Reversible Jasper Dress

So take two on the snuggly dress quest.

Ever since I got the Paprika Patterns Jasper pattern I've been wanting to try the dress version I've even had the fabric set aside for it of a year now.  Well I finally got around to making it.  But I couldn't just make it plain - oh no I had to go and make it reversible.  The blue fleece fabric that I had earmarked for this dress I felt would make a really plain dress - it's one of the reasons I put off making this for so long - I wanted to do something to jazz it up a bit but could never figure out what.  Then one day when I was going through my fabric stash I looked over and saw a piece of flannel plaid that worked quite nicely with the blue and thought about using it as a contrast on the cuffs and bottom band, but then I had the brilliant idea of making a second dress out of the plaid flannel and making a reversible dress, tying the two together at cuffs, bottom band and cowl with a contrasting black fleece. Yes!

 I originally wanted to make the hooded version, but I wasn't sure how the hood would work reversible with the opposite side showing through so in the end I decided on the cowl neck instead.

The fabrics are all Sewfisticated Fabric finds.  The blue and the black fabrics ares knit on one side and fleecy on the other and have little to no stretch.  I have no idea what the fabric content is on these.  The plaid is a 100% cotton flannel.

I used the pattern that I modified when I originally made my Jasper sweaters.  It's basically a size 7 width but the lengths of front and back are cut down to account for my short torso and the sleeve adjusted accordingly.  I then added the dress length back on

I was a bit worried that by putting pockets in both dresses it would end up a bit bulky through the middle section but it's turned out surprisingly nicely.  I really love the way the pockets in the dress/sweater work - and have stolen them a couple of times for other projects too!

The two dresses were made separately and then put together to add the black cuffs, band and cowl.  For the cuffs and cowl I sewed the two layers of the dress together and sewed one side of the band to the blue side of the dress, I then turned under the other seam allowance, folded over the cuff/cowl and topstitched the cuff/cowl in place.

The epaulet for the cowl I made one side blue and one side plaid and then just twisted it at the neckline so he corresponding side is shown.  A button was sewed on each side to complete the look.

The bottom band I had to think about for a while.  I didn't want to attach it in the same way as the cuffs and collar as I was worried that one fabric might bag more than the other and end up baggy/saggy around the bottom so instead I sewed the lower band entirely to the blue dress, keeping the plaid dress separate, then with much contorting and twisting and turning sewed the plaid onto the other side of the front band - that just left a stretch of band at the back that had to be hand sewn onto the plaid to finish the dress off.

I am totally happy with this dress and can see it becoming a winter staple I've already found myself reaching for it regularly - and I can even wear it two days in a row - one on each side.    I love that due to the two different layers its super snuggly - now to make that pair of fleecy leggings to wear with it for even more warmth.

Drafting Leggings

Sometimes it feels like everyone else in the world, except me, loves leggings.  I don't know why but I just don't like wearing leggings.  I find them totally uncomfortable.  For me there are a couple of problems - first they are not warm enough - I am always cold - a thin pair of leggings just does not cut it in the warmth department.  Then there's something about the way the fabric feels tight around my calf - though that one could just be cause I'm not used to wearing them.  But then they never stay up around the waist and I feel like I'm constantly adjusting them and hitching them up.

However I do love the look of a winter dress with leggings and boots and I would love to be able to wear something like that so I started thinking about why I don't like my leggings. Is it just that the ones I have don't fit me properly?  I only have store bought leggings most of which seem to be too small for me - even the 3XL pair I bought last time seem too small.   So maybe its time I drafted a pair of leggings that would fit my body!

To begin to process I grabbed a number of plastic bags and a roll of duct tape.  I then covered my body from my waist all the way down one leg in plastic and started wrapping the duct tape around and around.   Since I only had limited duct tape I figured I only needed to do one leg - I'm generally pretty symmetrical - at least for these purposes.  I just tried to make sure that I had good coverage around the crotch area so I could get that fitting properly.

Once I was all wrapped up I attempted to draw straight lines down the outside and inside of my leg as well as the back and front of the leg, and horizontal lines around my calf, knee, thigh, crotch and waist.  This was not easy by myself but I think I managed pretty well (It might have been easier if I could find a pen that would write nicely on the duct tape).

To get my duct tape double off I ran a pair of scissors down the outside of my leg (as I knew I wanted my leggings to be seamed down the outside of the leg rather than the inside).

With my duct tape now free of my body it was time to try and make a pattern out of it.

As I played about with different seam placements I ended up cutting the pattern down each of the vertical lines which I'm a bit sad that I did now as in the end I decided to go for just the outside seam and I think my pattern would have been a bit more accurate if I hadn't had to patch it back together.

The pattern certainly looks weird!

Once I had a pattern it was time to try it out.  I used a piece of burgundy lycra material with minimal stretch so I started with the pattern pieces as is - I didn't add any seam allowance just had the material taken out in the seam as negative ease.  Unfortunately the piece of fabric wasn't wide enough to fit my entire pattern on so I ended up cutting the pattern diagonally from crotch to the outside of the knee on the front of the pattern (the red line in the picture below).  I tried to add in a gusset too but that failed miserably.

I sewed up the resulting fabric pieces and found out it was still a bit too big so I had to go back and take out about 1" off both side seams.

So how does it fit - it seems to be pretty good, maybe a smidge tight around the calf, good around the thighs, but it does still have terrible wrinkles around the bum - I was really hoping to avoid them with this pattern but it looks like no.

 So I decided to try again.   This time with a piece of rayon stretch terry.  This time I cut the pattern diagonally from the crotch to the outside of the knee on the back of the pattern and no gusset in the crotch.

I added a bit of width to the calf and due to the seam now being at the back through the problem area those wrinkles diminished a bit - I think one more teak on that area and we should be all good. 

Having said that no one is ever (apart from these photos) going to see the bum of these leggings - they will always have some form of dress/skirt over them so I may just call it as it is.

 Now for the big question - comfort.  Well these are definitely more comfortable than the store bought ones.... They stay around my waist better with only a little bit of hitching up required (I've still never found a pair of pants store bought or home made that don't need to be hitched up every time I stand up) but I still don't like how they feel around my calf - and even the second black pair is still not warm - warmer yes but not warm.  during my last trip to the fabric store I found some sweatshirt material with lycra and I'm thinking that my next pair will be made out of this.  We shall see how that works out.

Two new pairs of pants

I've made two new pairs of pants to get me through the cold seasons.  I made both of these using the same pattern that I use for all my pants.  It started life as McCalls 9517 and has been modified again and again as I tweak it for fit and style.

The first pair is made from a navy cord material with a metallic silver floral design printed on it.

The fit of these pants is fairly loose as the fabric has little to no stretch and I was looking for comfort more than style.  I have made two pairs of pants out of similar cord material over the years, both a bit more fitted around the hips and both have ripped in the bum region so I'm hoping that by making this pair a bit looser they will last longer.

For this pair of pants I eliminated the front seam down the leg, but kept the back seam for better fitting.

I added slash pockets that extend right across to the center front seam for a bit of extra tummy control.  The legs have been slimmed down through the thighs and some of the flare taken out.

 I added back patch pockets to the back of this pair which was probably a bit of a waste of time since they're barely noticable in this pattern but at least they are useful.

The front pockets are cut quite low which makes them super comfortable for standing around with your hands in your pockets.

  I also added a small waistband through which I threaded 1" wide elastic.

I really like these pants, they're comfortable, they're pretty but they are quite hard to pair up with shirts in my wardrobe. I have to find the odd plain shirt as they are so busy themselves.

The second pair of pants I made is from a mystery material I picked up at the local discount fabric store.  It was listed as a wool fabric but feels very much like a flannel.  Either way it's a beautiful warm fabric that feels great (not at all scratchy).

I started with the exact same pattern for this pair of pants with just a few minor variations.  I was working with a very limited amount of fabric - I think there was just over 1 yard.  This means no waistband and no back patch pockets.  In fact I even had to piece one of the back leg pieces on each side and the pocket bags just have a small amount of the actual material  in the open area of the pocket.

To finish these pants I just zig zag stitched the elastic onto the top and turned it over once and restitched.

There was certainly not enough material to do any pattern match ing. As such there is one panel at the back that is totally out of line with the rest of the pants - but hey - its a design feature!

I wore these pants and then washed them a couple of times and I found a few issues.
This fabric does tend to bag out over the course of the day, plus it seems to have shrunk length wise when I've washed it. I did pre-wash it but it seems that wasn't enough.

Since between the bagginess and the shortened length the pants ended up looking a bit...well daggy. I decided to modify them a bit.  I figured they would probably work better now as a striaght leg pair of pants rather than flared.

I tried just running the side seams and in seams in, but no matter how I did it it they never seemed to fit right.  So I took out the waistband elastic and then cut down all the side seams, inseams and the back seam - I figured since they were too big the removed fabric wouldn't be an issue and I really didn't feel like doing all that unpicking.

I then recut all the pieces so that the legs are straight from about the knee down, and the front piece is slightly tapered in - I used the leggings pattern that I've been working on to figure out how much each of the pieces should be cut down by.

I then sewed it all back together.  It only just fits through the hips now - I had to let all seams out to 1/4" through the hips, but otherwise the pants fit much better now and I like this style in this length much better.

So hopefully I have salvaged these slightly daggy pants - but it's been an interesting exercise in how fabric choice can affect the look of a garment.  Two pants made from the same pattern in different fabrics - two very different results.

Star and Brick Stitch Jumper

This project has been in the making for a long long time now.

About 2 years ago (September 2016 is the exact date according to my old emails)  my mother in law told me that her favourite woolen mill - Bendigo Woolen Mills -  was having a sale and asked if I wanted any yarn as a Christmas gift.  Oh course I said yes and I chose 2 balls of  of the Chestnut Collaboration and 1 ball of the Peacock Blue Collaboration (these are no longer in production but they are basic worsted weight 100% wool).  When the wool arrived the chestnut colour wasn't exactly what I had been expecting, but I figured I had it now I may as well use it and got to work.

I decided that I would really like a jumper with a lot of texture.  In my Ravely browsing I had come across the Tundra Jumper which I loved   The combination of the star stitch and  the brick stitch patterns were really cool.

The Tundra jumper was going to take way more yarn than I had so I decided to just draft a basic jumper from scratch.  After some swatching to determine gauge I got started.  Starting with the chestnut colour I made the back piece, the front piece and started one sleeve before realising that I  wasn't going to have enough yarn.  I switched to the peacock colour to finish the sleeves, but that just used up all the peacock yarn too and I had nothing left to finish the collar and the bottom band.  OK back to the drawing board.  I shoved my half made jumper into the corner and basically forgot about it for a year or so.

Then this March my Mother in Law told me she was ordering some more wool from Bendio Woolen Mills and asked if I wanted anything.  I asked if she could get me some more of the yarn and she was able to - saviour!  I then just had to wait for her next trip to the US to get it off her.

In the mean time I realised that that small mistake that I had made half way up the front piece - that I had told myself at the time wasn't too noticeable - was in fact too noticeable, so the first thing I did when the new wool arrived was to start the front piece again from scratch.  I thought about just trying to rip out to the mistake but then trying to figure out what row I was on and decipher my hand written pattern was too hard so I just started it over again.

I then went and ripped out the sleeves back to where I had finished the chestnut colour and re knit those - so basically this jumper was almost entirely knit twice!  The only piece I didn't do twice was the back.

At the bottom of the sleeves and the front and back pieces I added a cuff in the brick stitch using the chestnut colour as the mortar and the peacock blue as the brick.  It just adds a pop of colour to an otherwise plain top,

I sewed up all the seams. Up until now I've hated sewing up knitting, it has never ended up looking good.  But after watching a few youtube tutorials I think I did a pretty good job with this one.  Some of the seams are barely noticeable.

The final step was the collar - to keep in line with the rest of the jumper I ended up doing this twice.  The first time I decreased too much and the neckline ended up being more rounded than I wanted and too tight so I ripped it out and did it again.  This time it's ended up a smidge too loose, but I can live with it for the time being.

The only other thing I wanted to mention was the shaping I did through the front piece.  The back I just added shaping in at the side seams, but for the front I tried adding in darts at the bust line and I was really quite happy with the way this turned out.  It gives a really good fit to the jumper.

When I finished off my jumper I realised that I still had quite a bit of yarn left over so I decided I would make a matching beanie rather than just stashing the small piece of yarn.

I thought about using the brick stitch again but then decided to see what else I could find.  After extensive Ravelry searching I found the Uljan Beanie.  For a change I just followed the pattern exactly as written. I really like the way this turned out.

I STILL had yarn left over so I figured I may as well have a pair of mittens too.  I decided I would use the same stitch pattern as the beanie and just made it up as I went along.  These ended up a smidge tight - I think I pulled the floats a lot tighter knitting these than I did the beanie.  But they still fit.

While there is still (amazingly) a bit of wool left over I've decided to skip the cowl for now!  maybe once I'm no longer totally bored of working with the same color combination I'll go back to it but for now I'll just enjoy my matching jumper beanie and mittens.

Finally a new Bathrobe

The last time I got a new bathrobe was just before my youngest was born.  He's now 9 years old so I think we can safely say that it's about time I had a new one.  I've been planning on making myself one for the last couple of years but never get around to it.

During out first cold snap of the year I decided it was time to stop procrastinating and get on with it.  I had a piece of black fluffy material in my stash that I had mentally assigned to bathrobe  but when I pulled it out I knew at once that there wasn't going to be enough material.

Oh darn now I had to take a trip to the fabric store.   I was hoping that there would be more of the black material but no such luck - so instead I bought 4.5 (or was it 5) yards of red and black buffalo plaid fleece.

 

The pattern that I used for the bathrobe was one I had in stash - Simplicity 1562.  I bought this a while ago and made my Mum a bathrobe for the birthday.  As I found at the time the sizing on this rob is VERY generous. According to my measurements I should have made a size L.  However I made a size S for my Mum and even this was huge, so for my bathrobe I cut the shoulders/neckline/arm hole to a XS extending out to a M under the arms.
It's still huge on me - Whilst I want my bathrobes to be big and fluffy this is just excessive.  3  sizes below where my measurements put me and I still feel like it's swimming on me!

I cut the sleeves to a size M and added about 3 or 4 inches to the length.  When sewing it all together  I turned the end of the sleeve under 4" and then turned back 2" to form a big cuff.  I thought about adding some elastic to the cuffs to keep them snug after reading a review of this pattern where they did this and liking the idea, but for now I'll stick with the cuffs.  I love that these are extra long and my hands can stay warm tucked up inside the sleeves at all times.

When I sewed the bathrobe together I did a mock flat fell on all seams.  sewing the seam with right sides together, trimming down one side of the seam and turning the remaining side over the cut side and stitching down again.  I then trimmed any excess off that seam making a nice neat finish inside.

I also stitched down the facing in the same way.

I cut the bathrobe to the pattern length and then didn't hem it to try and keep as much length as possible for extra snuggliness I like the full ankle length of the final robe.

I also didn't add the tie loops to the side seams as I hate ties that can be removed.  Instead I stitched the tie to the robe at the center back.

The bathrobe has huge patch pockets on the front which I love.  I didn't bother trying to plaid match or anything just popped them on with a double row of stitching.

I'm loving wearing this bathrobe around.  It's so warm and snuggly.  Now I just need a new pair of Ugg boots to go with it.  These one's are over 10 years old and getting a bit threadbare!

Red and Black checked winter dress

OK so this is way over due - I made this back in October last year, but I just wanted to catch up with my blogging.

This dress was created in my quest for that ultimate winter dress.  Something that's warm comfortable and easy to wear.  Did I succeed?  Well.... no.... this dress definitely didn't live up to my expectations, plus I made a really stupid sewing mistake which is really annoying when wearing this.  I'll see if you can notice it!

I started from the point that I wanted a long dress with long sleeves.  I contemplated making another Kielo but decided I wanted something with a fuller skirt.  After sketching out a couple of designs I decided to go with a full length shirt dress with a button band right down the front.  I used the bodice and waistband that I drafted for this interview dress, added the sleeves from my plaid shirt pattern and used whatever fabric I had left over for the skirt.

The bodice and waistband pieces I fully self lined for extra warmth, since I was running low of fabric and wanted enough for a big skirt I went with a black poly fleecy material to underline the sleeves.  I played around with adding a fleece underskirt as well but that was going too far and I ended up taking it out.  I will just have to wear it with leggings to keep the bottom half warm.

The bodice ended up being a bit too big so I  put an extra seam down the center back through both layers of bodice and waistband which is a bit bulky but the best I could come up with without taking the whole thing apart.

Of course I added pockets into the skirt - I had to piece together lots of little pieces to make them but who is ever going to see.

I played around with a number of different skirt styles pleats vs gathers, small pleats vs large pleats and decided on two pleats in front and two in back lined up with the darts in the bodice.

I finished the dress and tried it on for a day and felt - well - frumpy!  everything is just so covered.  It needs a deeper neckline - or a shorter skirt, but either would defeat the purpose I was going for.

I've played around with adding a couple of gathers up the front of the skirt which gives the whole dress a bit of a steampunk vibe which I quite like, but the gathers keep coming out in the wash.

So has anyone spotted the mistake?  Yep somehow I managed to put the placket in the front on one of my sleeves rather than the back.  Still not sure about how I managed that - but oh well.  and since the sleeve is underlined it would be an absolute pain to try and fix - I would have to go out and buy more fabric and start the sleeve again - and I'm just not sure I love this enough to do it!

As it is this dress has been sitting on the end of my bed for a couple of months now.  I don't want to waste precious wardrobe space on it, but I'm not quite ready to toss it either.  I keep thinking maybe I'll chop off the skirt...Maybe one day I'll actually get around to it.  In the mean time maybe I should just start using it for what my husband reckons it is - a bathrobe!