Delphine Skirt and Bronte Top for Autumn

Now that the weather is getting colder in the UK, I have the strong urge to start sewing warmer clothes. Especially after I realised that I have hardly made any clothes for colder weather. Because we are moving, I had to pack all my staff and when going through the garments I thought "Where are my me-made winter garments" - there were none. That brings me to the problem, what fabric and patterns should I use to make winter garments? If you have any suggestions, please let me know :)

But as a start I think a denim Delphine Skirt and a long-sleeved Bronte Top are a good idea. So let's talk about the skirt first.

Pattern: Delphine Skirt by Tilly and the Buttons.

Fabric: Grey denim bought from Clothes House in Soho, London (so pricey fabric). I had bought this denim when I started sewing (so about 4 years ago) and I made a pair of trousers from it. Although you can't actually say they were finished trousers, because I realised they were massive on me and never hemmed them.

I think 1.5 me would have fit in there, haha.

For the last 4 years they lived hidden under my bed (as many other items that I made before knowing about fitting and muslins). A few weeks ago I remembered them and thought I might be able to refashion them into a skirt. So I unpicked all these pesky seams, cut out the zipper, gave the fabric a wash and waited for the right skirt pattern to come along. And the Delphine came along and I decided to muslin the pattern with the denim (you can see my second version here).

Cutting: Can you imagine that one half of the trouser leg was bigger than one quarter of the skirt? I managed to cut each skirt panel from one trouser leg. To be sure to be on grain, I pulled one thread from the denim to get a straight edge and used this to align the skirt panels. The front panel of the skirt is cut on the fold. But I didn't have a piece big enough to cut on the fold. So, I just added a 5/8" seam allowance to the center fold and cut two front panels that I sewed together.

Fitting: As said in my last post, there was a lot of fabric bunching in the back due to my sway back. So, I just kept shifting the waistband down at the center back until the bunching was gone = instant sway back adjustment.

Embellishment: I couldn't resist to add a pink piping that I made with some bias tape from my stash. Don't you think pink and grey are a match made in heaven? And yes I know that the pink piping will limit the versatility of the skirt. But never mind, I love it. I added even more pink on the inside where I used a lovely pink quilting cotton with mannequins on it as a facing. The fabric was a leftover from one of my first quilts.

Almost perfect invisible zip if it wasn't for the bulk added by the piping.

Now before the post gets to long, let's talk about the Bronte Top.

Pattern: Bronte Top by Jennifer Lauren Vintage.

Fabric: I'm not 100% sure what kind of fabric it is. It looks knitted on the front and has little loops on the back. And it is super soft :) I could be a French Terry Knit. However, I somehow doubt it because I bought the fabric in Walthemstow Market. I can't remember the price, but it will have been under £3.

Alterations: I made the same alterations as for my first Bronte and this time just sewed the long-sleeved version. For the sleeve, I traced the sleeve in size 10 and the sleeve cap (between front and back notches) in size 12 to get a slightly higher sleeve cap. I love the fit of the Bronte top. Usually sleeves are twisting on me because of my forward shoulders. The Bronte, however, fits perfectly! The sleeves are a bit long, which I actually like because that means I can cover my hands with them :)

Some closing thoughts:

I love both the skirt and the top, although I have to admit that I'm not really sure that they fit both perfectly together. The styles go well together, but I'm a bit unsure about the colors (me kicking myself for adding pink piping). Actually when getting dressed for the photos, I kept changing my tights and top until I came up with this outfit. I think because of the pink the skirt doesn't look as wintery as the top. But when paired with a summer top and my woolen tights (yes I'm that cold already - that's why I have issues sewing winter clothes) the top looked out of place. Maybe the tights are the problem, haha.

On other news, I have moved to Cambridge and started a new job :) I'm not having internet yet. Other than on the bus to work (and it might stay like this for another two weeks, thanks internet provider) hence my absence from the blogging world. This post was actually half written before my move and I had luckily added most pictures. I'm saying most here, because there are a few missing such as a pic of the facing. But hopefully everything will settle in the next two weeks and than you can see a few more makes that I have already finished :)

Fitting Simplicity 1882

I have submitted my thesis - after 7 month. My boyfriend jokingly said it was almost like giving birth to a baby. After being scared for four days (because I might have forgotten something), I have started to feel relieved. And I have spent loads of time sewing (more Ladyskater dresses to come!).

Naturally, I couldn't totally abandon my sewing machine when writing up and thus I spend 3 month to fit and sew Simplicity 1882. When putting this post together, I realised that I have too many photos and details to put into one post. So today, I am going to show you my fitting progress and problems that I encountered.

No this was not muslin No 1, probably No 4 or 5? I just included it so you have an idea how the whole dress might look like.

I planned to make this dress already in autumn from a fabric that I had bought in Brighton (fabric stash: one down, yeah). But I was scared by the princess seams. This uneasy feeling about princess seams turned out to be justified, as it took me SEVEN (!) muslins to fit the bodice of this dress.

Fitting: As you might have guessed after so many muslins - a nightmare! It took me 3 month (with breaks) to fit and another 2 weeks to sew the dress. The main problems were:

- my apex was 3 cm under the apex of the pattern: Can you see the red line on the photo below? That's were the apex is supposed to be, but because mine is so low there is far to much fabric (around 2"). I ended up fixing this problem with the help of the "Fit for real people" book - I shifted the apex 3 cm down and then actually had to do a full-bust adjustment. But it helped :) (it took me only 3 muslins to get it right)

I actually never realised that my bust is this low :( Are your apexes really are at the underarm seamline?

- apparently I have square shoulders: Can you see the massive wrinkle on my left side and also the puckering neckline in the photo below? Although you can't see it here, but there were also little "suns" (loads of wrinkles) radiating from my shoulder bones. This meant that I have square shoulders. I was really surprised, because I didn't know.

But after several attempts I was able to minimize this fabric pulling by adding a strip of fabric at the shoulder seam: the dots show the middle of my shoulder and as you can see I added a big strip of fabric. This in turn meant I had to make my sleeve cap bigger, which I did with the help of this tutorial from the Threads magazine. (If you ever need to make your sleeve cap smaller, I also tried and liked this one from Sallioh.)

- prominent shoulder blades were also in the mix: Can you see the little sun on my shoulder blades? I tried to fix this by adding a strip of fabric that started in the dart and finished at the shoulder seam.

- the sleeves were pulling: I fiddled a lot with the sleeves because I really wanted them to be perfect. I always have the problem that they are contorted because of my forward shoulder adjustment. I don't have a really good picture for that problem (although there are some diagonal wrinkles in the pictures below), but you can see it on my latest Ladyskater dress as well. Luckily I found this amazing tutorial by Heather and it helped to solve this problem.

I also realised that the bodice has to be fitted differently when wearing sleeves! Sleeveless, I would have been done much earlier, but the square shoulder problem only showed after setting in the sleeves. The fit is much better now, but my arm movement still feels a little bit restricted when I try to put the arms toward the front.

I actually only fitted the bodice and not the waist band or skirt. Although I had to make minor corrections to the top half of the waist band because of changes I made in the bodice. But luckily, I didn't need to make a muslin for that.

So I am just leaving you with this sneak peek preview and you have to be patient until you can see the whole dress (which will not be long)!

Another McCalls Shirtdress and a new iron!

First of all, thanks a lot for all your lovely comments about my last stash diet post! Your comments about what to make from my 1 m of fabrics were really helpful and you can expect to see some blouses soon :) January is almost over, but I managed to finish my first garment of 2014 before the end of the month, yeah! I made another McCalls Shirt Dress (you can find the first version here)!

Pattern: McCalls M6167, Version C, which has three tucks at the bodice front.

Fabric: Shirt fabric from my stash!!! It actually was not in the photos I uploaded last week, because I had already started to cut out the pattern. I bought the fabric in Brighton last autumn for this shirt dress :) and I am so happy that I finally used it. I was dreading to cut out this pattern, because there are so many pieces, you have to match plaids and you have to hand sew a lot (and I almost hate hand sewing).

Construction: As always the plaid matching took me ages! And as the fabric seemed not to be straight/ on grain, I was not able to match all seams. I have the problem of off-grain fabric quite often and I have started to wonder, if I treat the fabric wrong when I dry it and that's why its off grain? I usually tend to dry the fabric outside on a long clothes line. So my question for you:

How are you drying your fabrics? Any tips? 

I have no idea where this massive fold at the top button is coming from. It was not there before I put my coat on top! Can you spot the tucks? There are three rows.

But I am proud that the shoulders almost match the front bodice! I have made the pattern before, but without the tucks, thus it came together without any major problems. I am still not 100% happy about how my cuffs turned out. But hopefully I am getting better with time. I also bought the Craftsy Class "The classic tailored shirt", so that should help me out next time. And next time will be a shirt for Lescha!

Placket and cuffs. The buttons were from my stash as well! And here you can actually see the tucks!

Have I worn it yet? Only for the photo shoot. Because I am working from home at the moment, I am just not in the mood to wear pretty clothes.

I stitched a rolled hem with my overlocker, so neat!!!

Do I like it? Yes a lot! Although I would like it more if I had matched the plaids correctly. And I am a bit disappointed that you can't see the tucks. I guess I should have known, because the fabric is a busy print. It it just annoying that I put so much time and care into these tucks and now you can't see them! But at least now I know ;)

Philips GC7619/20 PerfectCare Steam Generator Iron Review

When making this shirt dress I used my new iron that I got from my mum for Christmas for the first time and I just thought I say a few words about it for anybody who is interested! I got a Philips GC7619/20 PerfectCare Steam Generator Iron, which you can fill up with 1.5l of water - so loads of ironing fun! The good thing about it is that you don't have to adjust the temperature because it does this by itself thanks to its OptimalTemp Technology. I really like this feature, because I managed to shrink fabrics before when I forgot to change the temperature on my old iron. Up to now I only ironed cotton fabrics and polyester lining with it, which was fine. 

There are only a couple of things that I have to get used to:
 (i) if you need steam, you have to keep pressing a button on the irons handle the whole time (my old iron always had steam on), if by accident you press it twice it releases a steam boost and I managed to burn my fingers because of this when pressing a dart.
(ii) It shuts off automatically (again my old iron didn't) and I keep forgetting about it. Luckily it does take only 2 min to heat up again...
(iii) when you are done ironing, you have to empty the water tank if there is any water left. And as you can't lock the iron to the tank, it is always a bit complicated when holding both above the sink and I am scarred that the iron falls down. I have to admit, when buying this iron I knew a new version would be out soon where you can lock iron and tank to carry them around. But I thought, who needs that? Might have been useful.

But all in all, the iron works lovely and I really like it. No water dripping from the iron onto my clothes, just perfect :)

Princess seams? I am not ready yet...

This dress was supposed to be my make No 4 from my autumn sewing list. But, as you will read, I didn't make it that far! The pattern is Simplicity 6908 that I got from a swap in August. The dress has princess seams, which I have never sewn before, a drape, a yoke back and front, and little sleeves.

I wanted to make the dress in a dark purple jersey, as the pattern states you can use jersey as well. But readers you know, my experience with sewing jersey is almost nil.Thus I decided to make a muslin first and I used another jersey that I also got from the swap in August.



I decided to ignore the back zipper, and also didn't cut yoke front and back (Here I was a bit confused by the pattern description and thought I might not need the yoke and I think I don't need it with jersey.).
And as you can see there are several problems! The bust darts don't point to my apex and the fabric is doing some crazy things at the hem. I have no idea how to move the darts on princess seams - do they actually have to be there? And I have no idea what happened to the fabric at the hem. I sewed with my overlocker and didn't stretch the fabric, so the hems should look fine. Any suggestion what could have gone wrong?

The bust darts are too high.

I was hoping to sew a wearable muslin, but  don't think I will ever wear it in public with this crazy hem. I also haven't bothered to sew button loops and buttons onto the drape to close it in the back. I am sorry to present you with such an unfinished "garment", but I am hoping  to get some comments that might help me to improve my sewing skills!



Seeing the problems I have with the muslin, I don't think I will make the dress with my jersey fabric. Maybe it is best, when I first learn how to modify and sew princess seams dresses before I try to make them with jersey.

Ahm, the photos were taken after lunch.

And I got the really nice comment from my boyfriend, that I can't gain weight when sewing such clothes. I know they are body hugging. But he made it sound like I have gained a few pounds in the last few weeks. Buhu, guys... Although I have to admit, I hardly left the house for the last month because I have started to write my PhD thesis at home. That is also the reason for my blogging and commenting absence, as I am happy about every PC-free minute at the moment. So, sorry for my blogging silence, but hopefully I will be back to old shape soon.

Autumn Make No2: Self-drafted Jersey Dress

Finally I have found time to write about my latest make from my autumn sewing list: my self-drafted Jersey Dress made following the day date dress tutorial from Elle at elleapparel.

The tutorial was super easy to follow and I had to improvise at a few steps only. Here you can see the T-shirt I used as a template for my dress - do you spot the differences? ;) As Elle, I wanted to add a Pater Pan collar to my dress, because this was what actually tempted me to make the dress. But the problem was, that I don't have a jersey shirt with Pater Pan collar that I could use. So, I just used the collar that I had drafted for my Colette Hawthorn instead. It took me a bit of fiddling and cutting of a bit of extra fabric, but it fit, yeah!

The template...

...the new dress.

I basted collar and sleeves to the dress before I used my overlocker to sew the dress together. Did I say that I love her? Sewing itself was a breeze, up to the point where I had to sew in an elastic at the waistband - my first time ever! The first time I didn't stretch it, because it didn't look as Elle had done it. But the result was that the waist seam was sitting below my hips now! The jersey stretched like crazy, buh. So, I took the elastic out again, did some research on the web and found this really helpful tutorial from Tasia over a Sewaholic about how to insert elastic into a slip. This time a cut the elastic according to my waist measurement - even a bit shorter - and stretched it when stitching it in. Et voila, much much better. The fabric still stretches, but I think I can live with that.

I especially like the look of the dress and collar when I wear a white woolly jumper on top. I wanted to take a pic with the jumper, but it was in the washing machine at the time. So you just have to believe me :) I have worn the dress when I went to Germany because I figured I wanted to wear something comfy and stretchy when traveling all day. So, if you want to try to sew your own dress without having a proper pattern, I can only highly recommend this tutorial by Elle.

My topstitching is slowly getting better.

 I still have a bit of fabric left, so I might just be able to squeeze a mini jersey skirt out of it. Because when sewing the dress, I thought how lovely the fabric would be for a skirt!
How about you? Now that days are getting longer and it is getting dark so early - tomorrow even one hour earlier, buh - do you feel the urge to sit inside with a hot cuppa and get some sewing done? I would love to hear about your finished or ongoing projects :) 

Have a lovely weekend...