Finished Sweater

Pattern :  The Mirehouse Jumper by the Fibre Co.
Yarn : Stylecraft special aran in Storm Blue

This is my first adult sized knit, for my 15 year old. It took me approximately 3 weeks.  It sounds like quick knitting but I was away for one of those weeks so had the time to do it all day everyday.

I made it a size larger than needed as she prefers baggier things but it still ended up quite fitted.  As a beginner knitter I am very pleased with it.

What I have learned

• Count stitches a couple of times before committing to rows upon rows of work.  
• I like doing stockinette forever much more than I thought I would.
• My memorising skills for pattern repeats are not very good, though I was improving towards the end!
• I have no idea how to seam neatly, need to do some research...
• How to actually pick up and knit stitches for the neck.

One day I may be brave enough to try something in pricier yarn.  For now I'm battling on with my sock knitting.  I think I have the idea of magic loop down.  I did pick a cabled pattern so it's definitely not mindless knitting.  But, the good news is that I finally got it cast on correctly and completed the ribbing at the top as well as 2 repeats of the cable - yay!

I am moving on though, I need to make a cardigan for myself for my SWAKOP entry.  After staring at knitting patterns for literally hours on end (hasn't been good for my anti-procrastination project) and rifling through my moms vintage stash I think I have finally settled on this one.

Polyester Chiffon..

..Is the devils own fabric.  That is all.

It's really hot today.  Too hot to cut this out and I feel like it's been a real battle.  I'm not even sure that I won really. 

I have interlined all of the bodice pieces to hopefully keep them the right shape and I used glue to do it (no regrets) just because it was being so very unruly.  I had planned to line the dress anyway so I suppose this saves me having to do that providing I can get a neat-ish finish on the inside.

I'm dreading putting this stuff on my machine, I am expecting complaints and I am expecting to swear a lot.  But I have gin ready for afterwards!

Fabric musings for my group 1 entry

The 2 dresses for my SWAKOP entry are going to be these.  I have had the maxi planned for a while and bought the stripey fabric on a bit of a whim but I think it will work really well for this, although I have 20cm less that the packet says I need... I usually can save a fair bit of fabric through shortening the skirt (I am very short in real life) *fingers crossed*

Here I am auditioning fabric for the jacket.  One is a navy denim, the other is a turquoise cord.  Currently leaning towards the turquoise to be honest - I am a magpie when it comes to colour, maybe I need to rethink having navy in the collection at all?  The worry then is that I'll end up going super-multi-colour and end up making a clown costume that won't get worn.

Sewing With a Kind of Plan

I have entered the wardrobing competition at The Sewing Place, and now that I'm back from my hols (thank you Cornwall!) I'm ready to make a start.  I'm hoping that it will give me a push along in getting things done and keep my procrastination tendencies at bay as well as hopefully ending up with several garments that I can actually wear.

The rules; 3 groups, one wildcard, 10 garments in total and to look like a collection that was intended to work together from the get go.  There's more to it than that obviously, but I'm trying to keep it simple for now.

Group 1

Denim or Corduroy jacket.
Maxi Dress (had already planned M7526 so I'm rolling with it and the fabric is currently in the washing machine)
A second summer dress to work with the jacket, possibly B6168 in a stripe.

Group 2

Coloured denim jeans, because I love them and I've never made any.  Thinking Closet Case Ginger Jeans at the minute.

Datura Tops, because I love them too and they are easy to make up and don't require a lot of fabric.

A brushed cotton shirt, I really like Deer and Doe's Bruyere Shirt but unfortunately they don't do any plus sizes in it :(  

There's a similar burda pattern but I think I might go with this Lisette pattern purely because I already have it in my stash.  Plus after thinking about it, a fitted waist when I want it to use as a light jacket/cover up probably will annoy me.

Group 3

This is what I refer to as my 'posh' clothes. I don't own much dressy stuff as I am a stay-at-home mom with young children and I never go anywhere (Can you hear the tiny violins?)  But my Grandma has her 90th birthday party coming up in the autumn and it's apparently going to be quite a 'do' so I would like to make something that will be suitable for that. 

At first I thought - JUMPSUIT! But, to be honest I think they are massively impractical so I want to fake one out of separates. See I like this burda style jumpsuit, but I think I would prefer a wider leg overall.  

So then I thought that culottes and a wrap top would be the way to go, if I use the same fabric it will basically look like that jumpsuit but with wider legs. So that brings this Mimi G pattern into the mix, tempted to add that big tie though.  And I quite like the little jacket too.

For my wildcard entry I think I would like to tackle something knitted for myself.  I fancy a big oversized snuggly cardigan, I just finished up my daughters jumper today so I need to make a decision here and quickly - I like knitting because I can do it whilst supervising the smaller ones and I have nothing on the go!  I feel like a fish out of water! 

Colours, currently thinking mustard/navy/emerald green but honestly that may change if I see the perfect fabric for something.

I will hopefully be starting my maxi dress this week, right after panic buying wool.

Minecraft Trousers

My eldest son (6) needed a new pair of trousers and is completely obsessed with Minecraft. This fabric was a fabulous ebay find!  It's a fairly heavy drill fabric that I was hoping I would be able to make up into either this Oliver+S pattern or this Burda pattern.  In the end my drawstring was not going to arrive on time to make the Burda pair an option right now so the 'Field Trip cargo pants' pattern it was!

I traced the pattern off as I want to be able to use it in other sizes as needed and managed to fit the pattern onto less than a metre of fabric, so I have enough left over to make him a new PE bag for school as well.

I think they came out great, even considering that some of the finishing is a bit - well, meh - if I'm honest, ultimately the fabric was too thick despite it's awesome-ness.  At one point I counted at least 6 layers of the stuff... my machine is going to be telling me off.

So I ended up with a definite winter weight pair of Minecraft cargo trousers and my Son likes them - bonus!

Summer Maxi Dress Ideas

Lately I have been binge watching the BBC's 'Death in Paradise', it's easy TV with a bit of a whodunnit, a bit of comedy and beautiful Caribbean scenery.  Whats not to like?  I'm also a bit in love with Catherine.  She owns a bar, she doesn't take any rubbish from anyone and she always looks phenomenal.  I know she is a fictional character, but her dress sense is right up my alley.

I was mooching around instagram as you do and came upon one of McCalls 'sew the look' posts.

And I was really interested in turning M7624 into something closer to the picture on the right, but also in my style.  Something that Catherine would wear! I like the 3/4 narrow sleeve, I love all those little buttons running down the front.

So I'm thinking, view B, but with shorter sleeves and I sort of like the peek a boo shoulders there.  I'll need to line behind the chiffon and I like the idea of diagonal stripes to make up the button band. Not sure whether to use the darker stripes or the lighter stripes yet - I don't mind clashing textures and colours.

This is going to be my next 'big' project since I expect it to involve a fair amount of work and I'm pretty sure I need to buy a rolled hem presser foot for my machine first.. I have a pair of trousers to make for my son before I can get started.

Part of me thinks this is sort of a bad idea, but I really want the dress ><

Datura Blouse #2

Yesterday I finished another collarless Datura Blouse from Deer and Doe.  The fabric is a fine cotton lawn that I found on ebay, though it's apparently stocked at John Lewis for double the price (I checked, and it is - feels good to find a bargain)

I sewed it up much quicker this time since I already knew how it went together.  I interlined the front panel as the fabric was quite sheer and I didn't want to have to worry about what underwear to wear!  I added a tiny bit of mint piping around the yoke which matches all the seam binding inside as well as the handmade label.

I love this top, it has a very different vibe to my last one but I will definitely be wearing it this week.

Fabric Friday and other stuff

Fabric post is the best. I ordered this lot in the sale at Adam Ross Fabrics, there is 16m here and it cost me in the region of £35. 40% off! Ridiculous really, would have been really rude to not order anything at all.  This is not merely stash though, all of this has ideas and plans attached.

When I can't use my sewing machine (read - when my toddler is awake) I try and knit things.  Now, I am not a good knitter, nor am I a quick knitter, but I do enjoy making things for my children.  I am making a jumper for my daughter who is 15 so it's actually my first adult size knit.

It is acrylic (cuz kids), it's Stylecraft special aran in 'storm blue'. Lovely colour and is knitting up to be quite soft.

I'm trying to learn how to knit pretty socks too because I feel like what's the point in spending the time to make something you could buy for a pound in Primark if it's not awesome at the end. So I dove right into the deep end with this lovely pattern.  However, right after I took a picture I figured out that I had started horribly wrong and had to unravel the whole thing. Then I unraveled another, and another.  So my socks aren't going too well right now.

Dipping my toes back into dressmaking

I have had a break from dressmaking for about 8 years.  During that time, I've learnt how to do patchwork and quilting, taught myself to knit and had 2 more children.  When my eldest took an interest in slow fashion and dressmaking, I started looking at patterns and fabrics again and remembered how much I like it.

I've spent a lot of my 8 years off staring at Pinterest and lamenting all the beautiful things I could make if I had the time.  But the reality is that I had plenty of time to poke Pinterest, so I have made a decision to do less 'looking' at Pinterest and more 'doing' in real life.

So here are my supplies for a summer top for myself. I love everything about that print so very much!  I had an idea for a tank style top with a curved hem and I was originally going to hack at an older pattern I had but it turns out that the Deer and Doe Datura Blouse was exactly what I was thinking of - so to save faffing around I splurged on the PDF.

This is my first experience with Deer and Doe and indeed with PDF's at all and I have to say that the instructions were really clear, I was really impressed.  I found it to be a very easy pattern with good results.

I couldn't for the life of me figure out how to zigzag the seams without my machine making a meal of it so I bound the seams with extra bias tape (I made it all from quilting cotton with a bias tape maker). 

I hand embroidered a label to sew in the back with the year of completion on, I think that's a hangover from quiltmaking haha.

Love those 3 red buttons on the back.

It took me about 5 hours to complete from start to finish and I really like the end result.  If I saw this in a shop, I would buy it in a heartbeat.  It's totally wearable - I made this at the weekend and already took it out into the real world.  I love it so much that I just ordered fabric for another one.  Wouldn't it be great if my whole wardrobe ended up handmade? I would be really impressed with myself - perhaps that's a goal to aim for?