watson Archives - Handmade by Carolyn

green sparkly “stardust” velvet

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

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!

Posted in: sewing \ Tagged: cloth habit, lingerie, makeBra DL03, Pattern Magic, top, watson

tie dyed prettiness

25/01/2025 10:17 am \ Leave a Comment \ Carolyn

I bought this pretty raspberry/cream tie dye cotton? jersey from Stone Mountain fabrics in San Francisco during my trip over there with Yoshimi in late 2019… always with the intention of making a new lingerie set. Five year later and finally, ta da! I actually had it all cut out several years ago, and then it languished, and languished… The fabric is a tad on the thin side, not too thin but just a little. I think it might have some bamboo in, it has a slight hint of that tell-tale slipperiness. Maybe that’s why I left it for a while. Jerseys are so variable, it’s honestly quite amazing.

I used my old favourite, the modified Cloth Habit Watson bra and undies pattern. (see here for my usual modifications) and made my usual bra with two pairs of matching undies.

Because of the slight thinness of the fabric, I lined the bra band completely with a clotted-cream coloured cotton polyester stretch from my stash that I’ve nibbled away at, bit by bit over many years for lingerie purposes. It has such a great sturdiness to it and it’s the perfect shade of cream. The undies lining is from the same stuff, and for the cup lining I used more of the tie-dyed jersey. I invisibly hand stitched the cup and lining together along the seam, for stability.

The elastic is a mix of white and cream colours. I actually bought all new bits for this project back in 2019, something I haven’t done for a while! and it was all neatly bundled up together in a little bag with the cut pieces, ready and waiting for me to sew up. Past me was so considerate. The strap elastic and rings/sliders were from Homecraft Textiles, the band elastic from a MakeBra lingerie kit, the rest from Spotlight.

This is the first time I’ve used some of this cream-coloured band elastic from the MakeBra kit (above) … it doesn’t have an obvious decorative edging like just about all the others I’ve used, but instead has one slightly thickish rounded ridge along one edge. When I first bought this kit the lack of a distinct decorative edge confused me so I wasn’t really sure what to do with it but just decided to give it a go using that subtle ridge as the bit that shows. I’ve decided I like the clean edge and it looks pretty nice actually!

When I first pinned on that white white white hook and eye closure it just looked so glaringly white I had to try something, so soaked it in a cup of black tea for a bit. I think I overdid this a bit! the colour turned out a little too strong. Oh well, we live and learn!

I used a mixture of red and ivory thread for topstitching. No reason, just that I had it and wanted to mix it up a bit. I really like doing subtle little features like this.

I had a small amount of leftovers so ran up a quick pair of sockettes using the Sytt och Prytt Florens ballerina sockette pattern. (see here). I don’t always blog about these when I make them but I actually wear these sockettes a LOT: with shoes that need an invisible sock, also as a kind of “slipper” for around the house to keep my feet clean, and also over my tights on not-too-cold days to protect them inside my boots/shoes. The heel and toe area of tights is always the first thing to go and I’ve found that having a thin sockette protects them from wear and tear just that little bit longer, so it’s worth wearing them. I mean, they’re not gorgeous or couture or anything, but so handy, a good way of using leftover scraps, and very quick and easy to make.

Posted in: sewing \ Tagged: cloth habit, florens ballerina socks, lingerie, socks, sytt och prytt, watson

pink and blue lingerie

29/09/2024 2:00 pm \ 4 Comments \ Carolyn

Obviously the most worn items in just about anyone’s wardrobe is bound to be underwear… and so one is obliged to often update these things, even though you don’t get the benefit of showing of your new creations to your friends, much less the general public! I’m still using up small pieces of cotton jersey in my stash that are too small for anything else, thus this is another patchwork set. Oh, pattern? the Cloth Habit Watson pattern, adapted over time to become a long term favourite of mine.

The blue jersey was a remnant given to me by my friend N – in spite of the fact that I no longer accept fabric donations, honestly I have to get stricter about just throwing it out! however occasionally some pieces do prove useful. I had enough of the blue jersey for a partial set, but I always like to have two knickers to go with any one bra so I hunted about for more cotton jersey to make up the shortfall. I didn’t really have anything exactly suitable apart from white, but something in me found white to be unacceptable at the time so I whimsically decided to dye the white pieces.

I still have some dried calendula flowers which gives an orange dye, so tossed just 4 of them in with the pieces in a saucepan.

These are pretty potent things! The water looked very orange, however I was pleasantly surprised that the fabric became quite pink in the end! So pretty!

I used blue topstitching thread, and the small lace butterflies are leftover from this, previously made set. I carefully selected a blue butterfly for the pink undies and a pink butterfly for the blue undies and the bra, although the colour doesn’t show up so well in these close-ups.

For the bra cups, I like hand stitch the outer layer to the inner layer in-the-ditch along the seamline, to keep the seam allowances neatly in place. I try to keep the stitches even and as neat as possible, whilst also as invisible as possible … if this makes sense! but you can just see the stitches if you look really closely.

The knicker elastic and underbra elastic are all new, however the bra straps and closure are recycled from old sets. I generally find that these things can be recycled a few times, since it’s always either the knicker elastic or occasionally the fabric of the pieces that wears out the most quickly.

Posted in: sewing \ Tagged: cloth habit, lingerie, natural dyeing, watson

snuggly dress/shacket

28/09/2024 10:19 am \ Leave a Comment \ Carolyn

I made this very snuggly and cosy shirtdress/jacket thingummy recently, the pattern is the new Fibremood Ildri … I think it is called a shirtdress, but it can obviously be cut shorter as a shirt or jacket too. btw, while it has a second version pictured here, when I got it the pattern only had the first, long version with covered button band..

I used a piece of quite fluffy, brushed cotton that I bought from the pyjama fabric section of Spotlight, several years ago now… and cut my dress as long as I was able!

The pattern is quite nice; with a self-faced yoke that I did with a burrito finish … such a nice finish. I can’t believe I used to hand stitch these down with most of the mens’ shirts I made back in the day, before I discovered it. The button band is hidden with an extra flap; I kinda like this but because my fabric is quite fluffy I worried for quite a while that it was going to be too thick to be workable. Fortunately it worked out just fine, but I agonised over this quite unnecessarily for much of the construction process. And is it even necessary to hide the button band? Is the button band ever so ugly that one feels the need to shut it out of sight like this? Why are we choosing such hideous buttons that we think; oh well, this should clearly not be seen by the general public! I’m a little unsure where I stand on this detail, that’s not even very visually interesting. Don’t mind me, just ranting for no good reason. I used press studs, which are not bulky and you can’t even see them because of the hidden button band anyway.

Anyway. I added side pockets, of course, as well as the breast pockets with flaps, that are in the pattern. The collar is quite a nice size, and sits well. The sleeves were a bit bland on their own, in my opinion, so I threaded a little elastic through a cuff to bring them in. I like having my sleeves shoved slouchily up to my elbow like this, I think it looks cool and it keeps the warmth in.

I cut the side edges in a curve, which is a small detail that I always like in a shirt/shirtdress. To be honest, it’s way too short for me to ever wear it as a standalone dress, so it will be more of a shirt/jacket in my own wardrobe. I do really like it though! We’ve had a very up and down start to spring this year, some days delightful, other days blustery and freezing… and it’s been lovely to have this cosy thing in rotation. For some reason, I think of black and white as being a very spring-time combination of colours to wear, and this fits in nicely.

To belt or not to belt? that is the question. This is how I wore it yesterday… I think I prefer it belted mostly, but this makes the pockets practically inaccessible… !

worn with:

my black stretch Burda jeans… and then self drafted mini, and one of my recent ivory merino Pinjarra tees

In maintenance news; I made this, in my opinion; really beautiful bra with 2 sets of matching knickers set several years ago, and white the bra is thankfully still in excellent shape, the foldover elastic on the knickers had given up the ghost. That’s thing about foldover elastic, it really does not have the stamina of others and doesn’t last very long. I think it’s ok to use it as an aesthetic choice, but remember that it’s not going to do such a good job in the long run.

Anyway, I decided to run up two new pairs of knickers to match the bra. Obviously I didn’t have any more of that pretty Liberty jersey, but I did have a big-enough remnant of reasonably well-matching blue jersey from which I managed to cut out two new pairs of Watson knickers. I cut out a few small flower motifs from the old Liberty knickers and hand stitched them on too, just for fun. This was a very small project, barely worth blogging really but I’m so happy with it! Sometimes small things can make you really happy.

Posted in: sewing \ Tagged: cloth habit, daily outfit, fibremood, ildri, lingerie, shirt, shirtdress, watson

tie dyed lingerie, and bikkies

10/02/2024 1:26 pm \ Leave a Comment \ Carolyn

Hello! I’m back with a few new things…

I had a length of raspberry cotton jersey that’s lovely quality and I wanted to make a new set of lingerie with it, but I somehow felt it boring just as it was… what do do of course but make it less boring. I decided to try my hand at some tie-dyeing…

I cut the right amount of fabric to cut a Watson set of bra plus two pairs of knickers. btw, ages ago I made the undies pattern pieces full size, and added the crotch piece to the front piece to include it, as shown above. This had made the pattern far better suited to me, and far easier to cut out and construct. I hog-tied it securely before boiling it up in a pot of navy blue dye. Definitely not boring now… in fact I’m so pleased with the pretty shapes that resulted. I forgot to lay down the back band in the above picture but remembered to check I had enough for this too before cutting!

I’m happy to report nothing new at all was bought for this set… I still have enough elastic left in my stash for maybe one or two new sets of lingerie before I’ll need to buy more, and I have lately been recycling even the hook and eye closures; although I’m aware that happy state of affairs cannot last forever! However for now it’s very satisfying to be able to make something new and pretty and functional using just what I have.

We’ve had a few birthdays in the family recently, and one little activity I did recently was to make chocolate biscuits with 3yr old Theo for his party. This was of course a delightful way to spend time! Cassie had pre-made the chocolate biscuit dough, and I helped him to roll it out and cut shapes. A few days later I whipped up a batch of icing with him, and supervised the icing and decoration. He pretty much did all this by himself.

He happened to be wearing the T-shirt I made for him late last year, so I took a quick picture of him assiduously cleaning the icing bowl… so cute and funny. I’ve never seen a bowl/plate cleaned out so thoroughly as that icing bowl!

Also, I made this green Meelup skirt and pink Booragoon top last year for my niece Tiffany, but she was a little unwell at the time when we were taking pictures for our Meelup skirt listing. We finally managed to get together for our photoshoot just recently, and here she is. Doesn’t she look lovely?! It gives both Cassie and I such joy to have family members and friends modelling our creations!

Posted in: sewing \ Tagged: Booragoon top, Carolyn & Cassie Pattern Co, cloth habit, dyeing, lingerie, Meelup skirt, own design, t-shirt, Theo, Tiffany, watson

an assortment of sewn things

11/12/2023 4:50 pm \ 6 Comments \ Carolyn

hello! Once again I am presenting an odd assortment of disparate things made recently…

Items 1 and 2; two completely identical new Booragoon tops. Both from a pink cotton jersey from stash, originally Spotlight from ages ago. I’m wearing one above with my newly dyed Closet Clore patterns Mitchell trousers… the trousers used to be a paler pink and I felt like a colour change though I fear I overdid it a bit! never mind… the other pink Booragoon has gone to my niece T. It really suits her!

Love this cute and yet chic little pattern! I know it’s mine and I shouldn’t be too self-congratulatory, but I really really love it so I just have to gush occasionally. I’ll stop now.

Items 3, 4 and 5, or should I just call this item 3? I’m never quite sure…

anyway, I made a new set of one Watson bra plus two pairs of matching undies. I used some of the leftover pink cotton jersey, from those aforementioned pink tops, and some striped jersey, that I’ve had for a long long time (actually made this striped shirt from it). And whipped up a mixed fabrics set… actually I want to make more things like this at the moment, mixing up different fabrics.

Fronts and back of the knickers are contrasting, the strap elastic, rings and sliders, and hook and eye closure are all recycled from an old bra. The other elastics are all from the stash, by which I mean they’ve not been used before even if they’re not actually new. A free set! Yay!

Items 6 and 7 (or 4 and 5?). some matching clothes for Cassie’s two; T and G… Oh, I’ve just realised I haven’t introduced my newest grandson here yet… I did over on instagram but this is his first appearance here…Cassie had baby Gilbert a few weeks ago, and here he is!

Isn’t he sweet! This is the first thing I’ve made for him and I made a matching T-shirt for his older brother too.

I’m quite sad that this next one has zero hanger appeal, or should I say floor appeal, and even on the body it doesn’t look particularly chic; which is pity because the fabric is absolutely beautiful.

Mum wove this length of beautiful lilac/blue fabric with her own two hands many years ago, and had partially made a dress or tunic or something out of it.

I cut off the bottom, hemmed, and reattached the cut off portion as sleeves. I’m wearing it as a summer dressing gown. So that was item 8, for those keeping count, and now for number 9….

my new summer nightie! So I really really love this and it feels so lovely to wear! I used a short length of silk from Le Stash, originally from (I think) Tessuti fabrics of Melbourne, from years ago. With some clever pattern placement I managed to cut a Closet Core Simone slip. I French seamed the side seams, and was very careful to match stripes all around. It feels incredibly luxe! Why have I never made silk sleepwear before?!

Ok, I think that’s all for now! See you later!

Posted in: sewing \ Tagged: baby clothes, babywear, Booragoon top, Carolyn & Cassie Pattern Co, Closet Core patterns, cloth habit, Gilbert, lingerie, own design, Simone slip, Theo, watson

pretty blouse, handbag, wallet, underthings, baby things and pink books

19/11/2023 2:31 pm \ 8 Comments \ Carolyn

I’ve been checking out all my as-yet unblogged things, and there are so many! I guess I’ve been in a real blogging slump this year. Anyway, apologies for the overloaded, as well as overdue! blog post, and here we go…!

Item 1: a pretty lingerie set. This is of course the Watson pattern by cloth habit, one I’ll be making for the rest of my life, I’m sure… just such a goodie. Same modifications I’ve always made. (see here)…

I had all the elastics and bits and pieces already, and a quite short length of bright neon yellow elastic, leftover from this set… it was fun incorporating a length of it in each piece!

Item 2; a pretty blouse. This is actually my most recently made thing… well, apart from a few samples for our new pattern, to be announced very soon, I hope!

This design is the new Nova pattern by Fibremood. It has a very interesting fluted neckline, that attracted me to it in the first place. I dunno, but I can’t resist a unique twist to a thing! and simply must try it out.

I used a length of pretty slightly brushed cotton, given to me by Mum when she cleaned out her stash. It’s lovely, isn’t it?! I added one pocket, just for fun, and threaded a length of elastic through each sleeve hem, a look that I really like lately.

The back has a centre-back seam with an invisible zip. Quite unnecessary, since I found you can pull it over your head quite easily. Something I like to do with the end of an invisible zip is to wrap the end with a little piece of fabric, since a lot of invisible zips seem to have almost imperceptible sharp bits at the end, that will torment you without pity if you don’t do something about it first.

Item 3; this cute little bag… I made this earlier this winter, using a kit from JT Tanner bought during lockdown actually!

It was an exceptionally beautiful kit and I really enjoyed putting it together, in spite of breaking all three of the provided needles! however I finally figured how to stitch through that tough tough leather without putting too much strain on the needles… :D. and am super happy with the quite profesh look of the final product!

I wore it a few times, but it had one small problem which ultimate led me to my next project…

Item 4; a little wallet. My new bag is awesome, but my current purse doesn’t fit into it at all, and since the bag is such that a loose credit card or cash would easily fall out of the gaps, I decided that I needed a customised purse! Yes, I’m admittedly weird about not immediately shopping for things at the moment and I also I do like to challenge myself, ergo; I decided to have a go at making one.

There was one failed version before this final one, failed only because I cut the zip too short and it couldn’t flip out open completely; but this one is nearly perfect, I’m happy to report.

I didn’t want to use any of my precious leather just yet! although I might be ready to go there soon; instead I used charcoal felt, that I bought to make a stuffed toy at some point (still unblogged, whoops!). Fortunately I still have a huge number of oddly coloured zips that Mum gave me at some point, and found two matching ones. The wallet took a bit of very careful measuring and lining up, and I am pretty proud of the final precision.

It has a whole lot of card slots, a zipped coin compartment, one separate car slot that I was initially intending to have a clear plastic window in it, but couldn’t found the right plastic on hand and didn’t want to go out and source any either. C’est la vie! Oh, and also a bellowed pocket for bills/notes. This time I carefully made sure the wallet could flip open fully and lie flat.

I agonised on how to put in the zip, finish the raw edges, and eventually bound the edges with matching charcoal linen – the same stuff I used to line the card slots and coin pocket. I hand stitched the linen binding down inside, and then finally glued the outer layer over the top. I wasn’t sure how the glueing would work out, but it has nicely stiffened up the final product in a very satisfactory way.

And it fits into the bag perfectly!

Item 5; I’m not sure if I’ve posted this before? if not here tis… a baby onesie for our friend’s baby. Design is my own, and yes, I used the leftovers for my Watson set, above!

Item 6, 7, 8, 9

some new little books. I always save and cut up the leftover paper from paper patterns and make little books from them. It’s fun to do this and makes me feel virtuously zero waste. All materials are waste scraps and leftovers from other projects. I have one in my handbag all the time and use it all the time, and they make nice gifts too, I think!

I think that’s enough for now? Anyway, I’ll be back with more soon!

Posted in: sewing, Uncategorized \ Tagged: accessories, bag, bookbinding, cloth habit, daily outfit, fibre mood, handmade book, jt tanner, leatherwork, lingerie, nova, own design, purse, top, watson

white top… ghost horses jumper… patchwork underthingies

30/06/2023 6:11 pm \ Leave a Comment \ Carolyn

Perth dress/blouse

Hello! I have been so remiss in not posting this top, made months ago now… I wanted a new white shirt and if you’re feeling like a quick and easy shirt project then what better pattern to get out other than my own Perth pattern?! #shamelessplug

The back pleat goes “out”; I really prefer pleats to go “in, the fact that this one does not was not intentional but a boo boo. It’s, ok, I can live with it! I used some white linen/cotton from my stash; leftover from my Charlie caftan that I made *checks blog stats* goodness me, about six years ago now! And obviously made a few minor mods.

The length is about halfway between the top and the skirt cutting lines, and I lengthened the sleeves as much as I could to about three quarter length. I really love this sleeve length on a shirt! and for visual interest I added buttoned cuffs. I also added a little pointy-bottomed breast pocket, for almost the sole purpose of sporting a “circa 2023” label.

I also made the little black flecked white skirt.

Item 2; this (to my mind) absolutely beautiful jumper is also something I finished months ago, and have only just got around to wearing and photographing it for my blog here.

The pattern is Ghost Horses by Boyland knit works… I bought it through her blog site here but you can also get it through Ravelry…

The yarns are:

dark blue: Rowan felted tweed, col 170 Seafarer

variegated pink: Manos del Uruguay silk blend, col SB3317 Kilim

plain pink: Manos del Uruguay silk blend, col SB3236 Clafoutis

Le inside/backside

I bought the yarn from Morris and Sons in Melbourne, during our Harry Potter excursion over there, last March. Actually, March 2022, hehe; so embarrassed to admit that. I actually started knitting it straight away and got it to final ribbing stage within a few months. Then took like forever to decide on the finishing bands. I didn’t really like the slightly tight look of the finishing bands on the pattern envelope sample and tried multiple variations ie various k/P ribbing combos, stocking stitch, double yarn etc before finally settling on … well, these ones. Mine is same needle size as body, single yarn, 2K 2P rib, very loosely finished.

And at least it finally is finished!

yea haw! btw, I made my shirt, skirt and tights too…

Item 3:

I made a new underwear set… all from scraps and leftovers! this kind of project is super fun for me, mostly because it is so crazy and silly.

The pattern is my favourite, the Cloth Habit Watson, and the fabric is all from projects in my previous post; the T-shirt for Arthur, itself an old T-shirt of Tim’s; and the red and navy stripe from the skirt I made for Cassie. I had only small pieces, so it was fun to cut and join bits together to get enough for my set! I know I know, silly and crazy. But fun!

I’m belatedly a little annoyed that the white-fronted knickers are asymmetrically pieced so it looks a little lopsided, but at the time I was just happy to have enough to even cut a front! so I guess I can’t complain…

The strap elastic was also salvaged from an old, also me-made bra, the straps though were still in really good nick … the knicker elastic I had in the stash already too. In the last couple of years since we moved and I vowed to use entirely from the stash, I’m constantly amazed at HOW MUCH is in there…!

So that’s all for now.. until next time!