A new Sorbetto

I found a nice remnant of cotton sateen in my LFS and snapped it up. Spur of the moment thing :). Cotton with 4% elastine. Black and white in what I'm calling "bamboo check". But what to do with 0.8m.

I had envisaged a top - sleeveless I think - there's less than a metre. The obvious choice was a Sorbetto from Colette Patterns. I made my first Sorbetto two years ago and whilst the top itself was successful, it was too big for me.

This time I cut a size 10. I left extra at the side seams just in case, but I was confident, given the little bit of stretch, that this would be the right size. At the moment I'm sewing in 1/2 to 1 hour bursts. Too many other things going on to be able to take more time. I managed to get this cut out and made up over three nights. Including the neck and arm binding. I can feel the increased confidence and speed in doing some things like edge and seam binding, that were challenging only a couple of years ago.

I thought I'd have a go at changing the pattern up a bit. I tried inverting the pleat, stitching down about 1" from the neckline and letting the ironed in box pleat hang free. I think the concept has merit but perhaps not in cotton sateen, which is a heavier fabric than recommended. I wore it today and I spent half of the day brushing down and rearranging the pleat to make sure it hung properly. I'm going to unpick the neck binding and redo the pleat the original way. But I will keep this change in mind for another time.

UPDATE: I made the change to the pleat and I'm so much happier with it. It's on high rotation over summer. The cut of the neckline and armscye are just right. I can wear it to work or casually with jeans or shorts.

Matching a new skirt

In a moment of weakness I bought a new skirt. It's delightful. I love it. It's well made, with good quality fabric. But as soon as I got it home and the initial euphoria wore off, I realised I had nothing in my wardrobe that matches it (I still love it though 😉). I contemplated making a plain white or off-white top. But this didn't get me excited at all. I wanted something SPECIAL. I spent a few days daydreaming about fabrics and what would go with the skirt (I love these kinds of daydreams!)

And then there was a lightbulb above my head! I remembered a piece of fabric in my stash - poplin-weight rayon. Nothing special but a perfect match for the emerald green leaves in my new skirt. Not a close match - a perfect match! Ironically, I had got this fabric out only a little while ago but didn't have enough for what I had in mind. There was 1.5m. Enough for a simple shirt, which given the busy skirt fabric, was what I needed. But I was still stuck on which pattern to use. And then another lightbulb moment! I remembered a pattern that I'd bought a while ago for a three panel skirt (not used yet) but that also has a sleeveless shirt pattern, with a back yoke and gathers along the front shoulder seams and a V neck (McCalls 6711). There was enough! I cut out a size 14 - no pattern mods but given the relaxed fit I wasn't worried.

Given the fab colour match with the fabrics you'd think finding a matching thread would be easy. Wrong! My thread stash grew exponentially a few years ago thanks to my Granny. Nothing there. No match either at my fave LFS or at Spottie. Argh! I decided near enough was good enough and got started (with some new thread 😉).

The shirt made up easily. I think I could have done better in the gathering at the shoulders. There's a bit of gathering stitching visible. The drape of the fabric is not a light as recommended by the pattern so the finished product is a bit "blousey". But this shirt will be worn tucked in with the skirt so that's ok.

The grand unveiling was at a family dinner where both my mum and SIL complemented my outfit. Win! This combo has become a work staple and worn at least once every two weeks.

Long time...

Hello? Anybody there? I wouldn't be offended if there isn't. It's been so long since I've posted. Crazy work has taken all my writing mojo lately. After spending all day writing, the last thing I want to do in the evenings or weekends is more writing. But I have been sewing. Promise!

During the Christmas break I took stock of everything I've made in the past few months, reviewed my notes and started some blog entries. Next job is photos. Hopefully I'll work through the backlog over the next few weeks. Standby!

(Isn't this Vimrod fantastic!)

Kirsten T #3

In case your're wondering, I haven't got the numbers wrong, this is #3. I like this one so much I got photos of this one before #2. 

In very quick succession, after my second Kirsten T, I made #3. This time, I decided to change things up a bit. One of my favourite RTW tops (and the last one I've bought) has a front made of poly chiffon and the back is a fine poly knit (from Jacqui E - a mid-range Australian clothes range for women - lots of corporate wear). I really like the drape of the front and the knit makes it so comfortable. So I thought I'd give something similar a go. The September MAGAM theme 'snoop sewing' was all the incentive I needed.

I decided to go with similar fabrics to the RTW - a polyester chiffon for the front and a lightweight poly knit for the back. To assist in fit and improve the hang of the top, I cut the chiffon on the bias. I was a bit worried about the this. Cutting chiffon out is always a challenge - slippery and fine. Add cutting on the bias and I was sure the whole thing would skew. So I cut it out on the floor (no weight dragging anywhere) and used a mix of weights and pins. One arm was a little off but on the whole the front and back matched up well.

I used the same neck finish as previous Kirten T makes, using a strip of the knit fabric. I treated the chiffon front and knit back slightly differently. I stretched the neck over the chiffon only very slightly - enough to keep the neckline sitting flat. I stretched it out more over the knit. I varied up the topstitching too - plain straight stitch on the chiffon and a triple stitch over the knit. The front is sitting beautifully. A little bit of puckering on the back. I think this could have been remedied with some stabilising. Next time!

I wasn't sure how to best finish the hems. Should I use different finishes for the chiffon and the knit? I  decided to focus on the best finish for the chiffon. I chose a narrow double-folded hem. Rather than try to wrangle a double folded narrow hem with the knit (impossible!) I chose to fold that over just once. And then a triple straight stitch to finish the whole lot. It worked.

I'm really happy with the way it turned out. Please forgive the crappy photos. Black is so hard to photograph.

Spring - summer planning

Spring is certainly in the air here. I'm beginning to think about warmer weather clothes and seeing some gaping holes in my wardrobe. I worked my way through Colletes wardrobe architect series earlier this year in preparation for my winter wardrobe. I stayed pretty on task, although as usual I didn't get all my makes done. And I'm ok with that. So I reviewed my colours and I don't want to change them. Nor my silhouettes. The one thing that I do want to do though is include some thinking around the difficulty of makes. My head just can't cope with difficult makes all the time.

After focusing on dresses in the last while, I'm going to work on separates. So here we go.

1. Skinny 7/8 pants (Burda 7062 from black bengaline suiting)
2. Casual skirt (Molly Makes Sewing jeans skirt from aqua cotton sateen)
3. Fitted sleeveless top (McCalls 8405 from black/white cotton sateen)
4. Jacket (Burda 8810 from bright cotton sateen)
5. Fitted collared shirt (Butterick 6026 from mid weight blue cotton print)
6. Maxi skirt (Sewaholic Gabriola from not sure yet 😉)

I'm not sure if I'll get it all done but I'm ok with that. 

Molly Makes Sewing make #1

KI saw the Molly Makes Sewing magazine when it first came out earlier this year. By the time I realised I really, really wanted a copy, it had disappeared from the shelves. And then of course I started to see all the makes published in the blogosphere. And I felt that I was really missing out 😔.  Lucky for me (and you) Molly Makes sells back issues from their website. Interestingly the cost including postage is only marginally more expensive than buying it from a newsagent. I still prefer to buy from my local newsagent though. Nothing beats personal service. I've never seen a magazine before where I would make every project included. Every. Single. One. So what to do first? The jeans-style skirt? Skater dress? Quilt print dress? Biker jacket? Cute mini knickers? Oh boy!

I've made a sewing plan for spring/summer - based again on the awesome Wardrobe Architect series by Collette Patterns. And summer PJs are on the list. So PJ shorts it was! The great thing about Lauren's (from Guthrie and Ghani) pattern is that it's a fabric miser too so it was easy to do some stash busting. The main fabric is a cute poly cotton print left over from lining my By Hand London Blazer. And I used some plain aqua poplin for the contrast.

This was the first "combination" waistband I've done - an elastic back connected to ties that go around to the front. A great idea - very comfortable to wear. I like the waistband finish at the front too. Interfacing strengthens the button holes for the ties. Buttonholes could be better 😉. 

More sewing machine discovery too. I was sure that my pfaff didn't have an off-centre straight stitch. But I was wrong. I found it by accident, having a play with my stitch selector and scrap fabric. Made top stitching the cuffs a breeze.

Kirsten Tshirt

When I went for my first visit to Catwalk Fabrics and bought the fabric for My Oslo, I also fell victim to the attraction of a khaki linen knit. I've not worked with too many knits and never with linen but once I had picked this up, I wasn't going to put it down 😊. It sat in my stash for only a little while before I figured out what I wanted to do with it. It's almost exactly the same shade as a tshirt I have which is nearing the end of its life. I contemplated copying a pattern from it but also rifled through my patterns. I remembered that I had downloaded Maria Denmark's Kirsten tshirt. So now I had a plan just no time to make it.

And then last weekend, a window of opportunity opened. A quiet afternoon with uninterrupted access to my sewing machine. Yippee!  I chose the large size and glued the paper together to make the pattern and then decided to overlay my old tshirt over the pattern to check the sizing. I was surprised to see they are almost identical. I'm glad I didn't copy the pattern myself! I decided on using fabric as the neckline ribbing.

Whilst I was waiting for the pattern pieces to dry, I thought I might read the pattern (novel, I know). I'm really glad I did because I learned that Maria uses different seam allowances depending their function (no allowance for the neckline, 1cm for seams and 2cm for hems). No seam allowance at all! Not something I'd done before but I went with the flow. I cut it out using my shears and pattern weights. I was worried about damaging the fabric with pins. It took about 15 minutes - three pattern pieces only.

I tried something else new too. A new stitch. I'm still getting to know my "new" sewing machine. And I've barely used the stretch stitches. I stitched all the seams with a triple straight stitch. I'm impressed. It works. I also used a twin needle to finish the sleeve and bottom hems. I was worried about this stitch, especially since the linen is so fine (skipped stitches? No!). I love the dual feed - go Pfaff!

This also fits the August MAGAM theme of basics and it's not the only one I made. Stay tuned...