The Whites and The Blues

A belated post of some 2016 makes. I still have a few others that have been made but not photographed, or need just a little bit of fixing or finishing. With these two makes, one has already been in my wardrobe for 11 months, the other was made two weeks before the end of the year. So I guess that evens out to...still be a ridiculously long time between making and posting.

Both of these makes were quick pattern-free makes. Both pieces of fabric were remnants, so I only had what was there to work with. And with both fabrics I knew exactly what they'd be as soon as I bought them. Even so, both fabrics spent a while in my stash before I made them up into these garments.

The first make is a simple jersey top. The fabric was from Spotlight, bought in the second half of 2015. The print is white silhouettes of foxes, although they bear almost as much resemblance to cacti as they do to foxes. But I liked that the fabric is fun while still be quite simple in the navy and white colours. It was also a softer jersey than many of Spotlight's can be.

The top was a very simple make. It is raglan sleeved, and the front and back are identical, just rectangles with the top corners cut off on an angle. With the sleeves the neckline is not quite rectangular, angling out slightly towards the shoulders. It's sewn together with a three stitch zigzag about 6mm wide in white thread. The fit is close but not tight, so it's casual but still neat.

The skirt is a piece of wonderfully soft remnant rayon with navy palm leaves on a cream background was bought at My Hung fabrics. It was 1.5 metres wide and 1.1 metres long. This made it just the perfect size piece for  a maxi skirt. With skirts I tend not to bother with patterns, and for this one I didn't even bother with any measurement. I just pinned pleats every few centimetres to bring it down to my waist size, sewed my pleats about 8cm long, then stitched up the back seam, added a zipper, and folded over and stitched a waistband and hem. All done in not much more than an hour.

Both of these pieces also remind me of some of the things I really love about sewing. Designing my own ideas, or seeing a fabric and having an image in my head of what it should be and then creating that is such a great experience. Using fabrics in prints and colours I choose that are good quality and have a better feel than the cheap disposable things for sale in most shops means I enjoy wearing what I make. And my wardrobe has much more colour and variety when I make things myself.

Sleeved and Sleeveless Sunshine

The weather is starting to cool down here, so I'm turning my mind to warmer clothing. A few of my basic long sleeve tops have been getting on a bit, and really need to be replaced. I probably should have made more last year but I couldn't find jerseys I liked, and tops aren't all that interesting to make so there was always something else to distract me. But when I was filling in time waiting for a bus I went into the op shop next to the station. It tends to carry fabric remnants alongside second hand clothes and I found this piece of soft lemon jersey for $1.80 (and a few other things I'll use at some point in the future). Score!

The piece of jersey was a reasonable size, about 140cm wide and the same length, so there was way more than I needed for a long sleeved top. So I decided that, given it's a good, soft, jersey, and a warm but not overwhelming colour, that I would make a simple shell top that can be either very casual or be dressed up a bit with a necklace and maybe a nice skirt and blazer.

Most of my t-shirts are band t-shirts, and half of those that aren't have lots of colour and big prints on them, so making something as plain as this is a refreshing change for me!

I didn't bother using a pattern for this, but I did base it on the fit of a jersey shell top I already owned. I didn't want it to be tight, but I wanted it to be fitted, so I took my measurements and then added a bit under an inch at the bust and hip, and an inch and a half at the waist. I marked these points on the fabric and then used my french curve to join the dots - I don't use the french curve a lot, but it is so useful to have, especially for drafting something like this! I cut the back piece a bit straighter than the front, so the front is more fitted.

You can also see that while the top is sleeveless, it is slightly capped. From the underarm I curved it up and out to about an inch wider than the bust mark. I also made the shoulder seam slightly sloped so that it would curve down with my shoulders rather than sticking straight out.

To finish the top off, I put a 1cm hem at the bottom and narrow rolled hems for the neckline and sleeve caps.

 So after I'd made the sleeveless version, I got on to making the long sleeved top I'd bought the fabric for. I used the exact same technique for drafting this as I did on the shell top, but I didn't narrow the front in at the waist quite as much, so the front and back pieces are essentially identical this time. The other change compared to the first top is the neckline: for this one the neckline is higher and rounded. Again, I couldn't be bothered using a pattern so I took my upper arm and wrist measurements and drafted the sleeves based on them.

When I first sewed this together, though, I found I'd made a stupid error - I'd made the shoulder seams too wide so the sleeves stuck way out. It looked like a bad 80s top I'd taken the shoulder pads out of. Not a good look. But fixing a too wide seam is easy, so I just took the sleeves off, cut a chunk off each side, and sewed them back on. They're actually still a few milimetres wider than I'd ideally like, but they're much better than they were! They also ended up being bracelet length which wasn't what I planned, but I quite like the sleeve length. The neckline is again a rolled hem, and there is a 1cm hem on the sleeves and at the waist.

When I first tried sewing jersey, I used a straight stitch but quickly learned that wasn't a good idea. There's no give in the seams to match the give in the fabric, and it ends up being terrible. I've learnt my lesson now and always use a zigzag. Now sewing with jersey is easy, and I was able to whip up both of these tops in one afternoon! And in this lovely yellow, I can wear sunshine all year round.

Slashed Sleeve Top and Casual Pants

Sometimes I decide I need to make more 'normal' clothes, without over-the-top colours. It is useful to have some basic casual clothes in your wardrobe, and what's more simple and casual than dark grey pants and a fairly neutral colour top? So these two items are an attempt at simple and casual.

Observe the lovely weeds I chose to stand next to

 The pants are Burda young 7050, which have a fitted waist and thigh and then flared lower leg. I always find Burda patterns pretty easy to follow, except for the instructions on how to sew the fly, I avoid making pants because the instructions for the fly are always confusing.  Does anyone have and good tutorials on how to do them? Please leave me any recommendations if you do, then I might not be so scared of making pants. 


Having short legs I had to cut off about two inches of fabric from the pattern's original length. The original pattern was long enough that I could have stood right on my toes and the hem would still scrape the ground, so just a little bit
too long!

The fabric is just a simple dark grey cotton drill I bought from a small fabric, rug, and slippers shop (strange mix!) in Benalla in rural Victoria. I was doing fieldwork for uni in the town, and found the shop during a free afternoon at the end of my week. Even luckier, the owner had decided to stop selling fabric in the future because it wasn't making him enough money, so to get rid of what he had left, he was selling it all for $5 a metre. I probably bought more than was sensible.


Unfortunately I forgot to photograph the blue and white striped with strawberries fabric I used for the pockets. 

For the top, I used a fabric I bought on sale at Tessuti. It's a soft apricot and mauve striped-ish cotton elastane jersey, so it has some colour and a nice but not overwhelming print.

I wanted the top to be a bit loose but not big, and long enough that it covered my waistband, ending pretty much on the top of the hip bone. I made this without any pattern, and really without all that much of a plan, just a picture in my head of how it was meant to look. The basics of it are very simple, just two big rectangles for the main part of the top and two smaller rectangles for the sleeves. The sleeves themselves, though, were a bit fiddly.


I've seen slashed backs and sleeves on tops and dresses for a while, and decided to try it out on the sleeves of this. I probably should have planned what I wanted better, but I just grabbed my scissors and cut. Trying to sew the edges of seven bands on each sleeve was tedious, and dealing with all the thread ends even worse! I also stitched the middle of each band together so that they'd stay sleeves and not all fall off my shoulders completely.

So while both of these were meant to be more normal, they weren't completely simple to make. Some day I'll learn how to do a fly properly, and some day I won't do overly fiddly things like these sleeves.