First swimwear for the season

 

A weekend away with friends got me started on my swimwear for the season...I was perfectly happy wearing last year's stretched swimmers at Noosa, where nobody knows me, and swimming in the backyard with family allows me to wear the bikinis that don't quite make it to the public arena...but a weekend swimming with people I know had me sitting at the sewing machine.

The pattern:  This is the halter neck style from Stuart's swimwear Pattern School site, adjusted for my personal measurements.  I had been planning on sewing up some of the more adventurous styles this year, but I needed this pair in a hurry, so went with a pattern I had already used.

The fabric: is a nyon lycra from Tessuti, at their Surry Hills store, which they sourced from a leading Australian swimwear label.  It is a gorgeous fabric.  Small, busy prints can be tricky to use, because they don't allow the eye to settle anywhere, which can necessitate the used of strong design lines or edging / piping etc.  The clever thing about this fabric is that it is like a print over the top of a print....the colours flowers over the top of the brown / white flowers allow the eyes to travel over the garment without getting "lost"...so it can still be used for simple styles.

I used a lace elastic on the neckline and armholes.

I got the lining from Beach Bubble Swimwear, at a very reasonable price.  I stocked up on elastic from them at the same time.

Pants Fitting - the missing link??

I've just had a pants-fitting A-Ha! moment, and I want to capture it before it escapes my brain....

This week I bought "Fitting and Pattern Alteration" by Elizabeth Liechty, Judith Rasband and Della Pottberg-Steineckert.  I haven't had a good look at it yet, but last night I glanced through Chapter 6,  where it shows you how to alter the crotch curve on pants using your own body space, which you find by holding a flex-curve to yourself.  I already had a template of my body space (strange, but true), which I made up after reading the Threads articles on this topic.  The diagrams in Threads showed that I had  tilted pelvis, but did not really show how to correct for this.

Anyway, I thought I would follow the Liechty et al method and compare my body space to patterns that already fit me well (for the purposes of understanding the process, rather than to start with a pattern that doesn't fit and try to correct it).  I compared it to 2 patterns, my Alice & Olivia wide-legged pants and my Marfy close-fitting jeans.

Figure 1 is a mud-drawing of the body space sitting inside the Alica & Oliva pants.  It fits really nicely inside the crotch curve.  The only problem I have with these pants is strain on the CB seam below the waistband, and I guess I correct this by adjusting the slope of the CB Crotch seam. It also seems I have a slightly "receded pubic area", which is a new phrase to me!

Figure 2 is a mud-drawing of my body space inside the Marfy jeans and it shows that there is not enough room.  How can this be, when the jeans fit beautifully?  I came up with a few different possibilities

1.  The jeans are made up in a stretch denim.  True, but I got out the muslin, which was made in a woven, and it fits too.

2.  Jeans sit between the bum cheeks and not over the top of them.  Again, true, but doesn't seem to account for all the missing space.

3.  This body space theory has not been fully explained, because the crotch curve changes from being parallel to the body at the CF, perpendicular to the body through the lower crotch curve and back to parallel to the body.  So I put the muslin on, found the point where the fabric moves from parallel to perpendicular and compared that to the the shape of the bottom of the crotch curve.  Still not enough length.

And 4....stick with me...this is my A-Ha! moment.  The diagrams in this fitting book, and Threads, always show the pant front and back with the grain line vertical on the page.  But this is not how the fabric sits on the body, because the curved leg seam will put strain on the fabric in this region.  Not so much in wide-legged pants where the inner leg seam is fairly straight (and hence the Alice & Olivia scenario) and much more so in tight fitting pants.  So I slid the back pants piece around so that the leg seams on front and back sat next to each other.  Finally, the crotch curve matched my body space, except for the section where the jeans sit between the bum cheeks.  This makes sense (well, to me anyway) because jeans follow the bum curve to a much lower point than wide legged trousers, which will hang from further up the curve.

So, did anybody follow this?  What do you think? 

Japanese Girly Skirt

 

I have been longing to get hold of some of these beautifully photographed Japanese sewing books.  I am sorely tempted by "Pattern Magic", but thought I would ease in with "girly style wardrobe".

The styles in this book are timeless and simple.  I am not the world's fastest sewer.  I am not one of those people that can disappear into their sewing room and emerge triumphant several hours later with a completed garment.  I sew children's clothing when I need my sewing fix and don't have time to sew something for me.  From start to finish, including tracing the pattern and studying the instruction diagrams, this took me 2 hours.

 

You can see the bias binding waist ribbon tied in a bow at the back

The fabric:  A Japanese cotton, Mustard Blooms,  from Tessuti.  The fabric has a gorgeous texture, which you can see in the photo in the Tessuti on-line shop.  It is hard to tell, but the little flowers are pale pink and white, which makes for easy matching of t-shirts.

I used a pre-formed pink gingham bias trim, from a local quilting shop "The Tinkers Cart".  And why wouldn't you, when it is so cute?  I also bought it in blue and yellow.

The pattern:  Style "d" from girly style wardrobe.  Only, I used less pleats at the front of the skirt because I had a different pattern in mind when I bought the fabric and did not have quite enough fabric for this style.

Here are my tips for working with these patterns

• Open out the pattern sheet.  Have a look at it, then go and have a cup of tea.  There are a lot of lines.  They will still be there when you get back.
• You can find translations for the Japanese symbols on the web, but I found it was easier to think about the pattern pieces logically than to match symbols (see here).
• Seam allowances are not included.  The diagrams in the book show recommended seam allowances to be added to each pattern piece.  There is usually no seam allowance when you are finishing an edge with bias trim.
  
• Identify the pattern pieces you need by looking for the style letters.  A bodice piece may be used for several patterns, so it could be labelled with multiple letters.  I did this outside dance class, and some non-sewing people helped me find the pieces I needed, once they realised that I was not looking at house plans.
• On the pattern sheet, the front bodice is positioned above the front skirt, and the back bodice is positioned above the back skirt.  See?  Logical.  Fronts generally have a lower neckline than backs. 
• On the instruction diagrams, the big numbers indicate the order in which the steps are sewn.
• Children's sizes are generally selected on the height (given in cm in this book).  Because my daughter has little hips, I chose a pattern based on hip measurement and then added to the length.  I probably didn't need to add so much length because she likes to wear her skirts under her belly.
• There are lists in the instructions for how much elastic to buy etc.  It may be helpful to translate these symbols (see here).  Because I was custom-making for somebody, I just inserted the elastic and then adjusted it to fit, before sewing it in place.

Colour: the good and the bad

Shall we start with the not-so-good.  This is a copy of a caftan I tried on whilst on holiday.

It is a very simple design.  Just a length of fabric, split into 3 panels, with the middle panel gathered at the waist-line.

Only, instead of looking like I am wandering from pool to bar, I look like I have wandered off the set of a Nativity Play.  I am putting this down to the colour.  I bought the fabric at Kerryn's Fabric World a couple of years ago.  It is shirt-weight cotton.  That was the year that the shops were flooded with brown clothing and I couldn't bear to see another brown blouse, so I stashed the fabric.

I bought the lace trim in France, years ago.

I expect that it will get a bit of wear over the years, as somebody always needs to dress up as a shepherd at Christmas time!

So moving on from the not-so-good to the fabulous.  I bought these shoes last week, 70% off and the last pair left were my size.These shoes are very out of character for me...usually my heels are limited to the diana ferrari super-soft and the equally comfortable Tsonga shoes.  The colour is what I love most about these.

Here is a "what I wore today" shot.

The t-shirt: a no-brand t-shirt that I picked up in Melbourne.  It does have a tag saying "made in China".

The skirt:  my favourite skirt pattern, Vogue 7735, made up in a Japanese cotton from Tessuti.

The shoes: as above

The necklace: from Elk.  My sisters have recently introduced me to this jewellery label and I love every piece in the collection.

I have always loved the green colour in the shoes.  My favourite, favourite piece of furniture is a cabinet that Peter built for me from an old oven that I picked up at the dump shop for $7.  I'm sure these ovens would sell for way more at a 2nd hand shop.  It is the only time I have ever rummaged in the "shop" at the dump.  On the same day, I picked up some scraps of colour-bond that Peter used when he made our wine-rack (too dusty to photograph!).  Must have been my lucky day.

Holiday Sewing

Blouse + linen pants, cuffs rolled up for cricket

The first part of my holiday was spent with family on the Sunshine Coast.  We drove down, and were not camping, so I had room to take my machine.  I was still hand-sewing my LBD, so I didn't want to do anything complicated.  I thought it was time to catch up on some simple sewing for my children (and I get the guilts when I see all that adorable children's clothing on other people's blogs and my children are running around, grubby in worn out hand-me-downs).  I just took a couple of children's patterns and then bought some lovely cottons from Oh Sew Noosa.

I made a blouse and pants, adapted from Burda 9948 (now OOP).  It is sized 2, 3, 4, 5, 6.  When I first started using it, Sz 2 was too big for my children.  This time I had to cut out the biggest size, which was a little sad.  I have used this pants pattern for my boys as well as Lucy.

Blouse worn with jeans, rock-star performance

The top pattern is for an elasticated neck.  I changed this by gathering the front onto a bias band, and putting pin-tucks in the back.  I put a continuous placket opening in the centre-front (except I couldn't remember how to do this without my reference books and it is a little bodgy).  I gathered the sleeves onto bias bands.  I took up tucks around the hem-line to reduce the length.

Blouse, back detail

Next I took inspiration from here to make a tunic-top.  It is long enough to be worn as a dress.  Lucy has worn it as a dress, over a singlet (shown below), over jeans and over the linen pants.  It has already had quite a few wearings!  The straps are a red / white cord, purchased locally, which was actually the starting point for this little collection.  I would like to add to the collection with shorts.

Dress, worn over singlet (just waking up)

Dress, back view (criss-cross straps)

It is hard to see here, but the straps criss-cross in the back.  I made this dress using the full width of the fabric.  I tuned over the short ends to make the button placket, hemmed the bottom, and gathered the top onto a band.  I added loops to feed the straps through.

Dress worn as tunic, over linen pants

Visiting Tessuti

I added an extra day to my Sydney trip just to visit Tessuti.  No complaints from Peter, and he even told me that he had luggage room for any fabric I bought.  Whatta man!  The photo above is taken out the front of their Surry Hills store.

So I finally got to meet the lovely Colette in person.  I just love meeting people who are enthusiastic about fabric...kindred spirits.  Colette even took me to her local coffee jaunt, where I had to confess that I don't drink coffee.  I don't normally pass on that detail until at least the second date :-), but I can confirm that their pies are something special. 

Now onto the fabric.  I spent literally hours in that store and could have stayed longer.  Because there is a dirth of fabric stores where I live, I use my holidays to stock up.  I have my favourite stores and mostly I just find one or two pieces in each that I love.  These days I mostly start with a fabric and then pick a pattern, as doing it the other way round leads to frustration when I can't find what I want.  In Tessuti however, there was so much that was good.  I ended up being a bit overwhelmed...I should have drawn up that wardrobe plan first!

I did restrain myself, not intentionally, but because I couldn't pull the thoughts together in my head.  When I got home, I was surprised to find that the fabrics worked together.  The above is a pile of fabrics for me...all plains...a couple of organic knits, a shirt-weight woven, a couple of linens and a silk bottom weight.  I also bought a couple of prints for my little girl (the boys miss out again) and a few lycra swimwear lengths.

 Thanks Colette, for a great day!

Little Black Dress Complete

 

Here are some photos of the completed LBD.  Completed just in time, mind you.  I was still  furiously handstitching on the morning of my flight, because I wasn't sure if I would be able to carry a needle on the plane.  And sadly, my blog readers are the only ones to see my dress in all its glory.  Sydney did not put on its best weather for us, 15°C and raining so hard there were rivers in the gutters.  I threw in my Chanel -style jacket at the last minute and then hardly took it off all weekend, just slipped it off for a quick photo.  I wear so little black that I had to borrow shoes to wear with the dress.  I should have borrowed boots...I was clearly the tourist, being the only person not wearing boots.

The pattern:  Vogue 8494.  I used the design lines from this pattern in conjunction with my sloper.  The only change I made to the sloper was to lengthen the waist 1 cm.  I am short-waisted, which can look odd if the the waist is in the right place.  I couldn't decide how much to lengthen the waist so I used the Golden Ratio on bodice length versus dress length and came up with 1 cm.  Now that I look at the photos (taken after sitting down for a couple of hours), I can see that the bodice is wrinkled vertically.  Perhaps I should have left the waist line where it was.

I did not follow the pattern instructions as I wanted to try out the couture techniques outlined in the Threads article "Little Black Dress from Start to Finish", by Susan Khalje, March 2008.  The steps were:

 1.  Make a muslin
2.  Cut out and mark the underlining, by transferring the muslin stitching lines to the underlining with a tracing wheel and waxed paper.  I found this step a little difficult on the slippery organza, and probably lost a bit of accuracy in the process.
3.  Cut out the fashion fabric, with wide seam allowances.
4.  Join the layers with a running stitch along each seam-line.
5.  Slip-stitch baste for a fitting. 
6.  Machine-stitch the garment (finally), then stay-stitch, trim and clip the neckline and armhole edges.  I stay-stitched by machine, but I wished I had hand-stay-stitched the neck edge or fused some tape to it first because I think it stretched on me and and I had to pull it in later.  The seam allowances and edges are then catch-stitched to the underlining.  I must confess, I found this catch-stitching all very time-consuming and a little tedious.
7.  Apply the zipper.  I applied an invisible zipper by machine.
8.  Cut and sew the lining.    The lining was then attached with a fell stitch, which I learnt to do here, because I was on holidays at this point and left the magazine article at home.  I quite liked the fell stitch and will use it in the future to attach lining to zippers, as it is much sturdier than my slip-stitching.
9.  Add finishing details, which for me meant slip-stitching the hem to the underlining and attaching a strip of lace to the lining hem.

The fabric:  The outer fabric is Rare Black Track, from Tessuti.  It is a cotton / viscose / polyamide blend, semi-sheer in places.  The texture is just gorgeous.  The interlining is an ivory crystal organza from my local bridal shop, which gives a subtle sheen through the semi-sheer sections of the outer fabric.  The lining is a rayon black lining, also from Tessuti.

The occasion:  I went to see "A Street-car Named Desire", performed by the Sydney Theatre Company. 

Although this is a sewing blog, I am going to review this play...only because the thoughts are in my head and I want to get them down. Indulge me, if you like, or come back and read some more sewing thoughts another day.

The performance was fabulous.  Our seats were in the very back row, and it is a testament to the skill of the director and actors that I could feel the drama and tension all the way back there.  The stage setting and costumes transported me instantaneously.  I was not familiar with the story-line, and I was held in suspense right to the very last moment.

I first saw Joel Edgerton perform live in Henry V, with the Bell Shakespeare Company, and was so smitten that I kept the ticket in my purse for years.  Whilst he is very enjoyable on the small screen, he is completely arresting in live performance.  It was worth my plane ticket to see him alone!  The Stanley he gave us was completely believable and multi-dimensional.  He presented a character that we could truly understand, even if we could not condone his actions.

The role of Blanche was huge and Cate Blanchett was formidable in this complex role.  She put so much into the performance, I don't know how she would have had the energy to back up for the evening performance.  My only criticism was that perhaps Cate shone a little too brightly as Blanche.  She is so beautiful and eloquent that I had to remind myself that Blanche was washed up and clinging for dear life to the last vestiges of beauty and youth.  I have met a few Blanches in my life and I always feel the pull of wanting to believe them, wanting to believe the good in them, yet knowing that the tangle of untruths do not make sense (yes I am a sucker...my children manage to get away with lying to me all the time).  As an audience member, I was not torn like this...but perhaps, this is how it was intended, or perhaps it was because my back row seat did not give me a good look at the actors faces.

Robin McLeavy was lovely as Stella (though I would have liked a closer seat, to see more of her performance) and Tim Richards' interpretation of Mitch was spot-on.  This play gets my highest praise, in that I was still pondering the characters and outcomes several days later and now want to go and read the script for myself.  Could Mitch have been Blanche's salvation?  Would she have wanted that salvation?  Where would Stanley's ambitions lead him?  Would Stella and Stanley have remained happily married, comfortable in their well-defined marital roles?  I think I'll have to get hold of the film version, and see if Marlon Brando lives up to Joel!