Shopping to sew

It's been all finished garments and personal stuff here for a while. But now as the light is returning and with it my energy, it's about time to geek out on sewing! See, I've been on a bit of a shopping spree for sewing related goods...

For the sewing room I got two new cutting mats! My old one was small and started to get seriously worn out. I bought it cheap, just to test if this was a method of cutting out that would appeal to me. And for cutting out jersey and fine fabrics, I totally adore it! So now it was time to upgrade =)

 They're identical, with one light grey side and one black, both with cm gridnet.

The mats are 60x90 cm (A1 size), so when I lay them next to each other I can cut out a blouse or a top without having to move the fabric or the cutting mat. Hurray!

Next item is sort of also for the sewing room; a new bolt of toile fabric.

The bolt I got two years ago is almost used up, and as we were anyway driving by Ikea... Now - hopefully - I'm good for another two years.

Toile fabric is handy, but this is Fun:

Organic Bamboo jersey for two tops. This fabric is soooo soft, I can't wait to wear these tops!

For grand finale; interlocked wool. What, it doesn't look like much? =) Nope, but it's wonderful to touch, it drapes beautifully and I've been thinking about this fabric for TWO YEARS. It's the most I've ever paid per meter, so although I knew straight away that I wanted the fabric, I really wanted to be totally sure of what I'd make and how much I'd need.

Here you can see the structure of the fabric, but the colour in the previous picture os more true to reality.

Luck favored me, and it was obviously about time I got around to buying it, as I managed to get the last 2,5 meters. Perfect!

Ok, I'm off to the sewing table. I've got new toys to play with =)
Love, Erika

The Christmas dress

 

I hope you're all having a happy holiday! I've been staying at my mother's in Stockholm, celebrating Christmas the swedish way (traditional swedish food and hanging out with the family on Christmas eve). Also, there's been the usual running around Stockholm to meet up with everyone... =)

Last year I bought 2 metres of jersey and 2 metres of lace and figured I'd make it into a Christmas dress for this year. I came close to stumbling on the finish line here... I started drafting the jersey on Friday evening the 20th, sewed the jersey on Saturday morning, drafted and toiled the lace on the afternoon/evening. Sunday I packed for Christmas and sewed the lace-dress.

The bottom layer is a plain jersey dress, without sleeves. The top layer is more interesting - it's lace cut on bias. The lace has no stretch on it's own, but it's a loose weave lace, so it has some natural stretch due to that. But as I didn't want to join the two layers, I also didn't want the opening a waistseam would require. This was my solution:

A bias cut diamond shape in the side. I first got this idea from one of the dresses in the Hollywood exhibition at Albert & Victoria museum in London last year. I'm not sure how period accurate it is, but they did use paneling during the early 30s.

The front was also a new to me: I made a high cowl neck, with the bodice pleated to a midriff piece.

The skirt is my by now trusty bias A-line pattern. The back is also cut on the bias.
One of the trickiest part was figuring out the pattern layout, so that the weave strength on both sides of all seams matched each other.

This was a really fun project, and I'm thrilled I managed to get it done in such a short time!

Happy holidays!
Love, Erika

Completed: two 30's outfits!

Inspired by my love for the 30s look, my realisation that maybe I've been avoiding the 30s for all the wrong reasons, and of course all the lovely comments from you guys on whether I should try it, I decided before summer to make a 30s summer outfit with a skirt and a blouse. "Summer?", you may be wondering, "but Erika, it's fall now!"
I know, I know! But... well, I didn't get done in time... and the skirt fought back... and somehow I ended up making a second skirt + top outfit...

Alright, outfit number one:

A bias cut A-line skirt with side-buttons, and a blouse with a tie-collar and snaps in the side. The skirt is in a lovely faric, it's matka silk! Matka is a plain weave with double strands in both warp and weft. The fabric is coarse and has a lot of body, but at the same time it has a slight slight lustre that's too polite to be called a shine, and even though it has body, it still has some drape. Wonderful!

So how did the skirt fight back? Basically, it was the fabric. When I bought it they said it could be machine washed, but even after a gentle wash with silk-detergent it came out stiff as cardboard. After a good rinse with fabric softener (worked better than vineger, tried both on test squares. And yes, of course I should have machine washed a test square as well...) and ironing it dry, it regained some softness and drape. I'd seriously recommend against machine washing matka, no matter what the salespeople say!

The skirt closes in the side with buttons and handmade buttonholes.

The skirt sits in my natural waist and the waistband is straight, folded. I lenghtened it considerably after looking at old fashion- and pattern magazines, and measuring the few 30s pattern I own, so it hits just below mid-calf.

The blouse is made from leftovers from last year's big dress+jacket project. I used a combination of different patterns I've made before, it took a couple of toilles, and the fit is still a bit off. I have two major issues I need to adress before making it again, first is the bubbliness at the front, second is the excess in the peplum. 30s peplum laid very slim and close to the hips, while the bodice bloused against the waist (opposite that of 50s peplum blouses/dresses). I love the style, though! So easy to wear, cool and soft, not restricting the movement at all, yet with a feeling of elegance.

The blouse closes in the side with snaps.

Second outfit!
 

Remeber the jerseydress I showed you in the last post? I loved that fabric so much I went back for another 1,5 metre! I had already found a nice linen on a 50% sale, so I figured it would be great to have a 30s outfit that's easier to wash and iron. Hence a linen skirt and a jersey top!

The skirt is tea-dyed (I bought it as a bleached white) and cut on the bias. However, since the first skirt has a tendency to pull a little over the hips I figured it would be better with a bit more room in the skirt and made it just a few cm wider. Unfortunatly, it didn't make the sideseam lay flat, quite the opposite...

Another part in the problem may be that I was a little bit short on fabric, and did a "design feature" at the top. It might be a coincidence that the skirt pulls the most just below the "V", but I doubt it.

Also, the zipper buggled. This is the third installation, and I've done all I can think of. I'm leaving it be, it's time for fall sewing and either the fabric will shrink a little during washing, or I'll wear something over the top of the skirt, or... It's a later problem =)

The top is a version of my by now TNT jerseydress pattern, not much to say about it.

Except that I love the fit in the back!!! With my narrow back, nothing RTW has ever fit and I still get a little giddy everytime I see myself wearing a garment that fits my back =)

This is just a short presentation, I'll be returning soon with some thoughts on drafting patterns that are based on a specific period, and of course a bit more about the silk skirt. It was an epic make ; )

Love, Erika

Summer SWAP 4, 5 and 6

While pondering 30s fashion, I've been sewing up more jersey-stuff... (the dresses has already been featured, in the MMM on holiday-post).

1) V-necked top. This fabric was a nightmare! It didn't seem to have selvedges, more like cut edges. The printed pattern was parallell to the edges, but the grainline was maybe 20 degrees off. Laying out the pieces took ages, and I still think most pieces are slightly off grain. Pieces of this top will undoubtedly twist during washing. It has very little lengthwise stretch, so the underbustseam is higher than on the floral top from last week.

The whole point however was to test the pattern in a V-neck version. The neckband is not sewed on perfectly, but I do like the style. Not sure this top will survive long in my wardrobe, but it was good to test the V-neck pattern alteration =)

2) I had planned to make a dress in the horrible, off-grain fabric, but after discovering all the problems outlined above, I figured it'd be a waste of time. So I rushed out and got a turqoise viscouse jersey on sale at Ohlssons...

The floral dress was nice, but apart from me messing up the elastic in the waistseam, the entire waistline was too high. Very strange, since the pattern is drafted from my chevron dress that sits great at the waist. Then I got to thinking: the shoulder seams on that one has a tendency to wander backwards. Maybe the surpluce in the front bodice (the one I reduced for this later pattern) was divided between front and back to make the whole bodice longer?

Anyway, I added length a little bit here and there on the dress bodice pattern, altered the sleeves to be loose and half-long, slimmed down the skirt top to reduce the gathered effect, and changed the gathers in bodice and skirt into small pleats, more visible here:

However, this was still just a testrun for...

3) V-necked dress in the lovely jersey I bought at Stockholm sewing expo last fall. This fabric is wonderful! It has drape, a heavy fall, excellent recovery, is not thick and yet it has a bit of body so it doesn't fall all over the place. It cost a dear coin (twice the cost of the turcoise above), but I have a feeling it will last more than twice as long and see a lot of wear.

For me, this is a summer evening dress, or a winter dance dress. It'll be perfect for bluesdancing!

And that concludes the fast and easy part of my summer SWAP =)
Love, Erika

Summer SWAP 1,2 and 3

First items on my Summer Sewing With A Plan are ready!

1) Half circle skirt in blue mixed cotton. At least I think/hope it's part cotton... I bought the fabric ages and ages ago, and half of it became the first sewn garment featured on this blog (a pleated summer skirt). I've had loads of grand ideas for the 1,5 metres left of this fabric, but nothing has ever seemed right. This may not be a fancy fabric, and it has a shady content, but it's grease and dirt-resistant, it hardly wrinkles and the pleated version is one of my most used items. Hence; another half circle skirt! =) This time with an invisible side-zip.

On a side-note: now I understand the whole shebang about using invisible-zipper feet. I'd only tried it on very thin and flimsy fabric, and thought it was a big hoax. But on this sturdier fabric it worked great!

2) Jersey top. Not much to the naked eye, but a big deal to me as I've adressed and - keep your fingers crossed - conquered the fitting issues in my previous makes! The excellent advices I got on my post really summed up to one thing: a modified SBA. What?! I'm an E-cup, for heavens sake. A very new situation to me... However, my starting point was my sloper for wovens. That sloper has undergone serious alterations, amongst others an FBA. Protruding things stretches jersey more than flat surfaces, meaning that what would in woven have been needed extra fabric for my bust, was in jersey surpluce.

Not wanting to alter the length of the sideseam or the shoulderseam, I reduced the overbust, the neckline and the underbust-gathers. I cut up the front bodice along these lines:

And then overlapped the desired amout (meaning: I made a rough estimation by testing the last top and tested by pinching how much it made sense to reduce over the actual bust. So, I guessed). It worked out darn well!

I also reduced the sleeveheads so the sleeve is inserted flat.

3) Time to test the new top-pattern as a dress! This is a real Frankenstein... The skirt and midriff is from the chevron dress (with 1,5 cm added at center front of midriff-piece), the back bodice is from when I altered the chevron-dress pattern for a V-neck dress that didn't get made, the front bodice and the sleeves are from the new TNT. (And I traced all pieces so all patterns are complete! Quite shocking...)

I've skipped the stabilizer in the underbust seam, but kept it for the shoulders. The waist is helped by an elastic inserted in the overlock seam. I messed it up a bit, though, as I sewed in the elastic wrong (forgot to stretch it and put it on the skirt side instead of on the midriff side) so this dress will be best to wear with a belt. The elastic may also get a bit better after washing. Ah, well, this was the test-run dress =)

New solution to finishing the neckline: cut a 4 cm wide strip and treat it like a mix between biastape and waistband. Attatch right side to right side...

...fold over the overlock-seam so it's engulfed by the band and top-stitch with a zig-zag just next to the seam. Setting my machine on a narrow zic-zag, I can use my zipper-foot (or whatever it is, that's what I most often use it for) and get really close. The finished band ends up a bit round, but I like the effect.

All the hems are folded under once and then top-stitched with a narrow zic-zag.

That was my three easy starting projects; fast to make, versitile and easy to wear. Now it's time for a couple of more jersey projects on the summer SWAP!

Love, Erika

A jersey top and a cry for fitting aid

Moths ago I cut out this top, and then it ended up in the to-do pile. I sewed it early January, but then it took me nearly a month to get buttons and sew them on. Now it's ready... and I'm not sure I'm loving it.

The style is cute, and I like the sleeves. However, I botched the neck-band (now I know what not to do!) so it's not very neat where band meets buttonstrip:

Colour a bit off here, the other one's are more accurate.

My main issue with it though are these stresslines:

They disappear if I do like this:

Why are they there? Any ideas? I'm thinking it's because there's extra fabric over the overbust, but it might just as well be something totally different, like the depth of the sleeve-holes or the angle of the shoulder. Ideas, anyone?

Ah, well, at least this make is ready to wear. It will not go down in history as my most succesful make, but I'm sure it will get worn every now and then =) It would be nice to try to correct the pattern before any other jersey sewing takes place, though.

Love, Erika

At the "home-stretch": the sweats are ready!

They're ready! The aforementioned sweatspants I spent three weeks drafting a pattern for are finally ready to be worn! Without further ado; ta-da:

And eh... that was really it... =)
The big question on everyone's minds (or at least the question that was burning through my mind when I made them), is probebly "Was it worth drafting a pair of regular trousers first? Was it really worth those three weeks and three toiles?!". And the answer is yes, to me it was totally worth it. They are so much more comfortable than any other pair of pants I have ever worn, that just for that sake alone it was worth it.

But also, I now have a pattern for trousers! Sure, it may need a little bit of tweaking before being made into for example a pair of 40s trousers, or flared 30s pyjama bottoms, but when I do decide to embarke upon a new pants-quest, I will be halfway there. In the meantime I'm chilling at home in my supercomy sweats =)

I'm thinking this pattern might work quite well for workout wear as well, I'd just slim down the width in the legs. One pattern at the time, slowly building the foundation for a totally me-made closet! These sweats also could have been a part of Sunny's Everyday wardrobe challenge, had I been a part of it, as it gives me something to wear with this cozy cardigan:

I got it a year and a half ago, and even though I love it, it hasn't gotten much wear due to the lack of suitable items to pair it up with.

That's all from the blessed land of comfy sweats! If you'll excuse me, I'm going to curl up in the sofa now... ; )

Love, Erika