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. 

summer sewing: birthday dresses of varying success levels

My mum's two dresses were the last things I made this summer. That's partly because her birthday is towards the end of August and I didn't want to have the dresses just hanging around for months for me to obsess over and poke at, and partly because I had VERY SPECIFIC visions and was afraid of not being able to live up to them. In the end, I sort of did and sort of didn't, as I'm about to show you.

I'm going to start with the successful one:

This, obviously, is the Named Kielo, which I've made twice before (and worn constantly this summer). Mum asked for one of these after seeing mine, and I agreed on the proviso that I got to choose the colour. I love the way she looks in rich autumnal colours, but they're quite hard to find so she rarely wears them. I, because I am very smart, didn't properly realise that because these colours are hard to find, they were also going to be hard for me to find, and I searched for the right fabric for more than three months. This led to a ton of empty-handed fabric shop trips, stressing out, and panic-buying the wrong colours (and in one case, panic-buying the wrong colour online late at night, only to discover in the morning that I hadn't actually bought anything at all. I don't quite know how that happened). I finally found this one in A-One Fabrics on Goldhawk Road about two weeks before her birthday, and I legitimately gasped out loud, "Oh my God, it's my vision!" I am such a twat. 

I think this colour is absolutely perfect on her and I'm so pleased. The fabric has a slight crepey texture to it and doesn't wrinkle at all, so it's going to be a really useful travel dress (she's off to Las Vegas in a couple of months with some friends she's known since school, as a "we've all reached this milestone birthday this year, we're still alive and still like each other" celebration). I don't know whether it will carry over seasonally with cardigans and boots and so forth, but we shall see. 

At Mum's request I shortened the dress to below-knee length as an anti-tripping measure, and since that brought it to maybe a couple of inches below the start of the back vent, I didn't bother putting that in. I also put the secret pockets in this one, for tissue-stashing. 

I'm super happy with the way this came out, and I'm so glad I found the right colour. She looks exactly as fabulous as I thought she would. 

Now for dress number two, which I don't think is a success (and is also wrinkly because transport):

This is the Cashmerette Webster dress, and I don't like this version at all. I just don't think this fabric was intended for this kind of dress, and I don't know what I could have done to it that would have made it look good and fit Mum's requirements. Left to my own devices I probably would have made something like the Deer and Doe Centauree (the only cotton sundress I have), but it has a gathered skirt and Mum doesn't like any extra volume at her hips. The fabric feels lovely, but it just doesn't have the drape. She looked great when she tried my navy version on, but in the stiffer fabric it's really obvious that I didn't fit it on her. 

On the plus side, the neckline looks really nice. I also hemmed it with a narrow bias facing, and it's the neatest hem I have ever done in my entire life. Hems are the bane of my life, so I was very pleased with myself. The dress is very comfortable and breathable, but if it just ends up as house dress for hot days I won't be at all surprised or offended. 

Overall I'm quite OK with these outcomes. The first dress is great, so she's got a nice birthday present that she can get a lot of wear out of, and the second was a learning experience which led to me finally making an actually neat hem. I'll make her something else for Christmas to make up for it.

the Heather dress, and other Christmas presents

Happy New Year to everyone! Let's hope 2017 has slightly less of a stench of death on it. I was going to write a long rambling paragraph about mortality and so forth (in the midst of all the celebrity deaths that happened last week a friend of mine died very unexpectedly, so it's been on my mind rather a lot), but I decided against it. This is not the place for that. This is the place for tulip skirts and mild sarcasm, and I'm all out of tulip skirts. (What? Don't write posts at 1am, Jen.)

This year I made my family's Christmas presents, which wasn't my initial intention. I'd only planned to make something for my dad, and that was because he made a direct request. He has literally never asked me for anything except names of young famous people to put in his charity quizzes and the reason why X piece of technology is doing Y weird thing, so I thought he ought to get it. Then I happened to walk past some fabric which seemed to have been designed for my mother, so I worked that into my plans, and then three days before Christmas I found myself sewing up something for my brother as well. This is what's known as Too Much Pressure.

For my mum, I made the Sew Over It Heather dress. I'd bought the pattern for myself during a sale, even though I wasn't completely sure it would suit me, and I made it up about a month ago. When I tried it on, I thought, "Wow, that's huge." I find Sew Over It patterns are usually true to size and don't have secret extra ease built in, so I was a bit confused. I took it in substantially at the sides and made a dart in the back neck, which improved things a bit, but it still wasn't right. I decided to have another go after seeing the fabric for Mum because it was a perfect match and this style is exactly the sort of thing she likes. When I got the pattern out again I realised I hadn't finished cutting out the centre back piece and had been using the edge of the paper rather than the edge of the pattern to cut out, adding several extraneous inches to the back. I have NO IDEA why I didn't spot that, but I felt exceptionally stupid for some time afterwards.

Here's my version. See how wide that back panel is? Yeah, it's not meant to do that. I don't have a photo of the back before I took it in, but I can assure you that it was hilarious. When I was adjusting things I also shortened it into a mini because the knee-length version (on me, at least) was a direct train to Frump Central. Much as this is still not quite right, I've been quite happily wearing it anyway. I'm wearing it now. It's ridiculously comfortable.

Version number two, thankfully, looked much more like it was supposed to. Apologies for the impending drop in photo quality - I only had my phone with me and we were two bottles of prosecco down already.

Genuine reaction shot right here. Without an unnecessary four inches in the back panel, it fits very nicely (she was, as you can see, quite surprised about this, even though we've been periodically borrowing clothes from each other since my Goth phase ended and I have a pretty good idea of how things will fit on her now).

I was definitely going to try making another version for myself until I saw this on Mum, and now I'm not so sure. This is so clearly her dress. This her length, her neckline, her fit. It has pockets, which she loves, but not at the hips, which she hates. I still might try it, but it's never going to suit me as well as it suits her.

This year I also made her something else (more a favour than a present). Every year she likes to wear a Santa jacket and trousers on Christmas Day, because why not. Last year the trousers suffered an unfortunate splitting incident and she asked me to make her a replacement pair, preferably not out of paper thin felt this time.

Stylish, I'm sure you'll agree. These were very simple - I traced round a pair of pyjamas for the pattern, made a separate waistband and constructed them in exactly the same way as the pyjamas I made for myself last month. They're not beautifully fitted, but they're soft and elasticated and festive, which is all they have to be.

My brother's last-minute homemade present was a similarly-constructed pair of pyjama bottoms. We were in town shopping, and I got him to come into Fabric Land with me to pick up some haberdashery bits. While we were in there, we walked past this:

LOOK AT THAT. That is the most gloriously awful fabric I've ever seen. They've had it in stock for over a year, in about eight different colours, all of which spell "Elvis" as "Elivs". ELIVS. It's so utterly shitty that it never fails to make me smile.

Me: Look at that. ELIVS. I wanted to make you pyjamas out of this last year, but Mum said that was a silly idea and I should get fabric that feels nicer.
Brother: [eyes widening] I would LOVE to have pyjamas made out of that!
Me: [picks up roll] Right then.
Brother: I'm so happy this is happening.

And it did.

Yes, they are ugly as all hell (and part of a truly ridiculous ensemble - the camera cuts it off but he actually has four hats on), but he has a deep-seated love for terrible things and he's happy with them. Construction was the same again, except that I had to piece together the lower legs because the fabric was much narrower than I thought. I'm calling it a seam detail.

And finally, my dad. My dad has historically been a huge pain to buy presents for because he doesn't really want anything. He says, "Woo, thanks" and puts everything on a shelf forever. Turning him into a whisky person has helped, but I can't just buy him whisky for every occasion here on out because I prefer my father to come with a functioning liver. So I set myself the mission of making the requested black silk bow tie, which was a truly gigantic pain in the bum. Actually sewing it was fine (I had to go carefully so the silk wouldn't pucker, but it's not like there's a lot to sew), but making it look like an actual bow tie instead of the deflated balloon thing you get when you turn it the right way out took me over a week. Pressing, pressing again, leaving it under a series of heavy books, pressing some more, shaking my fist at it, a bit more pressing, a couple of days' break and repeat from the beginning. It was fiddly and time consuming and I wasn't even sure that what I ended up with would be functional.

These photos are the worst, but that is a bow tie that functions as a bow tie and I am incredibly pleased with myself. I did that! Somehow.

I also thought I'd share something I rediscovered recently. At the end of 2014, my incredibly talented artist friend Linzie asked people for their New Year's resolutions so she could draw them. I responded, and she drew mine:

I was reminded of this because she's now made some of them into a calendar, which one can purchase if one desires to do so. This one isn't in there. Apparently it's too specific. However, I am considering asking if I can buy a print of it to hang above my sewing machine.