back in the real world!

OK, I know I’ve been really quite lately, but this time I have a really good excuse!  I GOT A JOB!!!

Yes, really, a real, paying, 9 to 5 job.

Despite sending literally hundreds of applications off into the black hole of the internet, the job I ended up with I didn’t actually apply for.  In a roundabout sort of way I can sort of thank the Auckland Sewing collective for throwing me into the right path.  A couple of months ago we met up in a café in Mount Albert one Sunday morning.  I arrived a few minutes early so went and ordered (and paid for incidentally) my coffee and while I was queuing at the cash register I spotted a vague acquaintance, sort of friend who I hadn’t seen for literally years.  We exchanged the usual greetings and I mentioned that I had been made redundant and was looking for work if he heard of anything (because I’d been job hunting for so long that I have no shame).  The coffee arrived and I went and found the other sewists and had a lovely get together.

I thought nothing more of the encounter until about two weeks later when I got a call from him.  He’d just had a resignation, she didn’t really want to work her notice and had only been there about a month so didn’t really have anything useful to handover.  He didn’t want to go through the whole advertising, hundreds of cv’s and interviewing again, so could I start on Monday?

So... I’m gainfully employed again!  

I can at long last wear the working wardrobe that I have been sewing for the last eleven months.   

It’s a fairly casual environment, so I started with black pants and a shirt that I made over Christmas.   

I decided to spend some time perfecting the classic shirt.  I drafted a basic shirt and got the fit right even over the bust, which is always an issue for me.  I had a white shirting with a self coloured stripe that I'd bought on line for $1.20 a metre.  I made a plain white shirt with it intending it to be a sort of wearble muslin, but I was happy withn the finished shirt:

I then decided that I wanted to replicate the shaping of this cardigan in a woven fabric and shirt type design.  starting from the pattern that I had perfected I put the stripe across the shirt rather than up and down and played with pleats into the button band:

It took a bit of fiddling to get it right and the pleats changed the direction of the stripes at the top half of the front, but it isn’t a bad effect, and like the stretch cardi that I made it is a great shape for the larger than B cup bust without an excessive amount of fabric floating round the waist.  

I even wore this jacket, which I wasn’t in love with when I made it, but actually doesn’t look too bad.

The job is very close to a railway station on the same line as where I live, so Im taking the train to work.  It’s a direct trip and I couldn’t drive it in time that the train takes.  I pour the last of the coffee into my travel mug …

 

Yes, I made my coffee mug an embroidered coat!

… as I leave for the station, and sit on the train with my ipod and knitting (yes I am that mad woman who knits on the train), and usually by the time I’ve finished my coffee the train is just arriving at work.  It’s a really civilised way to commute, which is also improving my knitting output!

The one down side of having a job is a lack of time to doing sewing related stuff.   

I was really interested in Project Indie and intended to put in one of my recent designs that I had drafted.  While drafting it in multiple sizes was quite simple, the process of digitising it required way more time and IT skills than I have.  I spent two weekends trying to figure out how to do it, and feeling guilty about doing anything else before it dawned on me that I was spoiling my weekends and not sewing stuff that I was interested in because I thought I “should” get a pattern entered.  What was I thinking? While it might have made sense when I had the time, I have a new job which I’m having to get to grips with.  I don’t have the IT skills, nor the brain space to learn at the moment.  All I was doing was spoiling my weekends feeling guilty about not being able to do it.  So I’ve let that one go.  I’m just not techie savvy enough.

In the meantime I’m enjoying being back at work and enjoying having more than 50c left at the end of the week.  I could even buy some more fabric!

Ruffles and Tweed

A while ago I was given a box of fabric bits and pieces from a friend’s mother, who is now in her nineties and hasn’t sewn for years.   

As well as some lovely vintage prints she had started making herself a pair of trousers out of this wool.

It’s a heavy wool and almost a bit scratchy, but I love the tweedy look.  The lady is a lot smaller than me, so there was no way I was going to be able to simply complete the trousers for me, so I carefully unpicked the half made trousers and assessed the fabric that I was left with, with a view to making a skirt.

The pieces that I had weren’t wide enough to make a straight skirt, so I had to be a bit more creative.  The back was a simple fix – I put a curved godet in the centre back seam, drafted from my skirt block using the same technique that I used here.

Although it is a very subtle effect, I also added a little embroidery to the two back panels – just because I can!

At this point I stalled slightly, while I figured out what to do with the gap in the front.  Eventually I added a panel to the front lining and attached layer upon layer of stone coloured chiffon ruffles from the $1 stash.  It sort of looks as though I’ve vomited chiffon down the front of the skirt.  

Or maybe it’s just a cute play on the hard and soft of the tweed and the ruffles?

Here’s my dilemma:  When my daughter was living at home she would sometimes come home from school, look at my current project on the dummy and yell “STOP! Move away from the fabric Mum.”  This was her sign that I had gone, or was about to go, over the top.  With no resident daughter to rein me in I wonder whether I’ve gone too far with the ruffles and embroidery here?

What do you think? 

Copying RTW

One of the many sewing related topics that came up at the recent meet up for Auckland Sewing Bloggers was our behaviour in clothes shops.  I was glad to hear that I wasn’t the only sewer who lurks in clothes shops looking at RTW with a view to making a copy.

I was on one of these inspiration hunts when I spotted this T-Shirt in Farmers.

I quite like the use of the two fabrics, and curvy shapes.  I also wear a lot of black and white, so I could see this top featuring regularly in my wardrobe.

What I didn’t like was the price tag $69.99! WTF!  I mean, seventy bucks for a T shirt!  Even if I could afford it, I couldn’t justify that much on a single T shirt, however nice.

So, of course, I set about making my own version.

I started with a pattern from Burda magazine - January 2009.  It has the raglan sleeves not dissimilar to the RTW top, and I’ve made it several times before, so I know it fits. 

I sat down with all the essential supplies

Yes, the coffee is an essential supply!

NOTE: all these pattern pieces have NO seam allowance on them)

The sleeve on the Burda top is gathered, which I didn’t want on this version, so I pinned the excess fabric out…

And laid the piece out as flat as I could and traced it (both the original and the design was aiming for use stretch fabric, so I didn’t need to be too concerned about losing the shoulder shape)

I then made a copy of the front piece (minus the markings for an opening) and cut it into two pieces, roughly like the RTW one.   

Then I repeated the exercise on the back piece

To make the pattern piece for the facing I placed all the pieces together at the relevant seams and traced the curve, marking the centre front as a fold.  

Since this was a bit of a hack, I didn’t want to use expensive fabric to try out this new pattern, so I dived into my $1 stash and found a striped T shirting, and a plain grey one.  

I added seam allowances as I cut and added an extra 1cm on the inside of the facing curve, effectively making it slightly smaller, so I would pull towards the inside of the garment

Once I had made it up I felt that the front neckline was a little high, so I cut it a few cm down, and did the same to the centre front pattern piece.

I also added a raven with the embroidery machine because, well, because I can.

Overall I’m please with the result, and will definitely be looking for a nice black and white graphic print to make a more formal looking one for the monthly stitch Sewing Double Challenge, or I guess if I don't find the right fabric in time it could always be Sew Stretchy for May.

There are several things I will change next time:

• I managed to get the placement of the raven a bit off, so I have a raven flying across my boob. 
•  I still have to get better at stabilising knits for the machine embroidery.

Despite these two issues, I feel that I have a workable pattern for a “real” copy, which I probably won't embellish anyway

Smarty pants

Having not yet suceeded at meeting the Monthly Stitch's January challenge of a new skill, I figured I needed to get these jeans finished before the end of February, as the challenge was a pair of pants.

I mentioned a couple of weeks ago that I pre-washed a pile of fabrics that I’d bought cheaply off Trade-me.  One of them was this rather uninspiring sort of yellowy oatmeal colour with a checked texture and really stiff feel.

 

Before

Before I wrote it off for muslins I cut off a couple of metres and tried dying it black.  I used the washing machine ‘cos that seems to agitate it better than I can, and it ended up rather large to fit in a pan on the stove top.  My burn test had suggested it was a natural fibre, and it certainly took the colour.  

The final result wasn’t black, more a sort of dark greyish blue colour, and while the colour covered all the fabric, there were definite blotchy bits.

After

Since my plan was a pair of jeans, neither of these problems deterred me; it was a very acceptable jeans colour, and I figured a few blotchy bits would be OK on jeans.

I did hit a small road block when it came to choosing an embroidery design for the rear pockets, so thanks to everyone who helped me out of that one; the gecko was a clear favourite, so geckos it was.

Since I spent about 37½ cents on this fabric (plus $4 for the zip) I didn’t need to have great expectations for this garment.  Despite that, I actually like these jeans.  They are snug, but feel surprisingly comfortable and the blotchy dye job actually works.  I’ve been working on jeans for a while, so I didn’t have to do any fitting and I’ve already made all the required adjustments to McCalls 5892; my basic jeans pattern.

In this photo I’m also wearing a Colette Sorbetto made from another trade-me purchase and left over from a black blouse that I made for a recent funeral – a double take already!  The Sorbetto is a great pattern for small amounts of fabric and an easy top for the warmer weather, and it’s FREE.  Other than my usual FBA and adding a little length I didn’t have to make any alterations to this pattern and the result is really easy to wear – more indie love!