A Bamboo Cardigan

I love the feel of this bamboo knit fabric! It is so soft and silky. It drapes beautifully too. Now that I have an overlocker, I am knocking out knit garments as fast as I can cut them out.

Actually, this cardigan took me over a year to make. I first bought only one meter of this from Fabricana in Vancouver. I hadn't realised that my last knit cardigan used more than 1 meter. More like 1.5m. I considered another cowl neck top, but deep down, I knew I wanted a cardigan. When I went back to Fabricana this summer, I looked out for the same bamboo so I could get another meter and make a cardigan. Luckily, they had it. I can't tell any colour difference between the two, so I was lucky indeed.

I used the same pattern from iCandy Handmade, the Boyfriend Cardigan. But I added the shawl collar from the Seamwork Oslo Cardigan. I considered a whole Oslo, but I like a more fitted shape and the Oslo has a dropped shoulder and a lot of ease under the arm.

I stupidly didn't read my own pattern notes from the Boyfriend Cardigan. I needed to add a seam allowance. I didn't until the front pieces. I also forgot the length I needed for the hem and the sleeves. I made another serious boo boo on the cutting out. When I lengthened the sleeves, I cut the left one in too far and it is tighter than it should be.

While I am confessing mistakes, I also sewed the front pieces on with the wrong side out!

I stabilised the shoulder seams, using the sewing machine, with pink ribbon. Overlocked the sleeves in place (easing the shoulder), side seams, and shawl collar. I should have used the sewing machine for the lower hem of the collar, because it needs a smaller seam to give it more drape. 

I used my twin needle for the lower hem, but it never seems to work with the walking foot. Without, it stretched out and you can see a lot of rippling along the lower hem. I hand sewed the hem of the sleeves instead. 

Costs: 
 

 Fabric: £19.84
 

 Thread: (new overlocker colour) £7.50
 

 New tools: (stretch needles and twin needle) £8.92


Total: £36.26

A Coat...

One coin at a time.

I have been reading and enjoying Gretchen Rubin's book, Better than Before, and invoked her One Coin strategy to get this coat started/finished.

By one coin, she talks about how a single action, e.g. putting a coin in a jar, can add up to a great amount over time. One seam at a time, each of my tiny actions added up to making a whole coat.

I made myself contribute one coin / process per day. Cutting out the pattern, making a toile, cutting out the pieces, adding underlining to each piece, joining the yoke to the front, joining the side seams, even cutting out a pocket bag, a coin was contributed every day.

At the end of many months (or years!) I had contributed enough coins that I had a full coat. Albeit a very loud and attention seeking coat!

By years, I mean that I have had the fabric since 2013, and have been musing over it and hoarding ever since. More here, where I posted the Peony dress I made with the rest of the fabric. A loud floral in a traditional Macintosh appealed to me most. I am experienced enough in the vagaries of the British weather to know that Spring is maddeningly cold, for many months. The daylight hours are long, the gardens are blooming, we want to wear summer apparel, but the temperatures are low. The short answer is to have winter clothing in light colour fabrics. This goes doubly so for any Spring events where you are going to be outdoors. Your coat will be the part of your outfit that people will see. Think weddings, garden parties, racing, etc. (As a side note, the women of Royal Family do this all the time.) So a dressy Spring coat it was to be.

I considered Burda 6921, a full skirted coat, but with such a loud fabric, I thought a traditional mac style would work better. I had grabbed Vogue's V8884 in a $5 pattern sale at Spotlight, literally as I was on my way to the checkout. Sadly for me, I should have been more careful, when I came to cut out the pieces, I realised I had grabbed the wrong size! I am so used to multi-size patterns, that I hadn't even checked. This one is sizes 14-22.

That was my first mental hurdle: how to adjust the sizing. I started this project in March, hoping to have a Spring coat ready by this spring. I decided to cut the smallest size, the 14, and adjust from there. Luckily my lovely mother was visiting in April and advised me that pattern adjustments should be made from the centre line. Revelation! Thanks Mum! I accordingly pinched out 1cm down the centre line of each pattern piece, as well as my usual 1 inch short waist adjustment. I left the sleeves as is, knowing I was going to make a toile from the planned underlining.

I sacrificed a lovely pink flannelette cotton from my stash for the underlining. I has this earmarked for pyjamas, and am definitely planning on getting some more for this purpose. But it is also perfect for getting some warmth into what is quite a lightweight upholstery fabric. I also used it for making a toile of my fitting changes to the pattern. A coat of pink flannelette is quite hilarious to behold, but sadly, I didn't get a picture. What I did get was a clear idea of how to adjust the sleeve to get it to fit. 5mm off each sleeve seam, with a corresponding difference in the two yoke seams that feed into the armscye.

I then unpicked my toile and used the pieces to cut out the main fabric. That was also really helpful because I could cut out flat, paying attention to pattern placement and saving on fabric at the same time. Then I got held up, procrastinating about making bunting for the school fair. I put everything aside, procrastinated for a while, and then got on with my allocated 100m of bunting from used school uniforms.

This is what 300m of bunting looks like.

By early June I re-commenced the making of the coat. By then I had read Gretchen's book and my head was resonating with the One Coin strategy.  I have used it before, making my Grey Flannel Dress, but now it has a name.

Every single day, I made myself contribute one coin to the process. Even if I was just pinning a seam, it counted. In truth, once I started, I could usually pin and sew a seam. I am clearly a marathoner, not a sprinter (Gretchen again), when it comes to sewing. By the time I went on holiday in July, the outer fabric was finished and one sleeve set in. When we got back, in August, I quickly added the second sleeve, and made the lining. Once it starts to come together, I am much more motivated to contribute more than one coin at a time.

I really like the false storm flap in this pattern. It is made by sewing the yoke with an extra tuck underneath and then top stitching it in place. This creates the look, without the actual storm flap. Let's face it, I am not actually going to wear this coat as a keeping dry layer. On the minus side, I think the collar is too large, and swamps me a bit. I might make a narrower collar another time. I didn't bother with pattern matching. The repeat is so enormous that I would have needed about 5m of fabric to match. I actually used 2m.

I made a sleeveless Peony dress from the remaining 1m in July, and some birthday present sewing in August. I finished up all the hemming and hand sewing of the lining hem to the coat hem in early September. I will absolutely wear the coat and the dress together for a dressy occasion!

The lining was from the Village Haberdashery, a lovely purply silver grabbed on impulse. I didn't have quite enough so the sleeves are lined with ivory which my mother in law gifted me from her stash. You don't notice the different colours because the double breasted front creates a very roomy interior. The pattern instructions are a bit sketchy when it comes to the lining. They don't instruct when to remove the basting stitches from the centre pleat. But I do like the couture finish of slip stitching the lining to the hem, rather than a bagged lining.  Vogue missed a huge trick in their drafting: there is no hanging loop on the inside of the collar. This would have been so easy to add, but I didn't think about it until the first time I went to hang the coat on the back of a toilet door!

After the lining and hemming, I only had to work on the closures. This part is a love song to living in London. I went out and about in our wonderful city and made the most of the specialty shops and resources that we have. I took the coat to The Button Queen in Marylebone to find the 10 buttons it needed. I wasn't planning on these deep pink ones, but they were the right mix of blending in but not completely that I was looking for. I got the same buttons for the inside fastening as the outside, because I wanted the buttonholes in the lapels to match exactly.

To get my buttonholes as perfect as possible, I outsourced them to DM Buttons in Soho. Leaving my coat there was like dropping off one of my children with a stranger! Would it be ok? Would they mix it up and give me back the wrong child? DM Buttons is a fascinating place. It is in a grubby service lane off a side street in Soho, which is... eclectic, to say the least. The business is one room with a whole lot of industrial machines. Of which does what, I have no idea, but I think I saw one for putting in studs or eyelets. I chose a keyhole buttonhole and left my baby in their care. There is no way I could have put in keyhole buttonholes at home, nor could my machine have sewed through the 8-10 layers of fabric (underlining, facing, underlining, seam allowances, with underlining) that needed buttonholing. Not to mention cutting them open!

I collected my coat 2 days later, buttonholes done; sewed the buttons on, dashed outside for photos and 7 months after I started, my coat is finished!

Costs
 Main fabric: £18
 Underlining fabric: £15
 Lining fabric: £4.50
 Pattern: £3
 Thread: £1
 Buttons: £9
 Buttonholes: £4.50
Total: £55

Stash Accounting

Maybe I am a bit over the top about accounting for my sewing costs and garment makes. Forgive me, but I find it really interesting to work out the details relating to my sewing hobby, especially in contrast to buying ready to wear clothing.

I also love, love, love making lists, and online organising. I use Trello for organising my sewing including projects, fabric and patterns. I am a huge Trello fan. I am not going to go into details about how it works, it is pretty easy, and Trello have a great intro board here.

I use it at work and for other stuff at home too. But my favourite boards are my sewing boards. I have five (Five! I thought I had about three!): one for patterns; one called inventory, which is where I keep my project list and supplies; one for kids; a quilting board; and one for completed projects.

I look at my Inventory board most often and I love re-arranging the project queue and fabric “swatches” with the drag and drop feature. I have three To-sew lists: one for others/kids/gifts/home etc. (This one doesn’t get much action). My own sewing is split into two lists: Spring/Summer and Autumn/Winter. I pull the lists to the left depending on the upcoming season and what I feel I ought to be sewing. Theoretically top left is where I should start, but it doesn’t always work out that way.

I have also recently split my fabric stash lists into S/S and A/W. The lists were getting a bit long and it is helpful to see what I have to sew with from season to season.

When I buy a fabric, or a notion, I photograph it and log the details into a new card in Trello: date, where I got it, quantity, width, price and ideally, where I have physically stored it. Once this is done, I almost never go through my stash in person. I know what I have, and what I want to do with it. Once I have used a fabric, I record the details in the Trello card, with how much is left, and a link to the blog post of what I made. If the fabric is used up, I archive the card.

Pattern cards are really useful. I photograph the front and the back of the pattern envelope. That means I can refer to the quantities needed when I am in the fabric store. When I sew with a pattern, I record the changes that I made and links to the blog posts from the finished garments. Then I read through these notes and blog posts before I use the pattern again. In theory, anyway. My patterns are divided by garment type and fabric type. Currently Dresses (woven); Dresses (stretch); Tops; Skirts; Coats/Jackets/Cardigans; and Outfits. The last are those wardrobe patterns that have a top, dress, skirt and trousers or jacket in the same pattern and I should probably duplicate them across all the other lists because I usually forget what is in them.

When I have completed something from my to-sew list, I move the card to the Complete board and link to the blog post of the finished garment. I don’t look at this list very often because my blog post contents have it covered for me.

That covers what is coming up, but something that Trello does not do is analyse my lists. To do this, I have finished a little exercise that I called Stash Accounting.

I wanted to know:

1. Quantity of projects sewn to date. Including how they divide between sewing for myself and for others
2. How much fabric have I bought?
3. How much of that have I used?
4. By inference, how much fabric is sitting around, unused?
5. What is my average cost per garment.

I didn’t have any truly nasty surprises from the results, but there were a few interesting findings:

• I have made more items for the children, than for anyone else. I have also spent vastly less on projects for them. I have made about twice as many things for them, as for me, and at 1/3 of the cost. A lot of this is because projects for them are made from cheap cotton or polycotton and a lot of those are made from leftovers from other projects. If I bought fabric for a project, I counted the whole cost of that purchase towards that project, even if there was enough left over for something else.
• In that vein, my 24 items of dolls clothing have cost me a total of £15. This gives me an average cost of 64 pence per garment!
• My gift making is woefully stingy. Only two genuine gifts in there, plus some doll clothes.
• My stashed fabric is not as bad as I thought. I have sewn with 2/3 of the value of all the fabric I have ever bought. Yes, that also means that 1/3 of my total fabric consumption is unused, but I note that the more expensive fabrics are the ones that I hold on to for longer. That means the actual quantity stashed is not too bad, but they tend to be things I feel are too nice to use (my precious!). Time to cut up some silk.
• The final, really cool, thing I learned is that I am liking my finished garments more and more recently. I gave each a rating out of 10 and then rearranged them in a list. More recent stuff is at the top of the list. Either I have not got sick of something yet, or I am actually getting better at creating things I genuinely enjoy wearing.

I also have exactly 31 finished garments that are still wearable. The same as the number of days in May. Is this a sign that I should go for a Me-Made-May challenge with no repeats? I don’t think a beach wrap is going to work terribly well in May, but I might consider giving it a shot.

Karen Drape Dress by Maria Denmark

I made a new dress today!

I was only going to pin and baste the pleats. Truly! But I went with the flow and by the end of the day, I had a new dress.

How about a wide eyed round of applause for how organised I am for Autumn sewing. I am not known for my well planned seasonal wardrobe, as my yet-to-be-posted Spring Coat will prove.

But back to Karen. I made an annual pilgrimage to Fabricana in Vancouver, despite having not sewn everything I bought last July. (OK, one out of four was sewn.) I went a bit crazy and bought lots of stuff. I was looking for apparel fabrics and I even left a quilting border print behind, saying to the sales assistant, from behind a tower of bolts of fabric, "I have to tell my husband I didn't buy everything I wanted."

This black textured knit literally fell off the bolt into my arms. I already had another knit picked out but asked if there was a discount for the bolt end and they gave me the remainder for the price of 1m. There was almost 1.5m on the bolt so that was good enough for me to go ahead and add it to the pile.

It must be pure polyester, but it washes easily and has good stretch and recovery. The textured surface means it is forgiving to wear, giving it some weight and not showing every lump and bump underneath. 

I wasn't planning to make it up first from my Vancouver haul, but I already knew it would be a great Karen Drape Dress from Maria Denmark. Then Maria went and had a birthday sale so I snapped up the pattern. Now I had the fabric, the pattern and the overlocker, plus thread.

Maria helpfully included an A3 print version of the pattern, which I really appreciated. So much quicker to print out and tape together. What I got seriously wrong was that I didn't read the instructions first, nor look at all the pieces of the pattern sheets before I got cutting. When I got to the big red caps saying SEAM ALLOWANCES NOT INCLUDED, I was a bit put out. I hate having to add my own seam allowances to patterns. I worry about getting them wrong and not matching up properly. I am not a pattern drafter, that is why I buy patterns. Please Maria, could you add seam allowances to the Karen? 

Since I had already decided on my size (S) and cut out to that size at the same time, I could only add seam allowances to part of the front piece. And hems, what about hems??

So I didn't make the dress from scratch today. I spent one evening assembling and cutting out the pattern pieces, all three of them, and one evening cutting out the fabric. To make the pleats through the front, the pattern piece is curved with the skirt on the straight grain and the front bodice on the diagonal. This fabric's texture gives it the appearance of vertical lines and I wondered if it would look odd on the diagonal. But you can barely see it - black is very forgiving, so I went with it. Mine is also quite thick and stable.

I shortened the waist by 1 inch, including the diagonal waist line on the front. I didn't bother to change the pleat placement accordingly, and they have worked out looking even. I also lengthened the hem slightly. I added length to the sleeves, but decided at the end that a bit of wrist looked better than a severe black dress, so I chopped them off again. I stabilised the shoulder seams with ribbons, going for it with hot pink!

After I had re-threaded my new overlocker, and figuring out how to stop the fabric edges from flaring out, I had to summon all my courage to get on and attach the sleeves using the overlocker. I have been using it, but only for seam finishes. I have a bad habit of cutting the fabric any time I use it on a curve, so I was really nervous that I would cut my lovely dress. But I didn't. I went ahead and sewed the whole thing. 

The neckline gave me a bit of trouble. I used clear elastic, but I didn't realise how hard I had to stretch it going in, so the back was very loose and wavy. I tried again, twice, but it wasn't working well and I was starting to stretch the fabric too. I used ordinary elastic in the end, and it worked well too. I didn't attach and then fold over. My machine couldn't manage that with the clear elastic. I just folded the elastic inside and then zig zagged the whole thing down. The white elastic is peeking out in places, but unpicking black thread from black textured fabric is not good for my eyes, even in full sun, so I am calling it done. With something like a thin jersey, stay stitching the neckline would be a good idea.

I zig zagged the hems on the sleeves and the hem too. The sleeves worked great, but the hem is waving out slightly.

I wanted to pull the under bust section in by 4cm. But I didn't. Maybe leave out the top pleat? Maybe it's just the fabric. It looks a bit baggy under my left boob, but I'll leave it. The boob, and the baggy.

Photographing the details of a black dress is utterly impossible. Making the most of the bright sunshine, I grabbed these pics. I had to blow out the detail shot and the full shots have my shadow in the background, messing up the outline. But it is the best I can do. Who knows if we will have another sunny day in 2016. There is no point photographing it on the hangar, it just looks like a saggy nothing. It is much better on.

And I do love wearing it. It's dressy, it's comfortable, it's smart and it is totally "me". I have never made anything like it before, but I have about 5 similar in my wardrobe already, so I know it is going to be a new favourite.

Costs:
 Fabric: £6.87
 Pattern: £6
 Thread: £7.50
 Notions: Elastic 17p
Total: £20.54

Little Makers: Teddy Bear Dress

Little one sewed this dress for her teddy bear entirely by herself.

She selected the fabric from some scraps she had been given as a party favour from a sewing party.

She started with the floral piece for the skirt, because it was big enough to wrap around the bear for a skirt. She stitched the button, chosen from her stash, and then I made the button hole for her.

Then she added straps as sleeves. She cut the fabric to size, trimming off the uneven bits, and hand sewed them on to the skirt with a running stitch.

Then we photographed Bear and put the pictures on the blog!

English Rose Dresses

Taking the children shopping at Ikea is pretty fun, as long as I adhere to these survival tips:

 1. Go as early as possible on a weekday morning. School holidays are fine.

 2. Take water.

 3. Drink water.

 4. Make a list in advance.

 5. Try, as much as possible, to stick to the list.

 6. Don't buy anything I am not absolutely certain about. Returns are a pain.

 7. Linger in the children's bedroom section and let them play on the displays.

 8. Stop for food in the cafe.

 9. Don't buy the fast food on the way out.

10. Don't go with a husband = no discussions!

The fabric selection at Ikea is quite extensive. But they are mostly very large scale prints on upholstery weight fabric. Extremely eye catching, but actually quite difficult to work with. Nevertheless, I have bought them before; and made a tablecloth, this skirt, and a sewing machine cover.

When I went with my accomplices, to get some toy boxes, we stopped to admire the small range of cotton prints. It is about the weight of quilting cotton, and is clearly destined for aprons and other such homewares. We got 1.5m of this one, pink roses on a white background, and the same on a blue background. The white one is for little sis. Big sis wants to make her own teddy bear from the blue - which will be adorable! 

I had the right quantity to make the Cottage Mama Party Dress. Including the extra full skirt made from two widths of fabric. By lining the bodice with an old sheet (of course), I saved enough fabric for a matching doll dress.

I have used this pattern often before:

2015: Molly's Party Dress 

2014: Isle of Wight Dress 

2013: White Dress

2013: Red Spotty Dress

2013: two Daisy Dresses

I made the size 8, and it is very large on my 7 year old. I usually take in a lot at the back, when I am fitting buttons or zips, but this was a gift, so fitting wasn't possible.

I used some pearl buttons that I had removed from an Ann Taylor cardigan and replaced with plainer shirt buttons. They were too much for a lavender cardigan, but lovely to dress up a dress. Working out the buttonhole size was a bit hairy though.

I put in a piped edge between the bodice and the skirt. I did this in the Daisy Dresses and I really like the subtle decoration it gives, in return for very little effort. Pale pink worked best with the colours of the flowers, especially because I didn't have any green on hand. I also added in seam pockets, which I did for the Isle of Wight Dress, to the delight of the owner. Even if nothing ever goes in them, for some reason, its nice to know they are there.

I lined the bodice with white cotton, harvested from an old sheet. The whiteness of the cotton shows that the background of the dress is actually more of an off-white. When I make this dress now, I cut the lining 2cm longer than the bodice pieces, so that I have enough to turn in and stitch down, without having to stitch in the ditch. I topstitched it in place for these makes. I left the skirt as long as possible, for that tea length look.

The doll dress is my favourite doll pattern, made 7 times before. I also added the pink binding, minus the piping cord, and the back is fastened with velcro instead of pearl buttons.

Costs (both):
 Fabric: £10.50
 Lining: upcycled
 Patterns: free
 Fastenings: upcycled
 Bias binding: stash
 Piping cord: 22p
Total: £10.72