A map with pockets leads to Carolyn Pyjamas.

Where else would it lead?

Not so very long ago Closet Case Files launched the Carolyn Pyjamas, in honour of one of my favourite bloggers, Carolyn, who made some fabulous pyjamas from her namesake pattern.

Their launch was perfectly timed to coincide with my non-religious version of sewing Lent. I'd sworn that I wouldn't be accumulating any more patterns or fabrics until I'd used a fair chunk of the ones that I already have. I'd even started to divulge myself of some of my fabric stash by exchanging it for a promise of shared images of the end projects.

But this pattern has pockets!

POCKETS!!

And if there's a way to my little sewist's heart, I suspect it could be through pockets, for that pattern launched itself into my Downloads file and out of my printer so fast that you'd think it was cash.

This of course led to the conundrum of "What do I make it from?" now that my fabric collection had shrunken. As luck would have it, I had a piece of op-shopped rayon in what is now "The Remains Of The Stash".

And guess what?

It was covered in a print of little Caribbean maps. Yes, maps! More maps!!

<Here we go again.>

So I give you several pocketfuls of Caribbean Carolyn Pyjamas.

The pattern goes together so quickly and easily, and with some careful consideration you can actually squeeze them out of less fabric than recommended. It turned out that barely 2 metres of 1.10m wide fabric left me a little short for cuffs, so I picked up some contrasting plain rayon from Spotlight and that seems to have done the trick.

The pants pockets are made from some cotton in the rag bin.

Even adding the piping wasn't as much of a hassle as I'd always thought; although I did skip putting it down the front facings, and stopped at the edges of the collar.

The pockets are a style that I've never made before, cut in one piece. Apparently this is quite common for Closet Case Files patterns, and it flows together quite nicely. I did lengthen her (already generous) pockets by about an inch, only because you can never have enough pocket. Well...also partly because my hands are rather large and I want to be able to slouch with my hands fully in my pockets.

A quick rifle through my button collection turned up some perfectly sized and toned pink buttons that I probably wouldn't have looked at twice otherwise. They're from a jar of buttons I picked up from an op-shop years ago for just a few dollars. The ladies who ran the shop used to cut the buttons off non-saleable items and sell them in jars. The faux fly turned out to be the perfect place to keep the spares for future losses.

Another nifty thing that I tried out on these is an elastic band tip that Lladybird Lauren blogged a few months ago. Now, I didn't stitch it in exactly as per the instructions; I stitched the casing rather than the elastic, but it was a much faster approach for getting everything together.

I believe that I can credit this pattern with breaking my sewing-drought. Will I be using it again? Absolutely! I've got a smooth old pair of golden-coloured sheets that are too worn in the middle to use on the bed anymore, but have oodles of fabric for making a full length pair (a la Celia-style recycling). And they're thousand thread count cotton sateen - you just can't turn that into cleaning rags.


At one stage I had intended to give these to a friend as a present. But she doesn't seem to be keen to come and collect them, and its been a month, so until she does...

What's that? You're still alive??

Time flies, it appears, when you're busy being busy. I didn't mean to leave it a year and a half between updates. I just...I was doing an Engineering degree. And I lost my camera. I mean, I still made stuff (stuff that I no longer fit into because, as it happens, I was also busy increasing my girth).

Anyway, at some point across that missing 18-odd months, HandmadebyCarolyn made an amazing skirt from some world map fabric that was passing through Spotlight. She used one of her favourite patterns: Vogue's V1247, and adapted the skirt pattern to cut the map all in one piece. She did a brilliant job, which I shamelessly ripped off (I promise I'm not a stalker).

Then last week I was delighted to discover that despite the fact that I'm now a little more Joan Harris is shape, it still did up! That's right. I could wear it, and I did. I'm afraid my self-portraits end up a lot more like this, than like anyone else's beautifully snapped images, so I may go back to the bit where I leave me out of it and just take pictures of the garments to share.

This was a bit of a throw together job, so the pocket was made using some white cotton something-or-other from the rag bin, and the skirt was hemmed using a bit of orange biased binding that I'd picked up god-knows-where.

All in all, I'd like to make another one, when I'm slightly less rotund and likely to do this to the back seam:

and the back fastening do this:

Next time, I think I might iron on a little interfacing to help stabilise that particular seam. To be fair, I was stitching right on the edge of the fabric, and it isn't the most ...it's inclined to fray, but it could still do with some help. 

All in all, I'm rather happy with this skirt. I'd never have glanced twice at this pattern had Carolyn not done so many incarnations of it. It turns out that it's a great base pattern to play with; and it also turns out that the placement of those pockets is totally worth ripping off for other patterns. 

So, there may well be more pocketed skirts in the future...and hopefully more posts, now that I have a relatively organised home and life from which to make things.

Getting There...

Oh, semesters. How they impinge on the creative process. I've done very little sewing for the past month. Mostly just assignments. And following sewing blogs.

Yet, somehow I've managed to stumble across a new source of patterns and I wonder if anyone has tried Style Arc patterns (assuming anyone ever looks at this blog apart from me). If nothing else, there's a fantastic jumpsuit pattern on there, and a pretty neat Tuxedo Jacket pattern (although, I have one in a Burda magazine that I want to try out first).

Right. Until after November 18th, sew well, sew happy. xo

Hanging On By A Thread

Good Morning!

Uni started back a few days before my last post, and somehow nearly two months have flown past in a whirl of study balance with work and spring-time illness. I haven't given up on sewing though.

All the blogs that I love to sew lean heavily towards making dresses (particularly Dolly Clackett's. Oh, howI love her creations. And Oh! The shoe envy!!). But I have a wardrobe full of dresses that are too lovely to part with but that I rarely wear. I'm really a pants wearing kinda gal. So my latest project is working towards making some Giant Bug Kwiksew Dungarees...which we call Overalls in Australia...out of some duck cloth that I found in Spotlight the other day. It has GIANT BUGS all over it. They are brilliant and awesome. However I am doing a practice run on some cheap, garish blue plaid suiting that I picked up for a few dollars a metre for just these kind of things. It's the kind of fabric that screams Private School Uniform, although at time of purchase I had an image of Dr Who floating around in my head. I don't know why!

There are no photos to share of the Giant Bugs at this moment, but I'll add them in later. I'm trying to be a good girl and not spend money on fabric (that I don't have time to sew) while I have an ever-growing stack of bills on the fridge. September seems to have been designated Annual Bill Overload Month.

I can however update on two earlier planned projects:

Project 1: The Practice Dress is currently still a disaster. I need to completely unpick it and then recut it. Or turf it altogether (which would be a shame, given the fabric is so lovely). Although I've gained a bunch of weight in the past few weeks, so maybe the looseness is not so loose anymore. Sigh. I've never loved unpicking things.

Project 2: The Perfectly Pleated Manequim Blouse is stalled due to a wee translational issue. That being that I missed the point that the pattern is about 3 sizes smaller than will fit me. The result of a cross between my blind enthusiasm and lack of attention when reading pattern sizings in Brazilian.
So I need the time to make serious adjustments, and more butter paper. Curious Kiwi pointed me towards Jackson's in Fremantle for Butter Paper which is brilliant for tracing patterns, but I ran out after tracing off my Elisalex pattern. So I'm contemplating buying an industrial length roll of tracing paper and installing it into one of my bookshelves on a little curtain rod.

Alright. I just wanted to do a quick update for the whole month of September (slim as those pickings may be). I'm desperately keen to make a Robson Coat after seeing Curious Kiwi's purple model, but I'm hanging out for Spotlight to have one of their ridiculous sales on Vogue patterns to see if I can get my hands on V8884 for a fraction of the price instead. I'll probably fold and get a Cambie and a Robson in one hit, but the logic saves my bank account for a bit.

In the mean time, Happy Sewing!
xo

Completed: Elisalex #'s 1 & 2

Well. I've been on a bit of a procrastinatory bent sewing purge this week. My impulse purchase made it from bolt to machine in record time, AND I busted my stash for one of my planned Elisalexes. I LOVE THIS PATTERN. No wonder everyone's been making 500 versions of it. The fit is immaculate, and even if I'm a shitty photographer and look like a total looming squint-machine, I feel fabulous in them. I also think I look pretty good in the mirror. If only I was like Garbo, and transformed into a magically gorgeous being before the camera lens, but alas, it is not so.

Goldilex:

Goldilex is the result of giving into the shiny pretty fabric buying impulse last week. Turns out that metallic fabric is almost as difficult to sew as slippery silk! Because of the way the little hearts were woven in, I turned the pattern 90˚ and cut across the grain, so that the hearts would sit upright and flow around the body. Matching up the little lines is not one of my strongest suites, but I think I did ok.

And look - Cowboy print pockets!

I apologise for my terrible photography. But I do love the shiny, pretty! Partly because it is (a) shiny and pretty, and partly because anything (a) makes me think of (b) a Jimmy Neutron episode where Jimmy's brains get totally fried and he says "Shiny. Me like shiny." And besides that, I feel like the femme fatale from a Bond movie (and I always did think they had the most fun of anyone, death be damned).

The bodice fit was beautiful, and easy as to achieve. Hemming the skirt was less so; but damn it was long! Not a problem I often encounter (in all my 6'2"ness). This particular fabric frays like hell, so I having carefully lined the skirt up with the selvage I was want to trim it up to reach the desired length. In the end, I kind of rolled it, and stitched it in place every two inches, which preserves the gold-foil effect somewhat. I'll probably only wear it a handful of times, so what the hell! I also adapted a pocket from one of my New Look patterns, and stitched it into the side seams with a couple of little furfies. 1) I really should sit it down the hip a little, and 2) I stitched the pocket onto the side seam at 5/8" instead of 3/8". Stumbling across Charlotte's fabulous pocket sewing tutorial lead me to think about all the things I'd done wrong and correct for the next version...da-da-daaah! 

Adriaan-alex:

Having tested on the Elisalex pattern fit with my shiny pretty slipper fabric, it was time to crack out the Starry, Starry Night fabric from Spoonflower. I bought this fabric to make something that I could remember my friend Adriaan by. Adriaan was a blacksmith, and a complex and wonderful friend whom I've known for 13 years. Last year, he took his own life after a long battle with depression, and his family chose Don McLean's Vincent (Starry, Starry Night) as the funeral song to reflect his life. 

I apologise for my own goofiness, and somewhat half-heartedly for my pocket obsession. They're Pockets! You're surely aware of how few dresses actually have them. Apparently it's got something to do with not making women's hips look bigger. 

I'm afraid I got a little over enthusiastic and stuffed up the patten matching in the bodice-to-skirt direction. Spoonflower's Cotton Sateen is BEAUTIFUL to sew with, but expensive, so I had to squeeze this dress out of only 2 yards. It was quite a challenge, and I did manage to match the pattern around the bodice, if not skirt-to-bodice. If I were doing this again, I think I'd cut the bodice first and patch the skirt together to work a better flow; and possibly invert the pleats. But then on the other hand, it does become something of an example of the disjointed nature life experiences of mental illness. And in a similarly disjointed segue, I did not stuff up the pockets this time. (Win!)

For future reference, I think I'll not wear it with the thicker belt again. It just makes me look too top-heavy.

Overall, I'm quite in love with By Hand London's patterns. This one goes together so quickly! I suddenly need all of their patterns. And the tutorials are fabulous.  

My name is Liz and I'm an addict

I should be shame-faced about it. I should hide the plastic bags under my bed until such time as I can complete the dreamed of project and show it off. I should bust my stash before adding to it.

But it was shiny and pretty and had little hearts woven all through it. And it was 40% off!!! Not only that, but I can literally see it as a long sleeved Elisalex looking very, very sexy.

What else can a girl to do?

Fi, Fo, Foe, Fum!

For reasons known best to itself, zee blog is having trouble saving and this is about my fifth attempt, but never no mind!

I've just come back from a proper long holiday at Mum & Dad's, where I had meant to finish off Practice Dress 1, possibly an orange gingham shirt (I had gingham envy after I saw this little number and this one), and definitely The Giant Jacket for my Dad.

In reality, I got the huffs with Practice Dress 1 because it was all baggy like a sack even though I've managed to gain weight in the process of making it. So I've slung it across Celia until I can be bothered hemming it and either gaining more weight or unpicking the damned thing and stitching in all that ease. 

So instead, I give you: The Giant Jacket, from KwikSew's K3123.

My Dad is 6'6", you see, and has a life long issue buying clothes that fit him properly. At least, he did after his Mum (that'd be Celia) stopped making things for him. His sister has the same issues, and apart from Long Tall Sally, so do I. So when I rocked up at Spotlight to buy the fabric, the lady behind the counter was all "This is enough o make a dressing gown you know. Is he a giant or something?"

"Yeah. He kinda is."

Not that you can tell from these photos, but check that arm length! I stuffed up the arm extension a little because I forgot that the shoulder seam actually drops down the arm a little, extending the arm length already. The toile (AKA lining, coz I can't bear to throw it away if I can use it ;-) touched his fingers!

 

The buttonholes proved a bit of a challenge, as I hadn't buttonholed before. Naturally I stuffed up the first one, which by dint of poor judgement was the top one! But it's not too noticeable, really. Pocketing it up was a bit of fun too. The welt pockets sit perfectly, hands in place. And I pulled out my handy ol' Reader's Digest Guide to Sewing & Knitting from eons ago for a how-to guide on doing those sneaky inside pockets, as they weren't included in the pattern.

My topstitching went a little skew-whiff in places, but it always does with thicker fabrics. I'll have to work on that.

All in all, this is a really easy pattern to sew, even with extra secret pockets, and I'm fairly pleased with the result. I'm most pleased with my Dad's reaction though. And I might make another one later. We'll see. 

Oh, and I did cut the gingham out...I just need to stitch it together. Maybe next time ;-)

Giant Seamtress, out.