Leafy Green Pendrell

This was another project that I cut out for SewAway back in June, but unlike a lot of the other garments from that weekend, I didn't end up sewing this one then, and finally got around to sewing it together in the last few weeks.

This is my 4th Pendrell blouse, and the third in chiffon using just the outer ruffles as cap sleeves from view B (you can see the first three here). As with the previous versions, I french seamed the blouse throughout, and used a self bias binding around the neck and armholes as per the pattern. I love how polished this gives the finish, not a raw edge to be found!

The fabric is a poly chiffon, I think I got it from spotlight ages ago, and always intended to make a blouse from it, most likely a Pendrell.

This make was nice and simple, no alterations to the pattern since the last times I'd made it, I just focused on working through the construction steps and before I knew it, it was done!



This is already a staple in my work wardrobe.

Hollyburn Sew-along - Finished Skirt No. 2 (and Bonus Pendrell)

As promised, today I'm sharing with you the other Hollyburn Skirt that I made as part of the Sew-Along. As it's a plain black skirt, to make this post slightly more interesting, I will also share with you a new Pendrell that I finished the other weekend (Long weekends of sewing rock!). I promise I really do wear my Hollyburn skirts with other tops too!

The Hollyburn skirt is a lovely fabric that I bought from Tessuti. I don't remember what it is, but it's lovely and spongy, and I'd love to go back and buy a whole bolt of it. It was lovely to sew with and even nicer to wear.

The blouse is made from a chiffon that I was gifted along with a heap of other fabric eons ago. I'd put off making a blouse from it for ages because it was quite a large piece so thought it should be a dress instead. But then I decided a blouse I would wear is waay better than it staying a piece of fabric forever, even if there is some waste.

A burn test on a scrap after cutting the fabric suggests that it is silk chiffon (as opposed to poly). How quickly it creases while wearing also supports that conclusion. I have decided that I am definitely not against polyester in certain circumstances, and chiffon is one of them. My first chiffon pendrell is a cheapo poly chiffon and that one hasn't needed ironing since I bought it, this silk one was creased after wearing it for 5 minutes.

Just like the first chiffon pendrell I made, I did view B with just the outer ruffle, which gives a cap-sleeved effect. I also again did french seams throughout, making the inside of the blouse as beautiful as the outside. I really am a massive fan of french seams.

Also, another new thing you can see in my pictures today, my new camera remote. Hopefully it will make taking blog photos on my own a bit easier.

Don't worry if you haven't finished, or even started, your skirts yet. The posts aren't going anywhere, and the list of links to them all will stay on the Sew-Along page, which is linked along the top of my blog below the banner.

 But remember, you need to send me a link or picture of your skirt by the 11th of Feb if you want your skirt included in the round-up post for the Sew-Along participants! I'm looking forward to seeing all your skirts.

Pendrell #2 - A Blouse of Firsts

I have now finished my second Pendrell Blouse. This one I went with view B, but since I was still a little iffy about the ruffles I went with just the outer sleeve ruffle. I love how it's turned out, as having just the one ruffle gives it a cute little cap sleeve.

 

If you remember, I cut this pendrell out at the same time as my last one, but it was put on hold because I tested some seam finishes with it and decided that I needed to use French Seams or you would be able to see the uneven seam allowances through the chiffon. I'd never done French Seams before, so I was a bit worried about it, but I practiced a few times and it worked out great.

The French Seams along with the binding on the neck and arm holes means that there are no raw edges at all. It took a long time to carefully pin it all, but it was well worth it.

And with light shining through it the blouse looks really well finished: 

In addition to the French Seams the other firsts with this blouse were that I was using a chiffon fabric, and that I was using a plaid (and that I was doing both for the first time, eek!). I made an effort when cutting to match the horizontal stripes in the plaid, which I think I have been pretty successful with, especially for a first try

.So that's 2 for 2 with the pendrell patten so far! Hooray!

Pendrell Blouse - Finished!

As promised last night, I now have better photos of my finished Pendrell blouse. Not bad for about $3 all up, eh? (excluding the pattern)

Here I've paired it with my grey Jenny skirt, except I've folded the waistband in half as the wide waistband made my proportions look a little odd.

I didn't really know what to expect from the draped sleeve, but it really is ingenious. It sits really nicely and adds interest to a simple pattern. I'm not sure how it'd hold up to layers over it though, which may prove to be an issue.

It doesn't look too bad untucked but feels a little sack like. That might be because I'm used to more fitted tops, but it probably wouldn't hurt to be a little tighter around the waist. For future version I might bite the bullet and do the smaller size with a FBA, I think that'll help with the baggy-ness issues.



And lastly, a big thank you to Mindy for coming to the Carlton Gardens with me to play photographer.

(also, as you can see in these photos, my arm is out of the splint, and I just have a bandage to keep it clean until the stiches come out - yay! I can't move it completely yet and sometimes it hurts, but much less than when the splint was on.)

I'm a bad sew-along-er

So, I'm a bad sew-along participant... I kinda skipped ahead. Last week I skipped ahead to step 14 in the instructions when the sew-along was only at step 4, and today I finished my blouse. But I don't really care, because I LOVE it! I just tried it on with my grey Jenny skirt and it looks awesome. (My black Jenny skirt is too big and needs taking in, so I can't try it on with that too).

The bad news is that I am home alone this evening so don't have anyone to play photographer for me. However, here's a sneak peek of it on the hanger and I'll recruit a photographer tomorrow (when it's daylight) to show you it in all it's splendor.

Pendrell Blouse - Seam finishes and first stitches

After making alterations to the pendrell pattern I got to cutting out my fabric.

I cut out the poly-chiffon plaid (on the right in the picture above) last week before my wrist surgery, which was a good call, as it was tricky enough with the full use of both hands.I think the choice of a plaid for my first chiffon project, and a chiffon for my first plaid project was somewhat a mistake! Nevermind, if it doesn't work out it wasn't expensive so it's not the end of the world. However, due to these difficulties, I decided that matching the plaid properly was too difficult, so I've only attempted to match the horizontal lines of the plaid. Hopefully it'll still look ok.

After the poly-chiffon, the poly-satin (on the left in the picture above) was a piece of cake. For cutting both types of fabric I pinned the pattern to the fabric, cut about 1-2cm around the edge, and then cut it carefully with my rotary cutter.

Today's post by Tasia for the sewalong involved stay-stitching, sewing the first seam and seam finishes. So to start with, on some scraps of fabric I worked out my sewing machine settings. I also changed machine needle to a size 70, sharp microtex needle.

The poly-satin was easy - the machine stitched beautifully, and a small zig-zag (length 2.5, width 3) finished the edges nicely in a way that wasn't visible from the outside.

Having successfully decided on seam finishes I did do the first few sewing steps:

I've stay-stitched the neckline, and sewn the front and back pieces together at the shoulders. I then went onto fold and press the draped sleeve, but haven't basted it yet as i'm eagerly awaiting any snippets of wisdom from Tasia on that score.

Next my second version of the blouse... the plaid poly-chiffon one.

The poly-chiffon was a little trickier. Shown above is a normal seam with a zig-zag along the edge. This would adequately finish the seam to stop it from fraying but as it has an uneven edge it was obvious from the right side and wouldn't look very good in a finished garment.

Next I tried a french seam (above). This solved the issue with it looking messy, it looks lovely from both sides (incase it's hard to see, the top image is the outside, the bottom the inside). However, it's a technique i've never done before  and will need a bit of practice to get the seam allowance the right size etc. I'm also not sure how to do a french seam on curved seams? Is it even possible? Does anyone know anything about this?

The second issue that you can see in the above photo is my failure to match the stripes. So, I had another go:

This one is better, but still not perfect. It was very difficult without the full use of both of my hands, and as such I have decided that I will not work on this version of the blouse until I can use both hands properly again.

I can't wait for the next post tomorrow!

Tutorial: Pendrell Blouse - Muslin and Pattern Alterations

This evening I stitched up a muslin for the Pendrell Blouse. In the sew-along schedule this week was choosing a size, fitting and pattern alterations. From my measurements I fit quite well into the size 10 column. I measured my high bust as suggested by Tasia and found that the difference between my bust and high-bust is 2" - right on the boundary of the guideline of whether you need a FBA or not. As it's a relaxed fit blouse I decided to go without the FBA and make a muslin first to check the fit.

Sadly I forgot to take photos of the muslin, and didn't remember until after I'd cut it up again to mark the changes on my pattern pieces, however I did take some photos to document how I shortened the pattern, as I did it slightly differently to how Tasia did in her post on the topic.

I decided to shorten the pattern by 2.5" so that it sits just above my hips (just at the level of the top of the pockets of my jeans). Tasia has done a great job drafting the pattern and the hem goes in slightly in the hem allowance to make it easier to hem and I wanted to re-create that detail in my alteration.

Below is what the bottom of the side front pattern piece looks like (as an example, but the process is the same for all four pieces). The notches indicate the hem line, which I've drawn in in black pen:

As you can see, below the hem line the pattern piece tapers in slightly in the hem allowance on the right hand side; this is to assist with the hemming - if it didn't you'd end up with extra fabric in the hem and it would be a pain. (On a related note, on patterns that taper in at the bottom, for example the Jenny Skirt, you get the opposite - the hem allowance tapers outwards).

I shortened my pattern pieces by 2.5", so the first thing I did was measure a line 2.5" above the hem line I marked on the pattern piece to designate the new length:

I then measured back down the length of the hem allowance, which in this case was 1.5" to mark my new cutting line, and cut along it:

This gives me the basic adjustment to shorten my pattern piece, but I no longer have the handy tapering in the hem allowance, so I need to mark that back on.

To do this I folded along the "new length" line:

You can see above the little triangle of where the hem allowance is bigger than the actual blouse once the hem is folded - that's the bit we want to get rid of or it'll bunch up when hemming the blouse.

So I drew along the edge of the pattern piece onto the hem allowance to mark that triangle:

And snipped it off:

Now my pattern piece has the nice tapering in the hem allowance, which will make hemming the blouse a much nicer experience. (If you try this yourself remember to do the same to all the bodice pattern pieces!)

I hope these photos help anyone else that wants to make the same alteration - please comment or email me if you have any questions.


The other alteration I made was to take out about 1cm on each side of the centre back piece along the princess seams, tapering off to start and finish at my shoulder blades and about 3" above the hem. I decided to do this because it was looking very baggy at the back (particularly as my back is very sway-ey). As I was making the changes to the muslin I could double check that I can still get the blouse on and off over my head, which I can.

Now I'm ready to cut out my fashion fabric, but I want to wait to see what tips Tasia posts in her sew-along first.

Pendrell Blouse - Fabric

Yesterday afternoon I went on a field trip to choose some fabric for my Pendrell Blouse as the sew-along starts next week. After ducking into Textile Traders and coming out empty handed, we carried on down the road to Spotlight.

Tasia suggests "slippery, shifty fabrics like silk or polyester charmeuse, chiffon, rayon challis, crepe de chine" for the blouse. I ended up (due to my mum's bad influence) getting two fabrics - the first one below is some kind of chiffon I think and the second is a lightweight silky satin (both mostly polyester I think).

This one will need to be worn with a cami underneath, you can see how see through it is in the above photo - you can see the white selvedge. This fabric was on Sale - $3 a metre and as it's a wide one I only needed 1.8 metres, topped off with a 10% birthday discount - so the total fabric cost was $4.86 + $2.41 for thread.

.Here is the second fabric:

This one had $13 a metre on the ticket, and as it wasn't as wide, I need 2.5m for the fabric, making it a relatively expensive blouse... but on my mums urging I decided to go for it as it's got such a nice hand and is so incredibly soft. When she put it through at the till it came up at 70c a metre!!! (but really 63c a metre because of my birthday discount) So this one cost $1.58 for fabric! Bargain.

All in all, a very successful sewing trip! I can't wait for the sew-along to start.

However, first I have an important decision to make - I'm not sure which views I'm going to make out of the fabric. I definitely want to make Vew A, but I'm not sure about which fabric. I'm also not sure about the ruffled version... when I had ruffles on my JJ I removed them because they didn't come out well after washing, I'm worried the same will happen again with this. So - opinions please?

Pendrell blouse pattern

I had an exciting parcel waiting for me when I got home last Wednesday; the Pendrell blouse pattern from sewaholic.net. This is the first pattern for sale from Tasia, and after seeing the gorgeous versions she's made combined with the free shipping she offered if you pre-ordered it I couldn't resist getting it.

The blouse has three variations, the pattern is printed on recycled paper and having skimmed over them the instructions are clear but concise with some helpful tips along the way.

She is hosting a sew-a-long in January... The only question is which view to make first???