Melbourne Frocktails and another Vogue 8904

Ever since 2016 when I made Vogue 8904 (aka the shingle dress) for the first time (blog post here), I'd been keeping my eye out for the right fabrics to make the sleeveless multicoloured version.

Sometime in the middle of this year I found myself at a Fibresmith open warehouse sale and there they were; five different colours of knit fabric, all of the exact same weight and make and the same stripe width. It was finally going to happen.

I squirrelled the fabrics away to wait for summer, and then, as Melbourne Frocktails was fast approaching I thought, why not? A raw edged, easy to sew and easy to wear, singlet dress is exactly what this busy party organiser needs.

Secure in the knowledge that I'd already sewn the dress pattern once before and it would be barely a day's work, I decided that Melbourne's untrustworthy weather might require something warm and I started panic knitting a cardigan. I finished it about 5 days before Frocktails and just as a heatwave hit the city. C'est la vie. Needless to say, it didn't get worn and will have to be photographed and written about another day.

Of course that left me with a few evenings spare leading up to Frocktails so I zoomed around to some beadshops and bought 11/0 Mizuki Delica beads that exactly matched my fabrics and made this little bracelet.

Having just come back from a holiday to Fiji, the banded stripes remind me a little too much of sea snakes! I'll have to remember to write a blogpost about the sea kayaking trip and the sewing that I did to prep for it. It was amazing. The holiday that is.

Having the pattern pieces already traced from the previous dress, it really was quite a quick and easy sew. This time, being a bit smaller than in 2016 I sewed exactly as per the pattern sizing and used the 5/8" seam allowance as directed.

Here I am with my Melbourne Frocktails co-host Lisa. Her dress is all kinds of amazing with handpainted silk and a laser cut leather belt and necklace that references lyrics to a song her husband wrote. I truly don't mind being outshone and I was happy in my comfy singlet that left plenty of room for cocktails and canapes! Play to your strengths kids. :)

Super exciting news is that we had the Guardian Australia come along and here's a link to their write up of our not-so-little-anymore cocktail party! Click on the picture below for the link

Crayon dressing

Being stuck at home (read: crappy, cold rental) made me realise I needed another pair of pull on ponti pants and more long sleeved wool tops.

I didn't have any solid colour ponti and I'm not quite ready for bright, printed pull on pants - give me another month of lockdown and I may yet eat those words - so I set off to Fabric Deluxe who have a great selection of solid ponti fabrics (1.5m needed - note to self). Chocolate brown is my jam!

The elastic waist pants are Vogue 9284 which I'd sewn once before and wondered about their legitimacy. Well, I wear them all the time, and that was before workwear, athlesiurewear and loungewear all got thrown into the Covid blender and became the same thing!

I could certainly do with another pair.

The sizing on this pattern is odd. I measure between the 14 and 16, yet I've made the size 12, even taken them in a little, and you can see they're still not tight.

The side seams are sewn last and that allows for a bit of fit adjusting. The pattern has a 5/8" seam allowance, so if you'd underestimated your thigh size there'd be room to adjust. I ended up sewing my 5/8" seam, and then, instead of a second row of stitching 1/4" into the seam allowance, I did it 1/4" into the pants. I've also added 1&1/2" length at the lengthen/shorten line and I'm happy to say they're the perfect length (the navy ones are a tad short). I can wear these with flats or boots where they have a bit of a jodhphur vibe.

In a nice, heavy ponti I like the slight looseness and it gives them more of a nana trouser look and less like leggings that I'm meant to be running around in.

In rummaging around in my stash I found this heavy wool knit that came from my friend's mum's stash (many thanks to the late Barb xx)

There was just enough for a long sleeved tee, so I made a Liesl + Co Metro T, size medium, no mods. Perfect!

  

Because too much brown is never enough, and we weren't quite at lockdown and face mask stage when I took these photos I dragged a kid off to a nice brown bird mural and snapped some pictures.

Of course, most of the time I'm wearing this outfit it's under a coat (even indoors, curse this crappy rental), of which I have quite a few brown ones! (this one is Gerard Darel and I bought it in London in 2001)

I handed the coat to my son to wear while he photographed me and he looked so gangsta and cool in it, I wish I'd taken a photo of him! :)

The shirt is my Liesl + Co Recital shirt in fabric from Phillips Shirts. For a very comfy outfit it almost looks "put together" - at least by my standards.

See You At Six pullover

I've always quite liked this particular See You At Six French terry, and when it went on sale on Cup Day at Fibresmith I snapped some up.

It's a lovely neutral green-grey colour (Climbing Ivy Green) with black print that says "Growing Ideas in the Garden of Your Mind". His little sister thinks that's creepy cause it's growing ideas in your mind, as in the mind of the person who reads the words on your sweater. She thinks it should read my mind.

I bought some of the matching ribbing and quickly and easily sewed up a Jalie 3355 just like the one I'd made in June for his birthday.

Rather than just do the stitching at the neckline, I figured it wouldn't hurt to add a little section of the ribbing as a sort of applique and then stitch it down. My regular sewing machine was off having a service, so I had to make do with the decorative stitches on the back up Toyota machine. There wasn't one that really looked like what I wanted, but I guess this one still looks alright.

The modelling shoot was kind of funny. First, we decided it was best not to sit in such a way that drew attention to the big scab on your knee...

Then there was some elaborate dance routine that would probably be recognisable to anyone less unhip than I am...

Which ended with him giving himself the giggles....

There you go. Cute kid .New long sleeved top. Enough said.

Details:
Pattern: Jalie 3355
Size: O - no modifications
Fabric: See You At Six French terry from Fibresmith, matching ribbing

A Lush Fabrics T-shirt: McCalls 6963

Sometimes a sewing project has to jump the queue.

This was definitely one of those. Did you know I'm one of the co-organisers of Melbourne Frocktails? It's a cocktail party for people who sew. It all started here in Melbourne about 6 years ago and a friend and I took over the running of the event with last year being our first one.

This year we found some new sponsors, or rather some of the new sponsors found us! An unexpected contact from Lush Fabrics over in WA led to them joining Melbourne Frocktails as a major sponsor and donating a cut of fabric for every attendee to take home in their stash bags. Um, hello, seriously, all 150 of us get 1m of fabric!!They were even kind enough to throw in two spare cuts in case we organisers would otherwise miss out.

The crappy rental we're living in has a particularly LUSH lawn right now (let's see if we can keep that alive through summer, eye roll) so I thought I should take my Lush photos on the grass.

The fabric I chose is a drapey rayon knit. It was very hard to choose as there were cotton knits, solids, prints, French terry, textured knits... All sorts of gorgeous fabrics in those five huge boxes.

Anyway, I figured a drapey knit would suit McCalls 6963 which was in my pattern stash and as yet unmade.

I've made the View B which is the deeper neck drape and short sleeve. I was leery of the pattern's description as "close fitting" as nothing ever seems to be, so I went down a size. Well it is quite close fitting and either this size or the one above would have been fine. But there's nothing worse than too wide shoulders on a top pattern with such an open neckline.

I hadn't paid much attention to the length of the body, and it's long! Of course because I was using the border print, I wasn't about to shorten it, but be aware that it's a good, tunic length and I'm 170/6'7".

Searching for somewhere other than on my back on the lawn to take some pictures we wandered around, found some washing on the line and then gave up. But there you go. It's a T-shirt, the main point is it was free fabric and there's enough for everyone!

Exciting times. Frocktails is only two weeks away and I have a truckload of sewing to do! Bye.

Jalie 3355 - birthday jumper

I've got so many things to catch up with on the blog and feel the need for a quick, simple one...

Two days before his 11th birthday, P was moaning about how nobody was making enough of a fuss and he doubted he'd "even get a homemade T-shirt this year". Well, as soon as I heard what a "special tradition" that was I thought I'd better give him his lousy birthday sweater after all!

Two nights before his birthday I quickly traced off the pullover from Jalie 3355 and rummaged through the stash for sweater knits and ribbing.

All three of these fabrics had only just enough for the this sweater and nothing left and they seemed to go together nicely so the cutting was done.

Then, of course, I decided it needed some kind of decoration. I found a bike chain love heart image on the web and used my (still) on loan Silhouette Cameo to cut it from iron-on vinyl. It was fiddly to place all the bits and iron it on, but it's kinda cool and he liked it.

To be honest, part of the reason I had put off making him anything was that I had already put in a purchase order for this sweater from Fyxo, with it's amusingly ambiguous bike love slogan.

But, it hadn't arrived in time. (I know, I could have made it myself, but I like to support people with cool ideas, and Andy has so many cool ideas!)

And as you can see, when it did arrive it had an extra bit of printing that I hadn't expected and so really should have been my bike love sweater! :) He got that one too and adores it.

I got a little bit fancy with the Jalie pattern and added a back neck binding using the instructions from the Basic InsTinct Tee.

And then I added one of Kylie and the Machine's cool labels in the side seam. I wish I'd thought to iron it straight first, as I stitched it in straight but it was folded/printed slightly crooked. Tiny details that weren't going to slow me down the night before the birthday.

I'm very happy with the fit of this pullover pattern. I made size O, with no adjustments, not even to sleeve length. It's so great to know that I have a pattern company that I can pretty much pick a size and make it and it fits the kids perfectly. I mucked up the sizing a bit on my Jalie for adults pattern sewing, but that's entirely my fault and is another blog post to come. It involves cool things and bike love too, so worth waiting for in my opinion! :)

Metro T for Flipper

It was birthday time and while all he ever wants is World Peace, or that model of bike that isn't released yet but has already sold out all over the world.... I figured I'd make him a T-shirt 'cause that's always sure to please!

He still wears the Galactica cross-stitch T-shirt all the time but it irks me that the sleeves are a bit short.

So this one is the same size XL Liesl & Co Metro T-shirt but with about 1" extra sleeve length.

The fabric is a bamboo jersey from the stash and I used self fabric for the neckband, then decided to add a back neck binding using the method described in Sasha SecondoPiano's free Basic InsTinct Tee.

The camera is stitched using the design from the another of the Amy Kallissa patterns that I picked up. (Here's Cedric the cat). There's no way I could use the iron on transfer on such dark fabric. I tried tracing onto tissue paper and stitching through that but it didn't work. I know I could have bought wash away stabiliser but I was trying to make do with what I had. Eventually I found that tracing the design with a chalk fabric marker then rubbing it face down onto the fabric gave me enough of an outline to stitch over.

It has a suitably shaky, handstitched look, no? :)

This T-shirt pattern suits him so well, giving me the perfect excuse to keep stashing good quality solid knits when I find them. 

Details:

Pattern: Liesl & Co Men's Metro T

Size: XL, +1" sleeve length at hem

Fabric: Bamboo jersey from stash

Embroidery: DMC cotton and Amy Kallissa design

Maaidesign: See You At Six sweater dress

One of only three pieces of new fabric that have found their way home with me this year was this exquisite remnant of See You At Six French Terry from Maaidesign

I'm over on the Maaidesign blog talking more about the fabric. Follow this link for the blog post and then all the lovely/dangerous links to the new batch of See You At Six fabrics! The moral of the story is don't delay. These fabrics always sell out super fast, and for good reason

Using a remnant limited me somewhat with my pattern and I almost considered a hoodie for my daughter. But once you've felt this fabric then there's no way you're not going to claim it for yourself. And those colours are so absolutely me (even if floral prints usually aren't me!)

I settled on Butterick B6494, a raglan sleeve dress pattern that I'd bought when I was one my hunt for a good raglan pattern (just before Liesl + Co released the Neighbourhood Sweatshirt which I could easily hack into a dress)

It was a bit tricky fitting it onto the fabric (sorry I don't know exactly what the cut was - maybe more than 1m, but less than 1.5m), but doable thanks to the six, narrow panels of the dress and the fact that I didn't have to match my print, and the fabric is a generous 150cm wide.

Too lazy for a proper muslin I hit up Sewing Pattern Review for tips. Based on that "research" I sized down one size from my measurements - after all, I knew with this fabric I could get away with figure hugging. The other change was to leave off the pockets. 

The pockets are normally set into the princess seams at the front and would end up overlapping each other by an inch or two at the middle. That puts five layers of fabric, two for each pocket and one for the centre front panel, right on one's belly spot. No thanks! - and I adore pockets... I toyed with the idea of a kangaroo pocket which would give me a three layer thickness evenly across the centre, but I actually didn't have enough fabric leftover even for that.

Since Flipper is particularly fond of this dress I have no need for pockets as he seems to magically appear whenever I put it on, and so I can simply hand him things to carry! 

So there you go, make cuddly pajamas to get more hugs from your kids, and sew a tight dress for a more helpful and attentive husband! All the lifestyle tips on this blog :)

You're welcome.

As I was sewing I basted the side seams and tried it on several times before overlocking the seams. I reduced the side seam allowances down to 1/2" from the pattern's 5/8" to give myself a bit more breathing room, but then had to take it the shoulders and arms by an enormous amount. I think I ended up reducing the upper arm circumference by almost two inches.

It appears to be drafted for a much larger upper chest/back and upper arm than the waist/hip size. The sleeve length is also generous. I took 1cm off before cutting as I just could not eke it out of my fabric remnant any other way, and even with my long-ish arms they're a great length.

I'm almost looking forward to colder weather now. Bring it on!

Details:

Pattern: Butterick B6494

Size: 12

Modifications: Sleeve widthe reduction

Fabric: See You At Six french terry from Maaidesign

Ballet Wrap Top with Oliver + S

This was a fun idea that came out of the Oliver + S Facebook group and a request for a tutorial to create a wrap tie cardigan.

I had a good long think about this one as I knew I wanted the bottom band and the ties to be continuous and cleanly finished. It worked really nicely in the end and the full photographed tutorial is up on the Oliver + S blog now.

Click on the image below to go to the tutorial:

The first version I made was with a remnant of some of the "maille merveilleuse" I bought from Mamzelle Fourmi a few years ago. It is lovely, thick, squishy cotton knit.

I cannot, for the life of me work out how the bottom band and the ties all seem to be one piece. The fabric is simply not wide enough to allow that, yet it certainly seems to be the case. Some bit of cutting magic that with the passing of time since I made it, I absolutely can not explain. Shrug.

Edit: In adding the Mamzelle Fourmi link above I noticed the fabric is a "tissu en tres grand largeur" measuring a whopping 185cm wide. 

I gave A the choice of whether it should tie at the side or the back and she chose the side, telling me that it would be uncomfortable in the car or sitting in a chair if the bow was at the back. Fair enough.

Yet since I've made it, she seems to want to wrap it crazy tight around her so that it's almost like a strait-jacket and then ties it at the back anyway. That's irritated me and we've ended up bickering about how it should be worn, hence it's not getting worn all that much. Silly me.

The second one that I made for the Oliver + S tutorial used the final colourway of the retro double sided knit that I found at Fabric Deluxe. (previous makes with this fabric are here, here and here)

I haven't any modelled photos of this one yet, but they'll come I'm sure as winter seems to be sticking around for a while longer.

Both tops were based on the size 8 School Bus T-shirt. The first version has sleeve cuffs added as the fabric length was insufficient for the required sleeve length.

It was a fun exercise to nut out the tutorial. They're great tops and I know, once I start ignoring how she wears them, they'll get plenty of use. If you're curious about turning a T-shirt into a wrap cardigan, check out the tutorial.

Field Trip Raglans

Along with new trousers, P was in need of some long sleeved Ts for winter.

If you've read even one blog post about sewing for this kid you'll know it's all about sleeve length :) That's certainly the first thing that is outgrown with every long sleeved t-shirt. I should just shorten last year's winter tops to make next year's summer Ts - mental note to self.

These T-shirts are the Field Trip Raglan T in size 10, traced off when I had the pattern out to make the pants. If I remember rightly I added about 2" of extra sleeve length, but I should make the note to myself that this pattern does not run as short in the sleeves as the School Bus t-shirt. I can easily add about 3-4" to that one!

Both fabrics were lovely gifts from Sarah  (@fabrictragic) who had received them through an error in ordering and was allowed to keep them. They weren't her thing and she was intending to take them along to the Fabric ReStash Melbourne. When she heard I wasn't coming she pulled these couple of fabrics (and another) aside for me. She picked right as they're perfect for my kind of kid sewing. P loves them!

Both fabrics are merino wool blends. This blue one is a kind of double knit with a thin blue merino knit backed onto a slightly ribbed white weave knit.

I decided to use the reverse side of the fabric for the pocket and neckband. Then I thought it might be fun to give it a distressed edge look. The pocket is cut without the seam allowances and while the top edge is finished the other edges are just stitched on with a twin needle and left raw.

It took a bit of thinking to work out how to do the neckband and not have the lumpy seam inside the folded neckband. The neckband was sewn into a loop and then attached to the top, right sides together with only one of the neckbands raw edges sewn with the overlocker. Then the seam allowances were pressed away from the neckband and the neckband folded to the outside to cover the seam. This was then twin needle stitched in place.

It's a fun look and is no more fiddly than a regular overlock then twin needle stitch.

The orange fabric is more of an athletic knit. It came from the same store and is also a merino wool blend. The reverse side of this one has a very fine loop back finish. Similar to  loop back terry but with much tinier and closer together loops. I think it's very much designed for sportswear. I suspect it will be hard wearing, nice and warm and easy to spot in a crowd - that is to say, perfect for dressing a 10 year old boy!

No pocket or tricky finishes for this one, but the hems and neckband have a bit of rust brown topstitching.

I'm a big fan of raglan t-shirts as they're so easy to sew together. Quick and simple and well fitting and made with free fabric. Can't beat that.

Finishing up with a blurry photo out-take inspired by having watched the World Cup and seeing the defensive wall in a penalty shoot out: