Tilly and the Buttons Lilou dress

Meet my Lilou.... or rather the Philatelist Dress! (I've given a name to a dress :-O it feels weird however apt)

Lilou dress at culzean castle!

Based on my measurements I cut a size 5 - forgetting to check the 'finished garment sizes' and ended up with a dress so big that I could have fitted a friend inside too :-(. So after 3 hours a bit of hand sewing and a full tub of pins I had a dress which fitted!

you cant expect to go down the west coast and not get attacked by wind!

The fabric is a lightweight cotton picked up in mandors (as usual) for only £6.99/m. I only picked up 2m of it as it was originally going to be something else...so had to change the skirt from the pleated version suggested to the clemence gathered version from near the beginning of the book. this dress therefore is a marriage of clemence and lilou. a match made in heaven methinks :p

so as a result of all the pinning and adding extra bust darts, the back and front waist differ in height by about an inch. this is a 'feature' of the dress that definitely bothered me - until i woe it out! I received a compliment from my ultimate critic, my mother and when I asked her "but what about teh wonky waist" she said "well if you didnt tell me I wouldn't have known". BOOM. the dress is a win! I think this will become my travel to the states dress when I go in September.

well someone looks awkward...

I love the stamps on the detail and even placed the fabric so I would have queen Vic slap bang in the centre front - i didn't really mind about not matching the pattern at the sides though because its rather busy and so interesting it doesn't (in my mind) make a difference.

rather awfully taken picture ahem...

I think my favourite stamp print is this Hannover one... although it did take a while to realise that it was Hannover NH not Hannover DE :-( oops!

I'm definately going to make this up again - this time though i will line the skirt too so i don't need to wear a slip. :-) - oh and make a muslin so i don't end up with a wonky waist (or maybe just try the size 4....)! I think i'll also try the pleated skirt variant too.

Has anyone else made up Tilly's Lilou?

even my vogue coat made an appearance!

 So I went to the table tennis today for the commonwealth games - it was really great actually - we didnt arrive in time to get a seat to see the scotland ladies so we went around and saw the indian vs NZ ladies and the malaysian vs northern ireland ladies and it was amazing! we also saw the trinidad and tobago men in the second session - its reminded me how much i enjoyed it back in school! It's so fun to watch too. We're going to the boxing tomorrow too can't wait! The whole town is buzzing its such a great experience :-D

outtakes!! haha i look horrified!

Take Care guys is anyone else watching the games?

JCS :-)

Simplicity "1460"

So the whole point of keeping a blog is to document progress right? and part of progress is leaning from your mistakes right? well simplicity1460 was one such mistake.

This was going to be my first piece for my vintage pattern pledge - a pretty tunic in a 50's style which was suitable for both work and play.

I picked up this cotton lawn and the pattern from Minerva back in March/April and made it up almost straight away. That's how long this has been sitting. collar unfinished, unhemmed, no buttons and generally unloved.

I kind of gave up by this point and just attached the cuffs

 The problem with this tunic is partially I cut this before putting on weight but mostly that the shape around the shoulders was just - weird. It was like walking with my shoulders hunched forward and together.

The overlocked facing edges worked well enough...

 I even tried it on my slimmer friend and although it came together at the front the shoulders were still weird.

So the things I liked about the pattern:
I liked the darts, maybe seems strange but I think they worked well in giving shape to the front
I liked the potential - I can see that with the right tweaking and alterations that this could be a really pretty tunic
the peplum style - i have said before and ill say again this is a style that works for me and i love it!

I think i'll maybe try again with this at some point with more experience under my belt with shoulder/back altering. and as for the fabric, I see a woven tank style in its future - a sorbetto perhaps?

what does anyone else do with their 'not quite perfect' makes?

JCS

A Completed Bronte

So this wasn't in the sewing plan however when this pattern was released I couldn't resist! Meet [Charlotte] Bronte!

Apologies for the distance shots - I was trying to keep the sunburn out of view!

 Made up in an Alexander Henry jersey knit, this is the softest fabric i have ever had the pleasure of putting next to my skin!

this was a metre long remnant I have had in my stash for about 6 months and was just waiting to be made into this top. There were vague musings that I would draft a tank top but I thought the fabric deserved something a little better...

This top included a lot of firsts for me:
1st time sewing a knit
1st binding
1st time using twin needle and proper stretch stitch

and all in I think it turned out pretty damn well! I also think this was a good fabric/pattern to try working with knits on because it was dark - any snags of the thread have been hidden! and the small issue I had with attaching the binding at the end is cleverly hidden by the overlap :p

These pics were taken after wearing the top to work all day and apart from a little drooping of the front neckline it kept its shape pretty well.

Clearly the other half never got the memo to tidy the house...

 I cut a straight size 14 with no alterations - and the fit was perfect! I could have cu a 12 but would have resulted in a tighter fit which I'm not so keen on in knits. I also made absolutely no attempt to match the pattern... haha I don't even think its possible with this pattern

I don't quite know whats going on with the hem on the right hand side there...

another first for this make - it was the first make on my machine since it was repaired! and its running like a dream! :-)

So i'm not sure when i'll make this up again but it certainly fills a hole in the wardrobe. I really like the style and think it could work well made up in a more plain knit.

Has anyone else made up the Bronte top?

Take care guys

JCS :-)

The Sewing Situation

I'm beginning to think that it never really clicked that my poor wee machine was away being fixed... certainly not if you go go by the pile of WIP's and the shrouding of (Dirty) Diana....

Yet more WIPS!

Its interesting how things were left in various states of progress... theres still another stuffed into a plastic bag to help ease the pile (it's a knit so I figured that it didn't matter so much)

WIP Pile of Doom!

So this is the mystical starry black cloak that broke my machine. It's only 4 layers so I didn't think that it would be a problem? Maybe when I resume i'll use a leather needle coz it's so thick? Does anyone have any suggestions for this? Its just a regular weight dress cotton. :-(. On the plus side my machine has been returned, the downside is that they returned it to the wrong address and it is currently the other side of the country at my parents. Hopefully I will get it back on Saturday.

Yeh I count eight, thats right EIGHT WIP's. (although the pattern on the table doesn't reeeeeally count coz im only at muslin making stage. Is anyone else's WIP pile as unruly as this???

Applique Owls taking shape :-)

Improvising with pattern weights

I'm off to London for the day tomorrow me and the other half are away to see Black Sabbath at Hyde park. I'm hoping to take in Gold hawk road while we're down there too - does anyone have any reccomendations for where to start? Does anyone else have plans for this weekend?

Have a good one!

JCS

Completed: Chataigne Shorts number 2.

So I promised that I had some completed items to share with you - and here's the first!

 A second pair of Chataigne shorts from Deer and Doe.

The fabric I used was a black pinstripe woven concoction I bought at Christmas in Remnant Kings  - im not entirely sure what type fabic it was but it loved to frey! - I used it for a waistcoat and had about 1.5 m left. There were a few fit alterations I made to these ones from my last pair and I think they turned out well. the first change from the last time was that i graded out a size for the waist, this fabric is less partial to stretching with heat and so unlike the wool version I need the extra room that the larger size provided. I also graded in the legs - i may have a larger waist but my legs don't seem to need the same room. In fact the legs can probibly be brought in a little bit further.

I left off the back pocket flaps (even though I sewed them both up)- I felt in this particular fabric that they didn't look quite right I think the weight of the material was all wrong and they just didn't add anything in this particular variation.

The invisible zipper decided it was going to play on this garment so I was happy with that (although I did sew one side back to font DOH!) haha.

Woo! Waistband lines up :-D

And because i was only finishing edges inside the shorts I never changed the overlocker thread

I also slipstitched the waistband into place - not quite my neatest work but not bad either!

Squinty interfaced waistband

  The waistband is interfaced to within an inch of its life - I know it's probably not PC (I'm not caring!!) but i used all my scraps of black interfacing left from my Burda Waistcoat and made a patchwork effort on the inside. I do have a minor gripe that after a few tries to line up the point of the front waistband, it still doesn't *quite* match up - the fabric was a bit of a pain to work with so I can live with that! I'm definitely going to make these up for a third time - maybe in linen for casual summer wearing. this is probably/definitely my favourite pattern that I have made up :-).

I have a presentation of my work on Wednesday and I think these will make the perfect office attire! (with tights definately no bare legs!!)

Oh and have a look at how light it was outside at 4 am on the solstice the other night it was so pretty :-)

Looking east towards the park

Looking north west towards the park and town

Have a good week folks

JCS

A broken little curvy

So my machine is broken :-(  there's no two ways about it - I'm gutted! It would transpire that the timing has gone - the bobbin is not turning and the needle is not picking up the bobbin thread. After over an hour of changing needles, rethreading and trying new bobbins I had to resign myself to the fact that it is in need of repair.

I do have a few projects to share from pre breakage I'll hopefully get these up soonish! I finally finished that burda waistcoat and am pretty.damn.impressed. I just need my willing accomplice to model it...

Also does anyone have any experience with singer customer services? My machine was only purchased in October and was a Christmas gift - will I have to pay for a repair? How long can I expect it to be down for?

Hope you all have a lovely weekend folks :-)

JCS

Pinwheel Cushion Cover

So in a break from dressmaking, I decided to upgrade a tired old cushion to make something a little nicer and not a drain on the eyes!

Ripped Cover as a result of a former career in student halls....

So this was originally a cheap cushion bought to cheer up my student flat many moons ago - the place was a dive and required some home comforts! The original fabric frayed really easily and in the process of unpicking probably reduced in size by at least a cm!

Having never bothered to fix the original tear this has gotten worse over the years :-(

The one good thing about the existing cover though was the presence of a good quality invisible zip!

The zip was still good!

This got saved so i could use it for the replacement cover. Also before i removed the cover and unpicked the seams i measured the seam allowance so when I made up the new one based upon the old measurements i didn't make it too small...

Checking the seam allowance so the final cover would fit.

I decided to keep to the original finishing technique so for the final make up i serged the edges, inserted the zip then sewed just inside the finished edges so nothreads would pull from the serged seam.


 So the final design was made up of materials from my stash - the purple is from my New Look 6144 dress and the white is from a bunch of fat quarters which im not sure they ever had a definate purpose.
the pattern isn't exactly how i envisioned it i didnt have enough of either colour to make one the entire background on both sides so I improvised a bit and dont think it turned out too badly.

Each of the pinwheels is made from a 6.5" square and each of the squares is then rotated one quarer wrt the previous one so it would give the efect of a rotating wheel. The inside of the cover is simply a piece of sheeting to line it and cover the raw edges - I was going to quilt the cover but the cushion was still quite good. On retrospect i should have quilted it. I may still do that at a future date....

I am pretty happy with the way the zip went in. It wasn't one of the rubbishy nylon ones which ever go in well - rather it was like a cotton tape so there wasnt much movement when it went in.

So I hope you like my little stop gap project - it was really quick to sew up and looks a million times better than its predecesor!

JCS