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In Progress

Coming soon: the VNA Top pattern!

I’m very pleased to report that my next sewing pattern will be ready for sale within the next week! I literally only have the final photoshoots to do (lined up for tomorrow evening), and the Copy Shop versions to tweak and that’s it!

Many of you will be pleased to hear that it’s another top pattern, and this one works for exercise or casualwear! It’s called the “VNA Top” because it’s inspired by a Vionnet evening gown (say “VNA” fast and it sounds like… yup!).

My official description:
This is a pattern for a close-fitting, sleeveless workout top inspired by a 1930s Vionnet evening gown. It features a front V-neck, curved under bust seam, and distinctive angular seaming in back. Neckline and armhole edges are finished with binding, and there are no side seams.

Gallery

A green cropped blazer

I’ve got a wedding rapidly approaching, and for once in my life, I actually bought a dress instead of sewing it (ok, technically James bought it for me when we were in France!). But I couldn’t let this occasion go by without sewing something so I decided I wanted a little cropped jacket to go along with it. Luckily there are a lot of colours in the dress to pick out, and a good friend gifted me this green, ex-Karen Millen piqué specifically for this purpose!

I sifted through my pattern magazine archive (made easier since I’ve got each issue overview online) and decided on a sharp little cropped blazer pattern from the September 2013 Manequim magazine (curiously I’d overlooked it when I reviewed the issue!).

I love that this jacket is short in the body so it won’t interrupt the full skirt on my dress, has got 3/4 length sleeves which are so nice for summer evenings, and best of all – a shawl collar with little tuxedo styling at the bottom. There’s no front closure, either, so it’s a nice one to just slip on over the dress and not have it look like it should be buttoned or something.

Many of you ask how I deal with Manequim patterns that aren’t in my size – the short answer is, I don’t. I’ve got so freaking many issues and patterns to choose from that most of the ones I want to sew either either in a 44 or 42 (this one’s a 44), or if they are significantly smaller, I just graft the interesting features onto an existing base pattern that fits me.

In Progress

In progress reports

I’ve been feverishly working behind the scenes here at FehrTrade Towers (or maybe that should be HMS FehrTrade?), but an awful lot of that isn’t quite ready to be fully shared yet…

Next Pattern samples

Case in point – the samples I’ve been making for my next FehrTrade pattern! Loads of you have been asking when this will be ready, and the answer is, well, it should be up for sale within the next two weeks. This pattern is for a top that can work for workout wear or casualwear, so it means I’ve been sewing even more samples than usual to show off both sides of it. I’m not yet ready to reveal the tech drawing, but you can see how colourful my samples have been so far!

I’m pretty sure the teal-y one in the upper right might be my favourite top EVAR…

Anyway, I really do hate to be a tease, but I hate it even more when I see something I really want to buy then have to wait ages (by which point the excitement has worn off), so I’m trying to hold back until I have an exact release date for you guys. The wonderful thing about digital patterns is that I don’t have to wait for any printers to release it!

Workout Inspiration

Speaking of FehrTrade patterns, have you all seen the XYT Workout Top hack Rebecca did for Sew Indie Month? Those of you who prefer a more loose-fitting workout top might be particularly interested in her changes, just saying…

And if you’re looking for inspiration to get more bang for your XYT Workout Top buck, then you may want to consider using this Athleta/Gap “Zahara Tankini” as inspiration – it’s a dead-ringer for the T-Back version!


(Thank you to whomever sent this to me, I’m so sorry but I’ve lost the email!)

Gallery

Two tiny baby jackets

My go-to baby present for many years has been a changing mat – hand towel on one side, fabric and pockets on the other, and it all folds up nicely and fastens with ribbon. I still enjoy making these (and I get great big thumbs up from the parents!), but I wanted to make something different this time around, and I had two lots of Spoonflower organic cotton jerseys I fancied using.

I actually made these way back in early April, but since they were both gifts, I needed to wait until both sets of parents received them before I could share them with you. But since I made them so long ago, the details are a little hazy in my mind, so apologies for anyone looking for a particularly useful pattern review here!

I sifted through my digital pattern archive and selected #145 from the March 2011 Burda magazine (it’s not on the US Burda site so you’ll have to refer to the Russian archive). I liked the versatility of the design, that it looked quite handy to wrap a baby up in, but that it was also easy to sew and could fit into the two fat quarters I had of each of the fabrics.

For our local friends’s newborn baby girl, I selected the meat fabric and used the 3 months size. I knew the parents would laugh their heads off and be happy that it wasn’t predominantly pink, too. I didn’t actually get to see the baby wearing it since she was asleep at the time, but I’m just going to assume she’ll grow into it!

Inspiration, Magazine

Manequim magazine May 2014

It is an excellent time to be a pattern magazine subscriber, and I think this week’s posts on the June Burda, April Manequim, and now this May issue are a great illustration on the variety and fashion forward elements that just aren’t being seen in the Big Four right now.

The other two issues this week have been fantastic, but this May issue may just top them all… I don’t think I’ve ever scanned so many pages from one magazine before!

First up are the Plus offerings for this issue – three different dresses all with illusion-type colourblocking made popular by Stella McCartney recently.

As you may have guessed from the cover, there are maternity patterns included this month for the first time that I’ve ever seen! The cover blouse is the nicest IMHO, but there’s also patterns for a skirt, trousers, and a caftan-like dress, too.

The designer style patterns this month use Jason Wu as their inspiration and we get a really intricate jacket with wide lapels but loads of the sleeve details are just swallowed by the floral print. There’s also a cutaway shoulder blouse with a wide hem in multiple sizes, and also a dress with some stunning lace appliques. It might be difficult to source a similar lace, but the dress pattern is offered in a whopping 6 sizes, so it’s a great pattern to have as a jersey base for comparing against & modifying to become other styles not in your size.

I stopped buying Patrones magazine a while back as I only ever really liked the winter issues anyway, and I was getting a bit bored of their styles. But to me, Patrones really made the best coat patterns ever. Let me tell you, this coat feature here is enough to make me burn all my back issues of Patrones and sew all of these instead.

Take this pink coat for starters – immaculate clean lines – the princess seam goes straight into that angle to form the pocket. The raglan seams draw the eye to the face, and there’s no collar in the way to distract from the simplicity. YES.

This pattern appears to have everything I’d ever want from a motorcycle jacket, and sewn in coating rather than leather. Again, the attention to detail here is great – I only wish I could see more clearly what’s going on with that right side (as worn) pocket…

Again with the crazy amount of details and fabric mixing – is it a trench coat? Is it a biker jacket? It’s apparently made with faux leather, coating, and a polyester (presumably the fabric with the holes) and you know how much I love to mix different textures in the same colour!

And lastly in the coat feature, I adore this colourblock coat with the stripe running through just above the waist. Very striking but very classic at the same time.

Now some of my long-time readers may recall that in the very first issue of Manequim I ever had there was a feature on chic uses for sweatshirt and I squealed with delight. OMG IT’S ANOTHER CHIC SWEATSHIRTING FEATURE. And this time it’s even better. I had to restrain myself to even leave one pattern out of my picks.

This dress! You could totally leave the lower sleeves off and it’d work well with cap sleeves, too!

Inspiration, Magazine

Manequim magazine April 2014

I hadn’t realised that this issue arrived so late until May came nearly a week after it, but it means I’ve got two issues to show you in rapid succession. It’s always about this time of year that Manequim do their famous “Oscar dress special”, too, and squeeeeeee! this is it!

See? Brazilians do wear sweaters in winter! pfff. But seriously, despite it’s cropped proportions, it’s got some nice colourblocking, and the skirt lines are great, too.

Bomber jackets are huge this year, but I do believe this is the first sequined one I’ve seen – and here I thought I’d seen every variation possible in my pattern magazines so far! The skirt is also interesting, though I don’t think I’d be confident enough to put all my trust into a zipper like that…

Normally I’d be awfully excited to have a bodysuit pattern in my size, but frankly, it’s nowhere near as exciting as Closet Case Files’ Nettie pattern, which is already in my sewing queue. The trousers look like good basics, though, and they’re offered in a few sizes, too.

I must’ve flipped past this at least three times before I noticed that this boring shirt has actually got an asymmetric twist – the collar is rotated and the opening shifted off-centre. So what was boring is now highly interesting!

Inspiration, Magazine

Burda magazine June 2014

I don’t know what’s in the water over at Burda HQ, but they are seriously on a roll right now – it’s been an amazing few months of consistently great issues, but seriously, this issue takes the cake! I’m usually not a fan of the summer issues, but there are just so many fantastic designs I want to make in this one that I found myself scanning nearly every page!

So settle on in, this is a long’un…

A few years ago I would’ve been all “oh, a feature on shorts? Yawn, flip through…” but upping my running game (plus having an actually hot summer last year) has made me appreciate shorts a lot more! Burda gets several brownie points for this pair because a) they’re sporty, b) they’re a great length, c) pockets! and d) they used a non-white model. Big applause all around.

Now, this is the exact same pair of shorts as above, but with curved seams for colourblocking. If it were me, I’d have put the dark portion at the crotch rather than the reverse, as this is a good trick I learned from a cyclist for disguising saddle sweat marks, but it also goes to show that you can just draw lines like these on any shorts pattern and get the same effect.

YES. I may have already traced out this classic racerback vest (tank) in order to use up a few 1 meter pieces of awkward, “not really what I was expecting when I ordered but still nice” jerseys…

And let’s talk about these shorts with the angled overlays – these must be a knockoff of a designer garment because this is now the third time I’ve seen patterns for them – first in the January Manequim magazine, and then again when Simplicity released 1370, which has a view for this, too! (Actually, I’d love to do a comparison post on these three if someone could send me a scan of the Simplicity pattern piece layout, please? They’re stupid expensive here.)

On to the next feature, which is entirely based on Japanese-inspired cutting techniques. oh my god are you kidding me?! An entire feature based on unusual cuts, seamlines, drapes, and nary a cheap “Asian brocade” or kimono in sight – think Pattern Magic or Drape Drape. YES.

First up – this dress with an overlay which sweeps over the shoulder and around to the back. I could see this being an amazing formal gown, even though Burda have made it in a fairly casual fabric here.

Inspiration

Sewing Indie Month: My Buff tutorial and interview

How’s everyone enjoying Sewing Indie Month so far? Has anyone entered the contests yet? There’s still a bit of time left if you haven’t got everything together yet…

Sew a Buff

Last week I wrote a really simple but useful tutorial which appeared on the Seamster Patterns blog – How to sew your own Buff. If you’re not familiar with a Buff, it’s a simple tube of stretchy fabric that can be worn a million different ways…

They’re really popular with a wide variety of active people for both winter and summer wear and literally could not be easier to sew, so head over to the Seamster Patterns site to read how to make your own!

My interview with Yuki

I personally think the best part of Sewing Indie Month has been connecting with other indie designers, and I was tickled to find out I was paired with Yuki from Waffle Patterns, because I’d been admiring her designs on Etsy for ages!

She interviewed me over email recently, and you can read my interview here, which went live yesterday.

Classes and my next pattern

I’ve got quite a few more stretch fabric classes coming up in the next few weeks at the Thrifty Stitcher studio, including a full “Stretchtacular!” day on Sunday 29 June, where you learn to sew leggings in the morning and a Breton tee in the afternoon! If you live outside London this means you only have to travel once to get both classes… Or I’ve also still got some space in this Thursday’s leggings class if you’re more local. These are all suited to beginners who have basic knowledge of a sewing machine, but haven’t necessarily worked with stretch fabrics or overlockers before. You’ll get to take your garment and pattern home with you, and I’ve had many students not only wear theirs home, but turn around and sew more that same week!

The stretch class listings are here.

Inspiration

Sewing Indie Month: An interview with Hannah from Sinbad & Sailor

As part of the wonderful Sewing Indie Month celebrations, each of us are collaborating and getting to know each other throughout the month of May. In the planning stages, I’d asked to partner with Sinbad & Sailor for a whole bunch of reasons – I’d been following her on Twitter for ages, I love the timelessness of her designs, and she also lives in London, yet somehow we’ve never managed to meet up!

Of course our first thought was to meet up in a pub somewhere and do the interview in person, but then we realised it’d probably be a lot more coherent if I interviewed her over email and celebrated with a drink later instead! So go grab a drink of your choice and come get to know Hannah!

1. How did you come up with the name Sinbad and Sailor? Do I sense a maritime connection at all?
No maritime connection in the S&S story it’s all land-based I’m afraid… When I was starting out it took me a long time to find the perfect name as I wanted something which reflected East London, where I’m based, living just one road away from where my Granddad grew up and also sewing (of course!). One friend suggested I look at Cockney Rhyming Slang (which is a fairly modern slang where phrases are derived from taking an expression which rhymes with a word and then using that expression instead of the word – ie. apples and pears = stairs) and see if anything had the right ring to it. I discovered that ‘Sinbad and sailor’ is cockney rhyming slang for tailor and I knew straight away that was perfect.

2. What gave you the push to start your own pattern company? Did you train in fashion, or did you segue from another career?
I have been sewing since school and studied fine art sculpture at UAL after which I went back to sewing in earnest. I’m a recipe following kinda gal and was always using patterns but found that the offerings felt very dated, hardly reflecting any current trends or styles which combined with their confusing instructions format created a frustrating sewing experience. Walking to work one day it struck me that if I was getting frustrated by the current shortfalls in sewing patterns perhaps other people were too. Rather than waiting and hoping that someone else would create these patterns I decided to be proactive and start making them myself.

3. In your mind, who is the quintessential S&S customer? What is her style?
The quintessential S&S customer is a woman who values her independence and likes to express herself through the way she dresses. Her style would be her interpretation of current trends and she’d be bold in her use of colour and prints when sewing (after all how are you going to rake in compliments with a plain back top?!)