Friday 30 October 2020

Witchy Halloween dress


This the second piece of fabric bought from Minerva fabrcs. I made a top from the first piece. I do not seem to have blogged about though I am sure we took the photos. Thats a To-Do then!

I actually made this dress pattern before. I hardly wear the green dress because its full length. I do wear the tartan dress though which is based on this pattern.

The hood is taken from the hoody top pattern I have used several times for Mick's tops. 

I realised that I could not get long sleeves out of this amount of fabric, so this is a big one for me I don't do short sleeves. I usually either have no sleeves or long sleeves. Short for me is below the elbow so three quarter length!

 

This is the better quality piece of fabric of the two I bought and very apt for a halloween dress - not that I will not be wearing this all year round,. although I only bought 1m of fabric so this was difficult to squeeze this dress out of it.

I had a lot of difficulty getting a whole dress from just the 1m I owned. You can see; for the hood I cut half of the hem off. It does not need a pull cord though and it works as a hood. 



I actually had to overock right at the edge of the hood to get this out of what was left after cutting the main dress parts. As you can see I cut right into the seam allowance - at least I never cut into it it just was not there!
 

I really do like high low hems!



I think this is a lovely dress despite being somewhat fragile. Great with stripey leggings which incidentally are very old from H&M. They are actually childrens. I have them in green, purple and grey as well and I wear them all year round not just for halloween.

 I really like this dress though sewing it up was difficult due to how the fabric "frays" when cut. Next time I am going to stay stitch each panel before I even attempt to stitch up the garment. This is the hardest fabric to sew I have ever used.Bits of the cut part get left outside after sewig and then its so fragile on the undereath layer you cannot unpick for risk of making holes. I only missed one bit on the dress and cut off. I missed alot more bits on my top but more later about that.

 Happy Halloween!

Bracken

Friday 23 October 2020

Grey pinstripe office trousers

  

These trousers are Burda Style 7122.

 
 
I used the pattern 3 times previously and love the trousers I made from it. They are all very wearable and very comfortable so I went with a 4th pair of this pattern. The fabric is from efabrics.co.uk and around £2:50 a metre. Its just suiting fabric but I liked it so much I bought more of this fabric. They do another colour but from the really bad photos I cannot decide if its beige, pink or brown. 
 
If its brown I won't wear it so decided to give that one a miss just in case. I originally bought 2m but there will not be enought to make another pair of trousers from the offcut. I am sure with my new further 2m I will think if something to make. Maybe a skirt or dress? This fabric is quite thin so more for early autumn. spring or summer than winter so I will probably just leave the rest of it in  the stash for now till the weather warms back up. Back to stash building! Never mind. This is good fabric and will eventually make some nice clothing.
 

Mistakes? 

Well the zip ended up in the right side not left but thats not the end of the world, and not the first time I have done that. I tell myself there is a company that do that on purpose ( Antibrand) so whatever. It doesn't really matter at all. Its just convention to have it on the left. Thought from this photo its kind of puckered and I cannot sort that out. I resewed it a couple of times and it made no difference. I find its quite hard to pull the zip up on this pair as well so may also add a hook and eye to hold the top together. I used an invisible zip and its grey but a bit too dark. Maybe should have waited for a new one? I do not like invisible zips I have to be honest. Once my current stock is gone I am not buying any more.

 The facings are pretty floral cotton ( curtain) fabric. I like the added extra even though it cannot be seen.


As for the jumper, I made that back in the summer and only just started to wear it. I think it will be a good work jumper for this autumn/winter because its a bit shorter than I like for real life but very respectable for my work clothing. This was such a simple lace pattern. I really should make more of this stitch.


Downside of this fabric is its very springy so hard to get side seams and hems to go flat even after pressing. However there is an upside here was well because it does not crease at all by the looks of it.


So I think a very nice medium- light pair of pinstripes. I will enjoy these for work and am test driving them when I go into the office this week.

Looking at these photos I am now wondering if they are a little too long. They did not feel like it when I was wearing them but time will tell I suppose. 

Stay safe and sew

Bracken

Friday 16 October 2020

Voodoo dolly dress - Knipmode

 

 
 
This dress is my first ever Knipmode make. Knipmode is Dutch and is very similar to Burda in that you trace the pattern.
 

I am much shorter than the Knipmode model it seems because this is meant to be considerably shorter.
 Never mind. Its very wearable this length. No way I will shorten it because I won't waste my fabric so its staying long which is probably better for winter anyway.
 
I use the long sleeves from the top which is actually the same pattern without the skirt parts.
The fabric is stretch lycra that I bought for leggings but decided it was not the right print or at least I would not see the design well if made into anything either small or with lots of seams so I spent ages looking at patterns to find something that would show the print well. In the end I decided on the Knipmode scater dress from this issue. Looking at these photos of my sleeves I may well have been wrong about this too because it looks like its still easy to see the large print even there.


Not knowing any Dutch was a real problem and I was not in the mood to spend ages typing into Google translate. I really need some, preferbly free, OCR software after this effort. I own spanisha nd itallian magazines too similar to this so I need to sort this out soon else will find making things difficult. Ether that or start learning more languages at night school.
This was far harder to make than I expected. 

I did the back twice so its a bit bodged really. Luckily the Knipmode pattern came out quite big so when I added a second back seam it still looks OK. I originally added the back neck opening but not understanding the directions made a mess of it. Or maybe that was nothing to do with the Dutch but just me. It just did not hang right.


 Either way I decided it is completely pointless having a back neck opening when it stretches this well so got rid of it.

hat made the dress hang properly. I also originally have a neck band. Like a Tshirt neck but when I removed the back openig I also dumped that. The basic round necked dress is far simpler but I like it better. I just wish I had not wasted so long making the back opening which I really struggled to get right.

In the end it was really not worth the effort of making the back neck opening which took ages to do but it was very much worth taking the extra time to alter it to a straight back. I really like it now and enjoyed wearig it.

Its the first time I have made a basic scater dress and I intend to make more of them though it must be in interesting fabric I think.

 

 I only wore it once so far but it got admired by TWO people neither of whom realised I made it myself. That makes me very happy!



So my first Knipmode is I think a big success. I have two Knipmodes so will have to try some other patters though I need to remeasure myself because this is a little big. I might try going down a size next time. Mind you then I might need an FBA!

Take care

Bracken

Friday 9 October 2020

Camoflage undies

 
These are some of my stash busting undies
The knickers are Megan Neison's free Acasia knickers and I have to say I love them and have cut several more out already. They are made from stretch camo left over from various projects my favourite being the camo track pants of which I have made 2 pairs and my dress.

I have never made the Acasia before but am very happy with the fit of these. I intend to make several more pairs of these for winter. 
 
 

The bralet is Madalynnes Noel top. I have made Noel before but it was really badly made next to this one. Despite that I wear it as soon as its washed and prefer it to everything else - brawise anyway. Now I have two which is great.

This time instead of lining the band with mesh I did a double layer of the camo jersey and I like this. The bodice part though is mesh lined with powermesh. I used petrol blue picot round the edges. The straps are black because its what I ahve in stock but I changed the slider bits and the rings that came with them because they looked better. Last time I sewed the straps straight onto the top of the bodice. This time I added rings. I am not really sure if I am meant to do this but decided it looked better.


I really like this underwear. I have already worn both parts several times so its standing up to washing well too. I am finding I wear it with my track pants which is very coordinating even though I do not go out in public in cropped tops.


Thats all for this week folks. 

Virus levels have risen loads in the Uk though deaths are down but either way Stay safe.

Bracken

Friday 2 October 2020

Small things matter


Well I am back at work full time now and have much less time for crafting. I suppose its down to having had most of a year off work, first with my operation, and then with Corona Virus but I am just knackered!

I never seem to have any time to sew now and do not feel at all like bothering most days.  Hopefully I will get back into both working and living again soon. In the meantime, I have only made a few small things this week.It makes it possible for me to carry on sewing without me just giving up due to being tired. I am sure I will get back to "normal" soon.

Masks Masks and more masks!

 These are my lastest:


 Really though they just look like more of the same! They are mainly made from the same fabrics as my first masks though the ones I cut out yesterday are different fabrics.

I have been making more masks because I needed us to have 10 between us. I have now achieved the 10 Masks - all of Mask 1. In fact I am now up to a total of 16 - and we need them. Or if we want to change them daily we do and officially apparently you should change at least twice a day (or every time you wear them) so since we both get a lunch break thats probably when we should be changing them. Thats not yet quite possible but we are getting to that point now.

You can read the original efforts at Mask making here : https://brackencrafts.blogspot.com/2020/07/corona-virus-face-masks.html

I was originally going to also make Mask 2 from Burda but I decided against that after attempting the first one of these. It was not a great success and neither of us liked it as much as Mask 1. Also in the end I stuck with Mask 1 because the Mask 2 version ended up taking longer with the need for accurate pleats and that meant using an iron and as you may have noticed I hate ironing! 

We both find Mask 1 comfortable with its shaping and it covers the face without slipping. Mask 2 kept moving around. I am not sure if it was my making that made this happen or not.

Mask 1 also turns out to need smaller pieces of fabric so I can squeeze the 4 bits of Mask 1 out of smaller bits than one Mask 2 will use, meaning I get to use all the interesting leftovers I have kept as pocket linings. It works for me anyway. 

These are the latest masks I have made.


There are really only enough for my other half to have 2 a day for his morning and afternoon shifts since you are meant to wash them when you take them off and I feel he should change because he is in contact with several thousand people some days due to working in a University library. So unfortunately I am intending to make even more of these as the weeks go by. 

 We have also swapped all of  stiffer foam the filters for the softer ones. I have kept to other foam filters though for emergency replacements if / when we have some wear out. They are such a pain to take in and out for washing!

Mind you that appies to the softer filters too.

Anyway because I need to make even more of these things, I have now started to cut them out as and when, like when doing other tasks such as watching TV, and just stacking them in piles ready for sewing up later. I can then sew all the outers at once, all the overlocking at once etc making it faster to make lots. Its working so far.

I work out how many inners and outers etc and pin together so I can sew them when I have a few minutes. Small things, like just pinning the bits together are saving me so much time. And because I find this a very boring job to do I really need to not waste time working out which bits look best together! 

The other thing I am mass cutting out is knickers and bras.


 

I can do the same with these and sew as and when I have a couple of minutes. I have found I have been doing this between bigger sews for a few months now, since I started to make underwear, and it seems a good way to keep sewing without having a large project on the go because often I have just 5 spare minutes and its too short a time for serious sewing but not too short to do something like cut out or sew up a seam on some knickers. Or bralettes.

The other small sewing thing I have been doing is hair ties or scrunchies. These are something I used to pay £3 upwards each for and they are of course just a strip of fabric with elastic inside so very boring to sew. Though these are very useful and scrap busting as well, meaning I keep less fabric in my stash. I found I have a full bin liner full of prosepective hair ties already cut into strips over the last year or so, which is a tad ridiculous, so I am now mass sewing these up. Then I am mass turning them right side out and mass adding elastic and then mass sewing the ends by hand. But then I am one of those people who never stopped wearing scrunchies even when they were extremely unfashionable so I really should make more of these.

Again these are so boring to make so the best way seems to be to have an ongoing pile of strips ready to sew or of sewn strips ready for turning and then another pile ready for the elastic.

I am doing these in batches so its less boring. Because yes this is a very useful item to make, like the masks are essential to make, but both jobs are very boring sewing-wise.

 And very un-stretching if that is word.



So I cannot honestly say I have made much that stretches me this week but what I have made is useful, stash busting and its all stuff I need so a job worth doing I think.

Take care and stay safe 

Bracken