Tag Archives: Pattern Magic

green sparkly “stardust” velvet

30/08/2025 3:28 pm \ 6 Comments \

My mother gave me a length of bottle green, sparkly stretch velvet for my birthday last year… and I wanted to make something nice with it before my next birthday rolled around.  This is fast approaching so I needed to get cracking!

I decided to use the twist top pattern from the Japanese pattern-making book Pattern Magic by Tomato Nakamichi.  Since we moved house five years ago I actually threw away a lot of my old patterns, including all the ones I had painstaking drawn up from first principles using this book.  I know, seems like a silly thing to do, but at the time it felt important to clear the decks so I could make a fresh start with a reduced sewing stash, so I can’t really regret it.  Anyway I needed to remake the pattern again from scratch, but that wasn’t really such a difficult task in the end.

It’s a great design, one of my favourites; and I’ve enjoyed wearing all my twist tops over the years.  I’m wearing it here with my purple Jade mini skirt made earlier this year and blogged here; and my self-designed black tights.

I had a little leftover velvet, just enough to cut a new set of underwear, my usual combination of one bra plus two sets of undies

I used the MakeBra DL 03 pattern, and foam lining and underwires from the kit I bought from them a few years ago.  I still had some elastics in my stash, and the only thing I had to buy new was the hook/eye closure, from Spotlight.  The undies pattern is of course the Cloth Habit Watson pattern, probably my most used pattern ever since I bought it!

I made one small difference between this bra and my previous ones… I’ve always had the ring/slider adjustors situated at the back of the bra for all my previous ones, for some reasons I can’t even recall now.  Eventually I’ve come to realise that whatever those reasons were in the past, ultimately it’s actually extremely INconvenient to have the adjustor on my back.  So I switched it around for this new one.  I have no idea why I’ve put the straps on in that idiotic way all this time.

I love this beautiful “star-dusted” fabric and it feels so luxurious and beautiful to wear it!  Thank you so much to Mum for such a lovely and thoughtful birthday present!

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some cute new work clothes

10/10/2021 6:20 pm \ 5 Comments \

I actually finished these things a little while ago but have only just now had the chance to photograph them… also I have a new policy with regard to making things.  I’m planning to alternate making things for others in between making things for me from now on, well for a while at least!  I’m really, really trying to get my stash down, and so I’m sewing like a madman lately!  Hopefully my blogging will keep up with it all too!

So, a few months ago, Cassie and I helped each other go through our entire wardrobes and make brutal decisions with regards to what should stay and what should go.  It was heaps of fun! and we also identified a few things that Cassie needed to go with her existing pieces and just generally refresh her working wardrobe.  She selected a few pieces of fabric from my stash, and she also had a few of her own too… and this new skirt and top are the latest things.

The top is kinda selfdrafted, loosely based upon a bodice piece from a really old NewLook dress pattern that Cassie keeps as her “block”, and the cowl neckline is a hack, she got the idea for it from a Pattern Magic pattern book tutorial.  The avocado green merino knit is leftover from a long sleeved tee I made for myself, originally bought from The Fabric Store.  I did a binding finish on the back neckline, and the armscyes I did by rolling and invisible slip-stitching by hand, because you know; I’m a glutton for punishment.

 

The lower edge was done with my twin needle, and a not quite matching green thread. All inside raw edges are finished with navy blue overlocking thread, because I do not have matching thread and I’m really determined to buy the absolute minimum in my quest to use up my stash!

The skirt is a heavily modified V8363 – honestly, not even the same pattern by now – and I lined it with a beautiful sea green lining fabric (stash).  The skirt hemline is bound with pale pink poplin, itself leftover from some mask lining fabric I bought at the beginning of the pandemic for such a purpose; pale blue button from my stash too.  Cassie supplied the blue cotton fabric, I think it was given to her by a relative of D’s who was cleaning out their stash.

The pale blue invisible zip was the only thing I had to buy to complete this entire outfit!

I hope she likes wearing these things!  I think she looks great in these colours and shapes!

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some noice new basics…

31/08/2020 1:37 pm \ 3 Comments \

I’ve had this post sitting just as a draft for weeks now and just keep adding new tees to it but I’m rapidly coming annoyed with myself that when I wear one of them I have to write “not blogged yet” in my ootd blog.  So I’m hitting “post on this thing right now.  I know I know, so ridiculous!

A long-term goal of mine is to have a full complement of colour range in my winter tees; so every time The Fabric Store has an online sale on their merino I tend to hop on and pick up a coupla new colours.  Then that luscious new fabric just sits there in my stash for a few years.  Occasionally I admire the pretty colours and dream about how wonderful it’s going to be when it’s done.  Of course winter is nearly over, so it seems like the perfect time for me to finally get going!  Actually, it’s not such a silly plan of attack really, because it’s right about now that I become so heartily sick of my winter wardrobe that I don’t want to wear any of it, so it’s been rather nice to have a few new things to inspire me!

First up, above: a gorgeous strawberry-milkshake pink – technically Rose pink –  new Pattern Magic twist top, from the first Pattern Magic book by Tomoko Nakamichi.. I’ve made this design up several times before and have loved each and every one.  I love this one too, though I kinda wish I’d made the straight-grain sleeve just a leetle bit wider because while it’s fine while I’m wearing it it’s hard to squeeze my hand through the sleeve and pop it out the other end!  I had actually anticipated this and made it a few cm wider, but it’s still a wee bit snug.  Wearing it here with a skirt made using Vogue 1247, and a scrap of denim given to me by a friend cleaning out her stash… details here

Secondly, a  new heavily modified Nettie tee, with a collar variation that I’ve used before, and love.  Yes, it might look boring but I absolutely know this is going to get worn to death!  This is in the Vanilla colour way. which I think is my perfect white.  I made this one with the sleeve and lower hems finished with a self-band, as per this method..  worn here with my newest skirt, my sunshine-yellow Paprika Patterns Jade skirt, details here

Thirdly, another heavily modified Nettie using this stunning burnt orange merino, actually colour Paprika from the Fabric Store…Worn here with my Sabrina mini-skirt, made with a beautiful herringbone wool tweed, inherited from my grandmother’s stash, details here

Fourthly; yet another modified Nettie, made with this Avocado merino from the Fabric Store; with a slightly wider and higher collar… to be honestly I’m not totally sold on the collar, it’s maybe a scant 1cm too high and I haven’t ruled out cutting it off and shaving off that little bit!  mostly just for appearance sake, I may even be glad of the height when the weather is cold again.  We shall see, we shall see…  worn above with my blue Sasha trousers, also a Closet Core pattern, and blogged here.

Anyway, I really like how fresh my little collection of new basics is looking right now!

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blush pink twist top

10/07/2016 9:09 pm \ 23 Comments \

blush pink top 3
Ok, so; new top.  Running down ye checklist…

It’s blush pink.  Blush pink is so hot right now!  Note; ticks “colour so trendy it hurts” box

It’s twisty. Twisted is ME!   Note; ticks “my kinda thing” box

Do I need it?  well, it’s still winter and freezing cold and the thing is; I still do not have very many long sleeved Tshirts.  If I had a wardrobe gap, and of course I don’t really have a wardrobe gap since I sew for myself… anyway, IF I had a wardrobe gap then long sleeved Tshirts would be the nearest thing to it.  Note; ticks “useful and needed thing” box.

Pattern, the twist top from Pattern Magic, the conceptual fabric and pattern manipulation book by Tomoko Nakamichi.  This is my fifth version of the twist top, it’s another one of those patterns which I seem to make up a new one every year.  Previous versions are here, here, here and here.  With the exception of version one, which was my wearable muslin and which I eventually threw out because the fabric was too thin to suit the design really, I wear all of them quite frequently in winter and LOVE them.

Fabric; a ponte, slightly sponge-y and with a crinkle-y, crepe-y textured surface, from Fabulous Fabrics.  And, even though blush pink is NOT my colour and I can already hear my mum telling me NO! Carolyn, pink does you NO favours! well blush pink is a big trend for spring and I just kinda wanted it, illogically and randomly.  Something trendy and up to the minute.  This one may not turn out to be a staple like its big sisters because, you know; Me, plus Pink, equals “oh my god are you ok? you look so tired…” but there’s no doubt it will get at least a few outings this winter and spring.  Hey, I can always dye it  🙂

pattern magicburda7863-4mccalls 5276

Details:

Top, the twist top, from the Japanese pattern book Pattern Magic, by Tomoko Nakamichi
Jeans; Burda 7863, ivory stretch denim, details here and my review of this pattern here
Shearling jacket; McCalls 5276, details here
Gloves; knitted by me, details here
Socks, knitted by me, details here
Desert boots; made by me, details here

blush pink top back

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forest green twist top

29/08/2015 12:34 pm \ 28 Comments \
I’ve made a new top.
This is, as my title oh-so subtly suggests, the twist top from Pattern
Magic; and is my fourth iteration of this top.  First three are here, here and here.
Clearly I love this design. And I’ve often pondered upon how much I would
like to have one in every colour.  Except
that would be excessive and wasteful.  Bad me, for even thinking it.  Bad, extravagant, greedy, covetous me.  I guess one good thing about making everything
yourself is that you are constrained from having an overly huge
wardrobe by your own free time, or lack of it; by having to physically make each and every darn
thing yourself.  I like to pretend to
myself that this factor introduces some carefully considered introspection into
the matter. 
Ha!  We can but hope! 
I bought this length of stable, slightly stretchy, thin-but-warm, forest
green ponte from Potters Textiles, from the $2 remnant bin.  Hmmm, don’t you just HATE when someone brags about how cheap their fabric/pattern/clothing/whatever was?  Yeah, me too. 
Loathe it.
Anyway, it’s the kind of project that you can start and have ready to wear in
about half an hour, flat; even including weaving those bitsy overlocker ends back
in.  Fabric out, pattern down, cut, vroom
through the machines by turn, a few minutes of weaving and neckline-hemming.  Done!
Believe me, I needed something fast and brainlessly easy, as a little bit
of light relief from my 1year1outfit project. 
Honestly, that’s been a far bigger endeavor that I originally
anticipated.  But the good news is that the
second component of my outfit is actually and finally finished!!!  WOOOOOT! 
To be appearing here very soon.  Very
very soon.
In the meantime, this. 
So, in a nutshell…
One of my favourite designs; check.
One of “my” colours; check.
Is it seasonally appropriate… oh bum. 
No. 
Winter’s practically over and it’s actually getting comfortably warm
around about these here parts.  Oh well!
There’s always next year!  As if I have
any reason at all to complain about the return of warmer weather, no sirree,
not I most definitely do not.  Summer, oo
yeah baby, bring it.  I am so ready!!!
OK I got nothing else!  Tootles!
Details:
Top; the twist top from Pattern Magic, forest green ponte
Jeans; Burda 7863, brown stretch bengaline, details here and my review ofthis pattern here
Socks; handknit by me, details here
Shoes; Francesco Morichetti, from Zomp shoes
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Incredi-Yellow!

21/05/2014 6:45 am \ 38 Comments \

I think every year I seem compelled to make for myself one skirt in some extremely garish shade.  This year isn’t get away scot free either.
I bought this brilliant daffodil yellow pin-wale corduroy from Spotlight a few years ago.  And I apologise for my painfully predictable choice of another Vogue 1247 skirt.
So, I put some thought into thinking of something new to write about the pattern here.  I’ve used it a lot so clearly its got a lot going for it and so it shouldn’t be hard to write some fresh and original new praise for the pattern.  Truly I wish I could expound long and freely and with poetic abandon upon the multitude merits of the humble Vogue 1247 skirt. But the well of words has run dry.  So my love just has to be expressed wordlessly and in the mute evidence of the sheer number of them that have rolled off the sewing machine.

OK, lining.  I can say something about that.  I wanted to line it, so I could wear it with tights during winter.  So, when in Spotlight recently I checked out the lining situ-bar.  It was poor.  But they had something called Dancetime Satin which was both cheap and a not-terrible colour.  See, here’s the thing; my most favourite-ist skirt lining of all time has been the ivory satin I used in my curtaining skirt; another Vogue 1247.  It’s been a sheer joy to wear this skirt, every time, and part of it is in the quiet hidden luxury of the rich lining with its sheen and its cool slipperiness.   But there’s satin and then there’s satin.

Like a fool, I fell for a low price.
I have some hard-won advice for everyone; do not ever, under any circumstances, EVER, buy Dancetime Satin.  Unless you are planning to set fire to something quickly.
Dancetime Satin is like demon’s spawn, put on this earth in order to torment the unsuspecting home seamster.  Truthfully.

Really I should have given up on it, sought out some regular polyacetate lining from Fabulous Fabrics.  But I struggled on with the Dancetime Satin lining, and because there was some leftover I made some bias to finish the lower hem.
I’m hoping it proves itself nice to wear, at least.

Details:
Skirt; Vogue 1247, lengthened and lined and more A-line, yellow corduroy, my review of this pattern here
Top; the twist top from Pattern Magic by Tomoko Nakamichi, charcoal ponte, details here
Tights, self-drafted, black merino knit, details here, and my tutorial on how to make your own custom fit tights here
Shoes; Django and Juliette, from Zomp shoes

Not that the back view of this skirt is particularly noteworthy, but I’ve realised I’ve pretty much never provided on my blog a back view of this Pattern Magic twist top.  I love this top.  I want it to last forever.

LATER EDIT;
this skirt has received a dye bath and now looks like this:
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Supreme Commander Servalan

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

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Keeping the lace pure and undarted in a fitted skirt

20/11/2012 11:00 pm \ 28 Comments \

My lace design has regular repeating rows of curlicues, scrolls and flower motifs that I felt would have been spoiled by waist shaping darts; also the lace fabric is quite thick and darts would not have sat nice and flat on the inside.  Plus, they would have been visible through the wide holes in the lace.  
SO, I aimed to eliminate the darts from my skirt and maintain the integrity of the rows of repeating motifs in the design.

Thank you so much to Robyn and Sharon who asked  🙂
And I should mention straight off that I learnt this process from using Tomoko Nakamichi’s Pattern Magic books of course…the point of which is to learn how to manipulate a sloper and fabrics in order to achieve a desired effect.  I probably say that each and every time I mention the books, so please forgive me for repeating myself.  I guess I just love this sort of thing since I am a bonafide maths and fashion and sewing nerd; three, not-irreconcilable passions that are wrapped up together and catered to in one neat package.  Working through the exercises has taught me loads about pattern manipulation.
Anyhow, without further ado…

I chose the skirt pattern Vogue 1247 as a starting point because:
a.  I have used it a few times already and am happy with the fit.
b.  It has only one shaping dart on each side of the front and the back, and obviously one dart is way easier to eliminate than two.
c.  It has a high straight waistband that I could transform into a yoke fairly easily.  A waistband or yoke was an essential component to stabilise the lace at the top of the skirt.
d.  It is a reasonably straight little skirt, enabling me to easily match up the lace motifs down each side seam as well.

I am showing the process using the front pattern piece only… exactly the same process applies to the back piece.
I usually use old newspaper to make up my pattern modifications, but just in honour of taking photos today I have used some nice plain brown paper instead.  Yah I know, so classy  😉

Draw the pattern piece with the dart marked.

Mark a horizontal line from the point of the dart extending out to the side edge.

Cut along the outside edge of the dart.

Cut along the horizontal line from the side edge to the point of the dart.

Rotate the top side edge into the centre to close the dart, and tape it closed.

Just to visually simplify the next step I’ve traced off a new paper piece from this new, dartless skirt front piece….

Now, my lace had straight, horizontal straight rows of motifs.. to indicate how this appears on my paper pattern piece I have marked some horizontal straight rows in red…. Now, see how the sides of the skirt curve up quite dramatically from the centre front?    The visual effect of the curving row of lace, even though it is apparent curving and not actual curving; is rather unflattering imo and would look messy and chaotic.  So, I wanted the top of the skirt to be cut in a straight horizontal line, to preserve the straight line of the lace design.

Cut off that top side curve.

The lower skirt piece remaining is your new skirt front piece.  The curved piece cut off the top is used to create the waistband/yoke section as below…

The waistband of Vogue 1247 is a straight waistband; trace a new waistband including seam allowances.  

Transfer the top side curve markings to it.. this will be the new curved side seam of the waistband/yoke.

Extend the curve up to the top of the desired yoke/waistband height; then freehand draw it a bit higher and then curve it down to join onto the waistband top, to square off that top corner.

This process results in a dartless skirt with a straight top edge that preserves the horizontal rows in the lace… and with a straight waistband shaped into the side edges.
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