Completed: Simplicity 2442

Finally, a finished garment made entirely in 2015! This is my take on Simplicity 2442.

Simplicity 2442 to match my shoes

We were invited by John's aunt to her 60th Birthday party in a fancy country club near Howwood, Renfrewshire. Whereas I have a few things I could have worn I reckoned that my skills were good enough now that I wanted to try and make something myself. Plus I wanted a dress to match my shoes :-)

I made this dress up in View B cutting out a size 12. Stupidly I didn't read the fabric requirements right and forgot about the lining. So instead of 2.2 m of fabric and .7 m of lining for the 45" width I only bought 3 m of 36" brocade from remnant kings. It was on sale so was about £5.20 a metre. it's similar to but not the same as this. There were a few panicked hours when I thought i may have to return to the shop to buy another half metre, but thankfully things worked out.

Making use of someone elses heating bill! We spent the afternoon in the hotel

Then there was the issue that the midriff section came in about 3 inches too narrow so extra fabric had to be added. I don't reckon that you can really notice though, and no one commented last night that there were strange seamlines on the back waist!

In terms of constrution, this dress took all week. I traced off all the pattern pieces Monday and Tuesday and eventually started sewing on Wednesday. I eventually finished up on Saturday afternoon around 2:30. We left shortly after 3!

I like the fact that simplicity patterns seem to have a narrower back than most other pattern companies so i didnt need any adjustments there. Had I had a little longer to make the dress I would have muslind first to check on any back length adjustment however as time was of the essence I didn't and I did. Fortunately when it was sitting where it should it added really nicely to the ruching on the midriff.

The instructions provided for this make were a little shoddy to say the least! So if you do make this dress beware leave extra 'comprehension' time! I'm not sure I followed all exactly as stated but the outside turned out ok! The instructions also leave it a little messy around the zip insertion so if I were to ever make this up again I would change that.

The Elliot Dress

Finally, after making up teh full dress it was apparent that it was VERY low cut! This is why I have a lace detailing in the front to give a little extra coverage. I quite like the lace and think it actually adds to the finished dress.

So hope everyone had a great weekend we got some sad news that one of John's school friends sadly passed away on Saturday night after a long battle with cancer. So in a small act of rememberance I named this dress in his memoryadn wil be donating a small sum to the people who helped in his final months.

Rest in Peace Calum Elliot 1988 - 2015

Jen x

Sewing Plans 2015

So its January the 12th and my sewing machine is still sitting neglected on the table. I have cut out a full pattern though so i'm hoping i'll get to relax tonight with a bit of sewing and have a brand new garment for Saturday night. We're off to a 60th so what better excuse to make a new dress? I'm going down a slightly different route from normal so i'll let you all know how it turns out. Over the weekend I dug up the rest of our new year photos and found some good ones! This is one of my favourites:

Needless to say I felt like a princess in this! I found myself with serious wardrobe envy and managed to borrow steal the most awesome Arabian handmade dress ever for an impromptu photo shoot. I also got a great one of the two of us:

I also found the evidence of our bobsleding:

But suffice to say you didn't come here to read about my holiday right? So after a very productive 2014 in which I learned a whole bunch of new skills and tackled a whole host of garments including 3 jackets - what are my plans for 2015?

1. A new jacket for spring!

After tackling the Robson for my mum last year I am going to take learned skills and make a second for myself. I have bought the fabric already, I just need to trace off the larger size and check on any other alterations.

2. My birthday dress! No idea of the style yet, but we got free tickets to the football. So a warm one which will be pub appropriate before afterwards :-D Is the end of March too late in the year for a sweater dress? Can one have too many tartan dresses? This will be a Scotland friendly and the ideas are needing seriously narrowed!

3. We might be having some friends over in May. What better way to dress the guest room than with a handmade quilt? I'm not sure yet if I'll just make the air bed guest happy or if I will tackle our king sized bed!

4. Festival gear. We are off to a Rory Gallacher tribute festival (also in May).

Click image for source

I got the concert tee in the perfect pattern parcel last year so this could come in handy :-). I will wait a while before buying fabric though, hopefully some lighter jersey fabrics will be in the stores by then!

5. A swimsuit :-D (Potentially also festival gear :-p)

Source

 I assembled the bombshell pattern at some point last year but then somehow it got shunted off the top of the pile. I can't imagine that anyone has ever had this problem. ahem.

6. My final target, trousers!

Source

I bought the Thurlows in the PDF sale before Christmas. They have been partially cut out. This will be my first fly fastening as well as first trouser experiment. I'm expecting a number of muslins for this.

So there we go. I don't think this is too ambitious, and purposefully only set a few targets however only time will tell!

I love reading posts with peoples plans - please leave a link in the comments if you have written such a post

Jen x

Happy New Year!

Hello all! I hope the new year has been good to you! We had a fantastic new year in Latvia which i would not change for the world! We rung in the bells on one of the bridges over the Daugava and had a fabulous time sharing traditions both familiar and new to us. This is about the best of the photos!!

 Resulting from my travels, my sewing machine has not stitched a stitch since Christmas eve! I have a number of projects I'm excited to finish, and am slowly learning the art of prioritising!

So through lack of any new sharable projects, heres a quick round up of my favourite makes of 2014:

No.5
My first Bronte top. 

This was one of my few me mades to have made it to Latvia. (We flew ryan air and didn't want to pay to take 2 cases so we shared 1 and squished in a thermal wardrobe :-p.) The fabric is so warm and it layered really well with my winter wardrobe!

No. 4
My Christmas Cambery

The fabric faded a little with washing however this dress got so much wear over Christmas and the fit was pretty good. i love everything about this dress and hopefully it will still fit next Christmas!

No.3
My first pieced quilt.

By no means perfect but I love it and don't have to justify why :-p. It's  so damn snuggly :-)

No. 2
My first Chataigne shorts

 Along with my Bronte above these also made it to Latvia. Because they are wool they are really warm and went really well with my top for my Hogmanay outfit. The zip is beginning to come loose however a little TLC and these will be right as reign in no time.

Finally my No. 1 favourite:
my Minoru Jacket!

In it's limited existance this jacket has had so much wear and is steadying up to be a true wardrobe staple!

So thats it from me today, I hope everyone had a great new year and all the best for 2015 :-)

JCS xx

Complete: A Christmas Cambery

Q. What do you get when you cross the Sewaholic Cambie bodice with the Christine Haynes Emery skirt?

A. A Cambery dress of course!

so here is my Christmas Cambery dress, a combination of patterns that I am sure to use again.  This pattern combination came about due to an engineering challenge that i set myself...failure to buy enough fabric for the really gathered and voluminous cambie skirt!

I have made up the cambie before however can't really wear it because of 'slight' errors that were incorporated when assembling the pdf pattern - somehow the waistband ended up about 15 mm too short and thus leaves me with a dress unsuitable for christmas dinner. I do really like the dress so after the festive season i'll throw some pictures together.

So based upon my previous cambie make I decided that this would be my Christmas dress of choice this year and when I saw this fabric decided that they would make a great match. I had enough to make the bodice and a skirt and some of the lining. The fabric was bought here at the village haberdashery and was £4 per fat quarter so that helped persuade me that only 1.5 m would be enough for a dress. Which it was, just not the Cambie.

The awesome lining material used for the pocket bag

In terms of changes, I removed my usual wedge from the back and made the dress up as per instructions only using the slightly different skirt and only one pocket...BIG mistake! I miss my second pocket :'(. The front two lining panels and sleeves are made up with the reindeer fabric however the back two are the same fabric as I used to line my minoru. There's still some left which will make an appearance soon no doubt!

I think I need a hook and eye here...

In terms of changes for the next time, I plan on removing 1 cm from the back length.  The bodice bunches a little however nothing compared to my coco so not such a drastic change. I love the sweetheart neckline and think it hits just at the right height.

I love a good christmas party dress especially now I can make my own  :-)

I hope everyone is having a great party season I went for my second Christmas dinner the other day - a Japanese restaurant in Glasgow's merchant city, last official trip into town completed! I'm  kind of glad that i'm avoiding town right now after such sad events yesterday - the only thing to take from this is that we as a city will get through this - we always do. People here have great community spirit and look out for each other no matter what.

Take care guys. Stay safe.
Jen xx

A Completed Coco

To prepare for my impending trip to London I decided that I would make up a new Tilly and the Buttons Coco.

The Coco dress pattern turned out so much better while using a heavier ponte knit than the really drapey ponte that i used the last time. I liked the fabric however it most certainly was the wrong choice - that being said I have had a lot of wear out of it!

This time though, instead of cutting the size 5 and  taking it in I cut out the 4 straight off. This size seems to fit exactly how I would like it to in terms of ease. I omitted the pockets and cuffs - this dress had more structure than the last so I didn't need to add interest in form of the cuffs.

Another change which I made during the construction of this dress was to include a seam on the Centre back. As the pattern stands, you cut both front and back on the fold. In this case in an effort to minimise the fabric used and to try and squeeze in a skirt from the scraps I cut the back piece on the straight grain not on the fold adding 5/8 inch to the seam allowance on each side. I think this worked well. Using 60 " wide fabric I managed to get the front and rear pieces next to each other on the same width of the fabric. I never redrew the pattern piece though with the seam allowance in so I'll add this in to my pattern now that I know it works so well and saves a ton of fabric.

In making up this dress I realised that in actual fact when making any subsequent versions that i will have to shorten the back length as the back kept wrinkling due to the fact the waist as I had sewn it wanted to sit higher than it hit on the garment. I couldn't tell from the last version that this would be an issue.

In terms of the fabric used for this project, I used a flocked ponte knit - it came in about £7 /m from Remnent Kings. I was told at the time 'do not machine wash or teh flocking will come off' I totally failed to take heed, washed it anyway and this was the result. Hence my coc was constructed using the wrong side of the fabric as the outside. However I care not. I got a nice dress out of it :-)

This is what happens when you don't listen to washing instructions

So all in all a succesful project. I'm 100 % confident that next time i'll have a coco that chanel would be proud of ;-)

Have a good weekend guys -  I'm off to a friends for pre christmas drinks :-D. What is anyone else up to?

JCS xx

Completed: Minoru Jacket

Hey Hey Hey y'all

I totally think I have a new favorite Me Made :-D

I've finally finished my Minoru coat :-D and just in the nick of time it would seem!!

The fabric I used for this jacket was a deep blue cotton drill from Mandors - it was quite cheap at about £6.99 /m and for the lining I used the silver version of the red paisley used here. This was slightly cheaper at about £5.99 /m.Based upon the instructions I bought about 3 m of each however next time I'll scrimp and buy less as I had enough leftovers to easily fit in my Delphine skirt. The zips for the jacket did work out a little more expensive than I would like however to be totally honest  itison had a promotion for mandors so I ended up with £20 off the total for the jacket :-D

We went across the road to take these photos - theresa huge park next to the motorway with a number of interesting features including this fountain

I didn't want to make a muslin for this because after the delay with the skirt project, I wanted my coat NOW!!! So using what was probably a bit of a foolhardy method of sizing I based the size to cut on the Robson Trench I made for my mum a while back. The majority of that was made up in a size 8 and as it was a little too tight I went for the size 10 and it fits (mostly) perfectly!

There is a litle excess fabric sitting just abouve the waistband

One thing that i have definately noticed this year and especially recently since I have paid more attention to fit, is that I seem to have a short back length (enquiries would pin the blame on the paternal side of my family!). This wasn't an adjustment I made for this coat and after wearing it a bit is definately one that ill be making in the future - not a huge adjustment maybe only a 1/2 an inch but enough for the waist to sit right.

I have to admit that i was a bit daunted about inserting the elastic into the waistband here but I shouldn't have worried. the instructions were really clear and the sewalong was there to reassure that all steps were followed correctly!  

This pic is totally an out take - I wasnt so aware that this was being taken!!

In terms of changes to the pattern, I added a lining to the hood and that's the extent of deviation. I remember seeing a post somewhere about adding a hood however didn't realise there was instructions in the sewalong until too late... the result was I folded the hood over like the instructions and just slipped the lining in underneath. Another change ill make the next time is shrinking the hood a little - pictorial evidence below!

One other change which I will make up the next time  is that ill add side seam pockets. i keep going to dip my hands in there and there's nothing :-( haha. I'll probibly just use the robson pockets as they work quite well for a jacket.

So all in all a great jacket that has received a number of compliments and even disbelief from some that I would venture into making a jacket. I really love this jacket and definately think it shows me how much I have improved over this time last year.

Thanks for reading and hope everyone has had a great weekend. I went to my gran's advent fair on saturday and ate my bodyweight in scrummy cake! Did anyone else do anything fun?

Take care
JCS xx

Spoils of Goldhawk Road

Just a quick post today while i'm waiting for my next natural light photo op...

I thought that I would share some of the fabric which I picked up while in London last weekend. While this trip wasn't dedicated completely to fabric shopping I managed to squeeze in an hour before we somehow ended up spending all afternoon in Harrods ( the Christmas windows were epic and we did loose a good 40 mins to outside the shop....!)

While it is possible to obtain a large number of fabrics here in Glasgow I have never come across wax print cottons. That is not to say they don't exist however I just haven't found them... so without further ado:

All 4 wax prints

 I picked up 4 in total all 6 yards long and rather narrow.

This one said it was Kim Wax and is probably my favourite - no prizes for guessing what I'm planning on making with this one...

 Slightly larger pictures of the other 4:

 I really love the vibrant print of this one and think the blue and pink would make a great party dress.

I'm really looking forward to working with these cottons and hopefully will have used at least one by Christmas :-D
 As I said - just a quick post today. hope you guys are all well and enjoying the week :-)

Take care JCS xx