Thanks Trish!

The other week I received a very exciting parcel in the mail, all the way from the lovely Trish over in Australia! She kindly sent me a bunch of vintage maternity patterns and children’s patterns, and a darling little jersey for when the bump turns into a baby and grows a bit. Thank you so much Trish, I love them all!!

She also added lovely notes to some of the patterns, which I’ve added below the pattern images here, just because I loved them so much I wanted to share them, haha!

Want to see what she sent me? Here it all is! (I’ve just finished sewing up one of the patterns as well, so expect to see one of them appear here later this weekend. Anyone want to guess which pattern I started with?)

Simplicity 9176. “A great basic tunic minus frills and lace!”

Simplicity 6865

Simplicity 5368. “Cute dress on trend Peter Pan!”

Simplicity 7100. “Love the back of this one!”

Butterick 3950.

Butterick 476.

Burda 4333.

The “All Buttoned Up” Dress

The Theme
Last week on Sew Weekly, it was all about the buttons! (Does anyone else get a bit nervous when buttons are involved??)

The Facts

• Fabric: Around 3 metres of brown floral craft cotton, $4 per metre from Spotlight
• Pattern: Simplicity 3407
• Year: 1940
• Notions: 11 self-covered 14mm buttons (half a gift from a friend, the other half around 20c from an op shop) and a vintage hook and eye
• Time to complete: 11 hours (lots of handsewing plus a good hour covering those there pesky buttons!)
• Will I wear it? Definitely!
• Total price: $12.20

The Story
Late last year, a group of girls from the Sew Weekly’s sewing circle online community got together and held a pattern swap, where we each sent someone else a mystery pattern. I was lucky enough to receive a gorgeous package from the amazing Debi over in Scotland. (Thanks, Debi!) In it, amoungst other things, was Simplicity 3407, from Debi’s favourite fashion era (and one I’ve become increasingly more fond of over the past year), the 1940′s. Check it out:

I mean seriously, how adorable is this pattern? Pockets, sash waist, insets, shirt dress, gathers – everything about it is adorable, and I’ve been wanting to make it ever since I laid eyes on it.

As soon as I heard this week’s theme was buttons, I made a bee-line for this pattern, determined to make an amalgamation of versions 1 and 2. I used the button front and the darted sleeve head from version 2, and the pockets, short sleeve length, sash belt and cuffs from version 1.

This fabric was a find over the Christmas holidays, when my mother and I headed into Spotlight down in Dunedin during their sale. It was down to $5 a metre, then another 30% off that. Score! Clearly, it had to go home with me, so I bought the last of the bolt. (I also bought the last of about 4 other different fabric bolts. I suspect I made their sales staff happy, as they didn’t have to put things back on the shelves. Hah.) Yep, I had myself a little spending spree. And then two days later, I made a New Year’s Resolution not to buy any new fabric (second-hand is ok) in 2012. Perhaps I made that resolution as a kind of penance….

Anyway, it was a toss up between this brown vintage floral craft cotton, or a pink craft cotton with icons of cars and trains all over it for this dress. A quick wander into the kitchen to ask the boy and his friend which one they thought I should use, and the brown floral was a hands-down winner. (I like to get external input when making decisions, just for the added fun of it. )

Since it was a button challenge, I decided to push myself a bit and attempt something I’ve been slightly scared of trying for a while – self-covered buttons. I buy these things whenever I see them in op shops, and have been amassing a bit of a collection, but I’ve never been brave enough to try them. This was clearly the challenge for it! 11 of the dratted things, even. Some a gift from a friend, some from an op shop. Yes, it took ages, but you know what? It wasn’t that bad, and I was getting the hang of it by a few buttons in. In fact, I’m gonna do it again sometime soon. I’ve decided I quite like the look of fabric-covered buttons, after all that.

The Pattern
The pattern itself was nice and easy to make up. Aside from doing a frankenstein of the two variations, I didn’t really make any adjustments to it at all. I didn’t even bother with my usual small bust adjustment, figuring (correctly) that the gathers at the bottom of the bodice would be fine even with a small bust. The only thing I did differently was move the buttons in towards the centre a bit more – I used smaller ones than the pattern called for, and if I’d left them with their original placements there would have been an oddly wide gap between the centre front edge and the buttons.

But, if it was easy to make up, why on earth did it take 11 hours to make?!?

Well, firstly, those covered buttons. That took me an hour, by the time I cut out all the little circles of fabric, decided the template was slightly too small and recut them all larger, then did the gather-tie-cover thing. An hour, but a worthy hour, I reckon.

Then there was the hand sewing. I was a good little seamstress this time – I hand-stitched the inside collar to the dress, and did a hand-stitched blind hem as well. I also invisibly stitched the cuffs to the sleeve to keep them upright. I’m not the fastest hand sewer in the world, so this all took a wee while to do. Time versus feeling virtuous. This was one of the rare occasions where virtue won out – maybe I’ve been influenced by Debi a bit much?!?

The Verdict
I really like this dress. It feels a bit demure, but that’s almost part of the fun, in it’s way. I figure it’s a year-round type one as well – light enough for summer (or what’s passing for summer this year), but with the colours I can wear it with tights, a merino top and a cardigan or jacket for winter.

As for the pattern – I’m a fan! I’m planning on making it up again, possibly in some sort of lightweight wool in version 2 for winter. One of these days I’m going to try version 1 as well, just as soon as I get my hands on a zip that’s long enough……

The Photos
We were a bit late for the photos this time, so they’re taken at dusk out back of the house. That’s Steve’s car beside me – we named it Moon Unit, just like one of Frank Zappa’s kids. (Why on earth would you name your child Moon Unit?!? That I’ve never understood. Unless too much LSD was involved.)

Just for the fun of it, here’s a few photos of some of the details of the dress.

Pointed sleeve cuff

Insets at front bodice waistline, with gathers above them

Self-covered buttons! Turns out they blend in so well, you can barely see them

The Texan Gingham dress

The Facts

Fabric: 3 metres of green and white gingham ~$12
Pattern: McCall’s 3394, gift from Sew Weekly Sewing Circle member Crissy as part of the 2011 pattern swap
Year: 1955
Notions: 55cm invisible zip ~$5
Time to complete: 5 hours (including 1 hour of alterations)
First worn: 7 January 2012, to yum cha with friends
Wear again? Yes, though ironically not with the belt

Total price: ~$17

The Theme
The first of the Sew Weekly challenges for 2012 was Accessorise. “This week we draw inspiration from an accessory — be it a pair of shoes, jewelry, bag or hat. Anything goes.”

Hmmm, but which accessory to choose? I decided to go with a blue and white floral waist belt that I bought a few months ago and have never worn, mainly because it doesn’t really go with anything in my wardrobe. (Yes, that’s right – I have things that don’t go with anything else. Quite a few of them, in fact. What can I say? I’m a magpie for colour and print.)

Belt in hand, I hunted through my fabric stash and lighted on this green and white gingham. Blue and white floral, paired with green and white gingham? Seemed like a good idea at the time. Now I know better.

The pattern was a gift from Crissy from Texas (hence the ‘Texan Gingham’ dress) as part of the pattern swap some of us girls from the Sew Weekly community did late last year. So much fun! I’ve been looking for a chance to use this pattern, and with the combination of the accessory challenge on the Sew Weekly, and the Sew Grateful week that the fabulous Debi is running again, it became the first pattern used for 2012. Thanks, Crissy!

The Pattern
The pattern itself was pretty easy to sew up, despite the huge number of pleats in the skirt, combined with this gingham not holding creases very well at all. They managed to stay for long enough for me to sew the pleats down, then they all fell out again. Repeated pressings didn’t get them to stay, either. Guess this is destined to be a soft pleated dress. I can live with that.

I was a bit surprised by the sizing of this pattern though – I’m not sure if it’s meant to flare out a lot at the hips, or if it was just the cut, but there was quite a lot of extra room there. Which meant it didn’t sit so well under the belt, so had to be adjusted. I took it in by a good size-and-a-bit down the length of the entire bodice to make it sit right (even though the pattern was technically half a size too small for me in the first place and I got lazy and didn’t bother adjusting it). Which meant the pleats at the hips are a bit denser than those elsewhere, since there was no way I was going to unpick and re-pleat the entire skirt just to adjust the bodice. I also adjusted the bodice darts – they were far too wide near the bust point and also too high on me, so I lowered the points by about 1cm and tapered them off a lot more gradually. (I got rid of the side darts for a small bust adjustment when cutting the fabric.) I must admit to getting slightly carried away with the adjustments though – although it fits, it’s a little bit tight around my ribs, so I’m going to let the side seams out about 0.5cm on each side (2cm in total) around the top half of the bodice.

The Verdict
Will I wear it? Yes, I will. I’ve always avoided this type of pattern, with a drop waist, as I thought they’d look horrible on me. Being given one from Crissy and giving it a go, I’ve changed my mind about that though. Bring on the 1950′s drop waists! After all, they still fit snug around the waist and hips, before flaring out, so they’re fine to wear.

I won’t be pairing it with this belt though – while the combination seemed to work while draped over my sewing table, it’s just a bit too busy when made up as a dress. Guess I’ll need to come up with something else to make to go with this belt……

Ralph’s Southern Roadtrip

Back in December, I met a lovely Auckland-based colleague of mine for the first time. We got chatting about various non-work things (op shopping, crochet, BookCrossing, the joys of 1960′s orange and brown kitchenware). Just before Christmas, she sent me a cute surprise – a pink-and-purple 6-legged amigirumi octopus! Her first ami – sent to me as encouragement to learn to crochet. (And yes, that is one of my goals for 2012.) I named him Ralph. And decided to show him a bit of the countryside, on my family’s annual Boxing Day roadtrip from Dunedin to Gore.

Ralph visited the Old Sod Cottage near Milton. He was quite impressed at the lovely garden outside, and how efficient the one-room cottage’s layout was. Sadly, he didn’t have a picnic with him, so didn’t get to avail himself of the picnic table. Maybe next year.

He made a small detour when passing through Balclutha, to find a good vantage point to see the Balclutha River Bridge. Ralph tried to play the bridge game when driving over it later, holding his breath until he got to the other side. He’s a small octopus though, and he lungs weren’t quite big enough to make it the whole way across. A+ for effort however.

When driving through Clinton, known as the “three horse town”, Ralph stopped off to chat with the three Clinton horses. He was a bit surprised that they’d gained two friends who were pulling a cart, but politely made his introductions to the new arrivals as well.

On to the final leg of the journey – from Clinton to Gore. Affectionately known as the “presidential highway” ever since the Clinton-Gore presidential race over in the States.

And finally, Ralph arrived at his destination – Gore! He chuckled a bit over the brown trout statue, remembering when Gore and some place up in the North Island (he forgets where) had a row several years back as they both had trout statues. They decided to call a truce as one was a brown trout and the other a rainbow trout. Trout wars were narrowly avoided!

A happy and somewhat tired little octopus, Ralph went on to relax as his adopted family’s uncle’s house for a bbq Boxing Day lunch and drinks, before turning around and heading back to Dunedin again.

Stay tuned for more Ralph adventures – next time, he may have a new friend with him!

Lovely patterns from lovely sewists!

Remember how a while back, some of us girls over at the Sew Weekly Sewing Circle had us a pattern swap? (And the lovely Debi sent me this exciting stash of goodies all the way from Scotland.)

Well, one of the other sewing girls and I decided to have our own mini pattern swap as well, just for the fun of it. Check out what the awesome Crissy sent me, all the way from Texas! Exciting!!

Two patterns, two sewing books, and a cute card. Thank you so much, Crissy!

She sent me McCall’s 3394 from 1955:

McCall’s 5247 from 1959:

A copy of McCall’s Easy Sewing Book from 1960, full of great advice on selecting and handling fabrics, tailoring, decorative stitching, and lots of other awesome things:

And a copy of Learn to Sew from the 1940′s (so amazing – it’s impossible to find these sorts of books over here!), full of lots of fabulous advice like pressing, adjusting patterns, and so on:

(I love how you can sew along with the Learn to Sew book, using specific Simplicity patterns. I’m very tempted to make it a project, like Gertie’s one, and hunt down every pattern used in this book and make it up. Maybe that’ll be a goal for next year…..)

Thank you so much Crissy! I love it all!!!!

And that’s not all! A while back, I was lucky enough to win a giveaway that Chicky Chickita was hosting on her blog, for a reproduction vintage Simplicity pattern – Simplicity 3673. I’ve been wanting to try one of the repro Simplicity patterns for a while, but the fabric shops that I can get to easily don’t stock Simplicity. But now, thanks to Chicky Chickita, I can try one out! Yay! This one here, in fact:

Thanks so much, you two lovely fellow sewing girls from around the world. I really appreciate the gifts, and they’re all high on my list of things to make in 2012!

The “Ladies A Plate” dress

The Theme
This week’s Sew Weekly theme: The Colour Purple.

What can I say? I was pretty happy with this theme. I do like me some purple. All shades of it – deep dark purple through to pretty pale lilac and lavender.

The Facts

• Fabric: 2 metres of purple cotton drill with polka dots and cakes all over it, gift from my lovely mother (for which I’m Sew Grateful!), and some scraps of white cotton drill
• Pattern: Druleigh 932 for the bodice, a modified version of Butterick 9336 for the skirt
• Year: 1950′s for the bodice, 1960 for the skirt
• Notions: 55cm invisible zipper ~$6
• Time to complete: 3 hours
• Will I wear it? Yes, much to the delight of Steve (sarcasm)
• Total cost: ~$6

The Story
My mother presented me with this cute fabric a while back. It’s light purple, with white polka dots and pictures of cakes all over it! How cute is that?!? The purple challenge seemed like a very good excuse to finally turn it into the dress it’s been waiting to be.

Only problem was, I only had 2 metres. I went hunting through my stash, and dug out this vintage Druleigh pattern. How cute is that cuff around the top? <

I figured I could use the cuff to break up the purple cake-ness of the fabric, and add a sash belt to provide a bit more contrast.

Sadly though, when I went to use the pattern, I found that 5 of the 15 pieces were missing. *sob!* Don’t you hate it when that happens? Both skirt pieces were missing, so I had to compromise. (Admittedly, I would have had to do this anyway, since I didn’t have enough fabric for the full gathered skirt.) I pulled out one of my tested patterns, and modified the skirt of it to fit onto the fabric by overlapping the edges of the gored sections (so I only had a front section and two back sections, instead of seven gored sections) and then narrowing the skirt’s flare by rotating one of the overlapping sections inwards towards the other one. (If that makes any sense at all?) I barely managed to get it out of the fabric, but manage it I did!

As to why I called it the ‘Ladies a Plate’ dress? Over here, it used to be a common thing that when you got an invite to a party, it said ‘Ladies a Plate’, meaning that you should take a plate of food with you. Since this dress has cakes all over it, I’ll be wearing it to any ladies afternoon teas and taking a plate of cupcakes to match it.

The Pattern
I did my usual small bust adjustment on the bodice, and this time got rid of the side dart (leaving just the dart that goes up from the waist). Nice ‘n easy. I also adjusted it to get rid of the buttons and replace them with an invisible zip instead.

Surprisingly, the bodice of this is very loose up the top. I’m pretty certain I adjusted everything correctly (in fact, I KNOW I did), yet I still had to take it in by 2.5cm on each side seam. Yes, that’s a total of 10cm around the upper bust. Two full sizes, in fact! Not quite sure what happened there…..

The pattern itself was reasonably easy to put together. Very very minimal on the instructions, and I couldn’t quite figure out how they were doing the cuff and facing, so I just invented my own way of doing it instead. Next time, I think I’ll persevere with their instructions, as I suspect it’ll end up a bit neater at the top. There’s a lot of ease given on the shoulder straps length – I’ve probably got around 10cm on each strap hidden inside the bodice, so no need to worry about running out of length.

The Verdict
I like it.

Steve doesn’t.

When I wandered into the lounge holding a partially-made dress, he looked at it like it was a dead rat and asked “What is that purple thing?” “It’s my new dress!” “It’s hideous.” Clearly, not love at first sight.

Or at second sight, for that matter. When presented with the finished dress, I had the following comments directed at it:
“You look like some sort of Japanese maid.”
“It’s like a full body apron.”
“You’re a cartoon character.”

Is it wrong that I have no problems wearing a dress that apparently makes me look like a Japanese cartoon character maid? I’m tempted to wear stripy tights with it, just to add to the cartoon nature of the thing…..

Cup of tea, anyone?

Giveaway!

This week, the lovely Debi has encouraged us all to be Sew Grateful, and use a pattern/notion/fabric/whatever that has been given to us.

Such a lovely idea. Makes me go ‘squee!’ with happiness and giggle with the fun of it all!

I had lots of plans for this week. Lots and lots and lots.

But it turns out I had no time. Friends, I have a confession to make – it’s been one week since I last touched my sewing machine. Yes, that’s right. A Whole Week!!!

(And yes, I’m missing it greatly. Sometimes life just gets in the way of that kind of thing.)

While I plan to remedy that sewing-machine-neglect issue within the next half an hour, I’m out of time to make something for the Sew Grateful week. So instead, I thought I’d share a bit of the sewing sharing love, and host a little giveaway in honour of Sew Grateful week!

Because I’m really grateful to the online sewing community – I’ve made some good friends and learnt so much from so many of you ever since I stumbled upon the community early this year. You girls (and guys) all rock. For real. I’ve also been lucky enough to win a couple of giveaways, which I have big plans for over the Christmas holiday period when I have some time off work. (Anyone wanna do Sew Grateful again the first week of January?)

But without further ado, here’s the giveaway…..

It consists of a pattern pouch pocket, about 3 metres of blue lace/hem binding (depending on what you want to use it for), and a cute little belt buckle. Here’s a close up of the buckle – it’s got polka dots on it, how cute is that?

And it wouldn’t be a sewing giveaway without a pattern thrown in there as well, so you’ve got your choice of two. Either Simplicity 8830 from 1970, in size 10 (bust size 32.5″):

Or Butterick 3037 from the early 1980′s, in size 12 (bust size 34″):

Want to be in to win? Just leave a comment here and tell me which of the two pattern’s you’d like if you won. I’m happy to send anywhere in the world – just make sure you leave me your email address or some way to contact you in case you win!

The giveaway will be open until the end of this week – I’ll draw the lucky winner on the evening of Friday 2 December.

*** Update: This giveaway is now closed. Congratulations to Charlotte, the lucky winner! Thanks to everyone who entered. ***