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!

Rags to riches

Or at least trousers to skirt...

So I started my refashion plans with the stretchy purple cords.  They're actually almost burgundy - not vibrant purple as they appear in these photos.  It was a bit of a no brainer to try and make them into a skirt.  I had decided that in the shop, and I must admit that I didn't even try them on as there was no way I was going to wear them as trousers!  Also, I had a baby strapped to my chest, so I just held them up to my waist and decided they'd probably do.  They have a good waistband already, a short zipper, and inset pockets, and most importantly they fit me at the waist so I can keep all that.  

To start with I unpicked the inside leg seams then cut the bottom half of the trouser legs off.

I guessed with the length as I wanted the cut pieces to be almost as long as the skirt to make sure that I ended up with enough spare material to 'fill in the gaps' (technical term!).  I'm quite short, so this worked out fine for me.


I laid the 'skirt' out flat and measured out some triangular pieces to sew into the gaps.  I pinned them in and sewed it up on my machine.





I ended up with this.....

Not bad!  In fact I think I was very lucky that the triangles went in so well - particularly the front.  It could easily have been a fiddly mess!  Beginner's luck I guess!  Anyway I wasn't happy with it yet as I was aiming for more of an A-line shape, and trying it on confirmed that I was right - this shape didn't flatter me AT ALL!


So onto stage 2.  I unpicked the side seams this time up as far as the widest part of my hip.  I folded over my two remaining cut pieces lengthwise and inserted them at an angle until I was happy with the A shape.  Then I pinned them in and sewed them up.



This is what it looks like on the wrong side after sewing.  I'd love to say that my seams are neater now but that's not true. I don't have an overlocker so I tried using my overlocking foot on the sewing machine, only to find that I'd cut the seam allowances too short so that the foot kept sticking or slipping off.  That meant that I had to pull the fabric through which caused the stretchy fabric to ripple.  Eventually I gave up and left my seams 'au naturel'!

Here's the skirt before hemming:

I used my overlocker foot again (this time more successfully!) to finish the edges and first tacked then hand sewed the hem.

And TA DAAHHH!!  An A-line skirt that I am VERY happy with!  I'm sure it could have been executed better, and certainly tidier, but I love the shape, and the material is so soft that it's a joy to wear.  I can see this becoming a wardrobe staple, at least until I lose weight or it falls apart!  It could do with a lining (to cover up those unsightly raw edges!) but I don't have any lining fabric at the moment.  I shall make a mental note to keep my eye out for something suitable on my next charity shopping outing!

S'all for charidee mate!

I spent the evening browsing sewing blogs yesterday and was inspired both by MMM'13 (Me Made May - in which sewists wear only/mainly/some of the clothes they have made throughout May) and Miss P's The Refashioners (a challenge issued to a number of sewists/bloggers to refashion a charity shop garment sent to them by Miss P).  Those folk have created some seriously lovely items by hacking up old clothes - I'm loving the make do and mend vibe!

I have been known to source my sewing fabrics from charity shops before (such as the bed sheet/duvet set I used to make Emily's Tee Pee) and this gave me the itch to get browsing again.  So, without delay I  dragged hubby off to have a mooch about Earlsdon high street.  Actually it didn't take too much dragging as he's partial to a bit of charity shop browsing himself, although he's generally on the lookout for books and records rather than fabric!  The double bonus was that we got to have not one but two cafe stop offs - made necessary by the demands of a rather hungry breastfed baby!  I have to just pause here to give a shout out to Loaf in Earlsdon, Coventry - an artisan bakery and fine tea shop - such a delightful and friendly place with a fabulous 1940's theme, bone china teacups and scrumptious cakes!  I'd def recommend it!!

So, back to the shopping, I spent about £13 and bought...

...a size 18 linen mix brown patterned M&S skirt, a pair of Anne Brooks Petite stretchy purple needle cord trousers, a men's Red Herring tiny floral print shirt with front pleats, and a pair of jeggings!

So, if you're interested to know what they will become then watch this space...

Who sews Su's clothes....?

Further on from my last post, The Great British Sewing Bee has given me a nudge, not just to get sewing again, but to try my hand at making clothes.  So, I've finally ordered some patterns - how exciting!!

Since this is my first attempt at clothing I'm going to take it slowly, and I'm sure I'll make lots of mistakes!  I have been reading through Tilly's Learn to Sew course on Tilly and the Buttons which is just brilliant, and full of lots of useful information on using patterns and constructing clothes.  Particularly useful was the post on How to select your sewing pattern size which I was reading before I received my Sew Liberated Esme Top pattern, only to discover that the pattern doesn't list any measurements!  Since I have no idea what size I am post baby, and had heard that the pattern comes up large, I got out my tape measure and worked it all out using Tilly's instructions on calculating seam allowance and allowing for ease, etc.  I'm glad I did too, as I will now be making a top 2 sizes smaller than the one I would have picked going on dress sizes!  I hope I've got it right!

Tilly's own pattern - the Mathilde Blouse - comes as a printable download, so I've been having fun fitting it all together.  It's a bit like a giant jigsaw with the 'can-you-guess-what-it-is-yet' factor!

I couldn't resist buying the Vogue pattern [V1799] as well after seeing Karen's version on Did you make that?  It's very like a dress I bought a while ago that I love.  It's very flattering even on 'fat' days!  I had actually been considering drawing round it to try and replicate it, but this should be safer!  I won't be making it for a while though as it's not really compatible with breastfeeding and also I'd like to lose some baby weight before I start attempting dresses.

Having acquired some patterns it followed that I'd also need to do some fabric shopping - what a shame!  Unlike many members of the sewing blog community I have no stash-guilt, as I'm yet to develop much of a stash!  How I long to join in with stash-busting sewalongs and stash swaps!  It does mean though that I am totally justified in making a few purchases! :-)  I have restricted myself to fairly inexpensive fabrics for now as I don't know whether these first few garments are going to be disastrous, in which case I will have to chalk them up to 'experience' and consign them back to the sewing pile never to be worn!  I bought a tiny floral polycotton for the Esme top, and a red and white floral cotton lawn for the Mathilde blouse (which is actually really soft and lovely and which I am a bit afraid of ruining, but hey ho!).  I'm still humming and hawing over which top to start with.  I expect I'll go for the MB as Tilly's instructions are so comprehensive that I expect I'll learn some new techniques/terminology/etc that will come in handy with the Esme too.

All in all I'm excited by the challenge and raring to get going, but as of this moment I have yet to put scissors to fabric or thread to machine!  Come on free evenings, where are you when I need you?!

It's a boy!

He's here!  Actually he's been here a while now - 10 weeks.  It's taken that long for me to find the time to update the blog!  He was nearly two weeks overdue, and weighed a very healthy 10lbs 4oz (ouch!).  He's lovely, and we're all enjoying having him join our family.

Of course, in the weeks following his arrival I had no time at all to do any making.  I put my knitting needles and crochet needles down at the end of February and I haven't picked them up again yet.  So, no progress on the woolly projects.  I'd already abandoned my sewing machine back in January, and I hadn't even been keeping up with the other blogs I read, so I didn't think I'd have much to show for myself on returning to the blog, but.....

Then I watched the Great British Sewing Bee - hooray!  The show was just what I needed to reboot my creative drive and get me thinking about future projects.  I really enjoyed watching the contestants (including Tilly from over at Tilly and the Buttons - surprise!) working through the challenges.  I really liked Lauren's style (if in doubt, flower it out!) but Anne certainly deserved to win.  She's 81 and has been sewing nearly every day for 75 years!  I guess there's no substitute for experience.

So, whilst watching the 'Bee and feeding the boy I browsed the online fabric shops and purchased these beauties from Frumble:

Aren't they lovely?  On delivery of said items I immediately felt the need to sew.  I'm restricted to post-bedtimes at the moment (at least until junior gives in and starts sleeping in  the day!) so I needed some quick and easy projects to get me going.  Also I only bought fat quarters so whatever it was would have to be small.

The Young Whales fabric really lent itself to the wet bag I've been meaning to make for ages.  I used a tutorial I found over at A Lemon Squeezy Home, only I modified it a little by sewing french seams (a la Handmade Jane's wash bag tutorial) instead of making an inner and outer bag.  The main reason I did this was to avoid too much direct contact with the shower curtain material.  It's horrible to work with and I developed a  loathing for it whilst making sponge bags over Christmas.  Next time I will shell out for some decent quality waterproof material instead of trying to net a bargain at IKEA!

I made my wet bag long and thin so that I could fit a fair amount into it but without using up my whole fat quarter.  I also split the strap and added a giant popper so that I can hang it from the buggy if need be.  Overall I'm pretty happy with it.

It's a lot neater and more professional looking than my wash bags - mainly thanks to the gorgeous fabric!  The only problem is, now that I've made it I don't really want to ruin it by putting soiled reusable nappies into it!  I guess I'll just keep it handy for damp clothing instead.


Next up - Kerchief-style dribble bibs!  I've coveted these in the past when I've seen them on other people's children or in fancy shops, but never got around to buying any for mine.  Well it just happens that, being a thumb-sucker, Jacob is quite a dribbly baby making it a well-timed project!  First off I made a practice bib using fabric from an old, stained babygro that I was going to chuck out.  I took the dimensions from this tutorial at Love Me Sew and followed the same basic process.

Once I was happy that my practice bib (does this count as a wearable toile?!!) fit ok I ran up a couple more.

Such a satisfying little make - I can easily run one up within an hour now that I've got the hang of it, and they'd make great presents, so I expect there'll be more of these to come!  And boy, are they cute...!

All together now..."Ahhhh!"

Still waiting, still knitting...

Life is almost on pause at the moment waiting for the little one to arrive.  I will officially be 40 weeks tomorrow, so hoping he/she won't be much longer.  Not much to report as a result.  I am working away on my various knitting projects, but the downside to knitting is that things take so much longer to produce, consequently I have no photos of beautiful finished articles to post yet!

I am loving the Honey Cowl pattern.  It knits up beautifully and is simple enough to be a 'take anywhere' kind of project.  I even think it will make the cut and join the contents of my hospital bag when the time comes!

So, keep checking back.  Normal service will resume shortly!

Hooks and needles!

Wow - the urge to create has really gotten a hold of me at the moment - I can only put it down to the impulse of all those creative hormones flooding around my body at the moment, combined with the need to conserve energy by mooching around the house.  

I now have no less than 4 active projects on hooks and needles, and I stress the word 'active' as opposed to my usual trick of starting something, getting a bit bored and abandoning it to the excitement of starting something new!

I picked up this yarn yesterday and cast on to make the Honey Cowl I have been seeing on so many blogs lately.  The pattern is really simple, knit in the round on circular needles, and hopefully won't take too long to knit up.  Great for cold February days!

I can't quite describe the  colour of this yarn.  It's a Sirdar Click wool and acrylic mix - nothing too fancy for my first attempt, but it's nice and soft and hopefully won't be too itchy.  It was also on offer for £2 a ball!  The colour could be grey, but has accents of blue, green, and red or pink, or possibly brown, so the overall effect changes with the light.  It's a bit like oil on a puddle, or the North Sea under a British sky!  It will be my mirage cowl! 

I have replenished my yarn supplies to continue working on my ripple blanket, although the perfectionist in me is tempting me to frog it and start again now that I know I made such a significant error interpreting the instructions!  I shall have to see which wins out - my OCD leanings or my or my reluctance to start over!

I've made some progress with the dress for Baby Bjorn.  I've customised it a fair bit as the bodice was a little too tight to slide on over the dolls legs.  I added in a few rows of double crochet (English!) whilst joining the sides - of course I had run out of pink yarn by then so had to go with stripes!  For the same reason I decided not to join the straps on to the back of the bodice (it made the neck hole too narrow to pull on over the legs) and instead lengthened them slightly and added buttonholes.  I also wanted to add some scallops to the straps to make them look a little more finished and to cover up Baby Bjorn's rather chunky shoulders!  Unfortunately I wasn't concentrating and managed to complete both sets of scallops beautifully before realising I had the dress inside out!  Doh!  So I shall have to unpick them and do it again.

And finally....

I have cast on to make another February Lady Sweater - an awesome cardigan pattern with a terrible name!  This is another free pattern made available through Ravelry.  It's the only large item of clothing I have ever attempted knitting for myself, and it was really successful (shock!).  I wear it all the time, so much so that it's already starting to go bobbly.

I tried to take some photos of the detail, but my lighting wasn't great and it was really hard to reproduce the colour - it definitely looks best in the sunshine above!  The yoke is knit in garter stitch, then the arms and body continue in a gull lace pattern.  It's lovely and goes with everything!

Admittedly, this make might take me a while.  I blush to admit that this first one took me a year and five months to complete (eek!).  Not that I was working on it constantly.  A sudden fear gripped me three-quarters of the way through that it wouldn't fit, and I completely stalled, putting it away for months.  Thankfully I did finally dig it out and make the final push to get it done.  Then came the moment of truth, and - VICTORY, Hoorah!

So, I now have several projects on the go with enough variety to keep my hands and brain busy as I sit and wait for the baby to arrive.  39 weeks today - won't be long now!

Can you guess what it is yet?

Poor neglected sewing machine! It has been sat on this chair in a forlorn manner for nearly a month now, with nothing but a shepherd (painted by a 3yr old) for company.  I feel very sorry for it, but am resigned to the fact that I'm unlikely to use it now until after the baby's born.  

I have been resorting to more crochet instead!  My ripple blanket is coming along - although I realised I had made a HUGE error whilst using my Ravelry pattern!  I had forgotten that many Ravelry users are from across the pond, and consequently use American crochet terms, which look the same as English crochet terms BUT ARE DIFFERENT!!!  You say tom-ay-to, I say tom-ar-to?  In this case a dc or double crochet in American terms does not mean an English double crochet, but a treble crochet.  Doh!  I should have had a better look at the picture first and I might have noticed that something didn't quite add up!!  As it is my blanket still looks lovely, but it is probably a lot more dense and less soft than it would have been if I'd followed the instructions correctly!  It may just end up being a 'rolling around on the floor' type blanket instead of a 'wrap me up so I'm nice and cosy' type blanket.  Nevermind - I'll know for next time, and because I've started I'm going to blinking well persevere!! 

For those who may be at risk of making the same mistake I did, here is a chart comparing American and English crochet terms that I lifted from About.com:

British vs American English Crochet Patterns
British English	USA - American English
double crochet (dc)	single crochet (sc)
half treble (htr)	half double crochet (hdc)
treble (tr)	double crochet (dc)
double treble (dtr)	treble (tr)
triple treble (trtr)	double treble (dtr)
miss	skip
tension	gauge
yarn over hook (yoh)	yarn over (yo)

Hope it helps!

Anyway, the ripple blanket is currently on hold as I ran out of yarn yesterday - double doh! - and need to take a trip to Hobbycraft to get some more.  I've been trying to go with more neutral colours for this one as we don't know whether we're having a girl or a boy (and my granny square blanket did have a distinctly girly feel to it!!) so I went with purple, green and cream.  That meant I was still left with my remaining pink and yellow yarn (also from the granny square blanket), so I decided to make use of this on a smaller project until I can get to the shop for more supplies.  

Can you guess what it is yet?

Despite looking alarmingly like a toilet roll cover, this is in fact going to be a baby doll dress for Emily's new Baby Bjorn.  It's another Ravelry pattern (Delightfully Pink Baby Doll Dress by Anna Ness) and yes, I did work out that it uses American crochet terms - yay!  I'm loving the fact that crochet projects come along so quickly (soooo satisfying!) and also that they are so portable.  I've been taking my crochet everywhere with me lately, and it's such a conversation starter!  What with that and being nearly 9 months pregnant I've been talking to all manner of folk recently!  All good fun.

My favourite ever make!

Here's another long one folks!  Time to blog about my favourite ever make!  

I blogged before about changing the children's rooms about ready to make room for the new baby (who's nearly here!).  Emily and the baby will share what was our spare room.  Now, I don't know about you, but we've never put much effort into spare rooms.  In an ideal world it would be lovely to have a beautifully organised and 'finished' space to invite relatives and friends to stay in, but in reality our spare room is always a dumping ground with a bed in it!  I did recently invest in some new duvet covers, as our others spares were generally 80s cast offs passed on from parents, but that's been about it.  Of course, a child's bedroom is another matter - we wanted that to be cosy and pretty and inviting - particularly so that Emily would not be upset about the move!  We are a clergy family as I have said before, so we live in a house owned by the church and are consequently loath to spend a lot of money on alterations when we're unlikely to be here for long.  We had to concede to buying a new carpet, as the bare floorboards were not cosy and tended to amplify the patter of tiny feet throughout the whole house, but we were not keen to repaint the walls.  Which left us a problem with this -  

- the destruction left on the wall (against which Emily's bed would be) where some shelving had previously decided to part company with the wall!  Ugh!  

I guess we could have stuck a poster over the space, but never liking to miss the opportunity of bit of crafting an idea started to form in my head.  I would make a personalised wall hanging - something beautiful that would last and that could be taken with us to the next house (and the next...).  I looked around online for tutorials and ideas, but didn't find anything quite right.  I kind of liked a couple of ideas like this one from Sania Pell's The Homemade Home for Children, which used artificial flower heads, and this one which was inspired by the same book.  However, I wanted to make all the flowers, include a border, and, most importantly, take every opportunity to use my new sewing machine, which in this case meant trying my hand at applique, something I had not done before.  So, armed with scraps, ribbons, buttons and cat templates I started my planning.

The flowers were the easiest place to start.  I perused a couple of tutorials (here and here) first, but also used my initiative.  Then I planned out my scene (cats were an essential feature!):

Next I was back to mitred corners again for the border.  I did this using the same technique that I used to make the tablecloth/picnic blanket for Emily's Tea Set.  It was a little fiddly as I wanted to double layer the polka dot and gingham fabric so that it wasn't too see through, and I only just had enough fabric left to do it.  At least this made the decision about the border size pretty straight forward!

To prepare applique pieces for both the cats and also for lettering I ironed some interface onto my fabric scraps and cut out shapes from my cardboard templates (remembering to place the letters on backwards!).  When it came to sewing them on I was a little naughty - since my interface only had adhesive on one side, and since this was to be a wall hanging  and not clothing (and therefore was unlikely to be washed) I simply glued my pieces in place with pritt stick before sewing around them with a zigzag overedge stitch.  It may have been cheating, but it worked!  It also meant I could use my zigzag foot for the stitching and not my overcasting foot, which is great but doesn't give you much visibility to see where you're stitching.  

Then it was just a case of assembling all the different components.  The flower stems are a variety of ribbon, felt and crocheted yarn, all machine stitched onto the backing.  The leaves were all cut from felt and also machine stitched on.  I attached the front piece to the backing (wrong sides together - pillowcase style!) not forgetting to insert two pieces of dowling - one held at the top with ribbons to allow for hanging, and one at the bottom to weight the piece down.  The only handstitching I did was to attach the flowerheads, buttons and a few interesting insects for extra detail, which I did right at the very end.   

And finally, after about two weeks of working on it on and off, it was done!  And I LOVE IT!

Even more importantly, Emily loves it.  It covers the wall carnage perfectly, and really finishes off her side of the room.  Now I'll just have to make another one for the baby's side!

My work here is done!