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Inspiration

Lots of little happenings

First of all, thanks so much for all your kind comments last week! It was a bit week for me, posting two finished garments and a pattern/tutorial so this week might be a little sparse, especially in the leadup to our departure next week.

But I’ve been doing a bunch of little bits over the past month or so – things that aren’t really big enough to post about on their own, or that I’m not quite ready to post about yet, or things that I’m just really keen on. So it’s time for a little roundup post, I reckon!

Refashioned doggy tee

I’ve been so impressed by all the shirts Novita has been making for all her foster dogs over the past few months, so when a friend asked if I could maker her Boston Terrier puppy a Run dem Crew shirt for his cheering duties at a race, I thought it sounded like fun.

With Novita’s advice, I used the free Milla Milla pattern in size Medium (we tried Small initially but it was too tight), and it was really quick to put together apart from the binding. Don’t use their crazy, fiddly binding instructions – next time I’m just serging on a folded binding and topstitching! Done! I used a small RDC shirt as the starting fabric, and tried to place the logos as best I could. Apparently little Stringer Bell was the hit of the cheering station!

The Napkin Project embroidery

I didn’t get as much detail in as I’d hoped, but I did complete a decent design for The Napkin Project before the deadline!

The topic was “home” so I worked in Tower Bridge, boatlife (via a porthole) and the greenery of the gardens. All the embroidered napkins will be used in a nursing home in Bristol to spark memories in dementia patients, so I hope mine is well received! My grandmother is suffering from dementia right now so I’m really proud to be a part of this project and help others like her, even in a small way.

Fabric Buys

I wasn’t meaning to, but I ended up buying some fabrics from Minerva. Oops.

The crazy print will become perfect running leggings (of course!), there’s some silver-coated denim in there, a cool cutwork mustard jersey that reminds me of camouflage tents, and a few other interesting 1m cuts of jerseys, too.

Running vests

One fabric I bought but which isn’t pictured above is a large quantity of the cheapest stretch fabric they had, for use in running muslins. As it turns out, the peach poly jersey is actually not too bad – at least it’s a nice middling weight for use in testing tops or bottoms.

Gallery

A classic pair of jeans

I know I’ve been recently focusing on sewing for my upcoming Mexico trip but I’ve been wanting to sew these since my FW12 and SS13 plans so it was high time I actually just sat down and made them!

After umming and ahhing for months over which pattern I should use, then muslining two different patterns which were both too small, I ended up making this pair in two days’ flat! As you’ll recall, it’s #120 from the April 2010 issue of Burda magazine (sadly not on Burdastyle.com!), an issue which also had a great pair of men’s trousers I’ve been eyeing up for James, too.


Worn here with my plum bamboo Jalie top…

I’m a bit scared that I can sew an entire pair of jeans now (including the front fly) without looking at instructions a single time… I did, however, inspect a pair of James’s RTW jeans once or twice to see which side of the seam they topstitched!


This one has been lightened so you can see the details a little better!

Oh, and remember when I tried on the muslin for this pattern and it was way too small in the waist and hips? Well, I put the muslin to the side in my sewing cave and tried them on a few weeks later and they fit perfectly now! Yes, only I would go and change my body instead of just doing a pattern alteration…

In Progress

A hidden travel pocket tutorial

We’re travelling to Mexico in a few weeks, and I decided I should probably have a money belt to keep my passports and spare cash secure while we’re there, especially since we’ll be staying in mid-range hotels and travelling by coach. But the money belts available to buy are all really uncomfortable-looking, made of either rough fabric that will get soaked by sweat, or plasticky fabric that will stick to your skin, and with chunky buckles that will dig in over the course of a day.

Since I’m sewing a bunch of bottoms for my trip anyway, I figured there must be another way, so I had the idea to draft up a simple zippered pocket that attaches onto the waistband and hangs discreetly inside. It can be accessed easily in a private place (like a toilet stall), but not easily seen or pickpocketed, and the zippered opening means its contents aren’t going to just fall out, either.

I’ve added this pocket into my recent travel skirt, leggings, and Hummingbird skirt already and I’ve worn these around London to test drive them successfully!

You can choose to either permanently sew the pocket into the waistband of your skirt or trousers, or you can use snaps to make it removable at the last step, like I did for my leggings.

It’s sized to allow a standard passport to fit through the zipper, plus some emergency cards and cash and other small items you want to keep on you at all times, but that don’t have to be readily accessible.

Gallery

A terracotta Hummingbird skirt

The latest in my my upcoming Mexico trip travel wardrobe is the latest Cake Patterns design – the Hummingbird skirt! There are two views included: a shorter pencil skirt with plain back, and the pink view, which has an awesome “tailfeather flounce” in the back. Of course I chose the fancy version, what else!? I’d seen that the orange view sews up quite short, and I was expecting this to be rather long, but it hits right at my knees which is perfect.

I discussed it before when I sewed up their Cabarita top, but Cake Patterns’ “draw your own size” system is pretty cool – here you pick your pattern size based on your hip measurement (my size was a 40), then choose your waist measurement (mine was a 32), and draw a line between them. The only part that got really confusing was figuring out where the darts should be drawn, as there’s numbers and dots all over the place!

The only problem is that I’d cut out my pattern pieces a few weeks ago, and as you’ve seen, I’ve lost a significant amount of girth in the past two months, and when I went to try on the skirt mid-construction, it was hanging off me – seriously, I took six inches in total off the side seams! This isn’t anything to do with Cake’s sizing – this has got everything to do with me dropping a bunch of weight between choosing a size and sewing it up. Happily, I was able to take in the skirt at the side seams and the back darts and get a really nice fit before finally adding the waistband on.

The fabric is a terracotta cotton sateen which I picked up for free (you can’t beat free!) in the swap at the recent Goldhawk Road meetup. It’s definitely best as a bottom weight, and it sews and presses really nicely, but it does have a tendency to fray quite badly. I originally thought the Hummingbird was lined, but then when I realised it wasn’t (and that I couldn’t be arsed to draft my own lining), I decided to overlock the edges of all the pieces before sewing. This prevents fraying, and should prolong the life of the skirt, too.


Worn here with my Prada Trompe L’oeil Sequin Top…

Gallery

Blue neopreney leggings

You’ve already seen the sister skirt to these leggings planned for my upcoming Mexico trip in a few weeks. I wouldn’t normally make two things out of the same fabric in rapid succession, but I ended up buying the end bolt (3m instead of the 2m I’d wanted) and having two bottoms in the same colour is quite handy when packing, as obviously the same tops will coordinate with both!

These were a super quick but comfortable make using my standard leggings draft from the Kristina Shin book plus my own preferred elastic waistband technique. I reckon I probably had these sewn up in under an hour, and I’d cut out the fabric at the same time as the skirt.

As you recall, the fabric is a royal blue hefty jersey that really feels very much like a thin neoprene – this stuff couldn’t wrinkle if it wanted to! I bought the last of the roll at “A-One Fabrics” on Goldhawk Road, and I’ve still got a little bit left that I think might be fun to mix & match with something like denim or even leather!

Inspiration, Magazine

Burda magazine September 2013

After August’s total stinker of an issue, I was really hoping that September would be a great one to pull me into Fall sewing and inspire me, but this one is just as bad! Seriously, I kept pulling this one out every few days thinking “it can’t be that bad – there must be something worth making in it…”

Well, after struggling to find the good in it, I’ve found some acceptable details that might be worth repurposing, but IMHO this is a new low. Sigh.

We wait ages for Burda to produce some decent lingerie patterns, and then they go and disguise this slip as a neo-grunge dress! I’m not entirely convinced by the front pleating, and since they’ve obscured it in every photo (here in a very busy print), I’ll have to wait for those keen Russians to sew up a few before I make my verdict…

The cropped, Peter Pan-collar jacket – ugh. The bad dress hangover from last month’s disgusting neo Victorians feature – double ugh. But the jersey split skirt – yeah, I’m alright with that. This is probably my favourite of this issue, and it’s quite telling that I’m even just lukewarm on it.

The winged sleeves are a really interesting detail here, and it’s a bonus that this has the illustrated instructions for this issue, but why did they have to put them on such a shapeless sack of a dress??

Gallery

A blue neopreney travel skirt

I revealed my Mexico travel wardrobe plans last week, and what better way to start it than with a pattern actually intended for travel! I bought Christine Jonson’s Travel Trio Three pattern a few years ago because I loved the gathered turtleneck, but I’m slowly working my way through the rest of the pack, too. So far I’ve made two different views of the turtleneck already – one gathered and one plain raglan for winter running, but this time around I wanted to try out the pocketed, knit skirt.

Like the other views in the pattern, the instructions for this are utterly excellent. Christine Jonson clearly understand knits and the best ways of finishing them, and she even uses the exact same method I do for elastic waistbands (though I prefer a 3/4-1 inch wide elastic, myself)! I’m seriously tempted to buy more of her patterns with my Adsense money because I’ve really gotten my money’s worth with this pattern!

My only change here was to shorten the skirt by 12cm at the “lengthen or shorten here” line, as the original was mid-calf and felt a bit too dowdy for me. This now falls right at my knees and is just about perfect for me.

Inspiration

Where to buy exercise fabric – a global list

One of my most frequently asked questions is definitely “where can I buy fabric for yoga/running/exercise/etc?”, so I thought it’s high time I make an attempt at something like a global list.

In general, though, the word you should be searching for is “Supplex”. This is a brand name, though, like Lycra (whose generic term is “spandex”), but the generic alternative is something like “wicking spandex”, and generally isn’t used as often as “Supplex” in fabric stores, I’ve found.

If you can buy supplex at a decent price, buy it. It’s soft, has great recovery, wicks away moisture while you’re sweating, and stands up to washing without a ton of pilling. It can be hard to find though, and sometimes only comes in a limited amount of colours, but I wouldn’t hesitate to run a marathon in supplex – it’s great stuff.

If you’re running shorter distances, or in cooler weather, you can get away with exercising in any number of lycra/spandex jerseys, though. These won’t wick sweat away, but they come in a gazillion colours and prints, plus have a multitude of foil and sequin effects, and can be way cheaper, too. Ditto goes for swimsuit fabrics – you can certainly use them for shorter exercise sessions even though they’re not wicking. Personally, I wouldn’t mind running a half marathon on a cool day in lycra leggings, but your mileage may vary (pun intended!).

Inspiration, Magazine

Manequim magazine August 2013

I’ve got so much going on right now to show you all in good time, like some new tutorials, site features, and more, but in the meantime let’s have a look at the latest Manequim magazine.

The downside is that they removed the little tech drawings next to the fashion photoshoots so not only do I now have to keep flipping back and forth to the instructions at the back to see the pattern lines (extra annoying since they’re not in numerical order in the magazine) but I’ve also got to do extra image editing work to show you the tech drawings, dear readers!

But the upside is that at least there’s a lot of great patterns this month, cough unlike Burda cough…

In the soap star style section, this little black dress and chiffon blouse both caught my eye. The dress in particular looks like something I’d totally wear!

This men’s yoked & lined jacket looks really nice! They say the pattern is online, though but I don’t see it in the list of free patterns (totally worth checking out though anyway!)? Can anyone find it on the site?

This issue apparently apparently celebrates Manequim’s 54 years as “the best fashion magazine in Brazil”. Seems an arbitrary number of years for a celebration, but no matter. I like seeing the original first issue cover, but I’d have liked it more had they given us some vintage reprint patterns!

In Progress

My Mexico travel wardrobe

I’ve made a few mentions of it over the past few weeks, but James and I are off on a grand holiday to Mexico at the end of September! We’ve been talking about going for years and we’re so excited to have finally booked everything. We decided on the Intrepid “Mexico Unplugged” trip since it stops everywhere we want to go, is a small group & eco company, and provides the perfect mix of taking care of booking hotels and transportation, but doesn’t tell us how to fill our days. Which will mostly be filled with eating and visiting ruins!

Anyway, as this is a different sort of holiday than the past few we’ve gone on, and I have a few weeks left to prepare, I thought I’d share with you the few pieces I’d like to sew before we leave…

As you can see, I’ve included lots of bottoms as those are what I’m most in need of right now after losing weight for my track race! My tops still fit reasonably well, though so I’m happy to just bring along ones I’ve already made to pair with them.

I’m hoping to sew:

(I’m cheating a bit by posting this after I’ve started sewing – two of these are done already!)

Plus if I can fit them in before I go, either of the two workout tops from my SS13 Sewing Ideas, or the jeans which I keep delaying…