two easy kielo dresses

Hello! Today we have something you've seen a million times before and will see a million times again! 

Yet more Kielo dresses! What can I say, they work for me. I'd always intended to make more this year; I reluctantly put my first two into fabric recycling and I wanted to recreate the exact same things in better quality fabric, but those have been pushed back because a) that better quality fabric was nowhere to be found and b) there were maybe seventeen minutes all summer where I would have considered wearing a sleeveless dress. So I turned to some slightly more versatile versions. 

Standard Kielo is standard: free sleeve add-on from the Named blog, fabric from Walthamstow, scooped-out neckline because I wanted a little less of the print near my face. The only thing I did differently from usual was to not put the back darts in, and then wondered why on earth I'd spent so many years putting slim contour darts in jersey. It makes not one whit of difference and I'll never go back. 

This has been a surprisingly useful dinner dress; it's both dressed up and not at the same time, which I like. It's been far too muggy to try it with tights but hopefully that will work out too. I have zero idea how I'll pair that with shoes, mind you. Patrick and I both went trainers-only at the beginning of the first lockdown because the only thing we were doing was going to nine million house viewings on foot, and then we sort of forgot to go back again and now my feet react with indignance and fury any time I try to put them into proper shoes. 

(I took these photos on one of the very few sunny days we had and of course it was far too sunny and all posing had to be based around averting my eyes. This will not be a problem for the second set of photos.)

The second version I made was an answer to this summer specifically. Too warm and muggy to be wearing clothes intended for colder months, but also too grey and unseasonable to be comfortable in my usual summer fare. Bright dresses and jumpsuits have just felt like a lie. 

(Yeah, this is what it really looks like out here.)

This fabric is from Fabric Land and is a very narrow black, grey and pale pink stripe. Design-wise it's absolutely perfect for a not-summer maxi, but the actual substrate is kind of weird. The only way I can find to describe it is that it seems to forget that it's stretchy. The whole bodice likes to shift upwards and push the neckline away from my body, and I have to keep rearranging myself. The fabric especially does not like being a neckband and if I ever come across a fabric that won't look like ass with this dress, I really think I'll cut it off and redo it. I don't know how often people who read this blog are influenced to buy or not buy fabric from what I write, but just in case: do not recommend. 

Even with that inconvenience, the dress is just the perfect thing and I've been wearing it all the time, usually with trainers and a denim jacket. This will keep me going through spring and autumn and I'm definitely going to make another one with a similar vibe (though I probably won't make it the subject of a post). Finding the right fabric is going to be a challenge for me as I'm not often drawn to the everyday prints above the eyecatching ones or the bright solids, but the maxi dress is my spiritual home and I'd really like to spend a larger proportion of the year wearing them. 

Me: [decides to take a short break from writing this post to look for suitable fabric]
Also me: [finds bright-ass yellow tiger print jersey instead and wonders if the definition of "everyday print" can be stretched that far]

I don't have much more to say about this pattern or either dress I made from it, so instead I'll share with you a small triumph from my month so far: after literal years of writer's block that hasn't been helped by any of the methods I've tried to get through it, I have managed to write a small amount of fiction every day of September so far. It doesn't sound huge when it's put like that, but it is. A plot hasn't really emerged yet but I do have the beginnings of a set of characters that feel real to me and have relationships that I understand, which has always been the best point for me to start from. I'm really looking forward to seeing what I have at the end of the month and I'm genuinely impressed that I managed to make myself do the thing with absolutely zero outside impetus to do so. 

I'm not sure what will be up next. I have several things completed and waiting to be photographed, as well as the first few things from my autumn plan in progress, so I'm a bit spoilt for choice. We'll see which one proves easiest to write about, I think!

quarantine projects: Kielo dress

Hey, I'm here! And I made something!

Until this past weekend I hadn't touched my sewing machine in weeks. I had several things cut out and ready to go, but the concept of sewing was stressing me out so. hard. Do you ever have that thing where you stall on a project because you have to change the bobbin thread and you just don't want to? I had that, but with every possible next step I could conceivably take. I spent three full hours arguing with myself yesterday about getting the ironing board out to interface the ties. 

This fabric was a mood booster purchased at the behest of my mother. I spent some time scrolling around different sites trying to find something that felt right (and wasn't also £23 per metre, damn you beautiful Art Gallery jerseys), and eventually came across this at 1st For Fabrics, a company I've never used before. Why this was the one I couldn't tell you. Floral prints on a white background are just not me. I've only bought one once before, and that was entirely because it reminded me of my recently deceased grandmother. That definitely isn't the case here. But I kept looking at it, and I knew it was the right one even though I was deeply confused as to why. 

This is a completely standard Kielo with the short sleeve add-on and a slightly scooped out neckline. I always scoop out the neckline a little when I make the dress with sleeves; for some reason my shoulders look weird if I don't. It's the first one I've made on the overlocker and it took about a third of the usual time. Maxi-length seams sewn with a stretch stitch take FOREVER and I'm not a bit sorry to have left that behind me. I still haven't got my overlocker skills down completely so I basted the neckband in first, which made the whole process of overlocking a curve much less annoying. 

I'm delighted with how this dress turned out. The fact that the fabric is so not what I would usually go for makes the dress feel fresh and interesting to me, despite the fact that I've made this pattern so many times I could do it in my sleep. It's a completely different summer vibe for me and I'm really enjoying it. Also this fabric is perfect for the job - it's still thin and drapey but noticeably more substantial than most viscose jerseys, and miraculously it's still opaque even when stretched over my boobs. I'm wearing a bright red longline bra in these photos and you'd have no idea. 

The one sad thing about this dress is that it's made me confront the reality of my earliest (and still favourite) two iterations of the Kielo. It's so much more obvious now that they're dying. My green version was made from 50p per metre fabric because I fully expected it to be an unsuccessful toile, and I used a finishing method on my stripy one which was nowhere near as successful as I apparently thought at the time. I'm not convinced I knew what the words "bias facing" actually meant. I was all ready to put this pattern away until next year, but now I'm pretty sure I'm going to need to track down similar but better quality fabric and just remake the exact same two dresses again. I'm not prepared to live a life without an emerald green Kielo, dammit!

At the moment I'm not going to make any promises about the next post. When I originally said I'd go back to posting twice a week I had a backlog of things to post and was sewing away enthusiastically, but now I have nothing in reserve and sewing is tough. Hopefully completing this one will get things moving again, but I have no way of knowing right now. So I'll just say that I'll do what I can when I can, and I'll be back as soon as possible. 

How is everybody doing? This is week ten of lockdown for us, which... nyaaargh. We've slowly started reintroducing Zoom socialising into our lives, and thanks to the slightly relaxed lockdown rules I got to stand two metres away from my little brother in a halfway park and chuck a homemade face mask at him. I'm incredibly angry about the way our government is approaching this whole thing and it's absolutely a preamble to a "you all did it wrong, peasants, it's your fault" in a few weeks' time when everything gets worse again, but those two hours of seeing another human face did me a power of good. 

spring sewing: Gemma sweatshirt

How's everybody doing? We're on day seven now, still mostly holding it together. Patrick's 40th birthday was yesterday and was obviously a much more subdued affair than we'd planned, but I made a cake for him and we had champagne over Skype with a couple of friends. The working from home is driving him a little crazy (as it seems to be for everyone), so he's voluntarily joined in with my anxiety bullet journalling. I was really sceptical of bullet journals to begin with - it just seemed like an excuse for women with disposable income to buy thousands of slightly different sellotapes - but it's actually working really well for me, both as an aid to my anxiety and my executive function issues.

Now, sewing! Gemma sweater! I've been going back and forth on this one for a long time. I've always thought it was a really cool design and heaven knows we all need a few more patterns that are actually prepared to be vaguely interesting, but I was concerned about the fit. The sweater looked to be super loose and the maxi dress skin tight, neither of which I'm crazy about. I'm not sure I'll ever make the dress, even though I'm actively looking for jersey maxi dresses right now; I can't see a clear way to get a looser fit without removing the shape entirely. But I really wanted the sweater, so I had a go.

This was my first attempt:

It's a little pointless to even show you this. You can't see the detail, but you can see my horrendously bumpy overlocker seams. This was the first non-test I sewed on my new toy, and it was a BAD idea. It just hated this fabric, and this fabric hated it right back. I thought that I was doing something horribly wrong until I tried to sew a bunch of other fabrics and it was all smooth and quick and lovely.

I picked this fabric out of the Abakhan by-the-kilo bin for one reason only: it is the softest thing I have ever touched in my life. It makes me feel like a cartoon angel rolling around on a cloud. I wish it looked different. I haven't worn camo since 1997, when All Saints and combat trousers were the number one trend and camo dresses were the only thing I could get in Mark One (the shop of choice for twelve-year-old me) for the school disco. And even that was purple camo. Which I fully accept is probably worse. The point is, I have never felt the urge to wear this kind of print and this hasn't changed my mind. But I have been wearing this a lot at home, because SO soft. It's also super drapey, which isn't really the right thing for this pattern but has made me want more drapey sweaters.

I didn't make many changes on this one. I swapped the collar out for a neckband (I didn't alter the neckline) and I didn't put the drawstring through the bottom. Hemming it at all took it to a weird length I didn't like, so I haven't. I can deal with the camo better when it's a long, slouchy sort of thing.

When I sat down to write my plan, this was the only version I had in mind. As I was writing about the weird camo, a little voice in my head suddenly said "but a black version with leather contrast tho" and I got very excited. Excited enough that I didn't really care when the first version came out a quasi-failure.

I am so pleased with this. It's exactly what I pictured when the idea hit me. Textural contrast is not one of the things I'm good at, so I'm extra happy that I thought of this and that it's worked so well. 

I got the leather from the jacket I was cutting out (I cut out my contrast at the same time, and I'm glad I did because I don't think I'd ever have squeezed it out of the scraps otherwise) and then spent some time mulling over black sweatshirting. I eventually went for the Stoff & Stil French terry, which I've used before and really liked. It has very low stretch and a very soft wrong side, which makes for a great cosy sweatshirt.

(Please excuse the random mish-mash of photos from two different days. I'm not really sleeping at the moment and it's been tough to get any pictures at all where I don't look either despondent or murderous. If things don't improve I may well end up making some sort of Venetian mask and wearing that for all my photos.)

I really wanted to make sure the leather pieces lined up properly, so I basted each seam before overlocking. The point of the triangle was slightly off on my first attempt, which you can't really see on that one but would be glaringly obvious here. I'm glad I did, because I haven't done much of this kind of diagonal panel sewing and my understanding of how the pieces needed to line up at the seam in order to sit properly was extremely wrong the first time I tried it. 

Both this and the previous version are the same size, a straight 44. I almost sized down for this one because I really didn't want it to be that oversized-looking, but thanks to the much stiffer fabric it looks much more fitted. I knew I wasn't going to want the drawstring hem so I didn't grade out for my hips the way I normally would. It's more obvious on this second version that I should have sized down in the shoulders, but I don't think it's that big a deal for a garment like this. 

For version one I sewed the elasticated cuffs as directed in the pattern, but for this one I replaced them with simple ribbed cuffs. I quite like the way the cuffs look on the first one, but a lot of what I like about them is the drape they create at the wrists, which this fabric was not going to be able to recreate. Also I wanted to make the neckband out of ribbing and thought it would look more balanced if I had the same fabric at the cuffs. The hem is a normal overlock-turn-and-stitch job. 

I will absolutely make this pattern again, I think it's great. I'll probably wait until I get another good idea for the contrast, or I work out how to turn the maxi dress into something that would fit me the way I like. Something I'd quite like to do is hack it into a hoodie, and maybe see if I can draft a front kangaroo-type pocket that fits in with the rest of the panelling. 

Up next on Thursday will probably be Patrick's fancy birthday shirt, assuming I can persuade him to be photographed. I'm hoping to get the silk dress finished this week and at least make some kind of start on the first leather jacket of doom, but I'm also trying not to only sew in case I burn out and it's not fun anymore. I would love recommendations for good how-to YouTube channels - I'm almost not bothered what I'm learning as long as it's taught well. Currently I have three things on my To Learn list: wire wrapping, Python, and basic Welsh. How useful will any of these things be? Who knows. 

Named Clothing Gemma sweatshirt

Fabric: Light sweater knit from Abakhan // French terry from Stoff & Stil

Cost: £4 // £15

Pattern details: Loose-fitting sweater with contrast panels, funnel neck, elastic cuffs and drawstring waist. Also a tight fitting maxi dress with back vent

Size: 44

Alterations: Swapped funnel neck for standard neckband, left off drawstring waist, cuffs changed on version two

Would make again/would recommend: Yes/Yes

a winter maxi

Hello and welcome to another instalment of Really Not Prioritising the Plan at All! I blame January. I don't know why I'm so bad at January. This one's been better than most because I've been incredibly socially active and going to a bunch of new classes (including my first pattern cutting weekend, which was... mixed, but I don't want to do a full review until I've tried to apply the techniques myself), but I'm still not able to function like a proper adult. I'm having to sew what my brain will allow me to sew, and this time it's something that wasn't on my list at all.

 

In a sense, this has kind of always been on my list. In summer I wear literally nothing but jumpsuits and maxidresses and I feel great. I often think about making winter versions and sometimes I even try to do it, but so far nothing has worked out the way I want. My ideal cold weather jumpsuit still eludes me, and most maxidress patterns I see at the moment are knee-length dresses with a massive ruffle whacked on the bottom to bring it down to the ankles. Nope. I've also historically had a bit of a static problem when trying to wear maxis with tights. But I kept thinking about it, and when I came across this fabric a month or so ago, I knew I wanted a long-sleeved Kielo dress.

I got this fabric from Walthamstow as usual, and if he has this in a different print the next time I visit, I'm going to make the exact same dress with a square neckline. It's a super-light sweater knit that's thin enough to drape nicely but substantial enough to keep me warm, and it is the absolute perfect thing for a winter Kielo. I was really pleased to find an actual horizontal print for once; I've been burned so many times by buying prints online only to find when it arrives that they were displaying it at a 90 degree angle and the stretch actually goes the other way. Of course, I then realised that the Kielo has a centre back seam for the vent and I would have quite a pattern matching job on my hands.

It's not perfect, but it's good enough.

The colour palette is pretty muted for me, and though I like this dress a lot it's not an experiment I'll be repeating much. If I wear this with my beige coat and my standard not-doing-much-today lipstick I look like I got very sick at a hempen crafts festival.

Embarrassing confession time: I made this dress with sleeves a few times in 2017 and it was great. I then misplaced that version of the pattern and had to redo it when I came to make it again last year. Both times it felt weird in the bust/armhole area. If I position the dresses just right I can still wear them, but they're annoying and uncomfortable to put on. I assumed it was something to do with my fluctuating size and decided to make another copy of the pattern. When I got everything out and ready and looked at the new armhole curve, I realised something: my bust is still the same size, and my last version of the pattern had the armscye drawn on upside down. D'OH. So now I've done it again properly, and it's really comfortable. 

(I take this photo literally every time I make one of these dresses and I'm sure it can't be useful anymore, but here it is nevertheless.)

On this version I scooped out the neckline and added wide cuffs. I only decided on the cuffs because the sleeves came out at a weird length, but they actually make a huge difference to the overall look and feel of the dress. I don't think I'd like it as much with a plain stitched-down hem. I really enjoy the two sets of spikes pointing in towards each other.

I adore this dress. In the last two weeks I've worn it as often as I can get away with, which is the number one way for me to tell I've made an unqualified success. It's super comfortable, it works for pretty much everything that isn't either the gym or a gala of some description, it's warm, and it doesn't stick to my tights! Perfect. I really hope to make another one before winter ends, assuming I can find the right kind of fabric. 

In terms of what's next, I feel like everything I have left on my list is pretty involved, and I've also given myself an overly ambitious plan for one of my Minerva projects this month, so we'll see how we go. I'm definitely not getting it all done by February, but I want to prioritise the coat and the shirt. Chances are I'll be skipping another week of posting, but hopefully be back with something I actually need and planned to make. Fingers crossed! 

autumn sewing: hoodie dress

For years now I've had a vision in my mind of a fitted hoodie dress. It's the kind of thing you think shouldn't be too hard to get hold of, until you start clicking on images and realise that all of the fitted hoodies are in fact skintight hoodies stretched thin over women with perfect bodies. I eventually decided that what I wanted just wasn't available, and that bled through to my trying to find a sewing pattern. The things I had in mind to try were all oversized, and I was crossing my fingers that one of them might accidentally suit me.

Before I go through all that, let me show you what I have:

I got my dream! My fitted but not tight extra-cosy hoodie dress! I am so pleased with this I can't even tell you. I basically live in it now. 

What it isn't, however, is a straight pattern you can buy. I had to bodge this together.

My first attempt at a hoodie dress was a toile of the Kommatia Patterns Mysig (I'm going to keep calling it Kommatia since the old patterns seem to be excluded from the rebrand) and was... not exactly successful. The dropped shoulders looked okay in the line drawings, but on me it just looked like I'd made a huge fitting mistake. Also it kind of looked like I was wearing a pillowcase. It did not, however, diminish my desire for an actual hoodie dress, so I started thinking about other options. Extensively alter the Mysig? Lengthen the Jalie hoodie I've made in the past? Go and buy McCalls 7634? (I still might try that last one, the lace-up bit looks cool.) Eventually, I realised I could get my perfect fitted hoodie if I took a dress pattern I already know works and grafted a hood onto it.

So this is actually a Named Clothing Ruska dress (from their book). I've made this a few times and my favourite version by far is the long-sleeved one I made in super-thick fabric. It's super comfy and my go-to dress to wear when it's cold. I added the kangaroo pocket from the Jalie pattern and cut rectangles as large as the remaining scraps of fabric would allow to make cuffs. For the hood, I stole from the Burda men's pattern I used to make Patrick's velour hoodie, which I've also used for myself once before:

This is the Jalie hoodie (cropped a little and minus pocket/cuffs/hem band) with a slightly scooped out neck and the Burda hood attached. It's one of two things I made last month for Minerva, but I don't think either post is live yet. At first I was intending to just replace the Jalie neckline with the Burda one, but then realised the Burda is a raglan, so I just vaguely scooped it in unscientific ways (until it looked the way tight necklines usually do when I unscientifically scoop them; it usually seems to work) and hoped the hood would fit. It did! I really love this hoodie, way more than I thought I would, so when I'd decided that hood on a Ruska was the way I wanted to go, the natural choice was to do this same thing again. The Ruska neckline is also very tight, so more unscientific scooping!

I got this very thick, very soft, reversible wool jersey from my favourite guy at Walthamstow. He rarely has much jersey so I was pleased to find this. It is AMAZING. I think it's two layers of sweatshirting grafted together, so it's incredibly warm and incredibly heavy - every time I pick the dress up I'm amazed that an item of clothing can weigh that much - and I cannot tell you how snuggly I am. It's so comforting. I was sitting on the sofa wearing this for the first time when Patrick came and sat next to me, and within about forty-five seconds he was wrapped around me like a happy sleepy koala on a tree. I am officially the perfect comfortable eucalyptus.

I went for the contrast pocket because a) it's nice to be able to take advantage of reversible fabric and b) I thought it would be more cohesive since the inside of the hood is visibly a different colour. When I tried on the almost finished dress I thought that just the pocket wasn't quite enough to make it all look deliberate, so I decided to make the cuffs in the lighter colour too. I made them deliberately a tiny bit too long to add to general cosiness. I had planned to put in a cord - and did install eyelets for it - but the couple of people I asked told me it looked better without. It's still an option if I change my mind, though.

This is one of my favourite things ever. It's definitely a house dress - I tried photographing it outside and it looked super weird, hence why we're back in the stairwell with all the houseplants that have materialised since last time I took photos in the stairwell - but if I needed to answer the door or run down the road, I could easily do so. I feel so much better about winter now that I have it, and if the right fabric came my way I'd be more than happy to make a second one. 

Next up: what I wore to the wedding!

(I'm not going to do my usual summary here as it's such a mash-up I don't think it would be useful. You can find my Ruska review here, Jalie hoodie here and Burda men's hoodie here)

swanky loungewear: a second Asaka robe

When I was struggling to start sewing again last month, I put my plans to one side to make a few simple, fun things. This was one of them:

I've been trying to put together a coherent loungewear wardrobe for a while, and you can consider this the first instalment of a vague series. I think it's something you either care about or you don't - a lot of people have no idea why you'd bother spending time and money on something you'll never wear outside, and I entirely understand that. I just enjoy being unnecessarily fancy at all times. On my list is a few different pyjama sets, a couple of outfits that are mostly pyjamas but I could also wear to take the bins out (we have a super weird rubbish collection set up so taking the bins out requires walking much further away from our flat than I would be prepared to do in pyjamas. Basically my rule is that if I have to cross a road I need to have something resembling actual clothes on), and a summer robe. Which is what this is. 

I made an Asaka once before (when the pattern was still called a "kimono") and though I love it, the fabric isn't as breathable as I would like. It's fine for the autumn, but on hot days I just die in it instantly. When I decided to make a second one I went out looking for pretty much this exact fabric - black background, leaf print viscose - and found it in one of the shops at Walthamstow. I bought four and a half metres, and sort of expected to have more fabric left over than I did. Based on how much fabric I used last time I was planning a cami and shorts set to go under it and possibly a slip dress as well, but looking at my offcuts it'll be a pair of shorts at most. 

Last time I lengthened the robe substantially, this time I didn't. I was initially planning to bring it to knee-length, but in the end I wasn't a fan of the way that looked. I did scoop it down a bit lower at the back to keep some kind of barrier between my bare legs and our leather sofa. I also lengthened the belt so that it wraps as many times as I want it to. 

Construction was exactly the same as last time - I French seamed the whole thing so it's lovely and clean on the insides. It's an incredibly easy project once you get the whole "French seam into two hems" thing on the sleeves figured out, and this fabric is MUCH easier to press than the last lot. However, the interfacing I used was way worse. I ordered interfacing from some site once upon a time and ended up with twice as much as I bought (the original order went missing, they replaced it, and then six months later the first one showed up, slightly scarred from its many travels), and it's horrific. It's such a loose weave that the glue always ends up stuck to the iron, meaning there's barely any left to adhere to the actual fabric. GAH. I'm trying to use it up in places where it won't matter as much and I will be so glad when it's all gone. 

In terms of appearance, my first Asaka looks better than this one. The length, the weight of the fabric, and the style and saturation of the print were all perfect, whereas this one is more of a "does the job" sort of thing. But that's OK. What I need for the next few months is a shorter, more breathable robe that will let me exist fairly comfortably in our stupid greenhouse of a living room, and this will absolutely do that. I will also get round to a pair of matching shorts and a black jersey T-shirt or vest top within the next month; it's just occurred to me as I'm writing this that a decent chunk of our holiday is going to be spent in a shared AirBnB with Patrick's family and thus I am actually going to need some warm weather sleepwear pretty sharpish.

I wouldn't rule out making a third one of these, but it would definitely only be a "this fabric DEMANDS it" sort of thing and I won't be actively seeking it out. Three exaggerated-sleeve dressing gowns is a tad excessive when you live in a one-bedroom flat, unless maybe I made one for Patrick in place of the velvet smoking jacket we agreed on ages ago but have been unable to find a decent pattern for. Fair substitute? 

I'm delaying the leggings post until I make the matching top and can go full galaxy nightmare on you, so next up will be my bright green Esther trousers. I had a completely different experience with the pattern this time and ended up with a very different-looking pair of trousers, so I'm quite looking forward to sharing!

Asaka robe dress

Fabric: Printed viscose from Walthamstow

Cost: £8

Pattern details: Wrap robe/dress (or, indeed, robe dress) with wide vented two-piece sleeves, flat collar and long tie belt

Size: UK18

Alterations: Back lengthened by 3in, tie belt extended

Would make again/would recommend: Yes/Yes