Paris - and fabric shopping!

So my lovely husband (vom alert!) arranged a surprise trip for my birthday last month. Except he accidentally told me beforehand. But that was actually great, as we were going to PARIS!

So of course, the first thing I did was look up where the fabric shops are. Oh yeah. Melissa and Isabelle have great guides, so my own plan was based on these. We were only there for two nights, and given we had lots of friends to see (plus, even though it was my birthday, I didn't want to drag the husband around fabric shops tooooo long) I only visited a few of the shops around Montmartre.

Initially I had a bit of the same freak-out I had in New York (I've become a yokel since moving to Switzerland), so forgot to buy things I needed in the mercerie (ack, haberdasher's - I keep forgetting English words), like an extra pair of thread snips and a new tape measure. I also got a bit overwhelmed in the regular fabric shops. I was mainly looking for wools to make a coat, and couldn't find any of suitable weight, so passed over a couple of fabrics that I'm now regretting. There was a beautiful tweedy fuchsia-purple wool that was just gorgeous, but I passed on it as it was dress weight rather than coat weight. Totally regretting that as it would have been perfect for my first vintage pattern challenge dress (which is actually finished, I just need to photograph it!).

Of course, I can always steel myself to the challenge of fabric buying, and I got in the swing of things when I discovered Coupons de Saint-Pierre. Oh my god I love this place! It sells "coupons" - fabric pre-cut to 3m lengths, and sold off at bargain prices. Truly BARGAIN prices. All my purchases came from here...

Two pieces of yarn-dyed coating weight wool - one side is smooth, the other is brushed. Yes, I was totally inspired by Lauren's coat when choosing these! I've got a feeling this may not be made up until next winter though, as it's a bit late to be starting on a winter coat now (from hovering just above freezing until a few days ago, it's now due to be 19˚C on Monday!). I also found a piece of very soft and fairly thick knit, marked as poly-wool mix. This will probably be a big snuggly cardie-jacket, along the lines of BurdaStyle 11/2013/107.

These two pieces were from the super bargain tables outside where everything is €15 per piece. They're polyester, but have a nice drapey challis-like hand. I really like that the print is on the diagonal. These are destined to become springy-summery dresses (or possibly also a tunic-style top), underlined to keep the poly-sweatiness at bay.

This piece is a heavy-weight cotton print, almost light upholstery weight, but a better hand (and I'm thinking it will also get a bit softer after washing), and a textured weave. It is destined to become a structured spring or summer dress, probably with an early 60s vibe. I've noticed since buying it that the print is rather off-grain, so it will require some careful cutting.

And now my prize pieces: pure silks! The mustardy one is chiffon, and is destined to become a floaty blouse. The brighter one is twill, but it's really hard to capture the colour - it's really really bright, daffodil-coloured, almost acid yellow. It's awesome. This was the only piece that I didn't have something concrete in mind for, but when you come across some bargainously-priced and brightly coloured silk twill, it would be rude not to buy it, right?

I was so seduced by the variety and prices, it didn't even occur to me to consider how wide any of these were until I was taking pictures of them! Fortunately, I was pleasantly surprised: the silks are a reasonable 140 wide, the polys are 144cm and the cotton and the wools are a huge 155cm! Brilliant.

I've been to Paris a few times, but realised that the last time I was there was nearly ten years ago, when we got engaged! We stayed near Place de République and the Canal Saint-Martin, it's a really nice area, lots of cool bars and interesting shops - a bit like Shoreditch, but with fewer silly haircuts. We have several friends who live in Paris, so it's somewhere we intend to visit more frequently - especially as it's only around three hours on the TGV from here. In fact, if I book early for the cheap tickets, it might be a regular occurrence just for the fabric and haberdashery......

London twice in a fortnight

Well, it's that pre-Christmas rush of seeing family (and some friends too), so last week was spent in London, and I will be back again this weekend. Sadly no time last week for fabric or notions shopping (although I did buy some bayonet lightbulbs for the anglepoise in my sewing room...), maybe this time?

Incidentally, does anyone have any news on Goldhawk Road/Shepherd's Bush Market? I'm hoping to have a moment or two to pop into Classic Textiles and buy some coating.

I have actually been doing a fair amount of sewing between travelling, some things more successful than others. I'm currently working on (yet another!) Sorbetto in silk crêpe de chine - here's the fabric I am using:

I've got a little more finishing to do, but this will be worn this weekend in London - and I will be showing you something other than Sorbettos soon!

V&A Sorbetto

So this top is something I've had in mind for a while, but have only just got around to making it. I'm semi-pleased with it - I made some stupid mistakes so it's not quite perfect, but I still quite like it. I've yet to get any photos of it on me, (although I have worn it).

Pattern description

A variation of the Sorbetto top: contrast yoke with V-neckline, cap sleeves, and side hem slits. (See my previous versions here and here.)

Fabric used

The printed cotton is a Liberty print that I bought at the V&A quilts exhibition a couple of years ago (the fabrics from the exhibition are still available to buy in the V&A shop, but are only available in fat quarters, half metres or one metre lengths - I bought a 1m length, and used about half of this here). It's a quilting cotton, but it's much softer and has a better drape than most quilting cottons normally are. The yoke is plain black cotton - I think this was described as broadcloth when I bought it, but it's more like a heavyweight lawn.

Did it look like the sketch/idea when you were done?

Erm, sort of. Due to some sewing errors, the armscyes are a little too wide, causing some problems with the sleeves, and the V neck cut-out isn't quite right. However, the general impression is just what I intended.

Pattern alterations or any design changes you made/Drafting details

I decided the line of the yoke by marking it with pins whilst wearing my leopard print Sorbetto and then transferring it to the paper copy. I moved the shoulder seam forward 5mm at the neckline and 10mm at the shoulder point and scooped out the front armscye 5mm to allow for my forward shoulders, and lengthened the top by 10cm. Something I had noticed on the previous versions was that they flared out way too much at the hips, which wasn't very flattering, so in this version I reduced the flare at the hip by about 7cm (distributed between the side and CB seams). I raised the back neckline by 8cm and cut the back yoke on the fold. I raised the front neckline by 3.5cm and marked a V-shape opening that would be 4cm wide at the neckline, with the bottom of the V where the yoke joins the lower piece. The sleeves are effectively ovals, but drafted using the article in Threads Magazine issue 164. I drafted these to come past the start of the underarm curve as I wanted that bit covered (see below for details of the issues with the sleeves...), and they are cut on the bias.

Construction details

The yoke and sleeves are lined. The neckline, front V and armscyes are stabilised with fusible interfacing. I fused this to the facing pieces rather than the top of the yoke as I was concerned about bubbling/show-through as the fabric is slightly sheer (and I remembered to use my press cloth so no gluey iron!). After construction the facing actually looks much better with the support of the interfacing, but I think part of that was the, ahem, issues I had with seam allowances. In hindsight I should have also staystitched the neckline and armscyes on the top facing as well.

I used a slightly modified version of Trena's very helpful tutorial for lining a sleeveless bodice with no centre back seam to minimise the handsewing I needed to do.

Construction order was:

• Sew and finish CB seam in lower bodice.
• Sew top yoke to lower bodice. At the centre front V I applied a small piece of fusible interfacing to the centre of the lower bodice to provide some extra support where the yoke joins it. The two halves of the yoke were then sewn to the bodice, lining up the centre fronts and stopping stitching at the seam line of the V, leaving the seam allowance free to fold back.

• Sew the bust darts.
• Sew and finish the side seams of the yoke facing/lining and the outer bodice. On the outer bodice side seams I stopped 10cm before the bottom to allow for the side slits. The seam allowance past this point was pressed back along the continuation of the seam line.
• Trim a couple of millimetres from the armscye and neckline edges of the yoke facing (so that the seam would roll to the inside). Then, right sides together, sew yoke facing to yoke at neckline (stopping a few cm short of shoulders) and at armscyes (I stopped at the mark where the sleeves join, but I would recommend not sewing right up to the point where the sleeve starts to allow some room for manoeuvre). This is where things started to go wrong... I'd drafted the yoke with 1cm seam allowances on the neckline and armscyes (rather than the 1.5cm everywhere else) as I figured this would make them easier to manipulate and less to trim around the curves. However, when I sewed these seams, I forgot about the smaller SA. Not too bad just yet, but I was at this point wondering why the point of the V didn't meet in the middle.

• Sew and finish shoulder seams on yoke (not facing).
• Right sides together, sew sleeves to yoke, matching shoulder and end points. This was rather fiddly, and my mistake with the seam allowances earlier caused the biggest problems here. The larger SA on the armscye meant that the seam line was longer than it should have been. However, I drafted the sleeve with a 1.5cm SA, so this seam line was the correct length, so when they were matched up together I ended up having to ease the yoke into the sleeve a bit, thinking all the time, "what the hell is going on here?" This has meant the yoke doesn't lie entirely smooth, unfortunately especially on the top layer as this isn't directly supported by the interfacing. Why didn't I correct this? Because I'd already sewn everything except the last couple of steps below (and trimmed and clipped various seam allowances), and I really didn't fancy unpicking and redoing all of this.

• Sew and finish the shoulder seam on yoke facing.
• Trim/clip and turn under the unsewn yoke facing edges at the neck and armscyes and sew closed by hand.

• Finish the bottom edge of the yoke facing, turn up, and stich down. Well, that's what I intended to do anyway. Because of the SA issues, the V in the centre didn't quite come together, so I had to sort of fudge it a bit in the centre front (I didn't want to clip the bottom bodice piece in case I get round to replacing the top section at a later point), and decided to just finish the yoke facing bottom edge with the serger and topstitch it down.

• Finish the bottom edge of the top, turn up the hem and topstitch (I didn't bother with mitering the corners at the bottom of the side slits).
• Topstitch around the side slits.

Would you sew it again?

I really like the fit of this version of the Sorbetto so I will definitely use this shape again, although I need to fix the issues with the sleeves and yoke first.

Conclusion

Hmm. I'm really rather annoyed at the silly mistakes I made with this, as they've slightly spoilt this otherwise very pleasing top. Having worn this, I think it is worth redoing the yoke and sleeves as they make it slightly annoying to wear, but as they require pretty much complete recutting this will have to wait until I've completed a couple of other things I have in the pipeline. I'm not entirely happy with how the sleeves turned out - they are a little, um, space age... When I redo this (or if I make another version) I will reduce the outer length of the sleeves a little (by overlapping the slashes more). I'm slightly concerned that this is more of a summer top too. The sleeves are moderately cardie-friendly (fine under a large cardie, but annoying under a more fitted one - and for now it will be worn under a cardie). I might try it with a long-sleeved T-shirt underneath.

Fabric goodies from London

I actually bought these at the beginning of November but hadn't got round to showing them here, so I thought I would put up a quick post for your enjoyment! These were all purchased from Classic Textiles on Goldhawk Road - and surprisingly it was the first time I'd actually been upstairs to the wools floor.

Actually, thinking about Classic Textiles, the last I heard I think there was a going to be a judicial review of the redevelopment of Shepherd's Bush Market. Does anyone have any updates on what's happening?

L-R: Missoni(-style?) sweater knit, very lightweight wool jersey, wool/cashmere/mink blend coating, lightweight wool woven (I don't know what this type of fabric is called!)

These were all purchased with projects in mind (apart from the Missoni sweater knit, which I just couldn't pass up). The lightweight wool jersey is for a sweater dress, or possibly this top from BWOF:

The coating is for, surprisingly, a coat - although I think this will wait for later on this year for next winter, as I don't think I'll be able to get it done for this year. I also want to mull on what style of coat I want.

The plaid woven is to make a dress inspired by this dress from Monsoon:

I loved the use of the plaid on the bias, and the interesting seaming and volume added by the godet. Unfortunately when I tried it on, the cut was just bizarre and unflattering (on me at least). Then I saw this fabric, and realised it was meant to be!

Stay tuned to see if and when I get round to making all these...