Tag Archives: Own Design

another new nursing dress design

26/08/2021 7:12 pm \ 3 Comments \

… the last time I stayed with Mum and Dad; I helped Mum to clean out her fabric stash; AGAIN.  Mum now has small and beautifully curated collection of perfectly gorgeous fabrics in her possession, and I have… a much bigger pile of the less beautiful rejects, haha.  I know, I definitely did not need this! but *shrug*  I’m going to have to get a LOT better at throwing out fabric too, I think!

Anyway, I haven’t had the chance to go through it properly yet, but I did pluck out this one recently as something that would suit Cassie.  It’s a soft, very stretchy stuff, very pretty with a raspberry pink floral print… and Mum had partially made a sort of dress out of it already.  Thinking about it a bit, I realised I could make a really nice little nursing friendly dress for Cassie.

 Our Yallingup pattern wouldn’t do, because that really only suits a non-stretch woven fabric.  The previous, jersey maternity/nursingdress I had designed and twice made for Cassie was a possibility, but Cassie had mentioned how the boob tube under-top kind of snapped back up while she’s trying to feed the baby, which is annoying and not terribly user-friendly.  Anyway, I’ve dreamt up this design…

this is a sort of cowl-neck tank top, on a simple dress that is basically the same skirt as the one I’d previously designed for her.  The shoulder straps of the tank top aren’t joined to each other; the back one is stitched to the shoulder seam of the over top, and the front one snaps on to it; so all she has to do is reach up under the loose cropped top and unsnap the front strap.

Having a cowl neckline allows each front to come down comfortably without being too tight.  In short, it works really well!  I’m seriously thinking of making this a new pattern for our company!

I asked Cassie to lift up the front to show the cowl neck…  😀

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sewing tragedies

09/06/2021 11:45 am \ 8 Comments \

I’ve made this crazy new dress… isn’t this fabric hilarious?!  The very second I clapped eyes on I simply could not resist… it’s like a comic book – first point in its favour – except all sewing stuff – second point in its favour.  Almost an afterthought, but I was really drawn to its cool sharp black and white graphic artistry too- I don’t frequently gravitate to a lot of black-and-white prints but if it’s quirky I suddenly do – point three; and SOLD!

I think comic book art is a highly unappreciated art form and its taken way too long for the style to finally come out from the cold… I’ve always loved it but it’s always teetered on being Not Taken Seriously, which is such a shame.

I wanted a style of dress that kept the boxes fairly intact and not cut across like you would for a regular A-line skirt, so I drafted my own idea.  It’s kinda wacky, but I actually love how comfy and nice it is to wear so I’m thinking of making this into our next pattern… I mean, it needs some work because this is a sort of prototype but I think it has promise!

Because the print tickled me pink I went with a pink linen for the bias bound neckline and armholes…! hmmm, a tenuous little link?!   In reality it just happened to be sitting on the sidelines, so I grabbed it…. this was leftover bias binding from the Yallingup top I made for Cassie, in the previous post.

just because, cute pattern weight… #notstagedatall

I put on some patch pockets, and employed weapons-grade pattern matching skills here… hehe.  Ok, definitely tongue in cheek there since only one pocket could be pattern matched!  I only had enough fabric to do one… but you know.  The other pocket is not even vaguely pattern matched sadly.  I probably should have matched neither, to be consistent, but…  I didn’t.  Pattern-matching… missed chance for another sewing themed tragedy comic there, haha?

Details:

Dress; designed by me, cool comic book fabric from Minerva, available here
Sandals;  Zomp, old favourites

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the Yallingup dress/blouse

23/05/2021 4:34 pm \ 12 Comments \

I can finally reveal the main thing I’ve been working on for the past few months… our new pattern!

Please allow me to introduce the Yallingup dress/blouse!
This is a loose summery piece that can be made as either a regular item or alternatively as a nursing friendly version for nursing mothers… both versions appear superficially the same at a glance but of course are constructed quite differently on the inside!

The design features a scoop neckline, single breast pocket, and an overlaying wrap top that can be worn either loose or tied at the back… for the nursing version the wrap can also function as a modesty cloth for when you are feeding your baby… the dress version also has deep inseam side pockets, of course!

Cassie conceived the design after the delivery of her baby and then I converted the idea into a regular one for “not nursing” people too😁

So technically, the pattern has four views:

A, the regular blouse; B, the nursing friendly blouse; C, the regular dress and D, the nursing friendly dress…  and because the construction method for the regular version and the nursing friendly version are quite different I ended up deciding to write two different instruction booklets, for the two different methods.  I know, that sounds complicated but honestly it was nowhere near as complicated as when I had them combined in one single instruction booklet!  Separating the two methods completely has simplified things considerably so I hope you’ll forgive the extra file that comes with it.

I’ve been making tonnes of these lately, for basically everyone in our family, including the new Mums … it’s super comfy and easy to wear and we hope you like it too!

The Yallingup pattern is available right now in our Etsy shop, here, or you can click the Yallingup illustration in my right hand side-bar over there ->

Pictured here are just a small sample of the Yallingup’s I have made:

btw; I opted to not go the call-out for tester route this time.. this is because there has been a bit of negativity around the “doing testing work for free” in the sewing community lately and I even ran into this a little bit during the testing for my last pattern, the Mundaring raincoat.

It’s funny because I personally love testing patterns and I’ve been doing it for many years for other pattern companies, happily, and with no expectation or even thought of getting paid.  Nowadays a lot of sewing peeps feel like they should be paid.  This is not necessarily a criticism by the way, just an observation into how attitudes are a-changing.

This time we did all the testing in-house and through personal contacts.  I mean, I’ve always personally tested each and every size in all our patterns anyway, so I know they work as they should; and this time we did the same thing.  I think maybe part of the pattern-testing negativity I mentioned earlier is because pattern testers feeling like they’re doing work for free and then being treated like free publicity for the pattern company; and so I decided I did not want to be associated with that perception of exploitation.

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progress on wardrobe capsule…

10/04/2021 12:04 pm \ 2 Comments \

I’ve made some more things to add to my little make12/capsule wardrobe….

I think I got this rather smallish scrap of  very nice damask upholstery fabric from my friend N when she cleared out her stash… I fell in love with the pretty ocean-blue colour immediately and the scrolling curls in the damask reminded me of seam foam…  I thought there might be enough for a little skirt. And there was… JUST!!  as in, I literally had the smallest quarter handful of scraps leftover after I’d finished with it!

I started out by cutting my skirt block as well I could.  This left me with a micro-mini that would barely cover my knickers in wearing, so I put my university level mathematics to good use, calucating the exact width I could cut the side pieces into in order that they could fit around the entire hemline of the mini evenly and making maximum use of the very limited area.  And I think I did it!  I found that I could have a little bit of extra width on the last pieces to be cut, and I used these at the centre back, where I think it’s nice to have a little bit of extra length anyway.  So there is a very subtle high-low hemline going on at the back too, as well as a slight curving out of the centre-back seam which give the skirt a little “kick” at the back.

With a basically finished skirt, I realised I had a small rectangle leftover that I thought would be big enough for a pocket facing, so I slipped a little pocket in the horizontal skirt seam.

It has the aqua damask at the back of the pocket, for a nice uniform look when you peek into the pocket on the outside, and the remainder of the pocket is made of the cream coloured gingham I used for my recent little top, which I’ve just now realised I haven’t blogged yet  Whoops!  I will get to it!  it’s a prototype for Cassie’s and my newest pattern which we are working really hard on getting out very soon, I hope.  Anyway, the pocket lining is from the scraps from that.

Due to lack of fabric, I finished the hemline and the waistline of the skirt using a bias bound finish… this was cut from an old shirt of Craig’s.  So really, the only thing I had to buy new for this project was the zip!  I hand stitched the bias bound hemline but the waistband I topstitched on my machine.  The pocket is handstitched on the inside to the skirt.  I love both my labels; this green one is Japanese, organised for me by my friend Yoshimi.

pocket in action… and boy do I miss my white wall in the old house!!  I had to borrow this one from Cassie  😀

Next up!

I’ve had this too-big-to-throw away scrap of yellow cotton jersey leftover from when I made last year’s mini-skirt and I thought I’d be able to get a little T-shirt out of it.  However I was too optimistic! and no matter how creatively I arranged it, even a little top was not going to happen. Well, maybe it could, but not without horizontal seams like I did in the skirt and in my opinion, in a jersey this is just not a good look.

Anyway, obviously I turned to my favourite old standby for smallish cuts of jersey fabric and made a set of underwear… I used my old favourite the Watson pattern by cloth habit, and managed to get two pairs of undies for one bra, which is my preferred ratio.

 I did my usual adjustments to the pattern, like fully lining the bra as outlined in more detail in this post here.  Also, I always cut the front of the briefs to be one piece to incorporate the outer crotch, so as to avoid that awkward horizontal seam at the front.  All elastics and bits and pieces were already in my stash, and the little white bows were recycled from an old, also me-made, set from the past.  I always recycle the bits that I can!

These are the second and third things in my make 12/capsule wardrobe that I proposed for myself, using all fabrics/notions from my stash.  I kind still kinda wish I’d had enough of the golden-yellow fabric to make a top, because I really like the idea of a yellow top in this particular capsule, but I suppose I can still make a top at some stage in the future.  Obviously I’m going to wear the underwear a lot, so it’s all good really.  I’m super happy with the little skirt too, it’s exactly the kind of thing I will wear both winter and summer.  I’m pretty happy it has a pocket too!

Details:

Top; from Burda 4/2014/115, details here
Skirt; my own design, old leftover damask from a friend
Shoes; made by me, details here

Underwear; the Watson pattern by cloth habit, leftover yellow jersey

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of dots and bats…

13/03/2021 5:55 pm \ 13 Comments \

I made a swishy new skirt…

this beautiful rayon challis fabric was generously given to me by Minerva in the UK in return for a blog post for their site, which can be read here.. however because of course I am in the habit of documenting my makes here on my own personal blog too, then here we are!

For sometime I’ve been wanting to make a maxi skirt, and just thought what the heck, no time like the present!  It’s very nearly zero waste, which I am quite proud of.  This is the very simple design:

I measured my waist and hips, and gave myself a bit of extra in the hips, and divided by six to get a rough dimensions for a six-gore skirt design, and the width at the bottom hem decided by subtracting my waist measurement from the total fabric width and then dividing by two, and the length of the skirt was determined by the length of fabric I had, divided by two obviously.  So first step was to draw up the one skirt piece.  Yes, I used the same pattern piece for all six gores!…  I planned to fit three of the gores onto each half of the fabric length I had, laid alternately up and down to make the most of the area.  This was possible because the print is non directional.  Actually, side note, but print-matching as a concept is actually the biggest fabric waster OF THEM ALL, I know, pretty controversial thing to say, huh?  Or not, it’s actually quite obvious of course, although no one wants to admit it!  🙂

Initially I thought I’d try to be clever and cut a waistband and pockets from that bit of scrap off the sides, but I quickly realised that pockets and/or a waistband were going to be, respectively; ugly and/or unnecessary.  So this skirt has neither in the end.

some progress shots…

when making a skirt of a delicate fabric and bias side seams, I’ve found it a good idea to hang the pieces up for a day or so to let some of that bias drop out before seaming.  Otherwise I’ve sometimes noticed that over time, the fabric can grow a slightly “gathered” look either side of that stable side seam stitching.

After under stitching the waist seam I didn’t feel like it was sitting very smooth and neat, so I topstitched around the top edge.  Hangs much nicer now I think!

I used a black invisible zip because that’s what I had!

  

Hemline before and after trimming…

  

I hemmed using the triple stitched skinny hem, as described here…

I gave it a half lining, because swishy skirts have a tendency to be clingy skirts if they do not have a lining, to disastrous effect. Fortunately I had some yellow lining fabric leftover from when I made my yellow Mundaring raincoat.  A lining doesn’t need to be super long to be effective for a main skirt, but now it’s done and I’ve worn it I’ve retrospectively decided I would prefer a big swishy lining too.  I may or may not add a doughnut shape to the bottom some time, to get one.

Anyway, it’s still gorgeously swishy!  I’m wearing it here with my little hand stitched Alabama Chanin tank top, which is my favourite tank top.  I really should make myself another, because I could literally wear this two hundred times a year, easily!  I mean, I don’t, but I could, I love it that much… Hmmm  *wanders off to the fabric room in search of white cotton jersey…*

this is how I wore it to bookclub…

In non sewing news; we are nicely settled into our house at last.  I still have a lot of cleaning out and sorting out to do to get our “family of five”possessions whittled down to be better suited to “empty nesters” state of things *sob* but you know… Work in progress, always!

Oh, one other, this time sewing related thing… Cassie needed a feeding cushion for baby Theo, so I made one using some batman themed cotton drill from spotlight and a European pillow insert.  It has a big border so as to use up the entire width of fabric #wastenotwantnot and I put snaps along the bottom to take the insert out for cleaning.  Look how cute he is on his cushion!  Yes, I made the “Tshirt” here which is actually a onesie, and the pants were a gift from another doting relative that happened to match perfectly  🙂

Until next time!

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embroidered white top

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

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!

Details:

Top; own design, from embroidered appliquéd cotton
Skirt; from my block, cotton double gauze, details here
Shoes; made by me also, details here

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Mundaring raincoat

30/01/2021 11:56 pm \ 5 Comments \

Hurrah!  Cassie and I have finally finished making our newest pattern!  please give a warm welcome to the Mundaring raincoat pattern, currently for sale in our shop, the linky dink to which is over to the right in my sidebar there… or you can just click on the this pattern picture just to the right here.

So, the Mundaring is a pattern for a loose-fitting, below hip length raincoat with raglan sleeves, large front zippered pockets with inbuilt weather flaps, a back weather flap covering a hidden vent panel, roomy hood that can be tightened with a hood cord.  Closure is by an open ended zip, hidden underneath a front band.  The pattern includes separate pattern pieces for an optional lining with additional inner breast pocket, and an appendix with tips for weatherproofing the seams of your raincoat.

I know it’s taken me a long time to finally finish getting this together, I first made this design for myself back in 2012 when I made my blue raincoat…

this is actually a great little raincoat and I love it and still wear it!  Then I made a pink and blue colour blocked version for Cassie, improving on the design a little more.

Then I fine-tuned the design to be just about exactly what I wanted, albeit in unlined form, when I made my mustard one…

this is when I got actually got serious about turning it into a proper pattern and studying the grading criteria.  btw the mustard one has been a really great raincoat too, and I still wear this one when the colour of it is what an outfit requires  😉

In testing the design I’ve made multiple Mundarings since that time, several in each of the five sizes each… plus another “proper” one for Cassie in this chic, pale grey pleather.  And finally, the cheerful yellow one for myself, and then a lovely blue one for my sister-in-law S.

Doesn’t she look gorgeous?  I’m so grateful she agreed to be my model again!

Both my latest are made using a fabric called Oxford Waterproof that I bought from Remnant Warehouse.  btw, NO, I am not getting free fabric or recognition or anything for promoting it, and these are not affiliate links even, I bought this fabric and am recommending it because I am genuinely a fan and think it is the perfect fabric for my design!

My raincoat is this colour, the Gold colour-way, and S’s is the Royal colour-way.   I fully lined both these raincoats using matching polyactate lining fabric from Fabulous Fabrics, and both of them have white zips and white cords and cord stops, which I think looks really nice  🙂

I sealed the seams on both raincoats using this stuff…

I selected it because it is an adhesive sealant with high flexibility, and bonus that while comes out of the canister kind of cloudy it then dries to be quite translucent.  In my  opinion it’s absolutely perfect for this purpose!  I’ll update this post with the exact product as soon as I can, and am truthfully kicking myself right now I did not take a picture of the canister before (doh!)

The pattern is for sale in pdf form here… we are working on getting a paper pattern up and running, and will update the shop with a paper pattern once we’ve got all our ducks in a row vis a vis that.  But in the meantime… here is is!!  I’m so happy to finally have it out in the world!

Here are some of the specs!

Pockets?  Why, of course!

Details:

All raincoats; Carolyn & Cassie Mundaring raincoat pattern, in Oxford Waterproof from remnant warehouse
White tank top; my hand stitched Alabama Chanin tank top.. it was the first one I laid hands on in the drawer!
Jeans: Closet Core patterns Morgan boyfriend jeans, blogged here
White shoes; handmade by me, blogged here

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Theo

25/01/2021 11:00 am \ 15 Comments \

… so first post for the year! the most exciting news of all for us is the arrival of our darling little grandson Theo; Cassie and Daniel’s baby boy.  He’s very little right now so he is extremely busy eating and sleeping… in fact, more sleeping than usual since he was a tad on the early side.  I’m so proud of Cassie how she has coped in difficult circumstances… Mum and baby were sent home from hospital only a couple of hours after birth, and coming from a generation that was typically spoilt with about five days in hospital for your first baby, this is pretty shocking to me.  She’s doing amazingly well!!

Anyway, I made little onesie for Theo, just before he was born; in fact I gave it to her at his baby shower which was held just barely a scant week before he arrived actually.  Man, things went so fast… anyway, here it is!

O course there is a little story behind this… a few years ago, Cassie made a few workout tank tops for Tim and Sam for Christmas pressies.  She drew the screen prints and printed them herself, and then sewed up the tank tops too.  She gave one each to Tim and Sam, and I’m not sure what was the story with this particular one but it has sat unworn in the fabric stash every since.  She can’t remember now either!  Maybe it was always an extra?  Anyway, I always thought it was such a thoughtful idea of hers, and it’s a pretty cute and clever print too.  Couldn’t possibly just let it continue sitting there!  So, I dug it out, and in the tradition of babies in this family; I made a little onesie for Theo out of it.  The pattern is my own, I just had to make this one a bit bigger, because the writing on the back would not fit on the smaller size I’d made previously for newborns.

Pretty cute, huh?!

I’ve also made a much-needed, new maternity dress for Cassie, the same design as the white one I’d made previously.   I had a few … issues… with this one, suffice to say stripes are always a nightmare and even when you think you’ve accounted for all stripe contingencies that may arise, a new one IS probably going to crop up and surprise you.  Ok, guess I may as well go into it… somehow, despite careful measuring and checking, I STILL somehow managed to hem the dress with an extra stripe along one side seam than the other.  Honestly thought I’d cut them the same, but well, turns out I had not.  I had to cut off the old hem and make a new one.

The other disaster was that I somehow managed to stitch the separate tank front INTO THE WAIST SEAM! thus rendering it useless for its intended purpose as a maternity dress.  DOH!  This required unpicking the seam plus the overlocking, because OF COURSE I overlocked it before I’d noticed!  in what is actually quite a delicate fabric, and well, fixing up the whole shemozzle.  So, for a simple little make it ended up taking most of my day, which I can ill afford right now, to be honest, but at least it got done.

And she looks lovely in it, so it was all worth it actually.

I’ve finally finished another very long-term thing recently too… for me! and am hoping to get it posted in between packing boxes and organising some minor work done for our new house as well as this, our old, one.  Oh, and of course our new pattern, which is far more challenging to finish now that I’m on my own with it, since my helper has her precious new baby to attend to.  Aaahgh, my head is going to explode…

Onwards and upwards!

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