Yellow crepe wrap skirt

I wanted a quick project before a trip to London, and needed some more versatile mix-and-match pieces that would work for spring. I figured this fabric would be good for a skirt, and had an idea I wanted to do something drapey/wrappy/tulipy. I had a look through my BWOF patterns (using my new highly organised system - more on that at a later date), but the designs that caught my eye were all fairly simple, so I decided to draft one myself, as I knew it would be quicker than tracing and adjusting a Burda pattern.

Pattern description

Wrap skirt, slightly pegged with rounded front sections. Waistband sits around 2cm below natural waistline.

Fabric used

Bright yellow wool crepe, bought from Fabric.com. It was originally intended for some trousers, but decided it was a leeeeeeetle too bright for that. Lining is from stash - I discovered when unpacking fabric after moving that I had around 6m of it. I've no idea how long I've had it or what the fabric content is (or why I bought so much!) but fortunately I like the colour and it's proving useful.

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

Yes, I'm pretty pleased with this - it has pretty much the lines I intended.

What did you particularly like or dislike about the pattern?

This is a skirt that is interesting in shape and colour, but is also "plain" enough to mix well in my wardrobe. Also, the waist is high enough to be able to tuck in tops, but also low enough that it doesn't interfere if I want to wear a top untucked with a belt.

Drafting details

The back is almost unaltered, apart from dropping the waist by 2cm, and pegging the side seams by 2.5cm at the hem. The front pattern piece was doubled to give a full front, then the wrap coverage drawn in, starting at the position of the dart, and the side seam pegged again. A 3cm wide waistband was drafted.

Construction details

French seams were used for the side seams. The skirt portion is lined - the fashion fabric and lining were constructed separately as mirror images (although this doesn't really matter here as it's symmetrical!), then put wrong sides together and treated effectively as underlined fabric to complete the skirt.

The waistband is interfaced, and stabilised with silk organza. The waistband facing is slipstiched to the skirt by hand. The skirt and lining are serged together at the hem edge; this was pressed inwards just past the stitching line and sewn down by machine, pressed in again, then slipstitched to the lining. The buttonholes were made by machine.

I'm not entirely pleased with how the hem turned out - it's ended up slightly wavy and sticky-outy in parts (and I chose the better side to be the overlap!). I'm pretty certain that this is caused by the seam being too bulky so that the fabric on the inner part of the curve of the hem is longer than the actual length of this curve. I'm not sure though how to fix this - my ideas so far for future projects would be to use the differential feed on the serger to gather the first turn of the hem slightly, or to run a gathering stitch along the inner edge on the second turn. Would these work? Any recommendations would be welcome (and also any suggestions to fix this skirt - I can live with it as it is, but it would be nice to know if I can fix it with not too much effort).

Would you sew it again?

Possibly, with maybe a few design changes - I'm not sure I want another identical version.

Conclusion

I'm pretty pleased with this skirt - I wore it within two days of making it (and got compliments - yay!) and I'm sure I will be wearing it again very soon.

You know it's time to tidy your sewing room...

...when you buy a basic jersey tube skirt that needs the elastic adjusting because it's easier than clearing a space to make one (which would take about 10 minutes if my sewing room wasn't quite so messy).

I know what my project is for the next week...

Alphabet quilt - finished at last

So, about 18 months after starting it, I've finally finished the alphabet quilt for my nephew - I gave it to my sister as part of her Christmas present.

Not much to say about the finished item, apart from that I'm really rather pleased with it. Although I might make the next one slightly smaller...

Front:

And back:

My sister loves it - although she's going to put it on the wall rather than the floor or bed until he's a little older.

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...

Merry Christmas, review of 2011, Happy New Year

Just a warning, this will be another text- and list-heavy post...

Well, the last few months have been manic, to say the least. In the last three and a half months, I have been to Cornwall, New York, London, Liverpool, Reading, London again, and Liechtenstein. Whilst this has been super fun (and I've seen several good friends getting married in various places), it hasn't left much time for sewing and/or blogging. Well, I say not much time, but I think it's more that I have been lacking the energy and focus when I do have a chunk of time. It also hasn't helped that the entire flat looks like a bomb's hit it after several months of rapid-fire packing and unpacking, which isn't very conducive to creativity. The annoying thing is that I have vast quantities of ideas for what I want to sew, so it's been very frustrating!

Anyway, enough whinging...! I hope you all had lovely and relaxing Christmases? My husband and I spent Christmas in Liechtenstein with friends who moved there recently. It was lovely spending time with them, and it felt especially Christmassy as it was very snowy there! We spent the time eating, drinking, watching films, and we also did a bit of snow-shoeing, which was brilliant and took us through a very beautiful area.

I also made a lot of mince pies and Christmas biscuits to take with us...

Despite the last few months, I did a lot better in making things this year:

• Two "infinity" jersey scarves for (late) Christmas presents (not blogged, and I don't think I took pics of them before sending them)
• Vintage pattern birthday dress
• BWOF birthday dress
• High-waisted doubleknit skirt
• Jeans skirt
• Jersey vest top (not blogged)
• Oversized T-shirt top (times two!)
• Jersey rose-print dress
• Refashioned frilly dress
• Gingham blouse
• Gardening apron
• Yellow fabric necklace
• Duster-a-like wrap/waistcoat
• Cowl-neck jersey dress
• Deep-cowl jersey dress
• Jersey mock-wrap dress
• Jersey off-cut necklace
• Chambray sundress (unfinished)
• Disastrous elastic waist summer trousers (not blogged)
• Shorts (muslined only, not blogged)
• Cream pleated skirt (not blogged)
• Silk charmeuse wrap dress
• Cotton underlined wrap dress
• Sorbetto top
• Doubleknit low-back frankendress (unfinished, not blogged)
• Wool BWOF ruffle-front dress (unfinished, not blogged)
• Blue miniskirt (not blogged)
• Yellow knitted circle scarf (not blogged)
• Wool pencil skirt (not blogged)
• Stripy knitted scarf (not blogged)
• Alphabet quilt

Seeing it all written down in a list like that is pretty satisfying, and helps me stop focussing on all the things I didn't do. I think the most disappointing thing was that despite having the opportunity to make many party dresses (several weddings and a ball - terrible film), I didn't finish any. I did wear a dress I made to one of the weddings, but it was one made earlier in the year. The doubleknit low-back frankendress and the wool ruffle-front dress were both intended to be wedding guest dresses, but didn't get finished. The doubleknit one is nearly done, but I didn't allow for the weight of the fabric stretching it, so when I sewed it together and put it on, it needed a vast number of alterations, which I couldn't face at the time (all the seams were serged...). As for the ruffly wool dress, I simply ran out of time to get it finished, but it does fit well and will be finished up to be worn in the new year.

So how did I do on my sewing resolutions?

• Sew at least one item once a fortnight. In terms of numbers I did better than this: including unfinished and wadders, I think I sewed/knitted about 33 items this year! Of these, maybe 1/2 - 2/3 were successful and/or worn a lot, so that's not bad going.
• Set myself sewing projects each month. Meh, this didn't really happen, it was more, "Quick, I have a couple of weeks to sew, let's make something - anything!"
• Blog at least once a week. Blogging was spottier than I had hoped for, I often just found I didn't have the time to write the posts or take pictures. I'm planning to do a few catch up posts in the next few weeks.

In other sewing related activities, I took two courses at the London College of Fashion, saw an exhibition of vintage couture dresses, joined in with Me-Made-June '11 and Self-Stitched-September '11, visited the Garment District in New York, and joined a sewing group.

So, plans for this year...

• Tidy and organise my sewing room - the lack of sewing time and rapid-fire switching between projects over the last few months means my supposedly calm "me-space" looks like a fabric and notions bomb has exploded all over the place.
• Sew more coordinated garments (in a wardrobe sense, not matchy-matchy!), and more basic wardrobe fillers to give my outfits more versatility
• Blog once a week
• Sew one item a fortnight
• Sew at least one item from each new issue of BWOF - I don't think I'm really making the most of my subscription at the moment
• Finish up each item before starting the next!
• Do some non-garment sewing - I have some household and accessory sewing that needs doing, which I've been putting off for a while
• Sew a garment for someone else

I'm not making a list of "must-sew" items (at least not here), as it always seems to change according to how productive I've been, the weather, events coming up, my current mood... Maybe I'll do this at the beginning of each month.

So how has everyone else's year been? Hopefully happy and productive? Here's to a happy and productive 2012 too!

NYC and fabric goodies

So, here are a few (rather belated) details from my NYC trip, plus the more important info on what fabric I brought back with me!

I have been longing to go to NYC for so long, I was a bit concerned it might not actually live up to my expectations, but it definitely did! Everything was just how I was hoping it would be, and it also made me laugh how all the clichés about the place are actually reality. I kept a little list of some of the cool little things, these are some of my favourites:

• Welcomed into the country by a immigration officer who looked like a younger Leslie Nielsen (think Forbidden Planet) who asked us "do you like Italian food?" and gave us a recommendation for a restaurant near our hotel that did "amazing meatballs"
• Sat at the counter in a diner to eat brunch and heard someone order "eggs over easy, on rye"
• Gawped at Kathy Lee Gifford outside the NBC studios in the Rockefeller Center
• Rode in a classic NYC taxi, with a taxi driver who had a proper "Noo Yoik" accent, and country blues rock on the radio
• Spotted Gwyneth Paltrow filming for a feature film in Central Park

We stayed on W44th and 5th, which was super great for a first visit when you want to be right in the centre. The first couple of days we spend ticking off the "must-do" sights, and also went to see Follies on Broadway. I'm not really into musicals, but I adore this one - I know it virtually word-for-word from working front of house at the RFH a few years back where it was on all summer. It's a very sad story though, and this production was amazing, and especially tragic it seemed to me.

After booking the holiday, we discovered that we would be there over Columbus Day - and then whilst there we also discovered there was Hispanic Day the day before! My husband had a bout of "manflu" so I watched the Hispanic Day parade mainly by myself, and was befriended by a lovely Colombian lady who'd been in the US for the last 30 years, and was telling me how "Colombians are the happiest people of all!" We were fascinated by the marching bands in the Columbus Day parade, that is something that really doesn't exist in most of the UK. Both of these were also pretty fun as the street where we were staying was one of those where the floats assembled before setting off on parade.

The next couple of evenings we'd booked some cool concerts/gigs to go to: the Mariinsky Orchestra with Valery Gergeiv at the Carnegie Hall, then Winton Marsalis's 50th birthday celebration gig at the Lincoln Center (introduced by Bill Cosby!).

During the days, we went to MoMA, the High Line, and of course the Garment District. Oh yeah. Unfortunately I didn't make enough time to do some other shopping - I had wanted to get some shoes - but next time eh... Plus there was plenty of eating and drinking too!

Yeah, yeah, yeah, enough of that, on to the pretties! I used Lindsey T's wonderful Shop The Garment District site to draw up a plan of attack, and settled on Mood (of course - I'm obsessed with Project Runway, although maybe a bit less given the last couple of series...), Global Leathers, Elliott Berman, and Pacific Trimmings, plus lunch in Stitch.

Mood: L-R Shot gold/black silk twill (fairly beefy but super drapey, going to be a party dress), greenish black chambray (going to be a shirtdress), herringbone wool/fleece mix lightweight coating (marked as Ralph Lauren, going to be a boxy jacket), cotton shirting (going to be a shirt for my husband!)

Elliott Berman: L-R Silk twill (fairly beefy, going to be another party dress), silk sort of heavy matte charmeuse (don't know quite what this type of fabric is called, but it's going to be a blouse)

Global Leathers: L-R Super soft grey nappa (in order to shamelessly rip off be inspired by Fehr Trade's leather skirt), Brown Wyoming cattle hide (this is to make a bag, or rather probably several as the minimum I could buy was half a skin - but I did get a discount as the guy liked my English accent!)

I ended up not actually getting anything from Pacific Trimmings, just wandered round gawping at the huge variety - I was flaking a bit by then, and as I wasn't entirely sure what I needed so didn't want to just buy stuff for the hell of it (unlike, say, fabric...).

One thing I totally loved about fabric shopping in NYC was that many (most?) of the shops are not at street level - there was something very cool taking the lifts in what looked like an office building and emerging on the seventh floor, ringing on a bell and stepping into an enormous space filled floor to ceiling with bolts of delicious fabric. I especially loved the totally old-school lifts to get up to Mood, complete with guys to operate them.

Unfortunately there wasn't a huge amount of me-made action going on, I'd lost confidence in the stuff I'd made a bit, I don't know why. I did wear a couple of things though - my cotton wrap dress (on Hispanic Day when it was about 28˚C!) and my jeans skirt a couple of times (with the Sorbetto top when I went to the Garment District). I did actually take another skirt I'd made with me, but I didn't wear it - it's a new one, so I will show it to you soon.

Self-Stitched-September '11 = epic fail

Well, maybe epic fail is overstating it a bit, but my self-stitched month rather deflated about two thirds of the way through, rather like a badly baked soufflé (sorry, I've just been watching the Great British Bake-Off).

So excuses: not enough "transition" items, super busy month with lots of travelling and lots of contrasts (smart wedding followed by hiking in drizzle anyone?), and having time-management issues (hmm, I think I'll adapt a pattern and make a dress to wear to a wedding in three days. Yeah). Oh well, many lessons have been learned, not least that I need to remember I don't do "fast" sewing - if I want to make more stuff, I need to plan more - and knuckle down and do more too!

Having said that I do have a few new things to show you, and a couple of things in progress too - however, these will have to wait, and this post will be sadly photo-free, as I'm busy busy busy getting ready to go to New York for a week! Woo! I really can't wait... (And of course I've printed off my guides to the Garment District :)