Adele dress and Vogue 9336 jacket

Ooh - I am using the new Blogger interface!  So far so good...  When I tried to access the blog this evening, it told me I needed to update my browser (Safari).  No Safari updates were available through the App Store.  I tried installing a new operating system (just out of desperation) - which doesn't seem to have worked(?) - not sure!  The only other possibility I could find was to install a different browser - at which point I discovered that I already had Google Chrome in My Applications.  When I open Google Chrome, I don't seem to have any problems with the new Blogger interface.

Anyway.  I am deeply ensconced in Frank Muir's The Oxford Book of Humorous Prose, and I've got a way to go (large book) so it'll be a while before I'm back writing about books.  I thought instead, I'd post about some recent sewing projects - one [reasonably] successful; one not.  To the latter first, I tried this pattern - which I think came with the Simply Sewing magazine...

I will spare you the pictures of what I made (in fact, the results were so depressing, I don't think I took any pictures).  The dress looks so nice on the model, I didn't notice that the skirt part of it is of a design which doesn't usually do me any favours.  Anything fitted at the top end but not at the bottom end always looks like a sack of potatoes on me.  (I can only conclude my bottom end needs all the fitting help it can get.)  

However, I did like the bodice of the dress, which is a bit batwing-like in style, so I decided to see if i could extend the bodice and turn it into a t.shirt.  It moreorless worked - after a few tries.  

It does feel a little weird: although it's not tight around the hips, it's closer fitting there than around the bodice, which feels upside down to me.  I suppose I could have made it wider at the hips, but I didn't want to mess with the shape too much and lose the batwing thing.  I also wasn't very keen on the neckline.  It's quite wide, so it keeps teetering on the edge of one shoulder or the other.  And if I'm not sitting poker-straight, it sort of blouses out.  Every time time I look down, I'm looking at my own belly button through the open neckline of the top (very disconcerting).

Another unsuccessful aspect is the fabric.  When I made the toile of the dress, I had cut the bodice out of a remnant of white cotton seersucker - which was absolutely lovely!  But I didn't have enough of it to make a t.shirt.  When I looked around for it online, it turns out white cotton seersucker is as rare as hen's teeth - and rather expensive - so I ended up buying a polyester/cotton mix, which is not the same.  It is papery.  And it itches.  Or maybe that was just the general irritation I was feeling with the entire thing.

Anyway, I'll launder it and send it off to the charity shop to see if anyone else likes it.

My second project was a jacket.  I've never liked wearing jackets - they make me feel wide - but, perhaps for that reason, I've always hoped I could find one I liked.  This one - Vogue 9336 - looks a bit longer than usual, and quite fitted, so I thought maybe it would work.

Turns out it's not all that long after all - maybe it's just my long torso.  I guess I should have added a few inches to the length, like I usually do.

I made the jacket out of the same fabric as the cream trousers (which I still think are wonderful - albeit not flattering in photographs).  It's a stretch cotton twill from Fabworks, and I highly recommend their customer service because when I found I didn't have quite enough fabric, and it was out of stock, they were wonderful, and prompt, and friendly, about finding me some more.

It's lined in a blue stripe fabric which my mother inherited from someone.  I think it's just a high thread-count cotton, but whatever, it's gorgeous.  As with the yellow dress I made, I'd happily wear this inside out.  I think it's just linings though... clothes with linings feel so much nicer.  This jacket feels really substantial, almost like a coat.

I'm less certain about the jacket and trousers together(!)  I guess people who wear suits do this all the time - same colour top and bottom - but it feels a bit 'double-denim' to me - a bit OTT.

Anyway, the pattern is marked 'Easy' and it was quite simple to put together.  The bits I found tricky were blind stitching the pockets (I gave up in the end); attaching the lining (it wasn't altogether clear which bit you left open for turning - although I guess if you've ever seen or been through the process before, you wouldn't need to be told); and the lapels, which are not  quite as neat as they should be.

As far as alterations went, I omitted the shoulder pads, and took a bit off the shoulders to compensate.  I also took it in just a little at the back.  I'm not quite sure whether that was the right thing to do or not: it is fairly close-fitting.  I did it because it's a stretch fabric and when I made the trousers, I had to take them in a little.  Anyway, the jacket feels perfectly comfortable.

Hopefully I will actually wear it sometime - although to be honest, the fact that I get it out and put it on every now and then makes me count it as a success.  I may never have an occasion to wear a cream jacket, but at least I managed to make one that I'd want to wear.

Banana dress - Style 1874

I went back to work on 4th July, and the last things I wanted to finish before that were Wolf Hall (see previous post) and this dress (tick, tick)!  I had bought some lovely yellow cotton, and was looking for something to use it for (which probably isn't the right way round to do it), and found this pattern.  It's not a style I'd usually wear, but its plain enough - so why not?  One of the nice things about sewing clothes is that I've tried styles I never would have worn otherwise.  It hasn't always worked out, but sometimes; I'm definitely a peplum convert now.

If I'm ever invited to a fancy dress party and I'm stuck for ideas, I'll wear this and go as a banana!  I think it's a gorgeous colour.  On the bright side, but gorgeous all the same.  I lined the dress in a cream shirting material (see last pic), and I'd happily wear it inside out.

I did have to make some changes; it came out a little weird the first time round.  I chose a size 16 - since that was the size that corresponded to my measurements - but it was massive in the bodice; I had to take over an inch out of each side (front and back - so four inches in total).  There was something strange going on with the bodice darts too: there were side darts, and two darts going up the centre of the dress - like princess seams.  The darts came together in points(?) and far away from where they should have been!  All very confusing.  So I moved them in a bit - the darts, that is.  It sounds like I should have used the smaller size, except that the waist and hips were about right.

I also wanted the dress a bit longer than suggested, and I ended up leaving a split in the back because of the added length.  This is the first garment I've made with a lining, and it makes so much difference; I'll definitely try it again.

It was a really, really simple pattern - literally just a front piece and a back piece - and very easy to make.  The pattern didn't suggest topstitching - just sew in the lining and iron - but I did the topstitching for a neater finish.

Peplum top - Vogue 8815

I can't remember how I first came across this pattern.  I must have been looking at someone's sewing blog.  I never would have thought of wearing a peplum top, but lots of people seem to have made it, and there are lots of pictures of people looking fabulous in it so what the hey.

I couldn't think what fabric to make it in - I'm not even sure what broadcloth (one of the recommended fabrics) is, aside from it being a type of cotton - so I thought I'd do a trial run in some fabric I had hanging around from my bear-making days.  This blue floral fabric was once a lovely, 1980s dress with an enormous flared skirt  (albeit in a tiny size, and with marks), and then I bought it second-hand and made a mammoth out of it.  There was just enough left to make the sleeveless version of this top.

It wasn't difficult to make, apart from the zipper.  It's a 22 inch zipper running down the back.  The instructions have you baste the two back sections together then, from the inside, centre the zipper along the basting, and attach - basting from the inside, then sewing from the outside.  The trouble I had was that, with the zipper open, it was difficult to know how close the two sides needed to be.  I mean, close obviously - but a millimetre or so apart, touching, overlapping slightly?  And somehow i managed to get the two rows of stitches uneven - so one is 3-4 mm from the zipper, the other is almost 1 centimetre.  And (see last pic), when I pinned the zipper on, I started from the bottom, so the tops aren't quite even.

The other negative is that my stitches are all quite visible.  I used navy blue thread, so of course, wherever I sew over one of the roses, the stitches suddenly become glaringly obvious.  I'm not sure what you're supposed to do about that.  I suppose change between pink and blue thread, if you're really that bothered about it(?)

I do really like it, although I worry that it looks like a lampshade - especially in the picture below. Also the hem has a tendency to fly up in the breeze, or if you run down stairs too fast - which always comes as a surprise.

But it's a comfortable fit, the shape is lovely, and the cotton is nice to wear.  I'm thinking I'll try it again with sleeves at some point.

Raglan T.shirt - Blank Slate Patterns

Rather boringly, all I ever wear is jeans and t.shirt.  I'll save the jeans for a bit further down the line  but, in the meantime, I really wanted to have a go at making t.shirts.  It won't save me any money, as I've discovered - if anything, I'm spending more on fabric than I ever did on clothes - but maybe I stand a better chance of ending up with a t.shirt I like.

I like raglan t.shirts.  This one is from Blank Slate Patterns, and I bought it as a PDF.  It has a rise and fall hemline, three possible sleeve-lengths, and you can make it as a t.shirt or as a dress.  It was really easy to buy and download - and obviously very quick - and the pattern is very simple to put together. It was the first time I'd used stretchy fabric, and it turned out really well.

This is my first attempt, in pale pink jersey fabric.  I added a couple of inches to the length, because I always find tops too short on me.

The neckline was lower than I expected though, so I tried again with some snotty coloured fabric that we had been going to throw out.  It wasn't stretchy, but I bound the neck and sleeves with remnants from the first t.shirt, and actually it was perfectly easy to get on.  (Not great fabric for a t.shirt though; kinda sweaty.)  The neckline worked out at a better height.  Apologies for the unironed look...

Finally, since the shape was so nice, I wondered if I could make a top for work.  We visited Franklins on the first day it re-opened after the lockdown, and I found a black linen-lycra mix fabric.  It's not as easy to work with as the jersey - my seams came out a bit wavy - but it still turned out quite well.  I made this one with longer sleeves, as per the pattern variations.

There's still something not quite right about the way I've done the neckline.  It doesn't sit very flat on the shoulders and, you can see in the picture below, the fabric tents out in a point behind the shoulder.    I'll have to look at it again and see if I can fix that.

Burda 6914 - dress failure!

My second dressmaking attempt was this Burda Style dress (the one in the middle), no.6914.  I was going to say it was a little more advanced, but perhaps it wasn't - that could have been why it failed.  Maybe it was just too simple.  On me, it looked like a pillowcase, with a couple of pleats in the neckline.  (This is the yardstick I use for all my attempts at sewing clothes now - does it look like a pillow case?  No.  Hooray!)

Having said that, I've seen some really good reviews for this pattern - so maybe something wrong with my dress, or maybe i'm just the wrong shape for it.  Looking at the pattern now, it looks entirely possible that the dress is resting on the lady's arms and shoulders and then making no contact the rest of the way down.  Maybe you just have to be really thin to wear it.

As I said, one of the problems was the pillow case effect.  The only attempt at fitting was the darts to the neckline - and these look rather stretched if you have anything by way of chest to speak of.  For the rest of the dress, if you're wide enough to touch the sides, it just sort of bags.  Maybe you just need to go several sizes too big.

The other problem was that the neckline and sleeves were quite tight.  The neck does look fairly close fitting in the picture, but I would have said it was uncomfortably so.  You can't see it in the picture, but there are two pieces of bias binding to the throat - one in front of the other - presumably decorative, but they add to the tourniquet effect.

Finally, part of the reason I chose the pattern was that panel on the hem which draws the bottom of the dress in, giving it a rounded look.  For whatever reason, that didn't really translate into reality.  It seems to taper slightly on the hanger (see second pic) but the effect was lost when I put it on.

I'll spare you the pictures of me wearing it, but this (below) is what it looked like on the hanger.  It's annoying because the fabric is absolutely lovely, and I had to really struggle to get the pattern pieces to fit on the fabric.  Hopefully I'll find something I can reuse it for.

Anyway, other than the fact that the dress didn't really work on me, the pattern seemed easy enough to follow.  The bit that I was worried about was the bound button loop at the back of the neck, and I didn't finish this in the end, since it was obvious by that point that the dress wasn't going to be wearable.

New Look pattern K6459 - linen trousers

Barring a few half-arsed attempts at vintage-style underwear, and an incredibly unflattering 'pillow case skirt', I've never tried making clothes before.  It always just seemed incredibly complicated.  Don't get me wrong: I am as capable as the next person of sewing a piece of fabric into a tubular shape, elasticating one end and hemming the other, but the results are not very impressive (not on me, at any rate).  Clothes that one would actually be happy to wear (out of the house) are harder to come up with.

However, I've been watching the Great British Sewing Bee, and they do a cracking job of making dressmaking seem accessible - particularly the way everything seems to be made within two or three hours.  So now, making clothes has become a bit of a lockdown hobby for me.  The first thing I tried was - as on the Sewing Bee - palazzo pants.  This was the nearest pattern we had: New Look K6459.

I made them out of gorgeous navy linen from Merchant & Mills - not cheap but, as I said, if you're going to make something you actually want to wear, you probably have to push the boat out a little bit.  They sit on the waist, fasten at the back with a zip and a hook & eye fastening, have side pockets and, supposedly, are cropped, stopping just above the ankle.  This was news to me: with my little legs, they're pretty much ordinary length.

They didn't seem to be recommended for any particular skill level, but they were okay to make - not 'easy' exactly, but I don't think they were beyond my beginner skill set.  I found the pattern confusing to start with, but once I got used to it, I didn't have any problems.  Oh, except perhaps with the ends of the waistband, by the zip; I ended up hand-sewing these to try to get a neat finish because I couldn't work out how to do it properly on the machine.

I didn't make any changes to the pattern - I didn't have either the ability or the confidence at this stage (now, a week or so later, I still don't have the ability, but the confidence has definitely grown!).  I like them - I was terrifically chuffed to have been able to make them - and I probably will wear them. Even in public. 

However, in retrospect they didn't turn out quite as I imagined.  For a start, all the trousers I usually wear sit on the hips rather than the waist (a 1990s thing?).  These sit on the waist, which wasn't obvious to me from the outset, and I do find it a difficult style to get used to.  It's actually not unflattering, particularly for someone like me with short legs, but what can I say - food is important to me; I resent trousers which make me feel guilty for eating well(!)

  

Also, if I could go back and make these again, I'd probably - I'm not sure how to say this politely - extend the crotch...?  My short legs go with a slightly longer body.  'Wedgie' is a strong word and I'm not using it, but lets just say I am forever alert to the possibility whilst wearing them.  Possibly too much information - apologies - lets move on.

The last thing I'd say is that, as a novice, I didn't pay much attention to finishing the seams, and the pattern doesn't give any instructions as to this.  As a result, they are fraying now, which looks untidy and presumably(?) affects how long they last.  If I made them again, I'd do something to the seams - zigzag stitch them, or whatever.

I have added some pictures below - I'd forgotten how much fun it is playing around with the camera.  Please excuse the wrinkles; they were quite well worn by this point.