Stripes, yep, stripes are definitely my new favourite thing. And look at this gorgeous fabric. I bought it about 9 months ago, along with the stripy fabric from the last top I made. Both came from fabric godmother.co.uk.

Its the same Trapeze top pattern, and once again it was a fairly quick make as no seams to finish. This is why I love jersey. I thought it might be more of a problem than the last one as the fabric is a finer jersey and I thought it might misbehave a bit, but it didn’t. So I’m very happy about that.

Can’t complain too much about the stripe matching. Always more luck than judgement.

This side not quite as good.

Back gone a little off half way up! Don’t know quite what is up with that.

Quite like how the sleeve stripes line up with the body stripes.

Lovely.

I’m sorry the modelling pics are so dark, but it was dark when I took them.

I again just zig zagged the hem to finish.

Another lovely comfortable stripy to wear, me happy :0) This one is a very dark navy and a sort of off white/cream.

I said in January that I wasn’t going to make multiples of the same pattern but what can I tell ya? When I like something I like something and I want lots of it! So here comes a stripy Trapeze top in the most wonderful jersey fabric ever.

I remember also, saying back last year that I didn’t like working with jersey so just goes to show you can’t believe a damn thing I say! This jersey though was a dream with. Didn’t slip and slide all over the place and wasn’t floppy. It stayed where I put it and pining and sewing was so easy. I must get some more.

I’m rather pleased I have to say with the pattern matching on this top. Its not perfect by any stretch but is a damn sight better than the tartan.

Here come some pics…

As you can see, I couldn’t fit the sleeve pattern piece in its entirety on the fabric, so I have shorter sleeves on this top. And I couldn’t fit the neck facing on the fabric either, luckily it wasn’t needed anyway.

Slightly mismatched stripes on this side.

But better on this side.

Center back seam not too bad either.

For the neck, I simply folded the edge over 1.5cm and top stitched down. Works really well. Nice neat finish.

Not so well matched shoulder seam.

Beautifully matched shoulder seam.

I also top stitched down the shoulder seam allowances so they would lay flat.

I zigzagged the hem edge again. This is proving to be quite a successful finishing technique.

My favourite thing about this top is that it only took me 4 hours to complete. From cutting out the fabric to finishing the hem. And that my friend is the magic of jersey. No seam finishing and no need for neck facings make for a really speedy process. And its satisfying too.

I love this fabric. Its comfortable to wear and doesn’t need ironing after washing. What more can I say? What more can we want?

Just wanted to share my new hair do, and how I wore the top for a day out yesterday to London and afternoon tea.

This is my most expensive fabric so far. Or it would have been if it hadn’t been in a sale. I bought this beautiful fabric online from joelandsonfabrics.com, in their winter sale. It was a bit of an impulse purchase, was either going to be a new bag or fabric, and as I apparently have enough bags (at least according to the Husband) I went for fabric. Cheaper than the bag would have been too. Anyway like I said bit of an impulse purchase and wasn’t too sure why I bought it when I was thinking about it later. Totally not my sort of thing really, floral and a sort of greenish/yellow colour! Sounds disgusting.

As it was the last remnant of a roll it was a fixed amount, luckily that was two metres. And I think about 140cm wide, so I knew I would have enough for a top or dress. Oh and its Emanuel Ungaro!

It arrived in beautiful branded packaging, I like the nice touches like that.

Just look at that selvedge. Had to keep it as part of the dress.

When it arrived I was at first a little non-plussed. I had decided I wanted to make a dress with it but then thought it might be a little too thin to work as a dress. I didn’t rush into making anything with it. I did however bung it in the wash so when I was ready I could get on with it.

The colour in real life looks a little more gold and it’s got an almost metallic sheen to it, I can’t really describe it. The flowers are quite simply beautiful and appear almost photographic, the detail is quite stunning. I’m no expert but think they might be Camellias.

I decided to go for it and make it into another Trapeze dress (I know I know, I said I wasn’t going to keep making the same pattern but I can’t help it, I love the Trapeze and also I didn’t want to risk using a new pattern and possibly ruin the fabric, so there!). I have a wedding reception to go to soon and thought this would make a lovely dress to wear for that.

I nearly had a panic attack when it looked like I might not be able to squeeze the a Trapeze out of the two metres of fabric, don’t think it was quite as wide as I thought it was. However the Husband came in to find me looking quite distraught and came to my rescue and rearranged a couple of the pieces. I would have probably got there in end but you know he saved me from at least an hours worth of anxiety. Sometimes it does help to have another persons perspective.

It is a bit of a tight squeeze, but did fit.

I have to say this fabric was dream to work with. It behaved itself so well. And was quite simply delightful to handle. and because of that I nearly had it finished in a day, and I would have done if I hadn’t had to eat, although I suddenly became aware that the fabric was quite expensive and I was getting tired and setting in the sleeves is often where I unpick, and I really didn’t want to unpick. So I knew it was best to stop.

I picked it up again the next day, and as always took me bit longer than I anticipated mainly due to trying to work out how long I wanted the sleeves and the length of the dress. Once I had that sorted it was plain sailing.

The above picture shows sleeve and dress length as yet undecided. I’m always a bit nervous of shortening, as once its gone its gone. I often end up erring on the side of caution and shortening things twice. However I am learning what length suits me best.

Here’s a close up of the gorgeous flower detail.

Finished.

In the above picture you can just about see a white line running down the back centre seam. This was due entirely to me wanting to keep the lovely selvedge that said Emanuel Ungaro and have the words Haute Coutoure in something I’m wearing. The pattern has a 1.5 seam allowance and the selvedge was about 2cm wide, tired to accommodate that but as it was a tight fit getting all the pattern pieces to fit anyway well it didn’t work too well. I can live with it, I have too.

The above picture is a fairly good representation of the colour.

I have to say that another reason that I love the Trapeze pattern is, that its a nice loose shape and means I can eat and drink what I want without worrying about the bloat.

Very happy with the finished garment I have to say. Feels absolutely gorgeous to wear. Feels a little bit special :0)

I would totally recommend checking out joelandsonfabrics.com, they have some really beautiful fabrics. They even have Chanel Boucle if you fancy making yourself a Chanel jacket, but be warned the cheapest is £1,490 a metre! How terrified would you be to cut into that? Its fun to look around though at all the gorgeous stuff they have and dream.

What a F*****g nightmare! I do not exaggerate , I really don’t. Making this was, how shall I put it? Traumatic! I am not one to over dramatise but this really was one of the most mind boggling things I’ve ever made.

It all started off innocently enough. All was going to plan. Cut out the fabric, put the front and back together.  Constructed the facing, attached it to the neck. Was thinking, I might have this finished today. And then BAM! I hit a major brick wall. The armholes OMG the armholes, more to the point the armholes facing. WTF!

I started off OK, I pulled the facing outside and turned it over so right sides were facing each other. Started to pin in place pulling the inside out as I went, got to about half way up the armhole when it all started getting messy. And it was at this point that I decided that the good people of Merchant & Mills had lost their minds and missed out an entire section of instructions. It didn’t seem to matter what I did I could not get my garment to look like their illustration.

I can tell you now people, the air was pretty blue around me at this point, I was frustrated beyond belief. The Husband hearing my moans of despair came up to see what was wrong and when I explained, he had a look and tired to help. He couldn’t figure it out either. We were both convinced something was missing.

So I had to put it aside for a couple of days and wait till I could get to Rye and go see M&M in person. Which I did on the Monday. They were very helpful and assured me that they hadn’t missed anything out and that it was very common for people to get confused at this point. So that made me feel a bit better. Anyway the lovely lady pinned one half of the armhole for me and I watched intently as she did so. She said it really feels wrong and twisted whilst you’re doing it but it all works out in the end.

I couldn’t do anything till the next day. So finally I sat down to have another go. I stitched the side that was already pinned. And that takes some working out too. How best to place this deformed piece of cloth under the sewing machine? Once I figured out the best way for me to do it I started sewing. And let me tell you it still was not simple. I finished that half (oh and by the way I tacked it before sewing proper, just in case) and took a bash at pinning the other half. Trying to remember how she did it. Mine looked almost like hers. I tacked that side and then turned the facing to the inside. Hmmm, not quite right, nearly but not quite. It gets a bit messy at the shoulder seam. So I unpicked and had another go. Still not right. So I decide to have a go at the other armhole.

I will try and explain how its done.

What you do is, start by puling the bottom of the facing to the outside of  the garment and matching the seams so right side is facing right side, and then pin, then keep pulling the facing to the outside keeping the edges together and pin as you go. You do one half at a time. Now as you get to about half way up the arm hole things start to get very messy but persevere, keeping hold of the edge of the armhole facing and the armhole you just keep pinning and the garment gets more and more twisted, as you approach the shoulder seam you almost turn it inside out, but just at the shoulder keep pinning until you meet the seam. Now attempt to stitch, once you’ve done one half you do the next half in the same way. working up from the side seam to the shoulder seam. Apparently once done you turn it back through to the inside and voila a perfect armhole facing. At least thats how it should happen. Good luck!

There will  now follow some pictures in the hope that you get the gist of how horrible it is.

You can’t really tell whats going on here, and I can’t really explain it.

The bit sticking up is the shoulder seam.

Thats a bit more shoulder seam. Clear as mud eh?

Once again The shoulder seam beat me. I just couldn’t get it to lay flat, looked horrible. In the end I unpicked about 3inches of the top of the shoulder and top stitched it down, very close to the edge.

I think it works quite well and stopped me from completely giving up. I shan’t wear it when I go shopping in M&M as they might disapprove of my method.

I’ve put the above picture in just to show what a difference a really good press makes to a finished garment. I am truly amazed that the armhole ended up looking so good. And it was all down to the magic of the iron. Above picture is pre-ironing, and below is after ironing.

Ta dah!

Looks all lovely and innocent now, but it truly was a monster!

This is the inside of the garment. Look how well I’ve pattern matched it, right where nobody will ever see it…

One of the main reasons I made the sleeveless version was to have something that would go under my scuba cardi/jacket thing. The sleeves are quite snug on it so sleeveless is best for it really. And it does fit under it beautifully.

You can’t see it, but its there. Fitting very comfortably.

Have to say I’m not overly keen on the sleeveless look on me. My arms are not very toned anymore and look a bit stubby I feel, but needs must and I’m going to wear it. It was a challenge I have to say and I nearly gave up. So glad I didn’t. And even though I didn’t end up doing it exactly as I was supposed to, it still works and looks good. I partly blame the fabric, it frayed terribly and was quite difficult to manipulate. So there!

I have to add and this is quite important, might be obvious but I didn’t work it out I was told. Do not attempt to do the armhole facings with the garment on a dressmakers dummy. Can’t be done, end of!

Will I make another, yes, but a dress next time. And I’ll try and find more appropriate fabric.

I bought two metres of scuba fabric a couple of months ago. And  when it arrived I was like, WTF am I going to do with this? I really hadn’t got a clue. It appeared to be a lot thicker and more structured than I was hoping for. So it went on my stash pile to be pondered over while I worked on other things. I liked the idea that it wouldn’t fray and so I wouldn’t need to finish the seams, which helps to make any project that bit quicker. So I was a little disappointed after washing it to see that the grey side was starting to fray a bit and coming  away from the foamy bit in the middle. I had thought I might have a go at making another Strand coat but after seeing the fraying I really didn’t feel like going through all the effort to finish the seams,  so I scrapped that idea.

I eventually settled on making it into a Trapeze top, I thought it would make a fairly good one and might be nice and warm for the winter. So I cut out the fabric.

I didn’t cut out the neck facing in the end as decided it wasn’t needed. I put the back together and then attached the front to the back, tried it on to see how it was looking so far and hated it. The front was sticking out down the middle and looked really weird. There was a possibility that it would lay better once I’d put the sleeves in but I wasn’t overly convinced. So I left it for that day and thought about it a lot. What was I going to do?

I got up next morning, tried it on again thinking maybe I’d been wrong and it didn’t look that bad, but no, I was right it looked horrible. I took it off hung it up and decided I’d put it down to experience and bad judgement and just scrap it.

Then something inside me said if you don’t care about it you might as well experiment with it. I tried it on back to front and it sat a lot better on me like that. Was sticking out at the back now but didn’t look as bad like that. So I decided to attempt to turn it into a jacket/cardi.

I unpicked the centre back seam, stitched the seam allowance down to make the edge look nice. Put the sleeves in, tried it on again, yep think I can get away with it. I turned the neck in on itself to neaten the edges, that worked quite well and then did the same with the hem and the sleeve hems.

And BINGO, there was a jacket/cardi thing!

There will now follow lots of pictures, as I’m really really happy with this.

Hem looks uneven here but its not. Have thought about adding pockets, but for now I’ll leave it alone. Thats another thing I love about making my own stuff, I can evolve it as I see fit, whenever I like.

The back, that was the front.

I stitched the shoulder seams down so they would lay flat. Quite like how it looks.

Not the best pictures, but here’s me wearing it.

Its so comfortable to wear, I love the sponginess of the fabric, makes it feel light but its also warm.

My Husband said it was elegant in its simplicity. And the edge to edge styling of it does give it a somewhat smart and elegant feel. I think it can be smart or casual myself depending on what else I wear it with.

And I’m so glad I didn’t scrap it and just throw away the £36 I spent on the fabric. So all in all feeling a little smug with myself right now.

I didn’t properly blog about the first tartan Trapeze top, so I’ll make up for it by blogging about the second.

First thing I’ll say is, pattern matching tartan is a BITCH! Really really is. I thought I’d been so careful to get my edges to meet up so that the centre back seam would at least match. But when I looked at it after sewing the centre back seam I was greeted by this…

Just ever so slightly off. Now I am not always a perfectionist when it comes to my sewing, but I did contemplate unpicking and doing it again ( I know some people out there would not be able to tolerate this at all ). However I looked at the fabric and the stitches and well I just had a feeling that the fabric wouldn’t stand up to the unpicking. It does have a tendency to fray. So I left it as it was. All I can say is thank goodness I can’t see it when I’m wearing it. I will say that the first one was a bit better at the back as it matched at the bottom, but went off kilter half way up, which was weird.

The sides didn’t fair much better either.

So close with this side! However they do look much better once the sleeves are attached.

I have at least got the red stripe running down the centre of the sleeve, on both sides too.

When its on the stripes look pretty good running across the sleeves and the bodice, so I’m quite happy with that.

I zigzagged the bottom rather than do a hem, as its not so easy on this shape. And luckily it seems to work really well.

So all in all, I’m very happy with this top. Its my first make of the New Year, so off to a good start.

I’d like to share with you the lovely goodies that I got for Christmas.

First up is this gorgeous M&M mug, which I’ve wanted for so long now. Not that I think I’m an actual Seamstress, but its nice to dream.

As you can see its sitting on top of the M&M Workbook. And as others have said it is a beautiful book full of beautiful clothes. Now whilst I might not be capable of making all of them yet, I definitely have my eye on some of the projects. Watch this space.

A friend bought me some items from there too. I just love the packaging.

I was very surprised to receive the second Great British Sewing Bee book. This is my fave series so far. Some great looking projects inside too.  And very excited to have the Clothkits pattern. Can’t wait to give that a go, however I suspect it won’t be as easy as it looks.

Lots of new and exciting things for me to try, I wonder how many I will complete. I must try and do new things this year and not to make too many multiples of one pattern. Yeah right!

My very favourite thing about 2015 was that I learnt to do sleeves. Yep thats right sleeves. A dear friend bought me the Mathilde pattern by Tilly and the buttons.

And I have since made 22 variations of it, having adapted it to suit me and even turned it into a dress.

Here’s a few examples in case you’ve forgotten.

This was the first one.

Made it a little longer.

Turned it into a dress.

made it with short sleeves.

And a short sleeved dress.

I’ve most certainly had good milage from that pattern.

After making the first two long sleeved tops, I can’t quite believe what I did next. I made a bloody coat! Where the hell did I get the idea that I could make a coat? Oh yeah, I can do sleeves now… Luckily for me I spoke to the lovely Michelle in Merchant and Mills about the Strand coat and she gave me the idea to make it in boiled wool. You don’t need to do facings, hems or finish the seams as it doesn’t fray. This made it a whole lot easier. Don’t be fooled though it still had its challenges. I learnt how to do tailors tacks and pockets, I love the pockets on this coat and am particularly proud of them.

The lovely Strand coat pattern.

Tailor tacks

Pocket.

A beautiful wearable coat, made by ME!

I think for me the coat has been a major highlight and achievement. I sort of peaked early on in the year.

The next thing I made of which I’m very proud was an apron, I love this apron so much. Makes me happy every time I wear it. Which is a lot.

Particularly happy with the curves on it.

There we are…

I shortened jeans for the first time, which also made me very happy.

From this…

To this.

I discovered I don’t like working with jersey when its more complicated than a simple rectangle top, but do love the finished product.

A top made with a jersey viscose concoction. Nearly killed my love of sewing!

I met some very lovely sewing peeps at La La Rookh.

Of course it looks a little different now after the name change.

Anna on the right and Lexie on the left.

I also met up with the lovely Ruth from poppyinstitches.

I went on holiday to Barcelona for ten days and wore something I made every day.

Holiday wardrobe, full of my handmade goodies.

I bought some new patterns, of which I’ve only tried the Merchant and Mills Top 64 so far. And hated it. Think I made it well just hate the top.

New patterns.

Ugly thing!

I then decided I was finally ready to have another go at the M&M Trapeze dress pattern. And promptly made three…

In cotton canvas, bit different but I love it.

Then in denim. Again love this, have worn it quite a lot already.

In party dress form. Sorry for the bad lighting.

And then came the Trapeze top…

Loving it, yes I am. And there will be more…

And that was actually my last make of 2015.

But I don’t want to forget that I did appliqué for the first time too.

And thats about it. I’ve been quite lucky in that most of my sewing projects have been a success this year. I just hope it will continue into the New Year. I got lots of lovely sewing goodies for Christmas so have many new projects to try. Fingers crossed all goes according to plan!

My blogging might slow down a bit in the new year as I tackle new things that might take me a little longer to complete. I wish I had the nerve to stop and take pics as I sew, so I could blog about the different processes of a make, but I’m either in the zone and forget to stop or I don’t want to jinx it by blogging about it too soon. But we’ll see.

And to anybody that reads my little blog, thanks for reading &

A HAPPY NEW YEAR and love and best wishes for 2016 XXX

Well Christmas is upon us, but I just want to share what I’ve made in the last few weeks. Haven’t been terribly prolific as the usual Christmassy stuff gets in the way, but since I started sewing two and a half years ago I don’t think i’ve made anything in December before. So this has been quite productive for me.

This will just be a quick post to show what I’ve made and hopefully later I’ll get round to blogging the makes properly.

First up, a cushion for my Dad’s Birthday.

First time I’ve done appliqué, quite pleased with it but now know I’d do a couple of things differently. Dad liked it.

Next up is a Trapeze top, in the same fabric as the cushion. I thought it was quite appropriate for Christmas and the winter season.

So thats it for now.

I bid you all a very Merry Christmas and a Happy Healthy New Year :0)

But its exactly what I wanted and I love it. I used the Trapeze pattern (again), shortened the sleeves a little, but otherwise its the same as the others.  And instead of doing a proper hem on the bottom I just zigzagged the edge. It was going to be a real pain in the arse to do a proper hem with the fabric I was using, which was a beautiful black crepe from fabric godmother.co.uk.

Could possibly get away with being shorter, but maybe next year I’ll shorten it.

The fabric turned out to be really nice to sew with, I was pleasantly surprised. My main problem with it is that the facing at the neckline shows through from the underneath. Not a major concern but bugs me a little. Otherwise a lovely stress free make.

PART II

The length was really bothering me. I finished this dress 2 weeks ago and blogged about it pretty much soon after (but hadn’t yet posted it). I mulled over it for a week and finally decided to cut off 1.5 inches. And now its fabulous, in my eyes anyway. Its probably still a little boring in some peoples eyes but its a great backdrop for a statement necklace.

I would like some more of this fabric and would like to try the sleeveless version. Maybe next year…

Love the way its hanging here. The fabric has a lovely weight to it which makes the dress hang beautifully.

Without necklace…

With long necklace…

With vintage beads…

Haven’t yet decided which necklace to wear. Probably make that decision two minutes before going out the door!

I think I like it better without tights.

I apologise once again for the quality of the pictures. Black is really hard to photograph well. Also I’m afraid most of the pics were taken in the evening and the ones that weren’t were taken on a really gloomy day. It really does look better in person.