#MMMay16, Day 31 so the last day for a whole year.

Today I am wearing my side striped leggings here: 38: side panel leggings with my #MMMay16, Day 18, blue/black raglan sleeved top and my 33: Huge stripey hand knit jumper.

To be quite honest I have found it harder and harder to think of something to wear I have not worn before. As expected I do know what I need to make to fill gaps. Skirts and trousers and hand knit jumpers are the main things so really lots of basic stuff.

I also DID NOT complete my personal challenge since I have still got one side of my easy hand knit bat wing jumper that I have yet to finish knitting. That is a kind of a disappointment to be quite honest but I am simply a pretty slow knitter. I started it ages ago here: 18: Wonderful people and easy knitting bat wing sleeved jumper or sweater

By this time next year I intend to have a much better wardrobe of Me Made.

Thanks to everyone who has popped over to visit me in the last month,

Bracken

#MMMay16. Day 30

This is yet another wearing of one of my raglan T shirts ( I do seem to wear them a great deal!) this time with a thrifted sequin and lace skirt.

Thanks for visiting my blog

Bracken

#MMMay16 Day 19, green & orange top

Well we are more than half way through May and I already pretty much know what I need to make to fill my gaps. Its a long list believe me! I will post about it at the end of May when I know everything I am now planning to make. For today I am wearing my orange raglan T shirt.

This is one of the tops which made when I decided to compare some of the free raglan sleeeved patterns which are available at various blogs on the internet. 26: More free raglan sleeve T shirt patterns - Comparing the free raglan sleeved T shirt patterns available on the internet




You can get the pattern here:
http://www.onthecuttingfloor.com/free-sewing-pattern-long-sleeve-raglan-top, 

One thing: I need lots more tops because my #MMMay  has started to be somewhat repetitive!

Thanks for visiting my blog

Bracken

#MMMay16, Day 18, blue/black raglan sleeved top

 Today, I am wearing my blue and black raglan T shirt made from this pattern:
http://www.itsalwaysautumn.com/2016/02/15/long-sleeve-raglan-sweatshirt-free-pattern.html

It was the first pattern I tried and is a free Tshirt pattern in a large. I would recommed thsi p[attern over all the other free ones I have tried if you wnat a raglan sleeved pattern. It only comes in one size though but the site does give directions on how to make your own pattern from a T shirt that fits you.

Thanks for visiting my blog

Bracken

Me-Made-May Challenge Day 1

Today is the first day of the ME MADE MAY challenge which I signed up to and here I am wearing my me-made tartan leggings - also found here:10: Tartan leggings
Me- made raglan sleeved top from free pattern - also found here:
25: Comparing the free raglan sleeved T shirt patterns available on the internet
and my Me-made hand knit slip-over made from vegan recycled silk sari-yarn I bought online from a seller in New Zealand. I searched and searched for this because most of this kind of yarn is actually made from proper silk. This is Rayon silk so synthetic and vegan. This was hard to knit because the yarn kepts falling appart whilst knitting. Also it occassionally still splits and falls appart whilst wearing so although its a lovely idea to recycle Saris like this it does not really work well and knitting this stuff is horrible. Thats why I never did sleeves. I still have some of this yarn left so may find a use for it eventually. Maybe the real silk stuff is better but somehow I think probably its exactly the same.

Good thing its a Sunday because I think this particular mix of clothing is a bit bright for my working life and having gone through my me-made stuff I am thinking I may have a bit of a problem with everyday clothing for this challenge since everything I make, just about, is bright and my bought RTW clothing is much more neutral and "boring"! Might end up mixing them together yet to get a wearable working outfit. Still onwards to the challenge............

Thanks for visiting my blog, Bracken

27: Better picture of orange raglan top and a new top

I have some slightly better photos of my orange two colour-sleeve raglan top now. It was a great location out and about shopping but the original photos just did not show enough of the top I was trying to show so here is a better one of the front:

and the back:

This is my latest attempt at a raglan sleeved top:

Its from the Newlook 6230 pattern so NOT a free pattern but was half price at Jaycotts recently so I decided to invest in it.

Unfortunately I did not bother reading the instructions OR the pattern pieces and cut the back piece out on a fold rather than with a centre-back seam. That is good because I prefer no back seam. Seems a stupid thing to put one there if you do not need it for shaping!
But bad because I failed to take out the seam allowance which makes it baggy on the back! You will have to ignore the straps. They are from what I am wearing underneath.

I have not ironed it either as you can tell:)

I also think its a bit short which will be fine with skirts but not so good to cover up my bum when wearing leggings.

I did not use the neck edging band here since I was in a hurry to finish this

 but will add this on my next version. It is a nice baggy overtop partly due to my not noticing the CB should be cut and seamed  but also because it seems it is just baggy and the neck is a bit wide - possibly partly down to my missing out the neck band but not completely I think. The fabric is a reasonably thick ribbed fabric which I picked up for 99p off ebay for about 3 meters so its a wearable muslin really. At least when I make it in more expensive fabric I will do it right next time. I shall not bother to alter this because it will work with some of my wardrobe as it is and could really be worn off the shoulder which will mean the baggy back is seen less and with a bit of luck summer is coming and I have no basic black off the shoulder tops in my current clothing so this could be good after all.

In the end though I still prefer the pattern which is FREE from http://www.itsalwaysautumn.com/2016/02/15/long-sleeve-raglan-sweatshirt-free-pattern.html
but I will be making another one of these. Also this Newlook 6230 pattern has a straight skirt pattern. I have recently made several skirts similar to this but without a pattern. Always good to have a proper pattern since I find it avoids expensive mistakes and as you may realise I am not the most experienced sewist around.

Thanks for reading and feel free to leave any comments:

Bracken

26: More free raglan sleeve T shirt patterns - Comparing the free raglan sleeved T shirt patterns available on the internet

My last post was the start of my raglan sleeve T shirt reviews. I started with the free pattern from
http://www.itsalwaysautumn.com/2016/02/15/long-sleeve-raglan-sweatshirt-free-pattern.html
Which made me two very nice tops here: 25: Comparing the free raglan sleeved T shirt patterns available on the internet
I was really very impressed by these tops which is what caused me to decide to review the other free patterns for raglan sleeved tops available on the interenet.
So next I decided to try this one from the cutting floor:
http://www.onthecuttingfloor.com/free-sewing-pattern-long-sleeve-raglan-top/
Which I thought was a bit different since it has different sleeve tops to bottoms.

Well I put the pattern together and because www.onthecuttingfloor.com has been going for a long while now and also has patterns to buy, I assumed it would all be fine. I have used loads of different free patterns some hand-drawn and many that were made with one sort of software or another. Anyway this pattern did not work for me. Well yes I made a top but look at the next two photos:

 

 

I do not know if I put it together wrong or if it simply does not work right

but the bits just did not fit. I unpicked everything and sewed it all again after I had rechecked the pattern by repinning the pattern pieces onto my cut out fabric and everything seems ok. I looked at the tutorial on the www.onthecuttingfloor.com site. The bits simply do not fit together. It looks like it should be a polo neck rather than a normal raglan T shirt.

To make it work I had to hack off the extra neck fabric. I also decided the neck band which is given is far too small so cut a new one and added wrist edges to accent the sleeves. I also added a wider hem band.

In the end it does work - kind of. Its a boat neckline due to me hacking off the extra fabric which is wearable but not what I intended. I can wear it as you can see here but I am not impressed. The photos are not really very good and its hard to tell but, the top sleeve sections are a bit tight and it kind of reminds me of those weird tops you find in H&M. 

Needless to say I will not make this one again but I may try the original pattern available on the same site which has one colour sleeves since I wonder if it is me that put it together wrong. Who knows?

I might try a bought pattern for my next version.

Anyway I personally do not rate this pattern very highly at all.

Thanks for reading

Bracken