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A Drape Drape winter tunic

I found myself on New Year’s Day wanting to sew something fun and just for “me” rather than my blossoming business. So I looked through my patterns (helpfully online so I did this part while still under a duvet!), selected a pattern then proceeded to trace, cut, and sew this up in an afternoon. Definitely fun, definitely me!

I appear to be the first person online to make this tunic, from the third Drape Drape book, number 9. Sizes were S/M or L/XL and since it’s Japanese sizing and I’m like a 2XL, I made the larger size and crossed my fingers it’d be ok in a jersey. It was!

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My Cold Gear PB Jam Leggings

Thanks so much to everyone for your support with my new patterns! I have actually been doing a bit of non-exercise sewing over New Year’s (which I’ll show you later this week), but first I wanted to show off one of the pairs of PB Jam Leggings I made during the development of the pattern.

This pair was made from two different green colours of Under Armor Cold Gear fabric that were gifted to me by Cidell a while back. Last winter I made a pair of Ooh La Leggings in the forest green Cold Gear and they were seriously the warmest leggings I’ve ever worn, even keeping me warmer than heavy coats on my upper body! I knew I’d need at least one more pair to get me through this winter, so I alternated leftovers of the forest green for the swirl and back knee pieces with the sage green Cold Gear for the main body pieces.

Here you can see that hidden back pocket in action – it can easily store an iPhone 5 or bigger, plus a gel (shown here with Gu Peanut Butter, but their Salted Caramel is also splendid!) or keys, The waistband keeps it all contained and from bouncing around while you move, too. For this pair, since the Cold Gear is quite thick, I actually used a thinner lycra for the pocket piece, and this worked really well!

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Ms McCall's blue, black, and ikat print running gear

I’m so excited to show you this next set of exercise gear from my amazing pattern testers because I know a lot of you out there who are more endowed than I have been wondering if the built-in bra could possibly work for you… Well, Ms McCall is proof positive that it can work – the built-in bra on both her X and Y versions is enough to keep her DDs from shifting while running! She’s got some great tips about selecting power mesh, altering the lining if you need a bit more room, and even a great new contrast edge finish, too. Read more about her tops here.

She also made the PB Jam leggings and came up with a clever way to keep the hidden back pockets 100% hidden with no exterior topstitching, plus shows how to layout the swirl pieces if you want your contrast fabric print to be 100% continuous along the side seams, too. You can see her tips on the leggings here.

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Little bits of sewing

I’ve come to that point near the end of the year where I want to gather together a bunch of little projects I’ve made recently, but yet didn’t quite seem big enough for their own post… You’ll see my traditional, year-end roundup tomorrow (I hope! I haven’t actually started it yet, eep!), but before then, let’s finish off the last little bits of the year…

Twin clutches

The most exciting of these are undoubtably the Cake Patterns Red Velvet Mini Clutches I made for James’s twin, teenaged nieces. They’ve pretty much only wanted cash or gift cards for a few years now, but this year I fancied giving them a little something extra to hold their gift.

The Cake Red Velvet Mini Clutch is a smaller version of the full pattern without the illustrated instructions, but on the plus side it’s free, super cute, and easy to whip up in a few hours with scraps. Here I used satin scraps leftover from my Matthew Williamson birthday dress and my swirl sheath dress and a bit of floral lining leftover from the former, too.

These are big enough to hold your average mobile phone, keys, lippy, and credit card, but not much else, but most of the times I want a little bag to match a dress this is all I really need to carry anyway. These were certainly one of those gifts I’d have liked to have kept for myself, especially since they match my dresses!

Bolster pillow covers

I’m totally less excited by home dec sewing, but we really wanted some bolster pillows for lounging in our big, new bedroom on the boat – now that I’m working from home, I especially need one under my knees while I work on my laptop! When we bought our bedding from IKEA, the duvet cover sets came with four pillowcases, and since we only use one regular pillow each, the others were just sat on a shelf.

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Navy blue Pattern Magic "Jutting Edge" dress

I drafted a few patterns over the summer on the Morley College course based on the Pattern Magic: Stretch Fabrics book, this design included. To be perfectly honest, the photos in the book do absolutely nothing for me, so I flipped right past it when reading it on my own:

But the instructor, Moni, saw its potential, and thought that it might be nice in a softer jersey. She was totally right! The sample that was made on the course in similar, lightweight jersey had a chic cowl effect, but without a low neck like you normally get to achieve a cowl.

So I’d been meaning to make this all year, but finally unearthed my pattern pieces on Christmas Eve day, when I fancied sewing something quick that wasn’t workout gear for a change!

The pattern here is essentially just a long teeshirt dress, but with an added very wide (180 degrees!) dart that runs from shoulder to abdomen. It means that it’s a bit of a pain to draft, but extremely quick and easy to sew. On the course, I’d thought ahead and brought my own knit sloper so not only did I draft this to my body (at the time, anyway), but I also kept the armscye unchanged here so I could easily add sleeves!

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Purple & print long sleeved running top

You can understand why I need a bit of a breather now after sewing so much workout gear, right? I sewed a lot of samples for the development and testing of my two patterns, and then once I finished those, the only real hole in my wardrobe was for long sleeved running tops, so I found myself back in the lycra pile anyway!

Just like the mocha running top you saw a few weeks ago, this one is again the Christine Jonson “Travel Trio Three” Raglan top pattern with a half-height collar and some hand mitts of my own devising.

I only had a bit of the printed lycra from Minerva leftover after already making leggings and a workout top from the 2m I bought, so I cut the front and back body and the collar in the printed lycra, then used some purple “silk touch” lycra from Tissu that I found in my stash for the sleeves and hand mitts.

Forgive me for not doing a proper photoshoot on this – I was a bit photoshooted out at this point so you just get some action shots and selfies instead!


Yes, I usually am this annoyingly happy when I run!

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Printed Y Back Workout Top

Thank you all so much for your support, enthusiasm, and early bird sales of my debut sewing patterns! I’ve got lots of versions of both to show you, but I thought I’d start off with my most recent version of the top since it reflects the pattern as you buy it (I’ll show you some earlier versions with a few small issues I corrected in the final pattern!).

This is the “Y Back” version of my XYT Workout Top Pattern which I made with this amazing printed lycra from Minerva. I liked it so much that I made two tops and a pair of PB Jam Leggings from the 2 metres I bought (plus I went back and bought another metre of it and its blueish-colourway sister!)

This is definitely one of my favourite versions of this pattern! Earlier ones had some pulling issues around the front straps, but a small adjustment to the front lining piece fixed that here, as you can see! The built-in bra is perfect for keeping me bounce-free on even my long runs – no need for me to wear an additional sports bra. The instructions also show you how to encase the underbust elastic nicely to reduce the chance of chafing, too.

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PB Jam Leggings Pattern

This is a pattern for close-fitting, workout leggings with contrast swirl design on the upper front thigh leading to the upper back. There’s a hidden pocket inside at the upper centre back, perfect for gels, keys, or your phone, and contrast panels at the back of you knees are perfect for mesh fabrics. An elasticated, high-rise waistband means they won’t shift around as you move, either!

$10.99USD (£6.90)
buy!

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XYT Workout Top Pattern

This is a pattern for a close-fitting, sleeveless workout top with front scoop neck, and choice of three upper back designs. An optional built-in bra is included, and neck and armhole edges can either be finished with hidden elastic or bound using a coverstitch binder.

$10.99USD (£6.90)
buy!

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Mocha running top with hand mitts

I don’t stop running just because it’s cold. Last winter I tended to run in jackets over top of my sleeveless vest tops, but my weight loss over the summer means that my running jackets are all a bit baggy and stuff in my pockets tends to bounce as a result. I’m also too cheap to spend £60+ each on several new jackets!

So I’ve been favouring running in the only two long sleeved running tops in my stash – the purple one I made last December, and also the one I won at Bacchus in September. Two tops is clearly not enough for the 5-6 times a week I’m running now in preparation for London Marathon in April, so I decided to make a clone of my purple running top, this time in mocha.

Again I used the Christine Jonson Travel Trio Three raglan top pattern, altered to have a half-height collar and my own addition of hand mitts on the sleeves. This now makes the fourth garment I’ve made from this pattern across three of the four views (I don’t really need the “Ruana” wrap shawl!) so I consider it to be very good value!

The fabric here is special Under Armor “Cold Gear” fabric Cidell very kindly picked up for me from a shop in Baltimore last year. This UACG fabric is a totally different weight and hand-feel to the green ones with a brushed black reverse I’ve used for leggings, though, even though both bear the “Cold Gear” name. At first I wasn’t sure what to do with it but now I see it’s pretty much perfect for tops as it’s lightweight, warm, silky, and just generally really high quality stuff. It figures I have no way of ever getting more! (Said shop closed down, too)