SWAP 2013 Wardrobe Sewing

Completed SWAP (sewing with a plan) collections are up via Stitchers Guild.  Due to the many appearances here of my older daughter in the last few months, you may have gathered that  she is the recipient of my attempt at this year's challenge.
This year the concept of a completely co-ordinating 11 piece wardrobe was split. Instead,  two capsules of 4-5 pieces were required for each entry, which have only one linking piece needed. These are the two capsules I have entered (no multi-outfit photos are allowed in the official entries, so this is a good excuse for me to show them to you as a two part collection).





I had planned to write a nice long post linking photos to each individual item I had made, but unfortunately, I am currently suffering from a very dodgy internet connection. 
Instead, here are some outfit shots that are not in the official entry.











I think this is my most successful wardrobe sewing attempt yet, and despite making it often at long distance, all the items are being worn constantly (or else my daughter is a kind fibber). The success is partly due to having each top only need to coordinate with two bottom pieces and one cardigan, but also because after only 5 years of SWAP sewing I am finally getting more practiced at  planning co-ordinating separates to make an appealing silhouette - instead of actually making two completely unsuited garments and having to start over ;(. After colour and fabric choice, I think the overall shape of the outfits is the next category to discipline in order to have mulitiple outfits from a small number of pieces, and I will be working more on this for my own sewing when I want to maximize garment use.
As soon as my internet recovers, I will be spending a lovely long time looking at all the other collections - so many brilliant outfit ideas are always very good for pattern acquisition encouragement.

Butterick 5895, A Gertie top

I rarely even look at Butterick Patterns, having previous poor experiences when sewing from them, but their marketing is working on me. I recently bought 2 patterns by Gertie, because I fancied the look of them when I saw them on her blog.
Today I made up the blouse from the seperates pattern B5895.



Not having sewn from Butterick for quite a while, I was very careful to inspect the provided measurements.
My daughter is a size 8 in Butterick, according to the envelope body  measurements. That would be a bust measurement of 31 and 1/2 inches.
The finished garment measurement for this blouse (thoughtfully provided on the pattern tissue only, so you cannot check this before you buy the pattern) is 38 and 1/2 inches. That, dear readers, is a mere 7 inches of ease at the bust, which I do not believe is the ease shown in the garment worn by the model on the envelope, unless there is a large peg at the back which they are not showing us.




Feeling smug about catching this, I went on to look at the finished waist measurement, which is not provided. At a spot  somewhere considerably above the waist a "width" measurement is given as 29 and 3/4 inches for size 8. I imagined that this meant circumference, and again is somewhere between 5 and 7 inches of ease.



Progressing, I read Gertie's post about this garment, where she says that the model must be tall, as she had not  intended the garment to be midriff baring. I guessed this meant the garment would end at the waist.

My daughter measures 42cm, neck to waist, and the size 8 garment finished length is given as 40cm, however, the smallest size in my envelope, size 4, with a finished bust measurement 5 inches over for my daughter's measurements, is only 39 cm in length.

According to the pattern envelope, there is no provision provided for above waist adjustment.
I took this as a challenge. This blouse was not going to fit straight out of the envelope.

However, Butterick is not joking about the provision for above waist adjustment. There is a french dart, a shoulder dart, and the collar is continuous from the front piece. Although this makes the garment a breeze to cut out, with only 3 pattern pieces, and no fiddly collar or sleeve insertion, it does make it tricky to adjust.

Did I get out my rulers, and start adjusting? No, I wanted to whip up a quick little top, so I fudged.
I cut out at size 4 width, and size 12 length, moving all darts to the size 12 position, and keeping all dots in the size 4 horizontal but size 12 vertical positions. I then added 1cm in length to the back , the buttoning centre front sections and the sides of the front, tapering to the ties. Although technically, I should do a small bust adjustment for my daughter, I did not feel that this would make a big change to the fit of the blouse, as there was so much ease already.

I changed a few things in the construction.
My fabric is a lovely cotton seersucker from Michael's Fabrics. I did not want to fuse the enormous front facings and collar as instructed by the pattern, as this would reduce the coolness of the fabric, and permanently set the seersucker puckering in a fashion I find unattractive. Instead I used cotton batiste as the interfacing, and sewed it right sides together with the inner edge of the front facing pieces, then turned, for a clean, breathable finish.



I found a slightly confusing , possible hiccup in the instructions. You are instructed to reinforce the upper fronts "to the small circle" and then clip to the small circle. Unfortunately, there are actually two small circles at the upper front, one on either leg of the shoulder dart (unsewn at this point), and there is no illustration distinguishing between the points. As clipping is a permanent change, I read this twice, then worked out that possibly the clipping instruction had been intended for after the shoulder dart was sewn, which would place both small circles directly over each other. Clipping to the circle furthest toward the shoulder is necessary for the collar construction.



 In size 4 width, the small circles mentioned above, that should match in all 3 pieces, only match if the garment edges do not. I guess this is fairly typical of big4 drafting.

At the inner shoulder seam, there are 6 layers of fabric including the interfacing. I found this a bit bulky, and chose to finish the back neck with a strip of bias batiste rather then the interfaced back neck facing piece. This was overstitched to the shoulder seam - still bulky, but sits better than the 8 layers of fabric and interfacing that would have been here had I turned under the back neck facing for a clean seam finish at this corner where all the garment pieces turn.



I think this now fits in the way Gertie intended it to be worn.



This is a very cute little top. My daughter loves it.


Edited to add: Stashbusting statistics: 1.5m cotton seersucker, Michael's Fabrics 2012 about 0.5 m of cotton batiste 2009.

Vogue 8747 "fitted" blouse

I am still sewing daughter clothes. She needs office type clothes for the clinical part of her University course, so I thought I would try for a fitted blouse, and conveniently make something I could enter in the fitted blouse challenge at Pattern Review, run by Velosewer. I was inspired by Velosewer's parade of beautiful blouses, and thought I really should work out the Vogue fitting for my daughter, now that she is all grown up.



Being not terribly fond of fitting adjustments, I am a big fan of the trend for multi-cup size patterns.



Vogue 8747 has seperate pattern pieces for the centre and side front panels for size A, B, C and D (not just an A/B, then C then D, like some other patterns that pretend they have all these different fits). This makes the pattern very useful for our family, where none of us is a standard, no adjustment needed B cup, but we manage to cover all the other  cup sizes in the pattern.

This blouse is a size 8, A.



The pattern has 3+ inches of ease at the bust, and 2 inches of ease at the waist and hips, according to the printed measurements. This means that using Vogue's own description of the ease in fitted blouses, this blouse is "fitted" at the bust, and "close fitting" at the waist and hips. I find it a bit strange that a blouse that has particular fitting adjustments at the bust should be loose at the bust relative to the waist and hips. For my daughter's blouse I added a further inch of ease to the waist and hips for fitting consistency.



Unfortunately, this was not a choice in the right direction. I should have removed an inch at the bust for fitting consistency instead!





My only other fitting adjustment was to make a 1.5 cm square shoulder adjustment, half each at the front and back shoulder seam.
I am happy with the shoulder fit, and the neckline sits very nicely, with no gaping even when leaning forward - just as well, as it is rather low cut for a work blouse.

I had some fun with the stripe direction, cutting the side panels on the bias, and also by adding piping to either side of the shaped front band.



The blouse is made from a very crisp shirting cotton, that does not photograph well, but it makes a smart, fresh looking work blouse and both my daughter and I are quite happy with it.

Stashbusting statistics 1.6m shirting cotton, Michael's fabrics, 2010

Burda Style 03-2013-137 retro blouse

I have a weakness for heirloom sewing. Lace, pintucks, fussiness, all appeal to me greatly, so when Burda reproduced a 1950's fancy blouse pattern in the March 2013 issue, I could not resist.

Source :http://www.burdafashion.com/fr/Magazines/burda_Style/137_Chemisier_Schema_du_modele 

However, I am aware that both retro and heirloom look more appealing on a young woman, so rather than make this as a dowdy old  unfashionable middle aged lady blouse for myself, I chose to make this retro blouse for my older daughter, who thankfully shares my weakness for lace and fol-de-lols.

The blouse gave me a few hiccups.

When I cut out the blouse, I was a little concerned about the grain direction of the upper yoke .In the heirloom sewing with which I am familiar, pintucks and pleats are carefully aligned with the grain of the fabric. Burda, however, places 3 pintucks on about a 30 degree angle off the straight grain in the upper bodice.

Unsurprisingly, these pintucks disorted the fine batiste fabric considerably. Presumably, my inability to stick with 3 stingy pintucks exacerbated this distortion. 5 is my magic number for pintucks- unless I use 7 ;)

Here is the unaltered blouse with pintuck distortion running rife.

 

Here is the altered blouse with removal of 1cm from each upper bodice piece from the neck, tapering to the shoulders
 
. There is still considerable excess pouf, but I am happier with this iteration. I wonder if the fashion for 1950's sloped shoulders added to my fitting issues - I usually make a square shoulder alteration for my daughter, and thought I had done this when cutting out the pattern, but had to make a further square shoulder alteration as retrofitting.


This is a very pretty blouse. I did not have 5.5 cm wide lace with a scallop border, but it is just as pretty with slightly skinnier lace with and endreteux border in my opinion, particularly as I had this particular cotton lace lurking in my stash..
If I make it again, I would alter the grain of the upper bodice pieces so that the pintucks are either on the straight or cross grain.
Although this is a 2.5 dot pattern, the amount of handsewing required for this pattern makes it rather time consuming and more tricky than most 2.5 dot patterns in Burda.



I added to the time consumption by using french seams throughout, and handsewing all of the lace to the blouse. In my opinion this level of attention to seam finishing is necessary for a translucent garment.
I also used a skirt type placket for the back neck, rather than simply turning under the edges of the fabric - batiste needs a few layers before applying buttons in my opinion.




I found it rather amusing, that without viewing the magazine photo, my daughter styled this blouse with a cuff bracelet and skinny jeans for the mandatory hand-it-over photo shoot.

I think she is on trend.

Burda model photograph

Stashbusting: 1 m of cotton batiste 2009, 2.7 m of cotton lace, 2000.

Burda Style 12-2009-115 trousers

Wool trousers are a little premature for the season around here, but I am very pleased with these anyway. Please appreciate the kindness of my daughter in modelling these on a hot day to keep her mother quiet happy.



The pattern is from Burda, 12-2009-115 trousers, which have some very appealing details.

I love the curved seam across the back and side, so I topstitched it.  It doesn't show up so well in the photos, but in real life this detail can be noticed if you are admiring the trousers with the eyes of a sewing obsessed person.





I also like the inseam front yoke pockets, but in her previous pair (cotton twill, 2010, now worn out), these pockets tended to gape despite being supported with selvage in the seamlines. This time, I not only elongated the pocket bags to allow full engulfment of her mobile phone, but added a buttoning tab to keep the pockets securely fastened and hopefully gape-free. I also lengthened the waistband for an extended tab, so that I could put lots of pretty flowery pewter buttons on these serious grey wool work trousers.



The trousers are lined with cotton batiste. I used the outer pattern pieces for the lining, left over flannel flower cotton print for the waistband and fly, and forgot to photograph the inside before I handed over the trousers. The inside is rather neat, so I regret this oversight.

She really needs to wear a belt with these (do Uni students eat properly? This one seems a little skinnier), so it is just as well there are belt loops.

Due to my excellent planning, these trousers co-ordinate beautifully with her flannel flower blouse and navy bamboo cardigan from the post after her visit home. I might get a SWAP done after all.

The March Stashbusting challenge is to make something for the upcoming season. These qualify, with1.5 m of lovely wide wool from Michael's fabrics, 2011, and about 2m of not-very-wide cotton batiste, 2009.

3 looks, one pattern, Ottobre 05-2010-01 t shirt

I don't sew much from Ottobre, but so far, nearly everything I have made from this magazine has been a great basic. In theory, I appreciate the use of women of many ages, who are also non-standard shape models for clothing in Ottobre . However, in reality, this means I find the pattern less immediately appealing when considering clothing for myself or my teenage daughters. I am conditioned by advertising ideals more than I would like to think!






 I liked the yoke on this t shirt, which is shown with 2 long sleeve variations, number 1 "Nora" and number 4 "Renee". Neither garment uses contrast fabric for the yoke, but to me the pattern cried out for colour blocking, with, of course some stashbusting scraps for the yoke ;) However, I did not actually have any stashbusting scraps for the yoke, so I had to make some other t shirts first in order to have scraps. This makes sense to me, but I understand if this is not universally evident as a sensible approach.



Keeping to the January stashbusting small scrap theme, I started with the t shirt on the far left, which does not look as if I used any scraps at all. This is due to the complete failure of the cotton-lycra knit Peter Pan collar I drafted (from scraps) and applied to the t shirt ( made from the Nora pattern with the  front yoke added back in to the pattern).  The collar was ripply and soggy looking, so I cut it off, then added an extra wide self fabric neckband , which despite  having a severely angled seam at its short end, managed to stand out at the upper neck.
I decided that a marvelous design feature for this neckline would be a little judicious gathering with a ribbon. The ribbon dates from the newborn phase of my son, now 10 years old, when I thought I might make him a cutsie sailor suit. He is probably glad I did not get around to this.



The ribbon is sewn wrong sides together, for robustness, and so that both sides show the pattern, and threaded through small slits made in one layer of the neckline. It looks very cute and nautical with the red denim shorts but you will have to take my word for it as the recipient is a bit too busy to stand around having photos taken.

Next I made the t shirt pretty much to the Nora pattern, now that I had some white scraps ;). However, I added a back yoke, using the back facing pattern piece, as I felt it would look better with the contrast continuing over the shoulder.



In construction I added elastic to the upper neck seamline, so that it would lay flat when worn, and coverstitched the lower yoke seam and the hems in white for more embellishment.
I was pretty pleased with the t shirt, but feel that it doesn't look very different from wearing 2 t shirts over each other, which would have been easier to sew, so I probably won't use the yoke effect again in plain colours - maybe in lace it would be more interesting.

Having some enthusiasm restored by the success of t shirt number 2, I returned to my collar plan. This collar is made from quilting cotton (given to me by my mother in law and made into a dress for daughter the first in 1998, quite a venerable scrap), and seriously interfaced with Pro-woven crisp shirt interfacing - so no rippling.
I had some trouble due to my poor drafting skills - having made a collar too small to slip over the head!, so made a gappy and buttoning design feature at the back which looks quite cute IMO -my daughter thought it was deliberate and cool, so I have her fooled nicely.



I took some trouble with the neckline. I wanted the inside to stay inside, look neatly finished, but not be too bulky.
I used fold over elastic to finish the inside, sewing it in two passes, then folding under the seam allowance and topstitching with a narrow 3 step zig-zag stitch.





I thought it looked quite good, but I finished the gap in the back with a little of the t shirt fabric in a regular binding, as the elastic alone looked a bit flimsy here.



Scrapbusting - one collar sized piece of quilting cotton, 15+ years old, and about 1.5m of 10 year old ribbon. Stashbusting about 2m of cotton lycra knit which I actually buy by the roll due to high use and turnover and do not need to stashbust . Verdict - no appreciable stash denting.

Burda 08-2011-130 shorts repeat, flood report and stash confession

Thank you to the people who sent me emails and left comments about our possible dampness. We are just fine, having a house well above flood level and being quite used to floods in this area (The media are reporting "Highest flood" rubbish, leading to panic amongst relatives, but really, this is not the highest flood for our region even in the 14 and a bit years we have been living here! It was a bit of a surprise to have 76 hours of heavy rain after 3 months without a drop, but we are dry other than a little seepage directly from the heavy rain driving under the doors, have plenty of milk (so far) and my son is thrilled to be starting his school year, tomorrow, with a day off. I wish I could use that excuse too ;)

 Above is my daughter modelling her new shorts in front of the cross street at the bottom of our hill, where there is usually a tiny creek running under the road.
Our main river is 20m above its normal level, which cuts us off from all other towns in all directions, but most of the residents live on high ground.

These shorts are the same pattern as the ones I posted yesterday, Burda Style 08-2011-130, again in stretch cotton denim, this time the fabric is from Gardams, Indooropilly, purchased June 2012, specifically for a pleated skirt. ;)

I noticed when I was in Brisbane a week or so ago that Gardams has now closed at this location. I hope it has just  moved a bit, rather than shut up in this suburb.

 

The  shorts again have a waistband pocket and are lined and seam bound with quilting cotton.
Having a few oddly shaped pieces of fabric remaining, shorts taking less than a pleated skirt, I was very pleased when daughter the second expressed great admiration of this pair and whipped her up a pair too before she could consider whether or not she was too old to match her sister.







Her pair does not have a waistband pocket (that is the whipping up bit) and somehow the fastening has drifted to the opposite side, but it is important to have variety amongst the clothing of siblings for laundry sorting purposes. (Good excuse, hey!)
There are now no garment sized pieces remaining of this fabric.
This is just as well.
Yesterday afternoon my husband kindly put reinforcing strips at the front of the shelves in my sewing cupboard, as for some strange reason, completely unrelated to the contents, the shelves were bowing.

This woodworking repair involved removing everything from the cupboard, and in the return to the cupboard, which took most of today, I shifted nearly all (well there are only a few rolls  in the sewing room now) of the other fabric that had distributed itself around the house all into one place.
It was a little tricky to fit it all in.




This stashbusting sewalong may have started in the nick of time for me.

If you missed last post I am giving away some children's patterns and pattern magazines - (having only one boy child still to clothe) there is still time to add your name to the hat.

Burda Style 08-2011-130 shorts, and a giveaway

I have made these shorts twice before, and they were a great success with daughter the second, so were a natural choice for the start of my older daughter's Uni wardrobe, which I think may be my 2013 SWAP entry, should I get my act together.

Technical drawing from BurdaStyle magazine

This version is from a stretch cotton denim, stash age approximately 2008, from Kerryn's fabric world. As I have a bad history with stretch nether garments, I have used a woven cotton for the waistband facing and button plackets, and have reinforced the crotch and waist seams with woven selvage to minimize bagging.



This, and the bias bound seams, also helps to use up little bits of fabric for stashbusting purposes.
I added a waistband pocket, just the right size for a Go card (Brisbane public transport card) using this method.
My daughter is very pleased with them.





A win in several areas at once is good!

In the spirit of stashbusting, I have been sorting through my patterns.



Today I would like to give away these excess children's patterns and magazines. They are not current, but I find TopKids magazines very useful for the basic children's clothes that do not change much, such as shorts, t-shirts and little girls' frocks. These magazines are all duplicate copies, as I am keeping my set ;). The Chery Williams patterns for smocked dresses include good instructions for heirloom sewing techniques. I would rather give them to a reader than the Op Shop. If you would like these patterns and magazines (as a set) please say so in a comment on this post by Jan 31. If more than one person would like them I will draw names.