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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)

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A silver cowl top

You saw some photos of this top on Susan a week or so ago, but I’ve finally had the opportunity to do a proper photoshoot and not freeze!

If you recall, I out this MyImage cowl top pattern before we went to Mexico, thinking I might have enough time to quickly sew it up before we left. I would have, too, if I hadn’t decided I needed to make that quick travel bag. It was still waiting for me when I got back to cold, grey London, mocking me with its sleeveless-ness. I finally just sewed it up so I could have the space back in my sewing room, though I’m afraid I won’t really get to wear this until next year.

I made it out of some absolutely glitter-tastic jersey I bought at Tissue Reine in Paris a few years back, and it wasn’t cheap €12.99/m. So it was even more disappointing that it left a trail of silver all over my sewing room… Boo.

It might be hard to see, but there’s princess seams in the front and back even though this is a knit top – there are also facings for all the pieces apart from the centre front, where there’s a fold-on facing.

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A colourblocked Cynthia Rowley satin jacket

Last week I mentioned a few projects I’d been working on, including a little satin jacket to wear with both my purple Matthew Willamson birthday dress and my swirl sheath dress. Well, the Welsh wedding was over the weekend and we managed to squeeze in some photos in the hotel room before the big bash so you all can see how it coordinates with the Matthew Williamson sheath!

As I mentioned before, the pattern is the same Cynthia Rowley Simplicity pattern I used for my fuschia party dress – a simple, loose, open jacket with dropped shoulders and wide sleeves.

I didn’t have enough of either satin to make the entire jacket in one colour so I decided to colourblock it. Since there weren’t many seams in the jacket itself, I just drew some extra seamlines onto the pattern pieces for my colourblocking.

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Turquoise lingerie set – bra and Lacey Thong

I arrived home from Mexico and wasn’t particularly filled with sewing mojo, to be honest, but happily this was short-lived, because I saw that Pattern Review had announced a short, two week Lingerie Sewing Contest for the second half of October! This was just what I needed to kick me into action and remind me that I’d been meaning to alter the seaming on my bra cup pattern after I’d made the eyelash bra.

The cups on that one were fine, but I have some gorgeous turquoise lace in my stash from Danglez’ closing down sale (sniff!), and it was too narrow for my one-dart cup pattern. So before I could even start sewing, I had to do some pattern drafting manipulation first – introducing some seam lines to account for the narrow lace, split and rotate the dart around a bit, and voila! Now I’ve got a three part cup!

I was so happy with the fit of this bra that I made myself a matching pair of Lacey Thongs (my free downloadable pattern, if you’d forgotten!) to go with it.

Seriously though – I think this must be about the 8th or 9th bra I’ve sewn, but only about the second I’d wear out of the house. Sewing a bra is easy – getting the bra to fit properly, feel comfortable, and look flattering is beyond challenging. I think I understand other people’s frustrations with trouser fitting now, because this bra fitting journey has been character-building!

My real breakthrough came when I stopped using commercial patterns and just traced existing RTW bras instead. For me, they were a much, much closer starting point than the bizarre cup shapes provided in the KwikSew and Elan patterns I’d previously tried.