Zero Waste Culottes

Happy Easter! I've had two weeks off work and lots of time to be creative. I've helped my daughter with some fundraising and made her prom dress. I've done a fitting for a wedding dress I'm making and I've altered another wedding dress - lots of selfless sewing. So this Easter weekend it was time to refashion the pile of Jeans I've had lingering in the wardrobe.

I used some old jeans and offcuts from previous projects. This pile of denim had been destined for the bin until I decided to reuse some of it. The rest has not gone to waste and I'm in the process of piecing it together to get some usable yardage.

I pulled out my trusty culottes pattern, which is #114 from 03/2016 edition of Burdastyle magazine. This requires just 1.5m of fabric. after harvesting as much of the jeans fabric as I could I pieced the scraps together to make big enough pieces to get the legs out of. I took a pair of back pockets off one of the pairs of jeans I was using and kept them for the back of the culottes. I quite like that you can see the dark patch of denim where one of these pockets was placed originally on the front of the finished pair. I used offcuts of cotton for the pocket bags in order to reduce the bulk.

This pattern is an easy sew. The straight cut of the legs means that it is quite easy to cut from regular fabric with very very little wastage and made them a perfect option for a refashion. The legs are shaped at the waist using a pleat on the trouser front and darts at the back. I cut a size 38 but I increased the back darts by about 1cm each and took off about the same of the CB seam at the waist. It's what I need to do to make sure they fit at the waist and the hip. I also drafted a curved waistband to help with the fit. 

The culottes came together quickly and I used some grey extra strong thread for topstitching as It seemed to fit the faded denim quite well, rather than use a new brashy gold. Most of the topstitching went well but the waistband was problematic. My trusty Bernina struggled to go through all the layers and the tread caught frequently. From the right side, it looks ok, but the inside is a mess, despite hammering the seams and steaming the heck out of them. I really need to do the stitching again, but I think I might leave it until I've washed them a couple of times and the fabric has settled. I think using a bigger sized needle might help too.

I haven't added a button or buttonhole yet. I couldn't find the back to the Jeans button I had and I need to sort out the topstitching thread to get a good finish when I do the buttonhole.

I love the shape of these and I'm sure they will get quite a lot of wear over the summer months.

Blooming Bomber Jacket - a review

What a riot of colour?
This is the Blooming Bomber Jacket. It is a design by Katie Jones and the pattern is available free on Love Crochet. I first saw this in Little Treasures blog a few weeks ago and knew that it would be my next make.

The recommended yarn was Paintbox yarns Arran weight. I managed to get all I needed for less than £20 - which is just what I had left of my Christmas money.

This pattern is classed as intermediate, but a confident beginner could handle it as it's not difficult.

I really like the finished jacket - it came up a little bigger than I was expecting, even though my tension was spot on and I think I might be tempted to use a DK yarn and a slightly smaller hook next time - I'd also like to see it made in Cotton or bamboo yarn.

So what drew me to this? Firstly the colour. I love bright colours and I am trying to embrace it in my clothing too. I love that the design is inspired by Frida Kahlo who is one of my favourite artists. I also loved that the pattern has statement sleeves and huge 3D floral motif pockets - what's not to love?

This was a very quick make (after the months it took to make my Eastern Jewels blanket), taking just 2 weeks to make.   I spent most evenings doing a bit and it came together very quickly. I'm sure this was helped by me using the time while my daughter was at drama rehearsals to get this to progress quickly.

So how easy is it?
The construction of the jacket is very simple and the challenge comes on the cuffs and the pockets. I did find the instructions a little sparse, as I'm very visual I like to see pictures and understand how what I'm doing relates to the garment. I think I'd been spoilt as the Persian Tiles instructions for the Eastern Jewels blanket were incredibly clear and well presented. The Instructions weren't difficult for the Bomber Jacket, just rather brief.

I like to know which part of the garment I'm starting with and the order of construction. The diagram for the pocket was clear and did help, but I spent the first few rows of the jacket wondering which bit I was starting with and working out how it was going to work. For those who need to know - it's the underarm point.

I also had to look up what crochet tapestry technique was - you use this for the popcorn stitch on the cuff. It wasn't hard, but it was terminology I hadn't come across before and I found a couple of youtube tutorials which made it clear. There were more complex stitches in the Eastern Jewels blanket, but they were explained more clearly. That being said, I have a jacket that looks like the one in the photo and I've worn it quite a few times. It looks great with my black Jeans and Docs and I can see me wearing it with my next Minerva make - which is very bright. All hail colour!!!!!!

Red Floral Saraste Shirt Dress

This is my first version of the Saraste shirt dress from the Breaking the Pattern book by Named Clothing and it will not be the last. After a few recent makes with some tricksy fabrics, this was an absolute dream to sew.

I'm always a bit nervous when I first sew a pattern as I wanted an easy well fitting garment. This week has produced both an unwearable pair of trousers (which I won't go into here) and this stunning dress, which I love.

I compared my measurements to the size guide and finished measurements and based on these I cut a straight size 3. The pattern calls for just over 2m of 150cm wide fabric. Unfortunately I only had 2m of the fabric and it was narrower than 150cm wide too, which meant I had to shorten the skirt portion of the dress considerably and cut the inner yoke, inner collar stand and under collar in a contrasting fabric, which I also used to make bias binding for the armscye as there was not enough fabric for sleeves. I quite like the contrast effect if I'm honest.

I'm not normally a huge fan of floral fabric, but there was just something about the colour combination of this fabric that I really like. I didn't buy it myself and I'm not sure where it's from, but it has a really nice feel and a slight stretch. My sister-in-law gave it to me as a Christmas gift and I've been looking for a project to use it on since then. The contrast fabric was also a Christmas gift. My sister had bought me some yardage from Simply Fabrics in Brixton and had also spotted some remnants. This was one of those remnants - there was about 1/3m of this one.

Once I'd managed pattern Tetris to make all the pieces fit. I started on the construction. I followed this exactly as directed in the book. The bodice back and side front are constructed and stitched together at the side seams, then the gathered skirt is added before the centre front pieces are added and yoke are joined at the shoulder.

I can see why it's constructed in this way, but it doesn't leave many options for alterations. I really like the fit and won't be making any changes to this one, but I would normally have a closer fitting waist, so taking a bit off the side seams and back darts would help with this. If you think you might need to make similar alterations I would construct the back and front separately before joining at the shoulders and side seams.

The drafting is excellent on this and all the pieces matched perfectly. I left off the frill at the edge of the collar and used the grainline archer sew-a-long for the construction of the collar as it gives a great finish. The Saraste instructions are similar here, but the sew-a-long just gives a bit more detail.

I finished all inside seams with the overlocker. The hem was also overlocked and a narrow hem sewn in order to keep as much length as possible. The armscye is finished with contrast bias binding.

This dress is just completely my style. I will get a lot of wear out of it and I think there will be more of these.