Sewing update: glittery pixie hoody dress

I  have very little to show you this week sewing-wise. 

I hand sewed a bit of my coat.

Then I had the great idea to add patch pockets to cover the mess I made if the welt pockets. 

That looked terrible! To cover the welts ( which are different lengths and one is far wider than the other!) the patch pockets need to be huge which is fine but they sag to show the badly made welts inside. They only looked ok with my hands in them to hide the welts and I will never constantly have my hands in my pockets. Its just not realistic. The new patch pockets also completely ruin the look of the coat so its just not viable. 

So I then removed them - sorry no photos. I then decided to unpick my welts which are different widths - as in the side to side width ( not sure how well you can see here but one hole is wider than the other and I had also totally missed out a flap and really do not know how to make these so it's bodge it time I am afraid to try and save a coat and make it wearable!)

I am now going to make part of each patch pocket into a fake welt flap which will I hope cover the badly made welt holes. Sorry no idea for the technical terms here at all.

I think it should work and my would-be fake welt flaps are looking good so far. They are tweed one side and faux fur the other. I have yet to determine which fabric will be the outer layer. Probably the tweed since the coat is such a mess I had probably tone all the details down and keep it as wearable as possible rather than draw attention to the dodgy bits. 

 What's left after that, assuming this idea works, is all hand sewing and I am finding it hard to get motivated to do it. The coat does now have a button. 

A very nice family heirloom button which is I believe bakerlite. At the least its a pre-1960s button anyway that came from my great-aunts. They both died in the late 1960s. I vaguely remember them. They gave up their lives to bring up their younger brothers and sisters when my great grandmother died leaving them all children. My Auntie Lydia was eldest and only 15 when she took on the upbringings her 9 younger siblings. I think Auntie Annie was a year or two younger. Nowadays, the authorities would take over and maybe that's a good thing though I really am not so sure it is. My great aunties did a very good job of bringing up their siblings and they would probably have been split up in the modern Care system we have in the UK. Anyway it was a different time. 

I inherited this button from them and have decided to make use of it. I had already decided last winter after several attempts at a machine made button hole that I will hand stitch one and I even bought embroidery thread to do it so that's now my next aim for this coat. Then it will just need a hem. But this is all if hand stitching so it's on my to-do list. Once the weather gets colder I will probably finally get this coat finished. I then have at least two more half finished coats so will make a start on one of them over winter I think. 

I seem to feel coat making motivated once it gets cold but it seems I rarely finish them!

In the meantime, I have  my camo short skirt I have been making since 2013 to finish. It's not difficult. I just don't seem to do it and always sew something else. 

Similarly, last winter I began making a sweatshirt. It remains half sewn. It turned out to be a difficult sew and I needed a break to get my head round it. I think I have now got it sorted (in my thoughts anyway) so I just need to get on with the actual sewing. Both skirt and sweatshirt would be good for my winter look - as would the coat. So this is what I am currently working on.

But I did finish the pixie dress. And although its a make I have made previously its making me happy to wear this. Its very cold today ( for the UK!) so not really cold if you lived in many other countries.

This is therefore a not very original glittery sweatshirt dress which I have made numerous versions of before although this is far thicker and stiffer fabric than my previous ones. Well its sweatshirting, so not actually stiff but it does not hang as my previous versions. The godets kind if stick out a bit. I will wear this though because it's a dress pattern I love so hopefully the godets will just wear in. 

So I am happy enough this week and I actually love my new pixies hoody dress.

Have a really great week and thanks for popping by. Hopefully my next post will be about some or other UFO I finally got finished.

Take care

Bracken

Burda Style dress 125, 03/2002Burda Style dress 125, 03/2002

 

 I have decided to eliminate as much stashed fabric as I can, so instead of my usual tactic, which is find a nice pattern and then find something from the stash to use to make it, I am now pulling out season suitable fabrics and using all of it. This does mean lots of co-ordinating items in identical fabrics which is good and bad depending on your view.

Since I probably have enough stashed fabric to get me through the rest of my life without buying anything this seems the way to go. It gets rid of huge amounts in a few weeks. I started with the glitter grey sweatshirting a while ago and cuts several items and I still have two other items to sew up after this dress.

The downside: well its very unlikely I will come accross this kind of fabric at a bargain basement price again. I actually bought 12m of this so its been going for a while. Its the second lot of grey glitter sweatshirting I bought. I used the paler fabric a few years ago and because I enjoyed the tracksuits I made so much I bought this bolt of 12m. I then made a couple of tracksuits but the rest has been sitting there ever since. I had at least 6m of this in the piece of fabric I pulled out of my stash, but its now cut and being sewn.

 I will be making another pair of track pants - slightly different to my previous versions but still using the same pattern as a base in the next couple of weeks and also another dress. Thats a lot of warm winter clothes though and will keep me happy I expect for this winter. That frees me up to make some more glamourous and also practical stuff - like finally finish the hand sewing on the coat I started last year. I am also altering that slightly but more once thats done and I can finally wear the thing. Its not too cold as yet which is lucky for me because I will need that coat once it is.

In the meantime I have made this dress. Its model Burda Style dress 125, 03/2002. I made it before but in a far thinner fabric. That one has always seemed too thin but it actually worked better in many ways.

Neck version one

When making this I cut as I said several items and because of this I made the tube neck much shorter. I was sure when sewing this up that the front neck was just a bit too high. I cannot find the old version. I started to pack to move house 3 years ago and its somewhere ina  box. I do not want to be unpacking stuff so its going to move with us and I will decide after if I still want it. Anyway its not around to have a look at so I need to go by the magazine not what I did previously. 

Neck version two

I had some issues with the fit of the neck here as I will explain:

 

So the tube neck on this is shorter than my black faux suede dress. Its probably best like that because the sweatshirting is far more bulky than the black faux suede. 

I think it may not be comfortable if the huge tube neck was doubled and so long as the pattern dictates. Either way I do not have enough offcuts for such a massive tube neck so this is smaller. 

But as you can see from the photos this neck is really very high at the front and you can see the inside seam which I did not like.

Yes I was very much not happy with the neck hence the face!

 So I redid the neck - at front only so a bit of a bodge really but only I will see the inside of this and it also meant I was less likely to reck it if I only altered it slightly because this was difficult to sew. 

And at this point I will say, I began sewing this with my Janome 9300dx overlocker.

I love that machine but I relatively recently bought a new one which is the Brother 4234D. Now the Brother is supposed to be easier to thread. For me its an absolute pig ad I never so far managed to thread the thing. I always get someone else to do this for me. And really thats so far from ideal its just awful. I just cannot get it to chain when I do it and  have no idea why. The Janome is fiddly but I always manage to successfully thread that so I have previously slagged off the Brother machine but when faced with 6 layers of sweatshirting my Janome could not do it and I nearly recked the garment. I swapped to the Brother and it made such easy work of it, its definitely worth having. I still prefer my Janome even though its old and the cutters continually go out of line meaning I have to fix it - thanks YouTube for being so helpful!

Anyway, the Brother finally came into its own for this dress.

And end result?

Well its very 60s really with the weird sleeve seams (which I have to say I do not like) so sleeves are in two parts like a jacket rather than a dress. 

Sleeves could accommodate shoulder pads!

 Or maybe even 80s because you could easily accommodate shoulder pads here and I took the sleeve seam in as far as I dared without risking recking the dress. Perhaps the oversized shoulders will wear in?

I also added cuffs to lengthen the sleeves - possibly slightly too much. Perhaps I should have also added thumb holes? Hmm not sure. I do not like short sleeves ( unless they are actually meant to be short). I prefer a longer sleeve but maybe this is slightly too long? Its ok when the cuffs are turned back though.

And despite the sleeves, I like the end result. It does have a very 60s feel and the neck ended up more as a collared boat neck but thats actually something I very much love so thats ok. If I make this again I will alter the sleeves but otherwise I will be wearing this a lot over this winter I expect and its so cosy.

Have a great week and hope to see you soon,

Bracken

Emergency Halloween trick or treat bags

Apologies if you read this a few days ago when I posted it. For some reason the photo corrupted. It was ok to view on a mobile but was not there on a PC. I am not at all technical so no idea what I did or did not do but its hopefully now fixed.

 

These were very fast Halloween bags for trick or treat.

The costumes were all sorted and only then was the realisation that we had no trick or treat bags.

So what to do?

Years ago I made a top which had skulls all over it. I realised if I hacked off the sleeves, sewed them across the bottom and added a ribbon strap then we have two small bags.

The edge of the sleeves was decorated with ribbon as a casing and elastic which I decided to leave alone because small children can easily put their hands in and hopefully it will mean they are less likely to tip the bags up and lose the contents. 

So this was really an emergency fix but it's worked out to be two very good little bags. Or so we all thought anyway and the Halloween outfits are all sorted after all.

Have a great Halloween

Bracken 

Black mesh multi media top

 

I have had this piece of mesh fabric fo years. I bought it from a seller in China and to be honest I got ripped off. It was off Ebay. Generally I do ok with Ebay but this was one of the not so good times. I would have cost too much to send back so I just kept the piece of fabric. I was ripped off cos it was meant to be 2m. I got 2 seperate pieces that were each about half a metre. So anyway - into the fabric stash they went. 

But then I found them and realised they would work well as a top layer over my thin black jersey that I used for my  high low nighties (which incidentally the back seam has now worn in and is flat and looks nice. I will have to remember to get a new photo and update that post.)

So this is a TNT pattern - so very fast to make. Its easy and I simply cut extra long sleeves because thats how I like them and cut the body front and back twice. Once in mesh and once in very thin stretch black jersey. The sleeves are also the same jersey.

I overlocked the black lining layer and left it at that though I did make sure it is slightly shorter than the top mesh layer.  I overlocked the edge of the mesh layer too and then sewed the body up at the shoulders. The hems were slightly tricky in that you need to measure and remeasure before seewing up the side seams because they have seperate hems and they need to line up to eachother to look ok but otherwise this was a very easy to make top.

The end result is a very lightweight and surprisingly warm winter top that will go with lots in my wardrobe. Its actually very cosy maybe because of that old fashioned string vest effect. They were supposed to be warm. 

I overlocked and twin needle hemmed the sleeves and round the neck. You can see the neck though its not shown to best effect due to me wearing over a base layer but I will have to get a better picture of this I think. You can see the neck anyway.

I think this will be a nice basic and slightly fancy top for my autumn winter look and being black is easy to wear with just about anything.

The pattern is Butterick 5562. Its the view with the huge fancy top collar but I just leave that off and you have a nice boatneck basic top. I have made most of the different views on this particular pattern and its a very nice basic tops pattern which I would recommend if you were after such a thing. 

The trousers are my most recent Camo version of the Lekala Sports trousers. 

Thanks for popping by,

Take care

Bracken

Halloween doormat

 

For some reason my original photo of this somehow corrupted so I have updated and hopefully this photo will work.

 

This is not a post about making anything but I just wanted to show you my new doormat. 

It's from Ikea so there will be millions of them but it's affordable and will at least in my house long outlast Halloween.

I just think this is so cool!

Have a lovely week,

Bracken

Short camo skirt Burda Style magazine Model 121 Burda Style 02/2011

I bought this Burda download in 2013 and never used it. I printed the pattern out the day I bought it so November 2013, I sorted the fabric for it about 3 years ago and put the pattern together 5 years ago. Buts it has just never been the right time to make this. Really like everyone I am getting older and I decided if I am ever ever going to wear this I really must get round to making it so here is a short scuba camoflage skirt with side pockets. Its quite on trend despite its an old pattern. And right this minute I feel ok wearing this.Maybe in 2 years I will feel too old. Who knows?

In fact my first attempt at this skirt as you can see in the first few photos was not quite right. I skipped over a zip because my fabric is stretchy and I really did not need one. I just added the facing. Thats a mistake. And thats after I spent a couple of days going through my huge pile of zips for the right one to use. Still its something I can use on a different item so will not be wasted. It would have been a waste using it for this skirt because it just does not need it.

However!!! it falls down! I kept hitching it up for these photos and after wards took it off because it was annoying me. It hangs wrong due to not sitting quite right due to being constantly hitched back to where it should be so I will be adding some wide hidden elastic inside the facing in the near future and we will see how that works. So there will be some later photos of this once I get this fixed.

I love the front pleat though partner says it looks like shorts.

Here again you can see the skirt is falling down.

Well as a sewist I will fix it but I thought I would show you this before I do because its always inspiring to know you are not alone when this type of thing happens and you are a sewist. It happens to everyone but it can be fixed.
I actually think this is going to be a really nice garment once I sort it out.

And I love the huge pockets which were so easy to sew. Though they are not expanding. It would be so easy to add expanding pockets though so maybe on a different version.

So thanks for popping over to visit and I wish you a happy week,

Take care

Bracken

 

Finally completed - grey green mohair jumper

 I started this jumper ages ago. Well February 2023 to be precise. Its taken me absolutely ages to finish this. Or even to get into knitting this.

It was started as a summery beach jumper but its evolved into a winter one instead.

I got a bit bored towards the end so finished the sleeves just in a grey band at the top. That was after I added stripes to the baby bunny jumper and I liked it so much, so this time I just kind of did it in reverse on this green one.

I did not actually try this on until we took the photos so I never knew if it was going to fit.

I decided on a roll neck which is so easy I must do this one again. I think it will be nice and soft and comfy to wear as well.

Its a lovely jumper, though as I often do, I made the sleeves a bit long. Not really a bad thing but they do tend towards not looking as smart as they might and I do like to double my clothing for both work and play to get as much wear as I can from things. Thats new actually. I used to keep the two worlds separate. Maybe its an old age thing to just become who you truly are all the time? 

Still its a lovely comfy jumper now I finally finished this.

The issue with this one was its just so boring to knit. I just could not get interested in it. I actually prefer this kind of plainer knit to arans etc but doubt I will even attempt another for a long while. 

I find arans so interesting - absorbing- is probably the right word. And so they are easy to knit ( for me). This kind of supposedly easy knit is a real bore. As such I just took an absolute age to finish it.

But now it is actually finished and I love it. When my parter took the photos he even commented on how its nothing like I usually make. Its just not. But it is what I would buy in a shop should I choose to pay for a hand knit. I do like arans and lace but this is just an easy to wear top and so its perfect for my current mix of clothing. It will go with most things. But will I start another? Not I think for 20 to 30 years. Its just too boring. So the next jumper will definitely be another aran. My own design I expect and this time I want to sort out the pattern properly so it makes sense to other knitters and maybe then I can even consider adding it to Ravelry. 

In the meantime I will very much enjoy this new plain jumper, savouring its plainness and loving it for its low key colours. But onwards I think to something more inspiring and bright. I have a storage chest full of interestingly bright mohairs/ fluffy yarns so thats what I will be knitting. 

Though I have also started a top down kids jumper which I hope will get finished. Its my first attempt at a top down so we will see how that one pans out.

Have a great week

Bracken

Blue brocade flares

I cut these out last Spring but never sewed them up. 

Does that make them a UFO?

Maybe! They have sat around for ages really. How long do you need to store a cut out half finished item for it to become a UFO? After all it is still an unfinished object!

The fabric is actually bengaline so it has stretch and so these ought to be comfortable.

I added a yoke to the waistband because these are made using a yoga pants pattern and they are low waisted if made in a woven. They come out with a higher waist if using jersey.

I did similar with my grey (bengaline?) trousers I made a few months ago and they have turned out to be very comfortable and I have enjoyed wearing them.

 These will be good for Autumn on nicer days and add a small bit of glamour to my otherwise pretty boring winter wardrobe so far. And of course they are also ok for work which is a bonus.

 

The grey trousers are trimmed with the selvedge fabric from this brocade so they are quite similar though look very different to each other.

I am hoping this pair is as much as a success as the grey ones. They will update my Autumn wardrobe a bit anyway and this blue almost looks like denim so should be easy to carry off while the fact they are brocade adds a bit of luxury and style.

Thanks for visiting my blog and hope to see you again soon. Have a great week,

Bracken

Armlets free pattern

 

These are really a pattern trial. I have owned a (free) download of this pattern for several years and never got round to using it. It's from Feyr Trade and is still free. Anyway I decided rather than just make tube style armlets for this winter I would try out a pattern for them. I have successfully made these previously with no pattern, but it does mean fiddling around more to get them to fit. If you have a proper pattern it's much faster and far less faffle to make this kind of thing - as I have now found out!

These armlets are going to keep me warm when out and about in winter and I have short sleeves on.

They really do work!

You can see them here with my green dress, and they will, I think make it much more wearable and easier to layer this autumn and winter. 

The fabric was a pair of ill-fitting leggings I bought off the local market about 10 years ago and because I only wore them a couple of times due to the truly terrible fit the fabric is as new. These leggings really were an example of bad clothing found in the worst markets. The sort of thing people think represents market clothing, though in my own experience there are lots of really nice decently made clothes found on market stalls, but anyway these leggings are a perfect example of the bad stuff you find in such places. So why keep them so long I hear you say?

Well the fabric is really nice and it's a nice fabric for my armlets so finally those leggings were worth keeping.

 

I have actually overlocked the edge off one of these since the photos were taken when I realised one mitt was slightly longer than the other. They are now the same length but you will have to take my word for that. I doubt I will get round to more photos of these very soon.

Have a great week, and thanks for popping by. Hope to see you again soon, 

Take care

Bracken

Hand knit socks for aged 2-3 years using the Winwick Mum pattern for childs socks.

 

These are my latest version of socks from the Winwick Mum sock patterns. This is a free pattern for childrens socks and its really good. When I finished these I was convinced they would be huge on our small person but actually they are only slightly too big, so as the Winwick Mum says in this pattern -  children often have bigger feet than you think they do!

These were really knitted so small child can go out on a toddler trundle to a local country park and keep warm this winter. He tried them for the first time this week and they seemed to be good. Its not yet very cold but will be over the next few months and his Mum wants him to do outsidey stuff not just to go to indoor play groups. He seems to enjoy outdooŕs stuff as well, and is currently obsessed with going out in the garden every day, even when it rains. 

Because these are a little big ( and so are his wellies!) he has worn them over normal socks so far but they make the wellies a better fit so he falls over much less too, so thats an added bonus.

I am afraid there are no photos of said small person because he is not going on any social media until he decides to himself, but you can see the size difference with my own socks here:

The yarn is "Silent Night"4ply from West Yorkshire Spinners and is left over from my own socks. It has glitter but is otherwise shades of blue and a very nice yarn.

Our own small person is male but he seems to love the glitter and because he is so young he is as yet uninfluenced by nasty people telling him boys cannot wear glitter! 

So sad how our children get conditioned even when we try so hard not to do this. 

I now need a new knitting project. I knitted these at the same time as my green jumper which was started so long ago.

It's finished except for the neck and sewing up. But I finished the last sleeve just yesterday. Hopefully I will get the rest done before it gets much colder. 

Take care and have a great week,

Bracken.