Class Picnic blouse and shorts

I think I'm sticking with chronological order, but I went on such a sewing bender in the first few weeks of January I can hardly be sure now.

What is certain is that I stuck with the idea of using stash fabrics and stash patterns to make clothes that were definitely going to be worn.

I'd made these Oliver + S Class Picnic Shorts previously as part of A's school uniform and she LOVED them. They were size 5 and were getting way too small, so it was time for some more. The idea of another navy uniform pair during the school holidays was too boring so these ones came first.

I had three different coloured denims in the stash, each of which wasn't going to yield enough for a full pair of jeans. I thought it would be fun to colour block the shorts.

The pattern is an absolute delight. I didn't take any photos of the insides, but the finish is really clever and the way the facing is constructed so the inner leg seam allowances are hidden at the hem line and the cute forward overlap at the sides... It's just a lovely, lovely pattern to sew.

She doesn't wear woven tops often, being more of a T-shirt fan, but when I saw this cotton voile remnant in the stash and the blues and greens matched so well I couldn't help myself. The top is the same pattern, and again it's a delight to sew. The yoke is lined, front and back, and then the sleeves have a neat bias finish over the elastic at the neck line.

I'm quite sure this fabric was bought in one of those moments when I'd been looking at what Lucinda had sewn for her daughter (Check out this Flickr pool for serious inspiration). Every now and then she would use a big scale print and I'd fall hard. So I'd buy a similar fabric, then stall on how to use it.

On Instagram I've seen Lucinda start the year with a pledge to sew 10 pieces of stashed fabric and 10 already owned patterns before succumbing to the lure of new stuff. While I may have already breached those rules I'm definitely going along in spirit. And so, this outfit was inspired by her as well as her having been the inspiration for the original fabric purchase way back when.

Another tiny dent in the fabric stash and an outfit that makes me ridiculously happy to see worn. Seriously, those shorts are incredibly cute on. Try them if you haven't already!

Details:

Pattern: Oliver + S Class Picnic Blouse & Shorts

Size: 8, no mods

Fabric: Stashed coloured denims, cotton voile

Japanese Jumpsuit

Welcome back. We have a new PC and finally I can catch up with what happened, sewing-wise, in January.

I started the year by joining in with Sew Japanese In January (An Instagram challenge which is exactly what it sounds like) and made a pattern I'd long wanted to make....

….only, I made it in a fabric I never wanted to use. :)

This little rompersuit comes from one of my Heartwarming Life books by designer Yuki Araki ("Let's Go Out Girl's Clothes"), the sizing only goes up to 130cm so I was mindful that it was this summer or never.

I added 2 inches length to the bottom of the blouse panels and 1 inch height to the top of the shorts panels. She has a long torso and there's nothing worse than a jumpsuit wedgie, right?

Here's how cute the jumpsuit looks in the book when made with a tasteful double gauze (or is it washed linen?):

So what on earth possessed me to start the year sewing with purple, floral seersucker? I could definitely blame the heatwave, or too many G&Ts... But I guess I'm just mindful that I really need to use the fabric that I have on hand, and while I would have happily re-gifted or tossed this particular fabric (it was gifted to me, I sure as hell didn't buy it :) ), I knew A would love it. And she does. Sigh.

The matching hairband and scrunchies were made in an attempt to use it up, but I'm afraid to say there is at least a skirt's worth left. I have to confess, though, that it has softened up nicely in the wash and I imagine it's actually pretty nice to wear. 

The pattern's details are lost somewhat in the print, but the bodice has some pintucks on each side, three little centre buttons and then there are some of those cute, but useless pocket flaps in the shorts/waistband seam.

It's the perfect rollerskating outfit!

Even though that makes it really hard to stand still for photos, and too blurry for roll-by shootings...

I may have become a little confused about which pattern pieces were the top of the bodice, and which were the waistband and which were the facings for those two parts.... I recall doing a bit of gathering or stretching to fit, which probably meant I was sewing the wrong thing at the place, but since it's then gathered with elastic at the top and waist it hardly seemed to matter.

She's really keen for me to make her more jumpsuits and use elastic in gathered tubes at the shoulders rather than the ties which are a bit toilet-break-fiddly. Really the bodice is only a rectangle so upsizing or drafting a bodice onto a pair of shorts shouldn't be hard once this pattern is outgrown.

Some years ago I started my first blog post of the year with the title "Start as you don't intend to continue" and it was the first garment I ever made for me. Well I've gone on to sew pretty much all of my own wardrobe since then, so that was a poor premonition.

I hate to say it in this post in case I jinx myself, and I have NO desire to continue with purple, floral seersucker. I promise there's plenty of beige, brown, neutrals and linen coming up soon. Stick around :)

The 2018 Sewing Wrap Up

I'm going to keep this brief as our PC is dying and keeps crashing.

As always I've made collages of pictures of everything I made in 2018. Let's start with Oliver + S

 

Previous years there have been mulitple collages just for Oliver + S but the kids are wearing school clothes a lot, and A is growing into P's old jeans and shirts and has this taste for grunge...

 But, every body needs swimmers and leotards are such fun to make, so this year Jalie patterns go a collage of their own

I said it at the start of the year and I stand by it, that jacket of P's is my favourite make of the year. I want one for me this year! (but I have so many other coat ideas... hmmm)

Liesl + Co and Lisette patterns always feature heavily in my sewing, and so here's the collage of garments made using those patterns

And finally the "everything else" category. Plenty of Vogue patterns for me, a few indie/japanese and Burda patterns for the kids. Odd bits of craft, and one or two other patterns that I picked up along the way

I have plenty of plans for this year's sewing. But, of course, they'll change from one moment to the next so it's a very fluid approach. But there will definitely be more sewing from the fabric and pattern stash.

Using up all the bits is my pledge and so the first garment sewn this year was suitably hideous, made out of gifted purple seersucker. She loves it and that will be up next. First up though, is the annual mountain holiday with it's poolside craft (there's no Secret Valentine Exchange this year - so I put out a call on Instagram for wannabe gift recipients to send me their crafty ideas).

And probably a new PC. Hitting publish before it crashes....

Christmas sewing: T-shirts and Pyjamas

I was too busy to get the last of my 2018 sewing on the blog and ready to autopost while I was away on holiday. So let's consider this the last of the 2018 blog posts.

When I was buying the crazy bright (but dulled by bad laundry skills) leotard fabric at GJ's I spotted some amazing Kokka double gauze. It was perfect for my mum... But what to make? Why not pyjamas, and use that awesome Lisette (B6296) pattern I've had for ages.

I only insisted on this one photo of my mum wearing them, so mostly you're going to see me swanning about in them - and I tell you, it was hard to take them off and wrap them up to give them away. That fabric {drool}!

I wanted them to be a surprise so I guessed at the sizing. We have pretty much the same shoulder size and while I measured at the size 14, they were described as very loose, so I went with a straight size 12. On me, the pants are a slightly closer fit than I would choose over my peak butt and upper thigh, but I figured my mum has slimmer (weaker? ;) ) legs than me and a flatter bum so I'd be OK. Turns out her upper hips and low waist were a bit tight and both of us could have done with the size 14 pants for different reasons. After she tried them on I found a bit of extra room in the seam allowances and let them out using her sewing machine.

Of course I did consider keeping them for me and buying more fabric for another pair for my mum. But with narrow width, fairly pricey Kokka gauze that wasn't going to happen. For the record, I bought 4.5m and I think I only used just over 4m.

Just before the Christmas holiday I took a trip to Buttonmania to hunt down the perfect buttons. In my head I was imagining an inky, navy, mother of pearl flat button. For the first time, such a button was not to be found. I settled on some perfectly nice navy plastic buttons, then headed to Jimmy's Buttons to get elastic.

Lo and behold, I found my exact dream button and for only 60 cents each!

 

I thoroughly enjoyed the sewing of these and if I was a pyjama wearer myself I would make more in a flash.

 

The other thing I bought at Jimmy's was some velcro.... At my gym is a personal trainer who runs small group fitness classes as well as boxing classes. His boxing wraps have been getting a bit of wear and tear and the velcro was coming unstitched. While his own efforts to restitch the velcro by hand were admirable, they weren't up to a sewists standards!

So, during the Christmas break I took all his boxing wraps (20 strips of 4m long fabric with a thumb loop at one end and velcro at the other), and took them out to the country. I removed the old velcro then washed them:

Then I stitched new velcro on and repaired the thumb loops, or restitched the labels where required.

It was a nice way to hide form the heat and enjoy a bit of peace and quiet in the cool of the dining room (made much brighter for the sake of these photos)

It wouldn't be Christmas without a stencilled T-shirt for my nephew...

I caught up with my brother on the phone and asked him what this year's "thing" was. Turns out, my eight year old nephew is the drummer in a band called The Flying Penguins and is very involved in that. Perfect idea! Only... the one other band member is his next door neighbour Isaac, and it would be a bit weird if only half the band had a T-shirt. That's alright, I can make two!

Normally these freezer paper stencil designs are very much one-offs as the hand cutting of each stencil is really laborious, and the stencil gets ruined when it's removed from the fabric.

This year I had borrowed a Silhouette Cameo cutting machine from a friend. I hadn't yet returned it so I thought I'd "cheat" and cut my stencils with that. That made it much easier to do the lettering and to do a repeat and make a second. It's still super fiddly to iron the tiny pieces of freezer paper back in the right places, but at least the cutting was fast.

Each kid had their name stencilled on the back. I've never met Isaac, but he's the keyboardist in The Flying Penguins, and I hope he likes his T-shirt.

I used the Jalie 3669 Nico raglan T-shirt pattern and chose their sizes based on their age (and the fact that it would be correct for my two and I could then re-use the tracings!). All of the fabric, the matching ribbing, the cute KATM "this is the back" labels, and the fabric paints were already in my stash!

My nephew has hardly taken his one off since Christmas morning and I think he's pretty excited about returning home and gifting the other one to his friend.

The other person who seemed pretty happy with their T-shirt was A's grade 2 teacher. When I asked A what he liked the answer was "the colour blue and Star Wars". How about a stencilled T-shirt I said. Great, she said.

Again, the fabric was in the stash, and amazingly, so was some perfectly matching ribbing in the pile of things I retrieved from TopbikePhysio's mum (the gift that keeps giving).

I found the Han Solo stencil on the internet, cut it with the Silhouette Cameo and then A did the painting. We added one of KATM's "I Made It" labels just in case there was any doubt! I guessed at the size, sewing the larger of the two sizes marked as M on the Jalie pattern. It looked huge and fit Flipper quite well (yay for having another traced pattern ready for the family!) and he would usually describe himself as a T-shirt size L.

Finally, I helped P make a gift for his teacher. He had recently discovered some basic origami patterns and then I taught him an Iris flower pattern that I'd learned years ago. He became super keen on making them and I wondered if enough of them, sewn together, might not make a nice Christmas ornament.

I bought him some metallic paper in green, red, gold and silver and he got started.... He calculated he'd need to make about 26 flowers (with some clever circle volume maths), but then I complicated things by suggesting we stitch them through a styrofoam ball to give it more structure.

That worked beautifully, but he ended up making almost 60 flowers in order to cover the ball! his teacher was super impressed, but mostly he impressed himself, and that's what good gift crafting is all about in my opinion!

I hope you all had a lovely Christmas and happy start to the new year. I need to make my picture collages of everything made in 2018 next...

Redemption via the Carousel Dress

To get myself up from my foetal position in the corner of the sewing room after the disaster that was the Ottobre bermuda pants, there was only one possible siren call...

The lure of an Oliver + S pattern. And better still, one of the very few that I hadn't yet sewn.

This is the Carousel Dress. It's a simple dress that's nice and easy to sew but is deceptively well shaped. I'd never paid it a lot of attention as far as patterns go, but I can't begin to explain how good it looks on A. I kept finding myself exclaiming what an awesome little dress it was. The shape is just delightful.

She had been invited to a friend's birthday party that had a unicorn theme. I'd spied this fabric in Spotlight previously and when she said yes to a unicorn dress I raced back to get some. You see, she's going through a no dress phase. Her outfits are usually a pair of her brothers old jeans, a T-shirt and a check shirt around her waist. It's a real Seattle early 90s grunge look. Amusing on a 7 year old, sure, but I was pining for all those lonely unworn dresses.

I haven't photographed the fabric well here. It's a lightweight denim chambray with little unicorns (Ed: A tells me they are called "alicorns" as they are technically a winged unicorn not a regular land-lubber unicorn. Thanks kid.).

I made a straight size 7 - her measurements fit the size 7 perfectly with the exception of height which is much closer to an 8. I simply couldn't be bothered adding length, so it's size 7 unaltered. I was nervous about it being too big and baggy, or shapeless, but honestly, it has the loveliest fit though the chest that makes the A line flare of the dress really pleasant.

This is View A with the gathered skirt. I like the idea of sewing View B in a corduroy for winter, but as much as I keep looking adoringly at this dress, I'd be wise to wait and see how much wear it gets. I think she'd rather I sewed her jeggings and flannelette shirts (sigh).

I sometimes think I must sound like I have taken a big swig of the Kool Aid when it comes to Oliver + S. Then I tell myself that I can be objective, 'cause see, I haven't even sewn this pattern, or that one, as they don't appeal. Then I sew them and they're gorgeous and I fall in love with the simple lines, well drafted shape and lovely, enjoyable sewing instructions. So I admit, I'm a fan girl. :)

And since I needed a pick me up, I know I chose exactly the right pattern for the job.

Details: 
Pattern: Oliver + S Carousel Dress, View A (check the errata if you have an original paper pattern like I do) 
Size: 7 , no mods
Fabric: Denim chambray from Spotlight
NB: View A is normally made in 2 different fabrics and the fabric requirements lists 1 yard for each. Using the same fabric for both, with this 145cm wide fabric, I think I only used just over 1 metre in total.
Notions: thread chain (busted already, grrr) and single button from stash.

Great ideas poorly executed...

Little things can turn what should be an awesome project into something that's a bit meh...

Take my laundry skills for example. I found this bright white lycra with metallic rainbow print and thought it would make a cool leotard for A's gymnastics. I threw the new fabric in the wash with something much darker (stupid, yep) and it turned not exactly grey, but dull white.

A crazy print leotard that is less crazy by virtue of it being a bit grey and a bit faded (in trying to get the grey out) is just an ugly leotard IMO.

I also foolishly mis-remembered the seam allowances as being 1cm and didn't check the pattern. Of course they weren't. Jalie seam allowances are pretty much always 6mm for these type of patterns. So it's come out a touch small - which, when the off white fabric is stretched isn't doing it any favours. It's not see through thank heavens, just less flash than it should be.

The pattern, Jalie 3466 - Anne, has lots of bits where you can add colour blocking bands. I simply overlapped some of the front and back pattern pieces so I could cut them as single pieces, simplifying it all somewhat.

I put some gold flat piping in the front seams though, as I thought it was needing something to highlight the pattern lines.

The sleeve length was at her request as she stipulated elbow length. The pattern seems to have very long sleeves as when she tried the full length sleeve on without the cuffs that are intended to be added, they were already below her wrist.

As per her measurements, it's size L in width with the torso lengthened to size M. But for my seam allowance error I think it would be perfect.

It will be a fun pattern to use up solid colour lycra scraps and I'll definitely try it again. What to do with the rest of the tainted rainbow lycra is the question I just can't bear to think about.

Something else I can't bear to think about is a pair of Ottobre pants that need a major overhaul to be of any use to anyone (except a very heavily pregnant woman with the hips of a small boy - if that sounds like you, please apply in writing...)

These should have been so good:

The pattern is number 37: Forest Bermuda pants from Ottobre 3/2009. In typical Ottobre style there are no illustrations to accompany the sewing instructions, and infuriatingly the photos of the finished garments don't show what 's really happening at the waistband...

And one line drawing of what it might look like when finished....

I was on board with the idea of pants that were essentially pull on pants with a rib waistband and a mock jeans style outer that was relatively low slung.

And I really enjoyed sewing the cute welt back pockets. 

But I certainly wasn't expecting that to be a real functional zipper fly and waistband. How on earth then would the ribbing "open" up? More to the point, what was the point? Why not just have pull on pants that you, you know, pull on? I dutifully followed the zipper instructions and sewed my functional zipper fly then became completely baffled by the facing that the ribbing attaches to and how it should all work...

I searched the internet but couldn't find any mention of anyone having sewn this pattern. I scoured the Ottobre blog in the hope of more pictures or maybe even a tutorial. I also emailed them directly with a plea for help (sounds of crickets).

The sewing brains trust on Instagram was mostly out of ideas... Except for Inder who was quite sure the facing, which is seen in the picture above between the trousers and the ribbing, should be tucked inside the pants, pointing downwards.

And that kind of worked. The gap in the ribbing and the weird triangular hole in the facing made more sense when it was inverted the other way.

Only there were no clues as to what would keep the facing in place down there. It couldn't be stitched all the way around to the pants as that would close up every pocket and the facing is smaller than the pants at that point anyway. It seemed it could only be through the stitching on of the belt loops.

Here you can see some belt loop stitching holding the facing in place at a rather arbitrary height:

Eventually I figured I had got there. I had created some low slung, fully open-able rib waistband pants for the boy - obviously I wasn't going to use the phrase "maternity pants" but it's quite evident that's what the pattern was based on.

My only adjustment to the pattern, apart from possibly completely misunderstanding it and screwing it up in it's entirety, was to add a loop of waistband elastic inside the ribbing. Neither P nor I were convinced the ribbing would keep them up on it's own.

I was so excited for him to try them on... and then so deflated :(

Oh FFS.

The waistband is ridiculous. I know my kids are pretty normal sized, so it really must be the pattern*. No late term pregnancy, or giant tapeworm cyst is going to happen to the child of someone sewing from an Ottobre magazine so what on earth is expected to fill that waistband???!!

And the whole weight of the pants is hanging from those belt loop tacks so it just looks dreadful.

When I can muster the energy I will take the waistband off, thrown some darts in the back and take in the side seams, reduce the waistband then put it back on. It may be passable but gee what a turd of a project it turned out to be.

I put it in the naughty corner and did the sewing equivalent of washing my mouth to get ride of a bad taste - I sewed a lovely, new to me, Oliver + S pattern. Aaah. Much better.


*If you have sewn this pattern and I am completely wrong and bang out of line, please, please tell me.

Catching up and cotton sewing

Oh my. The year is fast disappearing and I have quiet a few projects that need to land on the blog before the year is out.

When I was meant to be sewing my Frocktails dress, I realised A was about to have her school sleepover and didn't have any pyjamas that fit her in a way that looked acceptable. Of course she had pyjamas that were perfectly comfortable to wear, but the legs were up around her knees... Time for something new.

Years ago I made her some pyjamas from a Japanese Sewing book called Girl's Life, and she had been super keen on the nightie. It was only in the bigger sizes, and so she had to wait.

Here it is in the smallest size (130cm). It's a good fit, although I could lower the armscye opening a little. The way to attach the trim at the sleeve confused me (again) and I studied the previous white pyjamas to try and get my head around it. It's very neat once you figure it out! I also found the plan for the pintucks confusing, again. It would be so much easier if they were marked on the pattern. It wastes lots of fabric to pleat first then cut, but if you cut first you need all those little dart legs for every pleat.

She's happy with it. The fabric was a deep stashed quilting cotton and I was glad to finally use it up. The yellow trim matches the tiny yellow centres on each pinwheel. Yes, I sewed ric rac into something. Shoot me now, right. I can't stand the stuff as a rule. But this did need something and I didn't have any lace of a good shade of blue.

I threw in the chain stitched monogram and it was done, just in time for the sleepover. She promptly had a horrendous blood nose that night, and then as soon as it was washed, she cartwheeled in it and tore one of the armholes. That's repaired and it's back in rotation. Thank heavens for my rule of photos first.

The other bit of cotton sewing I did was to make Sal's version of the Tessuti Felicia Pinafore dress (first one here). Sal tried on mine and declared she loved it just as it was. I bit my tongue and tried not to point out what I saw as flaws in drape and shape..

So I made it exactly the same, which was super easy. This one I seemed to have a tiny bit more fabric and wouldn't have needed the minor bodice and skirt shortening, but I did them anyway so it would be as per the one she tried on. This fabric is also a cool print from Nerida Hansen. (link in previous blog post).

And she got one of Kylie and the Machine's awesome labels. Cause it's true: Sewing is the F'ing Best. I've passed on the pattern to her and hopefully she can make many, many more!