Month: January 2011

Floaty Velvet Skirt

Vogue 1170

This is Vogue 1170, another Rachel Comey pattern. I actually made this one first, and it inspired me to try the pink party dress.

You might recognise the design of the back – it’s pretty much identical to the dress, including the not-invisible zip! (This one wasn’t supposed to be invisible, but it should still be less visible than this.) I didn’t bother with the hem facing on this one – because the velvet has a slight stretch to it, I exaggerated the flared hem by simply stretching the fabric as I ran it through the overlocker.

Vogue 1170

You can’t really see the details on the front, but the skirt has the same angled seams as the dress. It also has tiny little pockets, hidden in the seam of the waistband. I don’t know that I’d bother with those next time. Normally I’m all in favour of pockets, but they were fiddly to make and they’re too small to hold anything useful!

You’ll just have to trust me that this one looks much better on a real person with a real bottom, than it does on my dress form.

Noro Clapotis

Noro Clapotis

Every time I knit a Clapotis, I complain all the way through.

“It’s boring!”
“My hands hurt!”
“Maybe I could make it shorter…”
“How much further?”

But every time I’ve finished knitting a Clapotis, I can’t wait to start another one.

This one was started in July, as a birthday present for my mother-in-law. But her birthday came and went, and I was still knitting, so it became her Christmas present instead. It’s made from five skeins of Noro Cash Island, a lovely soft blend of wool and cashmere. It’s beautifully soft and drapes beautifully.

Thankfully it was extremely well received – my mother-in-law is also a knitter (and a much better one than me!), so she appreciates the time and effort that goes into making a gift like this as much as the finished piece itself.

And I may have had a little accident in the John Lewis sale, and bought five skeins of Rowan Silky Tweed, to make a pretty grey one for myself…

Now Panic and Freak Out.

Now Panic and Freak Out

My sister bought us a couple of mugs as a kitchen-warming present.

Paul’s said “Keep Calm and Carry On”, and the one above is mine.

She knows us well.

Pink Party Dress

Vogue 1161

This is Vogue 1161, a Rachel Comey designer pattern.

I think this ranks as the most technically complicated thing I’ve ever made (look at those right-angled seams on the front!), and I have to say that I’m rather proud of it.

Yes, there are things I’d change (mostly in the fit of the bodice), and things I’m not too pleased with (the hem facing and the not-very-invisible zip), but overall I’m very pleased with how this came out. Plus it does actually fit, which is always a bonus when you’ve spent two days making a dress!

Vogue 1161

My favourite part of this dress is the back. The knot makes the construction rather complicated, as it affects the order in which you have to assemble all the parts. But it looks so pretty! The keyhole back is just high enough that you can wear an ordinary bra underneath. This is always good, because any dress that requires specialist underwear almost invariably never gets worn. I also love the little flare at the back of the skirt. So pretty and so flattering, although a bit of a tricky one to hem.

The centre back seam isn’t as wonky as it looks, honest. I had to take a couple of inches out of the back of the bodice. This made a curved seam which fits me really well, but my dress form less so. I’m also fairly happy with the zip. It’s not as invisible as I’d have liked, but this was the first time I’d used an invisible zip (in 14 years of sewing!), so I think allowances can be made. I was very glad that I managed to line up the seams at the waist so neatly though.

I wore this out to a friend’s birthday party the day I finished it, and it coped well with the rigours of dancing and eating cake. It’s a little shorter than I’d normally wear, but this one will definitely be coming out of the wardrobe on special occasions!

These boots weren’t made for walking.

At the end of December I received an email that I just couldn’t resist – a message about the Jeffery~West sale. I went to their website, just to have a look, you understand, and discovered that the Rochester Rafael boots were now half price. Even better – there were several colours left in my size! After much deliberation I decided that I couldn’t live without this fabulous red mock-croc pair.

They arrived really quickly, were a perfect fit, and I was thrilled to bits. I wore them once, took them off when I got home, turned them over to show the design on the sole to my husband… and was horrified to discover that they looked as though they were falling apart!

A worried email and a couple of phone calls to Jeffery~West later, and a lovely lady called Kirsty was able to reassure me that this is not the case.

I knew that the soles of these shoes were blake stitched rather than Goodyear welted, but I hadn’t realised what difference this type of construction would actually make. Because the soles are stitched directly to the uppers without a welt, you get a shallow channel around the very edge of the sole. To stitch the upper in place, the leather is cut with a knife and peeled back. Once the stitching is complete, the leather is pressed back into place. If the sole of the shoe gets damp, this channel can open up. Thankfully it can also be pressed back down again – and once I’d done that and worn the shoes a second time, you’d never know that this had happened.

What I will need to keep in mind is that these shoes won’t be as robust as my Sylvians, and I should probably save them for summer. I’d never go out in the rain in leather soled shoes anyway, but this is England, and sometimes you just can’t avoid walking on a wet pavement!

For anybody interested in the technical details of the differences between blake stitched and Goodyear welted shoes, W. Sanford (bespoke tailors and shoemakers in Shanghai) have a really interesting article, with diagrams. I’ll be studying this for future reference…

Spring Cleaning.

Haberdashery tidy-up

I started clearing out my sewing Shed this time last year, by organising all of my unruly haberdashery into these handy cardboard boxes. (I bought them from Muji, years ago.)

Then the roof blew off the garden shed, so a few things moved in to my Shed for safe keeping. And then we had the kitchen replaced, so lots more things moved in here while we didn’t have any cupboards. The end result is that not everything has been moved back out again, and my sewing space is not only full of my own stuff, but also with all these things that don’t belong here at all.

Once again it’s time to have a bit of a clear-out and try and get everything back to its rightful home. After that I can rearrange the furniture, and try to get a bit more organised.

The upshot of this is that I won’t be able to do any sewing for a little while. So I’m going to forward-date a bunch of posts, showing you all the things I’ve made over the past few months but haven’t had time to write about. Hopefully that’ll tide me over until I’ve got everything sorted and made something new!

Matching set

Kwik Sew 2489

Once I’d finished making my winter coat, I thought it would be fun to have a go at making a bra to go with the knickers I made at the weekend.

The pattern for this one is Kwik Sew 2489, and I have to say that I found it remarkably easy to put together. It is fiddly, but it’s certainly not difficult – you just need to pay attention to the instructions.

There are a few little alterations I’ll make to the next one:

  1. The straps are too narrow, both for my comfort and for where they join the top of the cups. Next time I’ll just make wider straps. I also didn’t bother with the slidy thing, because if I make them the right length I won’t need them to be adjustable.
  2. The little triangular panel in the centre of the bra needs to be slightly wider at the top. At the moment the band is fine, but the cups pull away from my chest at the centre. If I make the centre part wider and the cups narrower, that should pull the bra in a bit.
  3. I need to make a very slight alteration to the shape of the cups. I might make another bra, unlined and with the seams on the outside, so I can (carefully) pin the seam and make two different cups if I need to.
  4. I might leave out the powernet/lycra panel on the back of the band, and just make it the right length. It’s elasticated all the way round anyway, so it’ll stay put, and the powernet just annoys me by being a different colour from the rest of the bra.

That’s it!

Oh, and I left out the underwires.

So, there are changes to be made, but it already fits better than some of the bras in my wardrobe, so I think I’m going to call it a success!

Butterick 5425

Butterick 5425

I bought this lovely wool fabric back in August, at a re-enactment event. Originally I was planning to turn it into a jacket and trousers, but when I saw Butterick 5425 I knew they were a perfect match. I particularly like the slightly puffed sleeves and the very full skirt.

Butterick 5425

The only thing I would have done differently is to use a woven interfacing. The pattern called for fusible interfacing on the collar and front facings, but I think the wool fabric would have draped better with horsehair in the collar and a lighter woven at the front. Still, too late now, and I’ll know better next time.

The lining is a lovely turquoise blue, to bring out the spots in the fabric. My next mission is to buy a pile of this yarn, to knit myself a matching hat, scarf and gloves.

Butterick 5425

The buttons are only plastic, but they were so pretty that I couldn’t resist them. They’re non-functional, because my sewing machine still refuses to make decent buttonholes, so there are five big poppers sewn down the front of the coat, with buttons on top. I make all of my coats this way.

Butterick 5425

This lovely brooch was given to me as a Christmas present, hand made by my friend Heather. As soon as I unwrapped it, I knew that it would be perfect for this coat!

Knickers!

Knickers!

Today I went shopping to buy some sketchbooks, which is something that I do at the beginning of every year. While I was in the art shop I spotted a little magazine I hadn’t seen before, called Cloth.

I had a quick flip through, and spotted some instructions for making a pair of knickers. They looked easy and fun, so I decided to give it a go. These little spotty numbers took about an hour from start to finish, including printing out the pattern and gathering up all the supplies.

They’re made from a non-stretch fabric, so that when you add the elastic they go all ruffly. I’m not 100% certain that’s a look I like, although the pictures in the magazine of knickers made in silk and with ribbons and ruffles are absolutely adorable!

I think I might make a few more pairs of these – I have loads of lingerie elastic in the stash, and they’d be especially comfy in stretch cotton recycled from an old t-shirt. Not as glamorous as this spotty pair, but lovely and comfy.

The pattern is available online, but I heartily recommend that you buy the magazine. They have a really nice mix of projects, ranging from these simple pants through to building a sheepskin lining for a jacket. They also have a comprehensive section of sewing instructions, so that even a complete beginner could pick up the magazine and have a go. I’ll definitely be looking out for the next issue!

So Fabulous!

So Fabulous!

My new shoes are so obscenely cute, they make me laugh every time I look at my feet.

Last year I went back to my favourite choir. For the Christmas concert, which required formalwear, I bought an ankle length black dress. Unfortunately my only pair of plain black shoes were flat, and my dress dragged on the floor. Despite being a dressmaker I decided not to hem the dress, but to buy a taller pair of shoes instead. Of course!

These little beauties are by So Fabulous! at Very. The range are wide fitting, which usually means frumpy and horrid, but in this case it means some brilliantly fashionable styles that I can actually wear without cutting off the circulation to my toes. Because this pair are very rounded, they’re actually so wide that I might even have to pop an insole inside them. But that only makes them more comfortable, so it’s a win all round.

I tried them on as soon as they arrived, and these just happened to be the socks I was already wearing that day. Between the curved heels and the chiffon ruffles and the stripes, I suddenly felt as though I was 25 again, and ought to be going out to a goth night! I have a sneaking suspicion that I’m going to get a lot of wear out of these little beauties.