Tag: organic cotton

Pintucks and pleats.

I’ve been away from the blog recently on account of a Dreaded Lurgy, so I haven’t had a great deal to show you. Fortunately I have managed to drag myself out of my sick bed *cough* for long enough to make this:

Pintucks and pleats

which is eventually going to be the front of a shirt, in organic cotton lawn.

I’ve been looking through a number of books about historical clothing, specifically men’s shirts. I’m making one from the simplest shapes possible (basically four big rectangles and a collar!), and using pleats and pintucks to create the fit and style that I’m after.

I have lots of different plans for variations on this simple shirt, and I’m hoping to find the time to make several incarnations over the next couple of months.

I’d probably better make a start by getting on with this one…

New Bishopston Fabrics!

New Bishopston swatches

Yes, it’s October, and the new Bishopston swatches have just arrived!

The most exciting thing about this is that they’ve just introduced a new fabric weight – a Fair Trade cotton lawn! They’re the swatches on the left – the colours mostly match the regular cottons, but the fabric is a much lighter weight.

The new cotton lawns can’t be formally certified as organic – the farmers’ plots are so small that they are prone to contamination by chemicals blown across from neighbouring farms. Apparently it takes one weaver a whole working day to weave just 3 metres of cloth by hand! The finished pieces are 19-20 metres long, so that’s a whole week’s work.

I’ve just sent an email to find out whether the lawn comes in black and unbleached, like the regular cottons. Once I know, I can start to work out what my next order’s going to be!

Simplicity 2927 – black and grey

Simplicity 2927

Here is incarnation number two of Simplicity 2927, this time in black and grey. This one’s for Claire, (no, not me!) who left me a comment when she saw the one I’d made for myself.

It’s made using 100% organic cotton, from Bishopston Trading. I couldn’t find any grey, so I dyed a piece myself. I used Dylon’s Antique Grey machine dye, over the unbleached cotton that I used for my own version. It came out really nicely!

We made a couple of small alterations from the original pattern – the length is slightly longer than the tunic version, and shorter than the dress. The sleeves are also an in-between length.

All that this one’s missing now is a big black button, to give it that finishing touch.

Near Sea Naturals

Hooray, my Near Sea Naturals order has just arrived! Eight days from New Mexico to Reading, and no customs fees to pay. Exactly what I needed to cheer me up on such a miserable morning!

Near Sea Naturals order

In the background is a metre of  black and grey stripy jersey. This was intended to be sleeves for a top for Paul, but it’s so soft and lovely that I might just have to hijack it for myself. I’ll see how generous I’m feeling!

The little cone is organic cotton sewing thread, which is impossible to find in the UK. My sewing machine can be a little bit fussy about what kinds of thread it likes to eat, so I’m hoping it’ll get on okay with this one.

On the right is a little piece of organic cotton jersey bias binding – another thing which doesn’t seem to exist over here! I know that I could easily make my own jersey binding, but it takes such a lot of fabric that buying it readymade saves an awful lot of time and money. I’m hoping that this is the right width to feed straight through the fancy bias binding foot on my sewing machine. That would save a lot of time as well!

The two booklets are swatches of Near Sea Naturals‘ “Business Builder” organic cotton jersey fabrics. They’re the ones that they try to keep in stock all the time, and can sell on a wholesale basis. I’m not quite up to being able to buy on a wholesale basis just yet, but it’s very useful to know which fabrics are going to be continuously available.

I’m particularly in love with the pointelle and waffle fabrics that you can see in the picture. Yes, I know they’re most commonly used for thermal underwear, but they’re so soft, and absolutely gorgeous. There’s also a jersey with 8% spandex, which will be great for leggings, and a really interesting herringbone weave, which would make a lovely skirt.

I only wish it was possible for me to convey to you exactly how soft all of these fabrics are. I work in a fabric shop, for goodness’ sake, and I’ve never felt anything as soft as these!

I can’t wait to draw up some designs, and work out what I need to order.

Simplicity 2927 – up a tree!

Climbing a tree...

This is an action shot of Simplicity 2927 – up a tree!

The leggings are from a pattern that I drafted myself – something that I want to do a lot more of in future. It’s taken me a long time to find a UK supplier of nice fine organic cotton jersey, so I’d like to make the most of it! The jersey only comes in cream or white, so I’d probably fill the washing machine with Dylon dyes, to bring in a bit of colour. (The fabric shown was bought from The Cloth House, a long time ago.)

I’m currently coveting pretty much everything that Near Sea Naturals have to offer, whilst simultaneously agonising about the environmental impact of flying organic fabrics all the way over from America. It seems a bit daft to buy low-impact fabric and immediately add 3,000 airmiles to it! Although, as Miss Alice rather eloquently put it, “it’s not like locally produced organic cotton’s falling out of the sky”.

I’m still in the process of using up some of my stashed fabrics to make pretty corsets, so you’ll be seeing a few of those turning up as the weeks progress. Realistically it’s going to take me until next year to be really ready for doing something with my own designs and drafting my own patterns for them, but I’ll be working on it.

Simplicity 2927

This morning I had a very productive time drafting a pattern for a pair of leggings. By lunchtime I’d transformed a piece of lovely cotton jersey that I bought from The Cloth House several years ago, and in the afternoon I started on a simple tunic to go with them.

Say hello to Simplicity 2927:

Simplicity 2927

It’s not finished yet, mostly because I was taken by surprise at how complicated this little dress turned out to be!

It’s one of Simplicity’s Project Runway patterns. As it happens I’ve never actually watched the TV show, but I’d sort of assumed that the point of the patterns was to encourage young wannabe designers into sewing their own clothes.

We’d already discovered at work that the patterns are quite difficult to read. The back of the envelope is quite confusing in terms of being able to work out what you need (more so than normal!), and the instructions often seem unnecessarily complicated.

This particular design comes in a choice of two lengths, has three different sleeve styles, and optional pockets. Directions are also included for piping all of the seams. Throughout the pattern you’re sewing concave to convex edges to make the curved side front seams and the neck band. The sleeves are either faced or bagged out. The front facing’s rather fiddly, and the sleeves and neck band were a nightmare to put together neatly.

I sew three or four days out of every week, and I found this pattern rather difficult!

I certainly wouldn’t recommend it to anyone who didn’t already have plenty of sewing experience – and plenty of patience. It took me around six hours to get this far, and I was expecting it to take about half that time.

As I was putting this little tunic together, I was a bit worried that my choice of colours was going to make me look like a dental nurse. Looking at the photo though, I think the style is quite cute. Slightly sixties-looking, and I think the button makes all the difference. I don’t know whether that’s going to be my final choice of button – I need to see the colours in daylight – but I think whichever button I choose, it needs to be a big one.

All I need to do now is put in the zip, finish off the last few loose ends, and give the whole thing a good pressing. I’m disappointed that I couldn’t get it finished today, as I was planning on wearing it to work tomorrow, along with my new leggings!

Still, I’d rather do it properly, than try to finish it in a hurry and make a mess of it.

I keep going back to these little raglan tunic patterns, so I guess my next step is to draft one of my own. Whatever I come up with, I do know that it won’t have a neckband, and it won’t have such complex curves! I’m still in love with the pockets though.