Circle Skirt

You know right now I am all for simple and quick patterns. I do not have any time at all actually. Sewing time is lost sleeping time. So instant gratification and a quick, please, not too much thinking involving stuff is the one I love.


On the other side I know well when Oona wrote she is not that much in love with cheap fabric any more. I was thinking this is something that happens to everyone who is getting more advanced in sewing. The excitement of I''ve made this bag all alone! is wearing off a bit and one starts to be more critical. Like "Now I want something that HM don't have for less that my fabric cost!". And "I want that my time spent on it to really pay off" (I don't mean the occasional wadder - it is part of the process).

So virtual dialog over I think that this kind of transformation happend to me like two years ago when I got obsessed with silk. I will scan shops and Ebay on cheap silk (buying full price is no fun) and be really euphoric when I happen to get some. Honestly I am more of collecting it since I mostly don't dare making it into a garment being afraid not to ruin it. Since I have my little baby girl I am even worst. Few weeks ago I cleaned my stash (never enough storage space here somehow) and threw away everything that is pure or mostly poly.

It felt liberating. But that is maybe mostly cause there is less fabric needed to be sewn. No time you know.

Hmmmmm, honestly I am still buying fabric, so there is actually not less fabric to be sewn.

Anyway.

I will post the pattern tutorial first and a sew together next. There might be some spelling mistakes in the tutorial I will have to check them later and than I will make a pdf too. Still if you download the image it is readable.

Square skirt pattern

I am turning into weekend sewer/ blogger. This first week of the year was a very busy one - I had to finish a concept presentation for Friday and worked some extra hours. I tried to sew a bit on Tuesday or more to cut out the coat lining. It ended in me cutting 3 pieces wrong. On Wednesday I just used my 2 hours before sleeping to work on a panty pattern/muslin. It turned out to be a quick and relaxing project emptying pleasently my head just the right way (Almost equal to nice cold bottle of beer. But only almost!). I will work on this pattern and make a how-to on the blog. It is easier than I thought and I am excited about this.
I thought that I haven't posted a pattern tutorial in a long time, so I made an easy one on a skirt I did during the holidays. Hope you enjoy it!
As always click on the images to get them larger.










I will post the skirt itself next!

Swinging the dress

I started using my stash. Or more the fabrics I was buying all the time...
The jersey dress itself:








The pattern tutorial:



Important is to consider in the measurement that the jersey is stretching. You should cut it in a way that you apply your measures to a stretched jersey, otherwise it will get too wide. The skirt is made of 4 pieces because of the fabric - I wanted to make the stripes slightly tilted. The pattern is of a basic circular skirt, it can be done with 2 pieces or even just 1 piece.

All in all very easy and comfy dress - I think I will make a black one if I find the right jersey for it!

80s dress considerations

I am still thinking which will be the best pattern for the 80s dress (y0u can see the older variation under the link). I was thinking first dress with a square neckline ( I love square necklines...) but than I really want to show off the fabric - so something basic without too many darts that will be discontinuing the print. So this is my last consideration. What do you think?



Again the fabric so you know, what I mean.

Glory! Glory! Alleluia!

The first Geri pattern was made! I couldn't imagine it is THAT exiting! Helene did it. And the Schelling (you can see the other photos there) is just perfect!
She did the rounded collar that I intended to do at the beginning but let go. I like it actually a lot - she did it a lot smaller than mine and that really helped. She changed the shoulder area at the back too. Works perfect to me!

Sweatshops all over the world!

So I came around to make the tutorial about how to make the Sweatshop T-shirt. You can download a basic tee pattern for free here, but beware that the arm cycle may be too large as Christina mentioned (I never used this one, just drafted a tee pattern from a shirt I had).
p.s. Click to enlarge.

Cape Dracula Final 5.6 ...

So I finally came around to finish this pattern. Pattern finishing is connected with some drawing and indication adding which makes it time consuming. And I have a bit of enough of my own pattern publishing for some time. It is a lot of fun but I am lazy.

Will relax by making some BWOF next or easy patterns that I don't draft in computer - I have a newborn appreciation for that!

You can download the pattern here. It is 38 BWOF size but it is quite easy to adapt since it has to fit only at the shoulders and you define the waist with the belt. You can just add your measurements there.

Some explanations to the pattern - all the additional pieces as lining, interfacing and facings are drawn in.

The lining:
(you can enlarge the images, the lines are drawn in the pdf)




The interfacing:
(forgot to put the back facing - it is interfaced too)




The facings:



The connections:




I have a thing for fancy diagrams...

P.S for Stephanie - the amount of fabric is around 1,5 meter.

The Cape Story 2

So a small update on the cape.

The pattern after going through the shredder:



The shredder was me. As you see I took some width from the back. Then at the shoulder and off course the facings. The sleeve extensions ( my Dracula prosthesis - hm, I may call this cape Dracula) suffered most. I wanted it to drape more so it was made more circular. The small puff sleeve is not pictured - it was not changed at all! Matthieu doesn't like puff sleeves at all - I think he finds them too girly. Sometimes I try to picture myself how would I dress if I he would choose my cloths. No more leo print ballerinas and gold shoes, no more 80s reference and then all shades of brown... Oh, it scares me a bit! But on the other hand it could be fierce...

So the fashion fabric is cut. Remember it is navy wool with 10% alpaca and it is hairy. I love the hairs - they sparkle in the sun!

Ignore the seams in the photo - there aren't any. It is all pinned together. Next is some fusing time... I wish we had some Garment Fusing Service here too...

The Cape Story

So I thought I will take you along on the long way making my second self drafted pattern! It is actually an easy one. I must say in advance that I have drafted my sleeve, front bodice and back bodice slopers as basis anyway. But for this one you can take a jacket pattern as a start.

So this is what the first drafted pattern looks like. Front and back parts are similar to a jacket bodice only smaller in the width (they don't have to wrap the body all way around). There is the small puff sleeve and then the large sleeve of the cape connecting to the sides of the bodice. The collar is a rounded half-roll. May make a stand collar though? The rest are the facings.



So here is the pattern printed and laid on the fashion fabric so I can see if I have enough. I have plenty, thanks god (it wasn't really that a bargain fabric as I am always proud of - I think I paid 15 eu for it. Hmm still not bad!) ! I may make it a bit longer, or make a wide belt, or make an attachable hood. I think I like the belt idea most - I could make slits at the waist between bodice and sleeve so that one can pull the belt through.
You can see first changes on the pattern - the sleeve was not wide enough so I can move my arms...



Next step was to make a muslin out of a fabric I dearly hated. I got it in a package from ebay with the yellow dotted silk.
Funny backstage fact: I first though that the colours were awfully pale. I thought that for months! When I was cutting it I understood I was always looking at the wrong side of the fabric. It is like one of this IQ tests... So the colours on the right side are indeed OK, but it still looks like a tablecloth to me...
So currently I am checking the muslin. First thing - the pattern is too wide. The length at the shoulders is too much and I must work on the sleeve so it behaves the way I want it to!


You can enlarge the photos.
So I still have some work to do on this one. When the muslin works the way I want it I will mark the changes on the paper pattern and later I will redraft the pattern in my computer, so I can upload it again. It is quite a lot of fun uploading patterns - and I draft them for myself anyway...
I think this one is really easy to enlarge, since it has to fit mostly at the shoulder area.

I want to finish it till next weekend if I can.

I notice I didn't posted a photo of the grey-green jeans I made the tutorial of. Here is one. The are quite comfortable, but not as stretchy as the black one I made some time ago. The corduroy had 4% elastan. Same was written on the black fabric but they still behave differently. Mystery.
What I changed with this one, but maybe not so clear on the photograph is that they are longer and wider at the foot - like little foot trumpets. I like that. I can pull them over the shoes.




Buy for now!

The pattern!

Coat Elisabeth Pattern

I drafted and uploaded the pattern at the end. Had to do a small battle with the print-at-home pdf. Till now I am winning but maybe it won't download or something and get its final revenge that way...
You must have a burdastyle account to download it, but the account is free anyway. They have a lot of other nice free patterns so that is great opportunity to join!
It is in my size - 36/38 in BWOF - I never graded something but here are some grading tutorials:

sleeves
bodice
lenghten
pants


Hm. There are no pants parts in this pattern, but I thought I may link it anyway. I think the principle is always the same.
A note to be made - the fit at the shoulder is so that you cannot wear a thick pullover underneath if you cut it in your measurements.
If you want to read all the posts on the coat - a sew along and instructions so to say - click the Coat Elisabeth tag on the right side.
In between I haven't done any sewing, cause I invested my sewing leisure time into the pattern preparation. But I managed to purchase some fabric and make a real bargain - even the selling lady was impressed. And that says something...
First a not-that-a-bargain-but-anyway-great fabric - it is a 100% wool linen. Never heard of this one before. It is called this way because of the weave art - the same as in linen. The fabric is very silky and smooth. It was on sale for 3.90 eu (19 eu before) and I will make high waisted wide legged pants out of it.




The real bargain was a luxurious men suit fabrics once in dark grey and once in anthracite for 1.99 the meter. It is 100% wool and drapes beautifully. I had to buy the whole pieces - they were remnants. I think I got like 3.20 of each. They will definitely become spring pants and maybe a jacket.





I love buying great fabrics on bargain.

I bought a ponge silk too (no idea what ponge silk is) but it looks like this and I will use it to underline the yellow dress.



Bye for now!

Sweatshop

OK. I still didn't do the sewalong with the jeans and the shirt dress, but I did my very own sweatshop this two days - I made 3 T-shirts. The pattern I drew of a favourite of mine and have it in my archive now!
A nude jersey variation:



A geometric wrong perspective variation ( one of the Escher kind):




And a cute dot tetris flower one:



So mission accomplished!

Dot Com

I didn't had the possibility to print my 80s dress pattern, so I started something else in the mean time to keep me busy. I decided to make a shirt dress. I will be keeping track on the progress, which will be a bit slow, cause I don't have a lot of time for sewing right now.
The fabric is a fine cotton with a great sheen to it. It was on sale for 3.90 eu and I got 1.50 m of it. I got some black thread and I used scraps for the interfacing.
Total Cost: 6.95
Again click on the images to enlarge them.



I used the same pattern as for my blouse, since it is already altered to fit me. But I cut it out again in order to position the pieces better on the fabric. And it is also nice to have this pattern separately - I can imagine to use it again and again. I drew a new collar too, but you will see it in the process.
The seam allowance is included in the pattern but I still cut it out larger, cause I wanted to finish it using french seams.
The cut pieces and the original pattern compared to the new one:



First step is preparing the pieces. In this case it means pressing and interfacing. I added middle weight fusible interfacing onto the collar stand pieces. Than I ironed a lightweight interfacing on the front placket and under collar pieces. I pressed all the pieces in the right form. This takes some time but spare a lot of nerves afterwards and it is easier to get the details neat:



So I started sewing by attaching the front placket to the middle front piece. First I pressed it the right way. The unpressed side is being attached to the front piece, stitched together and than pressed inwards into the placket. Then I ironed the placket into its final position - the fold of the placket is done in a way that the back part is a bit wider then the front. That is important for the fixture.




To fix it I am making a stitch on the right side of the garment just between the placket and the front piece.



Here is an image of the french seams finishing.




A good tutorial how to do it you can get here. The next step will be to sew the bodice together.

At last something else

Remember the silk cotton fabric I bought. The one with the 80s vibe. It wouldn't just leave me alone - I was thinking a lot what kind of dress I should make out of it. So I made this sketches first:



Then I quickly drew this pattern from my block:


It is quite simple and I don't know if it works. I will make a muslin out of it in a black cotton first. I am not really a muslin person - I hate producing something I wouldn't wear so I always try to make them wearable.
The real issue of the fashion fabric is that I want this flower in the front upper part:


So cutting may be problem. I don't know anyway if I will have the time to sew that one soon...

The JJ Collar

This is very simple actually - there is no stand and it is a one piece collar. It is called a half-roll collar and the way to make it I got from this fabulous website vintagesewing.info . Click on the image to enlarge it.




Explanation - a is the width of the collar that you choose for your design, b is the height of the stand you want to get in the back. You can basically trace this collar if you just put your pattern pieces on a flat surface and draw over them. The angle in the front is again free to be designed.

The JJ Pleats

Brief instructions how I made the pleats on the JJ blouse. First I decided on the width - the pleat that you will see is 1,3 cm. The whole piece is 5 cm - it is already folded in the middle in the image below.


The pleats start 3 cm from the edge of the button band:



Then a stripe of another 1,3 cm is being cut out. You must imagine it first as follows - a pleat of 5 cm, a stripe of 1,3 cm cut out of the original pattern, a pleat of 5 cm ( it is the simple calculation of - 2,5 cm pleat width (folded) and 1,3 cm overlap. So there you have 1,2 cm left of the pleat and you need 1,3 cm of the original pattern to get back to the 2,5 cm)...


When you tape it together the fold of the second pleat will lie on the green line of the first pleat - meaning that is the intended width of 1.3 cm. Don't forget the 1,3 cm of original pattern between the pleat.


To get the rounding of the neckline you just have to all together and cut according to the in between original pattern stripes.




So this is what your new pattern looks like:

I really liked the use of the pleats in this design of Burda.
To fix the pleats you topstitch it in a way that the next pleat will hide the thread line - you can see it in the following image better: