It's a Wrap

Continuing with my vintage sewing theme I've made up another of the vintage patterns I scored in a pattern haul a few months ago.

Cue this cute pattern:

It's Simplicity 7498, 1967 pattern. It's a simple wrap over skirt, with various different options for closure and come in two lengths, mini and just above the knee. However this is a single size pattern with a waist size of 25 inches, so I had to grade the pattern.

I traced the pattern pieces and used my book with grading rules to grade up two sizes. I think one would have been fine, but it's a wrap skirt so it's forgiving in fit.

I scoured my stash for appropriate fabric and found a piece of black denim which has a nice faded fold line right down it! - oh well, I thought I'd use it anyway. It was barely 70cm deep and I only just managed to cut the skirt from it. I used quilting cotton for the facing and pieced together denim to make the pocket.

I decided to leave the bottom unhemmed, but did sew a line of stitching to prevent any fraying from going mad. I really wanted a buckle and leather fastening, but didn't have one the right size or any black leather for that matter.

It's been sat waiting to be finfished for a few weeks as I needed to find a fastening solution. Today I managed to get my hands on a couple of D rings and used those instead, making the tabs from the very small offcuts of denim that were left (I added these after adding the facing and should really have sandwiched them inbetween the layers, but I don't suppose anyone is going to see them). I really did use every scrap of fabric for this!

This denim is hefty and even my trusty Bernina found some of the thicker layers tricky. I had to go really slow. The side seams are flat felled - my first attempt at this - super easy, but you do need a wider seam allowance than my usual 1.2cm. This pattern has 1.5cm.

My construction on this is a bit rough. The waist facing didn't quite meet the front edge - but then I realised it should have a facing along the edge too, which I decided to omit, just turning and hemming - I didn't look at the instructions and should have added a few cm to the waist facing to account for this.

It looks fine and has that edgy punky style I love, but decent topstitching thread would have helped with the finish of the garment, but I'll certainly make some more of these. A quick and easy sew.

I'm impressed with the coverage, the overlap is a decent width and you are not doing to get any accidental flashes of undergarments with this skirt. I can see this getting lots of wear - easy to throw on in the summer and would also look great with leggings/ tights and boots in the winter. Another Vintage winner.

How to create Flat Felled Seams

I'm making a denim wrap skirt, it's the perfect place to use flat felled seams. They are neat, easy and look good inside and out. (Apologies for using black fabric, which makes some of the stitching tricky to see here, but I was midway through a project.)

First sew the seam with wrong sides together. I like to use a wide seam allowance for this - I used a 1.5cm (5/8 inch) allowance here.

Press the seam open.

Next trim one side of the seam allowance to about 5mm wide (sorry blurry photo here).

The other side of the seam allowance should be folded in half and pressed.

Press the folded side over the trimmed side enclose the trimmed edge in the fold if you can. and press into place.

Now topstitch close to the edge of the fold.

You should see two lines of stitching on the oustside of the garment and one on the inside.

There you go easy peasy.

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.

The Assembly Line Hoodie Dress

I had my eye on this pattern since last August and my hubby bought it for me in September. I just needed to find the right fabric to make it up in. Minerva Crafts sent me 2m of this denim to review and I made the Hoodie dress with it.

I really do love this pattern and it works brilliantly in Denim. I've made two of these dresses. This was my first and it gets plenty of wear. Currently planning a summer version!

Pop over to the Minerva blog to read the full review.

*Disclaimer* The fabric for this project was provided free of charge in exchange for my review. All opinions are my own.