I made a new dress!  The pattern is Vogue 1343, a Tracy Reese design; and I used this beautifully thin and slightly crisp georgette from Minerva in colour Rust…

The fabric is gorgeous, yes?  I really really love the deep rich smoked-paprika colour, definitely my colour, and just enough sophisticated black, grey and off-white thrown into the print to keep everything looking sharp.

I bought the pattern ages ago, and have wanted to make it for even longer!  obviously, haha…  I really like the multitude of details it has; it’s not your average little shift dress at all.  To be honest, halfway through I wasn’t liking it very much; there were a few little problems so I’d gone off it a bit, and had pretty much decided I was NEVER going to make the pattern up ever again.  But once it was finished and I tried it on and was like… hmmm, ok I get it now!  I think it ended up way cuter than I expected!

The first problem was that front neckline drape.  It’s beautiful isn’t it?! but SUPER low cut in its original format.  I did actually make it up as is to start with, but it was so crazy low almost the full bridge on my bra was on show.  Ridiculous!!

And it’s pretty difficult to remove width from the cowl once it’s been cut and you’ve folded and sewn all those pleats etc… so I pulled up the drape by opening up the shoulder seams and removed 1 1/4″ in height from the neckline edge of the front shoulder yokes instead, tapering to nothing at the armhole edge.  I kept the height at the armhole the same, because the armholes on this design are not huge already and you don’t want them tightened up more!  The back yokes are unchanged.

You still get masses of drape, but a little less scandalously so, and at least I’ve got complete bra coverage now!

This picture also shows how the armhole edges are finished with bias cut strips.  The back neckline edge is finished the same way.

The next problem was finishing the hemline.  The pattern includes separate facing pieces for the hemline; which are attached, under stitched, and hand-stitched to the dress.  I had doubts this was going to work for georgette but trialled one and of course it looked terrible.  So I did what I should’ve in the first place; stitched up the side seams with French seams and just finished the hem in one go with a narrow hand-rolled and -fell stitched hem.  Much nicer!

Oh yes! French seams!  The pattern stipulates them and of course they are the perfect method for this fine and floaty fabric anyway.

I do love how the folds give this lovely soft fall of fabric in the skirt

The last problem… not really a problem but just a little annoying? according to the pattern you stitch the skirt to the bodice, matching side seams etc… well there is no way the side seams can be matched in this design so I think this is a mistake in the pattern…

this is the bodice back and the skirt back pieces… you can see the notches are way off, for a start.  It’s almost like there’s a missing seam allowance on the skirt back?!

It’s ok though in the end, because you can actually fit the whole bodice into the skirt without any dramas.  Just let go previously held notions of notches and side seams aligning, match up the centre fronts and backs obviously, and bob’s your uncle!

I didn’t have any matching buttons, but wait a minute, what do I have here? but a small handful of leftover ivory-crepe covered buttons leftover from when I made 100 of ’em for Kelly’s wedding dress!  I’d covered lots of extras; partly because some of my earlier ones weren’t up to scratch, and also just because I wasn’t sure how many I’d need.  I painted some with leftover acrylic “blackboard” paint, and they’re perfect!

My rouleau straps turned out super skinny!! 3mm… rather chuffed with this!  It’s all thanks to quality of this super fine fabric, I think  

This is used for the button loops and the belt loops too; the latter will probably not be used because my favourite belt doesn’t really fit through them!  Yes, this is a design greatly improved by a belt, I think.  Partially because the waist is elasticated, and I looooooooathe elasticated waistbands with the fieriest of fiery passions!  This one is hidden nicely under my old, super-wide belt… which also hides those super skinny belt loops.  Ehhh…

And… this is my first thing out of my “make nine/twelve” for this year!  Here is my updated mud-map….

I may have had my doubts while I was making it, but I’m very happy with the outcome in the end!!  I love the rich colours of the fabric, the design is quite unlike anything I’ve used before; in fact that goes for the style of the dress too!  Well a change is always a good thing for the system and I plan to wear this both on cool days of summer, and warmer days in winter too.  Who knows, I may even make up the pattern again one day!  

Details:

Dress; Vogue 1343, in a fine paisley georgette
Belt; super old, emu leather
Shoes; Zomp, from Zomp boutique

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Our new baby grandson is here!!!  We’re so excited and thrilled with him, he’s such a beautiful baby boy, speaking in a totally non-biased way, of course!!   note: so clearly above photo is NOT of new baby grandson…  sorry!  But thanks to R2D2 for modelling the new beanie!!

I just had to make a few new things to welcome our family’s new bubby…

Items one and two are my favourites, obviously!   I knitted a little yoda beanie, based upon this terrific free pattern by Shinah Chang on her FuzzyCloudDesigns blog.  I used the pattern for the ears, but adapted my own for the beanie itself, my yarn was completely different and with a completely different gauge from the recommended.  I think from memory I cast on 60 stitches? and for the crown I did the cast off in a 6 segment fashion. In other words, 1 per 10 stitches in the first cast-off row.

The yarn is from the big bag I picked up off a neighbour’s verge recently.  I cannot believe someone was throwing away so much great yarn!

I made the matching onesie using my current favourite onesie pattern, Burda 9434.  I made it using a scrap of cream coloured cotton jersey, and white plastic snaps, that I bought along with their matching tool from Spotlight.  I don’t know why I haven’t used these before! because they really are far superior to the metal versions…  I’m only sad that the white plastic did not take up the dye, like AT ALL.  Oh yes, I obviously dyed the cream onesie to make it motley brown, like Yoda’s robes.  I used dark brown thread so it would match the final colour.

I think it turned out super cute!

The other onesie is pretty plain, and in retrospect rather boring, it’s saving grace is that it’s for size 3 months, and I’m pretty sure Tim and Kelly have basically hardly anything in this size yet.  So it will come in handy  

In complete random and unrelated-to-sewing, life stuff; Dolly Parton- yes, THE Dolly Parton! – set the following challenge meme and I had great fun fulfilling it on behalf of Mischka.  Behold, the cuteness!!

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I’ve made this rather awesome new dress, if I say so myself!!   Paprika!!  Rust!!  Kinda… burnt orange/dark red/burgundy/wine!!!  It has a strongly autumnal-flavour in colour and feel, but actually it’s beautifully cool and breezy enough for summer too.  I wore it today and it was super comfortable in spite of the 38C heat.  Phew!

The pattern is the Cissy dress pattern by new company Homer and Howells; I discovered and started following them on instagram a few months ago and was thrilled when they asked if I would like to try out this particular design… because I knew it would make a lovely summer frock  

I had this glorious richly-coloured lace that’s been languishing in my stash for hmmm goodness knows how long … I can barely remember its purchase!  I’m pretty sure I bought it at Tessuti’s in Melbourne on one of my holidays over there with Mum and Cassie.  Like about 95% sure.  #youknowthingsarebadwhen…  It’s one of those fabrics I’ve taken out and petted every now and then, even laid out pattern pieces on it before having second thoughts, but finally I felt this particular project was just the right thing.

The pattern is an exceptionally easy thing to make.  It does have pockets, beautiful great big pockets too, absolutely perfect; but in the spur of the moment I just couldn’t think of a way of inserting them nicely or invisibly enough into my underlined lace dress, so left them out this time.  Who even am III????!! but really.  I’m a little ashamed I didn’t think a bit harder, because right now I can think of two separate ways I could have made it work, hmmm.  But I’m feeling too stressed out to unpick all that overlocking to put some in right now.  Maybe later.  After the wedding…  

Of course I needed to underline, because it’s lace, and therefore completely see-through.  I had a length of white cotton in my stash too, inherited from Mum’s stash; that was just the right sized piece, and I thought the white underneath would be really cool.

But you know what? it wasn’t … when the dress was finished, I decided the white cotton was actually really awful; just too harsh of a contrast.  So I dunked the completed dress into a dyepot of mixed orange/red/brown/hot pink dyes.  And now I think it’s lovely!  the underlining is almost the same colour now, just a shade lighter than the lace, and I think absolutely perfect.  I’m really going to enjoy wearing this chic thing!!

Notes; I shortened the sleeves by about 9cm, and the dress by about 17cm from the top edge.  At full length, the dress was just a little too “granny-ish”, and yes I know I AM now an actual granny! but there’s granny-chic which is cool; and then there’s just “granny” but not in a chic way.  The lace that I chose, combined with the long skirt tipped the original look into the latter but I do really love it at this slightly shorter length!  I actually do have fabric in mind for this pattern at the designed-for longer length, but that will probably not happen until after Cassie and D’s wedding… ha!  I have so much to do!!!  #notevenlaughing  #cryingjustabit #ineedaholiday

I managed to incorporate the natural scalloped lace edge into the hemline, which I think is super pretty! but sadly didn’t have enough lace do the same for the sleeves.  They’re just hemmed.

Details:

Dress; Homer & Howells Cissy dress pattern, lace with dyed cotton underlining
Shoes; caramel/ivory clogs are made by me, and my own design, all details here. White shoes are also made by me, at a shoe camaraderie workshop, all details here

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So, I’m full on in the midst of a mad maelstrom of sewing for Cassie and D’s wedding right now, but managed to whip up another little something for myself… and this is the second of my nominated make-twelve fabrics that I want to sew up this year… yay!  Just quietly, I have also made up a third one too but that one is a secret and I’m not going to reveal it just yet, mwahahahaaaaa!

This is made using my fave underwear pattern of course, the Watson pattern by cloth habit… I always love whipping up a few of these! such a quick and enjoyable project and with no attendant guilt trip either, since it’s a basic essential wardrobe item that is incidentally filling a desperate need at the moment too … I really need to make a few more actually!

I bought the pretty heart printed pink cotton jersey in Spotlight during last year some time, washed it immediately and it has been sitting beside my machine wrapped around the elastic and all the bits and bobs for the bra for probably eight or nine months, haha.  I lined the bra with cream coloured poly stretch that I’ve had for yonks; using a method I developed so as to enclose the seams inside, details here.

Normally, I do not stitch the cup and its lining together along that central seam, haven’t found it necessary, but this time I decided to do it.  I used a hand pick-stitch, stitching in the ditch of the seam, and I really like how the stitches form  a series of very subtle spots along the seam.

Here is my updated make-nine twelve graphic for the year so far!

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… so here are a few things I made earlier! like; along with everything else that’s been going on I can barely remember when I made them.  Honestly, I’m really missing writing for my blog lately, and “engaging” with other sewing folks on instagram – please note correct use of appropriate buzzword – with all the wedding sewing I’m doing it’s all I can do to keep up with just my daily outfit blog … and keep the pantry stocked … and some sort of food on the table each night… wait.  Actually that is rarely happening nowadays, whoops…

Also, a pre-warning, after the wedding there’s going to be a veritable avalanche of sewn items popping up here.  An avalanche I tell you!!

Anyway!! I’m just gonna go with stream of consciousness blogging again and see how we go.

This is the new Frikka hoodie pattern by Fibremood… funny thing; when the catalogue came out I immediately homed in on the Becky dress and was like, YES!  that’s the one for me!! at that point noticed that it was for child’s size 2-14 … womp womp.  So I chose the adult sized Frikka hoodie obviously.  As it turned out, I had just enough fabric to cut out a little matching skirt, and so I’m pretty chuffed I ended up with a sort- Becky look after all.  Win!

pseudo-Becky

My fabric is a surprisingly cosy cotton double gauze from Minerva.  Suprising, because you wouldn’t ordinarily think cotton gauze would be warm.  In my experience, it’s a lot warmer than you think!  And so soft and cuddly, mmm.

note to self; wearing the hoodie up with a pony tail looks, um weird….

Some sewing notes; I added a kangaroo pocket on the front…  #pocketho

I stitched the sleeve hem quite deep hem on the sleeves, a. because I really love a three quarter length sleeve, and b. so when cuffed/rolled up the right side of the fabric shows.

I didn’t have a matching cord on hand for a drawstring in the lower casing, and may not even bother actually.  I think it’s fine just the way it is.

I really like the hood construction on this thing.  It’s fully self-lined, in a very innovative (to me) yet intuitive and simple to construct way; with the two sides being cut on a fold, opening edge on the fold.  Very clean and easy.

With the matching skirt; I didn’t have enough fabric for the waistband as well, so cut one from an old pair of jeans.  The colour is a perfect match, and also denim is probably a better fabric for a waistband anyway.

I stitched on a, in retrospect rather insane daisy button, because it seemed appropriately fun and random at the time, but I may switch it out at some point.  The petals are really knobbly so it’s kinda tricky pushing it through the buttonhole…

I also fully lined the skirt with ivory/grey polyacetate lining fabric, because the gauze is naturally quite “sticky” and I do plan on wearing it in winter, with tights.

Note to self; 40 minutes for a blog post.. not too bad!  Now to get back to the wedding sewing!!

Details:

Hoodie; the Fibremood Frikka hoodie, made in this cotton double gauze
Skirt; kinda based upon Vogue 1247, except with no pockets or horizontal seams, same fabric, and lined
Poppy dress (only the skirt seen); Vogue 1351, poppy print silk chiffon, details here
Pink twist top; the Pattern Magic 1 twist top, thin pink stretch stuff, details here
Shoes; made by me and my own design, detail here

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Short and sweet; I made a hat!!  Well, by “made”; more accurately; I compiled a hat.  I bunged a whole lot of pretty things onto a hat.   Oh I did make that little tea cup, so I guess I can lay claim to a little bit of it….

The green felt hat is a “St Patrick’s Day” hat from Spotlight and all the fake roses and ivy are also from Spotlight.  I made the little tea cup from modelling clay, also originally from Spotlight, and painted it using craft paints from…  guess where?!!  I used green Gutermann’s upholstery thread to stitch everything securely to the hat.

So my 3 nieces/Cassie’s bridesmaids had planned her kitchen tea/hen’s party to be a Mad Hatter’s Tea party, and we all had to wear some sort of over-the-top headgear.  I wasn’t quite sure how crazy to go, and genuinely thought my hat was going to be TOO much, but it ended up being quite subdued by comparison to many of the other lovely creations at the party!

The theme of the part was a surprise for Cassie, and the girls had made her hat for her, to both match hers and to be bridal at the same time.  Aren’t they the most gorgeous bunch of girls?!!

We had a low-key hat competition at the end, and Cassie won of course.  The funniest thing of all was the prize; a roll of toilet paper!  We all roared with laughter!

Let me explain… with the new corona virus scare currently going on; Australians have reacted predictably, by cleaning out the shops of any and all supplies of toilet paper.  I know, right?  So Australian… Seriously, the toilet roll shelves are empty, all of the time.  You have to get in fast to pick up one of the occasional restocks when they happen! and there are even rumours of people selling vastly inflated toilet paper on eBay.  I haven’t seen any ads myself, but that’s just an indication of the general level of panic.  And so normally, one of the games you’d have at a bridal shower is a toilet roll wedding dress competition.  And such a thing was obviously out of the question with the current toilet roll situation.   So my sister-in-law spared one toilet roll – ONE! which was awarded as first prize for the hat comp.  So FUNNY!

Here are some of the other gorgeous hats at the party:

Mum, made her stunning colourful hat of felt lined with old X-ray film…

Cassie’s friend E cleverly made a very chic and sculptural, royal hat/ruffled collar ensemble, using paper:

L looked super pretty in her floral/gumnut hat…

Arthur very briefly wore his yoda beanie; but did not enjoy it, poor little lad!

Lots of gorgeous hats!!!

In closing; a few in-progress shots of making my hat… just because well, that’s what I do here.

I made four button-like holes in the bottom of the tea cup to make it easy to stitch onto the hat

Coming up soon… the wedding itself!!!!!  #eeeeeeeeeeeeekkkkk!!!!!!!!

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Hello!  I know I said wedding sewing would be the next thing I posted here but I’m not quite ready to write about that yet.  However yes, we had the wedding, it was wonderful and all is well.  In the meantime I’m just quickly jumping in with a new little something, a fun number I finished probably two to three weeks ago now but haven’t really worn it much because the weather has simply been too hot for it.

And now it’s not; et voila…

This pattern is the Delice dress/blouse pattern by Super Bison cousou main; a new-to-me pattern company, and can I just say right now, even apart from anything else like some really nice patterns the name of the company is practically irresistible!  Super Bison!  So cute!  I’m just getting this mental image of a bison with a cape zooming superman-like from out off the prairie grasses and into the sky and it’s giving me a much needed laugh…  

no capes!

My fabric is beautiful, a purpley-chocolate/burnt-orange/raspberry-red/blue brushed cotton plaid… I LOVE the colours here.  I bought this fabric from the Fabric Store in Melbourne on a trip over there with Mum and Cassie, several years ago.

The pattern has three sleeve variations, and I did want to make the long sleeved version but in what is probably the story of my sewing life, I did not have enough fabric…  doh!  I made the sleeves as long as I possible could, and then I even managed to cut another strip to add onto the bottom to make it look like the sleeves have a sort of faux cuff extension too.  It’s a bit of a random feature but I really love it!

Ah plaids; of course I absolutely adore plaids but they come with their own plaid-specific issues and let’s just say it; there is very little plaid matching accomplished here, just the barest of essential areas like the side seams. I simply didn’t have enough fabric for such extravagance.  It’s funny actually kinda serendipitous; when I’d cut out the front bodice, to get all the pieces cut out the front plaid had to be off-centre.  I thought this would bother me but in the end I’m glad actually.  I think it turned out a better look than if everything was perfectly centred and lined up.

I absolutely love this little dress, it’s cosy and comfortable, quite fun to wear, and I think it looks pretty cute as well.   The colours are quite autumnally scrumptious! and in winter I’m going to try it with a long sleeved wooled T-shirt underneath too.

The one little downer sort of a thing is, it must be said, the sad absence of pockets.  I did attempt to put inseam pockets in the side seams but they just did not work actually, and I had to take them out and repair the side seams.  It’s ok, I haven’t quite given up all hope yet though… I still have the pocket bags and just enough fabric to fashion some welts for welt pockets.  I’m going to give it a crack pretty soon, but just wanted to write this blog post anyway; while the spirit was willing, so to speak.

I’m so glad to get this long-petted fabric out from the fabric room and into … um, well into a different room in the house?!  The wardrobe!  

Details:

Dress; the Delice pattern by Super Bison cousin main, brushed cotton plaid from the Fabric Store in Melbourne
Shoes; designed and made by me, details here

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So, I made this beautiful (I think) dress for Cassie’s wedding.

I had early settled upon the beautiful bohemian Carole dress by Fibre Mood … for several reasons.  Firstly;  I already have the pattern printed out AND had made it up previously too and so knew I didn’t need to do any more special fittings of the pattern to myself.  Time-saver!  And secondly, I thought it was a gorgeous style too, of course!

I found the beautiful floral print in Fabulous Fabrics.  It is a silk/cotton and the most divinely luxurious stuff to sew and to wear.  It is also just about completely see-through, so my dress is underlined fully with soft ivory lining fabric.

I basted underlining and outer shell pieces together along the seamlines first, then overlocked the raw edges together before stitching the seams

The underlining is cut 4cm shorter than the dress with a machine-finished hem, but the outer shell hem is stitched in a narrow hem with tiny fell-stitches.  I hand basted the facings to the underlining with tiny invisible stitches at both the front fold and the overlocked edge to the inside too.

My label!

Side view… I absolutely adore the gentle high-low nature of this beautifully twirly hem!

So I actually made this dress back in January, when I had a bit of spare time in between bridesmaids and bridesmaid fittings, and I’m so glad I did.  The last little bit leading into the wedding was SUPER stressful…

this counts as my make-nine-but-actually-twelve thing for March…

and OH! I almost forgot! just like I did for Tim’s wedding outfit, I quickly whipped up a matching bra and undies for this outfit too…

Well… it sorta? matches?!  I think it’s close enough, anyway.  It was actually damn difficult to find fabric even vaguely matching in either colour or design!

I used my favourite pattern the Watson by cloth habit, and cotton jersey from Spotlight.  The red ribbons were saved from an old, also me-made, lingerie set, and I made my usual two pairs of matching knickers…

Details:

Dress; the Carole pattern by FibreMood, silk/cotton from Fabulous Fabrics
Lingerie; the Cloth Habit Watson
Shoes; Zomp, from the Zomp boutique

I took these pictures back in mid-January, so this is the happy face of a woman who has not even heard of the novel corona virus… so hard to remember those innocent times now!

I’m a bit torn here; I’ve either finished saying everything I need to say about the dress, OR I can address the obvious elephant in the room.

As mentioned, I actually made the dress way back in January, when I hadn’t fully got revved up with the more … maybe important? shall we say? wedding sewing, and decided to just run mine up in a quiet week, in between bride and bridesmaids’ fittings, and before things got more hectic.  And, oh my gosh, but did they get more hectic.  I was making Cassies’, very involved, wedding dress, and her three bridesmaids’ dresses, this dress here, and I also ended up making my Mum’s dress too, when she was getting overwhelmed at the thought of it.  It’s been … a lot… emotionally as well as workload-wise.  As well of course as we all know; approaching like an invisible tsunami from the other side of the globe was Covid-19; and none of us had any concept just how much the world was going to change in the following few months.  I really really appreciate that we are so extremely lucky here in Perth to be so isolated, that the situation here is far far less severe than in other countries, and that our government is right on top of things and has shut down the country in, hopefully, good time.

So yes, Cassie’s wedding did indeed go ahead; with good fortune the date was set for the very last weekend before restrictions started to really ramp up here in Perth, Western Australia.  When I say ramped up, well the number of people allowed at a gathering have been reduced, and reduced and reduced!  specifically, first it was 500, which went quite rapidly down to 100, then to 10, then 5, then 2!  At the time of the wedding, the number was 100.  Let me say; I’m not complaining, and I am most definitely very pro-lockdown to control the spread of the virus, but at the same time I have to admit to being so very retrospectively glad that the timing of our wedding meant we were able to go ahead as planned.  We were worrying right up until the night before, when we got the legal go ahead with very few adjustments needed.  We were fortunate that our numbers were already small, we had no guests that were coming in from out of the country or even the state, our venues were big enough to comply with the (at the time) 4 square metres per person rule, and we had already made preparations to protect our elderly relatives, like face masks and hand sanitiser – purchased at great expense! was available at each venue.  We also pro-actively made a no contact rule; absolutely no hand-shaking, hugging or kissing.  It is so so strange to lay out these guidelines for a wedding, but these are very strange and scary times and such rules helped put everyone’s mind at peace.  Everything went off as planned, and a couple of weeks later everyone is still healthy and well, for which we are so enormously relieved that I can hardly find the words for it.

It’s almost impossible for me to reconcile this time when we were fully allowed to gather together to celebrate our darling daughter’s wedding as a family; with now, a few weeks later, when we are not seeing anyone in our family AT ALL.

Anyway, that’s the story.  Small things to worry about really, at a terrible and terrifying time like this.  I sincerely hope everyone who reads this is safe and healthy, and continues to be so, and that you and your loved ones are able to access good health care if you should need it.

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Cassie wanted her three cousins, my brother’s three daughters, to be her bridesmaids; and look how beautiful they are!  It was so much fun and a totally lovely and enjoyable experience for me to make these dresses for my gorgeous nieces.  I’d occasionally made little things for them when they were tiny, but truthfully it’s been a while.  It made me very happy to create lovely things for them, and for Cassie’s special day too  

We had lots of discussions about the dresses; initially we were thinking of the traditional identical dresses, but thinking on it further, the idea of different dresses seemed a lot more practical.  Three sisters, who can and often do! borrow each other’s clothes, would find a lot more use for three different dresses, than three identical dresses.  And everyone wants for the bridesmaids to get further use from the dresses!

We did however, make the dresses the “same” in the sense that I used the same pattern for each dress.  Namely; view B of Simplicity 1195.  This is actually just the “slip” designed to be worn underneath the “proper” lace overdresses of the pattern, but it gave us the perfect, spaghetti-strapped, princess seamed bodice with a nice twirl-irific A-line skirt that we were hunting for.  Side note; it’s amazing how a lovely simple basic pattern like this is actually quite rare; we searched ALL the pattern books and this was basically the only one that fit the bill!  Amazing!!

Even then, it still needed a few tweaks… the pattern is actually a little drop-waisted and the girls wanted a true waist seam.  Luckily, a very easy adjustment.  Also I made each dress to be fully lined, obviously.  And the pattern runs quite large; I traced out the correct size for each girl and it was really quite baggy; I had pin in all the seams quite aggressively to get the bodice to fit.

I wanted the three dresses to look the same on each girl, so I made muslins for each one to perfect the fit.  My Mum early on said; it’s going to be so easy to make their dresses because they’re all the same size!!  And I was immediately like; No Mum, they are NOT the same size!  Mum; But they wear each other’s clothes all the time!  Yes, they can wear each clothes reasonably easily; which is great! because I love the thought that they are going to be able to swap and wear each other’s dresses in the future.  But that does not mean they have the same bodies, because they are actually very different, sharing none of the same measurements.

So I made three muslins too.  I hardly ever make muslins, only for the most important of important-est of items.  So this is a stupendous honour, just so you know  

Fabrics!  All the dress fabrics were bought at Fabulous Fabrics.  We had a great fun morning searching for the perfect colours … well; I actually left the four girls to play with fabrics and make their choices while I happily browsed fabrics and pattern books by myself.  And just handed over the credit card at the appropriate time. And successfully managed to not buy anything for myself at the same time! A very good day!  Cassie had made a mood board for her wedding, and chose the three colours from those on her board.

Also, it’s funny; but finding the matching lining fabric for each colour was almost as as much of a hunt as anything else!  We found the perfect yellow lining fabric at Fabulous Fabrics at the same time as we bought the dress fabrics, but not any of the other colours … I eventually found a good sage green match at Spotlight, and the pink dress is actually lined with ivory lining fabric, that I had already in my stash.  All three matching invisible zips I found at Spotlight.

T’s dress, in sage green; and J’s dress, in golden yellow are made in the same crepe-back satin as each other, and the pink fabric for C’s dress is a much lighter weight, slightly crinkly crepe.  Cassie was quite worried that the pink was a different fabric but it was exactly the right colour so I assured her we could make it work.  And it worked out absolutely fine, of course!  Because it is a much more lightweight fabric with a tiny amount of crinkle-based stretch to it, I did need to make a few changes to the construction technique of this one… for example; to stabilise the bodice of the pink dress, I constructed it so the lining plays a far more structural role with the dress/lining sewn firmly together at the waist seam as well as at the top edge.

Also, the pink spaghetti straps had a slightly elastic quality, and I did NOT want for them to stretch out over wear obviously!, so I threaded a length of cotton crewel thread through the straps, and stitched it to the straps themselves very firmly at the bodice junction; so this behaves like an ersatz “backbone” that provides hidden support and stops the straps from stretching.  Just a little secret tip/trick that no one would ever know!

I also took the step of hand-basting the seam allowances of the pink bodice down after grading.  I can’t explain exactly why I chose to take this extra step, just call it a hunch about a difficult fabric.

The green and yellow satin-backed crepe is a far more stable fabric, so these dresses have the more traditional lined dress construction, with dress and lining free from each other from top edge down.

I attached ribbon hanging loops to the waistband of each dress; this was leftover ribbon from my stash.

It was a lot of work making the three dresses, but I thoroughly enjoyed it! the fact that they were three different colours made it so much more enjoyable than if they had been the same, I think.    I machine-stitched the lining hems, and I want to give a big shout-out to Cassie who then hand-hemmed the dresses themselves for me.  This is always a much huge-er job than you originally anticipate, so I’m so grateful that she stepped in and took over this important, and arguably rather fiddly part of the process.  Thanks, darling!

These are the bouquets for the wedding, constructed by Daisy Hill Flowers… aren’t they the most stunning?!!  I was blown away when they were delivered!  And I love how the colours of the girls are selected in the bouquets too.

Daisy Hill Flowers also decorated the wedding cake. The wedding cake was a doughnut cake! made by Krispy Kreme!  this was what D, Cassie’s new husband wanted.  His one request, as it were…    I think it turned out absolutely gorgeous, and the doughnuts were delicious too!

Cassie made the cake stand herself … she searched and searched for a nice stand online and in stores but nothing was just right.  So, she made it herself, as you do.  Or should I say, as we do?!  She’s such a product of her family…!!  Sam took her to the Men’s Shed one day; he does a lot of woodworking projects there, and she cut out the rounds.  She brought them around to our place, where she painted them all white, and then got the perspex rod cut into the appropriate length, and drilled and screwed them together.  Bam!  I’m so proud of my resourceful and clever daughter…

BTW; if you haven’t read it already, my previous post addresses the covid-19 situation with regards to this event…

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Oh hey!  I made a dress for my daughter! it’s a rather special one actually…  

So where to begin…well of course I’m teasing; my darling girl recently married her man D and this is her wedding dress, that I might have mentioned before once… or maybe twice, tops.

I’ve already written about making the petticoats, three of them, in fact.  Cassie loves to dance and was determined to do lots of it at her wedding, so wanted a beautifully twirly skirt.  She also decided she wanted a shorter skirt, hitting above the ground, and wanted it to stand out full and stiff in a 50s sort of a way, which meant plenty of oomph underneath was required.

I made a very full tulle petticoat, and two simple full circle cotton voile petticoats; one to go underneath the tulle petticoat, close to her skin, for comfort; and the other one to go over the tulle petticoat to smooth out any lumps and bumps that the tulle might form underneath the silk skirt.

Full details of making these can be found here

I’ll just quickly slot some shoe talk in here; when she decided upon a shorter skirt, the shoes became an important consideration… we searched and searched, trying on multiple pairs of lovely wedding shoes but then Cassie decided she wanted green shoes; and not just any green.  She had the exact shade of green she wanted in mind, and anything else was just not going to cut it.  What do you do in this circumstance? well you dye your own shoes, of course!  We found a pair of pale bone/beige coloured suede sandals at Hobbs, with a nice low heel and straps to make them perfect for dancing, Cassie bought some Kelly green Rit dye from Spotlight, and over several painting sessions and rinsing in between, finally achieved the perfect shade of minty green.  Aren’t they gorgeous?!

Now back to the dress … maybe I should start with the fabrics?  All were purchased at Fabulous Fabrics, and shortly after her engagement Cassie and I spent a highly enjoyable morning there playing with lots of beautiful laces and silks.  And she chose the most beautiful of them all!! which we proceeded to cut up, overlay each other and generally re-arrange to become something totally and completely and utterly different from how they started.  Sigh.  That seems to be the story my wedding dress-making life, so far!

The bodice itself underneath all that lace is made of beige silk charmeuse, and the skirt itself is heavy duchess silk satin, just about the most divinely heavy and lustrous fabric I could imagine.  So beautiful!!!

For a pattern, we started with Vogue 8470, and almost totally altered it of course.  Just as I did with Kelly’s dress, Cassie had a firm vision about how she wanted her dress to be, and so we hunted for a pattern that had the right bones and started hacking.  The bodice fronts of the pattern come down in a gentle V and are gathered underneath the bust into the middle bodice, and we gently re-shaped this into the shape Cassie wanted – she wanted more low-cut, for a start; and tailored to fit her which entailed a small bust adjustment, and made the gathers into a smooth dart instead.  The middle part of the bodice is different too, a little shallower and with a flatter curve, to fit with the lace placement that she had designed.  The bodice back of the pattern is a quite low-cut scoop, which we transformed to a full coverage back with a much higher neckline, right up to the nape of her neck.

I love the slight bustle effect of the lace peplum at the back! My favourite part of the back view  

The skirt of this pattern is simple enough; a full circle, and I added large pockets.  Pockets! in a wedding dress! just about every girl’s dream, right?!  I’m not sure if she actually put anything into them, maybe just her hands I think! but at least they were there.

With the placement of lace on the bodice; this is 100% Cassie’s artistic vision and mostly her work too!  Cassie wanted heavy coverage of well-defined “structural”-looking large scale lace over a gridded background; and I think she did an absolutely magnificent job!  I had very little to do with this bit, just some technical advice and I did occasionally pick up the dress and do a little bit of hand stitching of lace when she wasn’t around; but the artistic placement and nearly all the stitching is totally her effort.  My clever daughter!!

See the “grid” bit in the middle of the bodice?  I did do that bit.  We had some pre-beaded grid from one of our purchase lace, which we used here and there as a background in other parts of the bodice, but it was in small bits and pieces and the size of the remaining pieces weren’t enough to cover this part of the bodice.  So this is all hand-done.  Those bias strips of duchess satin were pinned down before attaching the lace, then hand-stitched on afterwards.

I had a tiny headache with the zip; Cassie wanted the bodice to be quite tight-fitting so I’d stupidly made the bodice quite tight-fitting; and didn’t take into account that fully hand-appliqueing something has a tendency to shrink it in a little bit.  Halfway through all that hand-work one day, she tried it on and we could barely get the zip up … it was awful, I was terrified it was going to split!  Fortunately, even though I’d been too dumb to think about the shrinkage thing, I had been smart enough at least to leave a nice wide seam allowance for the zip… so I could unpick the zip and re-insert it, letting it out a bit.  Disaster averted! and when you’re hand appliquéing a random lace design like this it’s a simple matter to take off, re-arrange and add more lace motifs to cover up an alteration in an invisible way!

pre-appliqué…

Just like I did for Kelly’s dress, I added a grosgrain belt to the bodice/skirt seam allowance inside, with a sturdy skirt hook/eye to carry the weight of that skirt.  It’s hidden underneath the bodice lining for the most part, and emerges just either side of the zip in two little buttonholes in the lining, so the girls could hook it up at the back before doing up the zip of the dress.  I didn’t take any pictures of this bit unfortunately, but you can see what I mean in the post on Kelly’s dress here.

I was smart this time, and didn’t stitch on the hook and eye until AFTER I’d pushed the grosgrain ends through the button holes.  I don’t think I mentioned this for Kelly’s, but when I made hers I stitched on the hook and eye very firmly and ultra-securely before trying to push them through those buttonholes in the lining.  It took aaaaaages to carefully tease the metal hook and eye through those slightly-too-small holes! but I was determined and eventually got them through.  It was like giving birth though; a tight squeeze!  This time I did it right, though!

I don’t know what else to say… oh maybe only hemming the dress?  This took a loooooong time… like a veeeeery long time.  I think a whole full weekend, from memory; but that I mean two seven-hour days.  I made a long cotton voile bias strip and stitched this to the raw skirt edge first, bound the edge, and then handstitched the bound edge in a deep hem.  The skirt is just the teensiest bit shorter than the tulle skirt, because we both love the look of just a hint of tulle peeping out underneath.  Of course, on the day I realised that when you’re standing up and looking down at the skirt from a normal head-height like every single person at a wedding, you can’t even see that tiny hint of tulle! it’s visible only when you’re lying down with your head on the floor dressmaker-style carefully measuring a hem!  Haha!!

But I’m not even the slightest bit unhappy about that of course, my only thought when looking at these pictures of Cassie is that she is the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen, and that making her dress was both a lifelong dream come true and the greatest and happiest sewing creation of my life.  Oh dear, and now I’m NOT going to cry!  Here, have a massive overdose of pictures instead!

this completely spontaneous snap is my favourite picture of Cassie and her cousins… yes I made their dresses too! all details of their dresses here

These earrings; this was her something old and something borrowed… Mum had some pearl earrings, and she also had some pearl earrings she had inherited from her own Mum; my grandmother and of course Cassie’s great-grandmother.  Mum had great-Granny’s earring re-made from a clip-on to a pierced backing, and gave it to Cassie to wear at her wedding.  This is so so special, it makes me well up a bit just to even think about this…

I actually made this polka-dot blouse for Cassie quite recently, I just haven’t blogged about it yet.  Also; that Stormtrooper toiletries bag?  I actually made that for Daniel a few years ago! the pattern is part of the Portside set by Grainline patterns

Wearing the earrings… also; Cassie’s hair…

Something blue; I embroidered a commemmorative patch to go inside Cassie’s dress, just like I did with Kelly’s… want to hear something crazy?  I stitched, unpicked, and re-stitched this SIX times…

the three pieces of my heart…

I can’t wait to see all these precious peeps again…

Sam and his lady L… L kindly acted as one of our models for the Perth dress

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I’ve just made these ridiculously comfy trousers!  perfect for lounging around while you do your work-from-home thing in these newly strange and scary times.  I adore them unreservedly.  Well, it’s the paper-bag waist, have had a soft spot for them since the 80’s… incidentally, you know how they say that if you remember a trend the first time around then you should scrupulously avoid it the second time around?  Well, what a load of tosh!  There’d be no trends left for us if we followed that crazy advice!

Because yes indeedy, this is actually a familiar little style that pops its head up pretty frequently to the joy of us who do love for our trousers to be comfortable but at the same time have an abiding aversion to an elastic waist.  Personally, I reckon the paper-bag waist isn’t so much of a “trend” any more but can rightfully claim the classic tag.

I made them using this really gorgeous, quite thin, bottle green cotton corduroy from Minerva Crafts… it’s absolutely beautiful stuff. Then again I’ve always been a huge corduroy fan, it’s one of my favourite fabrics of all time actually, for winter things I mean.  It’s like velvet, but better; easier to sew and wear, and to care for too.  I ordered quite a lot of this colour way and I have enough leftover for a simple little dress or a tunic or something.  Hmmm. brain clogs a whirling!!

The pattern is the Jasmin trousers, by Fibremood.  Fibremood releases a great little range of patterns each season for women and children, I really look forward to their releases and love checking them out.  Each issue caters to a range of sewing levels, usually featuring some easy-wearing basics and styles that are both chic and comfortable, and a nice scattering of surprises with every issue.  I thought this style was one of the surprises, but I just found myself homing in on it straight away!  🙂

These ones have very up-to-the-minute, turned-up cuffs on cropped legs, a good amount of room in the seat without being excessively baggy – remember these?  although I ended up adoring those too, once I’d taken them in a bit!!  The Jasmin trousers are easy and straightforward to make and I thought the fly front very well explained.  I often find it helpful to draw and cut out a stitching guide for the topstitching of the fly front curve if a pattern does not provide it, and this one doesn’t; however it’s a simple matter to draw one up.

The pockets are nice and and roomy enough.  I hand stitched the top edge of mine to the waistband facing edge.

I love how the paper bag waist is cinched in with a big wide self-belt to define the waist.  Acting on instinct I cut my belt out for the biggest size with a plan to shorten it later if it proved too long.  It may or may not be ok, partly because I don’t have the required D-rings of the right width to finish it, and I didn’t really want to head out to Spotlight during these isolation times, just for D-rings; so I’ve had to resort to just tying the belt in a knot.  I might shorten it still but just going to see how it goes for a little while.

I happened to have a perfectly matching zip in my stash! which is super lucky because I meant I didn’t need to go out for that either.  🙂  This is one I inherited from Mum yonks ago, and it had a real vintage tag.  Sometimes I worry about truly vintage zips, that they’re going to break straight away, from being rusty, or brittle.  It seems fine so far, and it doesn’t have to take any strain so I’ve got my fingers crossed!

wow… I can assure you that all that random fluff is actually quite invisible to the naked eye!

I just couldn’t resist the Paper Bag Shot!  It’s a pretty rare thing where I have ever had to stand or walk with a covering over my head like this and actually I found it quite difficult to keep my balance!  Was very disorienting, and made me wonder about learning to balance without the visual cues of your surroundings…

Anyway; I LOVE my new trousers, and they’re wonderful for comfortable working from home on the couch.  My own work has dropped off a little lately, but I have taken up learning a language to fill in some of my extra time.  I’m using the Duolingo app on my phone, a free one; it’s a great little system, sending me daily reminders so I have to keep up the pace.  What language, do I hear you ask… I’ll give you one guess…

Well, of course, Japanese!  It’s super difficult.  I think the only thing I’m going to learn to say with any real competency is “Professor Maria can speak Japanese and English”  This should stand me in good stead for the future, a future in which I hope I can go over there for fabric shopping again!  Let’s think positively!

Details:

Trousers; the Jasmin trousers by Fibremood, in green corduroy from Minerva Crafts
White top; the nettie, but Closet Case patterns, details here
Beige shoes; designed and made by me! details here
old favourite mustard top; the Sudley blouse, by Megan Nielsen patterns, in a silk crepe from Tessuti, details here
Sandals; from an oppy, many yonks ago

Note; was even harder to paper-bag balance in heels!

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So, I sewed some stuff!

Item A; a dress for Mum to wear to Cassie’s wedding…

I started out with Burda style 09/2019; 109 because I thought the sleeve cuff really lovely; however I ran up a muslin – actually 2 –  and we decided the cut-on sleeve just wasn’t that nice and that a set-in sleeve would be much better.  So I ended up re-tracing and -fitting the Esme pattern from Lotta Jansdotter’s Everyday Style book again since Mum had really like the one I made for her previously.  I just adapted the sleeve to have the Burda cuff on the sleeve end.

The fabric is a really beautiful, green polka-dotted ivory crepe from Fabulous Fabrics; Mum and I went in together and chose it one morning.  Fun!  I didn’t use the neckline facing pieces, opting in stead to fully line the dress with an ivory lining that I already had in my stash, the lining negated any need for a facing…  Mum kindly hemmed the dress herself since I was seriously running out of time by the end of it!  The dress shell has french seams throughout, though I used the overlocker for the lining.

At the same time that we bought the fabric, Mum bought a length of emerald green chiffon and finished it with a hand-rolled hem to make herself a lovely matching scarf.

I thought she looked absolutely lovely!

Item B; a shirt for part of Cassie’s birthday pressie…

For her birthday, we went out together and bought a few lengths of fabric which I was to make into some simple work outfits for her.  Of course now she’s working from home but that’s ok; at least she’s still working!

This is pattern 02/2015; 113, adapted to be much slimmer in the body due to the fact that I didn’t buy enough fabric, ahem… that’s fine since the style is so super wide I think Cassie would have requested it be slimmed down anyway!  This thing is BOXY!!  I also had to leave off the sleeve cuffs, but Cassie absolutely loves it just as it is  :)..

The gorgeous polka-dot fabric is a linen from Fabulous Fabrics.  The buttons are leftovers from Kelly’s wedding dress!

I did manage to snap one photo of her wearing the top! kinda a miracle given how crazy busy we were before the wedding, and then I’ve barely been able to see her after the wedding during these virus social-isolation times… this is her on the eve of her wedding, when she was preparing to practice her father/daughter dance with Craig… yes, she’s wearing her wedding shoes of course  

I actually made a little video on the making of this blouse, which was fun.  I’m hoping to make more of these for my YouTube channel  

Item C; some shorts for Cassie’s birthday.  For these I started with the Closet Case patterns Pietra shorts and did the same elastic-waist elimination that I did for my own shorts… shown here.

The fabric is a cotton twill from Spotlight, in Cassie’s favourite duck-egg/mint green colour.

Item D; another little top for Cassie… this is the Closet Case patterns Cielo top, lengthened slightly. This is a lovely little pattern and I will definitely be using this one again!  No other adjustments.

The pretty rose-print is a linen from Fabulous Fabrics.  I should say, that while these pieces are all a gift from me to Cassie, she did choose the fabrics herself.  We had a lovely fun morning checking out fabrics and chatting about work-wardrobe possibilities!

Items E & F; I made two different masks for myself.  I haven’t used them very much but am really trying to get more used to the idea!  When we’ve visited Japan I’ve seen lots of people wearing masks all the time of course, and while I think they’re a great idea, especially in our current virus-centric lives, we’re just completely unaccustomed to wearing them here in Australia and it’s really hard to get used to it.  I find them very claustrophobic and a little difficult to breath in them!

The first one, above; I used this pattern/tutorial on the Makers Habitat YouTube channel, it has a lining with an opening so you can insert a filter inside.  It’s a nice straightforward pattern, very quick and easy to make.  I added a skinny channel to the top, and cut a short length of wrapped florist’s wire to insert in there for a nose support; this can be removed for washing.

This second one I used the Trend patterns free mask pattern, here.  This is also a nice pattern, very “designed” and I really like it, but I did find I had to fold a quite wide dart in the under-chin piece to get a good fit.  Also it is a more complex and involved thing to make than the previous pattern,  For both masks I used a leftover piece of cotton from my stash, the most tightly woven and with the densest thread count I could find!   They are both lined with cotton voile.  The ties are just thin strips of cotton jersey, cut with my rotary cutter, left unhemmed, threaded through the side channels and simply knotted.

The post I sewed selflessly appeared first on Handmade by Carolyn.

Hello!  I made a new thing.  It’s sort of a jacket, sort of a coat.  What’s the difference between those two things anyway, I wonder?  I always thought a jacket was short, like maybe no longer than hip length max, and a coat is longer, like anything past the hip.  This pattern is marketed as a jacket, but also as potentially a shirt-dress, and the two variations are called duster and blazer respectively; so I guess you can take your pick!  A multi-faceted design, to be sure!Whichever, it’s unlined so a very simple and quick thing to make as far as jackets go, and the boxy unfitted shape makes for an undemanding fitting process too.  Oh, maybe I should mention the name of the pattern; this is the new Blair jacket pattern by Homer and Howell, and I made the duster length.

I really enjoyed making this! you normally think of jackets/coats/dusters as being quite involved but this was really easy.  Even considering that I chose to bind all the raw edges inside with HongKong binding, which is a process that when you’re about to embark on it you think; oh this is going to take FOREVER… But since I figured the seam allowances were going to show every single time the coat blew open I wanted everything to look neat and tidy inside.  And whenever I do get going with HongKong seaming I invariably love it, end up thinking, oh this is FAB!! and why don’t I do this for ALL the things I make, hmmm??

My fabric is a wool-blend suiting that I’ve had in my stash for years and years; so long I cannot even remember who gave it to me.  Because, yes; it was donated to me from someone else’s stash once upon a time.  I think maybe my grandmother’s?  It’s beautiful quality, but I’d always shied away from using it because I thought the colour was absolutely terrible for me.

However right now I’m trying to be more resourceful and use le stash, stay in my house and avoid shopping as much as possible.  You know, isolation and all that … so decided what the heck.  That’s why dyes were invented, right?  I knew the fabric wasn’t 100%wool, but it was worth a try.  Sploonch! it went, straight into a navy blue dye-bath.

This actually worked out pretty well… it’s now a lovely shade of …  bruise?? ok maybe I’d describe it as smokey blue, or even light teal.. anyway it’s a richly smudge-y sort of a colour that I really like and a big improvement on the original light sky-blue.  For the HongKong seaming I used an olive green poplin from my stash too.

Buttons! well obviously I had nothing that matched in size or colour AT ALL and normally I’d pop off to the shops to search for something.  But see I’d made up my mind to work from my stash, and giving in on the buttons would be such a fail… so fresh on the heels of making my tea-cup for the bridal shower hat, I thought I’d try to make some from modelling clay.  I think they worked out really well!

I don’t think I’ll be tossing the coat in the washing machine any time soon, just in case, although I’m sure they would probably survive fine.  Maybe just a gentle hand-wash.  But look at them!  I LOVE them!  I especially love how slightly wonky they are.  Of course any and all wonkiness was completely intentional  

I’m just going to briefly mention the changes I made to the pattern:

I switched the orientation of the box pleat in the back to be an “innie” rather than an “outie”

I added a hanging loop inside the collar/yoke seam

I put in BIG inseam pockets into the side seams.  Yes, there are now pockets in the Blair pattern, but I was a tester for this pattern and they weren’t in the original design.  I NEED pockets in a coat! so I actually went in with the seam ripper and added some in after I’d finished the coat completely.

Here’s a little video on the making of this coat, now up on my YouTube channel… I’d like to say that the quality of my videos is improving, but I still haven’t worked out how to even add music.  I feel like such a youtube failure!  but it’s such a lot to even get this out.  I’m trying to improve!

Anyway, blogging/vlogging fails aside; the final verdict is that I’m going to love wearing this… coats are not an awfully common sight here in Perth, we’re so ridiculously casual here, to a fault! But I really love coats, both the making and the wearing of them; and I really love looking at pictures of Northern hemisphere bloggers wearing coats regularly that I’m going to just do it anyway.  This is one of those things that is kinda un-Perth, even though I’m deeply Perth in just about every way.  This is weird, but it’s just the way it is  

Details:

Coat; the blair jacket pattern byHomer and Howells, in a wool mix suiting
Dress; the Cissy dress pattern by Homer and Howells in a rust coloured lace, underlined with pink/rust dyed cotton, details here
Tights; my own design, black stretch stuff, details here
Black shoes; my own design and made by me, details here
Floral dress; based upon Simplicity 8658, floral cotton gauze, details here
White shoes; designed and made by me, details here

The post blue Blair jacket appeared first on Handmade by Carolyn.

I absolutely love this, my new dress!! for several reasons, upon which I shall now proceed to wax lyrical…

The pattern is the Axis dress by Papercut patterns… I’ve loved this pattern company for several years… for one thing their packaging is absolutely the most beautiful of all.  I know that seems like a shallow sort of a reason to buy a pattern but hey, it’s ok to be shallow when you want to be.  I think we’ve all deserved that right!  The patterns are printed on nice crisp brown paper, and the instructions are printed on the same paper as the pattern pieces.  You cut them off and accordion-fold and glue them together to make up your little instruction book.  This is a pretty fun crafty little thing to do before you make up your pattern!

Secondly, Papercut patterns are a New Zealand company, and I have a soft spot for the land of the long white cloud.  Also I love to support fellow antipodeans.

Additionally, Papercut Patterns have always had this indefinable aura of the cool-girl about them, and who doesn’t want to be a cool girl, hmmm?   to be honest I’ve sometimes thought some of the designs are a little … basic, but at the same time that wonderful packaging makes it worth paying for those of the designs that are more individual, if that makes sense.  By the way, absolutely nothing wrong with basic patterns! and from what I’ve observed in the sewing world it’s often the most ordinary of patterns that seem to be the biggest and most popular sellers.  So there you go.

In any case, I love the Axis pattern, I happen to think it’s pretty unique, and it appealed to me immediately.  I also have their Sapporo pattern, and hope I can get around to it finally this year!

My fabric is a really gorgeous, slubby cotton from Fabulous Fabrics, a Christmas gift from Cassie last year.  Actually we’d been shopping there together and I almost bought it for myself before Cassie stopped me, and reminded me that she needed to have a Christmas gift for me!  She knows me so well!

This fabric is the same stuff from which I’ve made:  this set, this dress, this dress, and this dress too; each of them just in a different colour way.  You can see how much I love this fabric! I have bought some of practically every colour way it’s ever come out in, and all of these things have got worn a LOT in their time.

I made my dress to have the A-line skirt version, but I also added in the front walking slit too, which is really supposed to just be put into the straight version of the skirt, so you can walk normally of course.  I take very big strides while I walk, so I did the walking slit AND the A-line cut.  Rebellious!!  I cut my top as a size 3 and the skirt graded out from the size 3 waist to a size 4 at hip level.  This is why I make my own clothes!!

The Pocket is something I will often try to bung in to a pocketless new thing somehow, if possible…  in this case I decided the best sort of pocket for this sleek, body skimming style could be a patch pocket.  Craig thought they might turn out to be a mistake, spoil the line, but I stuck some on anyway, figuring I could take them off if they looked awful.  But I really like them!  both how they look and obviously they’ll be practical even if you can only fit slimline things like a phone, credit card and maybe a key in there…  I kinda pictured them standing out from the body at the top edge rather than laying flat on the body, and fine-tuned the exact amount of “stand-out-iness” and placement in pinning trials.  They are simply top-stitched in place; my slubby cotton is quite “sponge-y” and so the stitches sink into it quite beautifully.

I had not quite enough fabric to cut out the dress completely… those back bodice pieces are HUGE and you need to cut out FOUR of them! but I had nearly enough that I managed to make it all work.  There is just the tiniest amount of pink voile pieced in at the top of the front facing shoulder strap.

With the front slit, you’re just supposed to turn under the seam allowance in a single layer and top-stitch it down but I finished mine with a little facing.  I think this adds a small but nice amount of weight to the hem, and balances it out against the heavily faced bodice area.  The facing is stitched on, trimmed, graded, turned under and under stitched, and hand slip-stitched in place at the same time I did the hem.

Look at that perfect zip!!

hmmm, so why has Carolyn just posted two sets of near identical pictures of the zip?? so maybe you can just barely detect that the zip in the second set does look a little bit pink? compared to the first?  Yes, there is a little disaster story there…  I originally put in that cream coloured zip above, patting myself on the back that I had a mostly suitable zip in my stash already and didn’t need to pop out and buy a new one.  I even took all my pictures here with that zip in.  Then I was re-pressing this brand new dress and putting it away, and what should happen but to my horror the zip just casually split open underneath the pull.  Aaaagh!!   I simply could NOT believe it!  My brand new, perfect dress!!  I tried and tried to tease the teeth back together, resurrect the zip, but it was truly stuffed and there was nothing for it; I just had to unpick the wrecked zip, and head into Spotlight to buy a new one… since I sadly did not have a second suitable zip in my stash.  I made my trip worthwhile though, by picking up a little range of new threads and some more zips that I knew I’d need in the future.  I tried to nobly restrain myself from buying more fabric too, but failed in such endeavours.  Well, I needed to cheer myself up!  You just do sometimes, you know?!  Especially when one suddenly needs to replace a BRAND NEW ZIP in a BRAND NEW DRESS

I think the problem was too much bulk in the back waistband/skirt junction, since I had stupidly tread quite light while trimming the seam allowances in there…   The waistband is a single piece foldover one, interfaced fully, so you end up with triple thickness of interfaced waistband, interfaced seam allowance and interfaced self-facing, add in a skirt seam allowance too, and that’s a fair amount of bulk at that junction.  The zip “looked” perfectly fine, but the bulk of fabric hard up against the zip pull did make it difficult to pull up and down past that point and I’m not quite sure how it happened but it all proved too much for the mechanism. When I inserted the second new zip I aggressively trimmed away a lot of that bulk inside before stitching in the invisible zip, and this helped a lot, I think.

Anyway; zip drama notwithstanding; I still really really love this new dress! we’re still getting warm enough days every now and again that I can wear it now! and even in slightly cooler weather it’ll be still be nice with a little white tee worn underneath too.

This is my fourth thing from my #makenine but actually twelve, that I challenged myself to make for this year.

Details:

Dress; Papercut Patterns Axis dress with pockets; textured pink cotton
Sandals; ariel, from an op shop years and years ago

The post pink Axis appeared first on Handmade by Carolyn.

I made this crazy outfit!  I know; it doesn’t “look” too crazy.. but it is, because it was a super-fiddly process and took aaaaaages.  Not content with just using what was actually very nice fabric as is; I, of course, made life more difficult for myself by instead cutting it up to make new fabric.  Crazy..  Yep.

But I’m getting ahead of myself…. this is actually my entrant into the Tessuti Sewing competition… the idea is that you get some of the nominated competition fabric and make something with it… pretty simple huh? but the kicker is that nothing else other than the competition fabric can be visible and you cannot dye it either.  Tessuti nominated a family of six fabrics, which was pretty awesome! three colour ways of two related eyelet fabrics; one is Knots, the other is, naturellement, Crosses.  I bought the Natural colour way of both fabrics and got to work!

My thought was to cut the fabrics up “creatively” to make a multi-layered, multi-textured sort of a thing, like a layered lace kind of a look…

For the top; I cut the fabric into 3 types of fabric strips; the knots fabric on the bias, snipping out the backing fabric to make the pretty embroidery design into an edging.   The crosses fabric I cut strips on both the bias and the straight; in each case snipping out the backing fabric carefully to leave the embroidery forming a pretty border.  I arranged these strips over a pale pink lining bodice and stitched them in place with double rows of stitching…

the sleeves are in the knots fabric, and I cut the edging “lace” like so; just the very edge of the crosses fabric cut on the straight made the outer, lace-like edging.  The neckline edge is made from two different cuts of the same Knots fabric, one on both the bias and one on the straight.  The eyelet with the “ribbon” thread through is one diagonal arm of the knots fabric, and the lace edging was the same fabric cut on the straight; the two were stitched together to make the neckline edging.  The blue “ribbon” threaded through the neckline edge; well you might be thinking, ah, but that’s not the competition fabric?  Fail!  But it IS the competition fabric!  The selvedge had these pretty blue striped borders printed along the edge… I carefully stitched very very close to the blue with tiny, 1mm stitches to stabilise and help prevent it from fraying, and cut off the excess to make a ribbon to thread through my created eyelet.

The skirt is relatively simple, sort of… I dug out a favourite old skirt pattern Vogue 7880, which has multiple, asymmetric layers.  It’s such a lovely pattern, I haven’t made it for ages but I think about it every now and then.  Now, as before; I lengthened the skirt stay pieces to make a full lining for the skirt, otherwise just made it up as normal.  The lining is the same pale pink lining fabric I used for the top.  I used a “natural”-coloured invisible zip in the left side seam.

It’s looking very pressed and neat in these pictures, but what I’m really looking forward to is washing it and letting it crease and rumple naturally, which I think will look really charming.  And better, I think…   I really should have done this before taking my pictures here but I literally forgot about the competition until the last minute and had to take my pictures here on the very last day.  Which is today.  Gah!  I hate being incompetent!!

So.  I actually do really like this outfit…

however!!  I purposely did not look at the tessuti pinterest board with everyone else’s entries in the lead-up to the competition, because I did not want to be influenced by anyone else’s design decisions.  I just wanted to come up with my own ideas purely unaided and unabetted – is that even a word? Never mind… stream of consciousness blogging!!  Well, as I was saying, I finished my outfit, quite oblivious; took a bunch of pictures and sent in my entry, THEN I went over and had a look at the pinterest board of entries.  And immediately saw that I had not the proverbial snowflake’s chance in hell.  There were SO MANY beautiful and fantastic entries!  It was wonderful to see so much creativity! even though mine is kinda ordinary, but I can live with that.  I think the top’s kinda pretty and as a whole it’s ok!

Details:

Top; kinda based upon New Look 6483, except completely different and with nothing of the original remaining.
Skirt; Vogue 7880
Shoes; ye olde favourite dress shoes from Zomp shoes

The post knots and crosses appeared first on Handmade by Carolyn.

{Sooo, what’s going on?  It’s actually been well over a month since I made this dress, took these pictures and half wrote this whole post too so maybe I should say something about my absence.  Later.

Meanwhile, over to 6-weeks-ago me …}

This fabric is so cute!  I absolutely love it! well I love the pattern too of course, but I’m going to start with the fabric… I bought it at Spotlight last year, it’s a Jocelyn Proust design.  Actually, Spotlight is on a roll with great Jocelyn Proust designs at the moment… there are lots of absolutely gorgeous ones and it’s nearly impossible to choose just one.  Fortunately when I got this one it was the first one I’d seen, as well as the only one in the store at the time, so I was just like WOW! I love this!  *grab*  *buy*  A coupla weeks later and there were now lots of really beautiful Jocelyn Proust designs in the store from which to choose… but I think I still would have chosen this one!

It’s cotton drill; such practical stuff, and nice to both sew and wear, and I absolutely couldn’t resist the colours … I love navy blue and raspberry pink together.  Also; crimson rosellas.  Any Aussie-specific print is going to catch my eye in the shops and I think this one is really cute.

The pattern is the cover dress of the Burda 08/2019 magazine, dress 118; I’d earmarked it as a must-make from the first flick-through of the magazine… then as soon as the crimson rosella fabric came into my life I was like bingo.  The design of the dress is quite interesting, with a sort of faux bib-front look to it, a raised faced section both front and back of the dress with set-in side panels that help form the pockets.  It’s hard to explain actually, but you can get an idea of how the front sits out over the side panels in the side view shot above.  The “sitting-out” bits have long, oddly shaped facings, that I managed to miraculously cut out from a fairly small piece of navy blue cotton drill, the final leftovers from these Issey Miyake pants from a few years ago.  I only had to piece together one little bit on both facings.  The pattern stipulates a lining, which I decided to leave off because I want to wear mine in the heat of summer… so I needed a way to finish off the armhole edges.  I drafted some facings by just splicing the side pieces together, tracing the raw edge, and cutting the subsequent facings to be the same width as the other facings, for a matching look inside.  All edges inside are finished on the overlocker, with matching bone-coloured thread, mostly because I couldn’t be bothered changing the overlocking thread to navy from the bone I used for the fabric itself! but in the end I really like the look of contrasting colour here.

The dress is drafted as a petite design, so I checked the burda size charts to see what changes I might need to make.  I decided to add in 2cm length to the bodice area of the dress on all pieces, did a quick pattern mockup and this was just the right amount, I think.  The pockets would have just been sitting that little bit too high on me, otherwise.  I love the pocket design on this dress too, but if I made it again I would make them just little bit deeper, maybe 2cm or so.  They are ok the way they are, but you know.  When it comes to pockets, size does matter!

The pocket linings are also cut from the same navy blue cotton drill.

I love the design; it is just slightly on the boxy side which I like for a summer dress.  You’re supposed to put in a whacking long invisible zip in the centre back seam, which I did, very obediently.  And then discovered, as you do; that I can actually slip the dress on over my head without having to undo the zip.  Of course!

Oh, and I ended up re-hemming the dress to be about an inch shorter.  That doesn’t sound very much, but I think it looks a lot better, even that small amount made a difference! From just verging on slightly frumpy to Jackie O chic in just an inch!

This is the fifth thing made  from my #makenine  that is really twelve, list of 12 designs and fabrics that I promised myself at the end of last year.  Hmmm, what should I make next?!

Details:

Dress; Burda 08/2019;118, cotton drill
White oxford shoes, made by me, details here
Black tights; made by me, details here
Black boots; made by me, details here

So… what’s been happening, indeed… well LOTS in the world obviously.  From the perspective of our family here, we lost an important, elderly family member at the beginning of June, and it’s been a very emotional and rather difficult time for us, separately and on top of everything else.  By “everything else” I mean the continuing and not inconsiderable anxieties of Covid-19, and the very important “black lives matter” movement – for which I am obviously pro – and just some other family stuff, so mmm.  It’s been a lot.  I don’t want to go on and on about it because this is my just-for-fun sewing blog and not a “let’s offload all one’s emotional baggage upon an innocent world” blog, and I prefer to dwell on the positive.

With regard to the BLM movement, so I’ve been buying fabric! supporting indigenous makers.  I’m just going to copy and paste here what I already wrote in instagram…

I’ve been thinking about the best way to show my support for blacklivesmatter and as a fervent sewing peep I think using more indigenous textiles is a good start… I was so excited to receive my first purchase the other day… this beautiful piece of fabric, “Tjilkamala Rockhole” designed by Alice Nampitjinpa… this talented lady recently won a collaboration with Gorman clothing with another piece of beautiful artwork so I’m extra excited my first purchase should be from such an amazing artist! …
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This piece was produced by @ikuntjiartists and purchased through @flyingfoxfabrics and I’m so grateful these cooperations exist to make indigenous work accessible and available to us…
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I am humbled and inspired by my country’s rich and ancient indigenous culture that has survived here for millenia … I wish to learn how to better honour and protect the Aboriginal people, as well as acting to create a kinder and more respectful future for everyone here in this beautiful country I am so grateful to call home … I’m looking forward to researching and buying more indigenous art fabric, and, if I’m allowed a rather shallow final note, cannot wait to sew something lovely to wear from it, too! #sewing

AND

I’m so thrilled this beautiful length of art fabric has arrived! This print is “Mandem” designed by Eva Nganjmirra and printed on linen by @injalakarts a wholly Aboriginal owned and governed community art centre in the Northern Territory… and from whom I purchased this piece. .
I can’t wait to trawl through my patterns and make something hopefully worthy enough to do justice to this beautiful work.
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#sewing

ALSO…  in the meantime, I also participated in me-made May last month, as usual.  I pledged to wear 100% me-made, including my shoes and underwear, because why not? I have plenty of me-made things to wear!  I was happy to achieve this, and to also mix and match my existing wardrobe so as to not repeat anything during the month either, apart from obviously black tights and a few of my shoes.  There was only one tiny fail at the end there, where I neglected to wear me-made shoes for the final two days of the month, because we’d gone down south and I just decided oh to heck with it.

Here are my outfits for the month.  Absolutely everything made by me, except for the boots on the last two days of the month  

The post crimson rosellas appeared first on Handmade by Carolyn.

So I made an oh-so pretty, fluttery, flower-strewn outfit of the most perfectly spring-worthy persuasion! but wait…  am I not currently still on the downwards slope to the dark dank pit of winter?  well yes, so we are just barely into July, and I am OVER winter already.  *sigh*

Really I expect I’ll be making winter-y things soon but I just don’t feel like it right now, and I just want to think about fun summery things still.  Terrible, isn’t it?  Anyway, I bought this lovely rose-y rayon-linen in Spotlight, back when Perth was sort of half in isolation.  I’d been feeling very down, gone shopping for some essentials and just spontaneously decided buy something pretty and non-essential at the same time, to cheer myself up.  As it turned out, we had hardly any cases of the covid-19 virus in Perth, which is of course wonderful; but we were all as terribly worried at the time as if there were and buying something lovely lifted my spirits quite a lot at the time.

I cut out the ruffle-tastic new Sixtine skirt by Coralie Bijasson patterns and then had just enough left for a plain little top, which is the best counterpoint for all that ruffle anyway.  I’d recently had success making the Closet Case patterns Cielo top for Cassie so traced out the  next size up for me.  And I really love how they go together!  The Sixtine pattern is a simple, completely symmetric, true wrap skirt, with the most amazing ruffle and a half action going on.  Actually when I say ruffle and a half, that is quite literally what it is; there’s a ruffle, and then another half of that same ruffle on top.  Ruffle and a half! And my fabric worked out so nice! it is quite fluid and soft, which was just right for the ruffles; they have just exactly the right amount of body and zero limpness.The Cielo top is a great little basic, I can already tell I’m going to make stacks more.  Simple, but perfectly so.

I don’t really have much else to add, both these patterns are unambiguously straightforward designs with no tricks to speak of.  With the Sixtine skirt, I think you were supposed to place the buttonholes and buttons so the buttons popped out on the outside of the waistband when buttoned up, but I used very plain sheer flat ones from my stash, both ancient and inherited and not very pretty, so I positioned them so they button up on the inside of the skirt.

Oh, I also finished the lower hemline of both ruffles using the triple-stitched narrow hemline, explained in this post here.

I have one more sort of interesting thing I can say about sewing this; normally when you’re cutting things out from a print you carefully make sure all your pattern pieces are aligned with the “up” side in the same direction, yes?  Well I would definitely do that for fabric with a nap, but for a fabric with a print I’ve often preferred the look when I do not adhere strictly to this rule, but lay pieces so as to alternate up and down placement.  That way you avoid that “double-ing up” up of an identical motif that can look absolutely terrible and obvious when it occurs in a pieced garment.  Obviously this really only works if the print doesn’t have an obvious “right way up” design, but while it’s only a little thing it can make a noticeable difference.  As soon as I looked at my pictures here I could see a couple of instances where an upside-down motif is not too far away from a right-way-up motif, and if they’d been both oriented the same it would have looked strange.  So I’m glad!  I hope I explained that OK!

Anyway, I love this new ensemble and honestly can’t wait til the weather is hot again so I can actually wear it.  In the meantime perhaps I should start finally turning some attention towards more wintery projects  (sigh)

Details:

Top; the Cielo top by Closet Case patterns
Skirt; the Sixtine skirt by Coralie Bijasson patterns
Shoes; both super old now but still much loved

The post a pretty outfit (cielo and sixtine) appeared first on Handmade by Carolyn.

So, recently I’ve been on a bit of a pocket binge.  You see, one has a phone which has rapidly become the ruler of one’s Life, and one has decided that this little autocrat needs to be on one’s person at all times.  So if something doesn’t have a pocket?  BAM! it’s getting one, like it or not!  Take that you pocketless fiends you!  Picture, if you will; pockets raining down upon Le Wardrobe, with lightning bolts and attendant thunderous cracks and booms as they attach themselves fiercely and fearlessly to the offending garments cowering on their hangers… ahem, my apologies.  Maybe I’ve been isolating too long.

Anyway, meet the victims:

please note; The Eye…

Firstly, my plaid Delice dress

I’d already promised to myself that I would add pockets once I got around to it… it’s a loose-fitting little thing, and while the attempted side-seam pockets did not work I knew welt pockets would be fine.  I just needed to get onto it!  and finally, voila. I still had the pocket bags, and I cut welts on grain from the very tiny amount of fabric I had leftover.  Both welts and the opening area of the pocket were interfaced with iron-on interfacing for stability – this fabric is basically a brushed cotton flannelette and so it has pretty poor stability actually,  A pocket bag on a welt sans interfacing stood a good chance of becoming a gaping, saggy mess, so I used nice firm stiff stuff, and the pockets turned out a charm.  No I didn’t take any progress pictures.  Bad me.

Secondly, my rusty coloured Sabrina skirt…

this has always been a little on the baggy side for a pencil skirt, I think I might have selected the incorrect size in the first place because I’m slightly terrified of making a thing too small or too tight; a problem which is practically unfixable, and the fabric was kinda precious to me.  I mean, if you make something slightly too big, that is a problem that is eminently fixable down the track.  Except that “down the track” never seems to come… anyway, flash forward to a few days ago when I realised that same slight bagginess could easily accommodate some inseam pockets.  So I went for it!  I did remember to take some pictures of this one for posterity…

Firstly cut out the pockets lining at the size of pocket you want.  Stitch to the skirt front seam allowance at the place where you want your pocket to be in a skinny seam allowance, and press towards the skirt front.

Cut the pocket itself from the self-fabric, with an opening extension that covers the width of your side seam allowance once it’s laid over the pocket lining.  My side seam allowances for this skirt are actually quite huge, showing that I really truly overestimated how much wriggle room I needed; but since that mistake resulted in such a good prognosis for future pocket insertion, I forgive past-me.  Trim to fit, and finish the raw edge.  Stitch to the back seam allowance, right sides together in a skinny seam allowance, and leave it laying towards the front.  Check the pocket piece and pocket lining piece are aligned perfectly.

Now open the two pocket pieces apart and gently rip open the skirt side seam.  Leave at least 1cm closed at both top and bottom edge of the pocket pieces, and then reinforce the side-seam stitching at these points both top and bottom with some quick forward/backward stitching so the seam doesn’t open any further.

Now; open out the back skirt side seam allowance and as far as possible, stitch the skirt back and the pocket piece together, using the previous pressed seamline on the skirt back as a stitching guide.  Be sure to keep the skirt front free from this stitching!!

Lay the pocket pieces over each other again, and stitch them together around the curved edge, commencing and finished the seam at the skirt side seam, taking care to not go over it and into the skirt itself.  Finish the raw edges as far as possible on the overlocker.

Now open out the side seam allowances away from the skirt front and back, and at the top and bottom edges of the pocket, perpendicular to the side seam: stitch the pocket to the front skirt seam allowance up to the side seam line, and the pocket piece ONLY to the back skirt seam allowance up to the same seam line.  These short seams are indicated in white on the previous picture.

Ta da!

And, while I still had the machine threaded with chocolate brown thread… victim number three.  This is a great little corduroy skirt, very simple and plain and useful.  Except that it had no pockets!  Problem solved!  For this one, simple patch pockets were the go; but slanted at what I find to a optimal angle for my hands.  I used some of the leftover corduroy from which I made my wide-leg Sashas, and even though it doesn’t look like it I spent ages and aaaaaages aligning them to be perfectly symmetrical.  Yes they probably look a bit weird but I have pockets so I care not.

That’s it for now, until next time!

The post adding the almighty pocket appeared first on Handmade by Carolyn.

Enough said!

Well actually, I guess I can say a little more… so I bought this turquoise denim in New York City during my holiday in the United States with Yoshimi last year…. and who could have guessed how much the world would change during this short short time??  Crazy… I’m still reeling to be honest! Anyway, I did have such a wonderful time and am very happy to have made up my first thing from some of the fabric that I bought.  Don’t worry, there’s lots more!  I got this in a little shop whose name now escapes me, sadly; though I’m forgiving myself for forgetting since it was kind of an overwhelming day.  Honestly I’ve never seen as much fabric in my entire life as I did on that day of fabric-shopping in NYC!

have a squizz at those pockets!!!

The fabric was cut wildly off-grain, which meant I had a bit less than I thought, but fortunately I had enough to make this skirt using mostly Burda 2/2015; 109.  This is a pattern I’ve attempted once before; I made it up using yellow linen which was quickly deemed a giant fail and converted into a top, and I must say it’s been a great little top!  Anyway, I still had faith the pattern had great skirt bones.  And I’m glad I gave it another chance since this little skirt is fantastic and I love it!

I did make a few mods though… namely, the wrap nature of the skirt is gone, because I felt the denim would be too stiff to make a nice wrap and tie belt; also I didn’t have enough of the denim for something like that anyway.  Instead I made the skirt to have a fixed waistband and a centre back zip closure; a pretty straightforward mod.  I also stitched down some of the pleats to make it a little more fitted.  I wondered if I’d have a matching zip in my stash, and you know what? I did!  Miraculous!!  It was from a large bag of colourful zips that Mum had tossed my way, once upon a time.  I’ve used up quite a lot of them over the years!  This one is really very “vintage”, so much so that I zip it up and down quite carefully.

I used white thread for all the topstitching; I really love how subtle this looks.  And I cut the contrasting inside waistband and bias to finish the hemline from an old shirt of Craig’s.  I’ve harvested from this very same shirt previously, to bind the quilt that his Mum made for Arthur, here.

That shirt still has quite a bit of fabric leftover still to use for other things, which is fabulous; because it’s beautiful quality stuff!

This is thing 6, from the collection of 12 I tasked for myself at the beginning of the year.  Yay, I’m halfway through!!

Details:

Skirt; Burda 02/2015; 109, turquoise denim
Top; Burda 04/2014; 111, in a slightly stretchy bobbly stuff, details here
Tights, made by me to my own design
Boots; Roberto del Carlo, from Zomp boutique

(below)
Jumper; hand knit by me, my own design
Raincoat; made by me, new and not yet blogged!  eeep!  I’m so behind!

… nothing to do with sewing, but lately I feel like I have so few good hair days I reckon it’s worth documenting when I do have one, even if it’s courtesy of the salon and not my own doing at all!  I’ve been trying to grow my hair out all natural, a whole year later and I think I almost like my hair again.  Finally, a light at the end of the tunnel!

The post I made a turquoise skirt appeared first on Handmade by Carolyn.

… hot on the heels of my turquoise skirt, I whipped (k-chshhhh!) up a little top!

This is made from the leftovers from this little skirt, that I wore to near-death last year.  I still have that little skirt actually, but don’t wear it as much nowadays.  It needs replacing, to be honest  #plotting …  Early on I was like, sure I have plenty of leftovers for a little top! story of my sewing life, actually.  You know, it always looks like a lot of fabric, and then once you lay down your sleeve piece, which is far bigger than you thought, always, then it’s not quite so do-able.  Anyway, I did manage to get a little top out of it in the end, but it’s a little on the cropped side and the neck is more turtle than my originally planned cowl.

But I still love it!  I think it’s cute and it’s one of my favourite colours.

The most exciting thing to me about the top is actually these other photos of it… I’d taken it down to Bridgetown when I went down for a few days, for Mum’s citizenship ceremony…  and one day I took some pictures of it for my daily outfit blog.  And unknown to me, while I was taking pictures, a kangaroo crept up there into my background.  How cool is that?!  A wild animal!  This is an absolutely first for me, even though roos are pretty common around Mum and Dad’s house they’re usually so shy! Though, this particular one is not extremely shy actually; she has a new joey and just seems to be taking it easy for a while, she’s been hanging around the house area, not venturing very far and sleeping for much of the day.  But I still consider it pretty lucky that she moved into my pictures!  Thanks, darling!

Oh, whoops, forgot to mention some of the all-important sewing deets; fabric originally bought from KnitWit, and the pattern is mostly self-drafted rectangles, except for the armscyes and sleeve caps for which I used Burda 4/2014;111 … only chosen because I just so happened to have it out to cut out a new one.

This is Thing 7, from my “new year’s resolution” collection of 12 that I set for myself:

Details:

Top, mostly self-drafted, sleeve caps and armscyes from Burda 04/2014;111
Skirt at top; Vogue 1247, outback wife cotton, details here
Jeans; Closet Core patterns Sasha trousers pattern, cut with wide legs, cotton corduroy, details here

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