Baby car seat blanket and toddler circle skirts

I indulged in a bit of baby sewing recently. The first item was this car seat blanket for a friend's new baby. I followed the tutorial by 'Running with scissors', which was excellent. This picture is not taken of the blanket on a pregnant belly, but rather on a cushion to try to represent the baby!

The blanket is made in the shape of a rounded plus sign. It has three slits for the car seat straps. Once baby is in, the bottom and sides of the blanket fold over to keep him/her nice and warm.

I used green flannelette and pink cotton for the front and back. The sides were finished with a folded lycra strip used as piping and the same lycra was used to bind the edges of the slits.

This was something I would have liked when my boys were babies, so hopefully my friend thought it was useful. I'll be checking her car seat next time I see her!

The other project I whipped up was this circle skirt. I have made lots of children's circle skirts, but I saw this idea on 'Polkadot Overload' and, as suggested, used the circle skirt calculator by 'The Snugbug'. This calculator intrigued me and I wanted to see if it worked on very mini sizes. I can happily report that it does and was so fast and easy that I made two skirts in quick succession for my niece, aged 16 months.

One skirt was made with red panne velvet, to which I added randomly applied ribbon detail, and the other was made with four sample pieces of velvet from one of those sampler things you get/scavenge from posh upholstery shops. The waistband was made from purple knit fabric. Both skirts fit really well, even though one is knit and one is woven (apart from the waistband). 

 I finished each with a rolled hem.

Speaking of those sampler things, I have lots because I am a hoarder and I can't help myself when I get the chance to help myself to outdated ones. They are perfect for small projects like this and some interesting effects can be obtained when they have pieces in graduating colours like these pinks. Some even have larger pieces of fabric big enough to make a women's top or shorts. Yay for upcycling!

Sk8tr bois (Burda 9592)

After much pestering from my boys, I finally got round to making the 'leather' jackets that I'd promised them last year.

I used Burda 9592 (now discontinued) that I picked up for $5 at the shop where I was having my sewing machine serviced. Some time later I found this dark, chocolate brown pleather for 40% off in Spotlight. I bought it and it sat in my cupboard for several months, through the long, hot summer, while JJ (seven) periodically asked when I was going to make his jacket. When the weather turned cold I ran out of excuses, so I set to work on View A (times two).

The pattern I had was for age 10-15. That was fine for LJ (ten), but too big for JJ. Some down-scaling was in order. To do this, I used a very handy method from SewStylish.com that I had found ages ago and saved for just such an occasion.  

Source

The method involves drawing lots of radiating lines on each pattern piece and applying simple maths to work out where the lines on the smaller (or bigger) pattern should be drawn. The resulting, scaled-down pattern seemed to go together well, so thumbs up for this method.

The next obstacle was that the pattern specified shearling-type fabric (leather with sheepskin backing) for View A as this view is styled with raw edges to show off the wool lining. Well, even in sheep-rich Australia I don't know where I would find such a fabric, much less afford to buy it for children's jackets! And besides, I'd already bought this pleather so I had to make it work. In the end, I used some brown polar fleece to underline every pattern piece. This gave the jackets warmth and allowed the raw edge design detail to be utilised. 

Suffice it to say that the pattern re-sizing and cutting out the pieces for two jackets in pleather and fleece took a blinking long time!

Raw edges on cuffs, pockets and hem.

I have to say that JJ really helped the process (not) by popping into the sewing room at regular intervals and asking when his jacket would be ready!

Raw edges on collar and yoke.

Once I started sewing, these jackets went together reasonably quickly. I treated the fleece and pleather together as a single layer for each piece, which worked fine.

I like the contrast provided by the fleece on the inside of the collar and on the raw edges of the hem, cuffs, pockets, collar and yoke.

The boys are very pleased with their jackets, so Yay for Mum-sewing! I wanted them to pose by this graffiti wall for the pictures, so I had to bribe them with a visit to the adjacent skate park. 

I had to take these photos in 2 minutes flat, before they raced off to do this:

and this:

That's my boys :)

Floral skinny jeans

Here I am leaping into the floral jeans trend (not into the river, although Truffle did have a dip).

I bought this bright, stretch woven fabric a few weeks ago in the Textile Traders sale. I got one metre for only $5. Cheap pair of jeans hey?

I am not thrilled with the t-shirt, which I didn't make, so a bit of thought is needed on how to style these pants. Suggestions welcome!

Now, I had planned to use McCalls 6404, a leggings pattern, for these. But after the mediocre denim pants that resulted from my first attempt with this pattern I decided against using it this time. Instead, I drafted a new pattern using a great-fitting pair of RTW (ready-to-wear) pants and my tried and tested Jalie 2795 (UPDATE: this should be 2908) jeans pattern.

I traced the RTW pants very carefully, then compared the result to my Jalie pattern.

Correction: Jalie pattern is 2908

The shaky black line shows the outline of the Jalie pattern (pants back) and the even shakier yellow line is the RTW tracing. There is quite a difference in the shape of the back crotch curve. There is also a difference in the waist height, but this is partly explained by the fact that the Jalie jeans have a yoke (not seen here), while the RTW pants do not. Hmmm, interesting. The other notable difference was that the seams of the RTW pants were placed differently to the Jalie jeans, particularly the inner leg seam which was significantly further forward on the RTW pants. I don't know that this affects the final fit. I suspect probably not much.

Out of curiosity, I decided to just make the RTW pattern and compare it to my previous Jalie 2795 efforts.

So here it is. I only had a metre to squeeze this from, so I eliminated all pockets. I had just enough fabric to do a fly front and separate waistband. I think the fit is pretty good.

I should have made them longer though. I'll buy 1.1m next time!

Here is a picture of my denim Jalie jeans for fit comparison.

I think the less scooped back crotch curve of the floral jeans is more flattering than the deeper scoop of the Jalie jeans. The fit at the front is similar, although the Jalies are higher waisted (these denims were made from the higher waisted version of the pattern). The inner leg seams are just visible on the floral fabric but don't seem to impact the fit. On a plain fabric the forward-placed seams would be more visible and could be top-stitched in a contrasting thread for additional detail.

I think I like these and, once I work out what to wear with them, I'll wear these a lot before the fashion changes! The comparison of patterns was an interesting exercise (for a sewing nerd like me) and I am very pleased to have improved the fit at the back. Yay!

Drape Drape 3, No. 14 (8 piece twist collar tuck drape dress)

The first time I looked through 'Drape Drape 3' by Hisako Sato on Christmas Day, this was the dress I wanted to make. However, I was rather daunted by the complexity of the pattern and the fact that my version of this book is in Japanese, which I do not understand.

I decided to attempt an easier pattern from this book first to see how I went. I'd already made things from 'Drape Drape 1' and 'Drape Drape 2' (my editons of these books are in English), so I knew the way the instructions and patterns were set out. Kind of.

Armed with all the knowledge and experience I needed had managed to scrape together, I blindly set forth into unknown Japanese draping territory.

I looked at the diagrams of the pattern pieces and how they went together.
I squinted at the Japanese characters and tried to match them with pattern pieces.
I got completely lost.
I almost gave up...

...then I had an idea. I would trace the diagrams on to tissue paper and make my own mini version of the dress to see how it went together.

I traced the diagrams straight from the book and they seemed to be in proportion. But there were so many pieces - and these were just for the front and back of the dress!

I followed the pleating diagrams and stuck the little pleats down with tiny bits of sticky tape. It then became clear that the dress was lined. The picture below shows the front (top left, made from two different pattern pieces), back (top right), front lining (bottom left) and back lining pieces (bottom right). The lining is far less gathered than the dress itself.

The front piece is pleated and then has a deep fold across the neckline (see below).

This was a very useful (and rather fun) exercise. I was distracted somewhat as I thought of searching for a little doll to try on my paper dress. I'm sure we have one somewhere...

Then sanity resumed (?!) and I set about making the dress for real. The pattern tracing took a long time, but I managed to match up the Japanese characters with the pattern pieces so labelling became easier. If anyone is interested the pieces are as follows: 1-back (cut 2), 2-front, 3-front, 4-neck, 5-back lining (cut on fold), 6-front lining (cut on fold), 7-armhole facing back, 8-armhole facing front.

This dress requires a lot of fabric. The main dress needs 2.8m and then extra for the lining. I had 2m of my one-way stretch cotton jersey and I was determined to make the pattern fit. I decided to do away with the lining for a start. After some rearranging I managed to get all the pattern pieces on my fabric except one end of the huge neckline piece. I cut the remainder of this piece from a scrap of fabric and sewed them together. The seam doesn't show with all the pleats and whatnot.

Once cut out, I folded and stitched all the pleats. There are a lot! All around the neckline of the front and back and all around the neckline piece itself. The pleating transforms the neckline piece from a giant piece of lightning to a lumpy, drapey rectangle that can be folded lengthwise to attach to the front and back dress pieces.

Throughout the whole process of sewing this dress together, I was completely out of my comfort zone. It just seemed like a mess from every angle that was never going to fit together. I envisaged an embarrassing botch job of uneven seams that hung all wrong. I was ready to give up a couple of times, which is not like me, but I'm glad I persevered as it all somehow came together at the end. One issue I took a while to work out was that the neckline forms shoulder straps so the front and back pieces are not actually joined together at the shoulders. I used the armhole facing pieces, which was fine in this case, but I can't see how these would be needed if the dress lining was used. I finished the lower edge with a rolled hem as I wanted to preserve the length. This pattern is made for shorter girls than me!

 When I decided to make this I thought I would wear it as a summer dress. Now it's finished I think I'm more likely to wear it as a tunic with boots. This is partly because of the length, which is shorter than my preferred dress length, and also because it billows rather a lot in the wind and I feel I'm going to give passers by an eyeful at any moment. Lining the dress would have helped this aspect.

Overall I am very happy with this dress, despite my 7 year-old telling me it's not my best work! I like that it is full, but still skims the body due to the shaping and the drape of the fabric. The neckline is a nice feature. I'm planning a bright pair of leggings underneath once the weather cools - hot pink takes my fancy - and some gorgeous boots of course :)

Retro copy cat

Left: image from here. Right: my own version.

I love being inspired by ready to wear (RTW) items. I know some bloggers disagree with blatant copying, and I do too in many instances. I would never copy something and then try to sell it and I think to be 'inspired by' something is better than to copy it. However, I also think that it's probably ok for one little blogger to copy one little item from one big designer. Especially, as in this case, it's to enter the fab RTW contest on Sewing Pattern Review.

To find inspiration for this project I trawled through the websites of some of my favourite designers and then searched some more on Net-a-Porter. I kept coming back to this dress by Roksanda Ilincic. I loved the striking combination of colours and the retro lines.

Source

So, how to create it?

My starting point was to use the lovely pattern by Savage Coco for the 'Elegant Escape Dress'. I traced the front and back pattern pieces and played around adding lines where the different fabrics would join together. My French Curve ruler came in vary handy here. Once I was happy with that, I retraced each separate piece and added seam allowances. I took a lot of care with this step as I wanted the pieces to fit together very neatly.

The front pieces came together nicely. However, I wanted the navy side piece to be cut as a single piece that wrapped from the front to the back. It was here that things became more difficult. The more pattern pieces I made, the more complicated it was to work out if they would fit together properly. My brain began to strain! By the time I'd made all my paper pattern pieces, I had lost all confidence in the thing working at all. It was at that point I did the unthinkable (for me at least) and made a muslin from an old sheet! It turned out not really to have been necessary (muslin schmuslin) as everything fitted together as I had hoped.

So I began to cut my fabric. I used 'mechanical stretch polyester' from Textile Traders. You can see the single navy pattern piece at the top of the picture below.

And then I sewed it together...

...and it worked! You can see from the picture below that I kept the underarm and shoulder gussets from the original 'Elegant Escape Dress' pattern. I cut these from the navy fabric as I liked the extra flash of navy higher up the dress. I finished the neckline and armholes with bias binding I made from the red fabric.

I needed half a metre of each colour (at AU$7/m each), making a grand total cost of AU$10.50 for my dress. The inspiration dress was the equivalent of AU$1262. Quite a saving!

The verdict: I love it! It is very striking so perhaps not an everyday summer dress. Although I can see myself wearing it a lot with a coat and boots if autumn and winter ever arrive in Perth.

I am up against some very stiff competition in the RTW contest. It is well worth checking out the other gorgeous entries and I would love it if you felt like voting for me when entries close at the end of Feb 2013 :)

If you are interested my last year's Victoria Beckham-inspired entry is here. I ended up coming fifth in 2012!!
 

New bathers revealed

You may remember my previous blog post where I pondered swimwear for this summer and which styles might be most flattering for me. I eventually settled on this design by Jets. I liked everything about it apart from the white bands around the legs, so I omitted these.

Source: www.jets.com.au

I made my design using a combination of resources. The top, bust area was designed using the Pattern School website, which has a wealth of useful information on swimwear design. Be prepared to read and click for quite a while though! I used this information to design a halter top that would fit my measurements. I then cut it so I could add in the white bands around the neckline.

Source: www.patternschool.com

The bottom part of the bathers was designed using my Jalie tankini pattern 3023.

 I used an old J&L bathers pattern and some RTW (ready to wear) bathers to work out the rest! There was a LOT of planning involved, but it was quite absorbing in a way. Now it's done, I should be able to design future bathers with minimal changes to the basic design blocks.

I began by making a muslin with some lycra offcuts.

Much time was spent in front of the mirror pulling and adjusting and trying to see the back! Once I'd sorted out the fitting issues, which mainly consisted of the fit at the sides of the chest and the back straps, I got cutting into the navy blue and off-white lycra for the real thing. I used a buckle for the front and secured it with invisible hand stitches.

I fiddled about with the back for ages, trying different ways of getting the straps to look attractive and placing them so they didn't cause any pulling or wrinkling in the main part of the bathers. Eventually I settled on this design, which is a variation on a cross-over back using a ring. I just kind of arrived at this after much trial and error and it seems to work well.

I lined the front completely with blue fabric. I used swimwear elastic, held in place with a triple zig-zag stitch for the openings and I lined the bra cups with padded cups designed for swimwear use.

And here it is in action!

I have to say that this was quite an undertaking, but I worked through it with baby steps and it ended up being a very satisfying project. I saved well over $100 on the cost too. I am over the moon with the outcome and felt rather proud strutting up and down the dog beach last weekend :)