in the Nagano region
Hello! We recently spent nearly a month overseas in east Asia, specifically South Korea and Japan. I’ll write a bit more about our trip in a future travel wardrobe post, but for now I’ll just be focusing on the two new things I made to wear for our holiday…
First up! a new mini skirt. I find a little stretchy fabric mini skirt to be an extremely comfortable and practical garment for hiking in a winter environment… which is why I make a new one practically every year, ahem. I’ve actually promised to myself to branch out into different patterns this year but that promise was made after I’d made this, honestly. Because yes, it’s yet another old favourite that pops up here with mind-numbing regularity, the Paprika patterns Jade mini skirt pattern.
I used a bright pink jersey that had been given to me by my friend N when she cleaned out her own stash. I actually already have a pink mini skirt from last year that’s still in very good condition, so I made this new one with a view to dyeing it immediately afterwards. I’d decided upon purple, thus the decision to use a purple zip which I happened to have in my stash too. I’m pretty happy with the very good colour match after the dye-job!
btw, I don’t always put a zip in the Jade but it’s usually a good idea. Also, I always have to substantially change the shape in the fitting stage, bringing in the waist by a good 15cm or so, which necessitated a redrafting of the waistband. Over numerous iterations of this skirt, I have found it a good idea to line/interface the waistband with a non-stretch material for longevity, since otherwise it will eventually stretch out.
looks lumpy here but that’s because of the shaped waistband, which won’t sit flat nicely
I added a cotton pocket inside the skirt, this cut from an old worn out shirt of Sam’s. I’ve found some sort of pocket a useful addition to the skirt pattern previously although I haven’t used this one yet, in spite of wearing the skirt quite a lot already. As it turns out I always wore it with other garments with it that had more convenient pockets so didn’t need it. The Jade pattern is not ideal for pocket addition at all, but I’ve still tried to force one upon it a few times now. I’m confident that it will prove useful in future wears, though.
The other new garment is a T-shirt, made from a blue and white striped jersey also from N. You may recognise it from G’s T-shirt in my previous post. For mine, I used our own Carolyn & Cassie Pinjarra pattern, sizing up because the fabric doesn’t have much stretch. I actually didn’t have much opportunity to take a photo of the T-shirt on our trip because it was rarely warm enough to wear it by itself! plus for some reason taking pictures of my outfits didn’t take a lot of priority in my mind. Is this a good sign? Am I maybe getting more mature?! All pictures featuring the Tshirt are pretty ordinary quality, haha…
Anyway, both these pieces are obviously comfortable and nice to wear, and feel like really good new basics for my wardrobe.
I didn’t take a picture of the “before” yarns, but actually this project changed shape and form several times during the making and new yarns got added in as I went along. I’m pretty happy though… because there were about 11 balls/part balls of yarn in all to start with, and now they are all GONE from Le Stash. I’m particularly pleased with the “turquoise” stripes on the sleeves, which are actually four strands of two different colours of an extremely fine mohair yarn that I had no idea what on earth I could use for anything at all. The four of them held and knitted together as one turned out to be a reasonably good thickness to actually use.
I used our own Carolyn & Cassie Pinjarra pattern, the high necked top version. I cut a size bigger than my usual for a loose fit, and cut a hoodie piece to fit the neckline length. I also added a few inches of length to the bottom edge, again for that loose look. It was a pretty easy hack of our own pattern! so easy that I wondered for a little bit whether we should draft the hood up and add it to the pattern.
The skirt is our very own Meelup pattern, which is currently my number one top favourite. It has all my desired features; deep pockets, no zip, and a streamlined, yet comfortable and roomy silhouette. I carefully lined up the pockets to match the pattern in the skirt front; Pattern Matching 101. The skirt is lined in deep green lining fabric, not a perfect match colour-wise but t’was already in the stash thus making it the perfect candidate.
I also used a khaki cotton for the pocket lining and red buttons for the same reason… I know I know; the purist in me shrieks “NO!” however the thrifty-miss in me reassures myself that it’s not like you can ever see either of these wrongly coloured things when you’re wearing the skirt! I used the same khaki cotton to make bias binding to finish the raw edge of the hem inside…
The little tee-top is kinda based on another old favourite, the epaulette top from “she has a mannish style” by Yuki Takada. I had enough tartan for the sleeves and two big patch pockets, and the body is cut from an ivory wool felt that has been such a very long-term stash resident that I cannot remember its provenance. I did not include the eponymous epaulettes, … also I lined the body fully with an ivory silk habotai (also long-term stash) because the ivory wool is really itchy.
I stabilised the neckline with a biascut strip of cream cotton, then attached the lining to this, before stitching them all down to the top around the neckline.. yes, quite complicated but gives a nice finish, imo. The armscye of the lining is also stitched to that of the outer, and the remainder of the body and side seams float freely from each other. Having a silk lining makes it quite beautiful to wear!
I finished the lower raw edge with cotton bias, just like with the skirt… You can see here how I used dark green thread in the bobbin to stitch on those patch pockets… and no that is not a mistake! I discovered that a cream coloured thread to match the wool showed up just very slightly on the outside of the pockets, not terribly but enough to bother me…so I unpicked that and re-did it with the green thread. Now the topstitching on the pockets is nicely invisible… 🙂
A few little moth holes had sprung up during its confinement to the stash, so while I could cut mostly around them, I darned the few unavoidable ones up before making my tops… The merino is so fine, I used regular stitching thread for darning… and even then it looks thicker than I’d like.
Honestly, though, it really is near invisible, unless you get up really close! and I know these two items are going to work hard in my wardrobe next winter… btw, can you see how I used a white thread and and ivory thread in that double top-stitching? No?!
