It's been a while...

Much longer than I intended but I am back trying to catch up with the huge backlog of things I have to share!

First of all I'm going to share my new season sewing plans.

We are in the process (almost there!) of turning our tiny utility room into a sewing space which is so exciting. Previously I sewed on the dining room table (our kitchen is off the dining room so there's no way to shut the door on any mess) with all my bits and pieces and fabric stuffed in a very full cupboard, so it will be great to be able to have them out. I'm sure it will double my productivity if I don't have to spend 30 minutes digging out a piece of interfacing or the right colour of zip! For this reason I haven't done much sewing for the past couple of months. All my stuff is packed away to keep the dust off it. But I have been planning!

I have had a lot of success in the past couple of years following along with the Fall Essentials Sewalong hosted by Sarah at Rhinestones and Telephones. It works well for me to plan my sewing for the season (actually why don't I do it when there's not a sewalong happening?).  So I am working along with that again.

Here's what I am planning:

Fashionable foundations for frosty weather

I wear my Maria Denmark Paula pleat skirt all the time. It's in regular rotation in my wardrobe and so I am planning another 2. I have navy baby cord and wine coloured twill washed and ready to go.

I also want to make a pair of wide legged trousers so I'll be working on the Pauline Alice Sorell trousers. I hope I can nail the fit as these are pretty much my perfect trouser pattern! I have some grey flannel type stuff in the stash for these.

Chic chemises for cool climates

I have had a breton top planned for ages and bought striped jersey in the Guthrie Ghani sale a while back. This will be massively useful in my wardrobe as my last one died last winter. I'll probably use the Renfrew pattern for this but modified to have more of a boat neck.

I am also planning another Jenna cardie  (I know I haven't shown you the previous versions yet. Stay tuned!). This will be in  teal double knit to replace a RTW one which has developed a huge mystery greasy mark on the sleeve which won't wash out.

Fabulous frocks

My cousin is getting married in October in Scotland.  I want to make a dress for it but haven't chosen a pattern yet. I have a few vintage patterns in mind. I'm looking for a red or burgundy fabric possibly polka dot, but until I find the pattern I won't be shopping for it yet.

Underneath it all

Depending on time and how many knit scraps I find when I clear out the fabric pit... er... cupboard I may make vests or knickers but I don't massively need either so they aren't a huge priority.

Tender tootsies

No socks planned. My carpal tunnel is still playing up so knitting isn't really on the cards just now.

Those cosy nights

Probably the most urgent clothing need - pyjama trousers. I have 2 pairs that are falling into holes.  Planning to use the Maria Denmark Laura lounge pants pattern again but I think I'll extend the waist up to make a drawstring closure similar to my preferred RTW ones.  I've never found ribbing of a quality that I like to make as per the pattern. I need to get fabric for these still.

Baby it's cold outside

I don't need a coat as the one i made last year is still great. But a warmish jacket would be good. I have a lust for a cape but not found fabric or pattern for it as yet.  To be honest this may not be finished by the end of the sewalong and I'm not going to stress myself out over getting it done to a deadline!

That's my plans. 8 items plus the cape, 2 sets of repeats and most from  patterns I have made before and regularly wear so not much fitting required. Other than the potential cape, all are from patterns I already own and most of the fabric is from the stash (to be honest I am getting nervous about sorting out my stash and being able to see how much I actually have - more than I think I am sure!)

Really looking forward to getting into a sewing routine again after a couple of months off. And also getting back to blogging again and showing you all what I have been making. It's good to be back!

The Grease Sewalong!

I'm co-hosting this month's sewalong on the Sewcialists blog, and it's a theme very close to my heart - Grease!

Click here to read the post - and there's a competition too!

Will you be joining in?

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!

Red Velvet with added collar

Here's my second finished Red Velvet dress. 

This time I used the same crepe jersey from Minerva but in the plum colourway.

All the fitting etc was exactly the same as I used the same fabric, but this time I decided to add the collar. I wasn't sure about it at all before I started and figured I would baste it on and see how it looked.  I have to say I love it! It makes the dress look totally different from the red one.

The finish is great. I found it much easier to get a clean neckline finish as I followed the instruction to have the interfaced side facing up. This seemed counterintuitive to me but it is much easier to avoid the dreaded puckers! 

I also sewed the side seams with the extra I took off the first time removed.  Which made matching up the side seams so much easier (you don't want to look too closely at the red one in that area!).

I can tell I'll wear this one loads this winter!

The meta dress - a red Red Velvet for #sewredoctober

Oops, so I'm late blogging this one (there's a surprise!) but I did actually sew it in October! 

And another surprise (not!) is that I am in love with Red Velvet, one of a raft of new patterns StephC from Cake Patterns has released. As a total Cake fan girl, I love how easy she makes it to get a great fit off the bat with no muslin, and how you can get lots of different looks from the same pattern.

As I generally need extra length, I started with a tape measure.  This pattern conveniently has the bodice length and skirt length marked.  I lengthened the bodice pieces by 2" and the midriff pieces by 4". I cut the skirt with an extra 2" length. As usual with Cake, you use your own bust and waist measurements to make your own pattern pieces and choose bodice pieces based on cup size.

This version used a lovely crepe jersey from Minerva Crafts. I spotted it when Winnie used it to make her Victoria blazer and promptly ordered it in a few colours including this lovely bright red.  It's pretty stretchy with a 4 way stretch and super comfortable to wear. I would definitely recommend nabbing some of this jersey while they still have it in stock as you can't beat it for the price!

For the first version I decided not to add the collar. I also didn't add the invisible pocket as for me, pockets are for my hands!

It was really easy to make and fit as ever. At the fit check, I took an inch off each side seam to account for the stretch in the fabric. Later I took another inch off at the waist. I also removed some of the extra midriff length I had added once the skirt was attached.  This was due to the amount of stretch and the weight of the skirt pulling it down.

On this make I realised the importance of using decent thread for topstitching! The first thread I used was part of a box that came with my machine. It's fine for seaming but the topstitching round the neckline looked terrible. I knew it would bug me so I unpicked and redid it with thicker thread. 

All the seams are sewn using a long narrow zigzag and then overlocked.  Beware of overlocking the pleated waist seam if you have a lightweight (as the repair man put it - he was too polite to say cheap!) overlocker.  They are not made to go through that many layers and I badly bent the upper looper. That's not a cheap fix, believe me! Hubby managed to get it going again but it's not quite right.  I may have knocked out the timing or something.

For the hem i used fusible stay tape and then twin needled and it looks great.

But the dress is fab and I got lots of compliments!

And of course Steph is having a sew along so I had to get all competitive and join in! Go Team Esme! This dress doesn't qualify as I made it before the sewalong started but I have more to show you over the next few days.

Macaron Work in Progress

At the last minute I decided to throw my hat into the ring with the Sew Colette 2.0 Sewalong for the Macaron, hosted by Lucky Lucille, Miss Crayola Creepy and Rhinestones and Telephones.  It's one of the first patterns I really wanted to make but I was struggling to decide on fabric.  I wanted to do a winter version and had navy needlecord in mind with an orange contrast, but I couldn't find the right fabric to fit what I had in mind.  I thought I would have to give it a miss until a trip to John Lewis turned up some cute fabrics in the sale (so of course they had to be bought!

 

Although the colour isn't that clear in the photo, it's a dusty purple poplin for the shell and a lightweight cotton floral for the top part.  I love the way they look together and hopefully the dark colour will mean I can wear for winter with a cardigan.

 

 

 

Having decided on this at the last minute, I am a bit behind but have my bodice toile done.  After tissue fitting (as my main adjustment is for length, making a toile before doing this adjustment would be a waste of time) and adding 2" to the bodice length and 1" to the yoke, it looks OK.  I need to shorten the waist darts by about 2" as marked on the toile (I guess I should have left them the original length when I lengthened!), and I think the bust darts will need to be moved down as they definitely fall above the apex even with the extra 1" above - I think I'll have a look at some of the other versions online and see where they fall on other people as they definitely are right at the top of that pattern piece.

In the back view, you can see I have pinned the shoulders - Marjorie has a higher bust point than me - I can lengthen her waist but not above the bust!  It looks kind of baggy at the back but actually fits better on me.  I think I can adjust it fairly easily at the side seams to sort this out.  (And what is going on with my basting?  It went all weird and gathery - not sure if i need to adjust the tension so I'll definitely test of a scrap before starting on the fashion fabric!)

I'm off to work on the sleeves as I need to see the effect of adding that extra inch to the yoke.  I guess I will need to lengthen the sleeve cap.  Back to Fit for Real People!