Uncategorized Archives - Page 5 of 177

mother of the groom

19/03/2023 6:08 pm \ 11 Comments \ Carolyn

Hello!

Finally, I can share the outfit I made for myself for our son Sam’s wedding to the lovely Lainey…

I was too overwhelmed after making her dress to even think of trying out any new patterns for myself so just went with some tried-and-trues in the end…

the fabric pretty special though! It is a particularly luscious and silk velvet that I bought in Paris during a holiday many years ago; probably like about a decade ago, if I’m honest! It’s beautiful stuff, and I’ve been saving it for a special occasion. and what could be more special, than my child’s wedding?!

Patterns; the dress is V1351, and the little jacket is V2894, an old Oscar de la Renta for Vogue patterns that I’ve made once before. The dress pattern is one I’ve used quite a bit; four times, to be precise! it’s a real goodie! I made the jacket because I often feel cold in the evening, even during summer so thought it a good idea to have one just in case. As it turned out I wore it most of the time so thank goodness I had enough fabric!

Both jacket and dress are fully lined with a super pretty pink silk that I bought recently from Fabulous Fabrics. I did look at green lining fabrics but nothing looked right so went with a contrasting colour. Very happy that I did because I really love it.

I added a single welt pocket into the lining of the jacket, under the right sleeve, just big enough for my phone. The top of the pocket is stitched to the sleeve seam inside, so it’s well supported and stable. Even though I did take an evening bag, it was still really good having a pocket. Makes me feel illogically good when I have a pocket in my outfit 🙂

I have very little else to say about this outfit, other than I felt really good and comfortable in it on the day, and am so happy I finally found a good use for this ultra-beautiful fabric.

Posted in: Uncategorized \ Tagged: dress, jacket, Vogue 1351, Vogue 2894, wedding

a simple little frock

01/03/2023 11:15 am \ 6 Comments \ Carolyn

It’s been a while, but rest assured I’m still making/sewing like mad! just that I can’t show anything at all for a little bit yet…

but I can show this! just a simple little summer dress but better than nothing eh

This pattern is the new Lennox dress from the latest fibremood collection; it’s a very simple and standard sort of a thing but the point of difference in this design is the pleated skirt as opposed to the ubiquitous gathered skirt of which we’re all becoming quite weary… or is that just me??! If so, sorry!

It has a buttoned up front, which I can wear backwards too actually, should the whim strike. In the pattern you’re supposed to use a snap tape, but I happened to have some pretty good buttons my stash. Actually; perfectly sized and perfectly colour-matched buttons… so rare! and so incredibly lucky!! I added inseam side pockets and a little cuff to gather in the sleeves. As is, the pattern has them just hanging loosely open, which I thought looked kinda unfinished. I really love this kinda of loose cuff finish on a half-length sleeve.

My fabric is a beautiful midweight linen that I bought in Tessuti last year, during our trip to Melbourne. One of the few pieces of fabric I bought last year! I think possibly the last before my self-imposed ban on any and all fabric shopping. I allowed myself a few purchases in Melbourne because it got the rather weak pass of being “souvenir shopping”, but honestly t’was a little naughty of me! I do really love the slightly blotchy pink background colour, and the equally blotchy navy blue polka dots. They’re slightly wonky, so pattern matching is kinda spotty; but well you know.

Ah, the good ol’ “circa 2023” label! I really enjoyed dating my creations last year so I bought some for this year as well. Not as many as last year, because wedding sewing has so totally dominated my life this year so far that I’m very aware my output will be considerably smaller too. But hopefully of higher quality!

Talk soon! I should have some VERY exciting things to share, very very soon too!

Posted in: sewing, Uncategorized \ Tagged: Clara, daily outfit, dress, fibremood, lennox

have you ever made a dress from a sheet?

24/12/2022 5:34 pm \ 1 Comment \ Carolyn

… because some of them are really nice, that’s all. I always secretly hankered for this one to be a dress. Those extra wide stripes!

The design is my own, and I whipped this one up as a sample really, a way of checking my construction method for it as one of our future patterns and to aid in the process of writing it out accurately. I’ve made two of them previously; this one in ochre linen, and this one in green sparkly cotton.

This is cotton too, a former doona cover, that we had as a spare for years. It’s lovely and soft, and feels so beautiful against the skin. During our move, I’d decided we had plenty of other spare sheets and this one was actually nice enough for fabric.

spectator…

Although it wasn’t a serious project I did finish it properly, and ultimately decided I liked it enough to give it bonafide wardrobe space. I wore it during our holiday in the Maldives, and took these photos while there. I love wearing this style, it’s a lovely and comfy dress to wear, and I really love the wide, beachy-coloured stripes too.

I hereby deem this dress: label worthy, hurrah!

Posted in: Uncategorized \ Tagged: daily outfit, dress

orange yoga girl

19/11/2022 2:37 pm \ Leave a Comment \ Carolyn

Remember my pink yoga girls dress? well I made an orange one too! I used the Nerida Hanson smock dress pattern.. only this one is made (almost) exactly to the pattern with no variations! shock horror, I know… how often do I ever faithfully follow the pattern #notever

The “almost” up there? well, obviously it’s substantially shorter than the pattern! And it is a bit shorter than the pink one too. Not much shorter in the scheme of things, only about 10cm or so; but this small amount has made quite a big difference, I think! I’ve worn it bare-legged just once, and decided it was too short to be worn without tights from now on. Am I getting … dare I say it… old? I’ve never really worried about dresses being “too short” before and now I seem to worry about it quite a lot.

I’m also a touch worried about the sleeves. I’ve never been a “big sleeve” sort of person, so I’ve passed this trend over, mostly. This time I decided to take the chance. I kind like them, they do balance out the skirt quite nicely.

But at the same time they make me a little nervous. I’ve worn this dress a number of times over winter… always with tights! and because winter is cold I’ve always worn it with a jumper or hoodie or something over the top, for warmth. That means the sleeves are hidden too. With summer coming up, I’ll see how I feel wearing this big sleeves on show, as I shed those warm winter woollies…

really love that little burst of orange with my broderie top and my denim jacket!

Anyway, the fabric is so cheerful and fun, it really puts a smile on my face. I’m going to enjoy wearing it for that reason alone!

have worn it multiple times with my terracotta corduroy hoodie; it just seems to really work well in this outfit combination

Posted in: sewing, Uncategorized \ Tagged: daily outfit, dress, nerida hansen, NH smock dress

oxen

13/11/2022 9:29 pm \ Leave a Comment \ Carolyn

How cute is this multicoloured “oxen” print? I saw it on Spoonflower and immediately fell in love. I bought a little of the cotton sateen last year. Or maybe even the year before? Yes, it has indeed been in the stash for a while; and my pledge to use up the stash is still a work in progress!

I used it to make up this unusual pattern; the FibreMood Jill dress. I know it looks like a fairly featureless dress pattern from the front but from the back the more unique qualities become apparent… mainly a triangular “window” underneath a long opening. This looks cute but in reality is a bit of a bra-revealer, even though there is a joining bar that is probably intended to be at bra level. I’ve taken to wearing it over a simple little camisole to eliminate the risk.

The skirt “looks” gathered, but is actually not; in fact there is a casing at the top of the skirt, through which you thread a length of elastic. At each end of the elastic you attach a skinny tie, which comes out at centre back.

I enjoyed finishing the raw edges inside with pale pink muslin binding; this has been in my stash for YONKS. An appropriately kindergarten-esque finishing touch is a garish apple-green button. There’s actually not a skerrick of green anywhere in the print, but it has the same saturation level as the other colours so fits in quite well, I think.

Now, I have worn this dress a couple of times, including once in the Maldives even though it’s not in the “floordrobe” shot, whoops! but actually the reason it got forgotten because it was by that time awaiting alterations in the rehabilitation ward already. Yes, it had a few little problems which I knew had to be fixed asap if I wanted to wear it again.

A major problem was a strangling-ly high neckline. I unpicked the white-on-white under stitching around the front part of the neckline and restitched a new scoop… taking out a good 4cm in the process. Re-understitched the facing and bammo! the difference is subtle and no one would notice but the comfort level for me is stratospherically improved!

But most importantly it was a tad too short for summer wear. Not scandalously so, but just a bit. I’d worn it a smattering of times in winter with tights and boots… voila below; for which the length was fine.

Compounding the problem, it was a little shortwaisted on me too. Resulting in an almost babydoll look, which is not good on me at all. So I cut a 20cm extension from the leftovers and stitched this underneath the skirt, at the hem stitching level. This results in a two layered skirt look which fortunately I happen to like. And the proportions of bodice and skirt are hugely improved, imo! Begone, the babydoll look!

I’m gong to enjoy wearing this cute dress in summer! And if I want the shorter length back for next winter it’s a quick and easy unpick to get the lower level back off again too. And then maybe I can add it back on again the following summer? Yes, hmmm maybe that sounds a little odd, but why not? Updating the hemline to suit the season sounds like quite a good way of enhancing the wearability of my wardrobe, so maybe I should embrace this concept more often!

Posted in: Uncategorized \ Tagged: daily outfit, dress, fibremood, jill

I crocheted a hat!

11/11/2022 11:26 pm \ 2 Comments \ Carolyn

… and it’s been a long time in the making too!

I originally bought this raffia in Okadaya in Shinjuku, and subsequently this pattern book in a newsagent in the Kanazawa train station, back in 2019, pictured in this post here, and the anticipated hat been on the to-do list ever since…

I took all the bits and pieces off to the Maldives with me, in full confidence that I would comfortably produce a hat during my long idle hours lounging around by our pool … ha ha ha. Oh, the naivety of the beginner crocheter! I made a pretty good start during our holiday, for sure… several pretty good starts, in fact.

You see, the first few times I started I realised something was going irretrievably wrong and I would unravel the whole thing and start over. It was frustrating, to say the least. I reckon I’ve done enough crocheting for at least four hats, in the making of this one. Finally I came to the conclusion that there was nothing wrong with my Japanese translation, or my tension, as I’d first thought, but that there WAS something wrong with the pattern, sadly. My hat was going to be enormous. Once I realised those things, I decided to ignore the stitch count of the pattern and instead calculated my own based on the hat dimensions helpfully laid out in one of the diagrams. There was less unravelling once I adopted this approach; still a bit of unravelling but I was finally onto a successful formula. Finally, my hat turned out ok, I think.

As I approached the end of the third and last ball, I pre-crocheted the hat band and keepers, and then proceeded to use up every last scrap of the raffia, right up until the very last centimetre. To be honest, I would have actually liked to have a fourth ball so as to get a much wider brim, but well… it can’t be helped. This was impossible to predict at the time of purchase.

When I was taking these pictures, in our own back yard instead of the much hoped for Maldives photo-op; it was quite windy so I added a length of shirring elastic, to go under my hair and help keep the hat on during walks on our very windy beach. After the hours and unnecessary hours that went into making it four times over, I wouldn’t want it to fly away in a whimsical gust of wind!

Posted in: knitting, Uncategorized \ Tagged: crochet, hat

pink and blue magnolias

02/11/2022 12:44 pm \ 2 Comments \ Carolyn

Hello!

Here is another little sundress I made more recently actually… just in late July if I recall correctly. I was so excited and getting ready for spring and it seemed like the perfect little spring-time thing… little did I know that winter was going to continue to grip us in its icy cold claws for a further few months.

Even so, I happily managed to don it for a few random warmish days in there, hurrah! I’m so excited to wear this lots and lots as the weather warms up more, because I absolutely love it!

Firstly, the fabric; is super lovely. It’s a linen cotton, but feels a lot more linen-y than cotton-y; with a crisp hand that crinkles a little. The print, Nerida Hanson “Magnolia” in the blue colour way, is really beautiful too, cool sea-blues and a big splashes of pink.

I based my design on the Nerida Hansen half-sleeve top pattern, but of course added some very wild modifications to make the most of the 2m I had… fortunately it’s a very wide 2m and I was able to cut out quite a voluminous and flouncy dress in the end!

I really love how my mods turned out and am seriously thinking I would love to make this style into a pattern one day! I know, I know; I have so many ideas for patterns but so little time. It’s a little sad for me, because I honestly love designing and making patterns and would love to do it a lot more than I do at the moment. My dream career, if you will :/

It is actually two very wide and deeply “flouncy” flounces both cut on long curved, asymmetric angles across the body.

Hemming was fun of course (sarcastic font) because of the bias… I left it to hang for quite a while before venturing to cut off the hemline evenly. I had no room for error! partly because I had zero leftover fabric to play with, and I had only managed to get a fairly short version of my idea from the 2m. I cut super super carefully, and got a pretty decent hem, I think.

I did start out with the eponymous “half sleeves” but for balance sake eventually cut them off quite short … I think the very voluminous skirt looks much nice with the shorter sleeves.

My dress also has pockets, of course.

The flounces were just not possible with just 2m of fabric of course; so each is comprised of multiple smaller wedges, cut both up and down and joined around to make a multi-sectioned piece. Basically using every single scrap of fabric possible. The result is good, I think; for the randomness of pattern placement; the fact that you don’t get that slightly obnoxious pattern repeat that you do if you cut things out the normal way. A little bit of every-which-way in pattern placement does wonders for the a visually pleasing aesthetic sometimes; if you have an obvious pattern repeat. I often think when I’m checking out designs on Spoonflower actually; that designs could be improved so much if they had a larger scale repeat. I mean; I’m no visual art expert by any means, but this is just an impression I get.

Probably explaining myself really badly here, sorry. At least I know what I mean!

“winterised” … as worn on the plane home from Velassaru

Anyway, I guess the long and short is that I am really happy with my new dress.

Posted in: sewing, Uncategorized \ Tagged: daily outfit, dress, half sleeve dress, nerida hansen, own design

green

27/10/2022 7:00 am \ 1 Comment \ Carolyn

I made this little green sundress back in February, and have worn it quite a lot! It’s very comfortable and easy to wear…

the design is my very own. I’ve made this before in ochre linen, pictured and blogged here; and Cassie and I have been planning to make it into a pattern. This is the reason I haven’t blogged it yet, to be honest; as I was hoping to “unveil” it as a new pattern by now.

Believe it or not; I have already drawn up the pattern, AND graded it, and I’ve made a solid start on the instructions too… however Cassie as a part-time working Mum of a small toddler doesn’t have as much free time as she would like to work on the pdf side of things! Sadly! But it should get done, hopefully by early next year. Look out for it then!

The fabric is from Minerva; and is quilting cotton, of all things! but it is quite soft and even nicely drape-y too, and not too stiff. The green is kinda splotchy, in a good way! and has a subtle sparkle to it too. I’ve loved wearing it! and hope the pattern does well when it’s finally released. People seem interested in it, which is encouraging 🙂