Finished! Simplicity 3328: 1940s blouse

Another first for 2015! I managed to get the whole way through finishing a project from one of my vintage patterns. I was hugely inspired last year by A Stitching Odyssey's vintage pledge, but not able to join in, that when I came across her twitter pledge this year, I decided I should get involved.   I don't have many vintage patterns, but enough to fulfill a pledge of sewing 3 this year.  

 

Original Filterless Glory

With all the optimism and impatience of starting As Soon As Possible, I decided to crack open the Simplicity 3328.  A 1940's vintage, the slight drape of the top and the collar fastening appealed to me .. The pattern picture has a slightly casual aspect to it, yet in the right fabric it could be quite smart and formal.  













Like many vintage patterns I've come across, it comes in a fixed size.  The pattern I have is for a 40 bust - a little on the large size for me in today's world, but as I've also read that vintage sizes might be on the lean side of generous I thought to just cut it out and see what would happen when I made it up.  


Fabric:  I chose a drapey fabric from my stash.. something that would have cost me about £1.20 per metre from the fabulous Dongdaemun in Seoul.  Slightly stupidly, for that price, I didn't buy very much of it.. and so had to be careful cutting it out.   I'm not sure what it is exactly, it has a slightly crepe texture to it, which I like, and it's not too sheer - so possible to wear it without needing a vest or camisole underneath.  

Construction:  There were a few things I didn't quite understand about the pattern, namely the lack of pattern pieces for facings, apparently a common practice with vintage patterns - saving valuable paper space and also an assumption that the sewer has knowledge of cutting these.  I didn't realise much of this until after I'd cut out my pieces and found myself needing to find fabric for a collar and back neck facing  \@@/  Still... good lessons to have learned!   

Likes: I like the look of the collar and the tucks in the front and back of the blouse give it a lovely fitted shape, despite being so fluid a fabric.  Also, I struggled to figure out what to do with the front placket (these seem to be this month's bugbears) so I hand tacked then hand sewed it into place to be better able to control the fabric.  I'm not so stoked with the finish, but it's done and holds its shape…

Collar!

Buttons that match the pattern! Brilliant

Next time: I definitely want to make this up again and have earmarked some less slippery fabric.  However, I could have done with interfacing the collar and placket to give extra support overall to the blouse.  Now that I know how to construct the placket I can pay extra attention to the finishing, and stiffening it slightly would have helped prevent it from flopping around the sewing machine^

I think I'd give myself a 6/10! 

Finished Project: Granville Shirt

2015 Resolutions!  I've been sewing for a while, but have not been so good with time… Reading the many fantastic sewing blogs online I am always curious of how others can find the time to sew, work, manage a social life.. and write it all down.  But, a change of job means less time spent at work and a new apartment allows me a dedicated work space, so 2015 will be the year I finish all those projects and, not only complete them hems and all, but also make the effort to finish them to the point that I am pleased with my work.

My first sewing project finished, and super proud of, is Sewaholic's Granville shirt.  I do have a couple of shirt patterns, and as yet an unfinished craftsy course, but I saw Two Random Words blog post on it and decided this was the pattern I Had To Have.





Fitting:  I initially cut out a 14 and made a toile.. While it fitted around the bust, it was baggy around my waist and shoulders (a problem I always find) and hugely baggy under the bust.  I poured over the photos that Sophie-Lee had posted, hers seemed more fitted, so a recut was needed.  I found a fantastic FBA tutorial by Mary on Curvy Sewing Collective and recut my shoulders/neckline at an 8.. graded out to 10 for the bust and down to 14 at the hips.  The pattern looked a strange monster, particularly around the waist.. but the fit is great.  I lost all the bagginess under the bust and the waist and hips look more streamlined.  I still had to reduce my shoulder seams in by 1" further, but that was an easy fix.  The sleeve length is a little too long for me, but as I don't intend to wear the sleeves down, it's not a problem.

Materials & Notions:  I used a linen cotton mix from my fabric stash and I think the slight stiffness of the fabric suits the structured shape of the shirt well.  As I was too impatient to go out and source more interfacing I used what I had available, which might have just been on the too-thick side.  I didn't interface the cuffs, as I plan to always roll up the sleeves. 

Achievements:  I finished a shirt!  Haha.. Lots of firsts for me with this project - a collar with a collar stand.. a successful FBA… Plackets - which actually caused me a little confusion in the instructions, but doing a practice run first on scrap fabric helped a lot.. The triangular points are still not entirely symmetrical, but I'm super pleased with the overall look.

Likes:  I love the princess seam back - it's super flattering, and the length.. again very flattering. I don't often tuck clothes in, so it's great to have a shirt that also looks good loose.  I also love the pattern construction… I needed a good sit down with a cup of tea to figure out some parts (yoke & placket) but I put that down to overall impatience at not reading everything properly the first time round^^

Next time:  I will definitely use a less stiff interfacing… and I'm excited to try this in a lighter weight fabric too.. I left off the pockets as I'm not too sure about bust pockets on larger busts.

I love this shirt - I've worn it a few times to work, and as it has, on each time, successfully avoided being easily identified as homemade, it's a winner!

A New Year, A New Start

Today's project: An Experiment in Corsetry

Years ago in my previous UK life in the theatre I had to 'make' a costume involving a corset.  At the time it proved too far out of my comfort zone and far too far out of my budget so I put the costume together using a kind of bustier, from Top Shop I think.
Fast forward into a different life where I'm now able to sew just for me, and for lots more fun, I've become interested in trying new sewing projects and actually learning the craft, rather than superficially trying to just 'make it work'. I was really inspired by verypurpleperson's blog and reading her post on sewing a corset decided that I was going to try it for myself^

So... today I started.  I chose the Laughing Moon underbust corset kit from sewcurvy.com which comes with all the materials and bits and bobs (spiral boning, eyelets, ribbon, tape) that you need to put the corset together.  Not trusting myself to keep white fabric clean, I went for the black coutil, which is a fabric apparently made specifically for constructing corsets.  It is a very tightly woven fabric, I guess to avoid stretching and to deal with the boning and lacing.  

Today's achievements:  I've managed to successfully..
cut the fabric pieces:

insert the front right and left busks:

and insert the eyelets in the two back pieces:

Being an impatient soul and not having immediate access to an awl, I used small scissors and a 7mm knitting needle to form the holes before hammering in the grommets (I do have a hammer^).  For a first time eyelet installation, I'm quite pleased^

Time for a cup of tea, I think!

Frank: the Stuffed Green Olive Bear

Meet Frank the bear^   

I never realised that I wanted a bear until I saw this on the Purl Bee website.  I was almost tempted to buy the kit which includes what looks like gorgeous (and pricey^)  soft felted wool, but having access to the awesome Dongdaemun fabric market meant it seemed daft not to source my own material.

Olive felt (about 2mm thickness) and contrast cotton for nose, ears, paws and tail

Not being sure of how it would work out, I went for some soft felt and even better that I found it in one of my favourite green shades.  The pattern is available as a free download and the instructions are quite easy to follow.  I'd never made a toy before so I guess I'd thought it would be much harder than it turned out to be... either that or the Purl Bee pattern is foolproof (yes, probably that^).  The pieces go together quickly and the whole bear took only a few hours to put together.

Despite a foolproof pattern, I still managed to make mistakes^^.  As the arms are sewn into the side seam whilst the body is inside out you have to be sure which arm (left or right) you are placing into which socket^  Yep, I got them the wrong way round...  Still - gives Frank that unique Jennifer twist.

Mistakes?  What mistakes?!!

First Post! Finished Cambie

After a long while putting off hemming and tidying up the dangling bits of thread, I finally finished my first Cambie dress.  'First' Cambie dress because, although I'm a bit late joining Sewaholic's Cambie bandwagon,  I absolutely love the dress and pattern and have already plotted out more makes with some other fabrics.  I love the shape of the classic A-line skirt (not being a big fan of drapey gathers) and the pocket inserts are beautifully added.  

My apartment's a bit disorganised at the moment to try taking pictures of me wearing it, so the dress form will have to stand in for the moment.  

I'm quite pleased with the final outcome of the dress; after making the toile/muslin it was quite saggy around the middle so I increased the front darts about 1/2 inch... I thought it wasn't necessary to go up a skirt size as the general size was fine, just a baggy middle (which no-one wants^ not even to hide a big lunch under) and that resulted in a perfectly fitted waistband and skirt. Next time I'm going to have to try to adjust the top - a lack of experience with recutting patterns caused me to cut a bigger bust size then try to make up for my narrow shoulders by taking in the sides and making the shoulders lower, although that didn't quite work.  Oh well... so off to the internet I go to research FBAs, sigh.  The sweetheart neckline ended up gaping rather too much and so, not wanting to undo all of my hard work up to that point (aargh) I decided on a quick fix and improvised a couple of tucks.   Can only be seen if you're staring hard at my bust...  You've been warned^^ 

Ok.. stare at the neckline then. 

Another impressive thing about this dress: the cost (minus pattern and (wo)man hours)^^  The fabric is a soft drapey cotton, super light and perfect for summer.  I love the red colour  and the pattern - although I'm not a confident pattern wearer - and cost a grand total of 4'000 ₩ (£2.33 in today's money) from "New Pattern Man" (not his real name) at Dongdaemun fabric market here in Seoul.  I think he'll warrant his own blog post later.