Combatting the cold.

It may be May, but it is getting COLD!  According to my weather app it was 3degC this morning (that's 37.4F)  Real Feel (ie, with wind chill taken into account) it was -6C.  21.2F.  I am not a fan of the cold AT ALL!  I prefer to wear layers of lighter weight clothes rather than a few thick or bulky layers, and I needed (as one does) some long sleeved tops which look nice, and can take a merino thermal underneath.  I like a bit of interest as I often wear open cardigans.

Enter the HotPatterns 3 Graces top.  I have made it before, sleeveless, and really liked it, so decided to make it again, this time with sleeves. (I'm wearing a long sleeved merino thermal under this, and I am toasty warm.)

I'm really pleased with this top.  I got it all done in one morning from cutting to finishing.  (It helped that I had the pattern traced and altered to fit already.)  Although I did almost go insane trying to find a SM needle which would work - everything caused skipped stitches, one or two didn't catch a single stitch!  In the end a slightly used microtex size 60 worked perfectly. Which was just as well because I didn't have anything else to try in any type, size or condition. And I even managed to work out the draped bit without having to refer to my previous version, or Trudy's Youtube video.

I really like the overly long sleeves, which help prevent draughts when it is FREEZING COLD walking to school.  Which we started as of Friday when the twins did this.

Where did that five years go?

An Embarrassment of WIPs

That should be a collective noun.  I recently made a dress for my friend J, and while she was visiting for "fittings" (which involved a fair bit of coffee drinking and Pinterest surfing as well as actual fitting) she mentioned wanting a jacket.  So I showed her a pattern I thought she'd like (#118 from BWOF 06/06, which is old enough that it no longer appears in the magazine archive) and shamefacedly confessed that I'd started it (in fabric she'd like) when the magazine came out.  I think I abandoned it because I wasn't sure about trim, but it may have been because I realised that the sew-in interfacing I'd chosen to underline it with was the wrong choice.  This is a light, loosely woven fabric which frays when you look at it.  A fusible knit interfacing would have been much better. So I did more work on it anyway before reaching the same trim dilemma, and I am seriously contemplating carefully unpicking everything and using fusible interfacing to underline.

Moving on, at the same time I dug out the jacket I came across the cut out pieces of this handbag.  (It's the Nairobi bag which was a free download from Hotpatterns several years ago).  My current handbag is from the same pattern and is looking pretty sad.  So (also an embarrassingly long time ago) I cut this one from curtain fabric.  It stalled because I needed to get appropriate interfacing.  This is J's and my signature favourite colour, and she LOVES butterflies, so this languishing in a box almost brought her to violence!

And of course the ongoing Alabama Chanin skirt.  Mostly getting worked on at craft nights.

This is a dress I started for Isabella.  Also a BWOF pattern (#136B from 01/09).  I bought this magazine when she was less than a year old and had to wait for her to grow into it.  And then another year or so to get around to it.  I finally started a couple of weeks ago and when I got to this point I thought I should check the (suspiciously small looking) neck opening would fit over her head.

We know where this is headed, don't we?  Not even close.  Opening was about 48cm, her head was about 54cm.  Dress tossed aside in disgust as I ponder how best to make the opening big enough without losing the look of the back section, which I like.  Fortunately I have plenty of fabric to recut any of the pieces I need.

And last but by no means least (is anyone still reading?) the current genuine Work In Progress.  It's been waiting a few weeks because I needed plenty of space for the pieces.  Two of them, which each take up most of my dining table. (My sewing for me time has been severely curtailed of late by curtains, school holidays and the mammoth task of relocating all the kids to different bedrooms)

Any guesses as to what this might be?  I LOVE patterns which are impossible to figure out at a glance!  This is going to be a dress.  This dress:

Back

It's one of ten patterns in this book "Home Sewn", which is a celebration of the history of home sewing in New Zealand.  It gives a brief history of the subject, and the patterns, along with a short interview with each designer.  It appeals to me on so many levels!  One of which is as a future historical reference.  It's a snapshot of now, albeit brief, and it is specifically about New Zealand - YAY for local history!  The book is for sale at Papercut Patterns. I got mine from Global Fabrics in Dunedin.

This dress (the first of at least three projects I am planning to make) is by Cybele Wirren.  (See her website here).  I'm going to make a wide obi or corset style belt to wear with it.  One side the same fabric as the dress, the other something funky.

The patterns are really interesting - as far as I can tell, they are more like industry style patterns, with varying seam allowances, and notches marking them.  They're all printed on large pattern sheets, like magazine patterns, with each design in a different colour.  My only quibble is that the two pattern pieces for this dress are very similar, and were printed so close to on top of each other that I had to check several times that I didn't mix them up.  Minor quibble!  Instructions are concise and clear, but brief.  This is all you get, so not for beginners.  Hugely fascinating for those with a little experience!

So there you go, yet another blog post proving that I have a short attention span and a constant need to get on with the next thing, sometimes well before finishing the last thing.  Oh yes, and I've also decided that it's time I made myself a corset, you know, because.  I have Norah Waugh's Corsets and Crinolines out of the library and my pattern from it enlarged and ready to start playing with.  I got spiral steel boning from the States *ahem* several years ago.

Take Two

I would have finished this sooner, but I had to wait till I could get to town for thread. And I would have blogged it yesterday but the teenager had the camera batteries!

So here is Hotpatterns 1089, The Three Graces T shirt, take two. (Same fabric, totally new top) I've altered it very slightly from the original version - in about 6cm (total reduction) at the waist, and out about the same at the hip. I hemmed it at 3.5cm instead of the 5cm allowed, and messed with the neckline to make it less bulky where back meets front. I also omitted any form of sleeve, since I think it would have been too much in this shiny fabric. (And I like sleeveless tops - with a layer under for warmth I can wear this year round) I just used cross grain strips of self fabric to do a binding/facing on the armholes. Looking at these photos I think I should have spent a bit of time in front of the mirror arranging it to sit better, but it's probably better to have a truer representation of how a garment looks in the real world!

Back. Despite my waist reduction it's still not very shapely. I might have a fiddle with pinning out a little more on this one to see if it looks better, but I 'm not at all unhappy with this shape. I wonder whether the addition of a cb seam for additional shaping would be worth doing?
Verdict: this is (I think) the most expensive pattern I've ever bought, at around NZ$30, so I was very very keen for it to be a success. And I think it is. I love the drapes, and the way it feels to wear. While it was a lot of buck, I think it is worth it for the bang. And there are two more versions in the pattern to try......

I can be quick!

I confess this post is pretty much only here so that I can have a slight smirk at Keely. We ordered some Hotpatterns weeeeeeks ago. (By "we" I mean she placed the order and I took advantage to piggyback!) The original order never arrived, so Hotpatterns resent them and they arrived yesterday. While texting Keely during the day arranging to pop out to her place to pick mine up, I smirked that maybe she'd like to bet on whether I could get the 3 graces top I've been dying to make done by today. She sensibly didn't take the bet!

Got home 8pm-ish and got to work tracing and cutting my trial version. If this one works, yippee! If not, no big deal. Um, yeah, those instructions are brief. I labelled the twisty seams and spent a while staring blankly at the instructions willing them to suddenly become clear. Eventually I just tried different configurations until I think I got it right. I wasn't prepared to sew at that point so left it till this morning when I could check the EXTREMELY helpful video Trudy has made demonstrating how it works. It's very easy to sew, but not easy to figure out.

And it looks like this. For the record, I cut a size 8. I didn't bother with sleeves, but I think the armscye will be fine (the weight of sleeves will pull the shoulder seam a bit further towards my shoulders. If I add sleeves. I may just finish the armholes and leave it sleeveless).

My fabric is very very drapey and I like how it hangs.

Back. See how it's pooling on my hips?
But there's heaps of room around my waist.

In a bit at the waist is easy enough to alter on this version, but out at the hips will have to wait till next time.

Meanwhile, here's that navy dress I was making for Isabella on her. Boy it's hard to photograph an excitable two-and-three-quarter year old!

Oh, and my latest Alabama Chanin corset. The fit of this one is better than the red and cream version (I made a small instead of a medium), but after I'd cut it out I remembered that I wanted to dip the hem at the front a bit more so it's more like the dip at the back hem. Ooops. The girls at our craft group immediately guessed that this means I need to make another one. They know me well.