Category: Sewing

Vest for Warmth

Adding an extra layer for warmth.

I am not a warm-blooded person. I’m more a lizard in disguise and since that blue coat that I’ve been dreaming about hasn’t materialized yet, I’ve been wearing my dinosaur coat most winter. Sadly, the weather has been quite miserable and my office is also a cold, cold place. To catch two birds with stone, I decided to make a vest to wear over my clothes and under my coat.

I settled on the fur vest from Model 28 in Simplicity Naaimode 31, also known as view D of Simplicity 8218. I went through my stash and decided that I wanted neutral colours, black and grey maybe? So I pulled a number of options and started putting the pattern pieces on. In the end, I chose a thick grey fabric that had some bits cut out already and a thick black fabric that also had some parts cut out before. I think I inherited these when a friend tried to de-stash.

For the outside, I chose the black and I cut the two fronts, the back and the collar. The grey was the inside and since the collar was a folded one, only two fronts and a back were needed. Since everything is enclosed, I thought that it would even be possible to wear the grey on the outside. To achieve this, I added a little elastic loop to one edge. Then two buttons were positioned, one on the inside and one on the outside to keep the little vest closed. I think the buttons are very cute.

I have worn this thing a lot over the course of the past few months, it’s truly been a warmth saver and makes me so much more comfortable. It’s also slightly more elegant than the oversized bodywarmer that I’d been wearing before. All in all, good project!

Froggy Hat

Frogs perching on lily pads make the best head gear.

I’ve been subscribed to Dot Pebbles a.k.a. Claire Garland’s newsletter for a few years now, and every so often I get a free pattern for a knit animal. These knits are always very life-like and look insanely complicated. I made the polar bear before and while it all worked out, I wasn’t sure it would while knitting it. So I’ve been eyeing the Frog pattern that’s been making the rounds on the internet recently. I thought I had received it a while ago in my free patterns too. Turns out that I indeed had and I really wanted to have a frog…

Since I really wasn’t sure if it was going to work, I tried to get similar yarns to the ones Claire Garland suggests. I got some drops kid-silk in my mailbox and dyed some fingering weight yarn in ‘toad-green’. The body and legs of the frog were going to be toad-green with apple-green kid-silk. It’s belly was undyed yarn with moonshine kid-silk.

Knitting the body is really fast. I only deviated from the pattern once, by skipping the mouth stitches. I couldn’t get them to work and it just looked awful. Once the body was done, I knit the legs and arms on. At that point, I decided that I need him to be posable so I found some armature wire in my stash and added that. When I make the frog again, I’m going to try to use the wire while knitting, instead of when it’s all done. That way, I can probably hide the ends without having to use so many bits of yarn. With the wire in, froggy can do push ups or sit awkwardly instead of just flop down.

So I had a completed frog when my mother sent an invite for her birthday party. The assignment was to wear ‘your best head gear’. I knew I wanted to wear my green Rita-cousin dress, so I wanted to make some sort of hat that would work with that. I also had this frog. 1+1 = 2 and I decided to make a lily-pad fascinator with the frog pinned to the top. The lily pad pattern was based on the left leaf from an image on the internet. I cut it out from the same green fabric as the dress, stretched over some foam. I then added some hair clips to the bottom. The frog was maneuvered into a normal sitting frog and safety-pinned onto the lily pad.

I love this thing. It’s adorable, it doesn’t hurt while wearing it, it’s got a frog, what’s not to like!

Cousin of the Rita Dress

Useless buttons can definitely add some flair to an otherwise plain dress.

For the opening of this academic year, I started work on a new dress. So I scrolled to my ‘dresses’ Pinterest board and found a pin that I really liked (the Rita dress). Since I still can’t actually draw patterns from scratch, I got out all my pattern magazines and looked for one that could approximately match the style lines of the Rita. Eventually I found the vaguely related Simplicity Naaimode 38, model 13 (New Look 6574 C). In contrast to the Rita, 6574 has raglan sleeves, no waistband, no neckline cut out and less skirt. I didn’t really want the longer sleeves of the Rita and I could do without the high collar, so I figured that the New Look could work out well.

Rita, retrieved from https://www.esterinflow.se/store/p/0/dress-rita-petrol-801421 on 29-8-2023

I drew out all the pieces in my size and it just looked.. enormous. The underarms would end under my bra. So I did major surgery on the pattern. I removed around 3.5 cm from the tops of the bodice and sleeve pieces and redrew some armholes. This may have been a little too much, looking back, but it ended up working out decently well. I added the neckline cut out, which turned out a bit bigger than I expected. I used the tops of the skirt pieces to make a waistband. The New Look skirt was discarded in favour of a circle skirt.

On to the making! The bodice was sewn together and there was so much extra fabric in the back and sides. It would probably have been possible to wear a backpack underneath or something. So some additional major surgery occurred. Then I figured out that there was no way I was closing this thing with the center back zipper I had intended. So I performed more surgery on the sides and added the zip in the left side seam. This also allowed me to fit it a little better along those seams, so no harm no foul. Massive pockets were also needed and this skirt can hold a fair amount of stuff. The sleeves, skirt and cut out are hemmed with bias tape in an almost matching green. There is no lining and it’s slightly see through in the skirt, so I may need to wear a petticoat with it.

The final details were self-fabric buttons. One on each side of the collar and 2 x 5 along the front. They really elevate the dress and I love them. Making the buttons is fun, but attaching them certainly is not. What a tedious process that turned out to be. I finished it the day before the event and it was very nice to wear the next day. I added the zebra top because the weather still thought it was October. While the finished product is only a cousin of the Rita dress and not a twin, and I do really like how it turned out.

Massive Pockets Dress

Bright and happy, never mind the flaws.

Who needs a handbag when you can just have massive pockets!

For graduation this year (yes, only 2.5 months out of date), I made another dress. The design for it came about when I was on the fabric market in Rotterdam and found two fabrics in the same pattern but different colourways. I wanted to have this is a skirt that I’d sort of remembered having seen in a pattern magazine at some point. It had godet inserts, which I thought was pretty cool. So I started planning this whole thing, by finding the patterns – Knipmode 11/2020 Model 15 as skirt with Simplicity 55 model 38 (New Look 6447) as top – and figuring out which bit would be which colour. Then I checked my fabric again and I hated it, not heavy enough for this plan.

So into the hoard I went and I emerged with some lovely blue linnen-type fabric and some striped green cotton-y stuff? The striped fabric was quite thin and prone to fraying but it looked so happy together and I’d wanted to make something out of it for so long. I also grabbed some white cotton for a lining because the stripes were going to be too see-through otherwise.

The plan was to do the inserts, the waistband and the sleeves out of the blue, and the skirt and top out of the stripes. Because I’m not the biggest fan of mock ups, I used the lining as a test. I cut out all the patterns from the New Look 6447 dress model and put them together. However, for the life of me, I couldn’t get it to fit. I resorted to my old staple the Garden Party dress pattern, redrew some of the lines and made the top out of that. I did add the sleeves from the New Look dress because I could make it work. For some reason, the skirt was also weird, so I turned it back to front and that helped a lot. Since this was still the lining, it wouldn’t be seen under the outer skirt so it wouldn’t be a problem.

The outer skirt came together pretty easily, since the stripes were on grain it was fairly easy to cut. I did have to serge everything before it frayed apart. For the large pockets, I cut the top of the insert two additional times, one with a hole for my hand and the other as the pocket back. I love these pockets. So many things can be stuffed in there, while still looking like a cool design feature. It’s amazing.

The top and skirt were connected and I basically applied the waistband on afterwards. I’d originally planned a shaped waistband, but that didn’t work out either, so this was it. It’s also nowhere near where the lining waist seam is, because that one ended up too high. It’s magic how much you can fudge things with a little sewing.

On the day itself, it was quite warm, so I regretted that the lining was a thick as it was. I should’ve lined it with a little thinner cotton, but well, that’s too bad. I do really like the design of this dress, and I finished it way in time for the occasion, which was great. Since the weather has been really shit this whole Fall claiming to be Summer (it’s just about rained every day since June), I’ve not actually worn it much since. It doesn’t really lend itself to tights.

Giraffe Version 3

Giraffes are for babies.

Months ago, I had a chat with the colleague who made the Safari Mobile about what she wanted to get for a gift. I showed her some of the stuffed animals from the past and she immediately fell in love with the giraffe (and who wouldn’t!). So I set out to make the giraffe during my holiday in June. She asked for realistic colours so I googled giraffe and set out to find some brown felt. I chose to do his body in the off-white that I had, because none of the other colours would really work. The horns, legs and tail would be brown, with his snout and inner ears white.

As usual, a Choly Knight/Sew Desu Ne pattern comes together really easily. It starts with meditative stitching of the spots and other details. Then sewing the pieces together where all the notches actually line up and then stuffing it to within an inch of its life. Once I had the head and the body both finished, I tried to pin the head on to see where it should go. It was a little lopsided and it looked so cute that I left it that way and sewed it on crooked. Look at his little face! I love him so much and I hope his new family will too.

Safari Animals

Making the little safari themed animals that dangle beneath a mobile.

It’s been a while, but I have been making things every now and again.

My colleague is going on maternity leave soon and she wanted to make a little Safari themed mobile for the crib. She asked me if I could make some safari animals and she would assemble the mobile. So I looked around on the internet and found a lot of options. I was especially inspired by the Puzzle Animals from ‘Felt with love designs‘ but I didn’t really like those specific patterns. So down the pinterest rabbit hole I went. The plan was to create some puzzle animals with two different colours of felt, with one colour being the main outside colour, and other being the middle layer that would appear in some small area(s). In the end, I made a lion, a giraffe, a zebra, an elephant and a rhino.

There was still a large amount of felt in the stash, so I looked around for the colours that seemed most suitable for each animal. The lion was of course yellow, with an orange mane. The giraffe was brown with less bright orange spots on its back. The zebra was white with black stripes. Since I didn’t want to double colours, I had to make some less realistic choices for the elephant and the zebra. The elephant ended up in a darker grey with blue ears, and the rhino was light purple with light grey horns. There was some faffing about with cutting outsides and insides and adhering them together. Then I sewed around the outline for some extra strength. The legs and elephant ears were connected to the bodies with a little extra thread, for security. Those can still be removed if someone wants to play ‘exchange the legs’.

The example mobiles also had some leaves, so I looked around for leaf templates. Luckily there are a lot of those around and I found some cute ones. Some monstera leaves were cut from a light green felt. Some more temperate leaves were cut from dark green felt. All the little green strings you see were there to indicate the midpoint, weight-wise, for the little leaves and critters.

My colleague has since finished the mobile and I hope it’ll bring all of them much joy!

Yellow – Turquoise – Orange

Made some baby gifts from self-dyed yarn and other happy fabric.

Baby gift time again! First up, dyeing. On the last day of 2022, the second dye project was a single skein of Chester Wool DK 115 (Worsted) 50s. It is 100% merino and has 50 grams in a skein for around 100 meters of yarn. Since I still had soft yellow dye stock left from the other dyeing I did that day, I put 20 ml of the stock in my pot. Then I added several resists around the skein and dropped the thing into the pot. When it had simmered for long enough, I took it out and dyed the resists turquoise. I couldn’t resist adding some speckles and chose orange. All in all this meant that the skein turned out extremely bright and cheerful. If you ask me, perfect for a baby.

Since there was going to be a new baby, I set out to make some baby things and settled on these two patterns: Easy Peasy Baby Ball by A la Sascha and Tiny Tot by Kristen Rettig. One is a rectangle hat with tassels or pompoms and the other is a ball. I used up the entire skein in the making of these projects, so no leftovers!

I’ve also had a bit of flannel in the stash with a similar colour scheme. There’s also some additional red and green, but I wouldn’t let that stop me. The flannel was bought to make some poppies, so I set out to do exactly that. I tried to make these somewhat symmetrical with the plaid, so the scale was based on that. There’s some difference between these two poppies, one has a green stripe near the head, the other green. One has larger hands, the other smaller, but they are still very similar.

Both knitting patterns were quick, easy to knit and went smoothly. Of course the hat is way too big for the recipient, but I guess my track record stays intact on that score. The last item for the little baby was a spit scarf. Now with skateboarders, rope jumpers and a terry cloth back. It feels very soft even if the snap is on the wrong edge.

I hope the little one will have a marvelous and colourful life!

Statement Sleeves

When your sleeves are the center of attention.

So when planning the graduation outfit, I actually started with the top. Why did I not tell that story first? Because I didn’t end up wearing it at all. I chose a simpler white blouse to go with in the end. The statement sleeves on this one were just too much with the cape. This top was originally a dress pattern, I just didn’t draw the bottom half of it. The pattern was from Simplicity Naaimode 35 – dress models 11-14. This sleeve is from model 12. The set is also known as Simplicity 8511.

For fabric, I chose some thick, white, almost quilted looking fabric that I got in Utrecht some time ago, for I think 1 or 2 euro per meter. I wasn’t sure what I would do with it, but the price was too good so I left with a lot of it. I absolutely cannot be trusted around cheap fabric, I want to hoard it all. Anyway, I traced and cut the pattern pieces and then started putting the top together. This fabric frayed in a very interesting way, so I pulled out the serger to neaten up the insides. Then I had to fit it. The tops of the sleeves were too high, so it was pulled in along the sleeve seams to a more pleasing fit. When trying to apply what I thought was the neckline facing, it took some tries to discover that it was supposed to be a band, not a facing. Before that realization, I’d already retraced the new neckline and made an actual facing. I like this better anyway.

For the sleeves, the instructions said to add buttonholes and such. I didn’t trust the fabric enough, so I put in some thin round elastic that would fit my buttons. The buttons are fabric buttons made with a button press. It took some tries, but I’ve got some lovely buttons now. They were attached to the sleeve cuffs and the elastic can loop over them nicely. I’ve not actually worn the top out yet. I’m waiting for spring to actually arrive so that my arms don’t freeze. I’m also not entirely sure I’m brave enough for it. I guess time will tell.

Plaid Pants

Some nice, warm, plaid pants.

As a follow up to the previous post about the cape cover, these are the pants worn for graduation in January. I’d been leafing through pattern magazines and found a pants style I really liked in Burda Style 12/2022 model 1. It’s a wide legged pant with a diagonal overlap waistband. The legs have vertical pressed creases. I chose to do a Burda Style pant because it seems like those crotches work much better for me than Simplicity or Knipmode crotches.

As I was using a nice thick black and white plaid fabric for the pants, getting it cut out involved some real head scratching. I wanted to make sure that the plaid lines matched along the side seams and inseam, but also pockets and closure flaps. Since the bit of fabric that I had wasn’t overly large, I ended up cutting on the cross grain. The pattern didn’t come with back pockets, but I substituted some in anyway. Once I had all the pieces cut, I set to sewing. This went fairly smoothly until the instructions for the closure flap. I still don’t know what they actually wanted me to do, but I’ve done something and it closes, so I’m calling it good. It also doesn’t entirely match plaid there, but I’ve done a good enough job so I don’t think it’s super noticeable.

The front pockets are pretty regular. I followed all the normal steps and made sure to match my plaid there for maximum style points. For the back pockets, I followed a tutorial by Sewing Divas for non-sagging pockets. This involves making an extra fold in the side of the pocket closest to the wearer. So far, it seems to work. There are single welt pockets, and they are going over a dart. This means that you’ll see some slight discrepancy in the width of the plaid above and below the welt. This was unavoidable and I tried my best. I still think they came out pretty well.

All the insides are finished with the serger, so no fraying expected. The pockets are nice and deep. The fabric is lovely and soft. The plaid matches where I want it and overall I’m very happy with these pants. Did I figure out after the fact that they look quite similar to my other black/white plaid pants? Yes, I did. Do I care? Also not. They did require a bit of alteration after I’d worn it to graduation because I’d hemmed it a little short. That’s been fixed now, so they go out and about with me quite regularly.

Cape Cover

Stylish cape for those cold days

At the end of January, we celebrated the graduation of a small class. I was still considering what type of outfit I wanted to wear. Simplicity Naaimode 53, Model 12, cape caught my eye (also known as Simplicity 9185). The idea of wearing pants with a top and the flowy cape cover became really appealing. I searched through my stash for appropriate fabrics and found a plaid for the pants (staying predictable), a white fabric for the top and some black for the cape. Since the venue was not necessarily going to be the warmest ever, so I decided to use the last bit of magic black fabric for the cover.

The pattern pieces are pretty simple. One partial front with a deeper scooped neckline, one partial back with a shallower scooped neckline and a collar piece. The pattern said to extend the front and back on one side with 90 cm. Since I had very limited fabric, I decided to not entirely comply with the instructions. The pieces were put on the cross grain to make maximum use of the remaining fabric. This did mean that I couldn’t extend them as far as the pattern originally wanted. However, I’m short, so this was actually perfect. If the cape was any longer, I think it would become a trip hazard.

After cutting, the shoulder seams were sewn, the collar attached, the side seam sewn and lastly, it was hemmed. I was afraid it was going to be all stretchy and bubbly, but it pressed out great. It was great fun to wear it, a little bit of extra swoosh, but also nice and warm. I’ve been wearing it a fair number of times even since the event, so that’s pretty good.