SewCie Tea!

Today was the SewCie Tea, organised by the fabulous Melanie, and it was amazing! There were a whopping 26 lovely ladies that came along.

If clocks are to be believed we were at The Gables for three hours (two inside, and another hour outside chatting not wanting to say goodbye). I'm not convinced somebody didn't press fast forward though, as it felt like 5 minutes!

We were provided with some yummy savouries on the tables, and then a free-for-all buffet style with the delish desserts.

The afternoon was fabulously organised by Mel, who even had special name badges for us all to wear, complete with magnet fastenings so that our dresses weren't damaged.

Mel has promised posted a blog post in the next couple of days with more photos, a list of who was there and links to blogs, so check on over there for details, but there were some absolutely stunning outfits worn today! (Also for sneak peeks of my dress!)

It was about half:half familiar faces vs new-to-me people, so lots of fun catching up with friends and meeting new people.

Did you know we're already planning our next outing? So keep the 7th of September free for Frocktails, and keep a look out on Kat's blog for details (I'll link when she posts them, of course).

Details and proper photos of my dress will follow in another post, as it deserves a full post of its own!

Thanks for organising such a lovely afternoon Mel, it was awesome!!

PS: If you are planning on coming to Social Sewing next Saturday, please RSVP on this post.

Social Sewing - Reminder for April

Just a quick reminder; the next Social Sewing is a week from today; Saturday the 20th of April. As usual, all the details for this and future Social Sewing can be found on the Social Sewing Page linked at the top of my blog.

Can you please let me know if you're planning on coming, as I need to make sure that our booking with GJs represents how many of us will actually be there. Thanks!

I look forward to seeing you there!

Pest Issues...

Today I wish to share a cautionary tale....

I was out buying the lining fabric for my Mad Men Challenge shift dress and while in the store I noticed a couple of holes in my fabric (see below). To start with I thought that it could have been my fault, as I'd already pre-washed the fabric in the washing machine and I was worried that my washing machine made the holes. But then the lovely store assistant said they looked like moth holes. Upon closer inspection we noticed that there was a second set of matching holes on the layer that was underneath when it had been folded, confirming the suspicion that a sneaky moth had been snacking on my lovely fabric!



So, later that day I popped into the supermarket and stocked up on moth-repellent type things. I wasn't sure whether the moth balls or the camphor would be better, so now my wardrobe is home to both! If anybody knows more about it, and whether I should or shouldn't have both please let me know.

(I know that pantry moths and clothes moths are two different types of moths but we have pantry moths too, hence the pantry moth trap).



Lately I have been storing my stash on my bookshelf in rolls. I liked storing it this way as it is out and visible and easy to see what I have and inspire me. Due to the layout of our flat my room doesn't get any direct daylight at all, so I don't need to worry about sunlight damaging the fabric.



However, I got worried that the nice accessibility of the fabric to me also means accessibility of the fabric to moths (and other pests), so my fabric is now back where it used to be; in air-tight plastic boxes on the shelf in my wardrobe.



Before cutting out the pieces for my dress I gave the fabric a quick press, and examined it carefully for any other holes. Thankfully there were only the two patches of holes, which I marked clearly with my tailors chalk so I could easily make sure that I wouldn't accidentally place a pattern piece over one of the holes.



I thought I was ok for moth repellent stuff in my wardrobe, but closer examination showed me that I had the little plastic cage hanging there but it was completely empty. So, take heed of my problem and keep and eye out for moths and check that your own mothballs/camphor aren't empty!

Mad Men Challenge - Plans

The deadline for JuliaBobbin's Mad Men Challenge #2 is fast approaching (the 19th of April), are you joining in? I am! As I mentioned before I'm excited to be able to join in this year as I couldn't last year.

I've got one entry sorted, as my Sewcietea dress doubles as an early Mad Men inspired dress. However I'd really like to try and make a second dress, more in the style of the later seasons. This is mostly because I want to finally get around to sewing this lovely vintage pattern that I found in an op-shop a bit over a year ago:

My bargainous vintage pattern - only 50c!

I've muslined the dress (pic below) and the fit was pretty good. Apart from the fact that I needed to shorten it by a foot. Yes, by a whopping 12 inches! I ended up taking 6 inches of length out at the waist, and 6 inches at the hem. To start with I thought I'd have to add some extra in around the hips as it was a bit tight, but when I took the length out of the waist it brought the skirt up and added the extra width I needed across the hips at the same time. The only other alterations I've made are to shorten the french darts by about an inch, and I'm going to narrow the shoulders by about 1/4".

All the cool kids make their muslins from old IKEA duvet covers!

In the spirit of stash-busting, I am resisting buying new fabric for this and going to make it up in the lovely wool suiting that I bought when Social Sewing when on the Road. It's the bottom one in the below photo. I'm partly happy to do this because I spotted the other day that they still have at least one more roll of this fabric in the Fabric Store, so if I mess it up I can go get more to replace it.

I shall be using the bottom fabric in this picture, a lovely wool suiting

I'm planning on making view A, with the sleeves and collar. I'd like to do the pocket but either I or the previous owner appear to have lost the pocket piece, so I may need to come up with my own and add it on. I've got some black ribbon to use as the trim, and will need to get some buttons. The pattern isn't lined, but I'm going to line my version, so I bought some matching (I know, unlike me!) lining  fabric last weekend.

Cutting time!

I cut out my pieces last night, so now between hemming my Sewcietea dress I will start sewing it together. Hopefully I'm not being over ambitious and I'll be able to get it done in time.

And to finish, a few questions I was hoping you might know the answers to:
- Does anybody have any suggestions for the size I should make the patch pocket?
- Does anybody know any good tutorials for lining a dress like this?
- Does anybody know why the dress front piece is made as a whole piece rather than a cut on fold piece? I've checked, it's symmetrical down the centre front.

What Was Your First - Mel from Seamstress:Poppykettle

Today I am incredibly excited to be posting the first interview in my new "What was your first?" series. The first interviewee is the incredibly talented Melanie, from Seamstress:Poppykettle. I have to confess, I have a bit of a blog-crush on Mel, she has made some absolutely amazing garments. So onto her first...

First, introductions:

I'm Melanie, the sewcialist behind seamstress: poppykettle. I did a wee bit of sewing in high school, but I had my first sewing lesson as a technical beginner in February 2011, so just over two years now! I continued on having lessons for the next 12 months before striking out alone. I'd class my skill range at being somewhere between intermediate and advanced.... as the more I learn, the more I realise there still is to learn!!

What was the first "real" garment you sewed?
The first real garment I sewed was McCalls 5523 - which has four different skirts, I made mine with a pleated lower back. That was back in April 2011! I wore it quite a bit initially because it filled a black work skirt void in my wardrobe, but I made it a bit too closely fitting (the concept of 'ease' took me a while to get) and well, I'm a little more curvy these days ;) It's still in my wardrobe though, waiting for the day I can squeeze back into it!

If you were making it now, What would you do differently? 
I wanted to line it, but I didn't quite get how to do that with a facing. Knowing what I know now, I'd go back and draft the lining separately (rather than just cut out the same pattern pieces in the lining) and include a self fabric facing. I probably wouldn't make this skirt again though - I've discovered I prefer skirts with waistbands. This allows for much 'cleaner' lining application, and everything stays in place.

If you could go back in time and tell past-you one tip to improve your early garments, what would it be? 
Gosh... probably to think a little more about what I would like the end result is going to look like. I was so head-over-heels in love with sewing that I just put pedal to the medal, and quite often the end results didn't match the vision in my head as a result!


Thanks for that Mel, your first garment is exquisite!
Hopefully you've enjoyed this 'What was your first?" post, I'll be back with another one in a few weeks!

Audiobooks Update (Part 3)

In my last Audiobook update I told you about some of the audiobooks that I've bought from Audible lately, this time I'm going to share some thoughts on the ones I've borrowed from my local libraries...

Something Borrowed by Emily Giffin. I grabbed this one from the library as I had recently seen the film adaptation and enjoyed it so thought I would listen to the original (audio)book. I really quite enjoyed the audiobook, to the point that I got another Emily Giffin audiobook with one of my audible credits.

How to break your own heart by Maggie Alderson. I listened to this audiobook on a long car journey, and think I 'overdosed' on it. I ended up turning it off before the end of my return trip and it took me a little while to bother coming back to finish it off. But I did, and I was glad I did as I did enjoy listening to the last third in smaller chunks. I think if I'd listened to the whole thing how I normally listen to audiobooks (in short to medium chunks) I would have preferred it. It was nothing particularly special, but nothing terrible either.

 

Pants on Fire by Maggie Alderson. I preferred this one to the above 'how to break your own heart', but not by much. This one was set in Sydney, so it was interesting hearing the authors take on sydney-siders (especially since I'm not such a fan of Sydney myself). As the above book, it was nothing special but a nice mindless listen. After the two Maggie Alderson books I don't think I'd bother listening to any more in a hurry. But they were worth what I paid for them ;)

 

Something Blue by Emily Giffin. This book was the first that I have listened to using the Bolinda Audio "Borrow Box" app. After downloading the free app from the app store, I just had to plug in my library login details and voila! A whole host of audiobooks were available to me. If borrowbox is available at your library I recommend checking it out.
 I picked this one since it is the sequel to the above 'something borrowed'. I was hesitant about listening to it to start with, as it is written from the point of view of Darcy, the best friend of the main character, Rachel, in the first book. I didn't have a particularly good impression of Darcy, and I like to be able to root for the main character of the book when listening, or at least empathise with them. I spent the entire audiobook hoping for something to change my option about Darcy, and sadly nothing did.

Julie and Julia by Julie Powell. I was really excited to have spotted this audiobook at the library, as I LOVED the movie when it came out (to the point that I even wrote a quick blog post about it). However, I was terribly disappointed by the book. I have the utmost respect for the person that read the book, thought it would make a good film and managed to make the fantastic screen-play that the film became! Because the book was (in my opinion) pretty bad. As with the above book I kept hoping that something would happen that would make me start liking Julie. I feel bad saying this about a real person, but she just came across as whiney and self centred. As much as I wanted to be rooting for her to succeed in her project, I just couldn't. I think this is the first time I've ever said this, but this is one where I would steer clear of the book and just watch the film.

  

The Hunger Games Trilogy by Suzanne Collins. I got on board and read The Hunger Games trilogy last August. Warned that they would be a bit all-consuming, I waited to start reading them until I knew I had plenty of time. After having some minor surgery I was instructed to rest for about a week, so I thought that would be the perfect opportunity to read them. Two days later and I had devoured all three (and not gotten as much sleep as I probably should have). When I spotted them in the library recently I got them out (one at a time, I'm not that crazy!) and devoured them almost as quickly. I actually quite like listening to audiobooks where I know the story (either because I've read or listened to them before), I find it relaxing. If you haven't read these, I really do recommend them, they're amazing, but as I've said above, expect to devour them so don't start reading when you're busy with other things, although if you listened to them instead of read them at least there is a degree of multi-tasking that you could do while listening.

What have you been reading or listening to lately? Any recommendations for me?

Introducing... "What Was Your First?"

Today I am very excited to be announcing a new little series that I'm planning to start here on my blog, called "What was your first?". Have you seen the various interview type blog series around? Like "My Handmade Style" and "A day in the life". Well a little while back I had an idea for one myself so thought I'd give it a go.

In "what was your first?" I will invite other #sewcialists to tell us about the first 'real' item/garment that they made, how it turned out, and anything in particular they wish they could have told their 'past self' that would have made the item more of a success.

When I say "first 'real' item/garments", I'm going to leave that up to the interviewee to decide what I mean. For example, I did a bit of patchwork/quilting as a kid with my gran, and then during uni made a whole host of fancy dress costumes. But I would class my first 'real' garment as the first item of clothing that I made that was intended to wear normally, ie not fancy dress. (Although I do have some pretty awesome fancy dress costumes that I've made that I really should share with you one day)

To give you an idea of what I have planned, I thought I'd answer my 'interview questions' myself, about the first 'real' garment that I made...

First, introductions:
Well, hopefully you know who I am, but just incase you don't (I won't judge!); I'm Rachel, and I've been sewing seriously since about 2006. As I mentioned above, my gran taught me to sew; she does a lot of patchwork and quilting and was very happy to teach me how to as well when I expressed an interest as a child. I then 'nurtured' my basic sewing skills at university by making fancy dress costumes, but it was when I graduated from uni that I had a go at making 'real' clothes.

What was the first "real" garment you sewed?
The first item of 'regular' clothing that I made was a simple gored skirt. I decided to try making one because there were loads around in the shops at the time, and looking at it I couldn't get out of my head "They look like they wouldn't be too hard to make". So, after some examinations of the skirts in the shops, I went to the Bull Ring Rag Market in Birmingham and bought myself some fabric and had a go!

 

True to how I still tend to do things. I jumped in with both feet, and 'drafted' my own pattern and just had a go, making it up as I went along. I still have the skirt, and have worn it a fair few times. Less so recently, but that's more due to my being slightly too big for it than anything that is wrong with the skirt.


If you were making it now, What would you do differently?
Well, I like to think that this skirt was quite a success and I've actually made many more of essentially this skirt since I made it, I think I've made 5 of them in various iterations so far... and fully intend on making some more in the future, hopefully some more in wintery fabrics that can be worn with tights, as they're mostly summery skirts. But with regards to this particular one, I don't think I'd change anything major about it, I still really like the style and the fabric.


If you could go back in time and tell past-you one tip to improve your early garments, what would it be?
I'm going to cheat here and go with two things...

The first is finish your seam allowances!! It didn't even occur to me at the time that I should finish my seam allowances, so there they are, in all their unfinished glory! When I wear the skirt I have to check for any frayed threads and snip them off before I put it on!

 

The second thing is to think carefully about trims and their properties. In this case, the trim needed to be made into a curve, and the ribbon I chose wasn't having any of it! As the top of the skirt is not cylindrical but tapering out towards my hips, the ribbon that I added as trim was a bit of a problem, as it wanted to make a nice little tube. As you can see in the above photo, as I had stitched on the top of the ribbon first, I had to make some little tucks in the skirt below the ribbon to make it work. As well as looking a bit messy, this also made the skirt that bit smaller than it was intended to be.

I hope you're at least a little bit as excited as me about this upcoming series, I'm looking forward to hearing from my interviewees. Keep a look out for the first proper "what was your first?" post coming up soon!

Easter is designed for a sewing holiday, right?

How was your Easter long weekend? Between cleaning eating I got a whole stack of sewing done! That's what it was meant for, right?

I finally plucked up the courage to cut into my liberty and start my SewCieTea dress...

Following which there was hand basting...

Stitching & Top Stitching...

And after everything except hemming and hand stitching was done, I played with Tulle...

Oh, and my Iron died on Friday :( So on Saturday I went to buy a fancy new one...

So overall, a very successful weekend.

What about you? Did you have a good long weekend?

Portrait Dress

You know when you read somebody using the phrase 'whipped up' a garment? Is it just me that frequently thinks "whipped up? come on, clothes aren't generally whipped up! There's more work involved than that!"? Well, as much as I fear using the phrase myself, I really did 'whip up' this dress this week. I mean, two pieces and some bias binding, there's really not that much to it.

When making up my second portrait blouse a few weeks ago, I couldn't help but think about how the blouse would work lengthened into a dress. So this week, when I had some spare time, I had a go at extending the portrait blouse pattern into a dress.

Most of my summer dresses are of the fitted bodice, full skirt variety, which don't get me wrong, I love. However, when it's really hot and you just want something to lounge around in, you don't really want to be wearing a fitted bodice! So, the intent is that this will fill that gap in my summer wardrobe. (I know, I know, summer is over, whatever! It was still hot when I started this... but colder when I finished. It's Melbourne, you never know, the heat could come back!)

To convert the pattern into a dress, I taped some extra fabric to the bottom and extended the side seams out at an angle similar to the edge below the waist already. Also, knowing that I have quite a, shall we say, developed derrière, I pivoted the centre back seam so that it was the same size at the neckline, but about 2" extra at the centre back at the hipline (well 4" as it is on the fold). I measured the blouse and my measurements to make sure that there was plenty of ease through the hips and cut it out!

When sewn up the only real change I made was altering the back tucks - I made them bigger than they were originally  (about 3 times the size) to bring the fabric in across my lower back. This was necessary because of the extra fabric I had added by pivoting the centre back seam out. Now it's finished though, I think the back tucks are stitched a little long, and I'm planning on unpicking the bottom inch of them to let them finish slightly higher up. I hemmed it a couple of inches above the knee, to make it long enough not to flash people when bending over and such, but short enough not to be frumpy.

The fabric that I used is a lightweight sateen from spotlight, one of a whole host of matching spots I bought about 2 years ago. (This actual fabric is actually also in my 'seeing spots' quilt, which is about half quilted and patiently waiting to be finished, but I bought extra, always with the intent to make a dress with it).

While my other two portrait blouses were finished with self bias binding on the inside, I knew as soon as I tried on this dress mid-construction that I needed to find some green fabric that matched the green spots in the print.

I found this green at GJs, it's actually a quilting cotton, which I'm normally very cautious of using in garments, but as it was the PERFECT colour I decided to risk it. I am very surprised at how well it worked out actually! I loosely followed this tutorial, and am really happy with how it's sitting. Also, I used a topstitching foot when doing the topstitching on the binding, and am absolutely thrilled at how well it turned out!

Overall I'm incredibly happy with this dress. If I were to make another one I think I might curve the skirt side seams a bit to make it a tiny bit strighter and less a-line, but other than that so far I'm loving it!