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A thermo colourblocked Tessellate Tee hoodie

Thanks for all your patience, enthusiasm, and congratulations on the full digital release of the Tessellate Tee pattern this weekend! It’s great to finally enable anyone around the world to sew it now, and like the Surf to Summit top pattern, it’s one where you can mix and match a lot of the options to get the look you’re after.

I thought I’d start with the version shown on the pattern cover – it’s made in Funkifabrics’ “thermo” fleece-lined lycra in Plum, Yellow, and Turq and uses all the optional add-ons – thumb cuffs, zippered back pocket, and ponytail hood.

Inspiration

Tessellate Tee pattern – on sale now in pdf format!

The response to my Tessellate Tee pattern and accompanying Add On Pack over the past few months has been wonderful, and I’ve loved seeing so many finished versions! But many of you around the world have expressed a desire to buy it digitally rather than as part of the magazine…

So I’m pleased to announce that the original teeshirt pattern which appeared in issue 23 of Love Sewing magazine plus the digital Add-On Pack are now available as a single pdf, available now!

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Ina maxi-skirt in Istanbul!

James has been speaking at quite a few conferences since the publication of his book last year, and most recently he had been invited to speak at a conference in Istanbul. But even more exciting (for me!) is that we could upgrade his room to double occupancy so I could come along for just the price of a flight – so for £100 I got a four day trip to Istanbul! Neither of us have ever been there, but multiple friends just raved about it, so we were super excited to come check it out (and eat ALL THE FOOD!).

Once I found out I was going, I started reading up on what to see there (as well as doing my Duolingo Turkish lessons every lunchtime so I could at least say hello and thank you!) and I saw that some of the most amazing mosques require respectful dress (covered shoulders, knees, and hair for women). I thought this would be a good opportunity to expand my wardrobe with a maxi-skirt since I didn’t actually own any skirts that covered my knees!

Inspiration, Magazine

Burda magazine May 2016

It’s May already, can you believe it!? It’s finally getting warmer here in London, and Burda have started their summer patterns, which usually means disappointment for me – but let’s take a look inside!

I really like the tech drawing for this asymmetric cocktail dress (which also comes in a maxi-length), but all the photos of it just look rumpled and a bit wrinkly. I’m not sure if it’s their fabric choice, or what, but I prefer my cocktail dresses more on the clean lines and sleek end of the scale…

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A non-traditional Japanese kimono robe

A good friend of mine travelled to Tokyo in January, and asked if I wanted anything. “Oh, some nice traditional kimono print fabric would be nice if you see any”, I said. Well, he ended up going to Nippori Fabric Town one day and fell hard for Tomato (I might also add here that he owns a vintage Bernina sewing machine!). I ended up with a massive stack of cotton prints as well as some lovely wool tweed, too.

I’ve been meaning to sew up two of the more traditional prints in particular ever since I received them, and I thought they would coordinate really well together in a project as they’re the same colours but different prints:

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An upcycled baby onesie

This is a much smaller project than my lace dress but one I wanted to share anyway as it involves upcycling a teeshirt into something more useful. One of my very first sewing projects as an adult was transforming a XXL promotional teeshirt into something more stylish, and I think a lot of beginners find teeshirt refashions to be both inspiring and approachable – after all, there’s no question of how much fabric to buy, or if you’ve got the wrong kind, as teeshirts are pretty universal.

In any case, this started life as a very oversized promotional teeshirt for the sports personality Alan Brazil, who records his weekly show in my office’s studio and is well-known around the office. He’s particularly loved by our Creative Director, Ben, so we all decided he should have the teeshirt. But Ben is not a XXL, so it just stayed on his desk for ages, and was left there when he went away on paternity leave…

…when I mischievously spirited it home and refashioned it into a onesie for his newborn son!

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Lace dress for a wedding

Last week I showed you the roses I made for my aunt’s wedding in DC, but I also managed to sew myself a new dress to wear for the occasion, too!

When I was at Ditto’s Brighton shop in December, I fell in love with a wonderful muted turquoise lace and bought a beigey lavender jersey to layer underneath it. I didn’t really have an occasion or pattern in mind when I bought it, but with the wedding trip approaching, I pulled these out of the stash and knew they’d be the perfect starting point.

When making lace dresses, I always look for patterns with a lot of little pieces as I’ve found that the shared seams help keep the layers from separating when worn, such as with the Burda dress I made in pink and grey lace (and still wear a lot, 5 years later!). If you try to make a lace dress from big pieces, you have the opportunity for one to grow or move independently if there’s nothing holding them together in the middle of the garment. I wanted something that I’d sewn before, too, as I didn’t have much time to make it before the wedding and wanted to skip the muslin stage. I ultimately decided on a pattern I’d traced from an ASOS dress and previously made twice – once in a mustard ponte and then again in mustard, teal, and white as a designer inspired colourblock dress.

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Navy Steffi jacket for cycling and running

While I was ill, I found myself mostly working on two in-depth projects – both of which were navy blue jackets for some strange reason! You’ve already seen my wool lumberjacket but I also made myself another StyleArc Steffi jacket pattern, too.

Some of you may recall that I made this a pattern few years ago and sewed some twinkling LEDs into the back of it! At the time, there were a bunch of problems in the instructions (as well as an inadequate seam allowance in one spot, too) so I let StyleArc know about them, and they corrected them, and posted me the corrected version along with another pattern of my choice. Which is freaking awesome customer service if you ask me! I’m pleased to report that the corrected version of the pattern is much, much better. There’s still a major step missing (if I recall, it’s one of the vertical body seams), but everything else is better so it wasn’t quite as frustrating to sew this time around.

But this isn’t my best work, not by a long shot – I made this when I was feeling really bad and couldn’t sit up for more than 10min at a time, and felt like a zombie for weeks on end. But it’s nice enough for a functional cycling jacket when the weather is warmer, and possibly for winter running, too, though I’ve missed that almost entirely this year. Boo.

The main fabric here is some off-cut stuff from my Sweaty Betty industry friend – it’s navy lycra on the outside and super soft brushed fleece on this inside. At the time I received it, I’d never seen anything quite like it, but as it’s been maturing in my stash, the FunkiFabrics thermo range has since been released, and I can tell you that it’s really similar. So if you’re after a fabric that’s both stretchy and warm for a jacket like this, I’d definitely recommend the thermo. The pocket linings and zip shield use offcuts of Laurie King X Fehr Trade Spoonflower fabrics from my zigzag XYT Workout Top, and the two neon yellow pocket zips I bought off eBay.

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Two quick tops

Not everything I made while I was ill was an involved as my navy Harriet jacket – I made quite a few small and quick projects, too, just to boost my mood. I wanted to show you two different quick tops today – it didn’t really feel like I had enough to say about either to warrant separate posts, but I wanted to document them just the same.

Seamwork Akita in Japanese floral

My friend Alex brought me back a ton of fabrics fro Tomato in Tokyo (which you’ll be seeing more of, I’m certain!), but this narrow, textured floral shrunk a TON in the wash and was narrow to begin with, so afterwards it was very narrow indeed. So I pulled out the Seamwork Akita blouse pattern since it only needs a narrow, non-directional print fabric because it’s just one pattern piece (no shoulder seams). In the end, the pattern piece touched both selvedges and I had to trim off some of the sleeve depth to fit it in!

I haven’t seen this pattern made up much, but I was disappointed in the fit – this runs HUGE, even for an over-the-head top (in contrast, the woven, over-the-head Sorbetto pattern fits much closer). In hindsight, I think I could’ve made the absolute smallest size and still be swimming in it (and no, no printing errors!). I chopped off about 6 inches in length, too, and it’s still on the long side.

But the worst bit is that the bust point is ridiculously low, which just looks bad. Luckily, it gets lost in such a busy print, but it’s still disappointing.

By the time I tried it on and realised it was massive, I didn’t have any bias fabric left to do the neckline facing, so instead I pulled out some silk charmeuse bias strips I had squirrelled away and used those to finish off the neckline in my preferred way. This is actually my favourite part of this top!

I’ve worn it with layers on top because I like the colours, but I’m glad I didn’t make it in an expensive silk like I was planning! The other Seamwork patterns I’ve made have been true to size, so I’m not sure what happened here…

Sweaty Betty striped tech tee

I had some weird, small offcuts of tech fabrics from my Sweaty Betty-working friend, one of which was this teal, black, and grey striped, slubby wicking teeshirt material. I cycle commute in street clothes that I wear at work all day (unless it’s pouring, in which case I change into dry clothes at the office) and I like to have a base layer which dries quickly. I never get that sweaty on my ride, but when I was ill it felt a bit harder than it does normally, so tech tees were useful.

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Vintage silk roses for a wedding bouquet

The main reason for our recent trip to the States was to celebrate my Aunt’s wedding, and since I still had some scraps of my grandmother’s (her mother’s) gown leftover from when I refashioned it into my wedding gown back in 2010, earlier this year I offered to make her something from the silk so that her mother could be a part of the day, too.

I thought perhaps she’d want a clutch bag, or cropped jacket or something, but she requested fabric roses instead. And a lot of them!

I made my own “pattern” so all of the roses would be the same size, but the pattern was really just two different sizes of pointed ovals. To make each rose, I just folded the oval in half lengthwise and gathered together the cut edge by hand with some running stitches. I rolled up the larger one, tacked it together at the base, then wrapped the smaller around the outside of it, and tacked that together by hand, too.

It took a few minutes to make each rose, so I made myself a little kit and tried to do one or two each lunchtime at the office (after I’d finished any messy eating!!).

And before too long, I had a whole herd of roses to post off to DC!

Then her florist used floral tape and wire to create “stems” on each and worked them into the bridal bouquet, the flower girls’ crowns, and the buttonholes for all of the men on our side of the family, including my granddad. Apparently as my Aunt pinned his buttonhole onto his label, she told him that the roses were made from Granny’s gown, and he was so touched he started crying!