The Kelly Moss mash up skirt

This skirt has been a long time in the making!  Back in 2013 the Kelly Skirt pattern by Megan Nielson was one of the first sewing patterns I bought.  I had seen a lot of versions of this skirt on the web and loved all of them.  The fabric is a lovely rich navy blue corduroy (the photos don't really do the colour justice) bought from Coventry Indoor Market.  This is what the skirt looked like when I first made it:

The original Kelly Skirt

 Nice huh? However....

I made the skirt without incident.  I liked the way it looked flat, and I even liked the way it looked on, sort of.  I just didn't feel comfortable wearing it.  Such a shame!  I think it might have been something to do with the amount of fabric it used, or the way the pleats fell, but I felt like I was wearing a bell!  It probably didn't help that the fabric I used was quite heavy, without much drape.

I tried playing around with the proportions to remove some of the excess fabric.  I tried reducing the size of the pleats, taking in the side seams, taking wedges out of the waistband, but the shape of the skirt really didn't work if you took the extra fabric away, so eventually my poor Kelly skirt was left to languish on the UFO pile.  

In the end the thought occurred to me that I could remake the skirt completely using the Moss skirt pattern, so out came the seam ripper.  I cut the back skirt panels pretty much as the Moss skirts pieces, although I kept the old hemline.   I also cut a yoke and sewed up according to the Moss instructions.  

I didn't cut much off the front pieces as I didn't want to lose the pockets and I needed a bit of ease to prevent the buttons straining.  I couldn't keep the deep inverted box pleats at the front though because the poofiness just wasn't working for me.  Instead I folded out a couple of inches either side of the buttonband and sewed it down.  

I kept a small pleat on each side, near the pocket to add interest and keep some of the spirit of the original design, but the front of the skirt is fairly flat which I think is more flattering on my body type.

Here's what the skirt looks like flat now, compared to the original Kelly Skirt:

Original Kelly Skirt                                               Kelly/Moss mash up skirt

I didn't take as much care with the insides as I have with other skirts.  I wasn't prepared to invest the time since I wasn't sure whether the skirt would end up wearable, so the pockets are just pinked and I cheated flat felling the back seams - I trimmed the seams, zigzag stitched them together and then sewed them down flat with a parallel line of straight stitch.  It may fray a little but it's sufficient.   I tried doing the same to the side seams but it was distorting the hang of the skirt so I ripped it out and bound them instead as they would have frayed badly otherwise.  I hummed and hawed a bit about the hem as I wanted to increase the length from what it had been on the Kelly Skirt.   A double turned hem would not have worked due to all the folded out excess creating bulk, so I bound the bottom edge and turned up once.  

I love the way the buttons and buttonband look.   I don't have any other button up skirts in my wardrobe and it's nice to have a change from the flyfront design.

It's not perfect.  There's definitely something not quite right about the side seams from the point where the pockets end, and the finishing inside is less than perfect, but I think it's eminently more wearable now.  This is a silhouette that I am going with a lot at the moment (as evidenced by my MMM'15 pictures!) but I think that's ok.  It's tricky to branch out when you sew for yourself as you don't always know whether that 'new shape' is going to suit you until you've already invested a lot of hours into making it, and then it's pretty discouraging to find that it doesn't look how you hoped.  Quite different from shopping trips when you can try on a stack of clothes and still leave without buying a thing.  I'm getting better at understanding what styles work for me, and how to fit to my shape - just what sewing should be about!

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!

Denim Moss Jean Skirt

Yes, it's another denim Moss Skirt, and yes, I'm still working my way through the same length of stretch denim bought from Coventry market (in fact I still have enough left to make a pair of Maritime Shorts for the summer - hooray!), but I did make some changes to make this skirt distinctly different from my last denim Moss (blogged here).

I was going for that 'authentic' jean skirt look so I left off the hem band, lengthened the skirt piece by 4 and a half inches (which is about the width of the hemband and used golden brown topstitching thread to double stitch all the flat felled seams and I'm really pleased with how it turned out.

I wanted back pockets this time so I looked out the pattern piece from the Maritime Shorts pattern which worked perfectly.  I had to guess when it came to placement, and I might have sewn them a little too wide apart, but I'm pretty happy with them all the same.

Clearly should have ironed it before taking these photos!  Anyway, I'm glad to have iphone sized pockets on this one.  

I used a 6 inch metal YKK zip for the fly, bought from Hobbycraft.  The buttonhole was a total nightmare!! No matter how many practice buttonholes I did I could NOT get it to work on the garment itself.  Typical!  I think it probably had something to do with the thickness of the denim and the seam allowances on the waistband, but boy, I had a fight on my hands even to achieve this half decent buttonhole, and even then I had to touch it up by hand with a needle and thread.  As usual I used a contrast fabric (I think this is a poly cotton) for the pockets and bound all the visible seams with bias binding.  I made a huge error (HUGE!) on the waistband.  After being so careful to make sure I attached it the right way up this time, I realised I had cut out, interfaced and sewn on the wrong fabric for the facing. The wrong fabric!!  And it really clashed!  How did I not notice?  I considered leaving it, but in the end I unpicked it all and cut out another waistband facing in the fabric that matched the pocket bags.  So glad I did!  

The hem was another almost disaster. On my first attempt I cut the bottom of the skirt to an inch longer than I wanted the final length and turned up twice to make a small, half inch hem, which I then double topstitched to match the flatfelled seams.  It wasn't till I tried the skirt on (thinking it finished) that I realised that the denim had completely stretched out, leaving the skirt with a fluted hem that stuck out from the rest of the skirt.  Gutted!  I wasn't immediately sure how to fix it, or if I could fix it at all now that the fabric was stretched, but in the end I took my husband's advice to to unpick it and try ironing it back into shape.  A good steam did seem to help in shrinking it back, but on the second attempt I took a different approach.

To stop the fabric stretching out again I interfaced the bottom inch and a half of the fabric.  I also bound the raw edge so that I could single fold a slightly wider hem without losing any of the length.  I basted this time on a long stitch before topstitching and that seemed to work a lot better.   I gave it all a final blast with the iron and now it's pretty straight.  Phew!   I will be more careful when i comes to sewing hems on stretch fabric in future!

I think I can definitely now call the Moss Skirt my first TNT pattern (tried and true, meaning I have the fit requirements worked out and can depend upon the finished garment to come out well).  It's just such a wearable style and I'm really glad to have this skirt finished in time for Me Made May '15.  I know it's going to be in regular rotation!

As a bonus here are the outtakes featuring my little helper.   A camera on timer is an irresistible draw!

Make like Maria

I am a great believer in thrifty sewing!  That might be by necessity rather than by choice, but I can never pass up free fabric.  After years now of being wife to first a theology student, then curate, then vicar (all the same person in case that wasn't obvious!) I have learnt a lot about frugal living.   Even now, whilst I love sewing, I couldn't allocate myself a big budget for it.  Afterall, it's not as if I'd be out buying myself clothes all the time if I wasn't making them myself.

So, on to a bit of fabric repurposing Sound of Music style, and of course, it's another Moss skirt.  The fabric is from an IKEA curtain.   I bought these curtains about 6 years ago and, being super long as is always the case with IKEA curtains, I had a fair bit of yardage left over as offcuts.  I've used this material for all sorts of things, including William's bed tidy.  Since then I've shortened the curtain (more offcuts) and now have retired them completely (yet more surplus fabric) so I still have lots left for other projects.  I think the fabric is possibly cotton twill, although I'm just guessing really.  It's medium weight with a diagonal weave on the right side.  The colour is an odd slightly greenish blue, almost petrol blue but not quite.  This means it doesn't go with everything like my denim Moss, and I have to be careful what I wear it with or I end up looking like a clown!

Construction was straight forward again, except for a couple of stupid errors on my part!  I managed to sew the waistband facing on upside down and didn't realise until after I had graded all the seams and trimmed and turned the corners, etc!  Doh!  However, rather than unpick it all and cut a new facing I decided to just force it and iron it into submission!  There are just some points in a sewing project when unpicking would break the spirit!  Anyway, it seemed to do the trick and now the error isn't noticeable at all - phew!

I used a lovely floral cotton for the hem band facing and pockets.  This is doubly special as it came from an unfinished sewing project that my mum passed on to me.  I briefly considered finishing the skirt she had started, but decided I probably wouldn't wear it as was and would get more pleasure out of it by using it to make the inside of my Moss skirt beautiful instead.

I bound all the seams again with bias binding.  I'm working my way through a stash of vintage bindings bought on ebay.  I love the way this looks, and the skirt will last longer without any raw edges to fray.

I altered the sizing a little from my last version.  I now have a complex mix of sizes that seems to work for me.  I graded the front pieces from a 14 waist to a 12 hip, with a 16 length.  The back pieces I cut as a 15 (!) with a 16 length.  In the end I did unpick the side seams up to the hip and sew them with a smaller seam allowance as, due to the lack of stretch in the fabric, I felt I needed a little more width in the skirt.  I think next time I may cut a 12 or 14 length when adding a hem band just to reduce the length slightly.

So, all in all this one will be another workhorse in my everyday wardrobe.  Hooray for the mummy uniform!

Oh, and as a little blog bonus here are some photos of my husband mocking me for my blog photo posing...

I think he just wanted to get onto the blog!

On my sewing table...

I have projects to share but photography is holding me up at the moment, so in the meantime I thought I'd give a taste of what's on my sewing table.

The Easter holidays were great - I loved having the kids at home, and we had a fantastic week away at Spring Harvest too - but school holidays do not lend themselves to productive sewing!  Consequently I sent the children back to school this week and promptly set to with all the plans that have been stewing in my mind over the last few weeks.   I have had a big PDF sticking and fabric cutting session (not to mentioning seam ripping for my refashion) and now have the following projects on the go...

1)  Brindille & Twig free hoodie pattern.  I saw this on pattern on 'So Zo....What do you know?' and immediately headed to the Brindille & Twig blog to download it.  Zoe has made an adorable version for her daughter, and I could immediate envisage a whole range of hoodies I could make for Jacob.  For my first attempt I am reclaiming some double-sided microfleece from a huge Uniqlo zip up jacket that I wore whilst pregnant but am never likely to wear again.  I haven't yet decided whether to go with the beige or the dark brown, or even to mix the two.  It took some creative cutting to get all the pieces out of the available material, and I've had to do a bit of redesigning of the hood.

2)  Another Moss skirt!  I really can't get enough of these.  I have been wearing the two that I have made (one of which is yet to be blogged) almost back to back and I just love them.  This will be another denim version, but I plan to leave off the hem band, lengthen the main skirt pieces and, if I'm brave enough, topstitch in tan thread to mimic RTW denim skirts.

3)  Kelly skirt refashion.  A long while ago I made a Kelly skirt out of navy corduroy but never got around to blogging it.  I love the look of the Kelly skirt and all of the many versions I have seen around the net, and I was determined to get the pattern and make it up.   However.... I've had to admit that it just doesn't work for me. :-(  After making my version I wore it for a while, but although I loved the shape of it, the fabric and the button up front, my feeling about it overall was almost inexplicably just '...meh'.  I'm coming to the conclusion that skirts with a high, straight waistband are just not for me.  So, I have ripped it all apart and hope to use the panels to make up a new skirt using - you guessed it - the Moss skirt pattern as a guide.   This will mean cutting a new (curved) waistband and a yoke.  I'm still undecided over whether to leave in any of pleats.  It will probably be a case of trial and error with plenty of basting and seam ripping involved!

So, that should give me a fair bit to be getting on with.  What are your sewing plans?

Sewing distractions: Year of the Frozen birthday cake!

I have been sewing, just not getting around to taking photos of anything to put on the blog!  I've made another Moss skirt for myself, and a couple of dresses for Emily, but chances are I won't manage to blog about them until after the Easter holidays now.  Also, there have been distractions! Our darling daughter's birthday fell at the end of March and, of course, a Frozen party was requested!  This caused a bit of head scratching as other friends within the group had already had birthdays through the year and had already had Frozen parties.  What could we do that was any different?!  Thankfully we managed to talk her into a cinema trip with friends to see Cinderella (including the Frozen Fever short!), followed by birthday tea (with a surprise visit from Elsa herself!).  

However, we couldn't very well get away without making the requisite 'Frozen birthday cake', and I was quite keen to give it a bash, although whilst I enjoy baking I don't have any great skill in it, and probably a lot less in cake decoration!  It was a stressful process, with many a late night icing session, and a least one point where all appeared lost.  But despite everything, and much to my own surprise, the cake was a success!   

I think it looks good, but since it's basically just a glorified platform on which to stand some (plastic) Frozen figures it really wasn't that complicated. I baked three sponge cakes, one in a round springform tin and the other in silicon 'giant cupcake' moulds. I covered the round sponge with a layer of buttercream and the two colours of fondant icing.  I hacked at the 'cupcake' sponges until I was happy that I had a 'mountain' shape, although this was immediately and henceforth referred to as 'the molehill' by my husband.  The 'mountain' was also covered with buttercream first, but then spread thickly with royal icing which I tried to swirl around in a snow-like fashion!  It really did just look like a molehill as it was with Elsa standing on the top.  Either that or, as my husband pointed out, it looked like she was perching on an eyeless, noseless Olof head.  Great!  I had intended to make some blue 'ice shards' out of sugar glass to top it, but after one attempt that went badly wrong (think murky green solidified goo) I changed tack and made this curved backdrop out of scraps of blue fondant.  

I used blue shimmer dust on the snowflakes, lettering and backdrop with varying success, but didn't really get to grips with it very well.  Even so, this is definitely the best looking cake I think I've ever made, and I'm so relieved to have crossed 'Frozen birthday cake' off my to do list!   Emily loved it and the bonus is she gets to keep the figures.   Phew!

Other sewing distractions have been through end of term school activities, not least preparation of the obligatory Easter bonnets.  I managed to shoe horn a bit of sewing into making them this year.   One involved 'sewing' chocolate eggs onto wool to string around the rim of a Tilley hat Aussie fashion (in place of corks!).  The other involved an afternoon making felt flowers with my daughter, followed by an evening of continually pricking my fingers whilst trying to sew them all onto last year's straw hat.

We pretty much made this up as we went along and it was a lot of fun.   It was nice to make something a bit more long-lasting that can now be added to the dressing up box.  Needless to say the other hat was not so long-lasting and lost all of its eggs before the day was out.  I guess that's bound to happen when you sew with chocolate!

Indigo skirt and a Yellow Brick Road

Well, I finally made a denim skirt!  This is the Moss Mini from Grainline, although I made it up in the not-so-mini version with the hemband.  It's a fly-fronted, slightly A-line skirt with pockets and a back yoke, and it's fab!  The instructions are extremely clear which seems to be the case with all of Jen's patterns.

You will see a lot of this skirt, either if you read the blog or if you know me in real life, as I could happily wear it every day (and have done, virtually, since I made it!).  It fits my lifestyle perfectly!  I've had this denim for a couple of years, bought from the stall in Coventry indoor market.  It's a lovely deep indigo, although I imagine it will fade a fair bit over time.  Despite being a stretch denim it's still quite a stiff fabric, but that works well with the shape of this skirt.

I took a lot of care with the seam finishing so it looks nice on the inside (for a change!).  I flat felled the yoke and front/back centre seams, and bound everything else with bias binding.  I used this IKEA botanical print fabric for the pockets and waistband/hemband facings and I love the contrast.  It also meant I probably used less than a metre of the denim.  Yay!  I have enough left to make another!  

Overall I love this pattern.  It sits lower on the waist than the Miette or Kelly skirts, neither of which I got on with terribly well, and it's nice that the length is variable.  If anything I could probably have done with making it a little smaller - I always err on the side of caution when it comes to sizing.   Also, I think I would add more interfacing to the waistband next time, but otherwise I am very happy with it.  The only problem is finding something else to wear so I don't wear it everyday!

The cardi is also a recent make.  This is the Yellow Brick Road cardi by Ela Torrente, found on Ravelry.  l made it in a bid to replace another beloved yellow cardi (shop bought not handmade) that a friend gave me, but which I stupidly left in a park.  I was gutted, although also secretly pleased to have an excuse to knit a yellow cardi (after all, how many yellow cardigans does one girl need?!).  

It knit up fairly quickly and was exactly the style and shape I was after.  The expanding arrows patterns was very straight forward, and the sleeves have an interesting pleat design which curves them forward slightly as if you've pushed them up at the front.  I went for a shorter length than the pattern stipulates, and also a looser fit, again to try and match my inspiration garment.  The only difficulty I had was with the button bands which I did over and over again and which still have a tendency to twist inwards.  Not enough to make me want to do them again though, and I'm hoping that I might be able to sort this out if I block it a second time.

I love this pattern and I've already cast on again to make another in navy blue.  It's very comfortable to wear and the colour goes with practically anything.  Gotta love a yellow cardi!

Home sweet home!

Well, we're back, and after two and a half weeks away I think the kids and I were ready to be home (not so the hubby - he'd live on the beach if he could!).

I had a couple of parcels waiting for me when I got back....

Gotta love getting fabric in the post!!  I made a couple of purchases before going on holiday - two from Favourite Fabrics ebay shop, and the other from a private ebay seller.  It could have been a disaster as the postman in his wisdom decided to leave the packages around the back of the house between the wheelie bins (and didn't leave any note to say he'd done so!).  I had a little panic when I spotted them, but thankfully they were both well wrapped in waterproof packaging (one of them only on the inside so the postman couldn't have known this!) so they survived two weeks sitting in the damp without mishap!

I love the funky jungle print with it's wintery colours (check me out planning ahead!).  I'm thinking I might make it into a Ginger Skirt unless I have any other ideas in the meantime.  The grey twill is a little lighter than I'd hoped, but might become a Moss [not-so] Mini.  The white is a couple of meters of viscose jersey I spotted on an auction listing.  I bought it to make a Pavlova Top to go with my [as-yet-unblogged] Miette Skirt, although I'm going to have a practice go with some (hopefully) less slippery jersey first.  I picked up the fabric below in a charity shop.  It's still a pretty fine jersey but I won't be so worried if I screw it up.  There was a big rust or paint stain in the middle of it, but I managed to work around it in the pattern placement.

I downloaded the pdf and stuck it all together (I love the immediacy, but the assembly is a drag!).  I really wasn't sure which size to cut out on this one.  I'm fairly petite around my top half but thought I'd play it safe and start with the larger size.  I can always go a size smaller for the next attempt.  I had to cut the fabric out on the kitchen floor but it doesn't look too shabby.  I'm yet to work out how to put it together, but I've got a couple of evenings coming up to work on it whilst Jon has meetings - yay! Sewing nights! 

I've also made up my Mathilde Blouse muslin finally.  I think I've been putting it off coz I'm scared of it!  I have a few fitting adjustments to make.  The neckline is too high against my throat for some reason.  I'm going to try and drop it by lengthening the shoulders as I don't want to have to mess with the neckline and facings.  I'm taking a little of the width out of the back shoulders, dropping the bust darts (perhaps a nursing bra issue - too much information?!)  and grading the side seams to be a little wider at the hips.  I've also got major sway back issues so I've got to try and figure out how to take some fabric out where it's pooling at the back without messing up the buttonhole placket.  Hmmm.....might be a bit out of my depth already!  

So, it looks like I'm back into the swing of things post-holiday.  You can tell because the sewing machine and selected accessories are firmly back in place in the middle of the kitchen table!

I'm so desperate for a little sewing area I can call my own!  I'm working on it and have my sights set on our bureau, currently in use as kid's artwork storage unit, but look -

aarrggghhh!  Definitely the worst corner of the house!  I've got a ton of planning, organising and moving to do before this dream becomes a reality!

I've still got Miette and Sorbetto pics to take and post, but I think that's going to have to wait till next week when school starts up again.  Looking after three kids in holiday mode does not leave much time for prancing around taking pictures of myself in handmade clothes!