Parrots. Clowns. Confetti.

 Sometimes you don't want to play for sheep stations. Sometimes you just want to make a quick top from some inexpensive material you picked up in an op shop.  And sometimes it all works out marvellously.

I found this remnant at my local Vinnies and paid about $2 for it, if memory serves me correctly. There was barely twice my top length, or in other words not even enough to construct a top. But I wasn't daunted. Last year, inspired by a Halston post by jetset sewing (https://jetsetsewing.com/2015/03/05/banish-the-fiddly-bring-on-the-funk-halston/),  and this pattern(http://vintagepatterns.wikia.com/wiki/McCall%27s_6528_A)  I made a poncho top.

A poncho top is a poncho that's a top.  (Glad I could clear that up for you, you're welcome).  Oh, ok - it's made from one piece of fabric with a hole cut in it and it probably represents the majority of tops made and worn in the history of clothing. So, when faced with just enough fabric to run over the shoulder from rear hip to front hip, I immediately thought of the poncho. 

The top pattern is shaped like so:

(This is the one I prepared last year and unpicked for a pattern.)

Edged all around with the widest narrow hem foot I own (6mm) and then stitched closed for just a few centimetres on each side.  It is a brilliant top shape to wear on super hot days, because there's a lot of airflow, and though your arms do have a bit of fabric on them, it doesn't cling. But it does shield you from the sun. I suspect it would make an excellent festival top and I will check that some day.  Maybe.



The neckhole is asymetrical and the narrower side is the front. I just happen to like it that way. On the second top I used a round neckline and a front slit.

I faced the neckhole as shown, and then, on a whim, unpicked the top centimetre of each side of the slit, inserting a neck tie then restitching. A bias neckline edging that turned into ties would work just as well. Maybe  better.

 Here I demonstrate the ties, airhostess style:

Anyway,  in the event it worked a treat. I also really like the fabric, which has lots of my favourite colours in a groovy eighties abstract pattern. Is it parrots? Or confetti? Or clowns?  That, my friends, is between you and your subconscious.

Flutterby

When I were a lass, I used to pore over my mother's small collection of Enid Gilchrist booklets. Enid Gilchrist, for those not from Australia and/or under a certain age, wrote and created patterns for a woman's magazine, the New Idea, from the late 1940's until the 1970's, and periodically the magazine would produce a 30odd page booklet of the patterns. They were full of fabulous clothing and the instructions to draft and make them and they really sparked a lifelong interest in pattern drafting (along with a book I read in fourth grade on sewing without a pattern, and a certain genetic predisposition to making things), even though the clothes were out of date.

Mum didn't have any of the adult books, because she didn't make clothes for adults. (Historically, she hadn't needed to because my grandmother did: dramatically, flamboyantly, dictatorially and with a fierce territoriality). But there were children's clothes and I was a kid and although I was a kid in the seventies when princess frocks were no longer the daily wear of little girls, I could still relate to the images.


What I loved about the books was how easy she made it seem. In year 7 I did the mandatory home economics class and found in it that making a simple wrap skirt was a grim and serious business, full of complexity and difficulty, where one mistake could have life altering consequences. I half expected someone to die before the end of term. But not so for Enid. Her sketches and relaxed, minimal instructions made the whole process seem like a doddle. Fun, even.

So periodically I try to find them online, to complement my obsessive search for them through the op shops of Australia. And when I found this online for a reasonable sum I jumped. And it came, and I was So Excited.

 
The first thing I wanted to make was this wraparound, as a top, and that right  soon.
But with flutter sleeves like the dress.

So I drafted up the basic pattern and traced and modified.








But then flutter sleeves led to open flutter sleeves, as I moved the seam around the sleeve.

Why? because I hate setting sleeves in the round, and there was enough ease to overlap, and they're good when it's hot, and why not!







Why not? Because I didn't like them when I tried it on.  There just seemed to be too much material happening around my waist, and quite frankly right now I am growing too much of that already.

And I came to this conclusion when I was already in the top with the clothes I wanted to wear with it too work that day. Disappointed would pretty well sum it up.

But then inspiration struck and I knotted them. 

It is though - that's just my camera face.

And now it's my latest favourite top.

All in all, veritable roller coaster of strong emotions. Like year 7 all over again.

Chequered

Sitting at a bustop waiting for the bus. What better time to think about sewing - amirite? Well, no, but at at least it will take my mind away from the vexed question of bus shelter design. And men in general.

This dress has been made for weeks but not recorded or blogged about. The making was a real breach birth (my apologies if you have actually had a real breach birth. But it was difficult and annoying and sewing-painful.)


I knew it was a good thing and would be useful but I didn't want to sew it. I was sewing it as my housemate was making a glamourous cotton sateen peacock feather  print halter neck dress for cocktails. I felt like Maryanne with Ginger. Peacock feathers! Sateen! Cocktails! It all made large check lightweight gingham seem rather cinderella.

And then, because I was making it up as I went along, there was aall sorts of ffaffing and dithering.
Back tracking.
Remodelling.

I cut it too long. I think. Then I trimmed it too short. Then I had to piece scraps to add back one square.
One line of checks.
2.5 cm.

aaaaalmost

I almost managed to check match. But the fabric was shifty. Which, visually, bugged me more, I suspect than if I hadn't tried at all.


The details: the pattern was based on a much used burda tee shaped top. lengthened, front placket, pockets. shaped straight grain stand collar.

Anyway, I've worn it once a week since then. Which only goes to show. It's verging on mumsy but I flatter myself not quite there. And cool on 33° days.

Gotta keep the shoes fierce however.

You may as well JUMP (go ahead and jump)

I didn't sew as much in 2017 as in previous years.  There was still a bit of sewing. But most of the garments I can mentally tally for the year were blogged - and there aren't a lot  of posts.  So - not a lot.

It's not particularly surprising.  For the second half of the year I was preparing a house for sale, and then up to my neck in the campaign to sell it. And then I was moving out. So I really didn't need the mess and stuff that sewing generates.

Anyway, the house is sold.  The sewing room is history, which may never return. And I'm in a new household.  Since just before Christmas I have been reliving my 20's by group-housing with an old school friend (Hi Mel!). Two middle aged ladies, three dogs.  It's a whole new way of life. But Mel is an old sewing co-conspiritor, and the place is very sewing friendly.

So I have already made 2 new garments, I'm finishing off a UFO, and I have plenty of plans.....

Let's start with the last project of 2017. Yes, on the last day of the year I managed to finish, and wear, a project I had planned for some time. I give you the black jumpsuit.

Burda has been showing jumpsuits for years. I rarely check out 'go fug yourself' anymore, (because they are now fashion insiders and consequently much less rude and funny) but I noticed by the end that even they no longer mocked celebs solely because they were wearing one.  It had to be a really fugly one.  So jumpsuits are now mainstream (and presumably heading for the overpass to Dullsville).

I quite like the aesthetic, and always did.  As a child of the seventies, I grew up on the Charlie ads.  And in the eighties I made at least one. So I am quite aware of the 'jump in and go but feel put together' feeling that they give.  But I am also familiar with the rest of the package.  The complete unravelling required to wee.  The occasional crotch grab if the proportions are out. Or your narrowest waist measure has moved up a little. These are an increasingly strong disincentive as I get older (and fatter).

But I have been mulling over the question and I'm pleased to say that I have come up with the answer to all of these problems:

The wrap jump.

This jumpsuit consists of a top with the front of a pair of wrap trousers attached.  You put on the top. Pull the back of the trousers through your legs (there is a technique but I'm not about to demonstrate in photos, sorry - try googling it).

Wrap to the front, and tie (pardon the grim expression - concentrating).

I've taken this on two outings and I'm pleased to report that it is comfortable, adjustable, and easy to go to the toilet in (once you've mastered that technique you just researched).

There's another, spiffy advantage which I only discovered by accident the second time I wore them, out to drinks after work. They make an excellent outfit for times when you need to change clothes for outings - I am here to say that the transformation from day to night can be achieved in a toilet cubicle.  (or possibly even a telephone booth in the unlikely event that you are both able to find one and also a bit of an exhibitionist).

There are just a couple of slight problems with the suit.

Two of them are illustrated in this photo.



I put the collar on slightly wonky.  I have a terrible habit of trying to do these things in one pass and it always bites me.  So the right armhole gapes just a little.  The wrap trousers do have a slight tendency to split to the thigh if I, say, walk more than 10 steps. I should have cut the fronts wider.

..Attempts to demonstrate the issue in small space in front of camera..

And the back view has a sliver of skin between trouser and top, due no doubt to my cutting it  just a little short.

All in all it's a surprisingly louche garment.  But I love it.  Of course, I'm already mentally planning the next one, that fixes the problems.  And adds pockets. Of course.....

The franken-pattern was made using a much modified trouser pattern from Burda, and a much modified built by Wendy raglan top/dress, sans sleeves and bottom half.

Just as planned