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

<a href="https://www.bloglovin.com/blog/6206245/?claim=nebxv26szjx">Follow my blog with Bloglovin</a>

Just claiming my blog. After all, I may want to post something one day! 😀

On top o' this!

Well, it started with this.

Not the trousers! I've not yet reacclimatized to the paper bag waist trousers, having made them (badly) and worn them last time they were a thing. No, the top. I wanted it.  And being a sewist, I could have it, even if I couldn't find the actual article on the mango website, even after navigating away from the "let us show you something more seasonally appropriate for your antipodean lifestyle" (ie flog you at colonial prices what we can't sell in the high street sales) page. (I wish you would make your links more specific, Graun, then I might just pay to read you)

But I'm trying to sew from stash right now, because frankly that pile is getting out of hand.

And I had no knit that would work. Stymied.

But I had recently made this top.

So I knew that I had a pattern that would work in a woven, and I started to turn over my woven stash instead.

(I made the top from a pattern I traced from an unblogged top I made from an adapted Burda top pattern that I can't find and couldn't be bothered either finding the traced pattern or retracing it.  Man these things can get complicated quickly!)

Nothing.  Well, there was a black fine gingham that I liked the idea of but it was too stiff. By now I think I was starting to be influenced by this image, which I had liked a bit when I saw it. 

https://www.theguardian.com/fashion/2017/feb/17/what-wore-week-statement-sleeves-jess-cartner-morley

 But then I delved into very deep stash.  And found this  fabric, of which I had pretty well

dispaired and consigned to "Household" (or in stash terms, limbo). I pulled it from the remnants table on my first trip to the Remnant Warehouse, I do believe, intoxicated by all the decent inexpensive fabric. But it was slubby and irregular and half the width was cream and tan (since removed, overdyed orange and put in "household" as well).

Place and cut pattern and sew into wearable top = 1.5 hrs including watching Grand Designs.

Devise, position and attach arm ruffles = 3 hrs and counting.......

And the result is this sleeve, a compromise.  But silly enough to make a statement, of sorts.

But, as it happened, not enough of a statement. I wanted trim. So it was back to the stash, where I found a length of daisy chain lace? braid? from I know not where nor when, which was just enough for this:

Here it is, caught in action at work. Where, judging by the reactions of interested colleagues, I have hit upon a top with sleeves which are indeed the perfect current statement (the statement being "it's all a bit much so let's be silly").

PS Many thanks to my daughter for suggesting the little bit of trim in the middle of the neckline - which makes the top, imho.

Notes from the front line

very static and carefully arranged shot

slightest bit of movement shot

 Interface your zippers.

It is not a waste of time!

Spending hours on making a pair of trousers that look like this on - THAT is a a waste of time.






So - interface your zippers.

(trousers, made late 2015, Burda 5 button jeans pattern, never before blogged.  No longer worn in public due to chronic ongoing and worsening zipper issues. I suppose it's good to have cheerful trousers for the housework....)

The Long Awaited Vol. 2

(Though not as long awaited as many a post)

The second dress is a much more flirty affair.  Though you would be hard put to get the full impression from my blurred serious-face shot here.  Hopefully when in context, rather than facing the dreaded camera in a dark corner of my bedroom, I don't look so ..grim!

But I can't fault the dress - all summer boxes are ticked.  Cold shoulder, ruffles, belted waist, and a kind of thirties meets seventies Biba-ish vibe that I am very much digging right now.

The back (will edit this post to get a shot of the back) has the shoulder straps running through a channel.

I adapted a Burda tank-topped shift dress to get the pattern, but I suspect if I had been prepared to look at a few more back issues, I would have found the exact pattern.  Luckily I enjoy a bit of pattern hacking, or even drafting, so I wasn't too phased by this.  And I didn't have to add the pockets.  ALL DRESSES MUST HAVE POCKETS!! It has to be yelled.  It's not negotiable.

 Here is a close-up of the top front.  You can see that the ruffle runs from shoulder to centre front.  There's always a problem with breasts and ruffles in that if you have the one, you don't want the other on top.  For fear of looking like a freeze frame of an exploding airbag in a car crash. But I think I solved it here with this ruffle sleeve combo.

The straps, for the interested, are made from strips of straight grain folded like double bias tape.  At the shoulder the ruffle is inserted, then above the breast the dress neckline and ruffle.  All topstitched along the folded edge of the strip. I finished the underarm edge first with another strip of the same sort. Simple.

All the ruffle and any other hemming was done with my new 6mm hemmer foot. Why did I wait? A fabulous addition to the feets.

 The fabric is a rayon crepe "chirramon" from Spotlight. Bought before Christmas for just such a dress. But not made in time.

In many circumstances this fabric would be an utter beast to sew with, but its shifty nature and drape made it perfect for this dress. 

And I love the shrubbery too!
POCKETS!!

A Tale of Two Dresses (or wot I did on my ... vacation(?)

I only took the barest minimum holiday at Christmas. My work shuts down from Christmas Eve until after the public holiday after new year's day. And that was my hols.  But in spite of having only a short break, and not much "holiday" being newly single and having a whole house and garden package to manage, I also fitted in a bit of sewing.  Ok I didn't do much socialising over the break and that helped.  Anyway, apart from the Christmas frenzy dress, blogged previously (though inexplicably showing up in September in my feed - weird but useful if I want to retrospectively pad the blog, no, sponsors?  anyone?) I also managed two other dresses. And a pair of trousers. Which you won't see today because it's all about the dresses.The first is a shirty shift dress from chambray.  I think we are all feeling the casual cinched shirty dress right now, are we not?  And this is my take on it. 

belted with eyes to heaven

It looks a little short in the skirt in photos but I think that irl it's ok. Also I suspect I've lost a little weight since I took these, so the top is ..hem.. a little less filled out. The chambray is a bit short stapled - I'm not sure if it will pill.  But it's perfect for how I feel right now.  Serious but not sombre.  And light enough for cooler days. The trousers are also made from it, as is a half made top.  I bought a bit (ok, enough to get the discount) from the Remnant Warehouse last year.  

unbelted action shot - concentraaaating...

I love this detail.  This is a faciing turned to the outside and I shaped it pretty before I topstitched. It was a beast to do.  But I love the effect.









I also shaped the front facing.  If I did such a thing again, I think I would interface the facing with a stitching line along the shaping line (if you see what I mean) Maybe coloured

fabric with just a hint showing... hmmm.

I did want to crazy embroider the facing but my sister vetoed it.  She said I'd wear it more without.  She was right.

And finally there's the pocket facing.  I made pockets by cutting a curve out of the side front, and putting a topside facing on.  Then I had a cut-on pocket piece on the back that I wrapped under.  And then I topstiched.  Clear as mud, expecially with these midnight photos.  But it looks a bit like this.

Anyway, right now it's the perfect day dress. And I can see it going into autumn with the right accessories.  

Chuffed.

Rivetting!

Here at the Institute of Being Inordinately Pleased with Small Achievements(IBIPSA) we would like to report that we are currently experiencing an unprecedented, almost unfeasible blip in the BIP levels due to the events of the morning.

Rivets!!

They're brilliant!

They let you join bits of leather with a hammer!

Spoiler alert! - finished product.  

Not sure if life can hold more!

Certainly it can't hold more short sentences or screamers, lest the nice men in lab coats come and give me lollies to make me quie. So let me calm down, take a deep breath, and recap.

This morning, I was a woman with a problem. I had a new, non-missing (this bit is important) key, and no way to keep it not missing.  Being present at the time of unlocking is pretty fundamental to the role of a key, I find, and I also find it to be the part of the deal that my keys have been failing in of late. Often, I only need one key, for historical reasons I won't go into here, but this also means that if this single key is not a reliably present key then I have a big lockedoutness problem.

I needed a keyring that was not too big, not too small, not too heavy, etc etc so that I could have the key in a pocket, or in my bag.  Alone or with other keys. The previous solution of a key and a split ring was not enough.

Enter rivets (along, Imust admit, with some other contents of a wellstocked haberdashery drawer).This afternoon I'm no longer a woman with a problem.  I'm now a woman with a hammer!





And hopefully a key, given that I can now clip it to anything.