MMM '15 - Week 1

My first year of joining Me Made May has started - hooray!  Here's my round up for week 1 - get ready for some terrible selfies! 

Day 1 - Viscose jersey Renfrew, Yellow Brick Road cardigan, denim Moss jean skirt.

Day 2 - Purple Renfrew (unblogged), Sweatshirt Renfrew, Indigo Moss skirt.  

Day 3 - Crazy print Renfrew, FLS Lady Sweater, denim Moss jean skirt. 

Day 4 - Shop bought T-shirt, Yellow Brick Road cardigan, denim Moss jean skirt. 

Day 5 - Purple Renfrew (unblogged), Indigo Moss skirt, shop bought hoodie.

Day 6 - Turquoise Sorbetto (unblogged), Maria Moss skirt, shop bought slouchy jumper.   

Day 7 - Agatha cardi, shop bought stripey T-shirt, Kelly-Moss mash up skirt (ready to be
           blogged!)

Well, I'm sticking to my min. 2 garments a day, but this is turning out to be a little trickier than I had expected.  I definitely need more tops!  I may have to do some emergency sewing to fill that gap.

Happy Me Made May-ing everyone!

Me Made Roundup

Thought I'd better do a quick roundup of my handmade clothes in preparation for Me Made May '15.

6 handmade tops (4 Renfrews including 1 sweatshirt Renfrew, Esme Top, Sorbetto Top)
4 handmade/refashioned skirts (3 Moss Skirts, 1 refashioned jeans skirt)
1 pair handmade shorts (Maritime shorts [unblogged])
1 dress (Coco [unblogged])
3 handknitted cardigans (February Lady Sweater, Agatha, Yellow Brick Road cardigan)

That's the lot, excepting maybe one refashioned skirt that I seem to have misplaced but don't wear very much anyway.  Can I get through a whole month?  I feel a bit short on tops, which is a problem since all my sewing plans are revolving around skirts at the moment.  I might have to squeeze in a couple of quick top projects.  I have an unfinished Scout Tee that has sat on my sewing shelf for a long time.  MMM may give me the push I need to finish it!

We're all going on a summer holiday...

...no more sewing for a week or two!  

Apologies for my blog silence (if anybody's missed me!).  I didn't want you to think I'd dropped off the face of the planet.  I'm finding that school/summer holidays are not conducive to sewing or blogging productivity - no surprise there perhaps!  Having said that, I have actually completed a couple of makes - I made my first Miette skirt in the odd moments I could squeeze in between holiday activities, and I have finally finished my second Sorbetto attempt.  The trouble is I haven't had time to take the photos to blog about them.  

Now on an enforced absence from my sewing machine I am keeping myself going with vicarious sewing satisfaction reading other people's blogs.  Meanwhile I am chomping at the bit to get back and get making!  

I did bring one make with me - I'm trying to finish off my 'Oil on Rainwater' Honey Cowl whilst I'm here with a bit of beach knitting...

...a great activity to do from my comfortable spot on the beach blanket whilst I watch the others doing this...

Suffice to say we are having a lovely break filled with plenty of sun, sea, family, and a bit of this too...

I know the pics make it look glorious, but I have to admit it's actually tipping it down with rain as I type!  Oh well, it's what you have to expect from an English holiday, and overall we've had more sun than we could normally have hoped for.  Until next time...

Back soon!

Coming up...

Well I'm sorry to say I haven't had much time for sewing lately.  Or blogging for that matter.  I'm being kept rather busy by these guys -

They're cute, but they make a lot of mess!  I've been itching to sew but I've had to be sensible and do housework.  Blah!

I have got a couple of things in the pipeline.  I have a couple of charity shop refashions to blog about, including my reworking of this delightfully hideous flouncy dress:

 

I couldn't help but strike a pose!  This dress is no more, and the refashion is complete but we just haven't had the weather for me to get outside and take any after photos.  In fact I've been returning to the comfort of my jeans and hoodies!  

On the sewing front I've finally got as far as cutting out the pieces for my Sew Liberated 'Esme Top' and I'm keen to get stuck in.

I went for a tiny floral pattern inspired by Lauren of the Great British Sewing Bee.  Hopefully it will hide any mistakes I make!  So the Esme Top may turn out to be my first proper garment made from a sewing pattern, unless I knock out a quick Sorbetto in the meantime.  I picked up a remnant of fabric from Coventry Market which might just stretch to a Sorbetto:

I've no idea what it is but I loved the colour and the pattern and it's lovely and soft (although it will probably crease like crazy!).  You can also see the denim fabric I bought to make a Miette skirt, another pattern from Tilly and the Buttons.  I think these fabrics look great together, a fact which may encourage me to sort out my differences with the Sorbetto Top pattern in the near future!  

So, watch this space - I'm hoping to return to sewing and blogging really soon!

Sorbetto Top 2: Adventures in pattern fitting.

So, I've decided to learn how to make my own clothes, and I have a long way to go, but I'm not going to let a little pattern-fitting setback stop me!  

I went back to the Sorbetto Top pattern a second time (getting back on the horse, or whatever analogy might be more appropriate!).  This time I cut up an old bed sheet to practice with the fitting.  I initially thought I would just cut out a smaller size, but here's the thing - even dropping two dress sizes was only going to reduce the shoulder width by about 4mm max.  What is it with this top, or is it just me?  My shoulder width is 34cm, and a size 10 on the Sorbetto measures 40cm!  No wonder I had a problem with it!!   

What I did in the end was reduce the size of the back by cutting 2cm off the inside edge of the back pattern piece, so reducing the width by 4cm overall but between the shoulder blades!  Unorthodox, but I couldn't see any other way of doing it.  The front neckline had fit ok so I just cut the pattern down to a size 10, although this time I included the pleat.

It was better, but still not perfect, and this time I did take pictures:

The back was far better, but look at those armholes - I just seem to have shifted the problem around!  Here's a closer look:

How do I fix this without just adding more darts?  Also, I just have to admit that the straight up-down shape of the Sorbetto is not flattering on me at the moment!  There, I said it! I think I need a little more ease at hip level!  

I resorted to a time honoured course of action - if in doubt, google it!  My search came up trumps and I found this tutorial on the Burda website for adjusting dodgy armholes, and decided to give it a go.  Oh, and guess which pattern she's hacking in the tutorial....

Collette 0003 - otherwise known as the Sorbetto Top!  I feel so much better now!  Here's my little montage of the steps I went through to make the adjustment:

Hmmm....looks a bit odd now, but I decided to withhold judgement until I'd cut it out and made it up.  At least it looks a lot like the one she made in the tutorial.  

So, I cut out another front, put in the darts and sewed it up.  I did find that I needed to redraw the armhole again but other than that it went together pretty well.

And here's the result:

A definite improvement, although I think the bust dart could still do with being a bit lower.  I may try out this tutorial to lower the dart, or else I could use this one to do a Full Bust Adjustment (FBA).  Phew!  I can't believe how much tinkering it is taking to make one simple top fit.  It has made me realise that I will need to make a muslin for any future patterns that I decide to make - a step that I would gladly have skipped but, let's face, I clearly don't have average measurements so no pattern's going to fit as is.  But hey, I guess that's one big advantage in making your own clothes as opposed to buying off the peg.  

I sense I have many more pattern fitting adventures to come before I work out what's right for me!  

Sorbetto Top FAIL!

So, I guess I ought to blog my failures as well as my successes, and boy was this a failure!  How can anybody get the Sorbetto Top wrong you may ask (if you're familiar with the pattern) - it's just two pieces sewn together with two darts for shape.  How hard can it be??  Well....

I had decided to try and make a top from the material recovered from the linen mix M&S skirt I picked up on last week's charity shop spree.  I wasn't sure how this would work, or whether there was quite enough material, but spurred on by my trousers-to-skirt success I thought I'd give it a go.

Not having a stock supply of my own patterns yet I trawled the blogs and decided to try the Collette Sorbetto Top pattern which is available as a free download.


Having duly printed and pasted my pattern together I read the instructions and measurement guide to decide which size to cut out.  The instructions give this suggestion:

FIND YOUR SIZE 

Use the size chart to determine your size.  Colette Patterns have less ease than many other patterns to provide a closer, more tailored fit.  If you are between sizes, choose the larger size. 

Hmmm...... I had been tempted to cut out the 10, but after reading this I decided to play it safe and go for a 12.  This was my first mistake!

When it came to cutting out the pattern pieces I was a little short of fabric for the back, but managed to piece it together with reasonable results.  For the front I omitted the pleat - also to save fabric.  I sewed the pieces up following the instructions.  It was nice and easy - all went well.  Then I tried it on.

It was a sack.

There's nothing more to be said.  I wish I'd taken photos at this point, but I was so horrified that I whipped it straight off, put it back on again inside out and proceeded to fill it with pins in an attempt to make it fit.  

It was huge at the sides, under the arms, and the back gaped - I mean REALLY gaped!  I tried taking it in down the side seams, and I also put two very long darts down the back, but really it was beyond salvaging.   Here are photos taken after all my alterations:

Bleurgh!  Not good.  The fit still isn't great, the front kicks up for no apparent reason, and those back darts look really amateur.  I gave up, knowing that I didn't want to go through the whole palaver of making bias binding to finish off this monstrosity.  Too bad linen-mix-M&S-skirt-top, you will not be joining me on any outings in the near future!

And how did I deal with this disappointment?  Did I rant and rave or throw the offending pattern pieces out the window?  Thankfully no.  I thought it over for 24 hours then decided to try again.  This time I cut up a bedsheet - my first toile!  I figure working out how things fit me is a crucial stage in making clothes, so I'm going to spend a bit of time experimenting.

Stay tuned for the Sorbetto rematch coming soon!