Make a garment a month – December plans

On By Sharon9 Comments

I have decided that December is going to be my month for finishing 2 garments – my Chanel style jacket and matching skirt as they have been progressing slowly but now I want them finished.

I have used Vogue 7975 for the jacket and my self drafted TNT skirt pattern.

Here is a picture of the fabric showing the skirt which I have fused with Superfine fusible interfacing purchased from Spotlight however I can’t seem to find any reference to it.  This is a very fine interfacing just enough to give a bit more structure to the skirt to help stop it from bagging from sitting.

Now to get back to more hand sewing!

November garment of the month – finished!

On By Sharon11 Comments

I did it, a bit late posting, however Vogue 8572 (OOP) has been made up using the damask fabric.

This fabric is a lot thicker than my previous versions and it shows a completely different type of fit which is interesting to me.

For this version:

  • I moved the bust dart down 3cm, and I can’t make up my mind if it is too much or not, and
  • Piped the neckline and sleeve hems
The sleeves in this thicker fabric did cause me a lot of thought and fitting.  There is a fold of fabric at the back of my sleeve above and then when you look at the back view below, there seems to be excessive fabric all through the back and something funny is going on with the right sleeve.
Even with this being not as perfect as I would like, it is definitely wearable and will be a good staple in my wardrobe.

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Stash Out:   26.35 m

Stash In:     24.3 m

Sit and Sew at Tessuti

On By Sharon11 Comments

Last Saturday, 7 dedicated sewers landed on the doorsteps at Tessuti Surry Hills to take our places in their Sew Inn and sew for the day.

The day was organised by Dilliander and Colette made us all feel very welcome, chatting about our projects and offering tea/coffee as well as answering any of our questions regarding the fabrics and the Tessuti patterns.

At the table above is Kristy, Beverley, and I with Wendy at the cutting table and Maria and Margaret were checking out the fabric and Dilliander was our photographer.

It was a real treat not having to lug our sewing machines along for the day and I made good progress on both my tweed skirt and Damask top.

Kristy and I were recognised by a fellow blogger, Wendy who is having a wonderful time sewing but hasn’t updated the blog for quite some time (this is what we were discussing Kristy).  We had a number of customers come and see what we were up to and was asked advice by one lady on suitable styles for the piece of fabric she had fallen in love with.  It was so encouraging to see so many customers in the shop throughout the day.

I did restrain myself from any fabric purchases, but I had been to Tessuti the week before and purchased some gorgeous gold silk for the lining for my French Inspired Jacket.

Make a Garment a Month – November Plans

On By Sharon7 Comments

All of a sudden I seem to have no blouses/tops for work so I have decided to make another version of my TNT top, which is OOP Vogue 8572 using an off white damask fabric that has been in the stash for years.

Even though this is the base pattern, my addition of fitting darts has changed the look of this pattern quite a bit as you can see here and here.

I hope to be back soon with the finished top and another completed piece from my October list.

Raglan T-Shirt

On By Sharon10 Comments

I have finished Burda 02-2013-126 the short sleeve version of the gathered sleeve t-shirt using a latte mercury jersey that was in the stash and purchased from Lincraft a few years ago.

This was supposed to be my October garment for Make a Garment a Month as promised.

This is a quick t-shirt to sew, but this is where I let myself down.  I tend to sew too far along before I try on anything and at this stage I had overlocked the sleeves in place before I tried it on.

Oh no, far too much fabric in the front and back  necklines and the gathers on the sleeves weren’t even (I thought I had checked those).  I’m not certain if the neckline stretched or the fact that I didn’t do my normal 1cm gaposis tuck to the front neckline.

Not sure why I put the beads on!

I am not a fan of undoing 4 thread overlocking so I decided to put the neckband on and see what the result was.

You can see above that the front of the T-shirt has gathers where I don’t want them especially when there is not enough fabric across the bust!

The back neckline wasn’t quite as bad, but it still needs some work.

The sleeves also grab my arms when I move them forward, not comfortable.

I am calling it a fail, as this top doesn’t meet my expectations of a wearable garment e.g.outside the house.

I can see the possibilities with this top so I will give the pattern another try with more care with the gathers, some adjustments and trying it on much sooner.

On other news I managed to pick up Vogue 8904 from the Spotlight sale but now that the weather is warming up I have suddenly realised I am in dire need of summer tops so it looks like my garment for November will be a top!

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Stash Out:   25.5 m

Stash In:     22.3 m


Jeans style skirt

On By Sharon24 Comments

I wanted another skirt to wear with my Rachel Comey top for summer and had on my wish list a denim skirt but not necessarily in denim particularly after I had pinned this bright yellow denim skirt.

I started with my Self Drafted Skirt pattern and then dug out the detailed instructions that Sue Marriott had given me during her workshop on “how to use your TNT pants pattern to design and construct a pair of jeans” at the ASG Convention in Ballart in 2010.

I made the following changes to my pattern:

  • Added seam allowance to the skirt front so that I could have a centre front seam.
  • Drew in the fly front extension.
  • Drew my front pocket shape and drafted the pocket facing and pocket stay patterns.
  • Drew in the back yoke, adding seam allowance to both pieces.
  • Copied the back pockets from my Jalie Jeans as I like the shape and size.
    Copied the waistband from my Jalie Jeans pattern, adding a bit more length to it, just in case.

Next up was to find some fabric and I settled on a forest green twill from Spotlight and in my stash I had some wonderful cotton for the pockets.

The construction from there is just like a pair of jeans – you just don’t have a crotch seam to sew!

This time I have finally put in the pocket stay, besides keeping your pockets in place which avoids “tucking in” the pocket when getting dressed, it is also known as a “tummy control panel”.

 I also edgestitched and topstitched all the seams, including the side seams.

When I went to install the jeans button and rivets I realised that they weren’t the same colour so last Saturday night I headed to the M.Recht Accessories website and ordered antique brass jean buttons and nails and much to my delight they arrived on Tuesday, talk about wonderful service!

So here it is!
Wish I could get the colour consistent!
This is a great skirt and can see it getting a lot of wear during summer and even autumn.
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Stash Out:  24.65 m
Stash In:     22.3 m


Little French Jacket

On By Sharon13 Comments

It had to happen, I knew as soon as I saw this silk mix it would be another jacket and guess what I have found, the Little French Jacket sewalong.

The icing on the cake for this sewalong is that both of the organisers, Leisa from A Challenging Sew and Inna from Thewallinna have both attended Susan Khalje’s – classic French Jacket course and Susan Khalje has also offered to consult along the way!

I would love to attend one of Susan’s classes but at this stage that is a dream so even though I have plenty of projects on my wish list, I’ve decided to join this one as well.

There have been a number of discussions so far and the schedule has been posted. 

I’m going to use Vogue 7975 again, it has been fitted for me and so far I have made two Chanel inspired jackets from this pattern (well the 2nd one is progressing) so I am not going to do the muslin that started on October 7.

Seeing I’m not 100% certain what else is mixed with the silk, I will do a burn test and then figure out how to pre-treat the fabric.  The girls at The Remnant Warehouse did advise not to dry clean it as they felt it would loose some of its lovely hand.

It will be fun working out what colour the lining will be, looks like I need to go shopping and I’m not even sure where to start with the trim!
 

Make A Garment a Month

On By Sharon10 Comments

You may have seen that I have in my side bar a badge for Make A Garment a Month challenge which SarahLizSewStyle is hosting to help keep us focused on sewing a little each day for ourselves.  There are a lot of wonderful fellow sewers joining up.

My garment for October will be this raglan t-shirt from BurdaStyle Magazine as I have a RTW coral one that I wore constantly last year as I really liked the style.

However, I also want October to be the month to completely finish a number of garments that I have  in various stages of completion:

  • Chanel style jacket, that I started back in March during a weekend workshop in Brisbane. It is up to binding the jacket with a special gros-grain ribbon that has a groove in the centre.  Once this is done the sleeves are set in and then the buttonholes (I think I will let Mick do these once I have purchased the buttons from All Buttons Great and Small).
  • Pencil skirt in the same fabric that has the darts sewn and ready for the invisible zip.
  • Denim style skirt in a forest green twill that only needs a buttonhole and jeans button which I have ordered from M.Recht to arrive.

 I wonder how much I will achieve?

Now it is confession time, look what has followed me home from my last two ASG meetings at The Remnant Warehouse, the girls there are so obliging in pointing out fabric they think you will enjoy.

Silk mix (more silk than anything) with every colour in it for a jacket
Very dark brown and cream stripe knit for Vogue 8904

Looks like I have got November’s garment already lined up, but first I need to purchase the pattern whilst it is on special at Spotlight!

Rachel Comey Top

On By Sharon20 Comments

This is the top from the Vogue 1247 Rachel Comey pattern that includes the skirt pattern that I made the burnt orange linen skirt from and thought that some navy chiffon with off white spots that was in the stash would work well with.

My very good friend Sandra (Dilliander on Pattern Review) had already made up this top twice and had taken a lot of excess fabric out of the pattern, and seeing we are similar in size (definitely not height)  I borrowed her adjustments and made them to my pattern as follows:

  • Square shoulder adjustment
  • Shortened front horizontal dart by 1.5cm
  • Reduced the circumference by 3cm
  • Added some gentle shaping to the side seams.
  • Raised the front neckline by 1cm taking it back to the original neckline by the shoulder seam.
  • and then my standard 1cm gaposis in the front neckline.

I then proceeded to suffer paralysis on cutting the fabric and remembered that Lena Merrin from The Sewing Space had posted on Pattern Review and also on her blog a tip about using Gelatin to tame the chiffon and luckily there was some in the pantry.

Once the fabric air dried it was like silk organza and was much nicer to handle.

I also remembered seeing a very detailed review by JenleeC on Pattern Review and followed her tips on stay stitching the various pieces to stop them from stretching out.

French seams are used throughout and one of my sewing buddies also suggested that I topstitch them down as she knew that they would annoy me otherwise.

Now for the finished top

I’ve still got 3.5 metres of this chiffon fabric left and last Saturday at The Remnant Warehouse I saw a very cute peplum top in very similar fabric, now that could be interesting!

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Stash Out:  23.25 m
Stash In:     19.8 m

Summer sewing

On By Sharon17 Comments

I’ve really enjoyed wearing my Rachel Comey brown denim skirt during winter and thought this wonderful burnt orange linen, purchased from Tessuti, would make a perfect summer skirt.

This time I used the same fabric for the pockets as I was concerned about show through. 

I lined it with Sun Silky and this was the best colour match that I could find and also tried out my rolled hem foot for the lining hem. 

and the back view

and someone managed to be in most of my photos!

There is a new top to go with this skirt on the sewing table so fingers crossed I will be back soon.

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Stash Out:  21.65 m
Stash In:     16.3 m