Pattern: Tania Culottes. So, what is a culotte when it’s at home? Picture a sort of wide-legged pair of shorts that looks like a skirt. More commonly known as a ‘skort’. I’m not selling it am I? Okay, so I did some ‘research’ (googled) and here’s a tidbit for ya: Did you know that during the Victorian era women wore these long split skirts so they could actually ride horses facing the way they were going instead of side saddle? What we can take from this is that culottes are meant to look cute and fabulous like a skirt but with the practicality of shorts. And they probably saved lives!

Features: Megan’s design here is super clever. When the pieces are laid out it resembles a full circle skirt and when they’re on, the short part is completely disguised beneath the folds of fabric in the front and back. Other features to love are the wide waistband and invisible side zipper, which I think make for a flattering and not obviously ‘hand-made’ finish. I found the instructions clear and Megan Nielsen patterns are always generous with pictures for us visual learners. All in all, a great separate and a fun piece to experiment with prints or solids. I’d like to make another winter version, in a solid.

Fabric: A fav, small country town thrift store find that I can only describe as some wild 80’s botanical print, in polyester. I couldn’t figure out if it was ugly or lovely which had me intrigued. But at $4, I took a chance on lovely.

Wearability: These pics were taken two months back when it was still warm enough for bare legs and a tee. And now that it’s suddenly turned all winter, they’ve been on even higher rotation. Now I’m enjoying them with leggings and boots and with less fear of flashing at school pick-up. I think my favourite part of this skort idea is you’ve got everyone guessing ‘are they?’ or ‘aren’t they?’. And then you give them one of these…

Sizing:  Sometimes I like to play the game called ‘outsmarting sizing charts’. It usually starts with ignoring my measurements and choosing a size based on, um, ‘sewers intuition’. And it generally ends well with patterns from the big four, which seem to come with lots of ease, but the risks are higher with independent pattern companies where the sizing is unique to each. So, even though I measured a medium I cut a small in good faith. Which would have been fine if I actually did cut the small. Instead of a small at the front and a LARGE at the back. Don’t ask. One of those days when you know you shouldn’t be anywhere near a sewing machine. Anyway, I didn’t take heed and also melted a huge section of the waistband with a too-hot iron and broke the zip the first time I put it in. The weirdest thing with all that hybrid sizing is they fit like a dream (though the side seams are noticeably towards the front). Which leads me to believe I should have cut the medium in the first place! Ho hum.

The verdict: The Tania culottes are sassy and fabulous and very wearable! But don’t think that just because they go by the name ‘short’s’ that you’re going to be offered any sort of protection against knicker flashing. Maybe there was a disclaimer somewhere I didn’t read: Wear on windy days at your own risk. Megan Nielsen Patterns assumes no responsibility for grievances caused by Marilyn moments…

Get all the shorty action here and here!

6/10 Petit a Petit and Family and Shwin & Shwin

6/11 Delia Creates and Buzzmills

6/12 Cirque du Bebe and Sanae Ishida

6/13 Fake It While You Make It and elsie marley

6/14 No Big Dill and Max California and Designs by Sessa

6/17 girl inspired and Casa Crafty

6/18 Frances Suzanne and Caila Made

6/19 Made by Rae and Craftstorming

6/20 Noodlehead and emmyloubeedoo

6/21 Siestas & Sewing and Made with Moxie

6/24 imagine gnats and small + friendly

It’s here! It’s here! I’m so excited to have made it into the final week of Project Sewn and the butterflies in my belly are procreating at a fast pace. If these past few rounds weren’t intense already, things amped up to whole new level with this sew. I hooray-ed. I cried. I sewed up late, early morning, ate pizza for breakfast and let the dishes pile up. I’m fairly sure Archie had more tuckshop lunches during this one week than I had in the whole of primary school!

The final Project Sewn theme was ‘Your Personal Style’, which I have to say is something I’m putting more thought into now that I’m trying to smash out a hand-made wardrobe. Color is my big love and I find it fascinating how some can lift your mood or make you look flat and especially how different colors suit different skin tones. When I’m not holding the stash up against my face in the mirror, I’m being drawn to pretty prints, patterns and geometric designs and fabrics with interesting textures. Now, to sum my personal style with a totally lame catchphrase it would be a Geometric, Minimalistic, Texture-Fest!

So being the big one and all, I just pretended I had much longer than four days and went for it! I’ve had an idea in mind all summer long for a four pieced, chevron mini skirt made from this hand-loomed cotton. Hand-loomed sounds fancy but it’s really just a heavily woven, gnarly sort of texture, probably meant for home dec and not minis. It feels really rough and raw and straight away I saw it looking lovely paired with something smooth and silky. I had the weeniest 45″ x 17″ remnant (basically the width of the skirt from waist to hem) out of which to cut four panels, with the front two chevron pieces being cut on their sides and taking up more room again. There were less than a handful of scraps left.

I drafted the pattern for this skirt based on the shape of one I own. Beaming! I started with the chevron first. It took a few goes to line up the stripes, especially tricky with a 2/8″ thick fabric. The front seam was doing some weird pucker thing, so I attached cotton stay tape. All the seams had to be pressed open, and sewn flat against themselves to sit flat underneath the silk lining. The back darts were an afterthought and made the fit so much better but in future I will remember to add them pre-attaching lining. Painstaking! I wanted a 15″ metal coil zip and could only get a 16″ which left enough room for the top seams but er, not for any hem at all. I couldn’t fold it over, or attach bias tape so I had to turn it into a feature and blanket stitch a hem with a cute contrast thread. Which made for a neat feature in the end!

Well, this little blazer goes down as the hardest thing I’ve ever EVER sewn. I didn’t realize blazers were the sort of garment you’d learn to sew over a month, calmy, methodically and probably in something sturdy. Not slippery silk. But jumping in, blissfully unaware of what I had taken on was a good thing. I was worried about sewing welt pockets with silk, but they behaved themselves. Plus they’re faux so the welt is real but there’s no pocket bag. The main fabric one of my fav pieces in the stash, being a geometric print and in tones that make me swoon! I tried out the Ralf Pink pattern for a casual ‘tuxedo’ jacket that hangs loose without buttons. It’s a really nice style and I think it would suit a whole range of fabrics. It’s fully lined (I found a chartreuse crepe de chine) with welted pockets and two pieced sleeves. Which I made use of and color-blocked.

It was a good move to tackle the skirt at the start of the week while I had energy and motivation and leave the blazer with it’s nice set of instructions till later. By Sunday, I was at the end of my tether and blowing things out of proportion. I literally had one seem to go on the blazer and felt like I never wanted to see it again because one particular section wasn’t sitting flat. I had my meltdown, made a few calls, got a few pep talks and dealt with the beast seam! I was so close to finishing and totally exhausted and really all it needed was a good press. Edge of your seat sewing drama people, complete with waterworks!

 So there you have it, print, pattern, geometrics and delicious colors makes this my ultimate outfit! Oh. My. I hope there is some sort of prize for including a triangle in 3 out of 4 outfits? Thankyou for all your encouragement and for voting me this far…now is where it counts! Best of luck to Andrea and Jess! The final week of voting is now open at Project Sewn…

These are not leggings. Do you read? NOT leggings! Just making it known we are not in the presence of an elasticated waist here. So for the purpose of Project Sewn and the fact that I was about to cut into this delicious floral ponte knit, I just bit the bullet and attempted my first ever pair of ‘real’ pants with the whole shebang…zippered fly, front pockets, back yoke, back pockets, belt loops, and waist band. I’ve been avoiding pants for a while now, it’s just seemed easier to buy some that already fit. But the ponte was amazing to work with and totally forgiving when it came to getting a super snug fit. They feel like a legging on, but with all the details of a pair of jeans. And I cannot tell you how good it felt to cut into something meaty after all that silk.

It was a toss up between Burda 7214 and Burdastyle skinny pants until I realised how un-fun it would be trying to put in a zippered fly for the first time without lots of pictures. So I went with Burda since they are more generous with diagrams, and made version A with mods. I sized down (sewers intuition), took in the sides and tapered the lower leg for a skinny fit. Next I shrunk and moved the back pockets which started off bigger than a butt cheek (so unflattering) and took a huge wedge out of the centre back. I couldn’t figure out why they would make the ‘knee band’s in the original pattern wrap all around and half way up the thigh. I adjusted the size and moved them to sit on the knee, where they should. But not before quilting chevrons into the top. Had to sneak in a triangle somewhere.

For the top I used a merino double knit and I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t sewing with the weather in mind. Winter has snuck up and long sleeves were a good call. I started with this princess seamed pattern, drafted some suitably 80’s sleeves from a top of mine and added an chunky exposed zip, for some punk. I really do love peplums and just assumed they were some cool trend of the new millennium. I didn’t realize they were an 80’s original. It’s one of those trends you either love or hate but being under-endowed in the hip department I like all the extra volume they add.

I guess 80’s week wouldn’t be complete with at least some melodrama. My machine decided to have it’s first ever break down mid way through this top. Leaving me with abandonment issues and no choice but to finish the rest with the serger. Including the exposed zip. Did you know that was even possible? I didn’t and if I hadn’t been sewing a knit I’d have been royally screwed. There was literally no time left and it was either try the serger or turn up for photos with half an outfit. Which might have been taking 80’s raunch too far? So there you have it. An 80’s get-up with two pieces I’ll definitely be wearing again as separates. Probably with smaller hair. Now before you rush off, this is the last week of voting before finals week, only the top three go through eeek! If you think my 80’s ensemble is deserving then run, don’t walk over to Project Sewn and vote…

If you happened to get a little preview via your blog reader yesterday, I hope you enjoyed yourself…while I was having a heart attack on the other end! It’s the stuff of nightmares, accidently hitting the ‘publish’ button on a post before you’re ready. And of course it was the actual Project Sewn post I was working on! Anyway, suffice to say, it was the end of another big week and I was not on my game come post writing time…

 This week’s Project Sewn theme was a Sundress. An awesome theme. Who doesn’t love a sundress? I know I do. Though living in the sub-tropics they come with certain criteria. Easy to chuck on, must be lycra-free and the more holes the better…got to have good air flow.

I was kind of relieved to begin this week’s challenge with a clearer idea of where my sundress was headed. I was inspired by this fabric, a luscious silk floral that I won two meters of from Tessuti fabrics last year. Still pinching myself. And the print being so perfectly springtime, it was always going to end up as a floaty and flirty something. I recently made up the Victory Pattern’s ‘Satsuki’ dress(not yet blogged) and thought it would make the perfect base pattern for my sundress. I love the commodious kimono sleeves and the loose fit cinched in only by the waist tie, making it all ‘tight enough to show you’re a woman, loose enough to show you’re a lady’. Is that how it goes? The plan was to give it a major sprucing with cut-outs in the front and a strappy lattice of triangles in the back. Okay, it’s out, I like triangles.

Okay so I had the ‘what’ figured out, but the ‘how’…guesswork and a whole lotta trial and error. I started by deciding on the dimensions for the front triangles then re-drafted the front neckline (left) to include the cut-outs, changing it from V-neck to round neck in the process. Working out the seaming vs cutting lines here was a little tricky and this template (left) was my third attempt. The next step was re-drafting the back neckline to a deep V, and then both the front and back facings (middle). A proud moment considering less than two weeks ago I would have been all ‘re-what-ing?!’. The original pattern includes facings, which I think makes for a beautiful finish so I knew I wanted to keep using them here. I just figured that backing the front cut-outs with facing, rather than say, folding the edges under or similar, would make them sit nice and sturdy and there’d be no need for top-stitching, which I wanted to keep to a minimum.

Aaaaah the back. Now this architectural feat of construction that is the triangle lattice was more fiddly and time consuming than anything. I made the straps from pieces cut on the grain, not bias since I didn’t want this part to have any movement. Then it was a matter of lying it all flat and piecing it together. Like assembling an Ikea cabinet without the manual. The most brainstraining bits were making sure the triangles ended up a similar size, figuring out which order to place the straps in and then sewing them on, one entire side at a time to sandwich them between the back facing and the back main piece. Lastly I bound the neckline to join the triangles together in the front and hold the lattice up in the back. But first I bound the whole thing in stretch bias and it wouldn’t hold the back lattice up. Then I did the whole thing in non stretch binding and the front sat lumpy. By which time I was running out of scraps to make more binding! I literally used the last few pieces to make two separate bindings, a stretchy one for the front and non stretch for the back. Presto!

 I’m enjoying leaving the overlocker out of things for the moment and went for French seams again. And used rolled hems all over. Well that, my friends, is it. And I officially have no more to say about this sundress except that I love it just so! And maybe, hopefully, you LOVE IT TOO! In which case you should definitely hop on over to PROJECT SEWN and wield your voting wand…

A hundred and one doodles, four patterns and three muslins later I think I’m officially broken into Project Sewn. This is a big deal, coming from a girl who’s typical stance on muslins is ‘life is too short’. Now I can see they have their place but only when one is chopping into prized woodland critter silk and hoping not to get voted off the island!!

Now I am no fashion illustrator but getting ideas down on paper really helped to reign in the flood of black and white. I narrowed it down from several pages to a few designs and ended up going with my original instinct to keep it simple: Clean lines, blocked shapes. Let the fabric do the talking. Or bleating and scurrying, I suppose.

But lets start at the beginning…this week’s theme was Black and White! Did you sew at home?  My sewing week began with the realization that I didn’t actually have a week. Minus three days of work and it was more like four days…to plan, trace, cut, muslin, sew and photograph. True to calculation I finished with half an hour to spare before photos and only because I covered the buttons at Archie’s circus class and sewed them on at the hairdresser. I found being limited color-wise challenging and refreshing. I had to dig deeper to try and come up with something interesting/beautiful in two colors (if you can call them that) that I actually don’t own or wear very much. But I knew, straight up, it was time to break out the woodland printed silk crepe de chine from Spoonflower. I’ve been saving it for something special!

The next question was what to do it? Something to go with rust skirt was a given. And I wanted to sew a piece that I’d love and wear forever, or hopefully beyond May. I could totally see myself getting swept up in making something ‘comp worthy’ but never wear it again. So I conducted a little change room ‘research’, by which I mean trying on this blouse and had an epiphany! Blouses and shirts, for me, are daywear and it’s got to do with collars and fit. But this one was handsome and feminine, like a girly tuxedo. And a definite after 5-er. I wanted in. Color-blocking is one of my fav trends at the moment and the perfect way to let the print stand out here. As you could imagine it was inspiration overload so I had to cull like a boss to come up with this list:

 Pussy Bow Blouse // High Low Blouse // Wiksten Tank // Asymmetric Blouse

 Four patterns…didn’t you believe me? This is how you make do sans drafting skills. Pilfer a sleeve from here, pinch a hem from there. Nothing to it. Okay, I lie, there was a lot to it. As well as adjustments to all the parts: sleeves lengthened, width taken out of shoulders, cuffs narrowed, front hem lengthened, seam allowances added to sleeves but not body. Hence the three muslins. The hardest part was deciding on a pattern to use for the base and being time poor it would have made sense to use something familiar. But the Pussybow blouse was all ‘casual’ and ‘shirty’ where I wanted ‘dashing’ so I went with the PPB’s sleeker sister, the Burdastyle High Low blouse. Mostly for its little hardly-a-collar and conveniently lowered back hem.

Oh, so many decisions! What kind of seams? French. Thick or thin cuffs? Thin. Interface both layers of collar or one? One. Should the triangle point up or down? Up. Contrasting buttons or not? Not. Plastic buttons or covered? Covered. What sized buttons? Small and inconspicuous. Should I go vacuum? No. And on it went. I can foresee my sticking point will be knowing when to let things go. With a day to finish the collar, front placket, hems and buttonholes and faced with ‘to French seam or not to French seam’ the armholes, I went the frenchies. Yup, totally busted my butt for beautiful seams that only my armpits will see.

Totes proud of my collar! I ‘stitched in the ditch’ instead of a top-stitch for a neater finish. The sleeve plackets went swimmingly, glad though that this was not my first attempt. They’re not scary but I get confused easily so this tutorial was helpful. This particular sized self-cover button didn’t come with a press in tool so I had to stitch around the outside and pull on the thread to gather the circle of fabric tight around the buttons. A new experience, but probably how buttons used to be made, come to think of it.

And then the pieced back panel whipped my butt! I lined up the edges, sewed to the point, flipped it over to the right side and there was this huge pucker above the tip. I was just like ‘WHAT is THAT and why is it HERE?!’. But after inspecting closely, the mystery wedge looked like it could be pinched out and sewn like a dart. You can’t even see the seam unless you’re looking for it or wondering why that particular deer has a pointy rump. As an after thought I attached cotton stay tape to triangle seams so hopefully they hold their shape over time.

Proud much? Um, yes! For only chucking a modest tanty over buttonhole foot being a jerk and sewing one cuff beautifully then refusing the other. Stitching that buttonhole entirely by hand! Lining up all the color blocking. Getting the rolled hems to sit flat around the curves. Making an army of muslins. What I’m most proud of is attempting something where I had no idea until I tried it on at the end whether it was going to be amazing or not so. What a week! It was intense. It was fun. Now it’s up to you. If you’d like to see my next Project Sewn creation you have to VOTE, right HERE, right now. Do it for the critters!!