Sewing and Slapdashery
Tuesday 13 June 2023
sewing plan: summer 2023
Monday 15 May 2023
spring sewing: a red velvet Society dress
Monday 13 March 2023
sewing plan: spring 2023
Monday 13 February 2023
the fabric found its pattern: a circee maxi skirt
So, we have entered Busy Times. It's usually Busy Times at this time of year anyway - it's my birthday this week, and and once we get through the various things we have planned we start doing things for Patrick's birthday - but now I'm currently on two evening classes per week plus my singing lessons, we've booked a couple of city breaks, and also a bunch of one-off events happened to get scheduled between now and the end of March. And I really need to find time to sew because it turns out you can't safely do improv classes in skirts, which I hadn't anticipated so all the things I made this winter were absolutely not geared to my current needs.
Case in point:
This is the Deer&Doe Circee, maxi skirt version. My original intention was to make the dress version as well before posting about it, but I ran into a slight mishap where I cut out my trial version and then promptly lost half the pieces. I don't seem to be able to get that fabric again, either. I will still have a go at it at some point, but it's going to take me a bit longer. In the meantime: extremely dramatic maxi skirt.
I've had this fabric for a while (you may remember it) and could never work out what to do with it. It's a super-large border print, each panel is two feet long, and there's barely a sliver of a gap between each one. I really didn't want to chop up the print too much, and my original thought was a wrap dress where the bodice is made of the plain black section and the skirt has the border print. In retrospect I'm glad I didn't - I would only have had enough fabric to make a knee-length dress and the print is so large-scale that I would have had to cut it down to get a length I was happy to wear. A maxi length wrap skirt with no back seam is the perfect thing.
Tuesday 31 January 2023
orage and chataigne
Monday 23 January 2023
very complicated random sewing: style arc ormond designer coat
Over the past month or two, I've been doing quite a lot of sewing. I've not been especially good at sticking to my plans, but I have made a bunch of things from fabric I already had in my stash, and the majority of them turned out surprisingly well. Then they all sat around in my wardrobe because I couldn't be bothered to photograph them. Last week, on the day I finished the project you're about to see, I was suddenly hit with a bolt of motivation and photographed half a dozen things. It was below freezing outside at the time, which was fine for this specific garment but not so much for everything else. But the upshot is, I now have several posts scheduled and will be a slightly more reliable blogging presence for at least the next couple of months.
With that said, here's a surprisingly complicated project to have made at random:
Monday 14 November 2022
unnecessary versions of necessary things: Audrey cigarette pants
So once again, my health has not been great, and I need to stop coming here and making pronouncements that I'm totally fine now, guys. I am not totally fine, I still don't know exactly what's wrong, and I can't really commit to regular posting at the moment. But I did take some photos the other week, so I'm going to jump on the okay day I'm having to share something.
I've said on my last couple of planning posts that I need more trousers, and that becomes truer with every passing day. My waist is now eight inches smaller than it was this time last year and there comes a point where you can't feasibly take a pair of trousers in any more and have them still look okay. The trousers in this post are none of the things I suggested I might make and I'm honestly not sure how much wear they'll get, but they are trousers nevertheless, so let's review.
(Also I dyed my hair black, which so far almost nobody has noticed. I'm thinking I might keep it for a while, though.)
This is another pattern I got from Gertie's Patreon, the Audrey cigarette pants. I hadn't had any immediate plans to make these, but then I was in a fabric shop after having a really shitty day, saw some fuchsia ponte, message Patrick asking if I wanted a pair of stretchy fuchsia trousers. And if the answer you want to that question is "no" then Patrick is not your man to go to for advice. So I bought it.
This was a quick enough sew that I managed it on a day of 32 degree heat (with a break in the middle to stand by a fan). Elastic waistband, pockets, pocket stay made of power mesh. I like all these details, though I will say that anything put into these pockets is extremely and immediately visible so I would probably only use them for holding my phone as I wander round the house. This particular waistband is one of those where the elastic is the same length as the fabric so there's no gathering, and I strongly prefer that.
(Also, check me out having visible muscles! This photo is the first time I've really seen it.)
The main problem I have with these trousers is the fit. I have the problem I always have with more fitted trouser legs, which is that they look too big and wrinkly when I make them in my usual size, but taking any fabric out makes them too skintight for me to want to wear in public. I also clearly need some sort of alteration in the front crotch but I'm not exactly sure what. Any advice on what I might need to do there would be very welcome!
I'm interested to see whether I'll feel able to wear these. So far I've only found this one way to style them that I like, and given that this is just a literal bra there aren't going to be many occasions for dressing like this. Which is a shame, really, because this is some amazing 80s trash right here. I can't really tuck things into them because you can see the lines, though I might get away with a bodysuit, and I just can't see myself becoming a tunics person. I'm definitely down to try things out (as long as they're not tunics, or really anything where the goal is to cover up most of the trousers).