Month: June 2010

Silk summer dress

Burda 7808

As promised a couple of days ago, here’s an almost-finished Burda 7808. Just the hand-sewing and thread-neatening to go, and then it’s done.

As it turns out, I followed the instructions more than I expected to – although there are a few things that I’ll change next time. I added extra gathering to both the front and back panels, to make the skirt more full. I also added longer and wider ties, and attached them to the front panel rather than the back. I decided to make the sleeves, but left off the cuffs because I happened to like the shape of the sleeves left loose.

I think the only additional change I’d make is to round off the neckline and also raise it a little. I have a favourite necklace which is my guideline for where a neckline should sit, and this one’s just a little bit too low.

Half way through putting the dress together I had a worrying moment. I looked at the dress and suddenly panicked that I was accidentally making a dress for an eight year old bridesmaid. Thankfully I think the sleeves and the collar have rescued it from looking too much like a child’s party dress. I’m hoping that the ivory dupion looks summery without being too weddingy – although my own wedding dress was bright pink chiffon, so this doesn’t seem terribly bridal to me!

I’m sure that making a dress with a collar and sleeves during the hottest day of the year must seem quite mad, but I have a lot of walking in the sun to do this week, so I need to be cool but covered in order to avoid frying myself. This should do the job very nicely indeed.

Incapable of following instructions

This is Burda 7808.
(Information now only available in German, since the English site has merged with Burda Style and all the patterns are gone. *sigh*)

I bought the pattern yesterday because the weather’s gone mad, and I’m going to need some kind of loose summer dress so that I don’t inadvertently boil inside my own skin. Now I’m thinking through all the changes I’m going to need to make to the pattern before I actually start cutting fabric to make the dress.

For a start, I didn’t realise that there was a zip in the side seam. That’ll have to go. And then I’ll have to make the dress a little bit wider under the arms, so that I’ll have enough room to get it on and off over my head.

I don’t much like the larger collar, so I’ll probably make the little stand-up collar on the version with sleeves. I also want to increase the width of the sleeve head, so that I can make gathers at the shoulder to match the gathers at the cuff.

If I do make the sleeveless version, I’m definitely changing the way that they’ve applied the bias binding to the sleeve edges. I think the instructions given will make them much too bulky.

Oh, and I also want to add gathers to the back, so that it matches the front. Then I’ll make the ties much longer, and have them coming from the front panel rather than the back. A little ruffle of broderie anglais trim at the hem probably wouldn’t hurt either.

All of which makes me wonder why on earth I bothered to buy a pattern in the first place!

Actually, my answer to that is because I find that having a ready-made pattern to start off with is much easier than trying to draft something from scratch. I can look at the picture, the shape of the pattern pieces and the instructions, decide what I do and don’t like, and then make my changes confident that all the bits will still fit together in the end.

I’m going to try and make a start on this over the weekend, so hopefully photos will follow soon.

Potato Flower

Potato Flower

Today I found out what a potato flower looks like.

If only I could remember which varieties I planted, I could find out the right time to dig them up!

(Seriously… how do you know when your potatoes are ready to harvest?!)

Stitched Self

Mini Me

Here’s my completed submission to the Stitched Self project. It’s a collaboration between Stitch London and the Science Museum, where an exhibition of all the Stitched Selves will take place for the re-opening of their Who Am I? gallery in June.

This little doll has had more changes of clothes than I like to admit. I just couldn’t seem to get anything right! I found it terribly difficult sewing on such a small scale (the mini-me is just 6″ tall), and wasn’t happy with any of the garments I made to begin with. I tried making little dresses and petticoats and jackets, but everything seemed much too fiddly and didn’t come out to my satisfaction. In the end I decided to go with leggings and a black and grey t-shirt, which is what I wear most of the time.

I must confess that I’m still not happy with the raw edges, but I am rather fond of the little scarf, and the yellow stitching on the silver boots.

Mini-Claire is now in the post, winging her way to Stitch London. Next month I hope to go along to the Science Museum’s Who Am I? gallery, and see whether I can spot her.

Canada Goose Drama

Me, by Paul
(Picture by Paul, taken in May 2008)

This weekend my parents came to visit. On Friday afternoon we all went down to the lake where we took part in a Canada Goose Drama.

A swan came and attacked all six of the goslings, splitting them up from their parents and chasing them away. As soon as the swan started bearing down on them, the goslings would dive underneath the water and then surface quite a distance away. One of the goslings leapt out of the lake, ran up the bank and ended up dashing down the steps onto the duck-watching platform which was full of my parents, me and Paul, plus two small boys and their Mum.

The gosling became entangled in abandoned fishing line (the fishing season only started last week and already there’s fishing line strewn everywhere), so I went over and untangled it. The poor gosling was so freaked out that it just stood there, and thankfully did not peck me to death. I then herded it back into the lake.

In the meantime one of the parents had come out of the lake to look for it. This adult goose arrived on the platform only to discover seven humans and NO GOSLING, and proceeded to hiss like mad and charge at us. The two little boys were understandably terrified, so my Dad and I attempted to herd the adult goose back into the lake as well. Unfortunately the adult goose was so cross that it wasn’t afraid of us, so we had to get rather close to it. This resulted in my Dad being heartily pecked on the knee. He was fine, but the two little boys are now rather frightened of angry geese.

We ended up staying at the lake for quite a while longer, counting the goslings and making sure they’d all made it back to their family despite the best efforts of the swan. Thankfully they were all fine, and hopefully the swan won’t continue to bother them too much.

Elderflower Cordial time again!

Elderflowers

Paul and I had the day off work today, and the first thing we did was go for a little walk around the lake and pick some elderflowers. We’ve been watching them open for weeks, and today there were just enough to fill a bag and bring them home.

After a quick trip to the supermarket for sugar, lemons and limes, we now have a big saucepan full of ingredients just waiting to turn into cordial. The nicest thing about this recipe is just how simple it is. Combine ingredients, ignore for 24 hours, remove bits, drink cordial! I think the hardest part is waiting for it to be ready.

Here’s the recipe that we use.

I have a sneaking suspicion that we picked enough flowers for two batches, but I’ve put them all into a litre and a half of water, the same as we did last year. Hopefully it won’t be too strong – although as it’s cordial, I suppose we can just keep diluting it until it tastes nice!

That’s more like it.

Wrap trousers and swing top

I spent yesterday afternoon developing the prototypes I made on Saturday – in fabrics that I’ll actually wear.

The top is a pink tartan cotton and viscose blend shirting. I added sleeves, although they didn’t turn out quite how I meant them to. I was intending to make floaty butterfly sleeves, but these have come out distinctly tight. They’re not too tight to wear though, so I can change them next time. If they get too annoying, I’ll just chop them off. The fabric is 60″ wide, rather than the 45″ I used for the prototype, so the hem is much wider and the sides are much longer.

The trousers are made from my stash of Bishopston organic cotton. I made a more angled crotch seam than on the previous pair, which makes them more fitted around the waist. Because of this I didn’t make a drawstring. I used bias binding to enclose the top edge, extending it 20″ on each side to make the ties. I’m trying not to worry that the wrapped edges are a bit wobbly. One of the things about handwoven fabric is that the grain isn’t anything like as straight as something that’s been machine made. I can’t do anything about that, so I’m just going to have to live with slightly wiggly trousers.

Now i just need to hope that the weather stays nice enough for me to wear them.

First Strawberry

First Strawberry

The first (almost) ripe strawberry of the season!

I have seven strawberry plants tucked into this little terracotta planter. There are several different varieties, but I didn’t manage to keep the right labels with the right plants, so I don’t know which they all are.

This one’s definitely one of the little alpine strawberries though. It’s very tiny – not even an inch long – but I’m hoping it will taste delicious.

I plan to leave it on the plant until it’s fully ripe – and hope that the blackbird doesn’t eat it before I do!

Summer Outfit

New summer outfit (prototype)

This week’s been a pretty hot one, as far as weather goes in the UK. I’m sure most people are thrilled to bits (in fact I can hear them all outside, laughing and enjoying their barbecues in their gardens), but unfortunately for me, I’m really not very good at hot. I get sunstroke very easily, and just generally don’t cope very well with the heat.

All my usual work clothes are making me much too hot, and all my summer clothes aren’t really smart enough to wear for work. Everything in the shops appears to be made of polyester, which is not a nice fabric to wear in the heat, so I decided it was about time I stopped moaning and tried to figure out something I could make quickly and wear all summer.

I started with an idea for a loose kimono-sleeved jacket, although the prototype didn’t come out very well. More work needed on that one. So I moved on to a very loose, draped top. This will definitely work better in a softer fabric, like a linen or a lawn, but I think it works nicely with a belt. A bit martial-arts-looking all in white, but I think that effect would be reduced in a different fabric or a different colour.

New summer outfit (prototype)

The trousers are a simple wraparound style with a drawstring waist. They’re so cool and comfortable, and they were extremely easy to make. These would definitely be lovely in a nice soft, crinkly linen or a handwoven organic cotton.

I think if I can get the fabrics right, this would make an ideal “smart-casual” outfit for work.

Old Town

Every now and then I get an idea in my head about the sort of clothes I’d like to wear. First I look for existing sewing patterns, and then I think I might draft something for myself. And then I have another little look around the internet, and discover that somebody else has already done all the hard work for me.

This is Old Town.

They have a beautifully simple website, and beautifully simple clothes. They’re old-fashioned without being anachronistic, and I’d quite like one of everything, please.

Old Town are a small clothing manufacturer. They produce around 50 garments per week from their own workshop in Norfolk, and they use British cottons, woollens and linens wherever possible. Instead of a blog, they have a PDF newspaper, the Old Town Evening Star. I particularly like the “Trouser Forecast” in issue three, and their article onFabric, form and fictional pasts is exactly the sort of thing I wish I’d written myself. Lovely.