Tag: sewing

A Costume Conundrum

Sometimes I worry about myself. For lots of different reasons, it has to be said, but most often for the fact that my brain absolutely cannot and will not stick to the most basic version of any given idea. It always wants to escalate things until a project is impossibly ambitious.

Claire sitting on a comfy sofa, leaning on her walking stick. She is wearing a comfortable steampunk costume.
My current steampunk-ish outfit

This is a frankly terrible picture of what passes for my current steampunk-ish outfit. Knee length tweed breeches (held up by braces which are hidden by my scarf), tall leather Faerysteps boots, a collarless pintucked shirt, and a cap that’s covered with badges. This outfit came about for two reasons.
One, I need to be comfortable. (See: comfy sofa, warm scarf, earplugs, walking stick, tired face. The concrete floor in that otherwise excellent venue did not go down well with the fibromyalgia. Not at all.)
Two, it’s common for a lot of steampunk imagery to be very upper-class-colonial-Victorian-explorer. That makes me feel a bit uncomfortable, and when a friend pointed out that you never see a lower-class “steampunk urchin” costume, I knew what I had to do.

My intended costume (I was going to say “planned”, but that’s a bit of a strong word at this stage) is going to be for a character who’s an in-the-field catcher of magical and/or mythical beasts. Think of a kind of a steampunk / Hellboy / Harry Potter / Fantastic Beasts / Ghostbusters crossover.

Nerf Zombie Strike Doublestrike - a small double-barrelled plastic pistol that fires two foam projectiles at the same time.
Nerf Zombie Strike Doublestrike

The first order of business was to buy a second-hand Nerf pistol from a friend. Nerf guns of all kinds are a common steampunk accessory, and I wanted a small one that Paul could transform for me into something that looks like a tranquilliser dart gun.

I have a pair of oversized black dungarees that I usually wear to do the gardening. So far, so good. I was going to bleach them and dye them brown to match my cap. I figure that it doesn’t matter if they come out a bit patchy, as they’re supposed to be working overalls. But then I thought that perhaps I should wear something that gave a bit more of a nod to a recognisable movie costume.

Boilersuits from the movies! Top: Kristen Wiig and Kate McKinnon in Ghostbusters Bottom Left: Sigourney Weaver in Alien Bottom Right: Jewel Staite in Firefly
Top: Kristen Wiig and Kate McKinnon in Ghostbusters
Left: Sigourney Weaver in Alien
Right: Jewel Staite in Firefly

A brief online search later, and that turns out to mean boiler suits or flight suits rather than dungarees.

Kate McKinnon in Ghostbusters, wearing paint-stained dungarees, a leather jacket, driving gloves, big black boots and black & white striped socks.
Kate McKinnon in Ghostbusters

(Although, to be honest, this photo of Kate McKinnon in Ghostbusters isn’t so much a costume as a bunch of stuff that I could pull out of my wardrobe right now. I love it when that happens.)

Simplicity sewing patterns - 8480, a Firefly/Rogue One costume, and 8447, reproduction 1940s dungarees.
Simplicity patterns for a Firefly / Serenity / Rogue One costume, and reproduction 1940s dungarees & hooded blouse

It turns out that boiler suits are EXPENSIVE. (Health & Safety, and all that.) So I thought that I should maybe just have a little look at some jumpsuit sewing patterns. I knew that Simplicity had a Firefly/Serenity pattern (now being sold as Rogue One), and some 1940s reproduction dungarees with a hooded blouse that I definitely don’t need but am simultaneously looking for an excuse to make.

Vogue Paris Original pattern 2343, published in 1999 and designed by Alexander McQueen for Givenchy. An incredibly stylish tailored jumpsuit.

(Speaking of things I definitely don’t need… while I was browsing jumpsuit patterns, this absolutely incredible Vogue Paris Original came up. It’s by Alexander McQueen for Givenchy, published in 1999, and currently for sale on Etsy for £142.62. Patternvault has a blog post about it.)

I haven’t yet made any form of final decision, except for thinking that paying around £12 to chuck some Dylon pre-dye and Espresso Brown at my existing dungarees is going to be a lot cheaper, quicker and easier than buying a sewing pattern and fabric and starting from scratch. And it’s definitely cheaper than any genuinely utilitarian, as opposed to fashionable and therefore largely pocketless, jumpsuit that I can currently find online.

And then, of course, there’s the issue of accessories and props. What does an in-the-field catcher of magical and/or mythical beasts need to carry with them? I’ll have the Nerf gun, I already have a sonic screwdriver (obviously), and I’ve seen a miniature fire extinguisher (water pistol) that I’m definitely going to have to hang from a belt loop. (Mythical creatures might breathe flames at you, so a miniature fire extinguisher seems like a sensible thing to have.) I’ve been looking at small vintage suitcases, thinking I could maybe put together something Newt Scamander would be proud of… but I suspect a backpack of some sort would be a bit more practical. And of course it will need to double as an actual handbag, given the ridiculous amount of Stuff that I carry around with me at all times.

Four enamel pin badges which say, "I bled on this costume", "I finished before the event", "finished with safety pins" and "I survived con season".
Image (c) Aimee Major Steinberger / aimeekitty on Etsy

While I was wittering on about all of this over on Facebook, a friend spotted these enamel pin badges which are frankly PERFECT. They’re by aimeekitty on Etsy, and although I’ve never (yet) had to resort to “finished with hot glue”, I have definitely made costumes that have required blood sacrifice – or that I’ve been sewing right up until the moment we got into the car to travel to the event! I don’t currently have a particular event in mind for this costume, but I’m pretty sure that one or two of these pins are going to apply.

Sew, Knit N Stretch

1960s Sew Knit N Stretch 228

I’ve been collecting these Sew-Knit-N-Stretch (the precursor to Kwik Sew) patterns for about a year. These particular designs date from 1969 and 1970, so I can’t really think of them as being “vintage” just yet. Okay, yes, they’re from before I was born, but only by three or four years. And that’s NOT OLD. Definitely not.

The peculiar thing about these patterns is that they come without any kind of size reference whatsoever. Yes, they say “S-M-L-XL’ on the front, but there is absolutely no indication, anywhere, as to what those sizes might mean. Not on the envelope, not in the instructions, not on the pattern pieces. Not anywhere.

Sew-Knit-N-Stretch

I made an XL in this one, a complete guess, and thankfully it turned out quite well. Okay, they have been relegated to pyjamas, but I need to do a bit of fabric thinking before I make another pair. The pattern calls for power net (as they’re supposed to be a “control” garment), I went for cotton jersey… but I think perhaps some kind of sportswear fabric might turn out to be a good in-between answer.

Sew-Knit-N-Stretch

You saw these as part of Me-Made May – and yes, they’re now pyjamas too. I made a size XL, thinking they’d be nice and comfy, and I think they will be in a woven fabric. In a knit though, I can definitely go down to a size L without any trouble at all.

Sew-Knit-N-Stretch

This pair I haven’t made yet, but I think I’m going to start by tracing off the size L this time, and hoping that the sizing is the same as for the other patterns!

These, and the ones above, are designed for nylon tricot. Personally I’m not a huge fan of nylon – it creates static electricity, it clings to your legs, and it’s hot and sticky in the summer. Hot and sticky is precisely what I’m trying to avoid by making this type of underwear, so I think a different fabric choice is going to be required. It needs to be something slippery, so that cotton dresses move nicely over the top, but not something that’s going to be hot or static or climb up your legs in an annoying way.

I think I need to stalk Scruffy Badger’s blog – she makes some lovely running shorts in sportswear and performance fabrics, so I think there might be inspiration to be had over there!

Sew-Knit-N-Stretch

This one is the weirdest of all, in that it turned out to (mostly) fit first time! I made a 36C, assuming it would be too big, and I could then alter it down to fit. In an off-the-shelf bra I wear a 36A, or a 34B, or a 32D, depending on what mood the manufacturer was in on the day they decided to pluck the imaginary sizes out of thin air. Surprisingly the 36C turned out to be almost spot on… although the more I wear the slip, the more I wonder whether I should try and find a copy in a 38 to see whether that would fit even better.

Most UK bras are sized using the frankly bizarre “+4” system – you measure around your ribcage to find your underbust measurement, you add four inches to this measurement for no readily apparent reason (three inches if it’s an odd number, obviously), and that’s your bra size. You then measure around the fullest part of your bust, and work out the difference between the under bust and over bust measurements to determine which cup size you need. Then you go to a shop, take every bra in that size into a changing room, and weep gently as not a single one of them turns out to fit you, and they’re all wrong in a different way. Or is that just me?

Anyway, I wonder whether, being a dressmaking pattern, this bra slip is actually given as a dress size, rather than a bra size. Dress patterns are sized according to your over bust measurement, and most of the vintage patterns I buy are a size 38 or 39″ bust. (This could be anything from a size 14 to a size 20½, depending on which decade the pattern is from.)

Actually, a quick search has turned out to reveal that the bra slip is only available up to a size 36, but what looks like the identical bra pattern without the slip part is available in a 38. Perhaps I can cobble the two together and see what happens.

Birthday Dress and a Thank You

Thank You card

Last month we sent my niece, Milly, a box full of arty and crafty things for her fourth birthday. Paul picked out lots of stickers that he thought Milly would like (the wobbly eyes were especially popular), and we’ve just received this fantastic Thank You card. Isn’t it cute?

Milly's 4th Birthday Dress

There was also a Birthday Dress, of course, as well as a little pile of tote bags made in Frozen fabric, for everyone at her birthday party.

This year’s dress is McCalls 6022, another one with finishing techniques far more complicated than I would have expected for an “everyday” kind of dress like this – and especially one marked “Easy”! I had one metre of fabric, and only just managed to squeeze the dress out of it by cutting the yokes, pockets, and the “contrast” band at the bottom on the cross. I think this works quite well, as it gives all of the different characters a chance to appear the right way up!

The thing I like about these dresses is that they last for quite a long time. Even though Milly’s quite tall, she can carry on wearing this as a tunic or top over jeans or leggings, long after she’s outgrown it as a dress. I have this pattern up to age 6, so I expect I’ll be making a few more versions of it over the next couple of years. I will be re-writing the instructions though, to make the finishing a bit less fiddly. (And buying a little bit more fabric next time!)

Dr Seuss Cirque Dress

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No sooner had I blogged about Marcy Tilton’s new dresses than I found an online store with a sale, and bought both of the patterns! As you do…

I decided that I had just enough of my precious organic cotton Lorax fabric from eQuilter to make the Cirque dress (Vogue 9112), if I left off the collar. To be honest I would have left off the collar anyway, as it’s much easier to wear a necklace or a scarf with a flat neckline, and it was the shape of the rest of the dress that I was particularly drawn to.

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Unfortunately I faltered at the first hurdle, which was finding a space big enough to lay the fabric out flat in a single layer in order to cut it out! Because every single piece is a different shape, nothing’s cut on the fold and duplicated, so you really do need to be able to lay out the pieces as shown. I tried the bed, but it made my husband nervous (let us not mention the Snipping Of The Duvet Cover incident from a  few years ago) and it made my back hurt. Plus trying to cut on a squashy surface is very inaccurate, which is the last thing you need with a dress like this! I did eventually find success on the living room floor, but my back and knees were really not at all happy about it.

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Once I’d got it to a state where it was try-on-able, I could see that it’s going to be a really great summer dress! I went down a size, as I often do with patterns that are generous in the waist and hips, so this is a Vogue/Marcy Tilton size M. It’s the tiniest bit tight across the shoulders when worn with a t-shirt underneath, but I need to make some minor alterations to the centre back seam anyway, so I can easily fix that next time around.

I made very few alterations to the pattern, as it was my first time making this dress, and I wanted to make sure that I understood it before I started messing about with it! I left off the collar, but that was very straightforward. I also changed the construction order very slightly, to attach the four pocket pieces before joining the front and back of the dress at the shoulders. It was just easier to manoeuvre it through the machine that way, and it made no difference whatsoever to the outcome of the dress.

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The only other thing I did differently from the instructions was to sew the bottom hem and the neck and armhole bindings by hand, as I didn’t particularly fancy cream topstitching on this very multi-coloured fabric. It took a while, but the finish was worth it.

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I’m not 100% convinced that these pale colours actually suit me very well (a difficulty of buying fabric online!), but I plan to wear this dress with an obnoxiously bright green long sleeve t-shirt underneath it, so I think it’ll look fine. I’m very pleased with the fit, and only plan to make two alterations next time. The first will be to curve the centre back seam to match the curve of my spine, and the second will be to cut away the armholes just a tiny fraction more at the front, and also raise them a little bit as they’re quite deep.

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I wore this dress for a day of mooching about when my parents visited, and found it really comfortable to wear. The pockets are nice and big, I think the dress will be a great length to wear either with or without leggings underneath, and I have at least five pieces of fabric earmarked to make more! It seemed to fit together much more easily than the Marcy Tilton dresses I made last year, but it still has the lovely piecing and asymmetrical styling that I really like.

Top marks to this one, I can’t wait to sew it again!

I finally finished something!

Style 3349, 1971

I bought this sewing pattern for the grand total of £2 in my local Sue Ryder charity shop, although the general consensus of the internet was that I’d overpaid. Charming! A few weeks ago – or is it actually months now? – I started making the 1970s smock-style overdress, and was distracted half way through by other things.

All it needed was the top stitching and the buttonholes, which I’d been putting off because making them by hand (oh, and doing the hemming by hand too) was going to take so long. In the end I bit the bullet and risked making the buttonholes on my notoriously uncooperative sewing machine. They’re not perfect, but they’re lot better (and involved a lot less swearing) than I expected, which was a pleasant surprise!

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Unfortunately this is the best picture I could get of me wearing it. This house is so dark, the mirror’s propped up in my sock drawer because there’s nowhere to actually hang it on a wall… and I’ve found out today that we’re not going to be building the beautiful new sewing room that we’ve been planning for the year since we moved in here, because the quote from the architect was rather a lot more money than we can afford. So, until the clocks change again and we start getting a bit more daylight into the house, crappy pictures of sewing (or Instagram filters) it is!

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This is my newest old pattern (dating from 1955), and I bought it specifically for view 3, the short one at the top. When I unfolded the pattern pieces I was amused to note that it’s not actually mid-thigh length, as shown in the illustration, it actually reaches almost to my knees. But that’s what I want – something to wear over my many pairs of coloured trousers, that’s a bit smarter than a t-shirt. (Whether my colleagues will consider the 1970s smock top an improvement over a t-shirt remains to be seen, in fact I’m a bit nervous about wearing it, but it’s rather a waste of time and fabric if I don’t!)

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The pattern only gives fabric requirements for non-directional prints, so I had to work out the yardage that I’d need for a fabric which can only go one way up. Because the skirt is made up of six very wide gores, the answer turned out to be A LOT! Five yards for a knee-length dress, in fact! I didn’t have enough of the fabric I’d had in mind (I suspect that will now become another 1970s smock), so I’ve started it off in a lovely organic cotton check. I’m currently deciding whether it needs a contrast trim (collar, cuffs, pocket yoke and tie belt), or whether it would be better in just the one fabric. In fact, as I haven’t actually traced the skirt pieces yet, I’m wondering whether to make the most of having quite a lot of this cotton, and actually making the calf-length version instead. I’m leaving the bodice on the dress form while I have a bit of a think about it.

Given my current sewing speed, you’ll probably see it again next year!

Back again.

 

Hello! I seem to be getting into a very lazy habit of only updating the blog about once a fortnight. My excuses are that it’s too frustrating trying to post using the iPad, and it’s so much easier to update Instagram and Facebook. Probably best to follow me there, if you feel like keeping up with me on a more regular basis.

Here you can see me in a fantastically stereotypical Instagram shot – staring whimsically into space as I contemplate how I’m going to get out of this dress when I haven’t added the front placket yet.

I was originally going to make a dress, then I changed my mind and decided to make a shirt. Thanks to a slight maths error (okay, the fact that I didn’t measure my hips properly) the shirt didn’t fit, so I decided to chop off the bottom eight inches and make it into a dress after all. But because I was cobbling together two patterns, I hadn’t quite worked out how I was going to get in and out of the thing. My task for today is to cut into the skirt and add a placket, so I’ve got room for buttons below the waist.

I have quite a few buttonholes in my future – this petticoat needs eight of them. (I just need to find eight matching lingerie buttons from my stash.) The pattern is Butterick 3263, and I made the slip to test the fit of the bodice before I embark on the combinations. Just as well I did, as the petticoat didn’t fit me at all! I took in two inches at the centre back bodice, half an inch at each side, an inch out of each shoulder, and added a dart at the centre back skirt to accommodate my sway back. I’m now slightly paranoid that I’ve made it too tight, but I won’t find out until the buttons are in place. (Cue the traditional cursing of my sewing machine that refuses to make buttonholes unless I’m standing in the sewing machine shop complaining to Sue about it – when of course it makes them perfectly. Git.)

In an attempt to be more organised, and to try and keep both my pattern and fabric stashes under control, I’ve started work on a new system. I’ve printed out a little picture and the fabric details for each of the patterns I sew most often, and glued them down to the pages in a small Filofax that was sitting empty in a drawer. I plan to add swatches for each garment as I make them, so that I can see what I’ve got already and where any gaps might be. The second section will be swatches cut from my fabric stash, so that when I go fabric shopping I can see what I’ve got at home, and make sure I’m not duplicating things. This will also allow me to match up the patterns with the swatches, and hopefully shrink the stash a little bit by actually sewing something from it!

Section three, which you can see poking out on the right, is swatches from clothes that are already in my wardrobe. (These were cut from inexplicable horizontal loops on the back of my jeans.) Having these with me will mean that I can buy fabric (or wool) to match clothes that I have already, thereby creating Actual Outfits rather than a wardrobe full of lovely clothes that bear no relation to one another. (Currently I have nine pairs of smart trousers, and no tops at all to go with them. I’m very bored with black t-shirts already.) I’m also contemplating knitting tiny swatches to match my cardigans, though I think that might be a step too far into madness. Perhaps just sticking in a few strands of yarn would do just as well.

Speaking of madness… the other day I made this little doll face. I found her a bit fiddly (hence the slightly squiffy eyes!), so I enlarged the pattern, thinking I’d try making a doll on a slightly larger scale. Except that when I really looked at the photocopied pieces, I realised that “slightly larger” is actually going to turn out about three feet tall! Do I really want to make a doll at that kind of size? Well, I’ve got a big enough piece of felt, so why not?! We’ll see how long it takes for me to get bored of stuffing all the pieces. (I predict: Not Very.)

In Other News… 

I’ve been clearing out my pattern stash into the Etsy shop.
There are a few vintage patterns that turned out not to fit me, a few that I bought and then changed my mind about, and a few that are cut out to sizes that I now can’t fit into. More to come over the next week or so.

My zipped pouches were reviewed over at Blonde Ambition.
Thank you Katie, for the lovely review!

The Vintage Haberdashery Mystery Boxes have disappeared from Etsy…
…but I do still have one left. Let me know if you’d like it, and I can pop the listing back up just for you. Otherwise it’ll sit on my shelf feeling lonely, until I can find a good home for it.

And now? Buttonholes. Lots of buttonholes.

(And hoping that it doesn’t rain on the four loads of washing currently drying in the garden, because I’ve got no room for all that laundry in the house if the weather decides to chuck it down!)

Dress Success!

17/5/14

You remember that whole work/life balance thing that I was talking about the other week? It seems to have toppled over slightly. It happened not least because I was working towards an Inexplicable Emporium stall that took place at work, at our Museums at Night event. The combination of making sure I had enough stock ready on time, coupled with staying out long past my bedtime, and then compounded by an extremely hectic day off, have led to me hobbling to work today with my walking stick, because I was simply too exhausted to stand up all by myself. Oops.

But! The event itself was a fantastic night out, we sold enough stock to make all the effort worthwhile, and I managed to finish my new dress in time to wear it. Phew!
(Note to self: NEVER wear those shoes again. Beautiful, but so uncomfortable. Ouch.)

Advance 8065, 1956 dress pattern

The pattern is Advance 8065, a shirtwaist dress from 1956, in an extremely modern-proportioned size 18½. Next time I need to shorten the back bodice ever so slightly, but otherwise it’s an absolutely perfect fit. And after wondering whether I’d ever wear it again after the Vintage Night, the answer is a very definite yes! The dress was so comfortable, and so easy to wear, that it’s actually going into my work wardrobe rather than my Special Occasions pile.

I only made one alteration to the pattern, and that was to eliminate the side zip. Because the bodice front matches up with the side front skirt seam, it was easy to simply leave that seam open a few inches, add a placket, and then close it again with snap fasteners. Next time I’ll add two more buttons, but I needed to get this one finished in a hurry and didn’t have time to hand-stitch two more buttonholes!

In fact, I enjoyed wearing this dress so much that I may have already bought the fabric for another one… to match my niece’s Christmas dress. Because honestly, how could I resist a navy blue dress that’s COVERED IN BEES, with buttons to match?

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!

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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!

Me-Made May 2014

1956 Shirtwaist

This dress (a 1956 Advance pattern) is almost complete, it just needs buttons and buttonholes. (And a placket and a couple of snap fasteners.) I’m making it for a purpose – there’s a 1950s night coming up at work, and I wanted to be properly attired. It’s got me thinking though (always dangerous) – once it’s been out to the Vintage Night, will I actually wear this dress again? Of course I want to say yes. I love the fabric, I love the style, it fits me very well… but my dressmaking history reveals that there’s a strong chance of it just living in the wardrobe and only coming out for Dressing Up Occasions.

October 2012

This one (Simplicity 1755) was made in October 2012, for a friend’s wedding. It’s been worn precisely once since then, to a smart-ish occasion at work. It’s comfortable, it’s soft (I saved up for ages to buy the bamboo and cotton blend fabric), it has my favourite raglan sleeves, it even has pockets. It would take me precisely two minutes to replace the annoying hook and eye at the front collar with a few stitches that would prevent it from popping open all the time. And yet it sits in the wardrobe, unloved.

March 2013

I made this dress specifically to wear to a 1940s event (although it’s from a 1950s pattern), but the combination of the fabric being a bit too stiff and Paul telling me that the print looks like curtains has put me off it entirely. I don’t think this one’s ever been out of the wardrobe except for this single occasion, and it’s currently hanging on the back of the sewing room door waiting to be chopped up and turned into zipped pouches and headscarves. Particularly frustrating, as I went out of my way to find a vintage pattern in my size (1950s 18½, as it turns out), and I put a lot of effort into the hand-stitched buttonholes, covered buttons, and french cuffs. The knitted turban though, which I was still sewing together minutes before we left the house for the day, has actually been worn a lot.

Simplicity 3968 (1952)

Even this 1952 pinafore, which I absolutely LOVE for its frankly ridiculous pockets, has only been out of the wardrobe a couple of times. In this instance it’s because the fabric is a linen blend, and there’s miles and miles of skirt to iron before it looks smart enough for work. (And then I sit on the bus for half an hour to get there, and immediately scrunch it up again!)

So what do I actually wear, if I’m not wearing these? Well, mostly I go to work wearing a pair of cord trousers, a jumper and a big scarf. Maybe leggings and a jersey dress. (And a big scarf.) At home I usually pootle about in the World’s Oldest Jeans, and one of the very long jumpers that my Mum knitted for me about twenty years ago.

February 2011

Otherwise, I wear this. Admittedly I’m not usually festooned with small parrots, but I made this coat in the summer of 2009, and it’s been worn endlessly since then. The silk yarn for the hat was a wedding gift, and the resulting Wurm (Silk Wurm, get it? *groan*) has barely left my head. Also featured: the ubiquitous hoody, and of course a scarf. Every now and then I think I should make myself a new coat, but the thought of not having this one is somehow a bit too much. I think I’m going to have to look out for some more pink spotty needlecord, so that I can replicate it when it finally does wear out.

So, back to ME MADE MAY, which was allegedly the point of this post!

I do actually wear at least one item of clothing that I’ve made myself (even if it’s only a knitted hat) almost every day, so that in itself won’t be the challenge for me. What I want to do is pay more attention to the handmade items that I do and don’t wear, and to try and understand why.

Is it too uncomfortable? Did I make it for an occasion that simply doesn’t come around very often? It is too cold to wear for work, too restrictive to wear for a long time, does it make me feel as though I’ve accidentally left the house in fancy dress? Did I make it for myself, or for the Imaginary Claire in my head who’s twenty years younger, two stone lighter, and at least four inches taller than me? Did I actually want to wear this garment, or did I see the construction process as an interesting challenge?

Hopefully by the end of May I’ll have a clearer idea of the things I do and don’t wear, and the reasons why. Perhaps it’ll give me a good reason to get rid of some of the least likely to be sewn patterns from my stash… although it seems more likely that I’ll be inspired to buy some new ones!

Another piece of Marcy Tilton magic

Vogue 8975

This is some organic cotton jersey, bought from the Organic Textile Company, oooh, ages ago. It was sold as seconds because it had been dried in a malfunctioning drier, and smelled terribly of exhaust fumes. Thankfully a quick trip through my own washer and dryer sorted that out, no problem at all. But it wasn’t until I came to iron the fabric before cutting into it that I spotted this perfect hand print! Fortunately it’s on the inside, but it did make me laugh to see it. Genuine evidence of the handmade nature of the fabric!

Vogue 8975

The jersey has now been transformed into Vogue 8975, another Marcy Tilton pattern. That woman must be some kind of pattern drafting genius, because I’ve finished making this dress, and worn it a couple of times, and I still have absolutely no idea how all of the pattern pieces came together to make this shape.

Vogue 8975

I used masking tape on all of the cut pieces, partly to identify the right and wrong sides of the fabric, and partly to make sure that I was sewing everything together the right way up. My diagonal seam across the back has ended up going in the opposite direction from the illustration on the pattern envelope, but other than that it all seems to have come together rather well!

Vogue 8975

I did annotate the pattern as I was going along. I found it very important to just throw out all of the things I thought I knew about dressmaking, and just follow the instructions. Where it says “stop stitching at small circle”, you stop stitching at the small circle, even if you have a weird triangle-y piece of fabric sticking out in an inexplicable manner, even if you think you know better, or want to try and take a shortcut. Just don’t. Trust the instructions, and it will all come out fine in the end!

Vogue 8975

Ta-Daa! My only deviation from the instructions was in the binding of the armhole edges, and I wish I’d just followed the pattern. Instead of a smooth armscye, I now have slightly flanged minuscule cap sleeves, which I didn’t really want. This is what happens when you’re trying to finish sewing a dress at eleven o’clock at night because you really want to wear it to work the next day, and you decide that trimming away the seam allowances and binding them properly will “take too long”. (Note to self: It would have taken exactly the same amount of time, and looked much nicer. Next time: Do It Properly.)

Vogue 8975

As with my previous Marcy Tilton patterns, I went down from my usual Vogue size and cut out a medium. This has given me a perfect fit across the top (where I’m smallest), and the shape of the pattern means that there’s plenty of room at the waist and hips. I think my only disappointment with this design (and it’s ever such a tiny one) is that the pockets aren’t actually as big as all that draping makes them look. They don’t need to be huge, but I think I will alter the pattern slightly to make them just an inch or so longer.

I’ve worn this dress a couple of times now, and I’m extremely tempted to make another identical one. It’s so comfortable to wear, and I’m so pleased with how it looks, I’m definitely going to need more than one of these in my wardrobe!