January dress

Well I made it by the skin of my teeth.  I set myself a challenge to make a dress each month this year and the very first month I’m almost late!  What with decorating, visits away and procrastination I didn’t even buy any fabric until 25th Jan!  My plan was to use New Look 6802 but I’m not sure that's what I made!  I did a FBA, I also added some width to the hips and length as I wasn’t sure how long I wanted it.  So I’d spend ages fiddling with bits of paper, I also had to take a wide pinch of paper out of the back neckline otherwise I get a very bad gape at the back neck.  I don’t actually know what this is called or what it is supposed to resolve but it seems to work….  Once I got the fabric, I realised I hadn’t bought enough, I first bought  2m and then went back and bought another 1m although half would have probably been enough.  I started cutting it out and that when everything started to go wrong.  I wasn’t convinced about the darts I’d created in the paper pattern but sewed one up first of all.  Once I had it looked completely wrong and in the wrong place so I took it out, then a number of mistakes were made on my part which I had to fiddle to resolve, I won’t go into details but pieces ended up upside down and back-to-front!  Anyway I ended up with a dress AKA a sack!  I did need the darts so I did a fudge which I made a design feature which was to add a fold at the waistline which affected the bodice and skirt part.  It somehow works. 

I stitched in the ditch to get this looking ok.

 

The next thing I had to change was the fit, although the measurements and tissue fitting all showed it needed to add some width to the waist/hip it was too big, so I pinned and shaved a bit off especially the waist. 

Now it was beginning to look like an ok dress, sleeves next, turns out the long sleeves are very long!  I thought they would be a 3/4 length and in my haste I didn’t even try to tissue fit them or anything.  So now I had a dress for an orang-utan!  I tried a couple of methods to resolve this and eventually sewed a line with elastic in the bobbin, shirring the fabric shorter.

So what did I end up with I hear you ask? Well………

……something that's not too bad! And hopefully doesn’t make me look pregnant!

(P.S. I’ll get some better pictures soon when hubby is around)

Not the greatest dress in the world but not the worst either.  As you can see I’ve left it quite long as I felt it looked quite flattering. 

What do you think?

It was strange working with jersey knit after using woven fabric before.  I found it difficult to cut out as it kept moving and lining up selvedge was very had as was finding the grain line.  Coincidently my new Sewaholic pattern, the Renfrew turned up today I’m hoping that Tasia will run a sewalong that might help me with some of these issues.  I also found it hard to identify pieces and which way was which as the knit seems to have a mind of its own and just holding it in your hand is a challenge!  But sewing it was easy, most of it was done on my overlocker using the knife and it was quick and easy and even the mistakes I made were easy to resolve as long as you were willing to be creative!  So whilst I started with New Look 6802 I ended up with something unique!

Starting to panic

So I set myself a challenge to make a dress a month, its half way through the first month and I'm making very little progress!  Eeek!  Progress I have made

• Bought myself a Lady Valet dummy
• Set up dummy and padded it to resemble me ( a highly traumatic experience I'm not ready to blog about!)
• Fiddled with New Look 6802 to fit it to me.  I think its about ok apart from the length.  I've done a FBA (first one!), made the whole thing bigger as I just can't seem to stop eating atm!  

What I still need to do

• Check the sleeves, hopefully they will be ok
• Make a muslin especially as I've made so many changes although I'm not sure about this as I would normally use calico but this is for a knit pattern so shouldn't it be done in a knit?  Any ideas?
• Make the bloody thing!

Whats stopping me doing all this......

My living room atm

And the rest of my house looks like.....

so once my decorating finishes then I will be back to the sewing.... promise!

Carbon Copy

So I received some money for Christmas and I’ve thought I would get myself a dress form hopefully in the sales.  But after looking at some I can’t get a grip on which one I want so I thought I would ask the font of all knowledge, t’internet!  I guess the first question to answer is what do I want from a dress form.

I want to

• have as close a representation of myself as possible, I’m quite prepared to pad a dummy (in fact it will probably be essential to do this as I have ‘bits’ that need to be taken into consideration)
• I would like to have flexibility to change the dummy as I have gained back a bit of weight I lost previously so I don’t want to do a Duct Tape Dummy in case because I will lose the weight!
• be able to tissue fit on the dummy and be able to see all the way round and pinch and tuck and pin everything together
• same with a muslin/toile, I guess I need to be able to stick pins in the dummy
• Hemming……
• I’m not too bothered about the aesthetic of the dummy
• not be too freaked out at seeing what I look like in the flesh!  Tall order I know!  Maybe that's the point of it, to be able to see myself the way others do and understand the fitting solutions my body needs. 
• I have about £140 to spend so want to take advantage of the sales

Looking around there seem to be a few options

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I like this one for its aesthetics and it looks stable and robust.  Is it flexible enough in its adjustments? How many adjusters do I need? Is more better? This one has 10. Split waist, foam backed. 

£149 including hem marker

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Looks a little less stable and less attractive but attractiveness is optional!  Has a hem maker, do these work?  How?  12 adjusters including a split waist

£99

 

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This one has only 8 adjusters but has legs so adaptable for trousers.  I’ve never made trousers, no plans to make any but might feel differently in a years time……..  Have a very squishy tummy, saddlebags and bottom so would this be better?

£120

 

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Diana seems to be a popular dress form, this is the fuller figure version, do I need that?  8 part body with 12 auto set dials.  What does that mean? Split waist  Looks ok. 

£124

source

8 party body with 12 adjusters again with a split waist , foam backed so I can stick pins in

£99

 

So whadda ya think?  Do you have a dress form, are they useful or is it something that will sit in the corner and never get used?  I’m veering towards the Lady Valet but is it worth the extra cash?  Do I need a stretchy cover for it as well, I’m guessing so to keep the extra padding in place.  Help!!!!!!!!

2011

Well its review of the year time……
I thought I would make a mosaic of the things I’ve made, and compare it with my plans for this year.  Dangerous really as it shows that I did some of it but not all of it!

(Edit – My mosaic went walkabout!)

The main thing I wanted to achieve in 2011 and failed was a better understanding of pattern drafting. I’ve come to the conclusions that I need to use commercial patterns more first to get a better grounding in how patterns work etc. 
I also failed to make lots of clothes for myself with only 1 skirt, 1 dress and 1 top!  How rubbish is that?  I DID make a dress for my MIL and a couple of things for Miss M but an epic fail for me.  Miss C also didn’t get a look in this last year, something she is very aware of so that needs to be rectified in 2012!   I also made a few things for the home this year as well, especially Christmas. 
I have a plan, I’m still fed up of always being badly dressed and have come to the conclusions that maybe dresses are my saviour.  In the summer months I wear RTW dresses 90% of the time but in the colder months its just jeans and t-shirts and not very flattering ones at that.  So I need more dresses. And I’m setting myself a challenge.  I plan to make 1 dress each month.  12 dresses in 2012! 

I’ve even made a badge!

Now I know compared to Mena this is nothing as she makes a dress every week or even a 7 dresses in 7 days but there's no way I can achieve that so I’m committing to more than I currently achieve but within reason.

• New Look 6802  I already have this one lined up although I’m wondering how the gathering will work on my tummy but well see what a muslin looks like. 
• Simplicity 2406 which came with Sew Magazine recently,  I was thinking of View C as a wintery version and View D as a summer version.
• Burda #101 I want to make another version of this but with a circle skirt rather than a rectangle
• Burda #104 which I want to use a a base for a basic well fitted bodice that I can then adapt (boat neck, v-neck etc) and ambitiously draft a sleeve to fit the bodice!  

After that, who knows.  I don’t mind making multiple versions of the same dress, it doesn’t have to be a unique pattern each month.  I would like to rub-off a version of a RTW dress I wear all summer and there are loads of other patterns I’ve got stored in BurdaStyle favourites such as Coffee Date Dress or Danielle.

What about you, do you have 2012 sewing plans, will you give yourself a challenge like me?  Stevie has called them  Re-sewlutions which I think is a great name, do you have re-sewlutions?  What are you going to do better this year or what new skill are you going to pick up?
P.S. Its 2 years since I started this blog!  Can’t believe its gone so quickly and I can’t believe how rubbish I am at updating!  Next year will be different I promise!!!!!

Frantic Christmas Crafting

Well the big day is nearly upon us, if I haven’t bought it we will do without, if I haven’t made it, well its too late now!  We’re all looking forward to a lovely family Christmas here with 7 of us this year, originally it was going to a quiet 5 and then a change of plans by my brother (was going to be Australia for Xmas and then decided he missed us too much and came back early!) and then Matts sister meant that we are up to 7, not as bad as the 10 we had last year!  So as its a ‘quieter’ Christmas I’ve been making….. again.  After making my Tree Quilt I decided that I NEEDED to make a felt gingerbread house I first saw 2 years ago! Never let it be said I’m one for procrastination!  In my defence its taken me ages to find thick (4mm) felt in the end I got it from Blooming Felt LAST December but it was a bit too late to do it then what with the 10 guests and all.  Anyway the girls made a cardboard gingerbread house the other day and it reminded me that I have everything I need so I got to work. 

Ta Dah!

Its cute isn’t it?  The gingerbread is maybe a little overcooked but it was the only brown available last year but I think it looks great.  The kids love it and Miss C helped to decide where to position everything.  I might go back and sew windows frames onto the side windows just to finish it off. 

The other thing I’ve been periodically working on is the Cross Stitch kit I bought back in February.

and here's the finished article framed.

Looks pretty good to me. 

With all these Christmas crafty things I’ve made and all the decorations I’ve been buying our house is looking a bit like Santa's Grotto.  I think we’re going to have to get  yet another box to store the stuff in the attic and Matt will be banning me from buying anything else soon!  So there ‘might’ not be any Christmas Craft stuff next year although I’m not promising anything.  I’ve made the couple of things that have been preying on my imagination  the last couple of years and nothing has caught my eye this year except maybe crochet snowflakes so hopefully there won’t be too much to do next year as invariably its late in the day when I get these urges and add into that both my girls have their birthdays in December and have full blown creative parties you can see why I’m kinda glad I’ve cleared my Christmas To-Do list.  I’ll post something about their parties in the New Year as I just don’t have time right now. 

OK presents wrapped check, turkey ordered check, Next Sale completed check (gotta love VIP online sales!), family en-route check, bring it on!

 

Have a great and safe Christmas and I’ll see you on the flipside!

My First Ever quilt

Last Christmas (I gave you my heart…) I decided that the Christmas Tree needed a bit of jazzing up.  We have always used a large piece of green felt under the tree which looked ok when the presents were on there but afterwards looked a bit boring and makeshift (which it was!).  Due to Miss M’s late December birthday we don’t put any presents under the tree until a few days before Christmas so they are never there for very long and so the boring green felt was always there.  About Boxing Day last year I decided I would make a Tree Skirt and as there was bound to be Christmas fabric for on sale after Christmas I would get a head start on it in the New Year and not be making Christmas things in late November/December as I was last year.  Yeah right!  So fast forward to November 2011….  I’d been looking at tree skirts but realised where we put our tree and arrange the presents I didn’t want a skirt, more a rectangle so I decided to make a quilt!  I’ve always been scared of starting this as my main experience has been in dressmaking although I do read lots of quilty blogs.  I spent ages looking around at different ideas, I like the quilts usually classified as ‘Modern’ (even though I couldn’t define what that means) and eventually found this Moda quilt and used that as my inspiration.

(Source)

The biggest problem I found was working out the dimensions I needed, maths not being my strong point I had to try to explain to my husband how seam allowances work  and between us we kinda worked out the dimensions…. except we didn’t think about the footprint of our artificial tree!  I’d cut all the pieces, sewn the strips and pinned them together before we got the tree out and realised it was too narrow.  Therefore I had to extend the strips and after a lot of debate whether to match the strips or not I decided not to. 

I cut the coloured pieces 3.5” wide and 11” long, the  white totalled 15” and so was cut into 10/5, 6/9, 7/8 inch lengths.  I made sure these lengths stayed together and then put the coloured sections in between using the ubiquitous 1/4” seam allowance.  This resulted in a width of 35” and a length of 60”.

The backing was plain white with the traditional patterned insert, which I had to do as there wasn’t quite enough white!

Excuse the camera strap in shot!

The wadding was 100% cotton wadding and the only one my local quilting shop sells so I’m not sure if it was the best wadding or not.  As you can probably see I quilted it using the stitch-in-the-ditch method which sometimes was in the ditch and sometimes not!

I bound it with 2.5” continuous binding which I sewed 1/4” from the quilt top and then hand sewed it using a ladder stitch which took forever.  I thought I would sit down and catch up with a TV drama so I put on the second series of The Killing having watched the American version of the first series unfortunately I forgot that this was the Danish version and had subtitles which makes stitching small ladder stitches AND reading a bit challenging and therefore slow progress.  Nevertheless I succeeded in sewing the binding and enjoying the TV programme!

I added a label (which I’ve blanked my surname out) just so Miss M and Miss C can’t pass it off as their work in the future, Miss M has already said it will be a heirloom and passed through the family!

My thoughts on quilting: apart from the whole maths aspect, which is a bit mind blowing for me as this is most defiantly not my strength I found the whole process very therapeutic.  There's a beauty in repetitive tasks involved in quilting compared to dress making where every seam seems to be different and I have to keep referring to the instructions and have at many times sat there scratching  my head turning pattern pieces round in my hands trying to work out what the hell the instructions are trying to convey.  Whereas with quilting, as least with this one, the process was simple and repetitive, first sew the pieces to make strips, press the seams, sew the strips, press the seams, layer the quilt, pin the quilt, quilt the quilt, bind the quilt.  I quite enjoyed the process and not quite sure what I was so scared of beforehand so its given me the confidence to make one for myself.  Miss C is also eyeing one up as she kept using it as a blanket!

Here's an action shot!

Still here, still making just not blogging…

Yes, I am still here, making but not blogging.  When I first started this blog I would automatically blog everything crafty I have done but lately I forget to blog it so lets have a catch up. 

I’ve managed to make a couple of items for the kids as I had planned to.   I made both the girls a pink tartan skirt which went down really well  after they had  watched Barbie Princess Charm School as its just like Barbie's school uniform. 

I used Liers tutorial for this skirt (I love her, she’s so cool!) and made 2 the same.  On Miss M’s skirt I unintentionally added in a bit of future-proofing as I made the waist a little too big so I fudged a fix to make the waist smaller by sewing the waistband together a couple of inches.  This can be unpicked when the waistband is a little snug for her.  I also left a HUGE hem on the bottom and hand sewed a blind hem to hold it nicely which can be easily left down when she grows.  Miss M has a pronounced belly so I used my drafting skills that I’ve picked up in various places to accommodate it so instead of dividing the waist into 2 for front and back I made the front a little bigger and the back smaller.  This means that the skirt sits properly on her waist rather than hanging down below her bulge as she normally wears skirts.  This prompted me to buy some (25m!) button hole elastic so that I can make some more skirts for them that will have adjustable waists and fit Miss M better!

I also made her a tunic/dress which she loves!  I used Simplicity 2689 for this and used a lovely dress-weight cotton we got from the local  fabric shop.  Now what you need to know about Miss M is  that she is obsessed with purple so she was immediately drawn to purple fabrics!  The one she chose for this reminds me of Liberty fabric but was a fraction of the cost!

I did worry that it was a little too ‘old-lady’ for her but she was set on it.  Anyway I needn’t have worried as it looks great!

 

This was view A dress with a very similar fabric to the pattern cover and can be worn as a dress but looks better with leggings. 

What do you think?  She loves it, we went out shopping wearing this outfit and she kept checking out her reflection in shop windows!  Its just right for her tween age, not too young, not too old but with an air of chic about it.  I’m thinking it might be great in a heavier wintery fabric like corduroy or wool mix what do you think? I’m pleased with my make of it, beautiful overlocked seams, perfect hems and matching seam even under the arm, I might be getting good at this sewing lark….

You can tell how much she likes this dress by the pictures we took

Next item to make is McCall's 6156 and I’ve got as far as tracing the pattern out to make view C as a dress.  She’s chosen an odd fabric for this so I’m not sure it will look as great as the one above but we’ll give it a go. 

I like these tunics that can be worn with leggings or tights on young kids, I think they look appropriate for tween age but allow the kids to feel grown up.  I really struggled to find patterns for this age group and everything is little girl pretty dresses so I’m pleased the Simplicity version looks so great.  Just need to get my butt in gear and make the next one…….