Tag: Self Drafted Skirt

#OWOP – One Week One Pattern – Self Drafted TNT Skirt

On By Sharon7 Comments

I have again signed up for the One Week, One Pattern challenge hosted by Jane where we wear a single pattern for every day of the week.

Before I committed I did a count of what patterns I had used the most of, and it was a close call between KS 3740 and my Self Drafted TNT Skirt.  I did contemplate using both patterns for the week, but bad laundry management didn’t allow this to happen.

So this is how I have worn my Self Drafted TNT Skirts for the week.

Green jean styled skirt:
I love this skirt but seriously need to get some more tops to go with, especially for summer!

Brown linen skirt (pre blog):
As you can probably tell from the pictures, this skirt is on its last legs, you only have to look at it and it creases and has been moved from the work wardrobe to weekend wear.

Navy wool skirt:
This skirt has turned into a workhorse over winter and I look forward to getting more wear out of it during the warmer months.

Brown wool skirt:
I am in two minds about this skirt, it is a lovely fine wool, but I feel it needs a bit more structure for a skirt.  I plan on making another at some point as I still have quite a bit of this left and plan on underlining it to see if that will give it the look I am after.

Brown suede skirt:
You can’t crease this skirt, it is brilliant – just wash and wear and I can roll it up into a tiny ball in a suitcase and you are none the wiser!

The navy wool skirt and brown linen skirts both got repeated to finish off the week.

This pattern has been a real workhorse for me, it has been used to make skirts, check the fit other skirts (Vogue 1247) and even dresses to make sure the hip curve or lack of is the same!

Interview and March Garment of the Month – completed

On By Sharon17 Comments

Emily, our Stash-busting co-host asked me to share my thoughts about how I go about creating a cohesive wardrobe and you can read all about it on Emily’s blog.

Now half of My Garment of the Month has been completed, it is my TNT Self Drafted pencil skirt in the navy wool that I told you about here.

Again there is not much to tell, it is made like all the others

Looks like the fabric is a magnet for Roscoe’s fur!

Waistband using twill tape.

This is also a garment for the March Curating Challenge – Wardrobe Evaluation – I definitely need more work attire and this skirt fits the criteria perfectly.

Now to get back to work on the Marfy skirt, it has taken a few backward steps since last Saturday, I had to undo the hand picked zipper and pick stitching along the waist facing as the skirt is too big!!

Seeing I am still working on my SWAP garments, I am not sure if this will be part of the 3rd 3-pac as my coral top will be great with it!

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2014 Stash Out: 6.8 m
2014 Stash In: 31.75 m

First 3 Pac for SWAP 2014!

On By Sharon19 Comments

As I mentioned in my last post, my wool skirt is finished and I now have all 3 pieces for my first 3-pac for SWAP 2014; a skirt, blouse and jacket!

This is my TNT skirt pattern and the fabric is a very fine light brown wool which was gifted to me by a wonderful sewing buddy who decided it needed to go to a home where it would be used!

There is not a lot to say about this skirt, it has been made exactly how I make all my skirts –

Waist finished with twill tape and edge stitched.
Hong Kong finish on vent, mitred corner, slip stitched hem and lace on lining

and the complete 3 Pac!!

I have made a toile of Marfy 1913 blouse and will show that as soon as I wash the gelatine out of it.

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2014 Stash Out: 2.4 m
2014 Stash In:  19.25 m

December garments of the month – finsihed!

On By Sharon27 Comments

The final stitches have been completed and I now have a tweed suit that will need to find some serious outgoings to go to!!

Looks like DH should have mowed the lawn!

The benefit of both of these pieces is that they will work extremely well individually with plain tops, bottoms or jackets so I have a lot of ideas running around my head at the moment.

The skirt is my Self Drafted TNT skirt pattern, with the fabric being completely fused with Superfine interfacing to help stop it from bagging from sitting as well as lining the skirt in my normal fashion with Sun Silky lining.

Unfortunately this skirt can’t be included in my SWAP plans, but that is okay as I have the perfect brown summer weight wool ready to be made into a skirt and the remainder of the silk crepe de chine that I used to quilt my jacket with for a top.

I would like to thank all of you for reading my posts this year and enjoying my journey with me and your wonderful comments that you have taken the time to share.  I look forward to seeing your sewing adventures in 2014 and wish everyone a wonderful New Year and a sewfantastic 2014.

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Stash Out:    32.65m

Stash In:      24.80m


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


Ribbon Skirt

On By Sharon28 Comments

I am always drawn to sew-a-longs and had to join in the Julie Starr Ribbon Skirt Sew-a-long over at Goodbye Valentino especially when I saw one of my sewing buddies putting up her hand as well.

The biggest challenge was finding the 38mm (1 1/2″) wide grosgrain ribbon that this skirt is made from in tonal shades in Sydney in quantities of 5m.

Thankfully this is where the Internet really comes in handy, a search revealed Sarah Lauren who has quite an extensive range of grosgrain ribbons here in Australia and then I found Crafts Now who ship to Australia free with a larger colour range of 38mm grosgrain ribbon.

I ordered the ribbons from both and the service was perfect.  The cotton for skirt backing is a brand called “A Day In the Country” purchased from The Remnant Warehouse.

The instructions for this skirt are very easy to follow and this skirt takes a lot of precision measurements to make sure that your side seams match.

This is the small amount of ribbon I had left over!

Golden Brown, Chocolate, Turftan, Natural

So here is the finished skirt …

I am not a fan of waistbands so I have used cotton twill tape as my waistband stabiliser which is then hidden by the lining.

and then some lace for the finishing touch.

I can see this skirt working well with my evening tops I made for SWAP.

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Stash Out:  14.55m
Stash In:  3.3

Lemon Peplum and Suede Skirt

On By Sharon22 Comments

I have joined the large number of people at Pattern Review to make the peplum blouse Vogue 8815.

After reading the pattern information and checking out all the reviews, I noticed that the peplum starts 1″ above your waist and I wanted mine to start on my waist.

I decided to make up a quick muslin of this top and found the following:

  • The waist/peplum seam does sit on my waist, no adjustment!
  • It needed a square shoulder adjustment of 8mm (1/2″)
  • Took out 1cm (3/8″) from the underarm tapering too nothing at the waist
  • Changed the neckline to that of my Vogue 8572 blouse

This lemon fabric is Vienna, 100% polyester purchased From Kerryn’s Fabric World in 2010 and this colour works so well in my wardrobe and you have seen it before here.

The pattern instructions have you finish the armholes, neckline and hem with purchased bias binding, so I have cut bias strips and used my Clover 18mm bias tape maker to make them as there was no way I was going to get bias to match this colour.

As this fabrics frays madly, I have used French Seams and added a Hong Kong finish on the zip seams.

The hem is on the bias so I have finished this the way that the Vogue instructions advise.

This is my 3rd top and final top for the Everyday Collection of my SWAP, so I now need to focus on the 2 bottoms for the Everyday Collection.

The skirt I am wearing is my Self Drafted Skirt pattern and I have used a brown suede like poly spandex fabric from Kerryn’s Fabric World purchased June 2012.

The lovely thing about this pattern is that I managed to cut it out (fabric and lining) before heading off to one of my ASG Groups and had it completed (including attaching the lining) ready for the hem to be levelled by my DH so I could finish of the hems.

What I forgot was that this skirt used to sit on my hips and seeing I had adjusted this pattern the same way I did this skirt  my hem allowance ended up being a mere 1.5cm oops.  I prefer a hem allowance of at least 3cm, so off to Spotlight to purchase some 25mm brown bias tape.

I finished the hems for both the skirt and lining as I have for all my skirts.

This skirt is my first piece for the Evening Collection of my SWAP.

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Stash Out:  Skirt and Top = 1.6m (not including lining)
Stash In:  0

Skirts

On By Sharon10 Comments

Even though I said here that I have plenty of skirts, the following two skirts have been sitting around for a while so I thought I would finish them as they will be great additions to my winter wardrobe.

The first skirt is a self drafted skirt from when I attended the Australian Sewing Guilds Convention in Sydney in 2007. I did a class for skirt drafting with Ronda Braybrook. Our first objective was to have a straight skirt pattern ready to use, and I have since used this pattern to make the brown linen and the brown/cream/red linen skirts here.

Ronda then challenged us to draft a different pattern from our block, and I will admit right now that that is a huge stumbling block for me and this is what I came up with, a wide yoke with a half circle skirt attached.

The skirt is fully lined again with an A-line skirt pattern. Isabel and her predecessor have been wearing this skirt for the past 4 years while I got around to hemming it.

Here is a side view which show the fullness of the skirt.

Now the 2nd skirt hasn’t been hanging around as long and was supposed to be part of my wardrobe for the trip to the US. In fact it did travel with me the whole trip waiting for me to do some hand sewing on the side seams and add the buttons to the yoke which I purchased at M&L Fabrics on our 2nd last day, aren’t they cute.


Needless to say, it came home in the same state as it was packed.

This is another version of BWOF 04-2009-101 and really there are no changes from the original skirt. It will be a great base for my casual wardrobe and already goes with so many of my tops.

Aren’t pictures wonderful, I couldn’t see how the skirt was clinging to my tights in the mirror and seeing that the cord is a lot lighter in weight than the previous version, I’m thinking seriously of adding a lining to this skirt.

Now to focus on some tops.

I interrupt trouser sewing for a UFO

On By Sharon9 Comments

Last weekend my real life sewing buddies came around and assisted with the trouser fitting and tomorrow being a public holiday for us in Australia (Australia Day) I plan on transferring all the adjustments I have made to the muslin to the paper pattern and making up a new muslin which I will share with you soon.

In the meantime, I have completed a UFO that has been sitting in a drawer for the last 2 summers, a cute summer skirt.

This fabric was given to me by DS and it was a border piece across the width of the fabric.

To make the skirt:

  • I pinned the fabric on Isabel (my fitting double) to get the hip size
  • Cut the fabric with a 1.5cm seam allowance to create a centre back seam where I put in an invisible zip (one of the back seams is the selvedge edge).
  • I then put it back on Isabel and pinned out side darts to make the side seams which are 27cm or 11 inches long

  • Once I had sewn these in place I then added front and back waist darts so the waist would be snug.

This where it became a UFO, this was the first time that I had sewn with a stretch woven, so when I tried to do the waist treatment it simply frustrated me to the point that it got put aside.

At Christmas time when DS was visiting I decided it was time to get it back out and finish, as DS kindly reminded me that I have just about every colour in this skirt in a top to wear with it.

I had some poplin in my stash so I cut a facing and attached it the waistband with some twill tape to help it cup the waist, turned the facing over and stitched it all down.

I now have a new skirt to wear on the weekends.

March Wrap-Up

On By Sharon12 Comments

This is a bit late as last weekend was a major sewing weekend and I will share more about this in my next post.

Now March didn’t see any new garments started, but it did see 4 garments finished and here they are.

First up is the brown linen straight skirt that was for the 2009 Swap that still needed hemming in January of this year.

Yes, I am wearing the same top and accessories with it as this one


As you can see, my wardrobe is rather limited.

Second on the list is the brown/coffee/coral linen that I showed you here. I used the same self drafted straight skirt pattern that I did for the brown linen above.

One of the challenges for the 2010 SWAP at Stitcher’s Guild was a matched print and I had never done one before. So I decided to challenge myself and match the centre back seam and using Nancy’s great tutorial I am really pleased how it has turned out, what do you think?

Now this skirt didn’t progress much until I attended one of my ASG groups in February and I only managed to get it hemmed when I visited DM in March.


Back

You will have to wait for another day to find out about the top I am wearing LOL.

The Third garment is the Top to go with the Simplicity Cardi that I made for my DM. I took this to her home the last weekend in March with my Coverpro to finish the hems and here is the final set.

and drum roll please for the Fourth garment……. the LBD is now finished.

Back view

The sleeves didn’t work, it appears that the wool that I used is a gabardine weave and has no give in it whatsoever and with the sleeves being very tight I had to change direction and make it sleeveless.

The other thing I noticed when trying it on is that it seemed to be very close at the correct length already. Luckily when DH levelled the hem for me I had a scant 1.5cm hem to turn up so I purchased some 2cm bias tape to add to this and here you can see:

  • A strip of fusable interfacing fused from the hem fold with a pinked edged 1.5cm wider than the finished hem width. This make your hem a bit firmer and you can then stitch your hem in the safe knowledge that NONE of your stitches will show on the right side of your garment.
  • Finished hem

  • Mitred corner for the split

  • Hong Kong finish on the other side of the split

  • Lace attached to the lining

  • A Diamond stitched to the top of the split to help stabilise this spot.


I also want to make a belt to go with this, if I can find abelt kit in one of the fabric stores.

Here are the pattern adjustments that I made if you want to check them out.

I’m still working on how to get better colours in my photos as the colour of the final dress IS the correct colour, however the lining and the diamond stitching close up shot is not.

Lucily I have this fabric to make a Chanel Jacket with my ASG group in May.