Monday 31 March 2014

Two for one

What everyone needs in their life is a skirt with sharks on it… After being unsuccessful at finding that Lobster fabric everyone has been blogging about, I gave up and resorted to this Boden Sharks and Divers fabric that I found on eBay.  It’s cotton, but quite a heavy weight and a bit stiff – and it also resists pins (or they leave marks).  I've had the Deer and Doe Chardon skirt pattern for ages so I decided to give it a go with this fabric.

  

I traced between two sizes (38 and 40) to give me more room at the waist, and went with the standard length.  I decided that this was to be a winter skirt so I lined it with some leftover lightweight cotton (from my Tova top), by just cutting out the front and back pieces again.  I joined the outer, lining and waist band together at the top but in hindsight I think this was a bit of a faux pas as there ended up being a lot of fabric at the waist.  What I should have done (and will do next time!) is join the lining to the bottom of the waistband and then the  top of waistband to the outer (as per the design).


The zip went in without problems, except I stitched too close to the teeth and then couldn't get it undone!  After redoing that it went fine, and I hand stitched the lining to the zip on the inside.  It’s not my finest work but who’s going to see the inside anyway?!

I’m not great at predicting what items will look like, and if they'll suit me but I have to say I love this skirt! It actually makes me look like I have a waist and hips J  But then I realised that with such a high waist (nothing like all the other items in my wardrobe), I had absolutely nothing to wear with it…. So I had to make another Sewaholic Renfrew top!


This is my second Renfrew – unlike the first it has full length sleeves, and I shortened it significantly (about 4’’) so that it just sits on my waist.  The front/back pieces I shortened to the line on the pattern that’s marked for where you add/remove length, then worked out the difference between this width and the original width to subtract that from the waistband piece.  All worked out well I think.  The fabric is some ponte roma that I picked up on eBay (hmmm, bit of a trend with this post).  Question is, how long can I manage to keep it white?!








Sunday 23 March 2014

A quilt a day...

I only started cutting the fabric yesterday afternoon!! Amazed at how quickly it's come together, although it is a charm pack of Kate Spain's Daydream collection for Moda (along with 5 FQs of matching solids from http://www.simplysolids.co.uk/so a little cheating!!


To maximise the fabric used I just went for a simple 10x10 patchwork, ending up with a quit just under 4' square.

More pictures to follow (in daylight, not with phone camera)!

Just needs a name now...

Tuesday 18 March 2014

Striped bats

I know I haven't blogged anything for ages so there’s a huge backlog of stuff to show.  I was really good a couple of weeks back and had a blitz on the outstanding sewing items – I really should do the same here! So in no particular order….

Here’s my Named Blair batwing shirt.  This was a labour of love really, the fabric is really really light jersey (Viscose stretch from Minerva) and significantly different to only other jersey I've used (for my as yet unblogged Named Dakota dress and Sewaholic Renfrew top).  I didn't realise it would be such a pain to sew – or cut! Trying to cut it out the fabric was moving about so much I ended up cutting each piece individually rather than folding the fabric over, and next time I'm definitely going to break out the rotary cutter…



Construction is pretty easy, only the front, back and two sleeves so it comes together really quickly and I stabilised the shoulder seems with a bit of leftover cotton selvage.  I did sort of try to match up the stripes on the front/back but it wasn't really going to work for the sleeves.



I got a twin needle to try out…. I did a few practise runs on scraps and then tried around the neck line.  I don’t know what happened but it chewed up the fabric (too light maybe? I was even using my walking foot!) and I had to unpick half a dozen times. Eventually I gave up and just put in a single row of stitches.



So given all that, I’m not really impressed with my finish on the top. However I love the loose floatiness of it, and it’s definitely something I’ll wear in the summer over vest tops.  I’d like to make another in a slightly heavier fabric, but the trauma is blocking the inspiration at the moment…..