MMM'16 Final Week round-up!

A little late, but here's the round-up of my last week of MMM'16. 

Let's begin with the Old Favourites Dress:

My Bottle Green Vintage Liberty strikes again:

 The Vintage Pleated Skirt:

And last but not least, one of my McCalls 3830 in action: 

So that's it for another year! I've found it really enjoyable to participate, and MMM has inspired me to make more of an effort to wear home made items for the rest of the year. 

Have a great week guys! The sun is shining here beautifully, and I hope you've got the same fantastic weather where you are, too! 

MMM'16 week #3

It's time for our week #3 Me Made May 2016 round-up! 

Since I missed out on wearing any homemade outfits last week due to feeling poorly with a bug, I wanted to make the most of it this week. So here we are!

Tuesday (I worked at home on Monday in my PJs again!) -- first day back in the office, I needed a "feel good" dress. This TNT mash-up dress never fails to cheer me up :D

Wednesday daytime- in the office with my first version of Vintage Vogue 1137 

Wednesday evening - Back to Basics top

Thursday - attending an all-day conference in London in my new Bottle Green Liberty dress. I met a dear friend of mine afterwards in an amazing little Thai Cafe near Waterloo. Just about to sip my Thai ice tea here -- one of my favourite drinks of all times!

 Dress-down Friday - Cheap as Chips Alma Blouse

The weekend is going to be filled with decorating and other home improvements, so chances are, my home made wardrobe will be getting a little well-deserved break :) Whatever you will be up to this weekend (hopefully something a little more glamorous than what I've got planned), I hope you have a great one! 

TNT mash-up wedding guest dress

We seem to have hit the age now where there is a steady stream of weddings to attend each year. It's always lovely to see our friends tie the knot to their wonderful other halves, and it also gives me an excuse to sew up a little dress to wear (not that I need any excuses!). Remember the 2 wedding guest dresses I made last year? 1 and 2. 

We attended a fantastic wedding yesterday in Bristol, in glorious weather. The sun was shining, with not a trace of cloud in the sky. We celebrated the love of a couple who are clearly perfect for each other, caught up with friends and met new ones, ate delicious food and drank a little too much bubbly, and finished the day off with super fun Ceilidh dancing in the barn :D  

I wanted to make something special for the occasion, especially as the hubby was an usher for the wedding and did a reading, too, during the ceremony. Elisalex came to mind, but this time I wanted a less extravagant skirt - as lovely as the last version was, I think one tulip dress is quite enough for my wardrobe. What better pattern to team the Elisalex bodice with than McCalls 3830?     

The fabric I used was a beautiful floral stretch cotton purchased from C&H in Guildford, which reminded me of a dress Betty wore for an advert for Mad Men (picture below), and this was indeed what inspired me to mix and match two of my TNT patterns. I'm celebrating the return of the second half of the final season of Mad Men in my own way. Plus, what year would it be without me making a Betty-inspired garment? 

You are probably aware of my obsession with stretch cotton fabrics by now - for me, these fabrics combine the most awesome qualities of being well-behaved/super easy to sew with, having vibrant prints and the ability to stretch, accommodating a filling wedding breakfast as well as a lot of ceilidh dancing! 

One of the main reasons I love the Elisalex pattern is the low neckline at the back.  

In addition to the changes I made and construction notes from the last two versions, I made a couple more small changes:

1) This is the first time I made a short sleeves version - I chopped off quite a bit of length from the sleeve pattern, and hemmed the sleeves by hand with uneven running stitches. 

2) I didn't line the bodice this time, since the fabric is not see-through at all, which is hard to come by when it comes to medium weight white fabric. This was a relief, since I didn't have any stretch lining in my stash. What can I say, this fabric just keeps on giving! Instead, I finished the neckline with a pretty bias tape using my favourite method. 

Here are some sneaky peek photos for you: 

Sleeve:

Bias binding facing. I had this bias tape in my stash, but it was much too wide to be a facing, so I had to trim it down in half for this purpose. What a perfect match to the dress fabric, though?

Neckline on the outside:

Back neckline with a sage green invisible zipper. I'm very proud of how well the waist seams are lining up! 

 The dress hem, by hand with a blind catch stitch. 

So there you have it, yet another wedding guest dress! I absolutely adore this dress, and am so pleased with how it's turned out - I love the fabric, the shape, the comfort, and how well it's held up all day! I can't wait to wear it again! I enjoyed the process of sewing this little number, too. Mixing two of my TNT patterns is effortless - I'm happy with the fit of both in their own right, and adding them together is straight forward and very rewarding. 

How about you? Are you making any garments for special occasions this year? I have one more wedding to go to this year (unless any of our other friends feel spontaneous and have a last minute wedding before the year is out), which means one more special occasion dress to make. I think I'm going to attempt sewing with lace for that one! 

McCalls 3830 strikes again

My first make of 2015! This was the skirt that I referred to in this post - I had the fabric pieces cut up for months; in fact, they moved house with me 9 months ago! 

You may remember my ultimate work skirt, and the version before that, but the time has come for another work skirt! 

This time it's made in a plaid heavyweight flannel/brushed cotton, which, despite its lovely fluffiness, feels and looks more like a suiting/tweed. It's the perfect fabric that I could've asked for -- easy to sew with (after pattern matching, but that was a distant memory by the time I came to assemble the skirt), comfortable and warm to wear, and smart to look at.  

This version is almost identical to the last one, with the only tweak being that the waistband has been widened slightly. This means that from View D of the pattern (McCalls 3830), my version is scaled down to a size 4, with a 3cm waistband and lining added.  

If you are wondering how to add the waistband and lining - this tutorial is for you! 

Here's the skirt inside out: 

I love the funky lining - I think the orange sets off the orange lines in the skirt perfectly. 

As with last time, I hand blind hemmed the skirt again. Here's what it looks like on the inside. 

And that's it! I'm pleased to have this addition to my work wardrobe, and still in time for the cold weather. 

How about you? What's your first project this year? 

Geometric vintage blouse

Happy Friday everyone! 

 

Gosh, I'm smashing this vintage sewing pattern pledge that I've made just under a month ago! Here's my second item made from vintage pattern already, though this is from an original rather than a reproduction like my Vogue 1137. This was kind of my trial run for this year's Mad Men challenge, and I'm reasonably happy with how it's turned out. 

So I used Simplicity 3092 from my stash, and apparently it's from 1949! I attempted to make view 2, but in this amazing geometric stretch cotton from MacCulloch & Wallis in a dark navy, mustard and white. Admittedly it's not my usual type of fabric, but I think sometimes it's good to be outside of my comfort zone. 

You may recall that this is the top that I'd like to make, in a floral cotton, eventually:

 

I made quite a few changes to the pattern, to fit me and to get to a design that's similar to Betty's top -- I made my usual SBA, eliminated the armhole bands (and used a bias binding facing instead), widened and sharpened the collar, moved the placket facing to the inside (the original is designed on the outside) so that when the top button is undone, the reverse side that you see is not the wrong side of the fabric, as the original pattern is deigned to be worn with the button done up. Am I making any sense?! I also changed the order in which the placket and collar were attached to the bodice.

 

The eagle-eyed amongst you will have noticed that I'm wearing the top with my Navy Work skirt and Ultimate Work skirt, both creations from McCalls 3830 last year.

 

As I say, I'm reasonably happy with the blouse, and can see myself wearing it to work. There are a few niggles, though, but then that's exactly why I'm trying out the pattern before the real deal. So the things that I hope to improve in my next version are:

• Adding a collar stand - currently there isn't one;
• Reducing the armholes - they are a teeny bit too big;
• Increase the SBA - there's a lot of ease and some excess fabric on both sides still, and at the back; and
• Making the shoulders more narrow 

Next, a not so flattering photo (my arms look kind of chubby!), but it's a close-up, so I'm sharing it with you. Can you see all those darts cinching the blouse in at the waist? I think once improved, this could be a really shapely blouse, especially in a pretty floral fabric (back in my comfort zone, eh?) 

OK, finally a bit of a life update... Today's my last day in my current job and I'm moving house over the weekend! It'll be sad to leave Reading, but I'm moving to the leafy Surrey (anyone nearby?), and hopefully into a job that is less demanding (read: more time to sew!) Whoop! Then I've got a week off to do some works to the new house (including my new sewing room!), and lots of catching up with sewing! I think it'll be time for my Mad Men Betty blouse, or even blouses! And I may have ordered a certain fantastic pattern from By Hand London! Stay tuned ;)  

Ultimate work skirt - McCalls 3830 v2!

There we go, my second version of McCalls 3830. I've called it the ultimate work skirt, as I have tried to address all the issues that came out of the last version/wearable toile, and I am really happy with how it's turned out. I finished it last weekend, and have already worn it to a meeting on Tuesday! 

The most obvious change that I made was adding a 2.5cm waistband, by following the really helpful tutorial on Coletterie here. After studying one of my RTW skirts with a waistband, I went slowly and topstitched the waistband right on the previous stitching line, so the second stitching line is almost invisible.   

I also added a aubergine satin lining, so that the skirt doesn't ride up or stick to my tights. I was surprised by how much difference this made - the skirt feels so much more expensive! I'm going to add a tutorial on how I did this (basically by studying that RTW skirt and copying it) later on in case this was helpful to anyone. 

I did a blind catchstitch for the hem, and the stitch is actually completely invisible from both sides! 

I did a slipstitch to attach the lining to the zipper, so that's also invisible :)

For the centre zipper, I basted it first on the wrong side, and then stitched on the right side to get the stitching nice and balanced. 

The grey fabric I used was from John Lewis's remnant bin - it was a polyester and viscose blend, and the piece was only 70cm wide, which was actually more than enough for View D (at size 4). This small piece of fabric cost me a mere £4.18 precisely, cheap as chips. The satin was also from John Lewis, and I'm pretty sure that was at a reasonable £3 a metre in the sale, too. Overall it turned out to be a cheap and cheerful skirt, but one that I think will make a great work wardrobe staple. 

Navy work skirt - McCalls 3830 v1

I hope you all had a lovely weekend, and for those in the UK, a fantastic long weekend in the sun! I feel so much better now after my post last week re our lack of Labour Day celebration (but hey, I did attempt to cheer you up with a GIVEAWAY - which is still open till this Saturday - be quick!), getting a bit of sunshine, and an extra day off today :) 

My first version of the very popular McCalls 3830 skirt in navy, and (almost) straight from the envelope! 

This was supposed to be a toile, which I made from a lovely piece of suiting from my Walthamstowe trip last year, which was all purchased for £1.50 per metre!!! (I have no idea what material it is, but it's soft and drapes beautifully.) However, as the fit worked just fine, with no adjustment needed, and not to mention the fact that I love the fabric, I decided to finish off the skirt and wore it to work!

I said that it was "(almost)" straight out of the envelope, because I did scale the pattern down to a size 4 for view E. But other than that, it worked a treat. 

I liked the shape of the skirt, but as I wanted a formal-ish looking work skirt (as part of my grand plan to make more "everyday" clothes), I did quiet a narrow hem so that it finished not too much above the knees (version E is really quite short if I did the hem that was suggested). 

I did feel that a waistband is sort of missing, so I have added one to my version 2 (yep, you read that right, I have already done a version 2 - thank you Bank Holiday!). Also, as I didn't line this version (the pattern does not call for lining), it does have a slight tendency for the skirt to stick to the tights. No biggie though - it's not stopping me from liking this simple little skirt!