Completed: New Look 6020

Hola!
After declaring that I had not much time for sewing, my production seemed to take an upturn! This dress came together relatively quickly once I had a spare few hours to actually sew it! I even managed to get my overlocker overlocking properly again - somehow the left needle thread had worked its way out of the tension disks :-s. oh well sorted it now is :-)

So with both of my machines fully working, making up this dress from scratch was actually a fairly painless experience :-D. Fairly. I want to make a dress for my cousins wedding at the end of June and have decided to use this pattern and make the necessary changes over a number of wearable muslins before making up the final version in some lovely red crepe I bought in Edinburgh fabrics. I'll share each iteration as I learn to get a perfect fit on this one.

The fabric was a 45" wide cotton from Mandors. I realised at the last minute that I didn't actually have any fabric that was appropriate for a first run of the dress so spent ages lurking all the new bolts which have recently appeared. I felt the flowers on this print stood out more than a regular floral.

This pattern called for facings and as I really dislike facings I decided that I would try and fully line this dress - skirt and all.

Partial fail on the white lining here...

For this I just made up two identical dresses. I had to think a bit about the construction order a little but it went together OK. I attached both dresses at the zip and then pressed the other armhole and neckline under by 5/8" and top stitched. Not the neatest finishing ever but the print hides it a bit. Next time round I am going to finish the armholes with a bias binding facing - much less lazy and a far better finish. I might actually just finish this version with a binding. Maybe. I altered the other half's jeans the other night and it wasn't actually all that bad...

I ended up with a fair amount of gape all around the neckline - I think this is something to do with both my requirement for a narrow shoulder adjustment and the fact it may have stretched while under construction as well as I get the inkling that I cut the size too big. (oh well that's why I didn't cut straight into my crepe....) So in the back I added two darts - which turned out a little too narrow and   took out 3/4" length out of the shoulders; on the front I am debating some front darts. I have already taken a wedge out the back paper pattern piece for my next run. Finally I removed quarter of an inch from the back length with another quarter inch marked onto the pattern pieces for next time.

I had no idea how to expression an extreme close up...

One thing that I liked about the dress is it is more like a tea dress than other styles I have tried. This dress sits under my knee and it took a while but I think i'm used to it! I'm kind of feeling the length right now however will no doubt loose some of it for version 2. Or lengthen it the jury is out on full length, I do love a maxi however the wedding is in the South of England....

I  also wore this as my birthday dress the other week (imperfections and all and as a result I'm almost set on trying the size down) - so that is item #2 off my 2015 plan scored off! yay!

Hope your all sewing up a storm :-)

Jen xx

Completed: Sewaholic Granville Shirt Sans Sleeves

I greet you all today with the news that I have secured myself a new job! My PhD funding officially came to it's conclusion today...and my summer job starts umm....tomorrow!! To tell the truth it's with the same people I have done my PhD with and I'm still working in the same department however I am now no longer a student and therefore have to pay adult bills like council tax :-(. Ahh well the run had to end sometime!!!

So before the news of the new job came about I decided the best way for a pick-me-up was to buy fabric. I bought 1 m of cotton lawn with a slightly different top in mind however at the last minute changed my mind and decided to make a Granville. But due to fabric constraints it would have to be sleeveless! Not a style that I have ever worn before however I wanted to at least give it a try - after all I managed to waste the other 1.5 m on a top which looked so dreadful that I turned it into a cover for my over locker :-\

The fabric I used was this blue lawn which I think was £8/m. It handled really well and to be honest as I was being super lazy making this up I finger pressed most of the seams. And they held! Based on my measurements and the finished measurements I cut a 10 - and I think the fit is ok! There are a few areas that I want to tweak but then this is more of a wearable muslin so these were to be expected. I do however really like the way the sewaholic patterns make up on me and given that I used this size for previous patterns I was confident that this would leave me with a shirt that was quite wearable after a first pass.

To make the shirt sleeveless I followed the directions as presented here and here. I like the fact the sewaholic blog shows pictures of how to do this as I work so much better with illustrative examples. As this was the first time I had made this shirt I really didn't have much to go on with taking length off from the shoulders and armseye so I started with an inch at the shoulder and 1 cm at the yoke like in the (sewaholic) tutorial. It seemed a legit method... When it came to adding the binding on the armholes I used 0.68 inch bias binding to the raw edge to help remove some of the excess which still existed cutting this down so that there was only about a half inch on the inside. The next time I make up this sleeveless version I will be a bit braver and cut a little more off the shoulders and armseye and add in a little at the underarm because it seems a little loose for me here.

This was my first completed shirt and I have to admit I did find the collar instructions a little confusing but I think it worked out OK - if we ignore the different coloured collar stand... When I was cutting the shirt out I didn't think this would matter too much and the stand wouldn't be too noticeable, however I'm good with a random print on print eyesore!

I did really like how the method of attaching the yoke left lots of neat internal seams! As I have only ever made the Negroni before this shirt I'm not sure if there is another alternative method which works too?

I definitely want to make up another few of these shirts with the noted fitting adjustments - maybe even a few with varying lengths of sleeves... I also need to take some of the volume of fabric out of the front - another dart maybe or even just sizing down the front pieces as the fit is quite loose here but works well on the back (save for the usual excess which I was too scared to pre-empt!). Alternatively I may use this tutorial found on the curvy sewing collective blog. All I will say on the matter of making more shirts though is before I do make any more tops I will have to start on that objective of making trousers! (Please don't judge me on the horriffic state of my ancient RTW trousers!!!)

Has anyone else made up either of the two newish sewaholic blouses? I'm really feeling the sleeveless shirt look now :-)

Take care guys and have a great easter weekend!

JCS x

Kompleted: Kim Sewalong Dress

Sorry for the title I couldn't resist.

 

I was sewing along with the Kim sewalong over at the BHL blog and today I would like to share my finished Kim. I actually have two copies of this pattern. I wasn't expecting the Kim dress as part of my kickstarter bundle, so when I saw it on pre-sale I snapped it up. I think something about their decision to stop printing the Georgia dress meant that they substituted Kim. No matter. Whatever happens the spare one will not go to waste!

I Totally added pockets to this dress! - A variation on the emery pockets, sewn into the waistline

The fabric for this dress was bought in the sale at John Lewis and is a Hemingway design which is 100 % cotton and cost around £5 /m I can't remember the exact price (I saw it subsequently in another fabric store for about £12/m so bargain!!). I bought 2 m of this fabric and used only about 1.5 m. I then cut the rest into lots of varying sized squares which I plan on using within a quilt. The other remnants have been set aside for another (still secret) project ;-). I love it when this happens as then it seems like the next project is free!

I made up a muslin of this dress using the wrap skirt around Christmas however was never too happy with the resultant fit. I transferred a few changes onto the pattern pieces however I think I still require more :-(. The muslin was mostly OK - from a few days wear I assessed that the back neckline needed a little more taking in and the straps were a little too long.

Take 2 has resulted in a dress which fitted pretty good until it came to my bust - I removed a wedge the first time which left a still gaping back so then returned and removed a little more. The dress was now an inch too narrow! I unpicked the zip and it now sits on the very edge of the fabric so I'll need to remember this if I make it up again. The tops of the straps were sewn with a 3/4" seam allowance which meant the outcome was a little snug around the back of my shoulder so maybe next time I'll drop the armseye a little? They are however the correct length now. So there's that. I think the sweetheart needs a little bit of a raise too - this isn't an unusual bra for me so the fact you can see the top of the bra suggests that this needs raising a touch. nothing major though.

The straps of this dress are still sitting too wide on my shoulders so thats another reason why you get a great view of my bra. What I'm thinking if I make version 3 is to take some width out of the CF side seams and then add it back in to the side seam of the SF piece. Another method I'm toying with is to try a narrow shoulder adjustment - however I'm not 100 % convinced that this will fix the issue as the base of the arms is still very wide. Does anyone have any thoughts on this?

One other change that I'm toying with making is to make a small sway back adjustment. This adjustment makes sense as taking the length out of the straps has lifted the waistline so that it now sits on my natural waist however seems to dip by the time the seam hits the middle of my back and bags out a little. another slight disclaimer: I made a slight error in cutting my skirt fabric - I measured the length from my waist to my knee and cut this length. Completely omitting seam allowances and hem allowances. Ooops!! So its a Kim Mini really....

So I'm mostly happy :-D however it seems that by the time the fit is 'just so' this will no longer be the Kim dress :-p. This is still very much a wearable dress although I am a bit annoyed at the zip  - it seems to line up ok at the seams however as I always find when I buy poorer quality John Lewis zips I can never get the zip invisible. *Jennifer learn from this*!!!

Did anyone else been taking part in the Kim Sew Along?

Have a good weekend all :-) (I'm currently waiting for my parents to get up so we can go on some advnture in Glasgow somewhere!)

JCS xx

Applique Felt Owl Project

So now that I'm getting to the business end of my PhD, sewing time is definitely decreasing and each project seems to be taking longer and longer! Recently instead of starting something new I have gone back and picked out my sole remaining WIP (well the last one that I'm going to salvage!!) to help clear out my sewing space and allow a more organised move forwards.

So in light of the fact I've no real photos to share on my current WIP here's a little project that I worked on for a while last year. It had been one of these ones that was ongoing in the background while I made loads of other projects as I had a very liberal timescale for this. My friend's birthday was on November the 11th and she loves owls - so i thought that this would make a great present - plus I didn't have to send this one as I visited at the end of November. I also bought the kit around mid march so was in no hurry to get things done.

This project came as a kit with everything included including stencils and a small instruction sheet.

I found this a great starter project for applique as the felt doesn't fray and is very easy to work with. All the pieces were hand stitched together with a mid grey lightweight thread. I didn't reckon that this would see much wear and tear so didn't use an expensive thread. I also used grey for appliqueing everything and did not change colours between objects because as the owls were light anyway I didn't think it showed up much at all.

In terms of quilting, I quilted along the edges of the owls, tree, leaves, stars and along the edges of the brown border. It definitely made the owls 'pop' and I'm really happy with how the whole project turned out.

I love how the back turned out - all the images are so clear :-)

One of the more tricky aspects was keeping everything straight and not glueing everything together to keep the little pieces in the right place.

Now I have tried this technique I'm really looking forward to trying it again! Does anyone have any suggestions for some more beginnerish projects?

Take care and have a great weekend folks :-)
JCS x

Completed: By Hand London Anna Dress

Back in April last year I backed By Hand London's kickstarter campaign and the other weekend while I felt really ill with my kidney infection I got the best delivery ever: a box full of patterns pins and fabric! This lifted my mood no end as I have been itching to try some of their patterns since last year when I backed them!

Before I got the delivery I had in my mind that I wanted to try the Elizalex dress first, however on a complete whim I picked the Anna pattern out of the box and traced it all out.

Lets talk about the fabric. I picked up this 3 m length of lightweight cotton from a recent trip to Ikea for the pricely sum of £10. The pink parts of the pattern were white before the prewash however a red top somehow made it into the same wash cycle...

Strange sporran esque print!

Due to my measurements I sit just above the finished sizes for a UK 14/ US 10 -so because this is the size I cut for my Kim muslin (and intended on using 1/2 inch seams however managed to use the full 5/8 seam) this is the size that I cut here too. I notionally glanced through the sewalong for the dress and spied that there was a lined version of the dress. I'm not hugely keen on facings so opted for the V-necked lined version of the dress.

The pin showing where the zip lies.

In a bold move, I inserted the zip without really checking if i would require to take the neckline in, however as it is an alteration I make on every garment I brass necked it and took the back neck in by 1.5 inches on either side and the results were perfect!

If you can get past the print the fit is really great

 I really must admit. I get the hype. Before I was a little skeptical over the BHL Anna and weather I actually liked it but this dress is so flattering and the fit is so good straight off the pattern sheets. This dress was initially only going to be a muslin however it initially fit so well I couldn't see it go to waste and there marks the start of the Dylon drama!

I  had a right headache with this fabric and where to place the print, I'm not 100 % sold on the print either. One of the main problems was that lining up wrong on the CF skirt would have left me with a sporran.... I tried a few different placements with the different pattern pieces as I didn't have enough of it to properly match the print. In fact in the end I loved the print so much I went and bought Dylon.

 Print hell this was! The placement and just the overall pattern of the fabric looked plain bad.

No gapey nackline :-D

I realised that because it was a big print with multiple colours that the dye may not take well so tried bleaching it. After two rounds of bleaching the colour of the dress was no different apart from a few faded patches and I had read that bleaching destroys the fibres of the fabric :-(.

However 2 dyes later I have a wearable dress! I finished a little early today so I tried to get some photos in what was left of the light...

I only realised that this has been ongoing for so long when I saw the photos and had had an interim haircut...

An outtake - I think someone came in the close at this point!

I must admit there are a few thngs I would tweak on this dress however nothing ~major. If I make this dress up again I definately will have to take some length out of the skirt - I cut out about an inch after I tried it on and even then took a huge hem. In addition I think i will also take an inch out of the waist - i prefer a slightly more snug fit. The final alteration I will make is to omit the sporran print fabric. I much prefer the black...

Has anyone else made up the Anna with the lining? I really prefer linings over facings I think the finish is so much neater.

Have a good week folks :-)

Jen xx

Completed: A Julia Cardigan

I had the house to myself last week while John was away up north with work. This left me with a little bit of time to make up my most recent item: A Julia Cardigan!

I picked up the pattern with one of the pattern parcels last year and recently I have seen a few cropping up over the internets. This got me thinking - I picked up a load of John Kaldor Jersey in the sale last month in Mandors  (At only £4.99 / m it was rude to leave it on the shelf...) and had been looking for something other than another Bronte to make it up into! The fabric is really light and drapey and proved a bit of a nightmare to work with!!

So based upon the sizing charts and my measurements, I made the cardigan up in a size L. I  made up the version with 3/4 sleeves and the unlined collar. This was definitely the right size to make. I think it fits well and is certainly the size I would want this type of garment to be. The only change that I would make in subsequent versions is to taper in the cuffs a little and shorten the sleeves so they hit at exactly my elbow to save me always houking them up.

Reading through the instructions I never noticed anything about stabilising the shoulders or neckline - this worried me slightly as I recently had to chuck out a holy jumper which had stretched out all over the shop and I reckon this was coz there was nothing to keep it in shape. So I went over the full neckline and shoulders with some ribbon. Will this work? - Time will tell.

Ribbon all around neckline and stitch to hold collar in place

I had a few problems sewing this up - not because of pattern pieces or instructions but with my machine. It clearly didn't like the fabric and the threads kept bunching up on the underside. I was using a ball point needle and stitch length of 2.5 - my guess is that this was a problem with the tension? It really didn't like the tension on auto and it seemed to work a bit better when I cranked this up to around 6- does anyone have any ideas?

I'm now going to let you all in on a sneeky seecret. I didn't finish a single seam OR hem it. The reason? These edges are going nowhere and I didn't want to fight any more with my machine than I had to. The only thing which I added for finishings sake was a few stitches over the centre top back seam. I put a few stitches over the seam here to stop the neck rolling back on itself and exposing the insides. I actually investigated the insides of a dress which I own with an overlay of the same type of jersey. None of these seams were finished either so clearly this is a proven technique!

The seams are going nowhere so I didn't want to overlock in red...

I like the results. I have worn the cardi a lot this weekend - it works well for the office and isn't overly warm or bulky and can be worn quite successfully under my new awesome (not me made) leather jacket - win!!

So an easy make hindered by my machines distaste for this fabric. I have around another metre of this fabric left however am a bit reluctant to use it until I've worked the issues with my machine.

Have a good week guys!

Jen xx

Completed:Nested Churn Dash Quilt

Right after Christmas when we were travelling I made a pledge to both John and myself that I would finish up all my part completed projects before even assembling another pdf file (Simplicity 2442 totally doesn't count!!). This resulted in me finding three unfinished projects that have taken priority over the last week. I'd like to talk about the first of these - my nested churn dash bed runner.

In april last year, quilt jane released the nested churndash pattern and announced a sew along for June. This is when the project started!

The fabrics that I used were two fat quarter packs from hobbycraft. This polkadot version and this flower print. Both were picked up in the sale - I think around £6.50 each.

The first mistake I made with this project is that I pre-washed the cotton. This resulted in 12 very contorted fat quarters - whereas I like the crinkled effect when the quilt has it's first wash I did not enjoy having to steam the unsewn fabric back into something that looked like rectangles! Another negative point for this fabric was that both prints were horrifically off grain.

No matter.

What I would say helped significantly was a super sharp rotary cutter. I don't buy into the branded blade refils - I got an unbranded set of two universal blades on ebay for only £4. I would also really recommend having a quilting ruler that was long enough to cut the required strip lengths. I only have a 6.5" square and felt a bit disadvantaged through having to continually move the ruler to measure. It's not the most accurate!

For the most part all of the points matched quite well. There were certainly a few affected through lack of appropriate measurement tools though! I made up the most part of this quilt before making up the Ohio Star Quilt posted here. So the points improved as I progressed.

The points of this section of quilt lined up really well

This section lined up terribly and im disappointed in myself that I never unpicked and reset this section

I decided to try fussy-cutting as another technique to try. I have a fair few scraps left over from my Oktoberfest dress so used one of the beer tankards as the central focus. I'm not actually sure that I like this fabric as the central square however I'm glad I tried the technique. I want to use this for a quilt I have planned for later this year and glad that it works like I expected.

In terms of the backing for this project, I took a kind of lazy approach that after all the other hard work that I input I am a little disappointed in. I used a really cheap (£3.99/m) thin cotton for the backing fabric, whereas there is nothing wrong with the cotton itself I shouldn't have been so cheap and bought more. Always buy more. The cotton was just the right width when doubled over that it exactly matched the width of the top and no more.  I reckoned pressing the fabric in half and then laying down the quilt sandwich would work out. I forgot how much the basted quilt shifts when quilting. Lesson learned. I will never scrimp on fabric again.

This photo give a sense of scale of the finished quilt.

For the binding of teh quilt I made up bias binding out of the remaining scraps of the polkadot material. There was far more of the light blue fabric than the others so tried to place these evenly throughout the quilt. I cut the binding into two inch strips which were then folded into 1/4 inch thick binding. I then used the french binding method to attach it, hand stitching the back into place.

My willing assistant became less willing after only one or two pictures!

So all in all I really like how this quilt turned out.  I think my quilting skills are certainly improving and I can see the improvement with each new piece I make. The one thing that I really think makes the biggest difference is accuracy - the next quilt will be measured to absolute perfection!!

Things descended quickly...

Hope you're all having a great weekend folks - we were out celebrating a friends viva success last night so having a really quiet day today!!

I then gave up :'-)

Jen xx