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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!

Inspiration

Velosewer's Silver, Check, and Purple Swirls workout gear

In case you think that maybe my patterns that only work for my body, I’m going to be sharing some of the versions that my amazing team of pattern testers have made over the past few months. When selecting testers, I wanted sewists who had made their own workout gear before, partially so I knew they’d be familiar with both sewing stretch fabrics and also what works for them when workout out, but also so they could help compare my designs to previous workout gear they’d made.

First up is Maria, aka Velosewer, who made no less than three versions of my XYT Workout Top and a pair of PB Jam Leggings, too in the short amount of time since I sent the patterns! Apparently the ladies at her gym were so enthusiastic about the tops that they were disappointed they couldn’t just buy them at a store!

Maria is particularly fond of the built-in bra in the XYT Workout Top, so much so that she’s started franken-patterning it into other dresses to get built-in bras everywhere! I love this, as it’s something I never even imagined!

Read more about her versions over on her site, How Good Is That?

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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.

Inspiration

FehrTrade patterns – on sale now!

I’m a little ahead of schedule, but the patterns are ready so why wait any longer, eh? I’m stupidly happy to announce that both the XYT Workout Top and the PB Jam Leggings patterns are available to buy right now!!


buy!


buy!

You can read more about them in my new Shop section (though still not as 100% pretty as I’d like it), or just click through to my Etsy shop who will be handling the direct downloads for the foreseeable future.

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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!

In Progress

A note on sizing…

Thank you all so, so much for your kind words and enthusiasm on my pattern announcement! It’s been literally months in the making and it was totally nerve-wracking to hit the Publish button.

Some of you commented on the XS size not being small enough, however, and I wanted to talk you through the background on this.

As we all know with multisize patterns, you can only have a limited number of sizes. Each size you add on must be graded (which is no mean feat!), then double-checked, adjusted, sewn up, and all the various trims must be calculated as well. For my first collection, five sizes seemed a reasonable number without biting off more than I could chew. I have huge respect for companies like Jalie that create their patterns in an epic amount of sizes, but that’s not something I’m qualified enough to do right now (nor am I particularly interested in designing for children)!

So I have to make choices. For me, I feel very strongly about supporting Plus sized ladies to exercise. I’ve had conversations with Plus sized fitness bloggers like Fattymustrun about the absolute lack of exercise gear for size 16+ in RTW – companies may say they offer it, but in reality, it’s almost impossible to actually buy, and when it does, you usually only get the choice of black (or worse, pink!). So when it came to choosing between offer one size smaller or one size larger, I made the choice to offer one size larger, so that larger women can have the opportunity to wear some fun exercise clothes, too.

You may think, “well, it’s no extra room on the pattern sheet to add another smaller size!” but it’s nowhere near that straightforward. Multisize patterns aren’t exactly like Russian nesting dolls – the way patterns are stacked to allow people to cut between sizes if they wish, there are multiple places where the smallest size line is actually outside the largest size!

In Progress

Introducing… FehrTrade patterns!

I promised you all a big announcement this week, and my big news is that I’m releasing my first sewing patterns at the end of this month! I’m focusing on exercise gear, and the first two patterns are super versatile!

The xyt Workout Top


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.

You might see now why I named it the “XYT” – each of the three back variations forms the shape of the letter! The T back in particular has so much scope for variations as the vertical part can be any sort of fancy trim in your stash – lace, sequins, fishnet, fancy elastics, etc…

I absolutely love the built-in compression bra I’ve developed here, too – I’ve never had a RTW one work for me, but these are supportive enough for my B cups to run in, and some of my pattern testers with larger busts have had equal success with only a small FBA!

The pb Jam Leggings


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!

You may recognise these from my mocha running top photos earlier this week – these have become my favourite leggings ever in a very short amount of time, and when I wore them to my running crew I had several people begging to buy them off my body, no less! The design lines carry around the sides so you look good from all angles, and the hidden pocket in the centre back is sized so you can stash your phone, gel, or keys without having to carry anything.