Esther? I hardly know 'er

(Oh yes, we have progressed into Dad Joke titles, lovely readers.)

I wasn't sure I was even going to post about these.

Having been not the remotest bit interested in wearing trousers for the past few years, I've suddenly found myself wanting to wear them all the time and getting increasingly annoyed that I don't have any. Trouser fitting is still a scary thing for me, because I've made so few. I don't really understand all the ins and outs of adjusting for certain issues so it's still a matter of luck whether my trousers fit or they do that thing (everyone has a different that thing, but mine is either a gaping waistband that sinks dangerously low when I sit down, or fabric settling in below my belly making me look like I'm wearing a nappy. Or just trousers that won't go over my thighs).

I will start to get a grip on this fitting thing. But first, some actual wearable trousers. I thought the Victory Patterns Esther looked like just the thing - loose and comfortable, but interesting and cool at the same time.

The pattern is very well drafted, as you might expect, and came together quite easily. The trouser front is made up of two pieces per leg, which are pleated and overlapped at the waist making a kind of triangle shape at the thigh (it's really hard to see in this dark fabric, sorry). This is the reason I thought I didn't like these trousers. If those pleats aren't knife-sharp and lying as flat as they possibly can, they're not pretty. In a super-light fabric like this, the inside of the pleats can fall out and form what my boyfriend referred to as "pubic flaps". Don't have extra pubic flaps.

This fabric is from Walthamstow, and unless all my toiles go drastically wrong you'll be seeing a lot more of it. Sometimes I buy ten metres of something just because I can.

My intention was to install a press stud for the fastening rather than a button as directed or a sew-on stud as I would normally do, but after my first practice go (I got everything installed properly but then the whole thing just ripped straight out of the fabric as soon as I tried to use it) I gave up and went back to the sew-on method. I really dislike hand-sewn fastenings, but clearly I have not found my way around that yet.

Having got the pleats sitting properly, I really like the silhouette that these trousers give. They sit at the natural waist, there's enough room for my hips without sizing up, and because the pleats fall straight down they don't give me that pot-bellied silhouette from the side. I wasn't sure about the shape of the legs at first (I was expecting them to be a bit wider at the bottom), but it's definitely grown on me. 

I'm in two minds as to whether or not to make another pair of these. I definitely want more lightweight spring/summer trousers, but this is quite a specific shape and I don't know if I want to faff about with all the pleat pressing for a second time. I'm considering trying to mash this pattern up with the Megan Nielsen Flint trousers - I love the shape of those but I can't see the ties holding up in the kind of lightweight fabric I would want to use. I don't think I'd ever use the Esther for colder weather trousers - wool is one of the recommended fabrics, but it seems like an awful lot of bulk and volume for winter weight fabric. Maybe that's just me and my preferences, though. 

All in all, I'm quite pleased with these and glad I managed to rescue them from the brink of failure. Yay!

Next up: finally getting on with spring and some workout gear! 

a really late winter sewing wrap-up

For obvious reasons my winter plan was a bit of a misfire. My original intention when trying to get my sewjo back was to just cut my losses, forget the whole thing and move on. Then I decided I'd make a few of the projects I wanted the most, but leave it off the blog so I didn't get bogged down in it. I got those things done at the beginning of March and tried to put it to one side, but since then there's been this bizarre creeping dread when I come to post, like I haven't handed in my homework and the teacher's about to find out. Who is the teacher in this scenario? I have no clue. Nevertheless, we must give in to the invisible boogeyman and do a wrap-up post.

Overall I managed seven things from my original list; two during the actual season they were meant for,and another five at the beginning of last month. The rest have been jettisoned for now - I might come back to some of them at a later date, but for now I've given myself permission to ignore them. Results for the five I did make are... mixed, as you're about to find out.

(Also, my dental work has been extended into at least three separate operations, so THAT's a joy.)

Deer & Doe Lupin jacket

This was absolutely a success. I don't have much more to say about the pattern; it's still great, I still love it, I will still probably make it again. This kind of minky-pink suede wouldn't normally be my thing, but it's a perfect colour for a jacket - it goes with almost everything while still looking a bit more imaginative than a true neutral. I lined it with the leftover bird lining from my Rumana coat so it'll be nice and soft to wear over short-sleeved tops and dresses once spring bothers to turn up. It's living in the wardrobe for now because it's too cold to abandon my big coat and too wet to risk going out in suede.

Vogue 8888 dressing gown

This one probably does warrant its own post, but I just feel so uncomfortable in it that I can't bring myself to take a load of photos. I'm not sure my assessment of the pattern would be accurate anyway, because I just hate this. It's too small at the hips so it won't stay closed (as I'm sure you can see), the fabric was a nightmare to sew and press, and even though I spent quite a long time French seaming everything and making it pretty inside, once it was done I said, "oh, thank God for that", threw it on the floor and put my boyfriend's old towelling robe back on. I will have another go at a dressing gown, but not this pattern and not for a while. Turns out I really hate sewing shawl collars, and doing it four times in the last few months has done zero to desensitise me. Shawl collars can bite it, as far as I'm concerned. 

Jersey pyjamas

I LOVE these. They're the trouser part of the Closet Case Patterns Sallie jumpsuit with an added elasticated rectangle for the waistband,and they're the best item of loungewear I've ever made. I wear them constantly at home, and I take them with me whenever I go away, even if it's only for a night. I will definitely make more, and possibly also make a pair I can wear outside. Fabric was an impulse buy from a Sew Over It remnant sale that I really didn't know what to do with once I got it home, but it's perfect for this. (The top here is part of a continued experiment to come up with a knit top sloper -  still a work in progress.)

Simplicity 1370 skirt

I tried this twice and I don't think it's right for me, simply because of the way I'm shaped. This one was way too big and fell down when I walked...

...and this one looked perfect but rode up at the back when I walked, to the point where a stranger had to tell me my ass was hanging out. I think the pattern itself is really nice, but it's not for my small-waisted giant-assed self. I'm currently working on adapting another pattern, which I'll post about when I've finished my second attempt. 

That's everything from my winter plan that I intend to make for now, except the Victory Patterns Esther trousers which I will do a separate post about. I hated them when I put them on, but they somehow look really good in all the photos I've taken, so I'm going to mess about with the pleating and see if I can make myself like them more in person. I'm going to do a quick and dirty planning post on Thursday, which will hopefully lead up to a proper pattern review next week. Fingers crossed.

Back, back, back again: the Rumana coat

Hi everyone. First of all I want to say thanks to the people who left supportive comments on my last post (including the ones that made it to my email but didn't show up on the actual blog for some reason) and everyone who messaged me directly. I was very much not in a place to reply to everyone, but I really did appreciate it and it's one of the things that helped get me into a place to come back. I thought I was going to be away for a week, and that turned into more than a month (not a fun month, either), but I think - I hope - that the worst is behind me and I can start to get back to living and sewing again.  

So! Coatmaking! 

Here we have the By Hand London Rumana coat. I bought this fabric several months ago on a trip to Abakhan in North Wales with the mother-in-law, and originally it was going to be a Leanne Marshall Simplicity coat. Then I decided I didn't like that very much and it was going to be a Rumana, before changing my mind again and cutting out the pattern tissue for Vogue 9289, whereupon I discovered that the pattern pieces were way too big for my fabric (ah, grown-on sleeves) and went back a step to the Rumana. Phew. 

The coat has a proper collar and collar stand, which I'd never done before. I was expecting it to be as annoying if not more than a shawl collar, but it was actually easier. (I hate shawl collars. Guess who'd currently making herself a dressing gown and struggling to find the motivation?) It also has giant pockets, which I very much appreciate. 

(Close-up collar and pocket shots. I got Patrick to take these on a different day, hence the sudden costume change. I think the collar in particular looks really good and I'm proud of my work there.)

The coat is fairly sleek and close-fitting, and so has quite a large back vent. I don't think I've ever sewn a vent on a lined garment before and for me was probably one of the more confusing things I had to do. This fabric is wool mix and didn't take to the iron quite as well as I was expecting, and the vent in particular I had to come back to several times to press the shit out of it. It still doesn't look like it's had the shit pressed out of it, so I'll probably keep doing it occasionally. 

I got this lining from Fabric Store in Walthamstow. It's a super-soft viscose and it feels really nice against bare skin. This is the kind of print I would never actually wear on the outside, but looks great as a coat lining; not so dramatic that it overshadows the actual coat, but dramatic enough that it's definitely a feature. A bunch of people have commented on it already, which is nice. I had enough left over to line another jacket, which hopefully you'll be seeing soon. 

I've not put a fastening on this coat. The pattern does come with button placements, but it looked like such an afterthought, like someone somewhere in the testing process said, "Uh, could this coat maybe close somehow?" and they went, "Oh! Closing! Didn't think of that!" I much prefer the look of it without buttons (and I don't think I've seen buttons on any of their samples) and though it does mean I have to hold it closed when it's very cold, that doesn't bother me as much as you might think. For most of spring and autumn I'll just let it billow out behind me, Spike-style. 

I have worn this coat literally every day since I made it. It's really great to have a proper long coat and I'm glad I went with the pattern that would allow me the most length for my three and a half metres. I made this coat in January (the only thing I made for the first two whole months of the year) before the cold snap and snowstorms, and even while I was feeling properly shitty I was extra grateful to Past Jen for having managed it. If I'd had to go out in negative temperatures in a hip-length coat, I think I might have cried. Or never left the house and starved, whichever. 

Drama!

Next week is going to be a planning post, and then we're going to Spain for a couple of days. I'm hoping that pretty surroundings will allow me to get another couple of garments photographed, and I can get back into something resembling a rhythm. We shall see!

winter sewing: several long-sleeved Kielos

So the main reason I put this dress on my winter list is because I wanted to make one for my mother for Christmas. I already had the idea of a burgundy dress in my mind, and decided to make it another Kielo when I found out that she was still trying to wear the sleeveless one I made her in November. In England. There's only so much work a cardigan can do.

I went to Fabric Store in Walthamstow and bought three metres of burgundy jersey and three metres of some random stuff to make a test version. I found it hard to imagine how the sleeve add-on would work, so I was a bit nervous about launching straight into a version for someone else.

Here's my test version:

It's great. I hadn't been at all sure that this would work, but I should have trusted that Named knew what they were doing in the sleeve department. 

As well as the sleeve itself, the add-on comes with new armholes to trace onto the original pattern. They're not that different, but they do reshape things slightly so that there is, y'know, an actual armhole there. It remains an incredibly simple dress to cut out and make. 

This version is longer than I had figured it would be, but I deliberately cut it a lot longer than I thought I wanted it so I could experiment. I'm glad I did; when I pinned it up to the length I thought I wanted, the dress lost a lot of its drape and just looked a bit odd. I actually really liked the way it looked at midi length, but my wardrobe just isn't set up for that. I'd never have found an occasion I'd be comfortable wearing it. This length is a bit more versatile without losing the drape. 

I've worn this dress for a New Year's Eve party and also for a day touristing around Belgium, and it works equally well for both. I'm really pleased with it.

Here's Mum's version:

I think she likes it. 

This is almost exactly the same as the first one, except that it's longer (Mum is generally not here for short dresses, but also isn't here for ones she might trip over either, so there's a sweet spot region somewhere between the calf and the ankle), and also it looks like I made the sleeves shorter, though I don't remember doing that. Looking at all three dresses in this post, I think I must have made the sleeves longer than the pattern on the first dress and slightly shorter than the pattern on this one. I did not like this fabric at all and I'm quite glad you can't really see how bad the twin needle hemming looks on this. Mum assures me it doesn't bother her, but it bothers me. Stupid twin needle. I WILL master you, dammit.

After I'd made those two, I decided that what I needed most in life was a long-sleeved, maxi length sweater knit Kielo. I once bought a winter maxi and never wore it because I was too busy trying to disappear at the time, but I think about that dress regularly and it's one of the few things I regret getting rid of.

BEHOLD. I have managed to create a slightly stylish wearable blanket. 

For some reason I'd got it into my head that it had to be white, which is very unlike me. I found this stuff in The Textile Centre; it's quite thick, very stretchy, and unbelievably soft. It's also really annoying to work with, but ain't that always the way.

(Sorry these photos are so overexposed. The weather changed dramatically in between outfits and I didn't notice until I came to edit them.)

I put pockets in this one, but not in the other two. My thought was that winter Kielos are more likely to be worn with jackets and thus less in need of pockets, but that this one will probably be worn mostly around the house and it'd be handy to have a place to keep my phone. This turned out to be exactly the case; I tried wearing this out of the house once and it didn't go well. Partly because I was wearing boots with buckles and they ripped away at the bottom of the dress, but also because this dress is way too warm to actually be worn outside. I was too warm going for a walk in this on Christmas Day. I put this dress on for these photos, stood still in front of a camera for two minutes in a house where the heating was off, and then had to take it off because I was sweating. It's a ridiculously warm dress. It's going to be great for sofa days, though. 

I was originally planning a fourth sleeved Kielo in black sweater knit, but now I'm thinking that might be one too many and I should try something else instead of getting stuck in an endless loop of repetition. I will certainly revisit this pattern at some point, but I think I'll put it away for now. 

(Also, nope, I didn't tidy up for these photos, and nope, we still hadn't taken our tree down. There's a reason I'm not a lifestyle blogger, alright?)

Next up: if I can get photos of my boyfriend's dressing gown, then that's next in the queue. If not, it'll either be hats or melons. Heh. Melons. 

sewing plans: winter 17/18

My autumn sewing plan worked out really well. Excluding the "maybe" list, only the fancy purple dress went unmade - you haven't seen my Shakespeare dress or Patrick's dressing gown yet, but they have been made and will be posted next week and after Christmas respectively. Working to a longer and more ambitious plan was actually way more helpful than my usual five vague things, as was having almost all the fabric and patterns ready and waiting in my stash. Initially I said that if this worked out I might move to twice-a-year planning, but I'm not going to do that. For a start, the dozen things on my autumn list took me almost exactly three months to make and I might as well as accept that as long as I'm ill and have a lot of spare time, I will be sewing a lot of things. So my new approach is going to be to start writing my three-month plans much further in advance to allow me to collect up at least 90% of what I need before the season starts.

This winter plan has more or less written itself, and it's very different from the autumn one. I have a decent selection of easily-paired, richly-coloured pieces and I've got no interest in reworking it all for the next three months. I'm quite happy looking like a peacock. So for this season, rather than coming up with outfits and concepts, I'm focusing on a few specific categories that need beefing up a bit. I will almost certainly make a few simple tops/skirts/dresses over the next few months when fabric leaps out at me, but in terms of planning, I'm looking at three areas: outerwear, loungewear, and toiles.

For visual reference, here is the world's quickest composite of the patterns I already know I'm using:

(given that they're all completely different types of garment, I'm assuming you can tell which is which)

Outerwear

- A vaguely MaxMara-type winter coat. I've wanted something like this ever since I first saw a MaxMara coat, and I've never been able to find the right pattern. For the first time I've seen a couple of things that might be close; I'm waiting to get a proper look at By Hand London's new coat pattern, and I've also seen a Burda I like (though that would require grading and I don't know if I can be arsed). The lack of a longer coat has been the one thing I'm most aware of missing in my wardrobe, so this is my number one priority.

- A cropped jacket made of pale pink suede. I bought the suede ages ago when I realised that some of my outfits really need a lighter-coloured jacket to go with them, but I've been putting off making it because I can't decide what pattern to use. I'm not totally sure the Lupin will look right in this fabric, but also I can find literally no alternatives. I want to get the jacket made, though, so if I'm not struck by inspiration in the next couple of months, a Lupin it will be. I'm open to suggestions, though!

- A ridiculous Vogue cape. I'm not sure that this one will get made because I don't actually know if I'd wear it, but as soon as I saw it in Vogue's new releases, I shouted "Oh my God I want it" at the screen. I think it will depend largely on being able to find the right fabric and buttons (especially buttons, because I am NOT a button person and they'll have to be very specific for me to think about wearing them). I am definitely in the market for some sort of unnecessary flamboyant outerwear, mind you, so if this doesn't happen then something else will.

Loungewear

- A dressing gown for myself. I've made two toiles of a Butterick pattern for Patrick's Christmas present robe so far, and I made the second one using a cheap fabric I really liked so that I could use it as my dressing gown. Except that hasn't worked, because it looks terrible on me. I'm going to have a go at Vogue 8888 and see if a womenswear-specific robe is any better. (It might just be the pattern. I have THOUGHTS about that Butterick pattern, and you're going to hear ALL of them after Christmas.)

- A nightie that matches the dressing gown. This is lower priority, but I quite like the idea of a matching set so I'm planning to get extra fabric for the purpose. I'll probably have a go at one of the two included with Vogue 8888, though I haven't decided which yet.

- A sweater knit cardigan for chilling in. I want to try the Papercut Circle top, which intrigues me; I bought it from Sewbox on the strength of the photos, but it looks very much like Papercut has erased its existence from their actual website, so I'm now wondering what's wrong with it. I'm going to give it a go anyway, but definitely not with anything more expensive than £2 per metre Walthamstow sweater knit.

- Some more pyjamas. I'd like a few pairs of jersey pyjama bottoms, and a couple of tops with different sleeve lengths that I can mix and match with them. I want colourful prints for the bottoms (most of which I have) and solid neutrals for the tops.

Toiles

- Vogue 8814. I think this is an absolutely beautiful evening dress, and ideally it's what I'd like my expensive silk crepe to be, but there is so much potential for a pattern like this to go wrong. I've basically already decided that it's going to be a disaster, but I own the pattern so I'm going to try it, goddammit. I found some very cheap but very pretty green satin-type stuff so it can be a wearable toile if it works but I won't cry if (when?) it doesn't.

 - Victory Patterns Esther trousers. Similar to above, I think the pattern is stunning but I'm not sure if it'll suit me. I so want it to, though. I want to be that cool.

- A shorter Named Kielo with sleeves. I downloaded the free sleeve add-on ages ago but never got around to trying it out. It would be nice to have a version of this pattern I can wear for more than a few weeks a year.

- Simplicity 1370 skirt. I really need a wider range of skirt patterns I like, and step one is to try out a simple mini. If it works, it'll probably be a good pattern for using up leftover fabric, and if not, I'll try something else. My plan for the next year or so is to find at least three other skirt patterns that work for me.

- A woven T-shirt from a personal block. I have a metre of black silk hanging around and I'd like it to become a super-basic, fairly loose-fitting top, so I'm going to have another go at drafting one myself.

- Pants! I've bought a Jalie PDF of men's and women's underwear, and I'm going to have a go at both. I don't expect to start making all my underwear, but it seems like a reasonable way to use up jersey scraps and I'd like to see if I can do it.

Again, this is about a dozen things, which seems to be a good number. I still need fabric for most of the things in the loungewear section, which I think ought not to be too difficult to find (I also don't have cape fabric, but that's going to be a buttons-first shopping job anyway). I've not had a great week for various reasons up to and including credit card fraud (YAY) so I'm hoping to be able to channel all my feelings of YARGH into some early productiveness.