London Baby

Yayoi Kusama The Passing Winter - Tate Modern

I spent pretty much the whole of the first week of the Easter Holidays sewing. but the second week has been far more cultured. John & I decided to spend a couple of days in London (without the kids).

So on Tuesday we dropped the dog off with my mum and the kids at my mother in law's and early on Wednesday we caught a train to the capital. We made the decision to travel really light as it costs soooo much to leave bags at coach or train stations, so armed with one small rucksack we were ready to go.

Monet, The waterlily pond - National Gallery

Our train arrived at 10am and we headed straight to the National Gallery at Trafalgar Square. It takes me a little bit of time to get my bearings and then I'm pretty good at navigating the capital, although the distances sometimes fool me! We went for the 18th Century onwards exhibitions - looking mainly at the impressionists and more recent work. Although we did spend a little bit of time looking at some of the Holbein and Vermeer work. Some of the early icons were also impressive.

Just time for a quick browse at liberty before lunch.

Anish Kappor - Ishi's Light - Tate Modern

Lunch was a rather overpriced, but tasty Chinese meal and then it was off to the Tate Modern. I really enjoy exploring the tate, but it is huge and you just can't do it all in one day. As were were getting ready for a sit down and coffee, my sister called me.

She works in London and had an hour to spare before meeting a friend. We met up at the embankment park and enjoyed and hour's catch up in the sunshine before heading off for some tea. This time we headed for the Tokyo Diner. Probably my favourite meal of the trip, and reasonably priced!

Tokyo Diner

The it was back to the south bank for our evening's entertainment. We'd booked to see Twelfth Night at the National Theatre. I've never seen a production of this Shakespeare play before and it was brilliant! The set was stunning and the actors were brilliant.

Well known british Comedy Actor Tamsin Grieg was just hillariously funny. One of the best shows I've seen!

It was a late finish and after the show we headed straight to our hotel. Just a travelodge, but it was clean and comfy. its safe to say my feet were aching after the 27,000 steps we'd done that day.

On Thursday we'd booked a tour around the west part of Highate Cemetery. It was such an interesting place, and our guide had lots of stories about the history of Highgate and stories about some of the people in it. We also explored the east side and John had his photo taken at Karl Marx's grave. This is the most visited grave in Highgate. The west side is overgrown in many areas and the self-seeded trees have made many of the monuments unsafe, so the public are only allowed to visit as part of an organised tour. If you are in London and do want to see something different I can highly recommend visiting here.

Higate Cemetery  - west.

After a quick Lunch, grabbed from Herman ze German (Bratwurst and chips), we headed off to the Tate Britain to see the David Hockney exhibition. This was a fantastic retrospective of his work and includes recent pieces too. it's safe to say Hockney has really moved with the times, from Angst ridden art student paintings to the iPad and filmed landscape work he has produced in the last few years. I've even downloaded the same iPad app so I can have a go.

David Hockney

David Hockney

David Hockney

 Above is a selection of Hockney's work on exhibition at the Tate.

by Cerith Wyn Evans, Tate Britain

As we were coming out of the Hockney exhibition this work caught my eye. It fills such a vast space and the shapes created change depending on your viewpoint.

Back to Soho for food and then the train home. Two very tired people with very tired legs, but a great time was had!

Easter madness...or how I sewed my way through the first week of the school holidays.

I have been procrastinating.

When I procrastinate, I sew.

I'm not even going to talk about what I should've been doing, but I will talk about the sewing.

This week I made
4 dresses and finished off one jacket.

Dress number 1 - I made a dress from my own self drafted Vivienne Westwood inspired pattern. I used a floral scuba fabric and virtually sewed it all on the overlocker. I do still need to do the hem. pictures to follow when it's finally finished.

Late Feb my hubby bought me Gertie's latest dress pattern - all the way from America. I planned, plotted and decided which fabrics from my stash would make the best dresses.

Dress number 2 - Butterick B6453 view B for my daughter. I had just over 1m left of this fab shot fabric that my sister bought for me at Christmas and that I used to make this dress in January.

I made her bodice in size 8 and skirt graded to 12 at the hip. I did make the mistake of taking the side seams in before adding the facings which meant the top is a little tighter than I would like it to be.

Dress number 3 - The same view for myself - using up some cotton from my stash. There was barely a metre of this and so i had the sew the facings in a different fabric. I cut a size 10 bodice and graded the skirt out to a 14 at the hip.

When I made my muslin the 10 bodice seemed really snug at the waist so I added a couple of mm at the side seams. I wish I hadn't as in both dresses I made I ended up taking the sides in a bit and they could still be a bit tighter. I did pinch out excess at the armscye and under the bust to improve shaping. I ended up having to increase the curve in the front armcye for comfort and also pinched out about 5mm under the bust on the princess seams to help the shaping.

I made fixed straps, as I don't really see the need for sliders on a dress. I know I won't use them. I also sewed the vent at the back like the one from Gertie's pencil skirt from her first book. I also used an invisible zipper as I had one the right size and colour in my stash.

Dress number 4 - Butterick B6453 view A. I sewed this up in a very light weight cotton I picked up in a market in China last summer. It's my last decent sized piece of fabric in my stash. As the fabric was so light I used cotton muslin fabric to underline the bodice pieces. I was going to add it to the skirt too, but thought it would add too much weight and I didn't want to add any strain to the waist seams.

The same adjutsments were made to the bodice as for dress 3. I didn't cut the skirt pieces from the pattern. I just used the full width of the the fabric for the front and the same for the back, adding a CB seam. I also omitted the pockets due to the lightweight nature of the fabric.

I sewed the lapped zip, following Gertie's instructions on the sew along. The finish was great, but I feel like it sticks out a little. I need to work on getting it to sit a little more flush to the dress. Maybe my interfacing was too firm!

I wore this dress today with a petticoat, tights and my favourite black shoes. paired with my red cardy. It was a bit to cold to wear on it's own as it was only about 7 degrees this morning! It will be a fab dress in the hotter days of summer and I'm sure I'll wear it loads on holiday.

The final make of this week was a refashioned wool jacket. Motorbike style, made from a long purple wool coat. I'd been working on this for some time as a gift for my friend Alli. It was her birthday this week, so I had to get it finished. Unfortunately I forgot to take photos so Alli said she'd take some and let me have them later.

Next up - repairs to the curtains. the dog has managed to catch and undo the hem - they are currently in the wash, then will be stitched again.

After that - My Hubby's suit jacket muslin. I've made myslef a jacket, but I'm not too hot on the tailoring techniques I need to use - Back to Gertie's first book! I also need to get on with my next piece of art - experiemental work at the moment.

Trousers Toile Take 3

    

Do you like my fabric?

It's all I could find in the stash that I wasn't planning to use for anything.

Anyway on to the pattern making. As you can see I've made some changes and I hope this will be my final toile. My draft now sits just below my natural waist, which I think is much better proportioned for my shape. I have along torso and small waist compared with my hips. this can lead me to looking like I have short legs if the waistline is too low.

The side seam is true, I think there will always be a bit of excess fabric behind the knee as I have quite an extended calf. These still feel a bit snug on the thich and calf when I sit, which would lead me to allowing a few mm extra if making up in a non stretch fabric

The back is much better, I have added length to the CB seam and scooped fabric at the crotch seam to improve fit. there is still a bit of fabric under the butt so I've1.5 wedge now taken out here. I don't want to take too much as I need to be able to move in the trousers.

I now need to adjust my draft for design. I'm thinking that slant pickets on the front; welt pockets on the back; a front fly and curved waistband. I think this would be best in a stretch woven. They don't have anything I like at my local fabric shop.
I would like plain (exception for polka dot) and either red, navy or black for my first pair. I'm looking for a reasonably priced fabric as I know I may still need to make adjustments.

I don't often buy fabric online as I like to feel the fabric to assess handle, stretch and general feeliness!

Recommendations of good options for slim trousers gratefully accepted.