First proper shirt!

You don't even know how excited I am about this make! Do you have a "dream wardrobe" that consists of all the things that you would love to wear that you can't in real life for more or less valid reasons? For example, I love high necklines. Do I wear them? No, they make me look extremely top-heavy and they don't do any favours to me and my figure. Another "dream"piece of clothing were shirts. Not being a cup A or B I could never find a shirt that would fit me well. There would be gaping between the buttonholes, pulling lines everywhere or they would look like a sack with buttons on. I almost gave up hope...

...and then I started sewing. Sewing makes everything better! Up until now shirts scared me though - collars, collar stands, cuffs... I made a simple shirt once before and the collar got me completely lost and it looked ... well, not very good. This time I had proper instructions and it went so easily that I wondered if I missed out on some parts or steps!

Anyway, lets get to sewing notes. The pattern is Sewaholic Granville. Since it's designed for pear-shaped woman I had to do some alterations. I did my first proper FBA! The shirt is size 12 with 5 cm FBA done following this awesome tutorial. The only other change I made to the pattern before cutting it was shortening the sleeve. The fabric used is poplin in pretty aqua (?) colour. It was really cheap buy and I figured that if it works I'd wear it, if it doesn't that I'd only invest $5 and my time...

I think it worked well. Instructions were great - I usually sew with Burda where the collar instructions are likely to be "sew in the collar" ;) I got a bit lost with plackets but then I found this and 5 min later I was done. I love the burrito yoke method in the pattern! Almost all the seams are flat-felled. The sleeve and the armhole seams are just zig-zaged as I didn't know how to deal with them. My sewing machine had no problems with 7 buttonholes but it screwed up the eighth one! This always happens to me. Buttons are recycled from some old top and I absolutely love them.

Geez, I really should have iron the clothes before taking photos!!! Sorry for that!

Now I get why people say that shirt making is incredibly satisfying. All that topstitching <3 It was probably most technical piece of clothing I ever made and I learnt a lot. But shirt is not perfect. Collar top-stitching could be better. After a day of wearing it at work I also realized that my shirt is a bit small. There is a tiny bit of gaping, partially because of buttons position. I decided to size up for the next Granville that you will see pretty soon. And again...and again... I think I'm going to have a problem. At the moment I have 5 pieces of fabric that are destined to become Granville shirts!

I might be obsessed ;)

I made jeans!

2015 is going to be a year of pants I decided. After I made Antoinette pants I wanted to tackle something a bit harder. I was contemplating buying Ginger Jeans pattern because I keep seeing it everywhere and it seems to be working on different body shapes. Then I realized that the technical drawing is almost identical to Burda jean pattern (3/2014) I've seen it around on a few blogs and it seems like a good pattern to try.

It was a good choice. The pattern is well drafted and everything matched well. There are step by step instructions that are actually quite useful. It would be great if that was the standard for Burda!
I used bengaline with quite a lot of stretch that was not easy to work with but a lot easier than I expected to be honest! I had my walking feet on the whole time and used fresh needle for stretch fabrics. There is a little bit of puckering on the back yoke but not when I wear it.

Regarding fit I don't really know what to say... I cut size 42 with a little bit of extra width in the calves area. They are bit loose in the waist. I was hoping I can get away with making belt loops but I do have to add them sooner rather than later. It would be better if I took the waistband in to be honest but that requires quite a bit of work and those jeans were supposed to be a muslin so I don't think I will. I reckon that the stretch of the fabric is concealing fitting issues so it will be interesting to make them again in less stretchy denim.

I need to find some tutorials on fly-zip and waistband sewing. As you can see on the photos I messed up a bit. My sewing machine refused to make a button hole so I sewn in hook and bar closure. The waistband is not interfaced enough for that so it doesn't look that great :/ Just for fun I decided to use a piece of rayon for the pockets. I like it a lot!

I am working on quite a few things at the moment but I will be making those again in foreseeable future. I hope to make this pattern my TNT because everyone needs good fitting jeans, right? Next time I'll make it in denim and make the waistband piece a bit wider. And of course I'll read more about fly-zips ;)

Pink basic

Nothing exciting for today - just some basic knit top that works well with skirts or a pair of jeans. New Look 6150 is a faux wrap top with a bit of ruching along the shoulder and side seams. I made a sleeveless version as the runched sleeves looked rather stupid on me. Three  four (I forgot the back is in two pieces) pattern pieces make this a quick make. Fabric I used came from an op-shop - a source of quite a few pieces in my fabric stash. It's not too stretchy and it has slight metallic shine. It was a pain in the bum to cut but other than that it behaved quite well. I'll be making it again, probably with long sleeves as winter is coming. I might also get rid of the shoulder seam ruching.

Cheers!

Let's make pants and meet Antonia!!!

Hello there :)

I'm back and I have a new baby to take photos for the blog. I'm so happy about my new camera but it will take me a while to learn how to use it properly I guess. I hope that the photos for the blog will  be nicer from now on but I can't really promise. Anyway let's catch up with my sewing now.

One of my sewing goals for this year was to venture into pants making. Really scary, right? It's not even that making them is scary because technically it's not that hard to make them. The hard part is fitting them! Having that in mind my first pants are made using Antoinette pants pattern from Style Arc. It's my first and quite possible the last pattern from that company. I bought a PDF pattern on Etsy and they come in 3 sizes. I'm actually between 14 and 16 so I had to decide between sizes 10-12-14 and 16-18-20 pack... I chose to go for size 16. Patterns are not nested which means you can only print which means it's really hard to grade if needed! The seam allowances included are 1 cm and I prefer 1,5 cm so I added extra 5 mm along the edges. Instructions are not really that great but still better than Burda ones ;)

I decided to use beautiful houndstooth cotton sateen bought at the Fabric Warehouse sale last year. Funny thing is that in Polish houndstooth is called 'hen's feet'! The fabric was very pleasant to work with. I started with the pockets and I must say they are awesome - very big and they hold my phone and keys and a lipstick or two or ten... Seriously, one doesn't need a handbag wearing those pants!*

I skipped sewing the darts in the back as one of first steps as I suspected I'd need to change the depth of them to make the pants fit. After sewing in the zip and basting stitches together I tried them on and I was swimming in them! I basted the back darts, skimmed 1-1,5 cm from side and front seams... still to big. I made the darts bigger, skimmed a little bit more from the front seam, unpicked the zip, got rid of extra cm there, put the sip in again... It was much better. In total I got rid of about 10-12 cm (it could be more, I got lost in my calculations!) I had to change the waistband facings to fit. I finished them off with bias tape just for fun. I also under-stitched the facings and to keep them in place even more I hand-stitched them to the pants themselves under the big pleats and to the side seam allowances. Fitting the crotch area was another struggle and I'm not fully happy with the results but it's much better than it was originally. The pattern calls for soft falling fabric such as rayon or silk and I used stiffer fabric. I suspect using softer fabric would solve some of my fitting issues. One more note - those pants are SHORT! I'm 1,60m with rather short legs so I always have to shorten RTW clothes and chop off some length off. I didn't have to alter anything here!

I learnt a few things making those pants:

• My bum is flat and my belly full causing the waistline to rise up in the back and not quite hit the natural waistline in the front
• Sewing with bigger seam allowance in the crotch area makes pants bigger ;)
• After spending an hour looking at my backside I couldn't tell any more what the right fit was! I had to ask my boyfriend too look at my butt and tell me what he thought.

As you can see they are still big - too much fabric pretty much everywhere! It's not going to stop me wearing them in public though! I decided that it's time to be a bit braver with my clothes. Those pants are kind of ok with slim-fitting black tops as I don't really think other colours are going to look good with them. Anyway I wore them around a few times and no one was pointing at me. which I took as a good sign. I'm also not giving up on the pattern. I made some changes and already cut the fabric for pair number two and I'll try to make them soon. We will see how it goes!

* provided you don't carry a lot in your handbag ;)

Sydney penguin and a bit of housekeeping

Let's start with housekeeping :) If you look to the right you will see a new badge:

This means that I joined a group of over 30 lovely ladies who like sewing and blogging about sewing! I'm one of the newest members and I haven't met everyone yet but I'm looking forward to it! Thanks for making me a part of such a great group!

Other than than I added a link to my blog in Polish. Just in case if you wanted to see what I sewn before :)

I got rid of  picture verification of comments on the blog. My apologies to people that were put off by it - I wasn't aware that was a default blogger feature :/

Also, my camera has died on Waitangi Day... Timing is almost right as I was planning on buying a new one anyway. I think I know what I want but I'm going to give it a little bit more time to think it over . It also means that I won't be able to take photos for the blog for next week or two.


And now lets talk about penguins. Aren't they cute? I absolutely adore those funny looking birds. Here is a penguin I met last year in Sea Sanctuary in Manly, Sydney.

While on holiday I found time some to do fabric shopping. I visited Tessuti Fabrics and fell in love with their gorgeous silks! There was so many bolts of beautiful fabric and it was really hard to choose a few to take home with me. (Un)fortunately the prizes were a lot higher then what I'm used to so it limited my choices. I brought over a piece of pink rayon, border print cotton and the last bit of  fabric called penguin flap. It is some kind of stretchy man-made knit with interesting texture and they only had 0.6m. Just enough to make a simple tank top.

I used Burda pattern (mod.125 6/2014) but I omitted bust darts. I don't like having my bra straps visible so I changed the back a bit and I had to make it shorter due to my fabric length. Construction was simple - 4 stitches! I had to baste the "flaps" flat before stitching though. To finish the armholes and the neckline I just used twin needle and left the bottom untouched. Unfortunately I don't wear this top often. It's not pleasant to wear on hot days and it's not easy to style. In a way it's both too long and too short. Too short to wear with  pants and look good and too long for high-waisted pants and pencil skirts. The texture of the means I can't really tuck it in and it doesn't show off the waist ;)  Also I think there is something wrong with the shape of the the neckline. But I still wear it from time to time and it always makes me think about penguins ;)

Obligatory silly photo ;)

And here is a close up on the texture:

Blue stripes

Ok, it's time to show the dress I made in September (I think... it was long time ago!) I still have some clothes from 2014 to show so I better get organized! Not that I have much to show this month - I made a simple dress that I managed to mess up and need to refashion, I made a jacket/blazer that I'm not fully happy about but I still need to deal with loose threads before I can take photos. I also made an atrocious parka jacket muslin... Not a good start for the new year!

Anyway, about the dress. Its mostly number 124 from Burda 4/2013. Original  dress has long sleeves but that didn't look that great with my fabric. It was too overwhelming. So I used sleeves from another Burda dress - 114 from 5/2014. I really like this pattern and I think I'll try it with different fabric - maybe in solid colour?

Unfortunately I paired up a good pattern with bad fabric. I really liked this mysterious jersey with blue and white stripes. I got it during The Fabric Warehouse sale for $2/meter. The problem is that the quality is quite bad and after wearing it handful of  times my handbag side has pilled and looks ugly. I'm not sure about the fibre content but I suspect it is mostly synthetic - I tent to wear it on colder days. I think it will soon have to be put out of its misery... Such a pity!

I tried to find a good spot around my house to take some photos so they are all over the place ;) Also the dress sits a bit lower than on the photos. I usually wear it with a belt so waist is more pronounced.

Black and white skirt

After brief look through the clothes I have I realized I need more skirts. And pants. And tops. Not to forget about blazers/jackets/outerwear... Basically anything but dresses. Guess what I like sewing the most?

Anyway, I've been eyeing high-waisted skirt (mod. 113) from Burda 4/2014 for a while. I just needed the right fabric. After tracing the pattern I went through my stash and found 2m of stretch cotton in black and white aztec pattern. I bought it ages ago in Pete's Emporium without any specific pattern in mind. The skirt used up maybe 0.5m so I still have a bit left and I'm not sure what to do with it... I keep thinking about crazy pair of pants but I'm not sure whether I'd be brave enough to wear them (providing they would work out well)

Putting it together was really easy. Because my fabric is reasonably stretchy I cut the skirt 2 sizes smaller - guess what? It's still too big! Also the top part doesn't sit right when placed as designed. I have curves and the lines of that part are practically straight. I still wear it but more like a normal skirt with a wide band than a high waisted one. I think I'll make it again and see if I can fix those issues.

Here are some photos on flat surface. Can you see the seams?

On the back one of fabric panels shifted a bit :(

I still have a few makes from 2014 to blog about - I just need to take some photos and that seems to be my biggest problem with blogging! I have quite a few sewing plans for 2015 but it can be summed up in a few words - make more, learn more and don't be afraid of trying. I also want to use up at least half of my stash (just to make more room for new and exciting fabrics!!!)

As a bonus photo (excuse bathroom selfie!) - today in the morning I found the first wearable piece of clothing I ever made. Before this dress I made a few soft toys and 2 tops that went straight to the scrap bin. The dress fits like a dream (atm is a tiny bit on the tight side) has not-so-invisible zipper and a few interesting sewing solutions but it is great that I can see my progress but also that I can impress myself with 'me from the past'

Edit: Seems I have some issue with photos posted from my phone. Sorry for that!

Christmas gifts

New Year's is probably a good time to show cushion covers I made for my boyfriend's mum and my friend. First set is made using jelly roll in purple and teal.  First one was easy because I just joined stripes together. Second one was more complicated as I wanted squares but it worked out quite well taking into consideration that it was my second ever attempt on patchwork and quilting. I backed it up with grey fabric and added a few buttons. My partner's mum was really happy with them and she keeps showing the off to everyone!

The second set was made for my good friend whom I met during my move to New Zealand. We met at Hong Kong airport and she became part of our family. She is Dutch with Chinese origin which explains the colors I used - orange for the Netherlands and red for good luck according to Chinese culture. And in the middle there are panels of fabric with tui birds on them. I'm quite happy with how they turn out! My friend was happy too and that's what matters the most!
The photos are not the greatest but I took them the last possible minute - I actually finished pulling threads and sewing buttons at work on Christmas Eve! I got all the other gifts sored months before Christmas though so I'm not completely terrible with time management ;)