Me-Made-May Week One!

Because May started on a Wednesday, i decided I would do my weekly round-up posts on Tuesday. Today is Wednesday. Whoopsies.

 

I’ll be honest. May kind of snuck up on me. As in, it was the 3rd of May when I realised that it was May and I hadn’t worn anything Me-Made. Double Whoopsies. The photo above is from Friday, and it is my second outfit for the day BUT IT STILL TOTALLY COUNTS. I wore this renfrew as I was packing and then sitting in a car on the way to a leadership retreat for the weekend. I cut off half my face on purpose because sleep was not so much of a happening thing last week and my face showed it.

My face is cut off here too, because I took this photo on the Sunday after the leadership retreat and I still hadn’t got much sleep. I think that this Briar is my favourite of the t-shirts that I’ve made. I wore it to help pack down the retreat, travel back home and then go to church. It’s a versatile wee beast. 

Yay, I got some sleep! I wore my other Briar on Monday. It was a blinking cold day and sooooo rainy. I think I need some gumboots. I hate winter. And it’s not even actually winter yet. Grumble grumble mutter mutter. I spent the day at uni and  hanging out with some friends playing nerd-games. I <3 Settlers.

My challenge for this week is…wear something me-made other than tshirts!

My new favourite

Wow! I am so in love with my Archer Shirt! I am a little embarrassed at how MUCH I love it…this may or may not be the third day in a row that I have worn it. Depending on how much that grosses you out. *cough*

Ah, look at all that wrinkly goodness! (The shirt. My face does not yet have wrinkles. Give it time). Apologies for the bad lighting…although I do like the way that my legs have disappeared into the door so that it looks like I’m floating sans legs.

This is seriously SO comfy and SO warm and SO flattering. Also, I think the pockets have some sort of magical chest-minimising powers, which I think I need more of in my life. In my opinion, chest minimisation is ALWAYS a good thing.

I think it might be a wee bit big, mainly in the sleeves. I’m pretty sure that the cuffs aren’t meant to overlap as much as they do. It kind of takes away from the nice “V” when most of it winds up being overlapped. Next time I might cut a smaller size just in the sleeves and cuffs.        

Next time I might also put the back pleat in facing the way that it’s supposed to, hehe. I’m not really that devastated that i did it the wrong way around because, let’s face it. It still looks good.    

I think this length is perfect too…long enough to give some decent cover, but not so long that I’m swamped. It’s just such a great shirt…I want to wear it all the time!

And speaking of wanting to wear something I made all the time…this will be my first Me-Made-May!

“I, Kieran, of Sparkle The Unicorn Sews, sign up as a participant of Me-Made-May ’13. I endeavour to wear, and photograph me wearing, a me-made item at least three times a week for the duration of May 2013″

Wish me luck!

 

Ta Da!

Wow! Things have been cray-cray! Between university and the general distraction known as Life, with some bonus once-off time-and-energy-sucking upheavals…well. Lets just say I don’t want another term like that again! Somewhere in the midst of it all, I did manage to sew this:    

 

A heavenly silk/cotton blend Scout Tee. Silk/cotton blends are my new favourite…they feel like I always imagined silk would feel, which is far nicer than it actually does feel (if you can figure out that mangled syntax, I take my hat off to you!). This Scout Tee is marvelous, miles better than my last one in that I didn’t have to piece it together from scraps and it so far hasn’t disintegrated in the wash. This pattern is so great, I can see myself having at least one version in my wardrobe forever.

It does feel a smidgen tight across the top of the shoulders, but I can’t figure out if that’s just because I’m so used to stretchy tshirts or because it’s actually too small. I’ll wear this one a few more times and try to come to a decision before making the next version  

This version was made especially to wear to a job interview. I pretty much started sewing it as soon as I knew that I had the interview, before I even wrote a CV or figured out who I would ask to be my references (my priorities are awesome!). I wanted to look mature and professional, and in my mind a plain white top is very very mature and very very professional. I didn’t own any plain white tops. Sewing was necessary! The job interview went better than any interview I have ever had before, and I was offered the job on the spot. It’s such a dreamy job, too, I couldn’t stop smiling for days.

Hopefully there will be something else to show you soon…I’m all caught up with the Archer sew-along and currently trying to decide how disastrous it would be for me to skip ahead…

Kelly + Briar = Lovely

It was my birthday last Wednesday, and all I wanted to do was sew. Sew I did!! (bahaha I’m hilarious!). This is the resulting outfit, which I wore to my birthday party on Saturday night:                                                                            

Ta-da! I really really like it! I think it goes without saying that I am a massive fan of Megan Nielson Patterns, so it kind of made sense that I had to make a whole “Megan Outfit”. This was my first time making the Kelly Skirt and I will definitely be coming back for more! I feel so SKINNY when I wear it! I mean, look:

Waist! And I managed to fit a huge I-ate-so-much-I-might-be-sick-but-it-was-all-so-delicious-and-it’s-my-birthday-so-THERE tummy underneath too I thought that the waist seam might get a little bit bulky, so I graded it quite a bit. That was a big mistake…it was harder to sew without that extra little bit of seam allowance wiggle room, and the waist is not even close to bulky. So basically I made things harder for myself for no reason. Lots and lots of ugly zig-zag topstitching to fix things, and NO waist seam grading in my future attempts!

Sorry I’m standing kinda wonky here…I hurt my ankle. I was wrestling a tiger with my bare hands and then a shark leapt out from the nearby ocean and was lunging toward me with a gaping, tooth filled mouth so I had to run away and in the process I…rolled my ankle. Yeah.

Speaking of making things more difficult…I also added a lining! This was kind of essential though, I want to wear this skirt year round, which means tights, which means yucky clingy-ness without a lining. I also added the curved patch pocket onto the Briar top. I like it. Actually that’s a lie. I LOVE IT. But my topstitching is not really the best and also I don’t feel like putting a close-up photo of my boob on the internet

I really like the fabric I used for the Briar. It’s not a colour I would normally be drawn to, but I found it for a shocking $2.85 in the remnant bin at Lincraft.  My matching spool of thread cost more than that! It was mysteriously labelled “assorted fibers”, and I’m not really sure what that means. Hopefully there is something natural in there…whatever it is, it feels soft and lovely. I still want to make a thousand more Briars (alternating with Renfrews), but a realistic look at my t-shirt draw has put a temporary halt on that plan. I have too many t-shirts, and I don’t want to get rid of any of them. Maybe I should just be making jerseys (aka sweaters, jumpers, warm snuggly layers) instead! Or, I suppose I could move onto other garment types.

In other news, university has started up for the year, so my free time is no longer so plentiful. I plan on still making time for sewing, but…we shall see!

New, Hard Things

Hey look, a *new* dress! OK, so this dress is actually older than my latest renfrew. And it was worn out in public about a week before my renfrew. But APPARENTLY it is more difficult to iron a worn dress and post pictures than it is to make an entirely new top. However, today I sucked it up, and here it is…the Elisalex Dress!

I love it! And yes…it is the same material as my last Darling Ranges, but! This time I used the other side as the right side in the hope that I would create a different look. I’m not sure how much that actually worked…

Nevertheless, they are quite different styles of dress, so I think I should get away with it I really really like the Elisalex…everything from the amazing packaging, to the free “By Hand London and Me” label to sew into my dress, to the actual design…I would highly recommend this pattern! And look, and exposed zip the whole way up the back:

Cool ai? This dress was the first time I had ever inserted a zip, and I was quite terrified, but it went fine! The only problem was that after putting it in I tried the dress on and realised it was waaay to big! According to By Hand London, the bodice is designed without any ease, so I think I must have measured myself wrong. Next time I will size down one or two sizes, this time I just took about 2inches ish out of the centre back and decided that a more loose fitting dress was fine.

This make was also the first time I had ever made anything with princess seams, lined a dress bodice, done a blind hem, and traced instead of cutting my pattern. Lots of new hard things, which actually all turned out ok! My dress isn’t perfect, but I don’t care. I still love it! Here’s to stretching myself!

Renfrew Time!

Can you really be a sewing blogger without churning out a few Renfrews? I think not. So I made one. View B:

I felt like a bit of a dweeb taking photos inside with my sunglasses still on. I had actually just come in from outside where I needed them and had forgotten I was wearing them. And as soon as I realised I of course had to ham it up for photos. Hence, the dweeb face and weird model hands. BUT ANYWAY BACK TO THE PATTERN. I have actually made this before, in a solid, blending between sizes as I am not a pear shape. That version is a little odd. I still wear it, but it’s ridiculously loose around the shoulders and bust, heaps of fabric pools around my waist, and then it fits perfectly at the hips. Weird. I cut this one in a straight size two which is not my size at ALL according to the size chart (except for my hips), however, the size two pattern piece pretty much perfectly matched a well fitting tshirt from my drawer, so I rolled with it. And then I remembered about seam allowances *facepalm*. So the whole thing is sewn in teeny tiny seam allowances with lots of prayers that it would work…and it did! Phew!

I skipped the hem bands and lengthened the bodice instead. This fabric is a little busy, and I a) thought pattern matching would be hard, and b) thought it would look crazy if I didn’t pattern match. I just hemmed it with a zigzag stitch instead, and I don’t think it’s too noticeable. Oh and speaking of pattern matching….

Look how I didn’t do it at all! I was all set to go using Tasia’s stripe cutting tutorial when I realised even If I got everything to match up horizontally, it would still be weird vertically because the sides of the top aren’t a straight line. And then I just lost all motivation to try really hard and stretch my brain to try and make something perfect that wouldn’t even turn out perfect. I feel like I made a good decision. Next time, I’ll use another solid, or a more random print so that you can’t tell. This time, I’m happy.

The only thing I’m not happy with is the dodgy neckline. I’m annoyed, because last time it was PERFECT and this time it just wasn’t! You can see by the horizontal blue line that there’s a weird little pucker at the point of the V, and I’m so gutted that the point itself is all skew whiff. Also, the print is not on grain, but the neckline piece itself is on grain, so the print is kind of all over the show and weird. *sigh*.

But still, this fabric is awesome (more free stuff from my flatmate!), and I’m overall stoked with how my top turned out. I kind of want to make some of the other pattern views, and kind of just want to make view B over and over…it’s my perfect basic tshirt now that I have the fit better. The only problem that I now have is that every time I get my hands on some knit fabric, I’m going to have to decide between the Renfrew and the Briar….

Darling Ranges, Done!

Woohoo, I finished it! The sewing part didn’t actually take that long, but I went away on a week long holiday which slowed down the muslin-to-finished-garment process a little . Anyway, enough with the chit chat…here she is!

Isn’t she lovely? I changed quite a few things from my first (pre-blog) version of this dress. The most obvious difference is probably the sleeves –  my first version used the elastic at the cuff, and the longer sleeve included the pattern. This sleeve length is more me. In my first version I was also way scared about all the reviews talking about how low the neckline is, and I raised mine by a whopping three inches. For this version I lowered it back down by an inch (so the neckline is two inches higher than the pattern). I also made the shoulders wider/neckline narrower, and i think it sits much nicer this way. I also made another important change…

Back darts! I absolutely love and adore the ties at the back of this pattern…it’s one of the things that drew me to it in the first place. But…they just don’t work for my lifestyle I wear my dress mostly either to church or to university, and at both of those places I spend a lot of time sitting down. I find that the knot on the ties really digs into my back whenever I lean against the back of a chair, and that gets seriously uncomfortable seriously quickly. It was even worse the one time (I learn fast ) I took a backpack to uni. So, no more back ties for me .

But that’s ok, because this dress is still seriously cool! As you can see above, it works great without a belt too. There is a weird little bumpy bit at the waistline where the seam allowance for the skirt/lining just got way too thick and bulky. I’ll grade that back heaps next time I make this pattern. But for this version it doesn’t matter…a belt covers it up fine! In all of these outside pictures it looks like I used a pale green solid fabric. But I didn’t! See, look:

Stripes! This fabric was also given to me by my flatmate when she was cleaning out. I have enough left for another dress, and I’m still trying to decide how absurd it would be to have two dresses in the same fabric. OH and did you notice the buttons? I love them. I love them so much that I left them on the counter at Spotlight and had to drive all the way back across town to pick them up. Duh me.

Muslin-ing it up!

I’ve spent the last eternity month year few days perfecting the fit on a new Darling Ranges. I’ve made the dress before but I’m not 100% percent happy with the way that it fits. And then of course after wearing it I came up with a few minor tweaks I would make next time which somehow morphed into a laundry list of difficult tasks I had no real idea of how to accomplish. The really depressing thing is that nothing I did was really actually hard, I just don’t know enough to do it easily. Grr. I mean, um, Yay for learning experiences! Yay for the power of google! But, more than anything…

Yay for being finished! I’m at the point now where I can transfer my changes back onto a paper pattern, then cut out my for real material and GET SEWING.

So happy right now!

In which I sew my first Scout Tee

Oh hey! Look what I made!

It’s a Scout Tee by Grainline Studios, and I found it a bit tricky to make, so I’m stoked at how well it turned out. The biggest reason that this top was a challenge was because of the material. Firstly, I only had a teeny tiny little piece to work with.  My flatmate originally bought it in a bulk lot from Trademe (like ebay), and it came into my possession along with some other fabric she realised she would probably never use (score!). The previous owner had hacked away with little apparent method in their madness, so managing to get a whole top out of the mangled mess was miraculous (I just couldn’t help the alliteration, I’m an English major!).

OK, so maybe it wasn’t so much down to a miracle as it was sheer determination. The back is pieced together from THREE SEPARATE PIECES. I know. Unfortunately, this affected the fit. The fabric frayed like nobodies business, and I had to make the seam allowances larger when sewing than I had counted on when cutting. The top pulls a little across the back when I put my arms forward, and I’m going to have to make another version before I know if pattern adjustment is needed to fix that problem. Dang.

Yup, that’s right, there is also a seam down the middle of one sleeve! And that sleeve sits funny, so I won’t be doing that again! The final problem I had with this top was the neckline. I just didn’t sew it well enough for my liking. And then, the whole thing looked like a nurses top (bad colour choice). So, I added a collar! Paunnet has a great tutorial here. I followed it exactly, except that I moved the point of the collar out four centimeters from the centre front instead of three. 

All in all, I’m happy with the result. The pattern was great to work with, and all the challenges were down to fabric or user-errors. Now, I want to try make this pattern again and see how it turns out without the need for creative seaming

In which I sew my first Briar

And what a lovely pattern it is! Thank you, Megan Nielsen. I’m so ridiculously happy with how my version turned out that I have caught myself stroking it as I wore it today. Yup, that would have looked odd if anyone had seen me. Yup, I’m (almost) OK with that.

But, LOOK AT IT! As you can (maybe?) tell by looking at it, it is sooooo comfy! As I was sewing, I was worried that I was going to end up with something that was too big instead of nice and oversized and roomy, but nope! The sizing is exactly how I wanted it. Really, this is just a fabulous pattern!

And look! Asymmetrical hem action! This is my first foray into the mullet hem trend (slow on the uptake, I know). So far, it feels a bit weird but at the same time comforting. Who isn’t going to be flashing any butt crack while wearing her new top? This girl! And now to talk about the material. Ah, the material.

I love it! I first bought it about a year and a half ago, and promptly made it into a skirt. Said skirt was the first item of clothing I had attempted to make since maybe the age of 8 (and this time I didn’t have my Mum holding my hand). It maybe would have been ok, if I had used a proper pattern instead of a not-very-clear-to-a-complete-beginner online tutorial. Maybe it would have even been ok if I had FOLLOWED that tutorial, instead of being all “I don’t need to use elastic, my material is stretchy and I can just use THAT for the waistband!” You see where this is going, don’t you? Good thing I made it high waisted skirt…the waistband stretched out and slipped down to sit on my hips a few hours into the party that I wore it to, but at least it didn’t slip all the way off! I tried to salvage it as a skirt one more time a few months afterwards (using elastic!). I then realised, after wearing it out of the house, that I had sliced open a piece of the back. In frustration I cut open all the seams, folded it up the fabric and put it away. But, like I said, I LOVE this print! It simultaneously reminds me of doing technical drawings at high school, little boy’s pyjamas, and sci-fi movies. Definately worth rescuing, and the Briar was the perfect pattern for it. Luckily after all my slicing and dicing I still had enough fabric left! I considered adding the lovely curved pocket, but decided in the end that I wanted the fabric to be the star.

And now I am going to go eat some chocolate in celebration of my new top. See you later!