FO: A BHL wedding outfit, part one - Anna dress

Earlier this summer, Husband and I were invited to a wedding.

The happy couple in the rain!

The groom was one of Husband's many cousins, the second eldest of a family of four boys. I first met these boys when they were teenagers and younger and have seen them grow up into lovely young men.

the brothers in age order!

I wanted to make something for the wedding and had an idea to make a long version of the By Hand London Anna dress. I have made the short version some time ago.  I found the fabric at one Geoff Rosenberg's fabric sales at Trumpington Village hall, Cambridge, for the princely sum of £6 a metre. I think I got 3 metres and it was 160cm wide.  It was a lot of fabric to lay out, and I had great fun trying to work out which way up the motif should go.

I decided to make the V neck bodice this time around, and was very sensible - I made a toile of the bodice before cutting into the fabric.  I only needed to alter the length of the bust pleats - which I had to do on my previous version. I also decided to have a split in one side. I hand stitched the seam allowances of the split - the stitches disappeared into the fabric pattern really easily.  I realised quite early on that I would have to line the dress and because of the side split decided to do a half lining ie to the top of the split.
 

When I tried the dress on I noticed that neckline was gaping quite a bit. I am sure the neck had stretched out as the fabric was pretty tricky to handle. I don't think the instructions say to stay stitch the neck, but if I were to make this style again I would definitely stay stitch here. I solved the issue by using some clear elastic thread in the seam allowance between the main body and the lining. I pulled it in slightly, just tight enough to stop the gaping, but not so much that it looked gathered.

I tried to get one of my girls to take photos before the event, but for some reason they were all of of focus - although this is another fabric pattern that looks out of focus anyway!

I haven't much else to say about the dress. It is an easy sew and easy to wear, I certainly felt pretty glam wearing it!

Walking from the church to the reception

With the groom's mother (in pink) and her best friend

FO: Simplicity 8014 - The Shirtdress

So following on from my last post, once the fabric was washed and the jet lag subsided, I started to look at shirtdress patterns.  I narrowed it down quite quickly to two patterns that fitted my vision: Simplicity 8014 and McCalls 6885.  The McCalls was the right shape and had cuffed sleeves and a terrible envelope picture.  The Simplicity won out because it had a yoke, the right sleeves and buttoned all the way through.

I haven't got that many pictures of the construction.  Having cut it out I did a quick baste together to assess the fit which seemed fine - I didn't change anything. At some point I managed to lose the cut pieces and the pattern piece for the sleeve tabs. It was very frustrating, but I had just enough scraps to draw out replacement pieces. I kind of guessed at the size - seemed to work out OK! Really annoyingly, I was having a tidy up the other day as my sewing space is going to occupied by a Spanish exchange student for the next week, and I found the missing pieces - bit late now, but at least I have the proper pattern piece again!!

 There was lots of top stitching:

I found the perfect buttons at my local fabric/haberdashery shop and bought all that they had

 Modelled by Lola - rolled sleeve and full sleeve

and modelled by me - Slightly out of focus, taken by one of the girls at about 7am, hence the bleary eyes.

and here worn at the Knitting and Stitching Show at Ally Pally at the beginning of October, with Charlotte from the Sewing Bee

I am really pleased with this dress - it is exactly what I was planning. I love the buttons, it is the perfect length and I love that the fabric came all the way from NYC along with the memories of that trip! 

FO: Sewing friends and fabric shopping in NYC

Anyone who follows me on IG may have noticed that my family and I went on a pretty epic holiday this summer, travelling up the east coast of America from Orlando to Richmond VA, Washington DC, New York, Boston and ending in Maine.  This the story of how a recent make came to be....

When flying from Orlando to Washington DC to get to Richmond, my suitcase some how didn't get onto our plane. I was extremely upset by this, not least because I had most of my favourite me made items of clothing in it as well as my tamoxifen medication.  Cue lots of phone calls made by lovely Husband and I finally get my slightly battered suitcase delivered to the house we were staying at 2 days later.  In the meantime, our friends had taken me to Target in order to get a couple of changes of clothes. One of the things I tried on was a chambray shirtdress:

I didn't get it because, as ever with rtw it didn't fit quite right, but I really liked the idea of the style of dress.

Spin forwards a couple of weeks and we are in New York where we met up with Jennifer Weise of Workroom Social. She and I had met a couple years ago at NYLon14and got on quite well, so I got in touch to see if she would like to meet up for a coffee or something. The 'or something' turned out to be a brief visit to the Workroom Social Studio,

a lovely tour of Brooklyn and lunch at Brooklyn Farmacy and Soda Fountain ending up at Brooklyn Bridge so that we could walk back in to Manhattan. On our tour Jennifer took us to Brooklyn General Store

which had a great selection of knitting, sewing and crafting supplies.  Much of the fabric there was not what I was looking for, but they did have a good selection of denims, unfortunately not one light enough for a shirtdress. We had a wonderful time with Jennifer, who very generously gave us her whole afternoon to show us around an area of New York that we knew nothing about and probably wouldn't have gone to if we hadn't met up with her.

A few days later, our last full day in New York coincided with MPB Day organised by Peter Lappin of the Male Pattern Boldness blog.

It was reaaalllly hot and humid.

Everyone met at the  FIT museum to see an exhibition called Uniformity.
The exhibition was small but extremely interesting reflecting on how uniforms and fashion influence each other.

My family accompanied me for this bit, then went and did their own thing for the rest of the day (which mainly involved spending time in air conditioned refreshment places and drooling over KitchenAid accessories in Macy's!).

The rest us of had lunch at a nearby Panera where there was lots of sewing chat and a pattern swap.  I picked up a Vogue pattern. After lunch we split into 2 groups one lead by Peter and the other group, led by Tomasa, was going to Mood fabrics amongst others.

I really really wanted to go to Mood so I stuck with this group. I think we went to Pacific Trim and another trimming shop then we got to Mood.  I did my usual dither around feeling a bit overwhelmed by the choice, then gave myself a talking to and looked for specific fabric including some chambray for a shirt dress. They had three chambray's of the right weight for a dress, but only one in the right colour, so that was easy.  It felt a bit stiff, but I was assured that it would soften up with washing, and it has a bit.  I also bought some white Swiss dot cotton for a summer shirt and some white burn out jersey.

Mood

 I had a great time being shepherded around the Garment District by these ladies

Anne, Mary, Kyle, Tomasa and Rhode

 At the end of the day we all met up again in Bryant Park, where we all showed off our purchases

Me and Peter

The haul

The fabric had to wait a couple of weeks until we got home, before it met with my washing machine, then I had to decide which pattern to use...

The dress itself will be in my next post.

FO: Sunki tunic dress

This is a repeat make for Youngest, which I made at around the beginning of the year.  I intially made her a version in a very stiff denim that turned out to only just fit and was very short.

For this one I used the largest tween size in the pattern and I think lengthened it a bit.  The fabric is a lovely soft chambray that I picked up at Karen of DidYouMakeThat's 'Made Up Meet Up' last September. As soon as I saw it I thought it would be a good fabric for a tunic.

It went together well, although the pocket instructions made me stop and think for a while, even though I have done them before and they are very similar to the Portfolio tunic. I still really like the overlapping detail at the shoulder:

Despite the fact that she has worn this a lot more than she ever wore the first one, I only have a couple of pictures of her wearing it - as you can see, she was super keen to have her photo taken!

FO's: Tops for me - a Burda and a Bronte

So, still catching up with posts.  Here are a couple of tops that I made for myself earlier this year, both of which made appearances in MMM16.  I have made both of these top before and made a couple of tweaks to both.

The first is the Jennifer Lauren Vintage Bronte Top. I first made this in 2015 in a lovely coral jersey and have really enjoyed wearing it.  I bought some amazing light teal jersey with a brushed reverse, from a local shop that has since closed down. I remembered that I had wanted to lengthen the top the first time round, but had made a cutting error.  This time was more successful and I had a lovely top pretty quickly.  I think I have enough left over to make something else.

I thought that having any embelishement on the top might make it feel a bit twee but, I found some buttons left over from making Husband a couple of shirts and they match perfectly! Looking at the picture below, I think I may need to cut a smaller size in the shoulder as I don't think that the shoulder seam is supposed to sit off the shoulder like that. 

picture nabbed from MMM16

The second top is a Burda youth pattern that I made some years ago in a drapey magpie jersey that I got from Marie of A Stitching Odessey at a meet-up in London. The magpie top is still going, although I may have to retire it soon as it is looking a bit faded. It had a very long body and a deep band at the hip - if I wore opaque tights or leggings it would almost be dress, but I wear it very ruched on the hip.

The new top used up some fabric that I bought sometime ago, with the aim of trying to recreate a dress from Cos that I had tried on:

 

I decided that a- I couldn't get the dress out to the quantity of fabric in the way that I wanted, and b- I would get more wear from a top.  The fabric is quite striking and I wanted the pattern to come up from the waist with a plainer area at the neck.  Once I decided on a top, I knew that I wanted to use the Burda pattern to show off the fabric.

Having noted how long the magpie version of this is, I reduced the length of the body (can't remember by how much)  and reduced the depth of the band by half.  It seemed like a lot, but was perfect.  I started this one morning and amazingly for me, had it finished by the end of the school day - extraordinary what you can get done if you make a conscious decision not be distracted by other activities!

on my way to a party

With the party girls  husband

Two very successful tops that have seen a lot of wear since they were made.

FO: Olive Green Sewaholic Minoru Jacket

I made a coat.... ages ago and have had this post written for nearly as long...

I have had this Sewaholic Minoru Jacket pattern for 3 or 4 years, and I also had all the fabric that I was going to use for a long time - but it is not this fabric! The fabric I had in mind is a much more wintery fabric and when I made this I was after a mild weather that wasn't a raincoat or a big big down coat.

This fabric was given to me by my mum after she had been having a bit of a clear out. She had had it for sometime  and I have had it for a couple of years - I should think it is probably 25- 30 years old. It  is a thick cotton fabric with a slight brushed feel on the reverse and feels amazing. I had mentally assigned this fabric to being trousers, but it seemed to be the perfect match for this coat.

I did it step by step, using the written instructions that came with the pattern and also the sewalong on the Sewaholic website. Having done lots of research on other Minoru's I had lots of things that I wanted to incorporate, but due to fabric restrictions couldn't, but I did know I wanted external pockets (which the pattern doesn't have). I used the pattern piece for in-seam pockets that Amy of Sew Well drew up.

Details...

I made a size 6 which is a size or 2 smaller than what I would normally make. I checked the finished garment measurements  and decided that I wanted slim fitting coat for summer and therefore sized down.

Innards

The lining fabric for the body for the coat is the leftovers from making this Dear & Doe Plantain T, a couple of years ago.  The sleeve lining is possibley silk. I did a burn test on it and I am pretty sure it is silk. I picked it up in one of my local charity shops for a few pounds.

You can see that I have put in both the internal pockets, but currently only use the right hand one. My phone fits perfectly into the pockets and I would normally favour the left pocket for my phone, but when I have tried it, my phone jabs uncomfortably in to the boob that I had my operations on last summer.

I am ridiculously pleased with this.  Family and friends have been super impressed and several people have thought it was shop bought which is a bit of a result! I wore it constantly for the first week after finishing, then the weather got colder and I was back in my down coat for a while.  If and when I make this again, I will size up as the fabric that I still want to use is much thicker and I will probably underline it aswell.  I think also, that I would try welt pockets on the front - the in-seam pockets are just a fraction too far back.

Out and about with Eldest and Middlest!

Me-Made-May16 weeks 4 and 5

We are half way through June and I realise that I haven't recapped the last few days of May, so here we go:

The Minoru jacket, Blue Bronte top (far right) and the tunic dress Youngest is wearing, are all currently unblogged. Everything else I have linked to in previous MMM16 posts, so won't repeat myself.

I enjoyed the photo process much more this year. Most days I enlisted Youngest to take a picture just as we left the house for school. I like the door as a background, the light is good at that time of day and I am not too squinty if it is bright. I think my pictures are much better if someone else takes them, but I need to do something other than stand still, as all the pictures Youngest took look the same!As someone who isn't super keen on having my photo taken, it felt really strange to leave the house and not take a photo at the end of the month.

My bottom half clothing was greatly improved by having 2 pairs of Hudsons and my Ginger jeans, but I am planning on making more of both at some point.

I really enjoyed seeing everyone else on Instagram and now my feedly list of blogs to read has increased again. I did do Flickr a bit but kept forgetting to upload my photos after a while.

Once again, thank you Zoe of SoZo... for organising and bring on MMM17!