Poppy Dress

 

In the middle of the winter I take time to sew my summer clothes. Inspired? Tempting the spring this way? No, just of practical reasons. This is the time of the year when I can arrange to have time to sew. In the spring and summer I either have to take care of my allotment and yard or even when I don't have to, I want to be outside if the weather is good.

 I was wearing two of my tunic dresses with slightly shame faced manner last summer. Both of them are now deemed to become my gardening clothes -in the garden the visible patching of rips, faded fabric and stains don't matter. When they start to fall off my body or having holes too big to mend, I'll make them to rags for my kitchen.

This is my first dress for addressing the lack of garments for the summer. It is the trusted pattern I have used many times and it still works beautifully. I have made the dress with short sleeves before, but prefer it now in its smock incarnation. It means that I can change the undergarment of the dress changing also how it looks and can go a bit longer without washing it.

The fabric is  Marimekko "Poppy" and was given to me. I actually had it already for the last summer, but didn't get around to sew it.

Are you planning your summer  wardrobe as yet? (I am not, I just replace the things I know I have worn out).

Victorian Sunday School Teacher Attire

 

Firstly, Happy New Year 2015! I hope it brings you joy and peace.

This is yet another dress made with the shirt dress pattern I wrote about here and here. This time I made it in a fabric not recommended at all in the pattern script. I also altered the pattern further, making it narrower over the shoulders and a bit roomier under the arms. The fabric is a wool mix with a pattern couched on it. It is very warm and nice to have on.

When I was about to wear this for the first time I realised that I didn't really find anything to wear under it in my wardrobe. The reason? I made a BIG MISTAKE buying this fabric. I think I need to give you a bit of background to this. I have been very good indeed making my wardrobe smaller and smaller, yet more functional and pleasing. I generally like everything in my wardrobe. I have a very manageable amount of clothes, which I can put together with each other, so that the sum of combinations is actually quite large. I think that most of the time my wardrobe would pass the project 333 rules. (Read more, if you are interested in getting a small, but functional wardrobe). Mostly I buy/sew new things, when the old ones die. And I really mean die. I love my rags so much that I use them until they have holes and start to be oddly discoloured, because the fabric has lost the dye.

Back to my mistake...I was taken in by the loveliness of this fabric and let the fact that it has a clear brown tint pass. I have nothing of brown in my wardrobe. It is based on hues of grey, white and occasional black. I have t-shirts, tights and even cardigans in splashes of colour to enliven the works, but nothing to go with brown. So I sewed a white peasant type of shirt to go under it.

I wanted the front very flat, so it is simple with no smocking, just a pleat to room the buttoning strip. It is a very lovely shirt to wear and I plan to make a smocked version of it as well.

I am rather proud of it as I managed to draft this pattern AND make the shirt in 7 hours!

 I have resolved to take this as a lesson. Luckily I don't hate or even dislike the dress. It simply doesn't have quite as many "wardrobe friends" as it should. When I was moaning about my daftness to elf Husband, he said that I could buy/sew things to go with it.  That is exactly what I don't want to do. Every piece of my wardrobe needs to work hard without increasing the need of buying new. Full stop.  Bas. Piste.

I do look a bit like a Victorian Sunday school teacher in this ensemble, but I don't mind, it is comfortable and I seem to get a lot of compliments for some odd reason. Maybe Victoriana is getting fashionable again?

Shirt dress aka hippie tent

This is the dress, which is quite like my dress for general usefulness, but made with the original pattern.

I found this shirt dress pattern on Merchant and Mills and simply could not resist. I seldom buy patterns, because I have a good selection of sewing magazines with patterns. I also favour certain type/model clothes and re-use the patterns over and over again. This pattern is going into that pile.

Unfortunately I was slightly wary of the sizing and did not bother making a toile as I should have. So I erred on the large side. My two other dresses I made smaller especially over the shoulders.

The fabric comes from the same place and is woven in India on a hand loom. It means that it has character and knots and all sorts and I LOVE IT! It is very light, summery weight, so I should actually pack it away from my mid-winter wardrobe. It is fine to  use in spring/autumn with long sleeved t-shirts and tights. Wearing it is a bit like running around in a nightdress from the comfort point of view.

The main picture has got that weird effect that sometimes happens with stripy patterns and camera, but you can see the true pattern and texture below. The fabric is called "Newsprint", should you be interested. The shop is delicious and I have to restrict my visits to their site, so I won't blow my sewing budget.

The hem, which has the shirty curve. In the other two dresses I straightened it and made side slits.

The smock detail and a good look at the texture of the fabric.

I could finger this fabric forever. It is just cotton, but so nice and light and it has that unmistakable "handmade" feel to it.

Do you have any places you find great fabrics from on the net? Leave a comment, so I can have a look,  I am always interested finding new places!

The Dress of General Usefulness

 I made this one in the beginning of September. It is made of medium heavy linen and is great. I like linen for its texture and the fact that it is environmentally better fabric than cotton. It does not require pesticides as it is fast to grow and also grows in colder climates.

The back has a yoke and gathered fabric, which gives room for movement in the dress.

I like the front "grandpa shirt" smock detail.

 
 The pattern comes from Merchant and Mills and is called the Shirtdress, but adjusted it a bit. The original has sleeves, so I had to make pattern pieces to see that the armholes were neat.

As you see I used another fabric, a lighter linen for this. It stops it becoming bulky and also I had only 1.5m of the heavy linen, which would not have been enough for adding these pieces.

I also re-shaped the hem to suit my purposes and added pockets.

I have actually made the dress according to the pattern before, but haven't shown it here.

The dress is great; it covers me, leaves plenty of room to move, is easy to wear with different tops under it and the fabric cost £12 from IKEA. At the moment my favourite combo is a yellow and white striped long sleeved t-shirt and mustard yellow tights.

The dress is named after a draw in my household. Yes, a draw. We have a draw called "The Draw of General Usefulness". It is a draw having bits and pieces of stuff, which are not used daily, but regularly enough so they need to be found easily and there is no other "logical" place to put them in. In my draw I have my hair dryer, 3D glasses for cinema, bright LED light for attic visits, DVD player for journeys etc.
This dress has a feeling of being really useful for many purposes and although I don't wear it EVERY day, it is in pretty heavy use. I have also lately made a version with a wool mix fabric. I'll take pictures of it as soon as the light and timetable allow and show it to you.

Have you made or bought clothes, which you seem to use "all the time"?

Take two of the jacket

 

I made a jacket a few years back out of Ottobre pattern, although I did change it quite a lot. I loved the jacket and wore it a lot. A while ago I noticed that I had not been wearing it this winter and wondered why. The colour? Model? No, it was still a lovely jacket, just so worn out that I could not wear it out of the house! Time to make a new one, I thought. I am trying to sew from my stash as far as possible and I had been marinating a lovely herringbone patterned wool for quite sometime. This is not boiled wool, so sewing was a bit more difficult.

 I decided to bind the edges to make a neat finish inside the jacket as I did not want to have a lining. I use these jackets as one might use a cardigan; for warm clothing during the winter and instead of a jacket in the summer. I am not so sure about the summer bit with this one as the fabric has a  very wintery pattern.

This time I chose three buttons, like the pattern recommended.

As a first I also made bound buttonholes. (Certainly not in the pattern).

I used lining silk around the neckline and front opening to decrease the bulk. Admittedly I was very proud of this as the woollen fabric is not the easiest material to bind the buttonholes in.

 The sleeves were altered to be long again and I dropped the satin ribbon on the pockets.  I did install them on a slant like in the pattern.

I am pleased with this jacket and hope that it will serve me maybe even longer than the previous one due to the better quality material.

Have a lovely weekend! I am looking forward to a family visit from afar, so will be busy entertaining.  I love having guests and squeeze every ounce of enjoyment out of the occasion when anybody makes it to our shores. 

Socks

I made these socks to use some of my odds and ends of woolly nature. Even when using up yarn, I still need to make the socks pleasing for my eye, silly, I know. I do use them at home all the time and they are "on the show", so I am not hiding them in my wellies out of sight.

These were the first ever socks I have made with the front of the sock knitted smooth and the back with knit two-purl two. It makes the pattern on the ankle visible and nice, but allows some stretch as well. That means that the socks don't need to be too wide around the ankles, I like them snug fitting.

I got so carried away with the pattern that I managed to make them a tad too long for me, even after I made a very steep and inelegant reduction in the toe part of the sock.

Do you have any good useful  ideas for using up left over yarns? Any ideas gratefully received!

Stripes

in shirts are Elf Son's favourite. I could buy my son a top to the price of making one, but the quality of the material would not be this good. They wash without piling and look as new after heavy use. And as before, no Mums were harmed in making of these garments!

 I bought the material for these in here. Although the material needs to come all the way from Germany, it is really worth the wait. I generally wait until I have a need for  several things and then order "in bulk". Many of the fabrics do have the "oeko-tex" mark. The 100% cotton jerseys are thick and really good quality.  Their viscose jerseys are nice too, just much more slinky to handle, naturally. I made a grey skirt of it last year.

I don't make all my son's clothes, not even nearly. We get some hand-me-downs, I buy some second hand and few new. All in all he doesn't seem to need or want too many clothes and wearing a uniform to school takes care of the everyday clothes. Obviously he changes when he comes home, but a set of clothes can be worn several days at this age.

Confession: I took the black and white shirt off the son's back and artfully folded one sleeve as to hide a food stain on the sleeve. 

Linen Shirt

 

Last summer I was shown a beautiful linen fabric by my sister. I did resist the temptation to buy, until I was given a sewing magazine with a perfect shirt/tunic pattern. I had to go back to the shop for the fabric. I managed to sew the shirt in July this year.

I changed the pattern only by replacing lace, which was on the front and around the middle by making strips of pintuck pleats. The idea was to cut the fabric off under the lace. I don't think that would have looked that good: My tummy is normally not tanned and also it is not slim like the model's.

These pictures are grazy, I don't like taking piccies of myself, but bear with me!

The shirt has been used a lot and I try to limit my usage a little bit, so it is not worn out this summer.

Presents for sisters

I have taken a far longer break than intended. Actually I didn't intend to take a break at all. It just happened in the busyness of life. I better show something to make up for it. The picture above was taken in the latter part of May, before I pruned many hundreds of grape bunches and flowers from my grapevine. I will show you soon how the grapes are doing now.

My little sisters both have birthdays in summer. One of them had a round one, so she got gifted a "big" present, a quilt for her sofa. It is really weird how these things pan out: She had told me already before Christmas that she wished to have one, so I have been planning it since that. I have done it several times over in my head, drawn it carefully and calculated the needed fabrics, started on it and discarded a big centre panel and still finished it in the last moment. In the end I actually changed the design totally!

I made it in colours I know she likes and last year I gifted her a couple of cushion covers, which would go with the quilt. I decided to quilt with an irregular wavy line as I like it a lot. The back was solid red and I embroidered a dedication patch with our signatures on it. Although I admire the old fashioned embroiderers' skill doing very neat stitches, I find it far more charming where an actual handwriting or a child's drawing has been embroidered.

I styled my little sofa in our living room with the quilt and a couple of my own cushions to see what it would look like covering a sofa like ours.

The other sister had sent me some fabric and asked if I could please make her another skirt. I made her one last year using one of her old skirts to draw a pattern with. We made some adjustments to the pattern and now I have it in my pattern folder, so I can dig it out when she needs one. We were talking on Skype just before I started sewing and she mentioned that she actually quite fancied one in very light grey colour as well. As it happened I had suitable fabric in my stash and offered her to make the skirts as her birthday present. Handmade and useful! She was delighted with them. I must mention here that she is my "pocket sister", very minute in all directions and finds it extremely difficult to get fitting clothes. In addition she is rather clever having a small, but well working wardrobe, where the components need to be in colours working together in all sorts of combinations. So finding them in shops is a mission and a half!

It's funny how the skirts look big in the picture. But go and have a look at a hanger and see how small the waist actually is. These are tightly fitted skirts in the top with a mermaid or bell bottom. They are made of five panels and have a lining. The fabric is jersey, so small mistakes in measuring or cutting are not that detrimental.

I was laughing at myself, because sewing the grey one I made countless silly mistakes. The skirt is very simple to sew and yet...I managed even to sew one panel upside down! Luckily I noticed before putting the lining in. I wondered how the top half had such a funny shape...

That was a wordy posting.  Have you had any time to sew? Any delicious mistakes? Let me know, it always comforts me that even very accomplished seamstresses make mistakes. Hoping to be back very soon to show more of what I have been doing.

Birdie Skirt

I started this skirt over a year ago. It is made of wool suiting and lined. Unfortunately I have also managed to put some weight on, so the fit was not as good as I hoped. As I have on the other hand decided to get back at least where I was a year ago, I will adjust the skirt as my mass reduces. 

Yes, I am standing on a chair in a bad light, but what can a girl do? I am not exactly a fashion blogger and do not intend to be.

I had the idea of embroidering some folk inspired grasses and a bird in grey in order to not make the skirt too screamingly folksy. In the end I added the yellow bits as the grey alone was too boring.

I used an old invisible zip in dusty olive green. I don't have the special presser foot for this type of a zip, but I managed. In the picture I have "opened" the flaps a bit, so you see the "wrong colour".

 

Sewing this skirt was one of those moments when I realised that I have come some way as a sewist. It did not daunt me at all to line the skirt. It would have done a few years back. In the back there are only three bits of embroidery. (Sorry about the picture, just could not get it right)

 

This is how it looks on me from the side/back. (Says she twisting dangerously on a chair in front of a mirror!)

Any clothes sewing done in your end? Leave a link, I would love to see!

Dresses galore

I bought red "kivet" fabric from marimmekko in Finland last summer. (Yes, I know, mad picture, but hey. I am not great at taking these "in the mirror" images). I had a dress of sorts in my mind for the autumn and winter. Well, it never happened. Then just before the red nose day I got my act together and made it, so I wore it for Elf son's delight on the red nose day.  I found a new pattern and the length is just right to be used as a dress or a tunic. I rather liked this new addition to my wardrobe and as I had managed to get my paws on MORE marimekko fabric, this time black, grey and white "unikko" I decided to make another. The fabric was provided by my aunt who came for a visit and brought not only this, but another piece as well AND some lovely hand towels AND a lovely bracelet from aarikka with their trademark wooden beads.  This has been used to distraction, especially with my black and white dress.

I decided to change the pattern just a bit and drop the sleeves. I absolutely loved how it came out. This dress has been used just as an everyday dress, to a wedding breakfast and to a garden party where the Queen was the guest of honour by just changing what I wear with it and the accessories.  Good going for a dress I would say. Thank-you Auntie A!

A summer without a green garment wasn't going to feel right and as I was on the roll and devastated by the fact that I ONLY had two of these tunic dresses I made a third one, this time from white polka dots on olive/lime background.

Because I live in the cool Northern England, I often wear a t-shirt under the dress, either with short or long sleeves. I have practically lived in these three garments since they were made. I force myself once in a while into something else for a day or two to convince my environment that there is indeed more than the three dresses in my wardrobe. I don't really know why, because who cares even if I only had three garments I really liked. Actually I quite like the idea having only few clothes, using them until they die and then getting/making new ones. Most of us use only 20% of our wardrobe regularly, I read somewhere.

Hello Again! and Re-make three: Retro Skirt

Sorry about the far too long hiatus. There was a really long spell of drab grey days which made any picture taking impossible and then my computer went into coma. It took a turn in intensive care unit aka Elf Husband's hands (how good is it to have a helpful in-house computer nerd?) and is now functioning again, yihaa!

This garment was one of the things I was lucky to rescue from my Grandma's wardrobe. She must have made it in 60's. It was so neatly sewn. I took it for its retro fabric and thought maybe making something out of it as I was convinced that I could not squeeze myself into it. I got inspired later to try to make a skirt by cutting it up in strips. When I tried it on the skirt fitted. It was only far too small over the shoulders, yihaa! I simply cropped the skirt off and sewed the waist and made a couple of darts at the waist to give it form. Time used: 5 minutes or so.

While I was doing this I noticed that the lowest button had had an accident either in the making or using. It was patched, really neatly, so that the pattern matched.

I wore the skirt for half an hour and I had the same accident happening to me, just one button up, where the fabric wasn't reinforced. I could have just given up at this point, but I had realised that I WANTED this skirt.

I then put extra interfacing behind the buttons and used some fabric to enforce the button strip. Next thing to happen? The button holes started ripping. So doing the same on that side too. Now I have a really nice retro skirt and no other bits have given up the ghost. And I like it!

Sewing Jersey and other Stretchy Stuff

My birthday present has arrived! Of course there were several days when I did not have time to acquaintance myself with my new overlocker. My lovely husband and dad gave me my new toy.

I was really lucky, because trawling the net the price seemed to sit £50 under RRP everywhere. Then Elf Husband spotted a place with a further £50 reduction, because they were selling the display model. Hurrah! We did the purchasing in the New Year's weekend and got a phone call later in the week that unfortunately they had sold that display model, but if I could wait for their next stock delivery, they would give me a brand new one for the price, which I said "Yes Please" to.

I have never ever used an overlocker before, so everything is rather new and scary. I am getting a grip with it now, but I have a lot to learn.

The first project I decided to do was making a fleece for Elf son from my old fleece. I thought that even if it goes horribly wrong, I won't feel too bad as it is an old garment I never use. Elf son's favourite colour is red and he needs a new fleece, so that is how this project came to.

I had all sorts of "aha" moments. Many overlockers, mine included have a cutting knife to tidy up the edge you are sewing. In my model you can choose not to use it and indeed some stitches don't use it at all. For some odd reason I felt that the knife was preventing me to see what was happening there with the material and the needles and everything, so I whipped it up. (Being used to sewing machines I sort of needed the visual control, which you don't get with an overlocker). The picture is taken from the side, but if you imagine being on the front of the big white safety barrier and the rest of it...

At the same time my edge I was sewing wasn't perfectly cut and straight. I can tell you that the overlocker didn't like this. It got all muddled and then snapped a needle. I managed to snap one more by pulling the material, which is a no-no with an overlocker. In addition there is double the amount of thread tensions to consider and of course the same with correct threading.

I then proceeded to make a stripy long sleeved t-shirt for Elf son. I got the material from "marimekko" factory outlet in Helsinki when they had their great sale in last August. I was very lucky to find a big piece and could not have bought bad quality jersey for that price other places. It's not that important for me that it is marimekko fabric, but Elf son likes stripes and jerseys from marimekko wash really well, so I felt it was a brilliant find.
 

New favourite accessory for the normal sewing machine has been found due to this project: The twin needle. Hemming the sleeves and the hem the twin needle is lovely and pleasingly neat. I was using it also for the neck opening with the stretch stitch. At least in the hem and the sleeves the needed stretch is already there in the normal twin needle stitch, so it was quick and neat to sew. I am pondering now whether to cut out the neck opening strip and redo it with a normal twin needle top stitch...

Knits have been long on my list of "would like to do", but the slowness of the process when using a normal machine has put me off. Now I can run some stretchy seams with a steaming speed! The only speed hampering thing is that the knits of this type definitely need pinning before sewing, so I can see that the seam matches. It is totally impossible to tell as it rolls like mad. Even ironing won't stop it. (Believe me I tried. I do anything before I pin or horror of horrors stay stitch anything).

I must also say here that if you are thinking of buying an overlocker, because you already own a passable sewing machine, I would urge you to think again. As wonderful as it is to be able to do overlocking, you still need a sewing machine and a good one of those is such a fantastic thing to have and makes one's sewing really a lot easier. Of course you can get much swisher overlockers than mine and I am sure that they are equally "easier". (Not that mine is difficult at all). I am so happy that I chose first to upgrade my sewing machine, before getting an overlocker, but then majority of my sewing isn't knits. (As you might have guessed, I was actually thinking of first getting an overlocker as I had a machine...)