Rainbow striped Dotty dress

It doesn't get much brighter than this does it! Its making things like this that genuinely just bring joy to my life and show me why I love to sew. This gorgeous little dress was on my make nine this year, and so in keeping with Children's week on The Great British Sewing Bee it was the perfect time to sew it up. Its also been an amazingly sunny week here in the UK for Feb so what better time to add even more sunshine to your day. Read on for more gorgeous pics of this dress, pattern details and a list of current rainbow jersey stockists... 

A plethora of jersey basics

Hi there, its been almost a month since I blogged but the truth of it is I have been on a bit of a slow sew of late. Life has been getting increasingly hectic and the pressures of keeping up with everything have been getting on top of me a bit. Sewing I often find is a pleasant release from all this, its a great way to clear my head of all the clutter, but sometimes it can feel like its just another thing stressing me out. Because of this I have been forcing myself to take a bit of time out when my head feels like it needs it rather than trying to force through that ever growing to sew list.

Halloween LBD - A Ghoulish Georgia dress

Happy Halloween! and hello on my most favourite of all the holidays. I absolutely love how year on year the UK seems to get more and more into Halloween and we are seeing so much more participation. We have a long way to go to complete with the likes of the US but I like the way this is heading. I'm even happier to be bringing you a halloween themed post.

I have been a bit slack this year and haven't managed to make the kids costumes, mostly because he wanted to be batman, and sadly I had to work on the day we could have gone to a toddler party. I also haven't managed to get out anywhere in fancy dress myself because, well, its a Wednesday BOO! 

Kwik Sew 4041 - Coral striped slouched raglan top

Isn't this fabric beautiful :) I love the huge coral stripes and I think it lends itself really well to this lovely draped top.

I have switched my focus of personal sewing now from maternity on to postpartum so the next few posts from me will 100% have breastfeeding in mind. From my experience last time, and from talking to fellow breastfeeding mums I have been advised that using the one up one down method of clothing is by far the best for feeding. This basically means wearing a  vest top to cover your tummy with a baggier top over the top which you can lift up to feed. I love this idea for so many reasons: 1. You can wear regular clothes (with the exception of nursing bras) 2. Nursing clothing can be really overpriced for what it is and 3. I always really hated putting a cloth over Master Fox's head, it felt so rude, and this method is discreet enough to not need to do this.

So anyway, on to the make itself. The fabric is a gorgeous lightweight polyester jersey from Guthrie and Ghani. I am a little annoyed at myself because whilst I followed the pattern guidelines for the amount of fabric (which I only just pulled off) I didn't have anywhere near enough to match the stripes across the raglan sleeves. It looks ok thankfully but it would have been nice to have them running across the top properly.

The pattern is Kwik Sew 4041 which I bought from Sew Essential (the lovely ladies that helped me choose my sewing machine). This pattern is so ridiculously easy! The whole thing was made in one evening and the results are brilliant. Its a lovely loose fitting top with a very wide neckline.

The pattern actually has a regular sleeve which is just turned under and stitched with a twin needle like the hem but sadly as mentioned above I was struggling to get the whole top cut out of the amount of fabric I had. I decided the best thing to get around this would be to cut the sleeves short and then add a folded cuff to the bottom cut from some of the leftover smaller sections of fabric. This worked brilliantly and I love the finish of it. It makes it feel a bit more sweat top like which I don't mind one bit.

I made the top up in a size medium (I am usually a small) without doing any measurements because I wanted to make sure it would go over my postpartum tummy and still be nice and drapey. I think in hindsight, given as the pattern is supposed to be baggy, I could probably have got away with a small. It is a bit like a tent but it is wearable and will fit the desired purpose, even if I just end up slobbing at home in it.

Its a real shame I can't 'model' this for you, but it just looks a bit silly over my rather large growing bump. The hang of the top really doesn't work with that obstruction! I'll be sure to stick a picture up on instagram once I get around to wearing it.

I found time to make a whole dress!

 

Woo Hoo! I got my sew on! So, as I wrote about in the last couple of posts, I decided to bite the bullet and instead of waiting for all the maternity weight to drop off I jumped in and made a dress which fits my current size. Why did I do it? simply put its because the weight is not shifting as fast as I would like and I'm fed up of having nothing to wear that I fit into! Too small for maternity and too big for my regular wardrobe. I wanted something a bit nicer to wear that wasn't a pair of leggings and an oversized cardi for a change.

As part of my recent fabric splurge I bought this very cheap striped cotton sateen from ebay (it was like £3.50 a meter or something stupid) so thought sod it, at that price it doesn't matter if I don't get that much wear out of it. 

The dress is a hack of the top part of Cynthia Rowley 1873 (which was free from a magazine) and the skirt from the belladone dress by Deer and Doe. I didn't like the skirt that was part of the Cynthia Rowley pattern but because of the stripes I needed something with a pleat rather than a circle skirt to keep them straight. The belladone skirt pattern worked perfectly. I had to do a bit of playing with the darts and pleats to get them to sit in line with the bodice but I'm really pleased with how they came out. It also includes a cheeky pocket which I love (even if it does accentuate the hip).

I REALLY tried with this dress to get the stripes to match across all pieces, which I wasn't far off, but I could hear May Martin in my head the whole time I was doing this telling me that it's a shame that they are slightly off. The perfectionist in me really wanted to pull the thing apart and re-sew the seam a fraction of an inch to get them perfect. Thankfully the realist in me took over and made me realise that it had already taken me three weeks to do about four hours of sewing so it just wasn't a sensible idea. I think for the meantime I just have to accept that having something wearable is the end goal, not something which is a thing of perfection. Also, sleepless nights are not very conducive to perfect sewing!  

 

I have learnt a bit about fitting to my new post pregnancy shape as well. Needless to say, my bust has grown, and so has my waist. So taking these measurements (and the finished bust size on the pattern) I cut out my new size, which graded from a 12 in the bust to a 14 in the waist (this scares my pre-size 6 waisted self) and stitched it up without any bust adjustment as it didn't imply I needed any with this new bigger size. Well, turns out, just because my bust and waist are bigger, it doesn't mean my back has grown, turns out my back and shoulders are pretty much the same as they were before. Next time I need to do a bust adjustment and grade from a smaller size in the back and shoulders to a bigger size at the bottom. The result of this is that the neck and shoulder lines are a bit baggy, but that's nothing a good cardigan (which I never don't wear anyway) won't hide. Thankfully the bust darts are sitting ok on this.

So despite the things that bug me about this dress, there are a few things I am really proud of. Firstly, I did my first bit of topstitching to make the facing stay to the inside. That stuff actually works! Who knew, and it was very neat. I am really pleased with the movement of the pleats and darts to get them to line up, the side seams aren't perfect, but they are pretty darn close, and finally, the pockets. I love that these babies are done with a different fabric, it just takes away from the dominant stripe a bit. You can probably guess I did this on purpose because the thought of trying to match the stripe across the pocket as well just made my brain hurt, but I do like the outcome. The fabric was some of the free polka dot cotton which came free with the first issue of the new Simply Sewing Mag. Thankfully I still have enough left to make the headband pattern from the insert.

 

So in the end I have made myself a cute little dress which I can wear out and about, despite a few flaws and problems along the way. I hope you like it and can forgive me my little sewing faux pahs, at the end of the day, I have decided I don't care ;) 

Jersey Baby Trousers

Introducing... Master Fox. This handsome little man really has changed my whole world but he is totally worth it. So to celebrate his arrival my first make of 2015 is this dapper little pair of Jersey trousers which I made from an old tshirt.

Baby's end up with lots of legless body baby grows, which are great, but in winter you need to keep those chubby little legs warm. However you don't get multipacks of trousers like you do babygrows and as any parent knows you need a million pairs of everything due to the amount of washing a baby generates!

To get the pattern for these trousers I just drew round a folded pair he already owned and added a seem allowance. I then cut the pieces from an old tshirt and whipped them together on the overlocker. They really were incredibly easy to make. I mad these as a prototype before cutting up some nicer fabric so I will do a quick tutorial for you when I make up the next pair. 

I hope you like this quick little make, and the picture of our new little cutie. He was a little bit jaundice at birth so he looks super tanned in this piccie. He is all fine now though :) I can't wait to think up all the other little things to make for the monkey. Watch this space! 

DIY Custom Baby Grow Series: Fabric Printing Part 2

Here's what I am sure you have all been waiting for! Part 2 of my DIY custom baby grow series where I am looking at fabric printing.

In the last post we looked at how to stamp patterns on to baby grows using mostly rubbers and shapes cut out of rubbers (the white and yellow versions above). Today I am going to show you how I made the lovely green and blue striped version.

This baby grow started life as a plain white sleepsuit as part of a supermarket multipack. I started off by dying a few of them green using a packet of dye and then printed the pattern on the top. I have been specifically instructed by Mr Fox that one of these sleepsuits has to stay plain green so he can have hulk baby (boys!).

How to make it:

You will need:

• Plain white baby grow
• Dylon fabric dye (I used the small packet as I only dyed 3 small suits but you can use the machine version if you wanted to dye more)/ 
• Fabric paint
• Masking tape
• Old clean sponge

Start off by carefully masking off areas of the onesie which you don't want to dye, you might want to mask off the neckline so you don't get dye on it by mistake. You will end up painting the area between the masking tape strips so you can make these as wide or as thin as you like. If you are using a button down onesie like me make sure you get your stripes across matching and you will need to undo it to get all the way to the edge of the button band.

Once you have done this get your sponge, dip it in your fabric paint and dab it onto the onesie between the masking tape. Make sure you get a good coverage and go all the way to the edges of the tape.

Once the paint has dried fully you can remove the strips of tape and seal the fabric paint as per the instructions on the packet. 

As you can see from the picture above I only did stripes on the front body, and a bit down the legs. I had intended to do the whole lot, if you want to do this make sure you allow the body to dry before masking the arms or turning to do the back so that you don't smudge your lovely perfect lines. I actually decided the stripes on the body were striking enough that I didn't need to do any more.

I am really pleased with this one as well. I thought while it was drying it was going to look a bit naff, but actually its really cool. I can definitely see our little boy in this.

I hope you enjoyed these two little posts on jazzing up some store bought plain baby grows. I hope you do give this a go, or that it inspires you to create some designs of your very own. Again I would love to see them so please leave me a link below, or just email me a piccie. Bear in mind as well these techniques can be applied to any item of clothing; t-shirts, pants, hats etc you name it. It would be a great rainy day activity for little kids as well. Let your creativity run wild.

Completed Norman

I actually knitted a whole jumper!

That might not sound too amazing to a lot of you, but I have actually never started and finished a jumper knitting project yet (and there are a lot on the half done pile!) so I am feeling very proud of myself right now.

Not too proud though, I started this jumper 9 months before my nephews 2nd birthday as part of his birthday gift. He is now 2 years and 11 months and I completed it this week! Oops! Safe to say its not going to fit him now, but at least I know I will have a little boy who will grow into it. I will just need to find a new knitting project for my nephew.

The pattern is from 'Just Baby' by Rowan and is called Norton, I'm not 100% sure I didn't pick this pattern because the child is so cute! I loved the colours though so knitted it in the exact same wool as the pattern. Its very boyish but still not dull and too babyish.

The pattern was really easy to follow and not actually too arduous to knit, I just put it down and didn't pick it back up again. I have got half a mind to knit it in a smaller size and some different colours now, but I think I should give some other baby patterns a go. I do like a baby knit though, they come together really quickly and I really think I have picked up a bit of the knitting bug now.

I really like the button panel on the front of this jumper. It was probably the most awkward part to knit up but it gives a nice little detail to the front and will make taking it on and off the little man really easy. 

Keep your eyes peeled for what will come next....

Do you have any really good baby knitting patterns you like to know? I would love to hear your recommendations.

A Quickie Striped Lady Skater

Happy Friday once again, it's also my sisters birthday today so HAPPY BIRTHDAY! I am looking forward to seeing her later and also to eating some of the spectacular food that she always puts on. My lovely car, Electra, is having her MOT today so here's hoping she does well. In other good news it looks like we have sorted the kitchen so we just need to confirm the quote and get it booked in... exciting stuff.

I have a quickie sew to show you this week. I made up a super speedy version of the Lady Skater dress last weekend. Honestly I whipped this up in a few hours that's how easy this pattern is. I went for a plain black jersey for the skirt and some white and black stripe for the top section because I really like the contrast.

About the Dress:
Pattern: Lady Skater by Kitschy Koo
Size: 3
Fabric: Black and a White and Black Stripe Jersey bought from Derby Marketplace
Alterations: Took 1.5 inches from the bottom of the skirt. Re-drafted the neck slightly so its slightly lower and a bit more square.

To make the neck adjustment I took a store bought jersey top which I like the neckline of, folded it in half and re-drafted around this on to the pattern piece. I didn't take much off so didn't adjust the length of the next band. It does gather a bit at the front so in hindsight it probably would have been a good idea to add half an inch or so just to accommodate this.

I had a much better go with the elastic this time. I used my walking foot which stopped the issue with the stretching that I had on the last version. I did still have a little bit of stretch on the front body but not too much to stress about. I have been wearing it all day today without the belt coverup. The overlocker really shines with this pattern its just so simple and quick, but would be just as easy using a zig zag stitch on a sewing machine. I also managed the twin needle hem in one easy motion and this is only the 3rd attempt at one so I am very happy at how that turned out.

I am very pleased with this little version, it feels very spring like, I just wish we would get more of the sunshine and less of the showers (though the garden likes it).

Do you have any plans for a version of this dress? I have a lace version going on in my head at the moment so it probably won't be long until you see that one as well.

Victory! for AVA

I am proud to present.... my Black and White Ava Peplum:

Thankfully we had a lovely sunny January Sunday over here and while Mr Fox was slaving away at his dissertation on the laptop downstairs I thought I would use the time to finish off my black and white Ava peplum. It also meant I got to take some piccies indoors. This is my very first make of 2014 and has taken a little while due to me working a lot of overtime to try and pay for Christmas. I think this is 'officially' the start to my sewing blog, and my attempt at making myself a wardrobe and so I wanted to make sure I took the time over it. Not to mention make sure it is 'sewn for my style' as I have previously been posting about.

The main fabric is a black and white striped poplin and the top a black spotted tulle. I really like the two together, and especially like the black and white look with my in your face hair! I am however most pleased with the binding. I was dreading this, and was convinced I would end up with a wonky neck line or something but it went really well (smug face!) I was going for 'chic office attire' when I thought about making the peplum version.

About the pattern: AVA by Victory Pattern

You get a tissue pattern, and a little booklet explaining the construction of this dress. It comes in three lengths: Peplum, Knee, and Tea dress. Although I had to re-read a few of the steps over until they made sense this was a very simple pattern to follow. This might be down to my in-experience, but i see that as a positive thing as if I can get it, as a relatively new pattern follower, then anyone can.The only really tricky bit about this pattern is sewing the upper and lower bodice pieces at the sweat heart neckline. I really don't have any good tips for this other than practice, mine if far from perfect.

(sorry about the boob shot, but I wanted to show you the neckline)

Alterations: As previously mentioned I lengthened the body by about 5cm to have it sit a bit nearer my natural waist. I also extended the darts on the back bodice piece by a couple of cm as I do have quiet a small back. I also took in the side seams by about a presser foots width. I think my previous comments about learning to do an FBA might also help this pattern as it gapes a little bit under the arms, which I think would be solved by some side bust darts. But its not so bad that I can't live with it.

I am really pleased with this top over all. I am not sure if the stripes are not too busy, and I think this would be much better in something that has a better drape than a poplin. But hopefully this will make it into my summer work wardrobe.

The plan all along has been to make the knee length version of this dress and so I have purchased some black fabric which hangs a lot better. And so I will get going on this shortly whilst I await the start of the Georgia sew-along. 

Ava Update: Tests, and pattern redrafting

This project is making me feel a little bit like goldilocks. I have made up two muslins for this top so far and neither have been quiet right. But on a positive note, I have picked out my fabric which is a lovely spotty black net for the top portion and some black and white striped cotton poplin for the bottom.

I made the first muslin following the pattern and it turned out, as others found with similar issues to mine, to sit a little but high in the waist and just made me look all boob, without accentuating my natural waist line.

So I did a bit of searching and found a version made by bubala where she describes extending the body by 10 cm to get over the problems I mention above. Her version is stunning wouldn't you agree? I also found that the back was a little bit loose at the top so following some advice from the version made my Shona I extended the length of the darts on the back bodice piece and this seemed to work very well. The problem with this version is that the body length was now a little bit too long.

So I have resided that I am just going to extend by half, 5cm and that should (fingers crossed) be juuuust right. (Can you tell I really like Shona's version as my fabric choice is very similar to hers!)

So I have just redrafted the bodice pieces ready for the final version. I am not sure how other people go about this, but I decided to hack the pattern piece in half on the 'line' for shortening/lengthening, and then taped it down on to my cutting board to make sure that I was getting the same extension across the piece. I then lay my tracing paper down on top (does anyone else just use greaseproof? I am so cheap I know!) secured it with some tape and traced round the pattern again. The good thing about this pattern is the edges are straight so you can easily use a ruler to line up the pieces between the gaps.

Something I found with this pattern was that I got really worried the back was going to be huge when I was testing it to fit. However once you have sewn the upper bodice pieces on the fit changes considerably and you loose all that horrible bagginess. I have also discovered that one thing I really need to learn is how to make an FBA (fuller bust adjustment). I think this is something I am going to come across a lot, so I really should learn how to do it properly.

By Hand London are doing a sewalong for their Georgia dress and as part of this will be looking at doing a FBA for it. I might give this a go to see how I get on. I wondered why I had not seen this dress before, but I think the likelyhood is that I probably dismissed it due to the cups on the bodice. 1 thing at a time though, lets get AVA done first!

Knitted Fingerless Gloves for Mummy

My mum put on her Christmas list that she would like a pair of knitted gloves for Christmas so I really want to knit them myself because it was the perfect stash buster idea, and so meant think could be an inexpensive 'extra' gift for her to open on Christmas morning.

I started off using my favourite go-to fingerless glove pattern: Cherry Red Handwarmers by Creative Yarn

I love this pattern, it can be made up in almost any wool and because they are open lacework (which is a really simple repeat) they are flattering, an easy fit, and very quick to make. However on this occasion I tried them on a friend with normal sized hands and she thought they were a little bit on the small side.

So I searched for another pattern using 3.25 double pointed needles (the only set I have) and Aran weight yarn to stash bust some Kid classic that I have. I found this pattern: Optimistic Mitt Pattern by For Makers Sake. They are a little longer than I wanted to so made a few alterations to the pattern. I knitted just 10 repeats of the bottom rib, and 6 for the top. I also added the stripe pattern and omitted the cuff button. I am really pleased with how these came out, and were my first attempt at a thumb hole and so I am very proud of myself. They do feel a little big on my hands, but not too uncomfortably, and I do have children's midget hands so hopefully they will have a good fit on a normal person.

I really hope she likes them! I am off to wrap them up ready for tomorrow, and the bonus, I get to keep the grey pair!

I am now going to chill out with Mr Fox, so I wish you all a wonderfully Merry Christmas.