Orange and Yellow 70's two piece

Last winter I was offered a couple of bolts of fabric that my local town hall were about to throw out.  Among these bolts was a very 1970's home decorator fabric in lovely shades of orange yellow and brown.  It just screams 70's curtains.  Well of course I loved the fabric and I wanted to use it to make a very 70's skirt. I never even really thought about it I just knew that I had to make a button up A line skirt out of this fabric.  I didn't bother with a pattern just started draping in around my body. I decided to put the stripes around the body which was a pain for stripe matching but I think it was the right decision.

I wanted a contoured waistband so went back to the pencil skirt I made for last years Pattern Review Sewing Bee and cut out two waistbands using that pattern.

 I then cut 4 panels from the fabric to the length I wanted.  I lined up all the stripes, centered each panel on one section of the waistband and sewed from the waistband out to the the full width of the panel.

The only problem was that I've put on weight since I made that skirt and I found that the waistband was a bit too snug.  To counter this I just extended the front button band (which was just created by turning under the front edge of the skirt twice) up along the front edge of the waistband.

I self faced the waistband not bothering to use any interfacing, two layers of the upholstery fabric really reduces the need for extra interfacing.

Once it was made I realised that I had forgotten to put pockets in the skirt , so in true 70's style I added patch pockets to the front.

I used plain white snaps to secure the skirt up the front. and double turned the hem.  I left it quite long  about 1" off the ground (though in these photos the grass is so long it looks like it's dragging - I need to mow the lawn obviously).

Since I had plenty of this material I decided that it would make a good muslin for a shirt that I had been thinking about.  I wanted a pattern for a kimono sleeve, princess seam top made from woven fabric.

 I started with the pattern for my blue peacock dress and extended the arm holes out into a kimono sleeve.  I also added the waistband onto the main pattern piece plus an extra 4" of fabric to give the right length of top I was looking for.   I modified the front and back necklines into what I was thinking of and then cut out my pattern and sewed it up.  I had to make a few modifications, mainly around the arm hole to get it to sit just the way I wanted it to, then I modified my pattern re-cut it and sewed it up properly - each seam was over locked and then top stitched.

The sleeve holes and neckline were finished in yellow home made bias binding.  I did put a zipper in the back, but then decided I didn't like it and was too lazy to take it out so I just top stitched the zipper lap closed over the zipper.

I'm really happy with how this top came out.

And now I have a whole outfit made with this beautiful fabric.  What do you think?  too much??

Precious Stash Fabric Sewing - Part 1. Purple Velvet

Back in September 2015 I found an absolutely beautiful piece of fabric at my local fabric store.

A purple satin velvet overlayed with an iridescent floral/ paisley pattern in metallic.  I did some research at the time and found out that it is a Manuel Canovas fabric and is supposedly a home decor fabric but since when has that stopped me using it for clothes.  I originally planned to make it into either a beautiful dress, or a coat, but instead it languished in my stash for 2.5 years because I was too afraid to cut into it.

This month I decided enough is enough and pulled it out.  I thought again about making it into a coat, but it's not quite the right weight so I shelved that idea.  Obviously a dress was the next option, but I just don't wear dresses in winter and it's not really a summer sort of fabric, so I decided in the end to make a two piece - top and skirt that could be worn together as a dress if an occasion should ever occur, or be worn separately.

I sketched out a number of ideas before deciding on a cropped wrap top and pleated skirt.

To make the top I started with the Pattern Review Clair wrap dress, that I had already fitted in a woven fabric when making my red plaid dress.  I omitted the collar, incorporated the yoke into the back pattern piece and incorporated the neckband into in the front piece.  With the sleeves I did a wide bicep adjustment, since they were a smidge too tight in the red plaid dress and flared out the cuff a small amount.

I cut the modified pattern out of a plain black fleece fabric first to make sure it worked, then once I was sure that I had the pattern correct went to work on the purple velvet.  This fabric was not that great to work with.  The different thicknesses between the metallic overlay and the velvet were quite noticeable and made it really difficult.

I used the black fleece to line the top bagging the whole top and hand stitching the sleeve edges together.  I also added a bit of elastic to the front neck edge to eliminate any gaping.  There is definitely some of the black fleece that shows along the neck edge, but I tried top stitching it so that it didn't roll out and it ended up looking terrible.

I only made one strap as I wasn't sure just how much material I had and wanted to make sure I could get the skirt made as well.

Next up was the skirt.  I decided this time to try out a Lekala pattern.  I've wanted to try one of these for quite some time and decided that now was the time.  I went with #S3047A Line Skirt with pleats in the front.

The front pattern pieces turned out to be a perfect fit - but I had to take 4cm off each side of the center back seam so I'm not sure what that was about!  It wasn't just ease because the side seams hit in the right place in front - all the extra was at the back.  I don't know if maybe there was supposed to be darts in the back, but the pattern didn't show anything (and it doesn't come with instructions).

I again made it up in fleece before committing to the real fabric, and used the fleece yoke to face the final skirt.  I did a lapped zipper in the center back seam and finished off the yoke and hem by hand.

The only other thing about the pattern was that I specified no seam allowance but it came with it anyway - that's not a problem, but they had a 1" hem allowance on the front of the skirt, but 3/8" hem allowance on the back of the skirt.

Looking at the photos I'm thinking that I might want to take the length of the skirt up a smidge.  I think it needs to be just a touch shorter.

The first time that I tried the two pieces on together my daughter asked me if it was a bathrobe or a dress, so I'm not sure about wearing the two pieces together anymore.

And I'm not sure how much wear I'll get out of the skirt - I can't remember the last time I wore a skirt..But having said that this skirt is definitely comfortable and I really like this style.

I'm hoping that the top will get worn a bit more though.  I've shown it here with my black pants, but I think teamed with jeans might even work better.      The fleece lining makes it quite comfortable.  Since it's quite cropped I have a feeling that I may spend the entire time wearing it tugging it down.  I'll have to see how it goes...I wonder how much I have left in scraps?  enough to make another tie?  that might help with the length issue/cover up any gaping.

Last minute going out clothes for the kids

Our family lifestyle is such that we really don't have a great need for a lot of going out/nice clothes.  There's just a couple of times a year when we go out to celebrate a birthday dinner that I like the kids to get dressed up.  The problem with that is that when those few dates do come around the kids never have anything to wear.   It's my husbands birthday today and I've booked a table at a slightly nicer restaurant than we normally go out to, but last night someone said something and it got me thinking about what we were going to wear...neither of my kids have anything that fits them that would be considered dressy....so what's a girl to do.  Obviously I whipped each of them up an outfit.

I started with L.  We sat down before she went to bed an talked about what she would like.  Her response was that she wanted something like my two piece maxi dress with a long skirt and a matching top so that it looks like a dress when worn together.  That's great.  I had a beautiful teal and black paisley knit fabric that I had been planning on making something for myself out of, but I selflessly offered it to her and she jumped at it.  So a straight long skirt that's simple, but what about the top.  We wanted it to be long sleeve for warmth, but we didn't want the sleeves dragging in her dinner so I suggested using the split sleeve with elbow cuffs that I used on this shirt (second shirt in post).   She agreed with that.  Next we discussed necklines and she decided she would like a shallow V neck.  OK I had my marching orders - I took all her measurements and sent her to bed and I got to work on her pattern.

I started with the kimono sleeve top pattern that I used when I made her a version of the sallie jumpsuit.  I added about 3/8" to the centerline as shes been growing a bit again lately and I didn't want her to grow out of this too soon.  I really should have added some length as well but I forgot about it at the time.  I brought the neckline in about 1" and raised it by about 2" to get the shallow V that she was looking for, and then for the back piece just cut a gentler curve around the neck rather than the V neck.

To make the sleeves I measured the armholes off the pattern and just cut a rectangle that wide and the length of her arm to the elbow.    I then hemmed the two long edges of the rectangle (the split down the top of the sleeve)  and sewed it into place in the armhole of the kimono top - effectively creating a drop shoulder sleeve. For the elbow cuff piece I cut a second rectangle to snugly fit her forearm, the length of the arm from elbow to wrist, and sewed it into a tube.  I then gathered the top half of the sleeve to fit into the cuff.  I finished the cuff just by turning and stitching with a decorative stitch.

To finished the neckline of the top I created a basic facing and cut it off and sewed it down about 1cm back from the sewn edge.

The skirt is just a basic rectangle sewn up the back and gathered at the top with 1.5" wide elastic.  I used a double turned 2" wide hem on the bottom to give it some weight to make it hang nicely.

For an evening and a few hours work in the morning (I had to wait till she had tried it on before I could finish it off) I'm very happy with this - and most importantly so is she - she hasn't taken it off since I finished it.  And best bit is, the top at least can hopefully be worn again and not just sit in the back of the closet until she outgrows it,

So once L was taken care it it was time to turn my attention to J.  Now J has a couple of store bought shirts that still fit him, but no pants that would go with them.  So I took J down to the fabric stash to see what he could find.  This boy has a very garish taste in clothes - I don't normally have a problem with that - but when he chose a fabric (bright blue corduroy with pink guitars) that totally clashed with the shirt he had chosen (dark blue and black paisley) I decided to step in and say no.  In the end we decided on a back cotton sateen material with some multi coloured scraps to be used as pockets and wasitbands etc.

I used his basic pants pattern with an extra 1" at the rise all around and an extra 2" length.  This worked beautifully.  I added front slash pockets - with a contrast edging along the line of the pocket.

Back patch pockets in a contrasting colour.

And a contrasting waistband. I interfaced the front of the wasitband as I wanted it to stay as flat as possible and just gathered the back of the wasitband with 1" elastic.  I added cuffs to the bottom of the legs to make them a tad more fancy and for a change added 3 belt loops (He got a belt from cub scouts this year but has no pants that have belt loops so he can't wear it - I promised him that this time I'd add the belt loops to he could wear the belt finally.

And in 24 hours we have a skirt, a top and a pair of pants - not a bad days work!  Now what am I going to wear?