FO: Jersey tops for me...

At the beginning of December I went to the Stitch Fabric/MRosenberg fabric sale at Trumpington Village Hall. I wasn't sure that I would buy anything - goodness know I don't need more fabric! However I came away with a number of fabrics that all go together and a plan forming in my head.

 

I washed sample pieces of each fabric to see how they would react. There were no adverse effects so I washed everything on a normal wash and line dried them.  The jersey I thought would make a nice wrap dress or top, but it had quite a few flaws in it (It had been in the remnant pile and I knew the flaws were there)

Once I laid it out I decided to cut out a couple of tops rather than a dress, and opted for my trusty Burdastyle Raglan top

 

This top has gathering on the raglan sleeves, which looks lovely, but I forget how fiddly this is every.single.time! The neckband was really tricky this time - I normally top stitch the seam allowance of the neckband to get it to stay flat, but the fabric did not like that, so after a couple of attempts I gave up. I finished the sleeves and the bottom hem with bands, but I think I may take off the hem band as the top is very long.

I also made a MyImage magazine cowl neck top that I have made a few times before,

For some reason this top was a much easier sew than the other one, and possibly because of that I prefer this one out of the two!

I am hoping that these two tops will be quite versatile - there are so many colours in them that they will co-ordinate with a number of things already in my wardrobe.

Squares before my eyes

Not long before Christmas I bought this lovely wool blend jersey from Geoff Rosenberg at Trumpingon village hall:

I don't often buy without a plan, but this was lovely and I knew I would be annoyed if I didn't get it.  I got it home and draped it around my dress form for ideas.

There is enough to make a simple dress along the lines of the beige dress I finished the other week. Or another Lady Skater dress with a slightly slimmer skirt. I love the idea of dresses, they seem very practical, just one thing to put on and you're done. However, apart from the beige dress, I don't often wear the dresses I have. I like to be warm, so I would have to layer up with something underneath if I didn't want to put something over the top.

Another thought was to make a biggish drapey top, possibly using the Burda Young pattern that I used for one of my magpie tops. A top would get a lot of wear, but the fabric doesn't actually go with much in my wardrobe so I would pretty much only wear it with skinny jeans (which I appear to be living in at the moment.

Or, a nice warm cowl necked Renfrew - nice and simple and I have made it a few times before. Too many ideas. What to do, what to do?

Then...

I went shopping with a friend of mine.We went into Cos where I saw this dress:

Image from Cos website.

and I tried it on:

My friend tried to persuade me to buy it, but the fit was a bit off - bit big on the shoulders, the sleeves are a strange length and the waist gathering was a bit high on me.

I love the way the pattern goes up the bodice and down the skirt and I am now trying to work out how I can do something similar to this, with my material.

I would really like to get the squares in the pattern going up the bodice and down the skirt like the Cos dress, but am quite concerned that this might reduce the amount of fabric I would have to work with. To do that would I have to cut fabric at the straight edge of the squares to the left of the top photo, cut the grey strip from the straight edge of the squares to the right of the photo, then spin the right hand side of the fabric round so that the two straight edges meet? Or cut a bodice one way up and a skirt the other way up? I think if I made a dress I might have to line it as the fabric is quite fine.

I could be over thinking this.

I am using this post to try to solidify my ideas for this fabric, but I can't decide and can only see problems at the moment - living up to my self-proclaimed title of Queen of Procrastination!

Having recently spoken to the friend I went shopping with and discussed the merits of dresses versus tops and what would be most likely to be worn, I am veering towards a top. Which makes most of the above unnecessary any way!

Queen of Procrastination

I am the Queen of Procrastination at the moment.  I have lots of lovely fabric, most of it bought with a plan in mind. The trouble is I really like the original plan, then think up new plans (usually plural) and end up being so paralyzed by indecision that I don't do anything.


Some of my fabric:
 
a very soft corduroy bought from the local market for £3.00 a metre:

Wool jersey bought from Geoff Rosenberg at Trumpington village hall:

patterned silk from the remnant bin at John Lewis:

Teal wool blend bought from Geoff Rosenberg just because I liked it. The current plan is a Sewaholic Minoru, or a skirt from my pattern cutting class:

middle fabric (need to do something with the other two as well)

Teal linen/cotton blend, bought in New Zealand 4 years ago bought to make a Hot Pattern shirt dress that I muslined and lost heart with. Could also be a Simplicity 2451 with lots left over:

Very drapey jersey, again from Geoff Rosenberg, bought to recreate a Boden Tunic that has been worn to death (could also be wrap dress or renfrew/burda raglan:

Corduroy bought in Goldhawk Road 18months ago to make a Beignet:

top fabric (bottom one already used)

Knobbly blue/grey fabric from one of the ladies at my pattern cutting class - for a sloppy top/Laurel style dress (from my dress block):

Numerous jerseys for renfrews, burda raglan tops and other t-shirt type tops:

Linen for summer skirts or trousers:

Quite large ponti remnants from other makes:

Am I the only one this happens to?! Maybe I will continue the procrastination by rearranging fabric by type, rather than colour...

Leopard Print

A little peek at what I'm working on.

Eldest chose the fabric from one of M Rosenberg fabric sales at Trumpington village hall. She didn't know what she wanted - she just liked the fabric.  I suggested a loose tunic-y type top and she seemed happy with that so I decided on the Burdastyle Anda pattern, mainly becuase I already had the pattern printed out.

I realised that the smallest size was much too big for Eldest, so had a fair crack at grading the pattern down a couple of sizes. It is a very simple pattern, I'm not sure I'd tackle anything more complicated!  I think I went down to a 34 or 32.


The pattern pieces were super long, and as we were thinking of a tunic, I must have cut off over 30cm off the pattern piece.  When it came to laying out, I realised that this shortening of the dress/tunic left me with just enough to make a top for me - yay!

 

I have gone for a Colette patterns Sorbetto, it's free and it fitted on the piece of fabric. Having made a couple of Sorbetto's last year, I decided to lower the bust point by about 2cms. I have inverted the pleat, just for a something a bit different.  I have bought some golden lace trim to possibley go around the neck, but I think less is more on this particular print! I have finished this and was planning to wear this at New Year. When I put it on, however, I felt that it made me look somewhat matronly - When I finish the tunic I will take some pictures of both tops and you can let me know what you think!
I started these both before New Year, but still have a lot to do on the tunic so hope that it will qualify for  Pretty Grievances Jungle January

FO: A skirt for twirling

Last term I had to take Youngest to hospital for a check up.  We ended up having plenty of time before the appointment and popped into a travelling fabric sale on the way. The sale is run by M.Rosenberg & Sons and they appear about every 4 weeks. We had a quick look round and Youngest chose some material for a skirt.


I showed her a pattern that I have had for some time, for a mid length, gathered, tiered skirt (OOP McCalls 4816).  That was deemed suitable, with the stipulation that it had the bows, please!

spot the bow!

 Making this skirt was straight-forward, but as ever seemed to take ages.  I did it in small time increments which possibley made it feel like it took a long time.  It did, however, remind me that I really dislike making gathered garments! It took ages to get all the gathers evenly distributed. The instructions for the bows appeared to tell you to cut a rectangle, tie a knot in it, then sew it to the skirt without out appearing to finish any of the raw edges. I did not do this. I cut bigger rectangles, folded each rectangle right sides together, sewed 2 of the 3 raw edges together, turned it right side out, slip- stitched the remaining raw edge, then knotted and sewed to skirt.

Whilst I was plodding along with this, my mother-in-law knocked up a very similar style skirt for Eldest in an afternoon, using a much easier method. My pattern had me cut 2 pieces each for the top two tiers, and three for the bottom layer, sew each layer into a loop then gather and attach.  My M-i-L copied a RTW skirt that had 2 pieces for all three layers. She gathered and attached the front pieces to each other, did the same for the back, then sewed up the sides, which seemed much more sensible!


Youngest is very please with the skirt, and has t-shirts of many clours to go with it!