Sew Blue February

A blogger's godsend - a vintage car!

If you are on Twitter you will know that there are monthly sewalongs and every other month is a colour theme.  I made this dress for Red October, skipped Green December (my colour palettes will show that I never wear green!) and here's Blue February (oops, bit late in posting).  This was a total no brainer - another look at my colour palettes will show that I wear blue a lot.

I was a little tight for time this month as I was finishing hubby's jacket and making a dress for N but luckily my planned garments already included a couple of blue items (no surprise there!).

Both fabrics were bought extremely cheaply from Norman Lyons, a fabric shop that doesn't look like a fabric shop not far from my work in Central London.  I think both were £2 a metre!

I am always in need of more long sleeved T-shirts so the striped jersey was destined to be another Renfrew.  I have made this pattern before (here and here) and apart from a bit of lengthening it fits great out of the packet.  I made the round neck variation again.  Given that the stripe is so dominant I made my first real attempt at stripe matching, using this tip from Lauren at Rosie Wednesday to line up the underarm points on the same stripe.  I think it worked pretty well on the side seams and underarms but maybe I should have paid more attention on the sleeves.  Or is it not possible to match across a sleeve head?

Matchy matchy!

 I lined up the cuffs and waistband on the same stripe so they are consistent and cut the neckband on the broad navy stripe.  Not perfect but I'm pretty chuffed with it.  Should perhaps have used my walking foot to make sure the fabric didn't shift but I'm still getting used to having one!

The second garment is a Megan Nielsen Kelly skirt.  Again a pattern I have used before (here and an unblogged version) but this one is a bit different in that I omitted the button closure on the front.  This is really simple to do.

Instead of the buttons you'll need a zip and a side closure (I used leftover buttons from my Blackberry dress but you could use a skirt hook instead).  I used an 7" zip from my stash but to be honest it could be longer, so 9" might work better!

 - Cut the back and waistband as per the pattern.  Instead of cutting 2 fronts, line up the fold of the fabric with the placket fold line market on the pattern and cut in one single piece.
- Mark the pleats and staystitch them as normal.
- Mark the length of the zip on the left side seam and sew it up to this point and the right side seam as normal.
- Sew in the zip with your preferred method.  I sewed it by machine.
- Attach the waistband with the front edge overhanging the zip edge by 5/8".  The back edge will stick out further past the back zip edge but don't worry -  this is where you will put the closure/ buttons.
- Finish attaching and top stitching the waistband and hem as per the pattern instructions.
- Make the buttonholes in the front waistband and sew buttons to back waistband (or attach your closure) and you are done!

These are 2 bargain items - £7.50 in total for fabric and stashed buttons and zip.  I had both patterns already.  Love it when sewing actually saves you money for a change!  And it matches my square necked Alma perfectly!