Pre-Christmas sewing and post-Christmas packing

Over a month and no posts, tut tut!

I am still taking time out from my HotPatterns muslin - thanks to Carolyn for her comments the other day. Will reconsider when I get back to the UK - more of that later.

In the run-up to Christmas I made the nighties for my other 2 daughters. I used Kwic Sew 3105 again, using age 10 for Middle Daughter and 11-12 for Eldest, only a couple of years over their ages, but plenty of growing room! Having done it before it felt nice and easy, especially by the 3rd time. No lace on these, just ric rac, which was fiddly to attach but looks great. So, Middle daughter's nightie first:Eldest daughter's:

And the girls together: So, our adventure in NZ comes to an end and we are preparing to leave. We can't leave until we pack and we can't pack until we leave! We brought so little with us we are using nearly everything right up until we go. We are shipping some stuff back, as we have different baggage allowances than on the way out. Fortunately, we have duplicates of most stuff back at home so it doesn't matter if the stuff takes a while to ship over.

I hope a good time was had by all over the festive period. We had a picnic on the shore of Lake Tepako, then went to a friend for coffee in the late afternoon. I have cast an envious eye over some peoples sewing related Christmas presents (Tasia, Tilly to name a couple) and hope I can organise a sewing space when we get back to our house.

Dot to dot

While I have been putting off tackling my muslin, I decided to do a couple of smaller projects. Eldest has been growing again and a funky little dress that we bought a couple of years ago was only suitable for wearing with trousers/leggings underneath.

I had a look at the dress and decided that it would not be too hard to make it into a skirt. I unpicked the red binding that went round the outside of the neck, as far as each side seam. I then cut off the small piece of fabric that had made the Halter part of the dress.

After carefully, pinning the red binding over the new cut edge I sewed it with a small zigzag on my sewing machine. I left a gap where the binding met the original stitching and ran some elastic through the channel in the binding. I'm not sure I needed to do this for Eldest, but I then did exactly the same for a matching dress for Youngest, which did need the elastic. Not a huge refashion, but enough to prolong the life of the dresses.

As usual, I forgot to take pictures of any of the stages of doing this, but I did think to take before and after pics!


I have yet to get a picture of the skirts being worn.

The never-ending muslin

I bought some material some time ago from a shop in Timaru that has now closed down. I got it in the shop's final days of trading and got nearly 3 metres of fabric, 8 buttons, lots of thread, a Vogue shirtdress pattern (NZ$1!) and a remnant of a navy and white polka dot fabric, for less than NZ$20:

I had fully intended to make the Vogue pattern, but only a few days later I came across the HotPatterns website and fell in love with the Metropolitan Urbanista Coatdress. Having not made dress for years I thought that I would make a muslin, having read about them a lot recently (on the Cupcake Goddess, Sewaholic and Gertie's blogs). I had bought a couple of sheets from a charity shop, which I thought would be ideal.

The HotPatterns pattern pieces are printed on a very stiff paper, so doing a tissue fit would be quite tricky. I enlisted Husband to take my measurements, and these indicated that if there was such a thing, I would be a size 11. I traced off the size 12 with the thought that I would take it in if necessary.

I then very carefully cut out the pattern pieces from the fabric (I have been known to be a bit slapdash in the past) and started to piece it all together.
Even trying this on over my clothes (to avoid constant stripping of in the front room) I could see that this was too big. Just to make sure, I tried it on properly:
and a close-up:
At this stage I took in the seams where the side joined the front and the back, which looked better, but then I realised that I would need to change the sleeves too. I found a very detailed review of the pattern on PatternReview and having clicked through to her blog, got some advice from Michelle at Cheap and Picky. Following her advice I made the pleats bigger which seemed to help. I also got some similar advice from Sunni at Cupcake Goddess.

Having adjusted the seams on the body, the pleats, and the under arm seams on the sleeve I think the dress is still slightly too big and that the shoulder seam is sitting too low.


This last picture is oddly angled to try and show the shoulders being too low. I did put pins in where I thought the shoulders seams should be, but they haven't shown up in the photo. I'm not actually sure if the style of dress is really me.

Having worked this out, I gave up in a bit of a grump. Having taken a step back and thought about it some more, I think I might need to adjust the centre back seam to see if that helps with the shoulder. I haven't done any sewing on this for a couple of weeks now and I'm a bit nervous about starting it again, so I have been doing other things.....

New Fabric photos

I mentioned recently that we had been fabric shopping when we were in Wellington, and I finally got round to taking some pictures of what we bought. I forgot to take a picture of the first fabric uncut, but you can see it made up in my previous post.

First up is the nightie material for Middle and Eldest daughters:

Secondly, the material Husband chose for his shirt. Not sure which view I'm making yet:

Thirdly, this stripy jersey for a top for me, possibly a BurdaStyle Lydia top, or a HotPatterns top, although I don't think I have enough for that. It is a different colour of one of the samples I discussed on an earlier post:

I am currently almost at the end of making a muslin for a dress, which will be my next post. I am not sure when the above projects are going to be made. My muslin is taking foreverahh, and I am planning a couple of other little projects too!

Night Night sleep tight

Having been home from our Wellington trip for all of a day, Youngest started to ask when her nightie would be ready. I decided to wait for the end of the holiday before getting started - I find that it is very difficult to lay out the fabric, pattern etc with a house full of people.

The girls chose the pattern - Kwik Sew 3105. They all said they would like the shorter version without sleeves. Having taken Youngest measurements, I decided to make a Small, which is for age 6, although she is only 4 and a half.

I traced out the pattern and then cut out the pieces from the fabric. I completely forgot to take any photos of any stage of making it. I made a trip into Timaru for various things, including lace for this nightie and ric-rac for the other two. I discovered that the amount of lace indicated on the pattern envelope was not enough, I could have done with about 10cms more. Fortunately I found this out when trimming the bottom ruffle. I decided just to shorten the ruffle rather than make another trip into Timaru for extra lace. It didn't make much difference to the "frizzly bit".

Youngest was very pleased with her nightie and has worn it at any opportunity. I didn't get a chance to take a picture of it unworn, hence the rather wrinkly appearance!

New Fabric

We went on holiday to Wellington last week. Amongst other things, visiting Te Papa, going to restaurants, riding the cable car, visiting friends, we went to a fabric shop. It was lovely! Lots of choice. After making tops for 2 of my daughters, my youngest has requested a nightie. The others thought this a good idea, so great fun was had by all choosing material. Husband has also asked me to make him a shirt, so we got some material for him, and finally I chose a jersey knit in an olive stripe. I spent my winnings from the Mackenzie Frocks Stars competition - and some. Unfortunately the pattern for the mens shirt was out of stock, so will have to order that online or in Timaru.

Photos of fabric to follow!

Two Blues

Having refashioned a couple of tops into a top for my Eldest, (blogged here), Middle daughter started to angle for a top as well. I was left with a dark blue body and pale blue sleeves and various scraps of the pale blue, so I got to work. I have not got an overlocker/serger so I have stitched both of these tops on a smallish zigzag to keep a bit of stretch in the fabric. I didn't want to have the same decoration on the top as Eldest's, so I had a look at some of Middle's tops for ideas. One that she wears alot had some flower motifs in a reverse applique style so I thought I would give that a try. I experimented with a couple of scraps and liked the effect, so on with the top...

I forgot to take pictures of the different stages, but here are a couple of the finished item..
After I had finished the flowers I found a tutorial for reverse applique here.