Black Basics

It seems I've been on a bit of a black basics kick at the moment - and I've been avoiding posting in here - so I thought I'd kill two birds with one stone and just do one post with all my black basics.

First up was a shirt.  I found this material in the sales bin at my local Fabric Place Basement Store.  Its a double layered, warm, snuggly material - no idea what it's made out of but one side is black and the other is grey, so of course I had to make something reversible out of it

Having said that my kids have told me a couple of times that I'm wearing my shirt inside out when I wear it grey side out so I may have missed the mark somewhere along the line. Personally I like the grey with the pop of black at the seamlines.

For a pattern I used my self drafted raglan shirt pattern that I used to make these two shirts, however this time I took the front piece and added princess seaming in so that I could get a closer fit through the front.  You can't really see the detail on the black side but you can on the grey,

To make the shirt reversible I sewed it with the black sides together, then on the grey side I stitched over the seams with a wide zig zag stitch and trimmed the seams off as close to the stitching as I could so you just get a line of black along each seam.

I played around with those front princess seams a bit to try and get a good fit and I'm pretty happy with how this turned out.  My one and only issue is that it seems to have shrunk a little in the wash since I made it - it's not too bad, just a little short through the body and the sleeves.  Technically there are very big hems at the wrist and the bottom which I could take out and lengthen, but could I be bothered????

 Next up is a pair of pants.  The idea for these came around as every morning I got out of bed and reached for my thick fluffy tracksuit pants - I'd then leave these pants on to take the kids to school.  I decided one day that what I would really like was a pair of pants that were as comfortable and warm as tracksuit pants, but that I could wear out during the day without looking like I just rolled out of bed.

The plan - make a pair of pants that are nice black wool suiting on the outside but are lined with fleece inside.  An elastic waist was required so that they were ultra comfortable.

Now here's where the plagiarism starts.  The basic concept behind these pants can be traced back through Lisa from Pattern and Branch  to Meggipeg  to a pair of ready to wear jeans. Whilst I never got to see the original inspiration, the two pair of pants mentioned above really appeals to me so I decided to take some of the style lines and apply them to my pants pattern.

I started with my basic pants pattern that I've perfected over the year, the latest version of which is here. I then widened the leg of the pants a little so that they were a bit looser fitting and cut the front piece right down the middle to get the seam up the center front of the leg and added in pockets to the outer front piece.   I really liked the quilted sections on the pants, but I didn't actually want to add any quilting - with the fleece layer underneath I didn't think I'd need any extra bulk in these pants, so instead I added lines of stitching holding the pocket lining to the front of the pants.  I did all my top stitching in bright green to really make it pop.

The fleece inners were made as a separate piece and sewn into the pants at the waistband and at the hem at the bottom.

Whilst I love the look of these pants unfortunately they are not as comfortable as I had hoped.  Despite using the same pattern as all my pants which fit perfectly the rise at the back of these pants is way too short and then pants are continually falling down. I thought about removing the waistband and adding in a back yoke, but I can't bring myself to take out the three rows of top stitching plus the stitching holding the waistband on - way too much effort.  Still they are getting a lot of wear.



Next up is another shirt.  This shirt was an attempt at a different sleeve configuration.  I've been thinking a lot lately about a shirt with a sleeve with a split up the outside. In order to get a pattern for this I started with my basic top sloper that goes from shoulder to waist with a darts under the bust.   I extended the shoulder line out to create a dropped sleeve on both the front and back pattern pieces, then created a skirt for the pattern flaring out gently from the waist  to the hips.

 For the sleeve pattern, I took my basic sleeve and cut off the sleeve cap by the same amount that I extended my shoulder line (the full height of the sleeve cap in this case).  I then split the sleeve up the middle and added seam allowance.  I then joined the outside edges of the sleeve together to eliminate the underarm seam.  When I sewed the sleeve into my bodice I just turned under the seam allowances at the shoulder and left the rest of that seam up the outside of my arm open.

After a bit of trial and error I decided to take the split sleeve to just below the elbow and then created a tighter sleeve from the forearm down and gathered the two sections of the sleeve together.

The neckline I kept as a very shallow V at both front and back and created a facing to finish the edges.

The material for this shirt is a nice thick knit material.

Last but no least is a lingerie set.    The bra is the same Bravo Bella Bra pattern that I used here and here.  I think I finally have the pattern down pat so I actually splurged and bought all the proper fixing to make this bra - Although the underwires I bought ended up being a bit too small I used them anyway.

The material I used is a black polyester/lycra material with this cool Japanese type print with cherry blossoms and dragons.  The pattern is very subtle, just enough to bring a little interest to this set.  The bra cups were lined in nylon tricot and the bridge and back were lined in black power mesh.

The only slight issue I have with this bra is the straps.  I knew the material was too stretchy to make the straps out of just the fashion fabric so I tried lining it with interfacing - however the material still stretched out and now just looks grey - but at least they're supportive enough.  The other thing is I changed the angle that the elastic from the straps attaches to the back of the bra and I think it moved the straps too far out on my shoulders so it often feels like the straps are going to fall off.  In order to combat this issues if it does arise I actually put little snaps in the middle of the elastic that I salvaged off on old maternity bra.  This will allow me to cross the straps over if I need to  and make it a cross strap bra.

The matching underwear is just made using my standard pants pattern and is finished with some flowery fold over elastic I had lying around.