Uncategorized Archives - Page 9 of 177

3 merino netties

30/06/2021 10:43 pm \ 1 Comment \ Carolyn

To be perfectly honest I don’t know why I keep calling this a Nettie because I’ve rejigged it so much it literally has zero of the original seam lines left…

… anyway! above is my new sweater/ tee in the Fabric Store merino knit, colour Vanilla; I made it using (sort of) the Closet Core Nettie pattern and added a short wide turtle-neck collar… I love this tee so much! even though honestly I don’t really need to make another white or even white-is top as long as I live. I don’t care I still love it!

Worn with my Closet Core patterns Pietra shorts in BamBam cotton drill from Spotlight, and ye olde self-drafted tights

二 … another new sweater/tee; same pattern, same fabric in colour Marsala. Worn with my outback wife V 1247 skirt, self-drafted tights

三 … below; same pattern, this time with a bound neckline, and the same fabric in colour Forest. Worn with this little wool tartan skirt, fabric bought in Tokyo during a holiday there… boy that feels like decades ago now! I wish I could go back some day!

below, closer to actual colour

So; I had bought all of these beautiful thin merino stretch knits from the Fabric Store online during one of their sales… I had this idea once upon a time of making a tee in every colour in their range but just to do it bit by bit, buy maybe two new colours per year. I don’t know now if I’d still do a tee in every colour… since we moved and I had to finally own up to the fact that my stash is GINORMUOUSLY HUGE, so I’m kind of on a mission to use up my stash before buying anything else at all. And now with the completion of these three new tees, I’ve successfully used up nearly all the merino in my stash, which is kind of amazing! Yes, I said “nearly’ I still have about another sweater’s worth of the ivory leftover, and small leftover amounts of marsala and mustard left too, oh and also the forest, but the forest is thankfully already cut out and well on its way to be completely, and gainfully, used up which is totally awesome news.

oops, almost forgot! the last, forest, (sort of) nettie is the next in my use-12 fabrics challenge that I set up for myself at the beginning of the year… yes, I got a bit behind with this for a few months but I hadn’t forgotten it!

Posted in: sewing, Uncategorized \ Tagged: Closet Case files, Closet Core patterns, daily outfit, Nettie, tee, use 12

Tali Tali Sandhills

22/06/2021 1:18 pm \ 17 Comments \ Carolyn

I thought about holding off on posting anything about this ensemble until later on, like after the exhibition and I had some pictures of it actually IN the exhibition but … well obviously decided no!

I was thrilled to be invited to participate in FrockOn this year, a collaborative exhibition between Flying Fox fabrics and Ikuntji artists group; an event that aims to highlight and celebrate the work of indigenous artists in Australia … Essentially indigenous designed and printed fabrics were supplied to sewing peeps like myself and we were expected to turn it into an ensemble for the exhibition.

I received 2m of this print; “Tali Tali- Sandhills” by Alice Nampitjinpa. The design depicts the artist’s Tjukurrpa the Tali Tali Dreaming in reference to her country in Western Australia… you can read more here, and even purchase some of the fabric if you so choose…

The print is in khaki and cream on black linen and I really threw my all into making something truly worthy of this really beautiful print! I just wish I got to keep it! a few peeps on instagram suggested I buy more of the same fabric and make another set for myself, but honestly, I don’t know if I have the creative stamina to do that. But anyway! Here it is, in the spirit of continuing to document everything I make, sewing wise on this ol’ bloggeroo … 🙂

I made the top using V1486, a Nicola Finetti for Vogue design … (this pattern previously made here) I love the boxiness of this design and thought it went so well with the clean, very straight and fitted lines of the skirt… the back closes with an open ended zip and I was pretty determined to use a gold zip, the nickel colour did not look good at all… however the gold one came only in a 75cm length so it had to be shortened. This is always a far fiddly-er process than you imagine and I’m always terrified the zip pull is going to be on the wrong side or fly off the top! A solid wedge of hand stitched upholstery thread at the top provides a good thick stop though.

.
I cut all internal facings from plain black linen and made bias binding for edging throughout from khaki cotton batiste … I think this looks quite smart on the inside…

I made the skirt using V1693, an Issey Miyake for Vogue pattern that is sadly long out of print… (this pattern previously made here)

I really love how the asymmetric details of this design play up the jaggedly stripes against each other in such an interesting way, adding a bit of a visual twist to a print that is already quite dramatic!

I made bias binding of khaki batiste to bind inside edges and flat felled the side seams of the skirt inside… I found the perfect blotchy khaki buttons in my stash, and handstitched some “made by me” labels inside both pieces, these are cut from the same khaki cotton batiste and handwritten using a laundry marker…

I am SO EXCITED to see the exhibition virtually in July and to view all the art and textiles work by all the artists involved… it was an honour to be invited to contribute in just this small way … It was very scary to make that first cut but once I’d committed to my chosen designs it was a hugely enjoyable process to work with such special fabric. I posted it off back towards the beginning of the month and just hope it gets there ok! Still slightly terrified!

Details:

Top; Vogue 1486
Skirt: Vogue 1693
Sandals; my old faves from Zomp boutique

boy I really kinda wish I still had it looking at these pictures now. I actually REALLY love it!

Posted in: knitting, Uncategorized \ Tagged: skirt, top, vogue 1486, Vogue 1693

cool new top

23/04/2021 11:27 am \ 6 Comments \ Carolyn

oh hey! I made a new top.

This is the Harmony pattern by FibreMood; and I really loved it upon first sight; the interesting, sailor-inspired bib collar and slightly old-fashioned sleeves with a wide, buttoned cuff. I think it has a vaguely Edwardian air about it and I am totally on board with this idea!

I used a beautiful silk/linen mix that I bought from Fabulous Fabrics ages ago… btw, I’m on a use-my-stash-only kick, since out move when I realised just how much fabric I have. Spoiler alert; it’s a LOT and I seriously want to get my supplies down to a much more manageable level. Like, to about a quarter of what I have now! Yes, very embarrassing, I know! but there it is and I’m making good headway, believe it or not! Yes, I know I haven’t posted much here lately, but I’m making a lot of toiles for Cassie’s and my new pattern and I’ve managed to harvest/cull quite a bit in the process. But, I’m getting sidetracked here… back to my top!

You’re supposed to gather the bodice into the bib, and also gather the sleeves into the cuffs; instead I carefully measured and folded mini pleats in these areas which I think suits my quite crisp fabric a lot better. I really love doing pleats in lieu of gathers, actually and have done it in quite a few garments in my time. I won’t call it “age-appropriate”, because I’ve become wary of that divisive term in recent years so I will just describe it instead as “personal-style appropriate”. That’s better!

The design actually uses an unexpected lot of fabric, and I didn’t actually have enough… I solved this problem by cutting the bib facings on the selvedge, and joined them in the middle. This enabled a much more efficient layout of the pattern pieces and of course you can’t even see the facings anyway!

The pattern advises you to put buttonholes on the shoulder closure; I did stitch them on during the making but I unpicked them when I realised buttoning and unbuttoning up on my shoulder like that was going to be pretty darned awkward; and I installed pretty pearl-headed press studs there instead. The sleeves have self-fabric looped button closure too, but they are wide enough I can easily slip my hands through without having to fiddle with those, and the cuffs can stay firmly and securely buttoned the whole time. I used pearl look-alike buttons here. Yes; all of of this from my stash! I’m so glad I could finally “marry” all of these items together into one pretty garment!

Details:

Top, the harmony blouse pattern by FibreMood, ivory silk/linen
Trousers; the Sasha trousers pattern by ClosetCore patterns, stretchy cotton denim, more details here
Shoes; made by me using a Shoe Camaraderie kit, details here

Posted in: sewing, Uncategorized \ Tagged: Clara, daily outfit, fibre mood, harmony, top

progress on wardrobe capsule…

10/04/2021 12:04 pm \ 2 Comments \ Carolyn

I’ve made some more things to add to my little make12/capsule wardrobe….

I think I got this rather smallish scrap of very nice damask upholstery fabric from my friend N when she cleared out her stash… I fell in love with the pretty ocean-blue colour immediately and the scrolling curls in the damask reminded me of seam foam… I thought there might be enough for a little skirt. And there was… JUST!! as in, I literally had the smallest quarter handful of scraps leftover after I’d finished with it!

I started out by cutting my skirt block as well I could. This left me with a micro-mini that would barely cover my knickers in wearing, so I put my university level mathematics to good use, calucating the exact width I could cut the side pieces into in order that they could fit around the entire hemline of the mini evenly and making maximum use of the very limited area. And I think I did it! I found that I could have a little bit of extra width on the last pieces to be cut, and I used these at the centre back, where I think it’s nice to have a little bit of extra length anyway. So there is a very subtle high-low hemline going on at the back too, as well as a slight curving out of the centre-back seam which give the skirt a little “kick” at the back.

With a basically finished skirt, I realised I had a small rectangle leftover that I thought would be big enough for a pocket facing, so I slipped a little pocket in the horizontal skirt seam.

It has the aqua damask at the back of the pocket, for a nice uniform look when you peek into the pocket on the outside, and the remainder of the pocket is made of the cream coloured gingham I used for my recent little top, which I’ve just now realised I haven’t blogged yet Whoops! I will get to it! it’s a prototype for Cassie’s and my newest pattern which we are working really hard on getting out very soon, I hope. Anyway, the pocket lining is from the scraps from that.

Due to lack of fabric, I finished the hemline and the waistline of the skirt using a bias bound finish… this was cut from an old shirt of Craig’s. So really, the only thing I had to buy new for this project was the zip! I hand stitched the bias bound hemline but the waistband I topstitched on my machine. The pocket is handstitched on the inside to the skirt. I love both my labels; this green one is Japanese, organised for me by my friend Yoshimi.

pocket in action… and boy do I miss my white wall in the old house!! I had to borrow this one from Cassie 😀

Next up!

I’ve had this too-big-to-throw away scrap of yellow cotton jersey leftover from when I made last year’s mini-skirt and I thought I’d be able to get a little T-shirt out of it. However I was too optimistic! and no matter how creatively I arranged it, even a little top was not going to happen. Well, maybe it could, but not without horizontal seams like I did in the skirt and in my opinion, in a jersey this is just not a good look.

Anyway, obviously I turned to my favourite old standby for smallish cuts of jersey fabric and made a set of underwear… I used my old favourite the Watson pattern by cloth habit, and managed to get two pairs of undies for one bra, which is my preferred ratio.

I did my usual adjustments to the pattern, like fully lining the bra as outlined in more detail in this post here. Also, I always cut the front of the briefs to be one piece to incorporate the outer crotch, so as to avoid that awkward horizontal seam at the front. All elastics and bits and pieces were already in my stash, and the little white bows were recycled from an old, also me-made, set from the past. I always recycle the bits that I can!

These are the second and third things in my make 12/capsule wardrobe that I proposed for myself, using all fabrics/notions from my stash. I kind still kinda wish I’d had enough of the golden-yellow fabric to make a top, because I really like the idea of a yellow top in this particular capsule, but I suppose I can still make a top at some stage in the future. Obviously I’m going to wear the underwear a lot, so it’s all good really. I’m super happy with the little skirt too, it’s exactly the kind of thing I will wear both winter and summer. I’m pretty happy it has a pocket too!

Details:

Top; from Burda 4/2014/115, details here
Skirt; my own design, old leftover damask from a friend
Shoes; made by me, details here

Underwear; the Watson pattern by cloth habit, leftover yellow jersey

Posted in: Uncategorized \ Tagged: daily outfit, lingerie, own design, pocket, skirt, use 12, watson

black stewart tartan coat

13/02/2021 2:30 pm \ 9 Comments \ Carolyn

Oh my gosh, I love this new coat so much! I’ve been in the process of making this for quite a long time now. It’s been a sort of long term, high quality sort of a project, squeezing little bursts of sewing in between making raincoat toiles… so many raincoat toiles… and finessing the grading of a raglan sleeve. For a raincoat, natch. Making this coat has been “fun” simply because just simply following a pattern already written for me feels like a holiday by comparison.

I got this fabric from Minerva, and it’s GORGEOUS. So gorgeous in fact, that when it arrived I just kinda froze, creatively speaking. You know when you’re so terrified of ruining the fabric you can hardly bare to even take the scissors to it? I couldn’t settle upon a project for a while. Finally, I decided a coat was really the only worthy choice. I frolicked amongst the coat options in Le Pattern Stash, and finally settled upon this one I’d used before, Vogue 1537. My first version of this was for Tim and Kelly’s wedding! and I really really love that one too!

I even did the double welt buttonholes again too; they were just a tad more challenging in this thicker, felt-like fabric, but the challenge was actually quite enjoyable.

During the cutting out, I was initially going to go with the super strict, thou-absolutely-MUST pattern match or else thou shalt be cast out from the sewing community, never to darken that doorstep again, thing; which I personally have definitely been a part of, no judgement for that. However, at some point I just decided I didn’t want to do that this time. I wanted something more creative. So I re-assessed and cut the side panels on the bias, and the pocket flaps and under-sleeves, and recut the pockets.

Fortunately I had enough leftover that I could do this! and I was able to cut some of the smaller pieces from some of the old, bigger pieces to make this happen. In the final coat, nothing “matches” in the traditional sense, although everything IS symmetrical, at least!

I bought deep petrol blue lining from Fabulous Fabrics; which is not a colour that appears anywhere in the tartan but interestingly looks absolutely perfect with it, imo.

I also bought dark blue buttons from Fabulous Fabrics. They were a nice blue, and had a lovely surface design on them too, but I eventually decided they were completely the wrong blue. So I painted them with black enamel paint, which I’ve previously used to blacken shoe soles, etc. Now I think they look amazing!

These photos – in fact, this coat! – are kinda funny/bittersweet for me to think back on now, because this coat is the last thing, and these are the last blog photos I took in our old house… the one we’ve lived in for the past 17 years. A bit sad, but I love our new house so much and am really excited to make it our home! I’ve been re-homing LOTS of stuff so we can fit into it… our old house was a five bedroom, three bathroom family house, and out new one is a three bedroom, two bathroom. Quite a difference! and I’ve made the downsizing process much harder for myself, by filling up each of the children’s wardrobes with stuff as they’ve left home and vacated their rooms. I kinda had the attitude, well I have the storage space, so I may as well use it! Bad policy… because now I’ve had to be extremely ruthless in streamlining all our things.

Also weird because I lavished such a lot of care and attention on this coat and it was such a HUGE project for me time wise, I’ve run out of things to say about it… hmmm, strange! So I guess I should just stop rambling. In short though, I really really love it! I honestly think it could be the best coat I’ve ever made!

Details:

Coat; Vogue 1537, using this black stewart tartan wool coating
Dress; Vogue 1351, white crepe, details here
Sandals; akiel, from an op shop ages ago

Posted in: sewing, Uncategorized \ Tagged: coat, Vogue 1537

Theo

25/01/2021 11:00 am \ 15 Comments \ Carolyn

… so first post for the year! the most exciting news of all for us is the arrival of our darling little grandson Theo; Cassie and Daniel’s baby boy. He’s very little right now so he is extremely busy eating and sleeping… in fact, more sleeping than usual since he was a tad on the early side. I’m so proud of Cassie how she has coped in difficult circumstances… Mum and baby were sent home from hospital only a couple of hours after birth, and coming from a generation that was typically spoilt with about five days in hospital for your first baby, this is pretty shocking to me. She’s doing amazingly well!!

Anyway, I made little onesie for Theo, just before he was born; in fact I gave it to her at his baby shower which was held just barely a scant week before he arrived actually. Man, things went so fast… anyway, here it is!

O course there is a little story behind this… a few years ago, Cassie made a few workout tank tops for Tim and Sam for Christmas pressies. She drew the screen prints and printed them herself, and then sewed up the tank tops too. She gave one each to Tim and Sam, and I’m not sure what was the story with this particular one but it has sat unworn in the fabric stash every since. She can’t remember now either! Maybe it was always an extra? Anyway, I always thought it was such a thoughtful idea of hers, and it’s a pretty cute and clever print too. Couldn’t possibly just let it continue sitting there! So, I dug it out, and in the tradition of babies in this family; I made a little onesie for Theo out of it. The pattern is my own, I just had to make this one a bit bigger, because the writing on the back would not fit on the smaller size I’d made previously for newborns.

Pretty cute, huh?!

I’ve also made a much-needed, new maternity dress for Cassie, the same design as the white one I’d made previously. I had a few … issues… with this one, suffice to say stripes are always a nightmare and even when you think you’ve accounted for all stripe contingencies that may arise, a new one IS probably going to crop up and surprise you. Ok, guess I may as well go into it… somehow, despite careful measuring and checking, I STILL somehow managed to hem the dress with an extra stripe along one side seam than the other. Honestly thought I’d cut them the same, but well, turns out I had not. I had to cut off the old hem and make a new one.

The other disaster was that I somehow managed to stitch the separate tank front INTO THE WAIST SEAM! thus rendering it useless for its intended purpose as a maternity dress. DOH! This required unpicking the seam plus the overlocking, because OF COURSE I overlocked it before I’d noticed! in what is actually quite a delicate fabric, and well, fixing up the whole shemozzle. So, for a simple little make it ended up taking most of my day, which I can ill afford right now, to be honest, but at least it got done.

And she looks lovely in it, so it was all worth it actually.

I’ve finally finished another very long-term thing recently too… for me! and am hoping to get it posted in between packing boxes and organising some minor work done for our new house as well as this, our old, one. Oh, and of course our new pattern, which is far more challenging to finish now that I’m on my own with it, since my helper has her precious new baby to attend to. Aaahgh, my head is going to explode…

Onwards and upwards!

Posted in: sewing, Uncategorized \ Tagged: baby clothes, babywear, Cassie, dress, maternity, own design, Theo

2020; a retrospective

01/01/2021 11:53 pm \ 22 Comments \ Carolyn

Yes, I know I’m a day late; maybe even two days late by the time I get this published! but well… I’m a bit busy right now. All will become clear in my next post 🙂

So it’s the end of the year, and I’m looking back on my year of sewing and blogging. First up, I’m posting some of my favourite pictures for the year, one per month…

January

February

March

April

May

June

July

August

September

October

November

December

So. It’s been a strange year; I dare say a BIG year for everyone. One of the happier big things in my own year was of course Cassie’s wedding in March, the preparations for which brought us much happiness and excitement, although the last week was tinged with growing uncertainty as we didn’t know whether the gradually impending threat of covid would cause problems… it was such a weird time and no one knew what to expect! With incredible good fortune, everything went ahead and only one week later lockdown restrictions were imposed that would have made the wedding impossible. So, MAJOR stress at the time, but ultimately a very happy and extremely lucky outcome! I wrote more details addressing this subject and how we handled it at the time in this post here…

I want to say too that I was very pleased for our government’s swift action that has definitely saved us from the virus all this year, and was more than happy for Perth to have a strict lockdown just to make sure. We were in lockdown for basically all of April and extended well into May, and I have to say my sewing output reflected the general level of anxiety that I had at the time. In fact I think that like everyone, my anxiety kept me from being productive in just about every aspect of my life! but honestly I have no complaints. I’m just grateful to be here, to live in a place that took the virus seriously and a government that had our safety and truly our best interests at heart, and acted accordingly. I truly feel like I live in the absolute best place in the world right now. I’m so very grateful.

The other huge thing I’m grateful for is the arrival of our darling first grandchild, Arthur. He is an absolute joy and delight. and we are all totally in love with this precious human being. And Cassie is expecting! I can hardy wait to meet her little bunny!

But ok, now on with my sewing! I might have had a crisis of confidence and motivation, but I did manage to keep making things! I kept up with my planned “make 12” and saw it through, even if once or twice that thing for the month was my only thing for the month! My picture for May above was a kind of lockdown game in which you gathered all the things in your house you could find in your favourite colour. It’s downright embarrassing how many red things I’ve accumulated!

What did I make?? well, I managed 91 things this year… 91! I’m shocked because honestly could have sworn I made hardly anything apart from a wedding dress! Anyway, the breakdown is: for me; 15 dresses, 2 coats, 6 skirts, 8 tops, 3 sets of lingerie, 1 pr of shoes, 7 sockettes, 1 knitted jumper, 2 hats, 1 pr trousers, 1 hoodie and 1 raincoat. For Cassie; the aforementioned wedding dress! including 3 separate petticoats, 2 tops, 1 skirt, 1 pr shorts, 3 maternity dresses; for my nieces, 3 bridesmaids dress, and 1 dress for Mum. For babies; 6 onesies, 6 blankies, 1 huge “texture” quilt, 1 knitted beanie and 1 baby swing. For Craig’s Mum; 7 masks and 1 bag. Oh and I also made 27 kangaroo pouches, that I’m not including in the total of 91 things. Aaaad.. I also made another sewing pattern?! It hasn’t been released yet but will be very very soon. Maybe even… tomorrow?! Ooh, did I just spill the beans in a big way! I’ve wanted to make more patterns for ages but sewing wedding dresses took precedent in the last two years.

Favourite makes of the year? hehe, obviously Cassie’s wedding dress! and I also really loved the girls’ bridesmaids’ dresses and my own mother of the bride dress too.

My most worn items for this year…?

I love most of these things pictured, but not all of them, strangely. I think during lockdown and the subsequent many many days of not going out by my own choice, I took up the habit of wearing daggy things that weren’t my favourites, simply because I wasn’t going out and didn’t need to “dress up”. I’ve decided this is very very silly and I’m going to only wear things I absolutely love from now on. yolo!

In other stuff, I fulfilled a long-held fantasy and took up learning a language! I chose Japanese because I love Japan, would love to visit again some day – although that might be a pipe dream! and I love the visual appearance of the language and kanji. I also felt in the need of a mental challenge. And boy, has it been a challenge! But I’m pretty thrilled I made it into the top 1% on the duo lingo app. Who me, competitive? Oooh, I never #TOTALLYcompetitive I also managed to top the platinum league, one crazy intensive week in which I did virtually nothing but study Japanese. Hmmm, did I mention… competitive?? #dirtyword

It says I studied French but i actually only did a few days dabbling in that, and the one other language was Celtic, which I eventually decided was just too hard to extend my brain to that AND Japanese. I’d still like to learn Celtic one day because it is my heritage after all, but I think that can wait until I’ve got a bit further in Japanese.

So what does 2021 bring for us all… much better times, I hope! and a world that can come together again and regain trust and health as soon as possible. I know this takes time, and maybe the world will never go back to the way things were. Every now and then I wonder if this is the start of a completely different world and what if something else unexpected is lurking just out of sight around the next corner? But really, we can’t dwell on the uncertainty too much, just keep on keeping on, chin up and continue doing the best for the important people in our lives. I just hope the worst is behind us. And that good times are ahead. And mostly that the vaccine WORKS!

Thank you so much to everyone who takes the time to read this silly blog, and even to leave a kind comment or two. I really really appreciate everyone who does. I hope the year brings you all much happiness and joy, good health, peaceful thoughts, appreciation of our home towns, and making many delightful memories with the important people in your life. Cheers!!

Posted in: Uncategorized \ Tagged: retrospective

creamy broderie anglaise…

30/12/2020 5:31 pm \ 6 Comments \ Carolyn

Oh, hey, I made a dress! and not just any old dress but this the final thing in my little mini make-nine challenge which of course was actually make-twelve! So happy I managed to squeak it in for the end of the year! Phew!

This is sorta based on the Named Inari tee dress pattern, and the fabric is a heavy clotted cream coloured, broderie anglaise cotton that I bought in Mood when I visited New York with Yoshimi on our holiday there last year. GORGEOUS fabric. I feel like I’m wearing a wedding cake, in a good way!

I’m so thrilled with how my dress turned out… in the end! It has a few features that I shall now proceed to explain…

a. the shoulders have a sort of raglan effect, but still with the set in sleeves. There is a reason for this that I shall delve into further, later… ahem…

b. I utilised the broderie edging as much as possible, in the sleeve edges, the hem edge at the bottom, and to form the upper edge of the patch pockets. Love how this turned out!

c. To get the best effect of the broderie “stripes” I did not make the inari with its traditional stepped hem . ie. longer at the back and shorter at the front; because I wanted the broderie edge to finish the entire hem, and also wanted the broderie pattern to match along those side(-ish) seams.

Btw, to digress for a bit… when it comes to pattern/stripe matching, I admit to being a fiend for this in the past, however lately I’ve felt a little ambivalent towards the rabid mania for extreme pattern matching that seems de rigeur for the sewing world. Sure, there are definitely times when strict pattern matching is necessary, but I’m starting to crave the artistic possibilities that come with a less rigid approach. For example, when a patch pocket is so excellently pattern matched that you can’t even see it’s there. WHY?! Sometimes I just find myself wishing for something a bit more exciting.

That’s not relevant to this, my latest thing though, because I decided a good pattern match was indeed essential to the dress looking good, so I went there. There is no pocket matching whatsoever with the pockets and I like this look a lot.

Now to be real here; my initial “make 12” plan actually included a different pattern Vogue 8968, and I really did make this fabric up in that pattern too. And it looked … absolutely terrible. Behold the awfulness.

Yeah, it looks kind of ok on my dummy but on me it looked pretty bad, like a big broderie anglaise circus tent. No modelled pictures because twas only “finished” for a minute or so before I starting cutting it up anew to make this. To be honest, when I first did my make 12 plan I did not plan very thoroughly, and just chose 12 patterns and 12 fabrics with the thought I was just going to jam them together and make it work somehow, and unfortunately the last pattern and fabric were not a good match for each other after all. I absolutely love this beautiful fabric though, so I’m very happy to have “saved” it!

see that little patch of bias-cut cream muslin sitting behind my label? I had to put it there because without it you could see the red back of the label through this very lightweight fabric!

As it is, it’s absolutely essential to wear a slip with the dress. I’m wearing it here with my ivory slip dress, the pattern is the free Ruby pattern by the very generous Sheryll of pattern scissors cloth, available here…

Oh, so the change of pattern is kinda the explanation for the funny, half raglan, half set in sleeve look. True, Vogue 8968 doesn’t have raglan sleeve, haha; but bear with me. I decided a raglan sleeve would look better than the big cut on, non-sleeve of the pattern. Does it sound like I took a bit of a dislike to V8968? hmmm I think so, yes. Anyway, I changed it to a raglan sleeve. Then when cutting out the Inari, I ended up keeping the perfectly finished bias-bound neckline of the original dress along with the raglan seams, and still cut out the armholes for the Inari too. The Vogue dress was so big I was able to cut out my amended inari sleeves from the original sleeves too. I got the patch pockets from the extra hem length cut off the sides. So that was a bonus!

Of course, in peak 2020 style I made a little matching mask. We’re not yet wearing them over here in Western Australia because of zero community spread, but who knows what the future holds? I’m slowly building up a small collection of masks to have ready, just in case.

So that’s it for my little mini “make nine” challenge for this year! Yay, I did it!

The thing is that I say “mini” challenge but it turned out to actually be a bit of a bigger challenge for me than I thought, for some reason. I can’t quite put my finger on it, but I think it’s something to do with the fact that spontaneity and the whim of the moment are important motivators for me when it comes to making things. And when the spontaneity and whimsy are not there then I actually find it … well, not quite a “chore” but something quite close to that anyway. Terrible, huh. Truthfully though, in spite of making it sound like (back-hand to brow) oh how I struggled! … I did not, because I love sewing and I really love all the things I made during the challenge. However I don’t know if I will do a make nine again next year or not. Maybe I’ll think of a new challenge… hmmm….I’ll have to give it some serious thought, because I only have one day to decide!

Details:

Dress, sorta Inari tee dress pattern by Named patterns, cream cotton broderie anglaise from Mood fabrics in New York
Mask, from this tutorial
Shoes; ancient, from an op shop

is this thing even working?! *camera click*