my shoulder  :((  so I unpicked it all, trimmed the heck out of them and finished them on the overlocker instead.  
Sometimes, one’s quest for perfect inner appearances must be ditched in favour of perfect outer appearances after all… hehe.
Details:
Tunic; my own design, adapted from several patterns, powder blue silk
Petticoat; Burda 8071, powder blue silk and lined with ivory silk charmeuse
Belt; of emu leather, from luxe boutique (sadly no longer open)
Sandals; Pedro Miralles, from Soletta shoes
Just some housekeeping: I have no idea why, but I have been unable to comment on WordPress blogs lately.  I type in a comment but it totally disappears… what is with that? So, to my WordPress blogging friends, sorry!  I am reading, and trying to comment  🙁
LATER EDIT;
this blouse has received a dye bath and now looks like this:

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Stripe-ly

12/09/2012 12:43 am \ 19 Comments \

After I had finished Craig’s hoodie, I had quite a lot of leftover fabric.  I had originally bought 2.5m of this lovely grey-and-black striped cotton jersey from Spotlight.  Turns out that this was stacks.  Loads.  Well ahem, I didn’t want to fall short 🙂  When I am making something self-drafted, for the first time; I worry so much about stuffing up somewhere along the line, and so I think I need way more fabric than I usually do.  And buy accordingly.
So I reckon the hoodie only took something like 1.5m in the end.
Unfortunately the remainder was not quite enough to make a second man’s Tshirt.  Just a man’s shirt sleeves alone take up acres of fabric… don’t they!  I mean, who knew?  It never fails to amaze me how a man’s shirt sleeves are each about as big as the front or back!
Anyhoo a second man’s shirt was out; and I already have a grey-and-black striped Tshirt, so I made one for Cassie.  It is just a plain little Tshirt, but we all need plain Tshirts too.  The plainer the better when it comes to basics!

I used my own self-drafted Tshirt pattern, sewn slightly slimmer in the body.  I cut a wide scoop-neck, and sewed the neckband using this method, and the sleeve and lower hems are sewn in a shallow zig-zag.

Since the back neckband of a Tshirt is a straight-ish line with not very much curve to it; I’ve noticed that it often does not lie up as nice and flat as I would like and sometimes has a tendency to flip out and down.  This does not occur in the neckband front, the sharper curve of the front edge keeps it sitting up properly.  So I have taken to sewing the seam allowance down to the shirt just a few millimetres in from the back/neckband seam, from shoulder seam to shoulder seam.  This seems to do the trick when it comes to helping the neckband sit up and the seam allowance stay down; and the line of stitching is pretty much invisible when the shirt is worn.

Cassie is wearing the new shirt with a skirt she made herself using Burda 7370.  I have made this same pattern up for her previously too, posted along with my review of this pattern here.

Details:
Top; self-drafted, grey and black striped cotton jersey
Skirt (made by Cassie); Burda 7370, beige crinkly cotton

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Sparkle-osity

19/08/2012 11:28 pm \ 73 Comments \

I had some fabric; fabric that I loved but that intimidated me with its gorgeousness.  It is beautiful and luxurious, and I used to take it out of my stash periodically and smile and sigh over it, admire its intricacy, its texture, bask in its golden glow, and dream of the beautiful garment locked away inside it.  I wanted it to fulfil its promise but I was frightened of ruining it.  I wasn’t sure that I had the skills to make something worthy of it.  Finally I got the courage to release it from years of imprisonment in the stash and allow it to shine…
And now it is: a gold sparkly cardigan!
The fabric is light stretchy jersey knit, that has been fully sewn all over with miniature gold sequins.  It has been in my stash for several years, ever since those happy golden sparkles seduced me during Fabulous Fabric’s annual 50% off all sequinned and beaded fabrics Christmas sale …
The shell of the cardigan is entirely hand-sewn, since very shortly into the project ie. the cutting stage; I realised that no sewing machine needle was ever going to cope with those little metal sequins.
Whilst I was sewing it I found myself chanting in my head a pointless monotonous mantra “I am my own sweatshop; I am my own sweatshop” with a mixture of wonder and disbelief that I was even going down this path.  I mean, I don’t mind hand-sewing.  I even would say I like hand-sewing, I like it a lot! but I have to admit this was a very time consuming project.  A labour of love  🙂

The sequinned fabric was quite scratchy and uncomfortable on the wrong side; so I lined the cardigan completely with a soft, primrose yellow cotton jersey.  This was much quicker to construct, being entirely run up on my overlocker! in fact I had a little chuckle to myself at the difference in time to make the two  🙂  but attaching the cardigan to the lining was also done completely by hand.  They are sewn together around the neckline, the front edges and lower edge, and the two sleeve edges.
Stitch techniques:
Sewing the shell; I stabbed the needle up and down for each stitch in a quilting stitch configuration (two stitches forward, one little stitch back), searching with my needle each time for a gap between sequins or a hole in the sequins.
Sewing the shell to the lining;  the edges of the sequinned shell are turned in over the edges of the lining, encasing it, and slip stitched in place, again searching for the holes in the sequins for each stitch.

For the entire hand-sewing component; I would do a triple stitch repeated in the one sequin for every 5cm of stitching or so, to lessen the chances of the whole thing unravelling if (heaven forbid) a thread does break.  This is not a completely unlikely scenario, since the fabric is, of course; very heavy! which does place strain on the seams.
I have been working on this cardigan on and off for a full month… and I have a massive re-awakened respect for the hand-sewing and beading specialists of India.
Both the cardigan and the liner were cut using my own custom-fit Tshirt pattern, cut with a centre front opening and with a deep Vneck.
I hand-sewed brass press-studs down each front, so I can close the cardigan so it looks like a little Tshirt or jumper, if I want to.

Some might think this a silly and frivolous cardigan, in fact I am a bit nervous about the reaction it is going to get… the last time I posted a sparkly garment on my blog here I received a very back-handed comment  🙁  but I love it and it is going to be a lifelong player in my wardrobe.  This might sound nerdy; but I feel quite exhilarated that this super-exotic thing is now hanging in my wardrobe.  To have something as impractical and fabulous as this in my possession… I feel like an exotic butterfly has flown in through the window and chosen to alight on a hanger in my wardrobe…!
I just hope I can live up to its gorgeousness!

Details:
Cardigan; self-drafted, made of gold sequinned stretch fabric, lined with pale yellow cotton jersey knit
Tshirt; self-drafted, actually the very same pattern as the cardigan! made of white cotton jersey dyed red and brown, details here
Skirt; Vogue 1247, of purple stretch denim dyed brown, details and my review of this pattern here, and this skirt styled in 6 different ways here
Tights; Kolotex
Boots; Sempre di, from Zomp shoes

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Red Riding Hood

13/08/2012 5:17 am \ 23 Comments \

…along with requisite “wolf” hehehe.
This is the latest in my attempts to make usable things out of things not being used….
I pulled out of my bag of toss-outs this oversized cotton cardigan along with another old Tshirt tossed out by Tim.  I’ve struggled with this cardigan… the cheerful warm tomato-red colour is a plus but the boxy shape and massive size has always been a problem.  Since day dot, really…  I bought it in 2001; my first mail order purchase whilst we were living in the US.  I was a mail order newbie, and just assumed naively that a small/medium would probably be my size.  When it arrived: well, it was ridiculously big!
Lesson learned!  Incidentally, the lesson ultimately learned was “don’t buy mail order, ever”… but that’s a whole other story  😉

Anyhoo I did not think or know at the time how I could go about returning stuff… so it stayed.  The armpits hung down below my bust level and I had to wrap it half again around my body and tie a belt over, to keep even halfway warm in it.  Stylish, not.  It’s basically been in the camping/washing the car and/or the dog in category since new, and then migrated to my re-fashioning bag at least a year ago.
Using my own trusty custom fit Tshirt pattern as a guide; I cut up the cardigan, re-sized the pieces and sewed it all together again: only keeping the shoulder seams of the cardigan intact, since they were already nicely re-inforced.  Also I kept the neckline band and the wrist bands untouched and intact, and the lower band is also original although taken in with the side seams. When refashioning something new outa something old, it is a good idea to keep and incorporate into the finished garment as many of the factory finishes as possible; it ends up looking a lot more professional and pulled together.  Plus makes it a heckuvalot easier.
I’m slightly obsessed with hoodies lately.  Hood = cool, right?  Right!
The red Tshirt was getting pretty fragile and the fabric was not going to hold up to anything heavy duty, but since a hood is something that just hangs there decoratively most of the time and is not “worn” very much, so I thought the fabric might hold up to the task.
Now my hood pattern from KwikSew 3667 is drafted to fit a crew neck, and my cardigan has a deep V neck.  But it is pretty easy to add on an extra wedge section while cutting out, so the hood will fit onto the V neckline…

I overlocked the lower edge of my hood and simply stitched in the ditch along the outside of the cardigan.

I removed the original buttons off the cardigan (green plastic, which I never really liked either) and sewed in a matching red open-ended zip.
I did have fancy plans to sew on a few decorative pockets cut from the Tshirt also, but after a coupla attempts I had to concede defeat; the Tshirt fabric was really too fragile and they looked muchos hideous.  So the cardigan remains pocket-less.  🙁
Yah, so hopefully the hood might hold up for a while yet.  We shall see.  To be honest, I’m still not head over heels in love with this thing, despite its cool new hood.  Y’know how sometimes something just doesn’t push your buttons, even though it ticks all the right boxes?  It’s “my” colour, it’s got a hood, it fits nicely (now).  It’s got a hood.  Did I mention the hood?  Hoods are cool.  I kinda love the hood.
Well, I guess I’ll look a tad more stylin’ around the campfire than I was before.
I’m counting this one a minor league win.

Details:
Hoodie; my own design, with modified hood from KwikSew 3667, made from an oversized old cardigan and an old tshirt
Tshirt; charcoal and black striped cotton jersey, details here
Skirt;  charcoal stretch jersey, details here
Scarf; details here
Tights; voodoo
Shoes; Django and Juliette, from Zomp shoes

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Sleeve

06/08/2012 3:45 am \ 34 Comments \

Tattoo-ed sleeves are a “fashion” trend just like anything else, and so hot right now!  (ergo, probably destined to be so not some day  🙂  )  in the meantime I’ve made for myself a new Tshirt that is a nod to the trend…

The sleeves of my Tshirt are cut from an old child’s Tshirt with a graphic print on the front, the second, white sleeve is cut from the back obviously! and the body is cut from another white plain Tshirt, both are recent toss-outs from my boys’ wardrobes.  I got the idea for my new Tshirt when it occurred to me that the print reminded me of tattoos; a swirly print in bright children’s paintbox colours with a thick black outline.

Thinking about a real tattoo sleeve: it continues up and over the shoulder smoothly without interruption; and so I decided a conventional set-in sleeve with the seam on the shoulder would truncate the print and end up looking kinda wrong.  The best style for this look would be a raglan sleeve.
For which I did not have a pattern…
It’s funny; a raglan sleeve, whilst a recognised “thing” in the sartorial world, is very poorly represented in the sewing pattern kingdom, don’t you think?  In terms of population: the almighty set-in sleeve is the over-ridingly dominant species in the gene pool, closely followed by the kimono sleeve and the humble raglan sleeve is verging on being an endangered species!
So I set out to make my own pattern.  Luckily, I have a small raglan Tshirt from  many years ago which has long since passed into Cassie’s possession, so I temporarily repossessed it, and laid it down to trace around the sleeve, and then played around with my own self-drafted Tshirt pattern to fit in the new sleeve with a few minor sizing adjustments.  
So now I have a raglan Tshirt pattern  🙂  
The raglan sleeve is a very tall pattern piece compared to one’s common-or-garden, set-in sleeve pattern piece, so it took up practically the entire Tshirt!  But I tried to get in as much of the design as possible…  and I love the wide and flattering boatneck-line.   I preserved the lower hemlines of both the Tshirts intact to be the new Tshirt’s sleeve and lower hemlines respectively.
My family have all voted this their favourite of my new Tshirts!

Details:
Tshirt; self drafted, made using two old Tshirts
Jeans; Burda 7863 modified, black stretch corduroy, details here
Boots; Andrea and Joen
Sienna; wearing her own fur coat

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