Tag Archives: Sienna

Sapote cotton cardigan

16/04/2012 2:19 pm \ 29 Comments \

Oh g’day peeps!  May I present to you my latest completed knitting project…
This is another version of the Jo Sharp Fitted Cardigan.  I have knitted this pattern before, my first version is here.  I really loved that knitted lace on the lower edge of the design, and I decided to make this newest version with the edging on the sleeves as well.  This took just one extra ball of yarn over the amount stipulated in the pattern, a small extra cost I was happy to pay considering I was buying during a 30% off sale.  Yeeeeah! 
Great colour, huh?  This colour is called Sapote, and is named after the fruit which comes in several colour varieties.  The black sapote when ripe is a beautifully deep and rich purple-y brown colour, and has paler, caramel-brown woody-textured seeds… which inspired my choice of buttons for my new cardigan.  Whaddya think?
I have to confess; I finished knitting this cardigan a few months ago, and for ages have been searching and searching for just the right buttons.  I was hunting for deep chocolate-y purple buttons, something the exact same shade as the yarn… and failing.  But eventually and fortuitously I checked out a photograph of the sapote fruit, and noticed the colour and texture of those seeds, and how perfectly natural they looked nestled in the flesh of the sapote fruit, and realised that buttons of this colour and texture were what I should be searching for… and then I found them straight away!  It was meant to be. 

Details:
Cardigan; Jo Sharp’s Knitted Cardigan with the addition of knitted lace edging on the sleeve hems, using Jo Sharp Soho Summer DK Cotton in Sapote (col 216)
Shirt (under); my own design, made from a pair of old white linen trousers, details here
Shorts; Burda 7723, white linen, details here
Thongs; Mountain Design

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Clipped Wings; a top

14/04/2012 8:45 am \ 18 Comments \
Here is my latest from Pattern Magic 3, by Tomoko Nakamichi; this is the top from p61/91. The seamlines at the side and centre back seams of this top are gently angled out, causing the top to fall in a series of rather lovely, loose, triangular folds around the small of one’s back.  Interesting, and also quite flattering.  I loved the wide high square neckline and the elegant long raglan sleeves.  I also loved that the top has a bland front view and a busy back view.  But to be honest; I wasn’t sure I loved the look of the “bumps” (pictured below). 
Without understanding the Japanese text, I think that the aforementioned bumps; two protrusions sprouting from the back of the raglan sleeve seam right where one’s scapulas sit; are intended to be the focus of the project, the challenge to be mastered from drafting and making up this piece.  But I’m afraid I just thought they looked a bit …er… odd.  As though if one was thinking of transforming oneself into an angel then the top was all ready with some pouches to accommodate one’s budding wings.  But sadly I am no angel  🙂
I went ahead and made up the top with the angel-wing bumps, for no better reason that to prove something to myself.  The long suffering Bessie modeled the bumpy version of the top for a photo (oh, it’s OK, like a true professional she doesn’t really mind how strange are the clothes I make her wear) 
below: the winged version; pre-clipping; see those bumps on the raglan seam?

Then straight away I unpicked that back raglan seam and sewed it up again, sans bumps!  Sorry, but sometimes the authenticity of the design is of a lesser consideration to me than the wearability, and I pretty certain a non-sewing observer would consider those bumps, clever little feature though they are, and definitely not an easier option than a straight seam; to be a mistake on my part.  So.  Off with their heads!
I used a rather nice cotton knit jersey from Knit Wit, in a light grey marle with distinct yellow undertones.  I bought a long length of this fabric last year, specifically for the purpose of running up Pattern Magic projects.  This is the first time I have bitten into it, having now used up the jersey knits in the stash given to me by my friend C.  Future projects using this grey fabric may or may not be subjected to some sort of colour treatment 🙂
I overlocked all the raw edges before sewing any seams, and the neckline, sleeve hems and lower hem are folded in once and finished with a twin needle on my sewing machine.  If you look real closely, you can see that I used a creamy-ivory thread and a white thread in the twin needle.  I didn’t bother with winding a second spool with the creamy colour that matches the yellow tones in my fabric, but y’know what? I think it turned out kinda cool.  The more I look at those two different colours the more I like that effect.  Will probably do that again!
Details:
Top; from p61/91 of Pattern Magic 3 (by Tomoko Nakamichi), and made of grey marle cotton knit jersey
Shorts; Burda 7723, hot pink linen, details here, and these shorts styled in 6 different ways here
Thongs; cheapies from Kmart (I know, but it was an emergency purchase.  My previous beach thongs broke)
(below; spot the dog…)
(btw; Beryl commented wondering whether the extra challenge I alluded to for Me-Made May was a pregnancy… NO!  but thank you so much for even considering me in that age bracket….!   I am flattered; but no, I will be travelling during the month of May!)
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Cordelicious

28/03/2012 5:52 am \ 9 Comments \

O, hai, peops!
(drum roll) another pair of Burda 7723 shorts.
This is ma “greige” corduroy pair, that gets more appreciation as the cooler autumn weather rolls around.  The pattern modified in that they are longer, and substantially flared.
Colours, or lack thereof; well, but monotonality pleases me.  I like beige (what can I say, 80’s girl and all that) and I like that when one removes the obviousness of colour from the equation, then the textures and the flavour of the fabrics are allowed to shine.
The soft velvety furriness of the corduroy shorts, against the matte translucency of my net cardigan, and the crisp and simple cleanliness of the white cotton top with its self scarf.  The subtlety of these textures and the individuality of the fabrics can really be appreciated in an outfit of just one shade of soft pale neutrals.
So.
This week is feeling remarkably like a me-made exercise, is it not?  Except that it is much much shorter  🙂 and much much more restrictive  🙁
And I am finding it a very interesting experiment, just the same  :))

Details:
Top; Top “a” from Unique Clothes Any Way You Like, by Natsuno Hiraiwa, white cotton, details here
Shorts; Burda 7723 modified, grey/beige corduroy, details here
Cardigan; my own design, coffee and white net, tutorial to make a similar one here
Sandals; Misano, from MarieClaire shoes
Nail varnish; BYS Fool’s Paradise

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White as white…

25/03/2012 8:09 am \ 18 Comments \

I’m pretty good with laundry.  These shorts are a testament to that, since I made them over two years ago, the first pair of shorts using this week’s pattern Burda 7723; and despite being subjected to rock-climbing, hiking, camping (just so you know, the rural dust here is icing-sugar fine and red) and generally plenty of gettin’ down n’ dirty with whatever mother nature has to offer they are still as brilliantly white-as-white-can-be as the day I sewed that last stitch and snipped that last trailing thread…
(ahem)
Well.  They’re not toooo horrifically off-white anyway….  😀
so I hope you enjoy reading this care label.  It certainly gave me a laugh!

Details:
Top; top “b” from Unique Clothes Any Way You Like, white cotton, details here
Shorts; Burda 7723, white linen, details here
Shoes; ??  given to me by Mum, cast-offs from one of her friends
Ultramarine Scarf; new!…  made by me, from the leftover pieces of jersey knit from this top, and using this method

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A little bit of Sunshine…

18/03/2012 11:38 am \ 18 Comments \

Recently Donna gave me the Sunshine award, thank you so much Donna!  I thought at first that I already had this one…  but I noticed that this Sunshine award is a New-and-Improved Sunshine award that now comes with a cool little list of questions…  yay! questions can be fun, can’t they?
Sooo, here we go…. and just for fun, some random sunshine-y photos too  (unless otherwise stated all photos are taken by me)

Favourite Colour: ok, that’s easy!  er… hang on, wait.  Let me think now.  Hmmm.  OK, how’s about this, I saw a divine mustard scarf recently.  Mustard.  Done!  Actually, wait; I’m lately also rather thrilled about that wonderful shade of ox-blood red I achieved here…  And then of course there’s my best neutral, olive.  And my perennial allegiance to ivory remains unabated.  Oh, and then there is charcoal, and pinky-beige, and muddy chocolate, and pure white, and burnt orange, and duck-egg blue, and raspberry … and … and …

Favourite Animal:  I am ridiculously soft and soppy about all animals.  Except for mosquitoes.  Mosquitoes, I squish.  Mosquitoes bringeth no good to the world.  Apart from being frog food.  That one sole good deed on the part of mosquitoes.

Favourite Number: What…?  Do other people really have favourite numbers?  I don’t know if I could pick just one.  The infinite others would feel left out  🙂

Favourite Non-Alcoholic Drink: Aha! at last, one for which I can give a straight answer… tea!  English Breakfast.  In a proper tea cup, please.  Strong, and with a little bit of milk.  No, no sugar, but thanks for offering.

Facebook or Twitter: I’ve recently discovered a whole host of old school friends on Facebook. It was so awesome!

(btw, this topless person is not me, but is the husband!)

My Passion: no prizes for guessing that one… 😀

Getting or Giving Presents: er… both??  Y’know what; I’ve been thinking about that one, and I’ve decided that it is one of those posers to which 99% of people will give exactly the same answer, the one I just gave.  Think about it.  Answering the former would be a no-no, except to garner laughs, and answering the latter is raaather priggish, so is equally a no-go…  it’s a non question, really.  What do you think?

Favourite Pattern:  Well, it changes all the time.  Virtually with each new project.  Right now I am in raptures all over again with McCalls 5525, since I have just completed a new coat that I am insanely pleased with.

(Craig took this one.  This is me, on a stand-up paddle board!)

Favourite Day of the Week: Well.  Any day that the whole family’s schedules serendipitously dovetail so we all happen to be all home for dinner, together, at once.  This happens rarely.  But when it does, it is my favourite day of that week.

Favourite Flower: In first place; my daughter, the most beautiful blossom in my life.  In second place; big old-fashioned roses in shades of pink, apricot and old-gold.  The sort that get blousy and overblown and scatter their petals in gorgeous profusion.  Which then dry into sweet-smelling colour-distilled scraps.  Which then becomes divine pot-pourri.

Favourite celebrity role model:  Now why would I idolise a stranger when I have such amazing women in my real life?  Srsly  🙂

So now, to pass the sunshine-y love along…. 

Beth; of SunnyGal Sewing Studio
Liza Jane; of Liza Jane Sews
Karin; of Sew Here We Go Again!
ElleC; of ElleC Sews
Alexandra; of Alexandra Mason Crafts and Stuff
Lynne; of Sewing Cafe
Adithi’s Amma; of Adithi’s Amma Sews

Details:
Top; Vogue 1247, of orange cotton, details and my review of this pattern here
Shorts; Burda 7723 modified, of yellow embroidered cotton, details here, and my review of this pattern here
Nail varnish (above); BYS Bright Light, with daisy decal.  I know, decals are so last year, yes?  Well maybe I am a last year kind of a gal  🙂

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Peekaboo in blue

08/03/2012 3:51 pm \ 31 Comments \

New top, woot!
Its real name is a mystery to me, but the word peekaboo just pops irresistably into my head every single time I look at it so there it is!  This is the project on p20 of Pattern Magic 3, by Tomoko Nakamichi.  As far as wearability goes, this is probably one of the better projects in the book, and ditto for the ease of construction.  Super easy!
In hood down mode this appears not unlike an ordinary little Tshirt, plain-ish but with a just-interesting-enough little variation to redeem it from being outright featureless and boring.  The incorporated hoodie thingie (that’s a technical sartorial term there) looks a bit like a backward cowl neck when it is flipped down like above….  it’s actually quite cute, yes?
Hood up… well, okaaay.  Quirky, yes.   A bit noice, unusual, different.  Definitely funky.  Wearable? Hmmm, borderline, methinks…  🙂
But hood down? yes, I likey!
I used a length of jersey in a lovely shade of deep royal blue, part of the bundle of fabrics given to me by my friend C from her late mother’s stash.  It is quite thick and sturdy stuff, so I am really looking forward to wearing this more as we head into the cooler days of autumn.
I attached a folded band to finish the armholes and the neckline, a technique I think of as the Metalicus finish since they use it extensively on all their pieces and is where I first noticed it.  The lower hemline is turned up once and slip-stitched in place.
I’m very happy with this funky, slightly sporty addition to my wardrobe.  The concept of the design is totally to my taste; unique and simple, but with a twist!
Oh, and I’ve updated things on the blog a bit; now all my projects from each the Pattern Magic books have been gathered into sets, and can be viewed by clicking on the picture of that book in my sidebar over there.  They’re a bit jumbled up right now, as I am still working out how to order the pictures in those albums….  that’s a work in progress!
Later peops!

Details:
Top; from Pattern Magic 3, by Tomoko Nakamichi, made from royal blue jersey
Shorts; Burda 7723, white linen, my review of this pattern here

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Billowy white shirt

17/02/2012 6:55 am \ 35 Comments \

I’ve made a shirt… and the twist is that this was until recently a pair of trousers.  Yes really!
Before; as wide-legged trousers.  They were very low-rise in the style of about five years ago.   I could literally pull these trousers on and off without undoing the zip.  The last time I wore them was about two years ago (in this top right outfit) and even then I had the zip un-zipped and the sides lapped over and hoinked together with a big safety pin so they wouldn’t fall down.

However the linen was such beautiful quality! and I did not want to let it go to waste…
so I did not.  🙂
I have been toying with a particular concept for a shirt-from-pants for a while in my head.  I’ve had a very firm picture of how it was going to go together.  Naturally my nebulous “idea” didn’t work out quite the way I had planned and I realised at some point that I needed more fabric, and in very different shapes, to what I actually had.  I had to pin, stitch, unpick, re-pin, re-stitch, re-unpick over several times before I dared to actually cut into any of the leg pieces… and there was a lot of this before I ended up with a design I was happy with.  No, I don’t do muslins very often.  I consider them a waste of fabric.
The construction… well, don’t ask me to go into great detail…  it was quite complex.  The long extended front bands, starting at the shoulders and extending down the fronts, and continuing around to meet at the centre lower back are from my original shirt plan, the one I had to abandon.  I liked how they looked, hanging in space like that, so I left them there.  To cover the join at the back, which by necessity in the design finished inside out with the seam showing, I made a little decorative button tab.

The shirt has two fronts, and the back has a two pieced yoke extending into the sleeve backs, and two lower backs joined centrally.
The back of the shirt has four corners of fabric joining together at a centre point.  I pressed the vertical seam allowances of the upper and lower backs to either side to reduce bulk in the long horizontal back seam joining them.  This is double top-stitched down.  Actually this shirt contains an eclectic mix of sometimes double top-stitching, sometimes single top-stitching and sometimes no top-stitching.  I applied these at whim.  It seems to work well with the casual and slightly avant-garde Japanese style of the shirt.
My favourite design detail is the sleeves and their closure.  The front sleeve is shorter, and almost a square.  The back yoke/sleeve piece has a distinct curve-and-flare in it, tapering off to one side, this was part of the original shape of the leg back pieces, and after lots of pinning the sleeve seams and trying-on multiple times I situated part of the existing curve to fall at the natural outer elbow. It looks very strange when the sleeve is laid flat, but the flare and curve actually accommodates the curve of the elbow very well.  It took a bit of experimenting, but I’m so happy with how this bit turned out!  It was a very serendipitous discovery!

Both points of the longer back yoke/sleeve piece have a buttonhole, and they both button down over a single button on the centre of the sleeve front hem.  To enable the button to cope with this amount of fabric, I sewed it to have quite a high and a very well reinforced shank.

So I’m super happy with how my shirt turned out!  There was almost zero leftovers, just a few shavings, the zip and the facings, and a few other miscellaneous small bits.  The 6 buttons were leftovers from this shirt.  Beautiful buttons, their only downside is that they are not for individual purchase, but only available on cards of nine.  Luckily I have a lot of use for little white buttons  🙂
And I still have my original shirt idea in my head for another time…

Details:
Shirt; my own design, re-fashioned from a pair of wide-legged trousers, fine white linen
Shorts; Burda 7723, hot pink linen, details here, and to see these in 6 different ways go here.  My review of this pattern here

Later edit: the shirt has had a mini-revamp and it now looks like this:


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White, with a navy grid

07/02/2012 1:21 pm \ 33 Comments \

I’ve made a new little top….   well, just a summer version of a T-shirt really, from scraps, the leftovers from this shirt.  Constructively finishing off another small wad of fabric from my stash.  Smug self back-patting ensues.
This stuff is pretty good top/blouse/shirt fabric.  It is uncrushable and beautifully light.  Sam has been wearing his shirt stacks.  And luckily has no neuroses about his mother having a garment in the same fabric, although for both our sakes I have undertaken to only wear it if he’s not wearing his.
We do have some pride.  🙂
I had dreamed that this top would be cut on the bias, with those gridlines laying diagonally across the design, and to have little kimono/cap sleeves, like my preliminary sketch below.  I thought it would look pretty cool like that, and had been thinking about it long enough that my heart was virtually set on it.  But cutting on the bias is such a fabric hog, demanding way more than I actually had and so my plans were sadly not to be….  Visiting the fabric store to purchase just a leeettle bit more to indulge myself was pretty tempting as the fabric was not price-y, and still plentifully stocked.  But I had to admit that doing so would utterly defeat any aspirations to green-dom.  sigh
So …
I used the pattern for top “a” from Unique Clothes Any Way You Like, by Natsuno Hiraiwa, a very simple design that really does use a very tiny amount of fabric.  In its simplest pared-back form this is a fab basic little top pattern.  I grudgingly economically cut the pieces out on the straight…. which might not look as cool as my original idea, but is very effective for stash busting  🙂  And it is a good useful and casz little summer top.
The seams are all French seams.  It doesn’t have any closure but can just be pulled on over my head.  I left off the stipulated bias finish to the armholes and neckline, and instead made three sort of tubes or funnels to finish the apertures off.  The sleeve tubes are just single fabric width, and sewn into the armholes and finished with a little hem, and the neckline tube is doubled over, and slipstitched invisibly down on the inside. 

Details:
Top; modified top “a” from Unique Clothes Any Way You Like by Natsuno Hiraiwa, in navy and white check stuff.  I have made this pattern up twice before, here and here….
Skirt; Vogue 1248, white cotton voile, details and my review of this pattern here
Thongs; Mountain Design

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