Wednesday 26 August 2015

Completed: New Look 1467 View A

Good morning!

Just in time for Me Made May I completed this NL 1467 top which I got free with Sew Magazine. I photographed this earlier in the summer - but summer got lost (and my camera died)! I managed to grab a few shots not long before we left our flat and have sourced them from the chaos of stuff :-D.



This pattern is a wardrobe pack with a few options for a skirt, trousers, top and peplum jacket. Whereas I wasn't all that fussed with the other options I was quite taken by the top - I really liked the yoke feature and it looked like it would work well when I was having a fat day as after the shoulders it is not fitted.

The top looks like it works well with drapey fabrics and so I made it up using this fabric from Remnant Kings . I think the fabric was a good choice as it gives the drape that I was after however I'm not entirely happy with the fit. Based on the provided sizing I cut a 12. As you can see in the pictures the top is really loose around the neckline where it should be fitted and too tight around the bustline where there should be a 1/2 inch ease. I think I need to cut the smaller size and perform my now usual FBA. As usual the instructions from New Look were spot on - although with only 4 pattern pieces I can't really see how they could muck them up :-)


Never the less I really like this top and I have had a lot of wear out of it around the house. I do find that this top likes to create a lot of static and I have to be really careful when wearing it! I think I will have another bash at this in the spring when all the nice drapey fabrics are back in the shops and with the identified changes and I will hopefully have a nice top I can wear to the office.


 I'm not all that happy with the fabric available at the moment and have had a few fruitless trips to my favourite haunts. Although I did pick up a really lovely black linnen which I'm hoping to make into some trousers - my last attempt at trousers went really wrong. I think this was because the fabric I used was too light - does this seem like it could be the cause? Hopefully I will have the trousers that my wardrobe requires or I will have to go on a spending spree in the next few weeks, before starting my new job, to next where the RTW seem to fit perfectly!

I hope everyone has had a fab summer - it seems that a good few of you have been jetting off places :-)

Take care
Jen xx

Monday 17 August 2015

A Small Break from Sewing

This last few weeks has been utter chaos! We finished up July with a trip away to Aviemore for the Gentleman of the road festival and enjoyed 72 hours of pissing rain! The Friday when we arrived the weather was so bad we queued for drinks tokens then went back to our cozy cottage and an amazing party in the dry. In all we spent less than two hours at the festival that night. In a rare break from the thunderous downpours we managed to get a couple of pictures - I even wore one of  my favourite  makes which seems to have stood the test of time :-)

The Saturday was only a litle better however had stopped raining by about 6pm so we managed to head down to see Primal Scream drunkenly forget their words and Mumford and sons headline. I was seriously not impressed by the state of the mud. :-( . It was a great weekend though and would definitely consider a festival again as long as there was a non-camping option!! As illustrated below the mud was ridiculous:-/


Not only have we been away to excessively muddy festivals, but we moved house! A move that has been bubbling away since the start of June.

It means that I now have a dedicated sewing space that I hope to fix up and tidy up so I can get back to sewing! There are a number of things wrong with the room as it stands - not least the AWFUL lamp shade! The furniture will go as soon as I have a buyer on gumtree then I hope to obtain some more suitable furniture and have a space to be proud of :-)

So that's whats been happening in my world of late :-). We should have the internet up and running this evening so I can return to my long neglected blogroll! Hope everyone had a great summer - doesn't seem like 7 weeks ago that the schools near us broke up O.o I'm certainly looking forward to getting back to sewing and will hopefully have a project finished for this months monthly stitch challenge :-D

Take care
Jenn :-)

Wednesday 12 August 2015

Completed: Another Camberie

This was a dress that was never meant to be a dress!


The other week I was digging through the large bag which has become my leftover fabric dumping ground to see if there was any way in which I could reduce its size and get some use out of something! Well what I found turned out to be the first ever muslin of my emery bodice and some lovely floral poplin from my first ever cambie. Two pieces which I reckoned had potential to be saved from the bag of doom! There was a good amount of fabric left from the cambie but in a strange L shape so my options were very limited - there certainly wasn't enough for a full gathered or pleated skirt and definitely not enough for a full dress!


I knew that one option that would work with the piece of fabric I had would be a pencil type skirt and I reckoned that with some coaxing I could fix up the bodice muslin and make a pretty summer dress. The initial muslin had been made up using black thread and a purple zip crudely affixed at the back. an hour and a half later the bodice had been resewn, re darted and the zip had been removed. The back neckline darts aren't perfect but I cant see them so it works for me :-) I also decided that I would try another exposed zipper. A feature that I really like right now.


For the skirt I revisited a favorite pattern - the sewaholic cambie. (I'm pondering a few changes for my next bodice, I love that top but the area under the bust could do with some curved darts methinks) I have never tried the variation A skirt and it looked like it would fit perfectly on the remaining fabric. I cut a size 10 based on the waist measurement, however it quickly became apparent that I could have made up the 8.

There are a few things wrong with the dress - most apparently those awful bust darts - more time and care next time I think. There is also a bit of extra fabric making an appearance at the back too. not in the usual place but more of an all over effect...That can easily be fixed with a cardi right!!
Todays outtake!!

I'm not sure exactly if and when I will get round to wearing this dress the fit isn't wonderful and I seem to be carrying a bit of extra weight again. I blame the stresses of moving house and finishing a thesis!

Hopefully everyone is doing well - I hope to catch up on my reading list soon and be back to sewing by the weekend! It feels dead weird to have my machine in a box and doing nothing!

Take Care
Jenn xx