Green + Blue

I thought that being at home practically all the time now would mean I would have lots more time for sewing and blogging but it turns out that I don't! I am super busy with work at the moment, and most days I barely brush my hair (messy bun for the win) and only slap on tinted sunscreen so it's even harder to take photos than before.

Case in point is this green blazer I finished sewing two weeks ago - I only just found the energy to put on some make-up and real shoes to take these photos today!

I bought this beautiful vibrant kelly green wool boucle from Super Cheap Fabrics online and it turned out to be exactly the colour I hoped. I was inspired by this outfit worn by Peggy in episode 11 of the final season of Mad Men:

I used an old Burda pattern - 4/2014 #103 which isn't available on the Burda Style website but you can download from the Russian Burda website here (I often buy my patterns from the Russian website because they are far cheaper).

This pattern caught my eye because it has the notched lapel and trim like the inspiration photo, but I also really like the curved front hem and the princess seams that extend into the shoulder which make it easier to adjust the fit. I left off those patch pockets and also removed the vents at the back because I found that they stuck out awkwardly and they weren't needed for a close fit.

I did my usual fit adjustment of a 1.5cm forward shoulder adjustment and slightly narrowed the shoulder too. This fabric has enough loft and with interfacing in the shoulder area it didn't need a shoulder pad but still managed a neat fit through the shoulders.

I hand stitched the navy grosgrain ribbon on which was really tough on my fingers but I thought I'd have more control doing it that way. I tried to make the corners as neat as possible but they aren't 45 degree angles so it took a little fudging to make it work. It looks a bit messy in this photo below but we all know that people don't stand close enough to see this level of detail, especially now that we're all social distancing.

The buttons were also really difficult to resolve. I just couldn't find any that matched the colour of the grosgrain ribbon in my local stores, so I ended up making fabric covered buttons for the two front ones, and some smaller navy blue buttons that were already in my stash for the sleeve buttons.

I absolutely love this jacket and colour and I almost can't wait to be back in the office so I can wear it for real.

For these photos I've paired the jacket with a navy blue dress. Navy blue just seems natural to wear with this colour jacket especially since I used navy blue trim and buttons!

I made this dress maybe two years ago but haven't blogged it. It's made from a 1970s vintage Style pattern:

The fit is quite good but the fabric choice wasn't the best. The fabric is a thick herringbone cotton that doesn't drape so it has quite a pronounced a-line shape to the skirt and it is a magnet for every bit of fluff, lint or strand of hair in near proximity.

I don't actually wear this dress too often and have been considering refashioning it into a skirt instead because the fabric is really quite nice (except for the fluff factor). And I think this pattern made in a more drapey fabric like crepe would work a lot better too. I'll add it to my really long list!

Control, alt + delete

I've had the most frustrating two weeks, sewing wise. All I'm trying to do is sew a simple pencil skirt to go with the red jacket that I made recently but all I've had is one thing after another. I did sew and fit the skirt at my ASG sewing day two Saturdays ago, but I forgot to reduce the skirt length when I traced the pattern, so the back vent of the skirt was a ridiculous 2cm long. Unpick, recut the back panel. Then when I made the lining it was too tight because it doesn't have any stretch like the fabric. Unpick some more. Then the lining was too loose for the skirt because I could see wrinkling through the fabric. Unpick some more......

And then I slightly burnt the tips of a few fingers on my right hand trying to make a toasted cheese sandwich while juggling a wriggly toddle on one hip (note to self: don't do that again!) which were too sore and then too calloused to sew! At this point I figured the sewing universe was trying to tell me something and I gave up on the skirt for the moment. We also took the kids camping, proper bush camping, which was fun but very very tiring so I needed a few days to recover from that too! So the skirt is still unmade, but I have cut out a simple dress to make for my next project when the skirt is done and I tidied up my sewing room ready for a fresh start.

Which is where I found a dress that I had started sewing for Anna two ASG sewing days ago (end of August) and had forgotten about it even though it only needed a zipper and some ric rac. So I tempted fate and finished the dress - seems my sewing fingers may have returned because I had no problems and the recipient is very happy with her new dress:

For a change this isn't stash fabric, which I remember now is why I set it aside at the time - it was towards the end of the stashbusting contest and I was trying to finish stash projects first. I used a vintage Style pattern which I had used before so I knew it would fit and I added an extra layer to the skirt for additional twirliness:

I love the cute peter pan collar which I made from a white cotton shirting fabric and the little ruffle sleeves.


Now onto finishing that skirt - I won't let a simple pencil skirt defeat me!

No new UFOs

Apologies for the short blog silence here, I've been extraordinarliy busy doing boring and unblogworthy things otherwise known as ordinary everyday life.  Thankfully no more illnesses to report, and Toby seems to have settled into daycare really well so fingers crossed we go a few more months before the winter lurgies arrive.

As I said a few posts back, I don't do New Year resolutions anymore but I do set myself little rules to follow until something becomes a habit.  Doesn't always work of course, but one that has stuck is my no new UFO rule. Sure I still have a big box of UFOs that have piled up over the years, but I haven't created a new UFO for several years now.  So I wasn't about to let Anna's rainbow dress get the better of me, no matter how tedious it was to pull apart.

I was also determined not to buy any more of the fabric to make the dress bigger, so I pulled it apart completely, made the bodice narrower and interspersed two layers of contrasting fabric to increase the length.  When I finally finished all that, I resewed the invisible zipper and facing in but wouldn't you know it but as I was doing up the zipper to take a photo the zipper got caught and then split and was unfixable.  I tell you it was a good thing that both kids were in daycare that day because they would have learnt a few unsavoury phrases!  I'm sure I saw the dog raise his eyebrows though....

But it's all done now and Anna loves it and we shall never talk of this dress again.  And I will put a 'do not sew ever again' note on the Style pattern.

never judge a pattern by the cover....

Don't we all just love vintage patterns with their glorious illustrations? Problem is, I bet many of us have been fooled by them too - the garments never quite turn out like the illustration, and in some cases look completely different.  This has happened to me several times before, so really I shouldn't have been surprised, nor annoyed.....

Anna had been invited to a rainbow themed birthday party, and of course she demanded a new dress because unfortunately I think I've created a little fashion monster who thinks getting a new dress every week is the norm.  But I happened to have purchased some Lisette fabric bought from Spotlight during the January sale earlier this year that she liked, so I was able to oblige.  It is described as sateen, but it's quite thin like a poly-cotton voile, which would be perfect for a twirly dress style that she likes best.

I also let her pick out the pattern which she just loved doing since I've transferred all my scanned pattern covers to my Ipad so she just had to flick through them.  The hardest part was settling on one pattern, but in the end she chose vintage Style 1485 from the 1970s that I hadn't used before:

I always like using an unused pattern from the stash, and I've had good results from Style patterns before so I went for it.  I did the necessary measurements, sewed it up and finished it last Tuesday while both she and Toby were at daycare and had it ready and waiting for her to try it on when she got home Tuesday afternoon.    I congratulated myself on another productive day.  I then spent part of Wednesday unpicking it all.  Sigh.....

The completed dress looks ok on the hanger, but on Anna it may as well have been a wine barrel - it was really wide and really short.  In fact I think it may have been as wide as it is long.  I know the fashion for little kids in the 1970s was for short dresses, and I also know that Anna is exceptionally tall for her age (above the 100th percentile in the growth charts), but this dress barely covered her butt when standing and if she lifted her arms up the dress rose enough to show off her Dora underwear which is not so classy.

I didn't have enough fabric left to add another layer, so instead I decided to add contrasting layers in a solid colour in between.  However life intervened and it's still all in pieces in my sewing room.  But it didn't really matter in the end because it just wasn't to be a party dress.

Last Thursday, after his first 3 days at daycare, Toby got terribly sick with some virus and spent hours vomiting continuously for most of the day and evening.  We ended up in the emergency department at the wonderful Concord hospital (the staff in there are so lovely) for him to be re hydrated, which luckily they were able to do with medicine and he didn't need a drip.  In fact he perked up quickly and has been fine since.  We got home from the hospital at about 1.30am on Friday morning, and by 5.30am I was doing my best impersonation of Toby the previous day.  By Friday afternoon Anna joined in the fun too.  My husband who is proud of his iron guts constitution managed to hold out until Saturday night before he too succumbed.

So that is pretty much the whole weekend wasted, and I can't even say that all that bed rest and couch time has left me well rested.  Worst of all I missed meeting up with everyone who went along to the second Sydney sewists meet up as I had planned to on Saturday afternoon.  But there is always next time!

And now a mound of washing awaits me tomorrow, but on the bright side the kids are well enough to go back to daycare - whatever doesn't kill makes you stronger, right?!

Pretty party dresses

Seriously, how busy is this time of the year? I know Christmas is on the same date every year but these last few weeks of December seem to go by faster each year for me! And why do we feel it necessary to meet up with every single friend and acquaintance during the Christmas season? Next year I vow to have more dinner parties and get togethers in the months of July - October, so I don't feel bad if I can't make each event.

That said though, you know you've hit a bit of a lull in your social life when your nearly four year old has more parties to attend than you do! Aside from a few casual bbq's and a night out with some girlfriends I had no proper Christmas parties to attend and therefore no need for me to sew any pretty party frocks for me this year.  Anna however had two parties last weekend and demanded new dresses to wear to both, which I was happy to oblige because I'm sure the time will come soon enough when she demands I buy her new dresses, not sew them.

Using Style 2168, a 1977 vintage pattern that I've used once before I managed to turn out two dresses in quick succession.

The first is made of a cotton poplin bought from Spotlight from one of their many sales a while back, in an ultra cute pink apple print:

I don't think there's another time in your life when you could wear such a cute fabric and not be considered quirky or eccentric, but it's just right for a little girl who likes to spin and twirl:

The second dress was for a Minnie Mouse birthday party, so naturally I've made it from a red and white polka dot cotton, also from Spotlight (I should consider charging them for advertising for the amount of times they get mentioned here on my blog!):

I finished the neckline and sleeves in white bias tape trim, and also sewed some bias tape around the waist seam too, but since I knew Anna would want to wear this all the time I didn't want it to look too much like a Minnie Mouse costume so I left the trim at that.  Paired with some mouse ears the outfit looked way better than the store bought polyester numbers that the other girls were wearing.  Funnily enough it's the mouse ears that Anna hasn't stopped wearing everywhere and with everything.

So how is everyone else's Christmas preparations coming along? We're hosting a bbq at our house on Saturday so I need to give the house a thorough clean tomorrow as well as start preparing some food.  Thankfully I was realistic enough not to plan to sew many Christmas presents, and I got the one princess dress for Anna finished as well as a few little purses.  Sadly though I doubt I'm going to have time to make my December Burda garment, but oh well there's always next year!

the sad occasion dress

At the risk of turning this blog into a soap opera, we've had another week of dramas around my house.  Last Wednesday my grandfather passed away, which given he was 93 was not unexpected but still rather surprising since the last time I saw him a few weeks ago he actually looked healthier than he had in a while.  But it is also a relief that he has finally let go - 93 is a long life and he had been rather sad, anxious and in despair at his failing body.

But that is not the soap opera part.  My rather obnoxious uncle had organised the funeral in the hours between my grandfather's passing and him informing the rest of the family of my grandfather's death.  So not only did my uncle exclude the rest of us in organising the details, he organised it for 5 days after my grandfather's death despite knowing full well that my parents (my grandfathers only other son) are in the desert of Western Australia somewhere on a holiday.  For those of you not familiar with Australia, Western Australia is far far away from Sydney.  He would not change the day either even though we could not reach my parents.  Luckily two days before the funeral my parents finally came into a small town, got some mobile reception and finally heard the news.  Several flights later on very expensive air tickets they managed to get back just in the nick of time much to the feigned relief of my uncle.

But that is not the end of the soap opera part.  The exact same thing happened when my grandmother died about 4 years ago.  Yes, the exact same situation.  My parents were on another holiday this time in the Cape York bush (again far far away from Sydney) when my grandmother passed, and my uncle once again organised the funeral a few days after her death without consulting anyone else.  And again my parents had to rush home to make it in time for the funeral.

The annoying thing is that my uncle was not even that close with my grandparents, and yet he felt he had the right to try to exclude my parents from being able to farewell them. My grandparents were actually living with my parents before they went on their Cape York holiday, and my grandparents had gone into respite care for two months only while my parents were on holiday and afterwards my grandfather continued living with my parents until recently when he was moved into a nursing home.

But this is a sewing blog, and despite a glimpse into other people's family politics being fascinating in much the same way as driving past a car accident, let's have a look at the cute dress I made for Anna to wear to the funeral.  I ummed and ahhed about whether to take her, but I did in the end because the service was held an hour and half away from her childcare and I didn't want to be in a rush to get home to get her in case things went too long.  She behaved herself well though, sitting quietly through the service and then being cute and bringing some much needed distraction and levity during the wake.

Since all of her clothes are brightly coloured in typical toddler fashion I thought about making her an old fashioned style black dress with a white lace collar but was worried that would look too Wednesday Addams! So I made view 1 (the black dress) from this vintage Style 2168 pattern, which is from 1979:

from this fabric which is actually a maxi skirt my mother made and wore in the 70s.  It's a lovely brushed cotton with a pretty floral and graphic print and suits the dress perfectly:

The fit is spot on too, which surprised me since I've found that commercial sewing patterns, especially the vintage ones seem to run large but this one was perfect.  It has an ultra cute peter pan collar, bell sleeves which are cinched in at the wrist with elastic and puffy shoulders. 

Paired with some purple stockings (my choice) and a leopard print jacket (her choice) it was the perfect choice for a sad day.

And now I hope to get back to some regularly scheduled posting. Life without dramas is always best don't you think?

something new, something old, something blue, something blah....

I've come to the conclusion that work is a hazard to my health. Not only has it taken nearly two weeks to recover from a little cold and sore throat, on Tuesday I found myself eating a chocolate bar out of a vending machine because the 3pm low hit me and it was there. Lucky I'm only there three days a week.......

The things I sewed for my friends have been well received - I had a lovely lunch with my friend whose husband I sewed the viking outfits for and she gave me an awesome reprinted 1950s book by Christian Dior on the A-Z of Fashion. And the friend who I sewed the little shirt for has promised to take some photos of Anna for me in exchange (she's a professional photographer) so both were worth all the frustrations in the end!

In the last two days I've finished not one, but two things for myself. First up I made a boatneck top from BWOF 2/09 pattern 108 from a white textured knit that I had in my stash because I wanted to test out how my newly repaired overlocker works. It turns out the overlocker works fine now, but my skills in sewing knit fabrics are still woeful! I used clear elastic along the neckline instead of just turning it under and sewing as suggested by BWOF, but still it is a bit ripply. Same for the hems, even though I used a twin stretch needle to topstitch it is still a bit wavy. But it looks ok for a test garment, and I have worn it so I guess it passes muster. I shortened the sleeves a bit but didn't make any other changes to the pattern.


I also made the skirt I'm wearing in the above photo too. Only it was meant to be a dress! It's a UFO from about 4 years ago, abandoned for the good reason that I tried to morph together two seperate patterns and it just didn't work out. Mainly because as usual I was impatient to get started and didn't make any effort to trace the patterns and make adjustments so the bodice and skirt would join together. Noooo, I just sort of creased the patterns a little and hoped for the best. And to make matters worse instead of doing a muslin (which would have been wise!) I just cut straight into the fabric which is a beautiful linen bought from Tessuti's York St store.

Anyway, I couldn't get the bodice and the skirt to fit together at all, mainly because both skirt and bodice had too many panels and the linen has no ease at all. I didn't want to give up on the fabric because it's a gorgeous natural coloured background with duck egg blue and grey spots. The only problem I have now is what to wear with it, I might have to make another top now especially for it!

The skirt is an inverted pleat skirt from Style 3643, which is a vintage pattern picked up from an op shop some time ago. I've used this pattern once before which ironically was also a UFO for quite some time too! And it is indeed "sew "simple to sew - I bet someone in the Style creative department thought they were pretty clever putting that on the front of the pattern. The skirt is very long, way longer than the pattern illustration suggests (again beware patterns with only illustrations on the envelope) so I've had to shorten it quite dramatically to sit above my knee. It's also a little high waisted, which isn't really my style, but is only really noticeable if I wear the skirt with something tucked in like this:


But I doubt I will wear it like that! I also left out the rear inverted pleat because I find that just gets creased and looks bad after wearing it for a while, and the front pleat is enough for walking ease anyway. And speaking of the back of the skirt, I put in an invisible zip so the join of the spots wouldn't be interrupted, but look at what I did with matching the spots (excuse the creases, this was taken after I'd been wearing it a while):

Sooo annoying, especially since I didn't have any extra fabric at all to recut it. So all in all I'm glad I finished this UFO and the beautiful fabric is out of the box and into my wardrobe. I wore it out today and am happy with it, but I think it's a bit blah though. I just need to find a perfect colour match for a top to go with it. I wonder what my chances are in finding something in the stash!?!

Seeing the good in the bad

Is it just me, or is it universal that annoying things will more likely happen when you're sewing something white? Such as spilling your drink, a naughty pet sleeping on the project or like what I did earlier this week, pricking your finger and not noticing until after there are big splotches of red blood all over my newly finished blouse! On the brighter side (I'm trying hard to see the good in the bad this year) I used the few days that I needed to soak and wash the blouse to make a skirt to go with it, and this is what I came up:


The blouse is Burda 2/09 pattern 125:















I originally planned to make this in a crisp white cotton, but all the reviews over at Pattern Review recommend using a soft, drapey fabric so I've used a soft, thin white cotton shirting material from the stash instead. I think it works, although I still get a bit of puffy sleeve syndrome if I lift my arms up:



I guess I'll just have to stop standing around with my hands on my hips when I'm wearing this shirt! Maybe this shirt will make me less bossy..... And maybe I should set up the camera tripod straight too so my photos don't look so crooked.

I did have troubles with the sleeve band due to the typical BWOF instructions, and after finally figuring it out from the helpful reviews on pattern review I still gave up on it because mine looked messy. Plus they were really really wide bands. So I took them off, cut them in half width ways and just sewed them on as a single band without a button opening. It's not like I'll ever need to unbutton them, so I figure this is just as good. Although I see from this photo there's a bit of excess fabric at the front and back of the shirt, so I may take in the darts even more to get a closer fit.



For the skirt, I used Style 1932, which is a 1970s era full circle skirt pattern. I think it's pretty funny since it's obviously a 1970s version of a 50s style skirt, right down to the poodle applique on the skirt.

I made the blue version in the centre, but I still had to lop about 20cm off though, and I left off the pockets because of the fabric I used. However, I'm not overly happy with how it has turned out, because the fabric doesn't fall in even ripples around my body, rather it tends to gather at the seams, ie at the sides and the centre front/back which looks rather unflattering:




I was just putting away the left over fabric and the pattern when I realised what I had done: the plaid pattern is printed on the bias and the pattern requires the panels to be cut on the bias. I was trying so hard to match up the lines (which I failed in anyway) that I forgot to cut the skirt panels on the bias, so they are cut on the straight grain and I guess that's why it doesn't sit quite right. But there is a lot of fabric there in this skirt, so I may be able to salvage it by turning it into a boring old A-line style or the like - seeing the good in the bad yeah!

Well Anna is off to day care for three days a week starting next Monday, but I'm not back at work for another two weeks so I have a mini holiday from being a mum for a few days. It's nice to be wanted, but I reckon it's going to be great to have a bit of space too! We had an orientation at the centre yesterday and Anna had a few tears even though we were only there for 45 minutes. But once she settles in it will be great for her, we spend too much time alone together her and I, and the opportunity to mix with other kids and do structured activities is for the best I think.

So tune in next week, I plan to do lots of sewing and get a haircut and maybe have a whole day sleeping (well that bit will be boring for you but it will be great for me).

aloha!

Here are some pictures to mess with your head Carolyn! I hear that some parts of the US and Europe have experienced their heaviest snowfall in many years, meanwhile here in Sydney we have been absolutely sweltering. If it's any consolation the weather forecast for Christmas day is for showers and overcast conditions.

Yesterday we were invited to a Hawaiian themed first birthday party for a friend's daughter so of course we had to get dressed up in a tropical theme. Of course I could have gone down to those cheap stores that sell junk such as plastic flower leis and grass skirts, but me being me I decided to make something!

For Anna, I made a little dress from some hibiscus print fabric in a bright red and white colour. I think this may have been a tablecloth because it was hemmed all round, but it must have been used quite a bit because now it is quite a soft cotton fabric.

I used a vintage pattern picked from an op shop (where else?), Style 2170 view 2 - the pink dress. I left off the trim around the sleeves and yoke, and used snaps instead of buttons on the back (yes Katherine H - I sure am getting lots of use out of my snap press!).

The fit was a little large, so I also put a ribbon tie on the back to get a better fit.

And for me, I had a blue floral dress inherited from gran that could be best described as a muu-muu - I wore it in the last few days of my pregnancy around the house and it still had room so you can imagine how big it is on me!

However 20 mins later and a few rows of shirring around the waistline and it looks totally different. In fact I like it so much that I think I will wear it on holidays because we are going to Brisbane to stay with my inlaws, where it is so hot that just even thinking about moving is enough to cause a sweat to break out!


My husband also got into the spirit, wearing an authentic vintage Hawaiian shirt that somehow made it's way from Hawaii to his wardrobe:

Only four sleeps till Christmas and I still have quite a bit to do! You'd think I'd have plenty of time to get things finished since Anna has decided for the last week that 4.30am is her new wake up time, but funnily enough by the time she goes to bed at 7pm I'm nearly comatose. I'm hoping that she's just growing some more teeth and that's why her sleep patterns have gone out the window, because if this is how it's gonna be from now on she is in severe danger of being an only child!