Alteration & Adaptation Cami 1: Wide shoulder adjustment

Aloha! Happy Friday everyone!

Well, I'm back to clothing and sewing and stuff. The past week has consisted of plans for the future, mixed with catching up on any of the things I may have lost track of during the madness of the last six weeks. Paul and I have been on the radio which was brilliant, though the 6am Saturday start two weeks in a row wasn't massively ideal. There are also some exciting plans in the pipeline, which I've been trying to keep track of and make sure I don't drop anything, there are so many things I want to do, I don't want to forget something!

No more episodes to review unfortunately, but I've been doing lots of sewing in the meantime, and am planning to do some more in depth posts on my process for sewing. I often find a pattern that has an element that I'm interested in, make adjustments to the fit so that it is spot on and then use that base pattern to make lots of different variations.

I want to show you how to do this from beginning to end. There will be gaps for light outfit posts in between as I don't know about you but sometimes I skip the heavy stuff thinking I'll go back to it when I need it so please feel free to do the same if you don't need this right now. But I thought I'd put my two pennies worth in to the pot on adjustment and adapting.

The first of which I'm doing today. Past readers of the blog may remember my first iteration of the Pauline Alice Cami dress, the Zig Zag Cami. The dress, although fantastically bright and much worn, does have some issues.

The armholes are a little tight, with the shoulder seams too narrow, not hitting the edge of my shoulder. The arms were also a little tight, you can see the wrinkles caused by this tightness across the arms in the picture above. Also, look how awesome the garden was in the Summer! I can't wait to get back into the garden properly again.

So it was time to do some adjustments! I decided to make a shirt, to test these changes, and to fill a hole in the wardrobe. I began by making a wide shoulder adjustment on to the bodice pieces, to ensure that the shoulder seam of the bodice would hit exactly on the edge of my shoulder. You can read fully about the process here. You can see a visual representation of the process below:

1.  To begin, start by drawing the seam allowances on to the bodice pieces

2.  Then draw on one line from the centre of the shoulder line down to the arm hole, stopping at the seam allowance. Follow this by marking a line from the corner of the armhole down to your new line

3.  Cut along both lines, making sure that you don't cut entirely through, so that the pieces can pivot as you can see above. In order to make the longer line pivot, snip horizontally in the seam allowance to the end point, again ensuring that you don't cut all the way through.

4.  Pivot these pieces to reflect the amount that you would like to widen the shoulder by, making sure that the lines match up along the top, and then re-trace.

I'll pause here, as I don't want to swamp you with too much information for a Friday, I mean it's quite obviously Pub o'clock.... what do you mean you're not going to the pub? Bath and knitting is it? Well, each to their own!

This weekend I will be stitching some more Spring clothes, I'm on a complete Washi kick, so that will be the pattern that I tackle next with regards adaptation. Also, if there are any techniques you would like to learn more about please feel free to leave a comment and I'll try to cover it in one of these posts.

Happy Friday!

Bit of a disclaimer: I will be writing about the adjustments I have made to garments as these are the ones I am currently most familiar with. Therefore, unfortunately I have not been able to cover the corresponding narrow shoulder adjustment for those people where the shoulder seam falls off the edge of the shoulder. However, there are so many resources out there, and I will always try and point you in the right direction where possible. 

Ep 6: The Final... The End... The Big Cahuna etc etc

Wow! What a final, it was so nice to be a little bit out of the action this week, to sit back and enjoy the show rather than thinking about what happened to me, and what bits and pieces make up the show.

First off, can I just say, this picture warms the cockles of my heart, we helped each other out so much through the show, but to be in the final in a super stressful situation and yet to give up the time to help out your fellow finalists makes me feel all warm and fuzzy inside. Looking at that top, what a beast! No idea how I would have dealt with this, it's not something I've really done before, the whole minimalistic instruction thing. I'm more of a... watch one thousand youtube videos kind of gal.

Do ya reckon Matt looks a little tired in this picture? My leaving the Bee may have instigated rather a late night... I feel for ya Matt! 

Love the Bromance! Also I love that they are all wearing the same colour top on a fluke... I reckon they were sad I was gone so subconsciously went for a sea of turquoise.. what?! that's totally a thing

I was amazed at the dresses the guys made, avant garde dress is a difficult brief and they all produced something stunning. I'd love to have an excuse to make something so dramatic, but it's difficult to make something like that for work you know? I did however make myself a pinterest board if you're interested in the direction I was going, which appears to be ALL the directions!

This was my speedy entrance to the Final, you can't tell, but in order to get this shot I had to stand on a box, girl be short! ha ha

Matt won!! I mean his dress was fricking awesome, right? And he's such a wonderful person, it would have been great if anyone won but MATT WON! Wooooooo!

Episode Five: *Plays tiny violin*

Aloha readers! I know, this is a bit late... seeing as we now know who won, but it's been a bit of a crazy week! We all went to the knit and stitch show at the weekend and it was massively surreal. People hugged me! Madness!

However unfortunate the outcome, *single tear*, I really enjoyed week 5. I was dreading the episode a little to be honest, you just don't know how the edit's going to come out at the end of the day, and that's a very scary prospect especially when you've had a disaster to contend with. This was my most emotional episode so far, with wild laughter through the alteration, to unfortunate sad times after *zipgate*, which I'm hoping will catch on as a phrase. 

I could not believe I was in the semi final,, the idea would just not sink in to my brain. People kept asking, what's it like to be in the semi final? And I'd laugh and I'd laugh... hence this:

But it all began with the lace skirt, which I actually wasn't as daunted by as I'd made a hundred New Look 6128 as long-time readers of the blog will know. You can see my first one here. Ha ha look at all that hair! That was a while ago can you tell?

I got third in the lace skirt, third!! I was so flipping happy with that, and Matt got his first first! Look at his happy face, I imagine him saying 'Get in' at this stage.

Claudia was very pleased with my choice of a lace top for lace day, 'cause I is psychic n that init. This is me definitely not saying 'Claudia likes me, Claudia LIKES me'

The wetsuit challenge was the most hilarious thing I have ever done in my life, it was a brilliant afternoon. I had so much fun, I mean seriously how could you not have the time of your life when you turn round and see this going on behind you?! I saw some fabric immediately, that I then hustled off with like I was a burglar.

Apparently laughing through the entire challenge was my secret weapon, plus a bit of an idea of making a bodycon dress. I totally won! This is my winning face.

Thanks Mike for the awesome Vine! You are a genius of the video making world.

Aw, look at Claudia's face! Yeah... let's skim over this... Deborah 0 Zips 1

A few sappy words, The Sewing Bee was one of the favourite things I've ever done! I had a blast, and I know you're probably fed up of hearing this, but these guys are honestly some of the best people I've ever met. To sew in a room full of lovely people cannot be beat! So if anyone can think of a job where I would get paid to sit in a room full of my friends and sew... I'm in!

Also if you are thinking about giving sewing a go after the series, and are a little unsure, get stuck in! Make mistakes, use the seam ripper, throw your fabric in the corner. You will never look back, I promise the pride of of your first wobbly success will keep you sewing until you do something mad, like a wedding dress... or a sewing bee!

Episode Four: Kilts, cults and corsets... ok so there are no cults in this but GBSB is it's own cult right?

Howdyyy

Bit late with this weeks post, life blah, blah, boring stuff etc. Who loved structure week?! I sure did, that corset pattern is a work of art. If the one in the book is the same, I will make it again in a second just for the sheer joy of sewing it together. CL did an amazing job with the patterns in the show, all power to her! No bad feelings about the waistcoat pattern @ThriftyStitcher ;-)

I must admit I've been somewhat of a swot so far on the Bee, using silk organza for my chiffon blouse, and hair canvas for my kilt, one of my fave camera men used to whisper swot at me as he walked past ha ha! Patrick was not interested in my sucking up, but May appreciated, just as she apparently appreciated my corset (at this stage anyway) Ta da, ta da, ta daaa!

Neil won the corset challenge, which happens to be a bit of a theme in this episode, so I don't feel bad for having said 'Neil always wins, Matt came second yaaaay'. I love this picture, 'cause it looks like I'm attempting to push a KitKat into Matt's mouth, I promise this was not a poor attempt at sabotage....

Oooh look at these women! This looks very uncomfortable, this image reminds me of the Ugly Sisters for some reason. Which can't be a good thing, clearly being ugly is not what they were going for. I wore an under corset for my wedding, which I did not make at the time (though maybe I would now), and my Mum definitely had to let me out of it a bit so I could have my dinner. Even then all the food sat somewhere in the chest area. I can't even imagine what it must have felt like to wear these all the time.

Phwoar! Look at Ryan's alteration dress, It's so gorgeous! And those elastic sides, saaucy!

I flipping loved making that kilt, I'm not sure the colours came out that well on screen, but the purple of the fabric toned with the grey is so beautiful, who would have thought my kilt would be subtle! I originally bought this fabric to practise with, looking at a light green wool that had trees on it. I ordered a sample, but when it arrived, I wasn't convinced it would be thick enough, and I'd grown very fond of this lovely purple and grey fabric so I went for it!

Claudia doing the 'kilt purr', another technical term. 

This is Patrick calling my kilt 'fantastic'. Fantastic!! Flipping heck, I nearly died on the spot, that is some compliment from Patrick. I am still very proud of this kilt, it's one of the best things I've ever made, and I enjoyed it so much. I cut my own leather for the kilt buckles, and taught myself a massive amount in a very short period of time in order to make it *proud face*. 

This is one of my fave episodes so far, but also one of the saddest, losing people always left such a hole in our little gang. People leaving was terrible, and losing two made it very quiet, especially two such fantastic peeps. 

Amanda - this fantastic vintage lover can be found on her blog here

Ryan - I can't wait for him to start showing us what he's been up to at St. Martins, watch out on his twitter for these amazing creations @ryan_walklett 

What I didn't do in my last post was an homage to everyone's favourite giant-haired, green loving lady Neela. Read all about her awesome makes here. 

Only two days til the sem-final, I'm in the semi-final whaaat?