Me Made May 2013 – Week 3

Here is Me Made May Week 3…

Day 13
Basic Bella Cardigan
Self-drafted Linen Trousers (unblogged)
Spotty Sorbetto Blouse (unblogged)

Day 14
Floral Sorbetto Blouse
Jacuzzi Miette Cardigan
Self-drafted Linen Trousers (unblogged)

Day 15
IKEA Birdie Skirt (before blogging)
Another Sadie Long-sleeved Top (unblogged)
Self-drafted Black Cardigan

Day 16
Self-drafted Black Cardigan
Floral Long-sleeved Top
Self-drafted Linen Trousers (unblogged)

Day 17
Refashioned Maxi Skirt (before blogging)
Grey Striped Sadie Cowl
Purple Shrug (unblogged)
The Flickr ThemeFriday was “hats” so I piled all the hats for Team 1′s assembly on to  my head, in tribute to the Spectrum ZX “Mr Silly’s Hat Game” I played as a child.

Day 18
Magpie Top (unblogged)
Black Jeanius Jeans (never got around to blogging)
Basic Bella Cardigan

Day 19
Black Jeanius Jeans (never got around to blogging)
Liberty Self-Portrait Blouse

This week the weather was gloomy and so was my mood (my knitting-injured wrist has got worse after I began using it again, despite not looking at yarn) and I think it shows in my outfits; No pretty summer dresses but a lot of black. My newly-made black trousers and cardigan got a lot of wear this week, highlighting the need for some sensible basics in my wardrobe among the crazy prints!

Still lots more unblogged garments. I had been hoping to show you my new trousers but have been side-tracked by catching a bad cold and having lots of work to do; Next week is going to be hectic, so you may have to wait until half-term for some new garment posts.

*All days I have worn new me-made underpants and my Minoru rain jacket; this will apply for the rest of the month, unless specified.

Self-drafted cardigan

Today was a gloomy day; weather was grey and I woke up with a sore throat. I didn’t feel like wearing a jacuzzi bright cardigan, and then remembered that I had experimented with making this cardigan last weekend when I realised that lots of clothes didn’t got with aqua or red cardigans. It was super cosy and I got told I looked very smart (obviously I refused the compliment by asking people to guess how much it cost!)

I used my jersey bodice block, cut the back and sleeves as normal, and cut the front in two parts with an extra inch on each side. I tried it on and pinned where I wanted the neckline to be before cutting the v-neck shape. Then I added folded bands around the neckline and sleeves, and hemmed the bottom (not enough fabric for hem bands) I decided not to add buttons as I didn’t want to risk buttonholes on the ribbed jersey.

The fabric was a remnant from the Peter Jensen sample sale and half had been used to make a polo/cowl neck jumper, so this cardigan cost a whopping £1.50, however this meant I had VERY little fabric to play with. I had way too much ease in this make as I didn’t account for the weight and stretch of the ribbing- I took a good few inches from the side seams to get a nice fitting silhouette.

Quick post on a quick make. Sorry about the phone pictures, due to being full of cold. I had planned to show you my new trousers this week, but a lovely child at school tapped my leg with a chalk-covered hand; photos after they have been in the wash!

Me Made May 2013 – Week 2

Here is Me Made May Week 2…

Day 6 – Choir singing, hence all black
Black chiffon Sorbetto (unblogged)
Black corduroy “Ginger” skirt adaption

Day 7
Stripy Tiramisu Dress (unblogged)
Jacuzzi Miette Cardigan
Sandals! Did NOT wear Minoru*!

Day 8
Basic Bella Cardigan
Piped Polka Dot Skirt
1 hour stripy t-shirt (unblogged)

Day 9 – School class picture day
Floral Cambie
Purple Shrug (unblogged)

Day 10
United Stashes of Awesomeness Skirt
Grey Striped Sadie Cowl (both blogged together)
Basic Bella Cardigan

Day 11
Self-drafted jeans
Burda Ruched Raglan t-shirt (unblogged)
Self-drafted Black Cardigan (unblogged also)

Day 12
1 hour stripy t-shirt (unblogged)
Refashioned Splodgy Maxi Skirt (made before-blogging)
M&S pink cardigan

Night time
I have been wearing my polka dot pyjama party pjs this week

Eeeek, I’ve worn a lot unblogged garments this week. I will try to remedy this soon for the recent makes (including this weekend’s latest creation). The weather cooled down after the bank holiday “heatwave” which meant I could wear long-sleeves to give me more wardrobe options this week.

After a week of the challenge I realised I didn’t have many plain garments to match with my crazy patterns. There were three options; Wear crazy clashing prints, wear nothing but dresses for the month, or make something. I chose option three. The stripy t-shirt was whipped up in an hour using left-overs from my Tiramisu and making up the pattern from my jersey block to give it inbuilt cap-sleeves. You will probably see more of these before the month is finished!

*All days I have worn new me-made underpants and my Minoru rain jacket; this will apply for the rest of the month, unless specified.

My Sewing Space

On the Flickr group for Me Made May there is a theme for taking photos every Friday (aka #ThemeFriday) and this week it was “Sewing/Knitting/Crafting Space.” So let me take you on a brief tour of my sewing station…

I live in a tiny flat in London, so I definitely don’t have a spare room to call my sewing room. My sewing room also doubles as my living room, my office/study AND my dining room, so clever storage is essential.

I have a sturdy fold-out table that my machine lives on and a foldable chair that can be hidden when I need to enter/exit the room. So I can access all the tools and notions I need easily I have an over-the-door shoe-caddy to store all my bits and bobs (see below). This is too small for keeping the little scraps and random pieces of fabric, so I made a larger hanger from some canvas fabric and a coat hanger.

In the middle of sewing projects I tend to “store” patterns/pieces on the arm of my sofa (it looks much tidier in the picture than it does in real life!); somewhere among the pile today are all the pieces for my couture jacket (half are hand-basted together) and the turn-ups for my trousers…

 

 

Giveaway results!

WOW! I can’t believe the response my little spur-of-the-moment giveaway got!

It was really interesting reading what colours everyone is into (and trying to guess what hemisphere the colour choices were from!) and there were a few choices that kept appearing.

There were over 35 different favourite colours, so I took all the colours that more than one person liked and analysed the results:

Green was the most popular with 45 mentions, followed closely by aqua with 43 mentions. I was really suprised to see so much love for grey – I love it as a neutral to pair with bright colours, but thought I was the only one. Next up are pink and purple. Should I be surprised readers of my blog also like these colours?!

There were also lots of colour combinations that kept re-occuring. For simplicity of data analysis I only used pairs of colours for this, so people who mentioned 3 colours got divided into multiple pairs (red, blue and yellow became red +blue, blue + yellow and yellow+red). Unsurprisingly given the high popularity of the colours, the most popular combination was green and purple.

A surprise second place was aqua and red; I love both these colours but have never combined them before so will give it a try. Hopefully these colour combinations will inspire you too!

Oh, did you want to know the winner of the crafty goodies? Are you sure? Okay then…

Comment 132 was jillamsberry who has just blogged a cute coral top with black and white stripy details. Please email me your postal address and I’ll pop your goodies in the post.

Thanks to everyone for entering and visiting my little blog – hope you stop by again soon!

Giveaway reminder!

I am so amazed by the response to my giveaway and look forward to spending the weekend discovering lovely new blogs.

If you haven’t entered, you still have time to do so. If my time zone calculations are correct then the giveaway ends at 2am Saturday morning (UK time) so I will pick a winner at breakfast time.

Good luck, and thanks for taking part.

Giveaway day!

Sew Mama Sew is hosting a giveaway day so I thought id contribute a little gift of my own.

I’m giving away a crafty bundle full of my favourote things. It contains 3 fat quarters, 5m of navy polka dot grosgrain ribbon (navy and white are my colour combo for spring), a selection of buttons from my overflowing stash and a dressmakers’ magnet (perfect if like me you always find pins everywhere).

I will post to anywhere on the world. If you want to win  you need to leave a comment telling me what your favourite colours are for this season.

The giveaway closes at 5pm PST on May 10th when I will pick a winner at random. Make sure your contact details are linked on your blog/ in your comment so I can get in touch if you win.

Good luck!

Me Made May 2013 – Week 1

So I don’t overwhelm you with daily posts about my MMMay outfits I will post a round up of the week every Sunday. So here is the first week…

Day 1
Stripy Tiramisu Dress (unblogged)
Basic Bella Cardigan

Day 2
Floral Cambie Dress
Jacuzzi Miette Cardigan

Day 3
Spotty Tiramisu Dress
Jacuzzi Miette Cardigan

Day 4
Self-drafted indigo jeans
Navy dotty Sorbetto (unblogged) worn with RTW vest top
Basic Bella Cardigan

Day 5
Denim Traveller Dress
(no cardigan yet as am chilling at home)

All days I have worn new me-made underpants and my Minoru rain jacket (worn at 7am and 7pm and carried throughout the day); this will apply for the rest of the month, unless specified.

There were a lot of dresses this week, but I have sorted my wardrobe and got washing on the go so hopefully more separates next week. I am still debating whether I can survive without trousers at work for a month, or if I need to make some light-weight Thurlows…

Full Bust Adjustment (FBA) tips

The sun is out and I am so tempted to push another Sewaholic Cambie to the top of my to-sew list. It is a really great pattern but gave me a few fitting headaches so, at the request of someone at the big blog meet-up (I can’t match names to all the faces), here is how I did a Full Bust Adjustment (FBA) on the bodice.

This method is based on Fit For Real People Y adjustment (for adding more than 1.5″) but needed some thought due to the lack of side-darts and shoulder-seams. Before you start you need to know how much to add to your pattern. I hold up the pattern on my body with the side-seam aligned, and measure the gap at the front. Or you could compare your high bust and full bust measurements (remembering to halve this number to get the amount to add to each side). For easy maths I’m going to say I need to add 2″ to the pattern at the bust (there is 4″ difference between my full and high bust) which is why I am using this Y method.

1. Trace your pattern onto tissue paper or tracing paper (or greaseproof paper if you are desperate). Transfer all the markings clearly.
2. Imagine where the shoulder straps will be. With a ruler draw 3 lines from the point of the bust dart:  one to the centre of the “shoulder”, one to the underarm (just past the point where the straps meet the bodice), and one to divide the dart in half.
3. Mark the stitching lines on the pattern. This is very important, so you don’t distort the final shape.
4. Cut along the line through the dart to the shoulder, stopping at the stitch-line you just drew. Spread the pattern half the amount needed at the bust point (in my example, I need to add 2″ in total, so here I am spreading the pattern by 1″). Lightly tape this in place.
5. Cut along the line from the dart point to the stitching line of the underarm. Spread this part by the same amount (another 1″ here).
6. Carefully secure the pattern onto another sheet of tissue paper (I use coloured tissue saved from presents). Make sure the pattern is smooth and flat before you tape it down.
7. Draw a line at the bottom of the bodice at right angles with the fold line. Cut this line.
8. Lengthen the centre of the bodice until the bottom is level with the side piece. Tape this in place, making sure that the fold/grain line is straight.
9. Hold the pattern on your body to measure your bust point/apex and mark this on the pattern.
10. Draw a circle around the bust apex to mark where the dart will end. If you are full chested this should be further away than most patterns suggest; I always have to do trial-and-error but on me it looks best being approx 1″. Redraw the dart legs, making sure the centre of the dart is on the grainline.

So now you have a dart that is big enough to fit your body. However on this pattern there isn’t a side dart to share the fullness. My first dress needed a lot of careful pressing to avoid looking like an 80s Madonna pointy bra.I divided the fullness into a few darts so that they would all be smaller and less pointy. The picture below shows how I did it, however after wearing my Cambie I think I’d  lower the central dart a bit more.It has taken me a lot of tweaking to get this dress to fit how I wanted so I hope this helps you with your fitting; if anything isn’t clear or you have any questions please ask and I’ll try my best to answer them.

Pants!

Thanks so much for all the lovely comments about my spotty Tiramisu dress If you liked that dress then you are in for a treat tomorrow when Me Made May ’13 starts! I have a new make ready to wear for the first time tomorrow…

I spent lots Sunday sewing and watching a Toy Story marathon (the 4 year olds in my class are singing “You’ve got a friend in me” for our assembly this week, with cute “best friend” photos on the screen behind them, so of course I had to research!). I made a dress and realised that, unless I want to spend the whole month of May doing laundry, then I’d need a few more pairs of underpants. Daddy and big brother, I know I pester you to read my blog, but you have permission to stop reading this now!

I used the Ohhh Lulu pattern for retro high-waisted panties (Gertie’s recommendation I think), with a few modifications. I don’t like teeny tiny pants but these were seriously high waisted! I made two variations; the first was 2″ shorter than the pattern and are belly button height, and the second version were 2″ shorter than that!

The original pattern also had 4 panels, however I combined the sides and back to reduce the seams. I like the look of the front panel contrasting with the back/sides, and it was a great way to mix and match scraps. I used up almost all of my jersey off-cuts and even refashioned some old tshirts (one that was made from a £3 remnant when I first learnt how to sew 3 years ago, bargain!)

Now I’m sorted with Me Made undergarments, I need to rustle up some spring-weight trousers or spend the next month at work in just skirts and dresses.