Happy Christmas!

No last minute finished projects today, due to being stuck in bed for the last couple of days with a mystery aching all over, unable to stand up straight, type of thing. This, as you might imagine, was not in the plan, for the festivities. I am upright today, and finished the cake, and may be able to do the finishing touches for Husbands shirt for tomorrow....

Happy Christmas and a healthy New Year to everyone.

Denim Portfolio dress

I have been on a bit of a sewing roll recently and have another finished item for my wardrobe:

This is the denim I bought at Goldhawk Road during half term. It is quite crisp and a bit thin, but I liked its dark colour. I cut the facings and pockets from a piece of Liberty fabric, that I have had for some years, to try and reduce bulk in some areas.
I also decided not to interface any of the pieces that require it, due the crispness of the denim on its own. I'm pretty sure that with a bit of washing the denim will soften up, so will have to wait and and see if the interfacing decision was the right one!

I have interspersed the sewing of this with sewing the muslin for Husbands shirt. He has tried it on and there don't seem to be any problems with the fit, so it is going to be a 'wearable muslin' and hopefully one of his Christmas presents. He did originally try it on with with his eyes closed, but that didn't seem to work very well, and he did ask if he could wear it on Christmas day! A post for another day.

The construction of this went well, probably because I have made it before, the only slightly different thing I did was to take in the seams either side of the front panel. This was to reduce poofiness in the stomach area - the crispness of the denim made it stick out rather obviously.

Pocket detail:
I bought 3 pairs of tights today to change up the look - red cable knit, teal and on Youngest's insistance leopard print!

My last two projects have been blue, as is Husband's shirt, so my sewing space has become somewhat untidy. I normally have a good old tidy up after each project, but have let it slide with these being all the same colour. I still have some work to do on the shirt (buttonholes), but had a bit of a hoover this morning, and feel that I can now go back in there and carry on!

New Top

I made a new top last week.

I was looking at the Burdastyle site the week or so before, and saw that Melissa of Fehr Trade had put up alot of her projects. I clicked through and read about loads of her projects. There was one top of hers that I particularly liked, from a magazine called InStyle. I love cowl neck tops, and had been thinking I might try and alter a straight forward t-shirt type top to have this style of neckline. Having seen this top I decided that I didn't need to bother (not yet anyway!) I also really liked the super long sleeves.

I ordered the magazine, which took less than a week to come, then put off doing anything whilst I continued to prepare for the disasterous table top sale. Once that was out of the way I wanted something relatively simple to try, so I traced this out one morning last week when I had a daughter off sick. She was very interested in what I was doing and much better for her to help/watch me than slump in front of the TV. I had a minor panic when I realised that I didn't know whether to add seam allowances or not and I couldn't find anything in the magazine to tell me. I emailed Melissa and she very promptly replied that I did - Thanks Melissa!

That evening I chose the material from my small collection of jerseys from Goldhawk Road, and decided on a navy/french navy piece, which I think is a viscose jersey:

Melissa said in her post that she made her top in an hour, and I can see how this can be done, but this is the first all jersey peice I have made (rather than chopping up old t-shirts), so I took my time. I cut out, followed Melissa's tutorial for a neat finish on a cowl, and did the side seams in one sitting, I really struggled putting in one sleeve in a second sitting (probably due to a couple of glasses of wine and sewing too late in the evening). I then managed to get the second sleeve in without too much drama, and finished of the hems in a third sitting. I overlocked the hem of the sleeves and body, but I wasn't sure what else to do with them. So for me this was quite a quick make...

When I appeared wearing it on Sunday, my girls though it was something I had bought (as did my mother -in-law when she saw it).
The pictures are all a bit dark. It seems quite hard to a decent indoor photo at any time of day at the moment. In the last photo, I am wearing a RTW cardigan that I bought some time ago and for some reason the collar rolls up after I have worn it for a while. This is clearly seen in the photo - is there anything I can do to the collar to stop it doing this?