Tag: fleece

Me-Made May: A Scruffy Start!

1/5/14

Oh dear. The Me-Made May Flickr group is filling up with all sorts of lovely smart people showing off their finest hand made clothing for the occasion. And then I go and post this.

Typically, yesterday I was wearing an almost entirely me-made outfit. Today, not so much.

  • Trousers: Black cords with buttons on the pockets, John Rocha for Debenhams
  • T-shirt: An ancient black long-sleeved Hanes men’s skinny fit, from back in the days when we used to print t-shirts. (Though this one’s always been plain.)
  • Jumper: Me-Made black fleece cowl-neck tank top.
  • Bracelet: Honey & Ollie, with added dangly bits
  • Glasses: Gok Wan for Specsavers. (I need an eye test soon, which almost certainly means I need new glasses. I’m avoiding that possibility because I love this pair so much and they’ve been discontinued.)

I took the photo at work, in the very untidy cloakroom, because I don’t currently have an accessible full-length mirror at home. I suppose I should remedy that, if I’m supposed to be taking pictures of myself for the rest of the month!

1/5/14

I did have one other bit of hidden me-made goodness though, which was my favourite socks. I love wearing handmade socks, there’s just something so warm and comforting and lovely about them. And yet I only own two pairs, because I keep knitting things for other people at the expense of my own feet! I think I need to be a bit ruthless, and just treat myself to a few new pairs of socks. It’s not as though I have any shortage of sock yarn (a new skein arrived today!), just a shortage of time. (I’m a slow knitter, so socks take ages.)

Comments from the Flickr group have so far been polite, with the key observation being that I look “comfortable”. Which I am, because that’s the entire point of the clothes that I make for myself! Living with fibromyalgia being the literal pain that it is, comfort is of paramount importance. If I want to have enough space in my brain to be able to get on with my life, I need to reduce my external sources of pain as far as possible. Which means comfortable clothes, at all times.

I do think I need to up my game from today’s outfit though. Otherwise “comfortable” could all too easily be synonymous with “frumpy”, “boring”, “shapeless” and “scruffy”. I may well be all of those things in myself, but I don’t necessarily want that to be reflected in my clothes!

Lots more hats

Lots of hats

Today I took a day’s holiday from work, to go to a symposium in Oxford about the care and maintenance of natural history collections in museums.

Unfortunately, when I got up this morning, it became apparent that the central heating had stopped working, so I had to stay at home and wait for someone to come and fix it. Thank goodness for the British Gas home care insurance – we’ve only lived here for a month, and it’s the third time we’ve called them already!

While I was waiting, I popped the fan heater on in my sewing room, and wrapped myself up with a scarf and fingerless gloves. The end result of a day’s work has turned out to be the little mountain of polar fleece you can see above. Eight more hats waiting for the brims and the bands to be sewn by hand, and another twelve hats cut out and ready for the machine.

Now I just need a bit of inspiration for embellishing them, as they’re rather plain at the moment. I read over on Betz White’s blog that you can use paper cutting tools on felt, so I thought I might give the paddle punches (assuming I can find them!) a try with fleece and see what happens.

Four Fleece Hats

Fleecy hat

This is one of four fleecy hats that I managed to make today. I decided that I’d start my first round of sewing in the new house by using up the fabric that’s currently taking up the most room, which is a veritable mountain of polar fleece. I bought it to make hats to take to Frome in May, but ran out of time to actually make them.

Sadly, today’s four hats have not made any sort of dent in the pile of fleece, but I’ve been invited to take the Emporium to the Berkshire Autistic Society‘s Christmas Fair on December 14th, so hopefully I’ll have time to make a few more hats between now and then!

Hopefully I’ll also have time to get some better lighting sorted out in my sewing room. Its only window is six feet away from next door’s two-storey house, so it gets very little light at the best of times. In electric light it’s just awful – the hat above is actually a lovely light purple, not dark grey!

Fleecy hats

The hats are quite plain, with an oval crown and a turned back brim. Suitable for men and women, I’ll be making more of these in two sizes. I have two black and two purple so far, both 22″ which is the smaller size. I also have more colours – two greens, some burgundy, and a sandy colour, as well as black with white skulls, and pink with black skulls. Enough for about twenty-four more hats, I think! That should keep me busy for a bit.

While I’m making the hats, I’m also thinking about what kind of embellishment might suit them. I’m contemplating a brooch of some kind, perhaps something needle felted onto a matching (or contrasting) fleece background. I’m also contemplating how best to make the polystyrene heads look a little bit smarter before the fair. A coat of paint, maybe, or some sewing pattern paper. I have plans for more hats in the future, not just a mountain of fleece ones, so I want the head forms to look their best!

Prototype hat

Prototype fleece cloche hat

If you follow me on Facebook (hint, hint!), you’ll have already seen that I spent Sunday making a prototype hat. I used Simplicity 1736 as a starting point, because I thought the cloche-like style and piped details made it an interesting Steampunk-Casual (if such a thing exists) type of hat.

I learned a few things while I was making it, not least how to make my own piping and then insert it into the seams – two things that I’d somehow managed to avoid in all my years of sewing. Turns out it’s much easier if you coincidentally manage to make the flange on the piping 15mm wide, then you can use it as a guide for sewing the seams.

I also learned that you need to trim the piping cord out of the way of the seam allowances, that three piped seams coming together in one place is extremely awkward, and that my machine won’t sew through three layers of fleece without skipping stitches.

Next time round I’ll be altering the pattern so that the crown pieces don’t come together into one point at the sides. You can’t see that detail anyway, it’s hidden under the brim, so why not make the whole thing easier to sew? I also want to alter the brim itself, as I’m not very fond of the way it stops half way round. I’d also like it to be more curved, and much larger at the front. Taking the brim all the way around the hat will also mean that I can attach it in a different way, eliminating the need to sew through so many layers of fleece in one go. In fact I might face the brim with something lighter, and get rid of one layer of fleece altogether.

Having said all of that, I am actually very pleased with this hat! It’s going to be my daywear hat for the Steampunk Extravaganza, hence the red and black colour scheme, and the combination of spots and stripes. It’s extremely comfortable and warm, and fits beautifully over my very short hair. I might try out the next iteration in black and pink, so that it goes with my spotty coat. Or maybe a brown and blue version to go with my long winter coat… yes, I can see myself making quite a few of these!

New dress, new jacket

Untitled

I made Simplicity 1755 to wear to a wedding. Then I realised I didn’t have a smart little jacket to wear with it, so I thought I’d better make one. This is a short bolero hoody, with long bell sleeves. (I drafted the pattern myself.) I couldn’t get any bias binding to match, and I didn’t have time to make any with the left over fabric from the dress, so I bought the least-clashing colour and went with that. What you can’t see in these pictures is the machine embroidery that I added over the top. I thought it would help to tone down the very pale lilac, so there are little leaves embroidered all over the binding. Definitely a finishing touch that I’m going to use again, I’m really pleased with it.

Untitled

Here I am, looking wistful in a gazebo. As you do. No matter how hard he tries, Paul just doesn’t seem able to take a decent photo of me, so you’ll often find me staring away from the camera looking a bit grumpy. (Any suggestions that perhaps I’m just not very photogenic will be met with derision. And then crying.)

I’m pleased with the dress, but my lack of a 1950s-style well-defined waist does make it look a bit frumpy. I do need to change the collar though. As you can see, the hook and eye kept coming undone, and that made my brooch wonky, which annoyed me all day. I’m wearing a huge floofy petticoat in these pictures, but I took that off half way through the reception because it was just too damned big and annoying. I have a very low tolerance for uncomfortable clothes, so anything that I have to fiddle with or which makes a nuisance of itself will very quickly be consigned to the charity shop pile. (Or the boot of the car, in the case of the petticoat.)

I will make another of these dresses though, just with a slight alteration to the front neck. And I’ll definitely be making more of these little jackets. The only change I need to make to this one is the hooks and eyes on the front. I think I’ve sewn the eyes on back-to-front (I didn’t realise it mattered!), and the jacket won’t stay closed. But once I’ve sorted out the fastening, I want to make another one with narrower sleeves, and one with a printed cotton lining, and a longer one with pockets, and a fancy one with needle felting… I have a lot of plans for this design!

Black Fleece Hoody

Black fleece hoody

I’ve been saving my pennies for ages, and last week my copy of the Cochenille Garment Designer software arrived. I haven’t said too much about it yet because I’m still on the steep part of the learning curve. This means that anything I might have wanted to say was probably unprintable anyway.

The first pattern I drafted and printed out was a simple dress… which would have been lovely if it hadn’t turned out to be at least six inches too big! I hadn’t checked the design ease in the pattern, and it was rather more generous than I’d expected. Oops.

Black fleece hoody

This little fleece hoody is my second attempt, and I’m really pleased with it! Isn’t it adorable? I particularly like the slim bell sleeves and the edge-to-edge fastening at the front. It’s trimmed with bias binding because they’s my current obsession. I think it makes for a lovely neat edge, and it would be great in a contrasting colour too.

Unfortunately I went a little bit too far the other way with the design ease on this one, and it’s come out a little bit too small for me. I’ve popped it into my Big Cartel store, alongside the organic fabrics, so if you’re a size 34-36″ chest it might be just right for you.

This pattern’s definitely a keeper though, unlike my first attempt. And now I’ve made one pattern that’s much too big, and a second one that’s much too small… it stands to reason that the third pattern I make should be just right!

Completed Cloches.

Two completed cloches

The black corduroy cloche that I showed you the other day has now been livened up by a lime green bias tape band.

The red cloche is made from two layers of polar fleece. There’s also a black bias band on the inside, making it fully reversible. My brief for this one was to make it bright red, and soft enough to fold up.

The brim of the red hat is made from two layers of fleece and a layer of craft weight non-woven interfacing. For some reason my sewing machine wasn’t too happy about sewing through the fleece and interfacing combination. I had to try several different needles before I stopped getting lots of skipped stitches.

I’m really pleased with how the finished hat’s turned out though, and I think it will be lovely and cozy to wear. I might make another one for myself.

Corduroy cloche

Cord & fleece cloche

This is my second cloche hat, with a symmetrical brim this time.
(You’re looking at the side of the hat – front at the left of the photo.)

It’s made from heavy black cord, and lined with black polar fleece. This hat’s going on a honeymoon to Iceland in a few weeks, so it should be the perfect thing for keeping Clare’s ears nice and warm!

A very pleasant turnaround.

I spent half of the weekend in what can only be described as “a bit of a state”. Things seemed rather hopeless on the sewing front, and I wasn’t at all looking forward to coming out to my Shed to start work this morning.

I decided to finish off this fleecy skirt, which had been waiting for its contrast hem band since November.

Polar fleece elasticated skirt

Within an hour of its completion, it was sold!

Since then I’ve updated my Etsy store and taken orders for a dress, a corset and another skirt.

Maybe things aren’t all bad…

Skull fleece hoody again…

Skull fleece hoody

In case you didn’t see Diane’s lovely pictures, here’s another glimpse of the pink skull fleece hoody on an Actual Person.

This one’s for Lisa who, being the same size as me, is doomed to having all of her clothes tried on and photographed before I send them out!

The scarf is this one.

The photo’s a bit grainy, but it’s pretty dark outside at 6:30 these days. Perfect time of year for a nice warm fleecy jacket.