A winters Dream about Midsummer

A little while ago Kat and I put up a vote for our next twinsie make and you chose the Colette Rooibos. Unfortunately Kat and I took our sweet time and when we finally got around to it we realised that Kat wouldn’t be able to fit into it anymore! Our carefully curated Twinsie Sewing List got a new (albeit) temporary heading: Maternity Friendly Patterns 😉

I do have a new Rooibos in the works, that I cut out for Sewing Double…and queued behind Miss Bossy Patterns, which is still on the work table…as you can see, I am a little behind 😉 but these will be completed soon…I am excited about my new Rooibos and I hope it will appease the Goddesses of Bossy Twinsie Sewing.

Luckily however the second most popular choice from our vote was the Papercut’s Midsummer Night’s Dream which, being a wrap dress, is maternity friendly and we decided to rope Juliet in too for Triplet Sewing with the excuse of launching the Dresses competition during Indie Pattern month over on The Monthly Stitch.I should point out that the current season in New Zealand is winter…

There may have been a moment, while attaching spaghetti straps, snuggled up in my Crazy Pants Anima’s on a night with the temperature gauge was reading 3ºC, when I grumpily wondered who’s silly idea it was to put this summery dress pattern into the vote…and then I realised that it was MY silly idea.

 😉

That’s ok, because I have loved this pattern for a while and while I was hoping to sew it “from the stash” nothing suited. Luckily The Fabric Warehouse craftily announced their 40% off sale night (swooping in 1 day before The Fabric Store) and I went straight after work with the crush of very other sewist in Wellington.

It was really busy and after I grabbed fabric and lycra for 2 more Pneuma tops  I was ready to leave…until I spotted something black and pink near the door.

The fabric is a Viscose crepe and has the perfect drape for this style, I am so happy I saw it, it really is perfect.

Due the narrower width I bought 3.0 meters and used almost all of it. There was a kind of boarder print to one selvedge edge where the black print was more concentrated so I made sure that ended up on the open edge of the skirt pieces, otherwise I would have had a strange black triangle on my bottom. I had to play with the layout a little, cutting some pieces perpendicular to the grain but the fabric was stable in both directions and I like to live on the edge.

The pattern calls for 4.4 meters of binding and I had already decided to make my own “bias” tape…except not cut on the bias. The curves of the design are subtle and I imagined a whole lot of headaches with stretching and fraying so I cut my strips perpendicular to the grain and had no trouble attaching them. After I cut my strips I did briefly consider trying out the new bias feeder I recently bought for my coverstitch but when I saw how easily the fabric held a crease I decided to make the bias tape using my bias tape maker and the iron.

I really love these things! I own three but I use the red one the most. It creates a finished tape width of 18mm (9mm when attached) and they are so easy to use. I have read a few grumbles about them online but I don’t really know why. After you cut and join your strips you run then through this little guy, ironing as you go, and then fold it in half and sew it on. Maybe if you quilt you’ll want to buy it premade or one of those fancy feeder things but if you just need a few meters for a garment, making your own bias tape doesn’t really take that long and opens up a whole new world of colour and fabric possibilities!

We took these photos at Otari’s Wilton bush, one of my favourite spots. I think the green shows off the hot pink nicely 😉

I am looking forward to summer so that I can get this dress out again and take a stroll along the beach in it 🙂

The dress itself sews up really quickly and the order that you attach the binding is carefully thought out to give a beautiful clean finish. If you haven’t sewn a Papercut pattern before this is a great ‘rookie’ pattern to try, I highly recommend it…And I know, I’ve recommended every Papercut pattern that I’ve sewn but…well, just try one 😉

There isn’t much more to say 🙂 except that you may be wondering where the other two girls are:

We had everything planned, Triplet Mid Summer’s to launch The Monthly Stitch Indie Pattern Month 2014, and the Dresses competition AND the added bonus of Juliet (we haven’t done a triplet TMS launch post since our very first cape post) and then it all fell apart.

But that’s ok, because I still love my dress and the girls look fabulous too 😉

Now, speaking on dresses, I’d love it if you would pop over to The Monthly Stitch and vote for your favourite dress, there are some gorgeous entries and they deserve some comment love.

THE DEETS:

Pattern – Papercut Midsummer Night’s Dream dress, size S

No changes next time, maybe lengthen the ties.

Fabric – 3.0 meters of 116cm wide 100% Viscose crepe from The Fabric Warehouse, $16.00/meter (-40% discount, $28.80 total) purchased specifically for this make

Other notions – Self-fabric made “bias”, Thread

Miss Bossy Patterns: The winner

Thank you to everyone who bossed me around 🙂

Vogue 1317 took a big lead early before the Lekala “Shake that Tail Feather” skirt caught up quickly.

Unfortunately it was never closer than 2 votes and the Vogue dress (which has been high on my list for ages) will finally be sewn in March.

Keep a look out for that skirt though, I still really want one and I’m sure it will pop up here sometime soon 😉

If you are instereted in trying a Lekala pattern I think there is still 1 or 2 days left of their sale, all patterns at $1.49 so get on over there.

Are you sewing along with us this month on The Monthly Stitch? It’s not too late to get a vote up on your own blog or ask us on the TMS Facebook page, we’d love to boss you around too!

Oh pants!

February’s challenge for The Monthly Stitch was Smarty Pants.

Pants shopping for me is pure torture.

Here is an old post where I vent after one particularly distressing pants shopping expedition, if you are interested.

In my filing cabinet I have a few pant/trouser patterns but I love a good bootleg/flared pant  – I don’t care what the “fashion” people say, bootleg/flare is always “in” in my books! Since Kat and I both have the Sewaholic Thurlow pattern we decided to make those up together for another Twinsies shoot.

Oh, yeah! We made Twinsies Pants!

We’ve both been super busy so we took these photos during lunchtime at Frank Kitts Park where we found one of Wellington’s many awesome sculptures. This one is Fruits of the Garden by Paul Dibble.

Pants are kind of hard to photograph…but it’s easier with a friend…and fun backdrop 🙂

Fun waistband lining? Check!

Back pockets? Check!

This was my first Sewaholic pattern from the envelope. Previously I have printed off PDFs for pattern testing only so I was really surprised at how thin the tissue paper was, probably the thinnest I have ever encountered. I am on Team: Trace All The patterns and it wasn’t the easiest to work with.

Since I had high hopes for this pattern I copied on to thicker tracing film for durability – I am hoping I can tweak this to become my “go to” solution to my pants shopping woes.

I selected some poly/viscose/spandex suiting out of my stash, bought with trousers in mind way back in March 2010. The pattern envelope stated 2.30m would be required for my width of fabric but I only had 1.60m, oops!

I am always up for a good pattern layout challenge so with Harriet’s help I did a test layout:

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Harri’s face says it all, “2.30 meters? ‘sif! It totally fits!”

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She loves hindering helping!

I cut all my the lining pieces from a cute quilting cotton that I picked up from one of my last trips to AT, it has teeny tiny fruits on it!

I really like the final result, they fit quite well (although a little tight at the moment since I’ve been slack in my gym attendance 😉 ) and give me the professional look I was after. I can see myself making up a few more pairs and maybe even the shorts version.

The back waist band is in two pieces which lets you stitch a snugger fit, no gaping, yeah! I also like the generous back extension and the sewing order makes it easy to adjust the whole fit as you sew.

I do feel the rise is a little low so next pair I will try to correct this.

The instructions are good, I haven’t made pants in ages and I managed fine with them however I do wish the right and wrong sides of the lining pieces had been marked on the diagrams. This slowed me down a little because I wanted to make sure the printed side of my cotton ended up inside the pockets.

Imagine if I’d gotten it wrong? I wouldn’t be able to show others the awesome hiddeness of my pockets! But I worked it out eventually and marked my instructions for next time.

Welt pockets, so sexy!

The back welt pockets instructions and fly construction were really clear but I found some of the waistband diagrams a bit misleading, more notes added for next time 🙂

I chose not to “stitch in the ditch” to secure the inside of my waistband and hand stitched it down instead. I find that machine stitching can often look messy in this instance. It didn’t take me very long and between this and the hemming my hand stitching is really improving.

Make sure you check out Kat’s awesome denim Cat’s Meow Thurlows over on her blog too 🙂

THE DEETS:

Pattern – Sewaholic 1203 Thurlow trousers, straight size 8

Fabric –

• 1.60m of 148cm wide Poly/viscose/spandex suiting from Fabulous Fabrics, Perth, purchased March 2010 for AUD$22.95
• Quilting cotton from Arthur Toye, Wellington

Other notions – 1 button (from stash), metal pants slider thingee

Big thank you to Sandra for playing photographer, you rock 🙂

Miss Bossy Patterns

Last month on The Monthly Stitch we put the March challenge up for community vote:

The winner? Pattern Stashbusting! Use a pattern that’s been in your stash that you’ve never used.

It won easily…far too easily.

So we called in the help of Miss Bossy Patterns:

Miss Bossy Patterns challenged the Collective to select unused patterns from their stash (3 or more) and ask the community and their readers to vote, the winning pattern is to be sewn up for March.

I’ve been looking through my short list (which isn’t very short) and digging through my filing cabinet and finally made a selection. Here are my options:

First up is Vogue 1317, a Ralph Rucci pattern:

This dress has been on my short list for a while but I wasn’t sure about fabric – and then I discovered double knit (one of the suggested fabrics) and shortly after found some in the perfect fuchsia!

Second is the the super cute Reglisse by Deer & Doe:

I’ve liked this dress for a while, it looks comfy and sweet and I think you could have a lot of fun with fabric selection and contrast optons. I have plenty in my stash that this pattern could work with, here is just a small selection:

Last is Lekala 5928 and it’s not a dress, ah ha! I admit I am on a bit of a dress binge right now but after seeing Kat’s cute Dita skirt, I want a skirt that makes me want to shake my tail feather too! 😉

This is also a pattern brand which is new to me. This particular pattern comes off of a CD I bought a while ago. You enter your measurement and it produces the pattern to fit you…theoretically…so I think, since this is the first pattern from them I have ever made and also my first time printing from this CD (that is not entirely in English!), I will need make a quick muslin first to check. I also have plenty of fabric in my stash that could be made into this pattern, another small selection:

Help me decide what to make for the March TMS Challenge by voting in my poll, feel free to leave me a comment as well 🙂 :

Go! 😀