S.E.W.N.

15/01/2014

Sewers High

S.E.W.N.

Fabric // Silk crepe de chine from here.

I know! I know! I said less of the fancy this year. But this is the first of a small backlog of un-photographed garments from last year. I’m enjoying the illusion of being a month ahead so we’ll just pretend that I’m super organized and on top of my game okay?! Come the end of January, it’ll be back to a top here, a skirt there in between, you know, raising human beings and stuff. This is Vogue 1247 and we are in love. If you’re into this sewing thing, then you’d know that’s its not every day nor every garment where you’re blown away by your own sewing efforts. So when it does happen, its all the more special. The stars align, the sewing gods smile down and it makes perfect sense why you do this thing that you do. Sure, there are bits I wish I’d taken more care with. Its not a perfect garment. But staring doe eyed at the finished top and seeing not too much distinguishing it from ready-to-wear is a pretty unbeatable feeling. Like runners high but without the mess.

Ohhhh wait, back up. That was from three feet away. If we zoom in closer, you’d notice the front pieces don’t quite intersect at the same point and the shoulder pleats are different widths. I am coming-to-terms-with-being-okay-with-tolerating a few dodgy bits in the face of mostly overall magnificence. Progress Not Perfection. The pleaty problem may have something to do with using broken off chunks of tailors chalk as a marking tool. Since marking vital things like darts and pleats with a thick blurry line, does not make for precise sewing. I’ve since acquired some chalk pencils. As for the front section where all the triangular pieces intersect, well, I got excited about finishing and ignored the creeping feeling that there may have been some important markings I really should go back and check. So no, the front pieces didn’t line up and consequently ate 1/2 inch from each side. Anyway, everything was and is okay. But good foresight in choosing a print that hides all manner of sins.

I feel like I’ve had this pattern in the stash forever. Actually it may have been the virgin ‘adult’ pattern purchase. I fell a bit in love with Sallieoh’s version and then discovered some of its beautiful cousins, see Closet Case Files, Crab and Bee, Cloth Habit. Now if, like me, you’re a girl that likes your tops a bit slouchy, with interesting details (a geometric pieced front section), a mid length sleeve and some cuff action then this one’s for you. Best of all, are the finishes. The pattern has french seams, a bias finished neckline and faced sleeves. Things I never used to give a thought to, but am coming to appreciate, deeply.

So, the reason I’ve been balking for so long is sizing issues everyone seems to be having. The main complaint being it runs extremely large. But now I feel I’ve surely caught up on every version ever sewn and blogged plus made my own, hopefully I can shed some light. In Vogue patterns, I usually make a 12. However, for Vogue 1247, if you go to the secret, but not so secret section called ‘finished garment measurements’ on the pattern itself (thanking Sallieoh for this genius), you will find that you can easily size down at least one or two sizes and still end up with a loose fitting top instead of a sloppy ill fitting top. But if its a poncho your heart desires then who am I to judge. Now, if you’d sat me down and said Sophie, you probably should muslin this one, including that front section, I would have told you where to go. I figured the best chance for a decent sizing guestimate was measuring and re-measuring and trying on roughly pinned pattern pieces until I felt fairly confident. I sized down two whole sizes to an 8. To keep some length I added approx 3/8″ in length and cut the sleeves to the size 10 length. The sleeves could be longer but overall the fit is ace.

The other potential pitfall here is depth of the v-neck . I like cleavage as much as the next person but on a top like this its more like gape-age. On the size 8 the V is fine, but only just. If I’d made even the 10, or the 12, I may legally have had to place warning signs: Beware the chasm! And slightly beware, the bias sleeve facings, which threatened to pull every which and curl up while attaching to the sleeves. This part was actually the most challenging and I’m hoping it will be less so in a cotton voile, for no.2. So really there are only a couple of things but nothing significant enough to be put off making a second one and hopefully no-one off a first one!

23/11/2013

A Wiksten in Wiksten

S.E.W.N.

Finally, five days after having wisdom teeth out and I’m in some sort of state to string a sentence together. Not through my mouth, since I’m still looking like an angry rabbit, apparently. So before the op, I bundled my machine off for a service and since the op there’s been the distraction of food. What can I eat? When can I eat again? When can I eat Ultimate Pork Tacos with Spicy Black Beans & Avocado green salad? Yup, totally been torturing myself watching Jamie and Nigella all week, from the couch at my parents place. But now, back home, there’s the exciting proposition of an empty sewing table. Best feeling ever! It’s looking like Vogue 1247, but also possible a random will jump the queue.

Pattern // Wiksten Tank

Fabric // Silk crepe de chine from Spoonflower.

Before we go further, just take a moment to behold the small victory of pocket placement. What pocket? That’s right, see, left breast. No, my left. It wasn’t necessary to match it up but I liked the idea of an incognito pocket and the challenge of matching. Like sewing Tetrus. I made my first Wiksten early on in the piece, my second one died a horrible death recently and now this one, which won’t be the last. Simply, it’s a satisfying sew, I love the fit and insides are pretty (french seams). Its a feel-good project and you need feel good projects when you are just starting out sewing for yourself but also when you’re in a sewing slump or just come out of sewing hell (see gold sequin amazing nightmare dress). Which is why I chose it as the project to introduce my lovely, workshop guineapigs goers to the world of sewing for themselves at The Craft Sessions retreat.

Well it’s no secret anything Wiksten Tank designer, Jenny Gordy, touches turns to gold. More than once I’ve longed to have an actual piece of actual Wiksten clothing hanging in my wardrobe and Jenny must have sensed this because, quite amazingly she contributed a whole bunch of beautiful fabric designs from her collections to Spoonflower, where you and I can get them printed out onto silk, cotton, jersey and have our own piece of Wiksteny goodness. I’ve loved this print so hard but been unsure how to make the most of it (the pressure! the pressure!) and so decided to sew a special version to take down to the Yarra Valley. Along with a bunch of other ridiculously inadequate wardrobe choices for a frosty weekend in the Victorian highlands. Seriously it was so cold, I spent the first night in a random cardigan hand-knitted by someone’s grandmother. Which now that I think about it, may have been the catalyst for wanting to learn to knit….

You know what gets me going in the morning? PRE-WASHING! If you pre-wash your fabric this magic thing happens where your top stays the same size the next time you wash it and again after that. Or, also kind of magic but mostly depressing, if you choose not to pre-wash, you get to see all your hard work turn into a shrinky dink, like Wiksten number two…three inches shorter, not even wearable as a crop, will remain un-blogged.

11/11/2013

Sew Scandinavian

S.E.W.N.

This post is the culmination of some serious last minute sewing. It’s not like I haven’t had almost half a year to prepare an outfit for the cute Scandinavian Sewing Series being hosted by Boy, Oh Boy, Oh Boy. These last few months have been all kinds of crazy. Right now I’m coming back to reality after an amazing weekend and months worth of preparation for the recent The Crafts Sessions retreat, where I was teaching sewing, of all things! I promise a full report soon. So Scandiniavian style ey? A fun theme, but it had me scratching my head. Scandinavian kids style is pretty definitive and Sabra totally nailed it here and Mie here. But Scandinavian adult fashion, what exactly is that? My usual search for Pinspiration confirmed my suspicions about Scandinavian style as less is more, simplicity, clean lines and understated cool. Which morphed into a striped knit dress, polka dot bomber jacket and some clogs. We’ll just go with Essence of Scandinavia, yah?

Starting with the dress. The fabric is a viscose lycra knit from here, purchased with loose plans for a casual dress. But I’ve been unsure what season to sew for, which is happening a lot lately. I kind of fell in love with wearing Winter clothes in Melbourne and coming back to 30 degrees has been brutal. So there is definitely a bit of Seasonal Sewing Disorder going on. It was going to be above knee and a-line for summer, but I love 3/4 sleeves on everything so its ended up being trans-seasonal. I started with a great fitting long sleeved t-shirt and extended it downwards and outwards. I thought I’d like to make a square-ish neckline and with a facing, just for something different. I carefully drafted the facing, lovingly interfaced it, attached it and put the whole thing on to find the weight of the jersey pulled the facing right up and out of the neckline, like a big fat sad bottom lip. Which coincidentally, matched mine. Anyway, thankful for lessons learned and I saved the dress by folding the neckline over to the inside and top stitching. Yep, the perfect garment is indeed a myth.

A Bomber! A Bomber! I made a Bomber jacket and its quite possibly one of my all time fav handmade pieces. Kind of a good thing, considering how emotionally invested I was in it. I cut into one of my most prized pieces in the stash (which is quite modest in case you’re wondering), a thrifted $1.50 piece of navy polka-dot chambray. Who even throws out polka-dot chambray? And didn’t they know I would have paid at least twice that? Anyway, its been saved for something spesh. Quite recently and very excitingly, I nearly fell over myself at the chance to test one of The Papercut Collective’s new patterns from the mind-blowingly gorgeous collection, Constellation. Which was just released today! I really could have tested them all, but went for the Bomber jacket, the Rigel Bomber, the very thing I have been coveting all year, all over Pinterest and waiting for an inspiring pattern. Printed Bombers, with their unattractive boxy, masculine shape made up in a cutesy print just do it for me. It was a toss up between this print and a couple of Nani Iro florals, so I’m thankful to everyone who peer pressured me into the dots on Instagram.

Now, I’m sure part of the reason my love for this Bomber runs so deep is it’s as good looking on the inside as the outside. When I wear it, I feel…neat. Schmick. Well put together. So good that adjectives fail me. You can’t help but feel like the shit when you’ve just tackled welt pockets, chunky zips and facings. All of which make for a pretty special garment. All of which were potentially anxiety inducing if it weren’t for good instructions and diagrams there to hold my hand. I loved the suggestion of binding the edge of the facing with bias tape stead of serging. I made actual bias binding. Now that’s commitment right there. And now I am certain that how much you love your hand-makes in the end is entirely related to how much care and love you bestow on the little details during its making. Of course this only applies if the love is reciprocated with the thing working out awesome!

Lucky it did work out, considering I bi-passed the muslin. The fit is good; I could do with some more length in the arms but I was gifted excessively long arms. I am the ‘reacher of high things’ at work. If I was going to be wearing the Bomber zipped up, I could do with a bit more room in the shoulders but I intend to throw it over things so this is not really a problem. The only mod I made was to shear off some of the width of the neck ribbing but just because I liked the look of it with less. Next time, and there will be a next time, I may add some length to the arms and body but again, will likely be wearing it with the sleeves pushed up so it might not be necessary. I think it says a lot about a pattern when you’re already planning the next one before it’s finished!

Well, that’s me vibing Scandinavian style. Be sure to check out the rest of the fun over at Boy, Oh Boy, Oh Boy.

12/10/2013

The Original Satsuki

S.E.W.N.

Aloha! Can’t quite believe this dress was made by yours truly a year and a half ago, and its only just made it to the blog now. This was my first go at Satsuki by Victory patterns, the same pattern behind this dress for Project Sewn. I made it up for a special occasion. The special occasion being that I was leaving the house, sans kids, for an occasion. Some sort of partay or gathering (?) at a swanky (cringe) underground 1940’s style bar. Which was obviously deserving of a new dress. Anyway, the event was on a Saturday night and on Wednesday I realised the over-priced pants that I’d bought for said occasion, just wouldn’t do. So it a seemed a perfectly do-able, even sensible idea to just whip up a Satsuki. Like an omelette!

The fabric is a silk crepe de chine from here. I know it’s all silk this, silk that these days but the ratio of silks to cottons (and other perfectly practical fibres) that we get in is pretty high. Anyway, I really loved this pattern, I mentioned here how it nips you in at the right bits and I think it’s a style that flatters a huge variety of figures. It’s put together really nicely too and I appreciated the lessons learned in hemming curved sections of seams by pulling a thread. My only gripe is that being a bit round shouldered, my shoulders never seem to poke through the little cutouts, which creep to the back. Hence, the dress is heavily ‘arranged’ in these pics.

In the end it wasn’t exactly ‘whipped up’. I finished it on the night pretty much on the way out the door and did hasty a double fold hem, where a hand-stitched one might have honoured this fabric. But what’s a girl to do, I was already running late! If you are contemplating making a Satsuki of your own, I highly recommend this pattern. A relatively quick make with good instructions and a new technique or two to learn makes it a winner. It also sews up into a top, Crab and Bee’s made a beautiful shibori dyed version.

I had a moderate to good time, topped off by being in bed before midnight. Lets be honest, there were more than a few times when I thought about being home in bed. Or sewing. Cough antisewcial Cough.

18/09/2013

Sewing Solids #3 and #4

S.E.W.N.

This post should actually read ‘The Boring Black Shorts’. Because they are! The plainest, most unexciting, unadventurous item of clothing made so far. And exactly why I love them I bought this fabric quite a while ago, purely for it’s good bottom weight and nice feel. Technical! And now that I think about it, a plain black linen cotton seems a pretty unlikely purchase for a print fiend. Maybe at the time I already knew the closet was headed towards print Armageddon. But the thing about the boring black shorts is they’re actually pretty awesome. Pretty and awesome, even. First of all, with just a few mods this pattern gives a fit that you can be hard pressed to find in a store bought short. Second, they’re just a good looking pair of shorts, that rare variety you could even wear with a heel. And don’t get me wrong, I love my minty polka dot pair but now in a solid I’m really appreciating this pattern and all its charms: welt pockets, side pockets, subtle scallops, top-stitching etc. And more surprising still, the boring black shorts have inspired a whole new flurry of sewing activity: things to wear with them, like this top.

Pattern: Sweet Scalloped shorts

Fabric: Linen- cotton- lycra blend.

Sizing: xs, same as this pair. If between sizes, go down and especially if fabric has width-ways stretch. This pair actually fit a lot better, whereas the spotty pair give me camel toe when driving.

Mods: The usual for this pattern; 3/8″ off the sides and a wedge off sides of back pieces, where hips are would fill out if I were endowed some. I shaved a little off the hem of the back pieces, about 1/4″.

Do you ever find yourself spending all this time dreaming up the perfect ‘to-sew’ list only to have something totally random pop up and skip to the front? I think it’s called ‘inspiration’ and it is does not care about my carefully curated sewing queue. The Hannah Top by Salme Patterns was one such pusher-inner. I’ve been noticing this silhouette around lately, ‘around’ being code for Pinterest, my only real source of what’s going on out there in the fashion world. Lots of cute cropped length tees and tanks with midi skirts and high waist shorts and loads of this 90’s neckline that I can only best describe as looking like a halter but not. So when the Hannah Top popped up in my Pinterest feed it was one of those majestic moments where trend and pattern become one. Its an interesting shape and cut-right you can wear a cross-over bra with this style. Being able to don a semi-normal bra seems to be my green light go ahead these days.

Pattern//Salme Patterns ‘Hannah’ Top.

Fabric // Sandwash Silk from here.

Size // No games played, just a straight 8 according to measurements.

Mods // Removed darts and added width to front piece from armpit to waist in their place. Shortened to cropped length. Took 1/4″ off neckline. To cover bra straps, I widened shoulder straps approx 3/8″ and slightly changed the shape of the front piece curve. But don’t be put off by what sounds like a nightmare on mod street, all these tweaks came out of the first and only muslin (which was in a print. Naughty!).
Other Bits and Bobs // French seamed back and sides, hand-stitched invisible hem (which I will now pull out and sew with a teensy weensy hem) because its all lumpy. Telling myself it was the fabric. I used a self cover button for closure and made the button loop by sewing down the length of a strip of bias and cutting off excess. A good shortcut to remember.

The pattern has a full facing, which means no lining and no visible top-stitching and makes the whole finish ultra tight and neat. You do have to add seam allowances though. I made a cotton muslin, tried it on with the boring black shorts and decided the proportions looked much better if the top was cropped about 5″-6″ shorter. I tweaked a few bits of the pattern mentioned above, jumped right in with the silk and then it was all very obvious that cotton made nice flat darts and silk made pointy nipple darts. Not impressed. Slashing and flattening the darts upon Gerties advice didn’t fix the problem, maybe because the problem was the silk not the dart shape. So as a last resort I ironed interfacing over the darts which did flatten them and might have been a completely genius idea except you could see a the outline from the right side. So, on the verge of mega tanty I re-drafted the front without darts, kind of like the difference between the Grainline tiny pocket tank (darted) and the Wiksten Tank (no darts). I ignored the dart by pinning it shut, added a tiny bit of extra width to each side of the front piece, petering out to just the seam allowance at the waist. I think it worked because the silk is drapey and the top is a loose-ish shape.

Well, that’s it, the end of the Solids Experiment. I’m free! And I don’t want to go! There’s quite a few pieces I want to sew before I run back into the arms of beloved prints. But maybe we will have a more balanced relationship now, the prints and I. Thanks to everyone who left a comment about your own personal battles with prints vs solids. It comforting to know there are so many of us of the print-happy variety. Print fiends unite! On reflection, not being able to touch a print gave me a new perspective on sewing, as I had to seek inspiraiton from things like shapes of clothes, details and obviously color. If I wasn’t ‘on solids’ when I spotted this top pattern maybe I would never have looked twice at it. And with that I will leave you with my best face-for-radio. #keepinitreal