Gift sewing - Topkids 59 skirt 24

I have been embroidering a t shirt as my handbag project for the last few days. This is for my niece who turns 8 this week. I do not smock for this family, as although they are gratifyingly appreciative of anything I make, they keep smocked dresses for "best", which means "worn once", where I am more of a " You want to wear that dress in the sand pit, sure - you will look gorgeous!" sort of smocker. (Smocking is resilient in the washing machine)
A few Christmasses ago, I was very rushed and busy, and did not manage to make presents for my 3 nieces of this family, so I bought presents. This gave me a disappointed feeling in my middle, so on the long car trip, then plane trip to Melbourne to visit them, I did a little embroidery on 3 plain white t shirts from Target to add to the present. These were a wild success, out of proportion to the small effort involved, - and were worn for the family photography that year. I was stunned.
So now, I embroider a t shirt for most birthdays (long story, sorry). This year, I was inspired by a hairclip set, and was quite happy with the embroidery. (Double lazy daisies - 2 pinks, orange, with french knot centres and detached chain leaves, all DMC cotton stranded)

I had bought a book for the rest of the present, and was planning to post the present yesterday. However I woke up at 5am yesterday morning thinking of lime green stretch cotton. On automatic (my usual state in the early morning) I found the fabric, this already traced out TopKids pattern in the right size, and hot pink patterned shoelace, gingham ribbon and bias binding in less than 5 minutes. You would think my sewing things were organized (you would be wrong).
The skirt took less than one hour to cut out, sew and embellish. Nothing went wrong, and the colours all co-ordinate. I did not even look at the t shirt while I was picking the fabrics. I think I made this skirt in a dream the night before, and was just repeating myself. Sewing is doing strange things to my brain.
I went around in a happy glow for the rest of the day, then, after work and dinner, thought I would finish the neckline and hems of 2 knit tops on the coverstitch, which has just behaved beautifully on 16 items of swimwear. The stitches skipped, so I changed the needles (and unpicked the hem - not easy, that pull the chain thing does not happen when I do it). I then spent 4 hours trying to thread the coverstitch and sew a hem without making a hole in the fabric.
After the 78th (I am guessing) time threading the machine exactly as the manual instructed, it suddenly worked, and behaved beautifully. Sewing is not for the faint hearted.

More Spring Swimming

I was a bit bored with sewing swimming things after the big effort on my morning off last week, and had planned to move onto another project this weekend, but a few factors changed my mind. The main one was another dust storm on Sunday. Having just cleaned the entire inside of the house after the last storm, losing a precious Saturday sewing day in the process, I was not terribly happy about the frequency of these storms. However there was a big silver lining - I had originally planned to devote some of Sunday to cleaning the verandahs - currently coated in red dust, but it would have been pointless. So when you are inside all day because it is nasty and dusty outdoors, what can you do?
Stay indoors and sew, but something easy, because everyone else is in the living room too, and requires periodic lego construction approval/help with the assignment/conversation, etc. Besides, all the knit sewing machines were still on the dining table.






First I made the planned rash vests for my daughters. I patted myself on the back a bit for sticking to my plan.

Elizabeth has requested elucidation regarding "rashies". These are sun protective garments made from high UV rating, swim friendly fabrics. Nearly all Australian children and an increasing number of adults (including our family) wear these when swimming at the beach and at outdoor pools, with occasional exceptions very early in the morning, or in the early evening, when the risk of skindamage from the sun is less. Schools in Queensland require these to be worn during swimming lessons (held in outdoor pools). They are called rash vests or rashies, because the original versions (late 80's maybe) were modelled on the garments worn by surfers under their wetsuits to prevent skin rashes. The Cancer Council calls them "Sunprotective swimsuits" which I think explains even better why rashie is the preferred term. Girls usually wear a regular swimsuit top underneath their rashie.

To wander off topic a bit, Elizabeth also wants me to explain "tracky daks" from an earlier post, although I think such a clever lady as Elizabeth should be able to guess what this means from the photographs in the post! Daks is slang for any outerwear nether garment - trousers, shorts, jeans. "Tracky daks" are tracksuit pants, generally used to describe extremely casual lounge wear type clothing that you should not wear down to the shops - rather than your very smart exercise wear designed for showing off at the gym. I will try to use less slang to accomodate my international audience :).

Once I had made the rashies for my daughters, I had all these little pieces of the print fabric left over, not really enough to make anything for the people at my house, but too big to throw away. Being very fond of making little girl's clothes, I decided that my nieces, whom I will see next week in Sydney, need new swimming costumes.

I did not have a pattern for a rashie that small, so have guessed at a size 3 and a size 5. The matching swim pants are mostly from this ancient pattern which I last used in 1999.
Lucky I never throw anything away! I made the flounce at the top of the legs of the pants at the left by tracing around a spool of overlocking thread. I took the construction of the elegant flounce from this post by Shams and applied it to an inferior garment, but thanks Shams for your very useful and inspiring post. I fancy that skirt.

Spring Swimming

Spring holidays always mean a sudden need for new swimwear at our place. The municipal pool opens, daughter the second starts squad training, and last year's swimmers all seem too small or have perished. This year, armed with a new coverstitch machine, I have decided to become competent at sewing swimming costumes. I am armed with some experience at rashie vests, some fabulous chloroban UV 50+ resistant swimwear lycra, and some not very good patterns.
I started with OOP Butterick 5551. I scored this pattern a year or two ago in an ebay bundle. I have a size 12-16, requiring scaling down for my daughters, but was very pleased to see that the swimmers have different pattern pieces for either A/B cup and C/D cup. This would be a great help if the swimmers were not cut with a ridiculously huge amount of ease.

Here is daughter the first, in the scaled down to size 10, (the size approximating her measurements) then drastically taken in, swim top, (morphed from one piece swimmers). The dark purple is the approximate shape of the original garment. I have added an underlay for obvious reasons. I am not happy with this swim top, as it does not fit well, and the underlay attachment looks lumpy and not of commercial standard. The swim shorts fit pretty well after scaling down yet another size, and taking in the waist around 10cm, but you can't see them as she is modelling this swim top with her new drawstring beach cover up pants. Negative ease in swimmers seems pretty obvious to me, but not to Butterick. Butterick also don't line their lycra swim shorts. Eewww. Fortunately I have a lot of lining!
After a little muttering, I progressed to the next level of alteration - the pattern now looks around 6 sizes smaller for the larger daughter. I used a less substantial, but fun print lycra from Lincraft (Brisbane city back in January, it doesn't seem to appear very often). I have not made the upper (print) colour block section quite deep enough, but the girls like the effect. The neckline and back neck are raised nearly 10cm. I have used contrast lycra in the bodice inseam. I feel that I have progressed!


As I was on a roll, I made another pair of swim shorts to coordinate with each swim top.

The plan is for rashie vests in another co-ordinating colour blocked style to provide mix and match swimwear. This might seem excessive, but daughter the second has squad or club swimming 4-5 days a week - it is a bit boring to wear the same thing every day, and more swimwear to rotate means that there is some chance I will not have to make more togs before Christmas.

Vogue wrap dress, and what I really worked on this week

Here is my fourth version of Vogue 8379. This one is from silk jersey, like the butterfly dress I made last year and have just about worn out, but I do not like this one so much. I think this dress pattern is more successful in a print, which disguises the rather messy front waist and pleats, but the dress is comfortable, cool to wear, and I think I will get a lot of use from it, just like the other 2 dress versions I already have. It is rather shiny in comparison to the other silk jersey dress, and I forgot to make the ties longer.



I did not do a lot of sewing last week. It was my son's birthday party on Saturday, and I spent most of my hobby time during the week working on his cake, with a bit of help from my children. I was able to do this as the Mr Men and Little Miss figures are all made from sugar modelling paste, and can be safely left to dry in a container weeks before use, and are actually more stable when left to dry for 24 hours or more. I made the cake in 3 lamington tins on Thursday, and froze it for less crumbly cutting, shaping, assembly and icing on Saturday morning.
I used a cake from Debbie Brown's book "More Character Cakes" as the inspiration for this birthday cake, but added a lot more characters, because they were the appealing aspect of the cake for my son. The balloon candles were a great find at the local supermarket. The children all loved the party, and we put a Mr Men book in each of the party bags, which I hope is almost as much fun as too many lollies. (We did put a few lollies in as well)

BWOF 12-2008-130 sorted out

I now feel in good company with my fitting woes, but was there really no laughing? My daughters were both highly amused. I suppose it is good to provide entertainment for your children....
After such lovely encouragement I unpicked the bodice of the dress, and eased the seams of the bodice to the insert so that I could shorten the insert and make it lie more flat. This improved matters somewhat, but not sufficiently, so I added a few beads to the top line of the smocking, using the beading threads to position the neckline and prevent puffiness, then I stab stitched the lower part of the insert to the lining in a few spots to keep it in place. I am now much more pleased with the dress, although I am planning to never stand with my arms behind my back whilst wearing it.

I am indulging myself with inside photographs. I fully lined the dress, with the imperial batiste used for the bodice, but was feeling impatient when I put the zip in, and sewed both layers as one. I did not like the appearance of this raw edge in contrast to my lovely lining, so have bound the zip tapes with some quilting cotton.
I also used lace to finish the bottom of the skirt lining to make it pretty. I think I like this dress now. I have made another top to wear with it, but will write about that in a later post.

The woes of BWOF 12-2008-130, and distractions

Thank you to the kind people who assured me that RTW polar fleece jackets are worse than mine. I now realize that I have become a fit snob. I don't think I can change this development, and unfortunately it is interfering with my sewing. It is just as well that I have a whole family for whom I can sew.

Gail asked me what went wrong with the mojo killing project. It was fitting. Are you surprised? I am disproportionately discouraged by fitting failures.
Here are some photographs of the second toile,of BWOF 2008-12-130, after adjusting. Giggling is allowed in the privacy of your own home.


This is where I had a little rest from sewing for myself (that was in July). Little rest sounds better than gave up :)
This week I returned to the project. I had already re-drawn the pieces for the skirt, the front bodice with the new huge horizontal dart and avoided the terrible fitting back bodice by converting the nifty cross over back to a regular centre back fastening. Cutting out, I could manage. I had a lovely time smocking the insert, and on constructing the dress today, was moderately happy with the silhouette from the front,





but from the side!!!!


Rolling around on the floor laughing is allowed in the privacy of your home :)).
Looking again at the magazine photo, I think this may be a design characteristic, the gathered front looks rather droopy on the model, who, being a model, has no bust. Hmmm, back to knitting socks I think.

The socks fit very nicely thank you.

Jalie 2795

More prosaic sewing. I was hoping my next post would be about the fabulous shirt I sewed for my husband, but he is curiously reluctant to be photographed, and I really don't want him to develop a dislike of the shirt, so have (almost) stopped mentioning my quest for a model shot.


This polar fleece top (Polartech 200) is my second version of Jalie 2795. I made the first version in June for my daughter, and was very pleased with her jacket. Unfortunately for me, the same pattern does not do me any favours.
I did not make a toile, as I do not find this useful in stretch fabrics unless I am not sure how the pattern will fit together, so I guess this jacket is really a toile- just as well!

The fit is poor on me. I cut out size V, one size larger than my measurements indicate. The jacket I made for my daughter was close fitting and I prefer a little more ease.

The jacket was too long in the arms for both my daughter and I, which I fixed, but on me, the jacket is also too small in the bust, too large in the waist, and has a finishing length emphasizing my largest girth.

I find this garment very unflattering. However, I made it to wear camping, and found it very warm and practical two weekends in a row, so I am not entirely unhappy with my work.
I added an internal pocket, with an inset zip, which worked well, and covered the inside of the front zipper tape with bias binding made from a cotton print.

I will probably make this garment for myself again next winter, and now I can refer back to this post and attempt to make a more flattering shaped garment to wear out in the bush. I will make one more of these jackets this year. My daughter has already out grown the jacket I made in June, and will need a new warm jacket to wear in the evenings in Sydney during her October visit to her grandparents.


- Sharon, I buy polartech and Gortex from Seattle Fabrics, as I have not been able to source these fabrics in Australia. Their website postage calculator does not work for Australia, giving an astronomical total at check out, but in my 8 year or so purchase history, they have always charged me the postage on the packet, + around $5-8 handling fee, and I am happy with their service.

On a less prosaic note, I have returned to the mojo killing project that stopped my sewing back in July. It was so bad, that I did not even write a post about it, but things seem to be recovering nicely, fingers crossed! Here is a sneak peek.