Red Gertie Hack

Happy Friday everyone! We've been having a heatwave here, I bet you're bored to death of hearing about it by now. Last night the humidity broke and it poured it down, so today it's a beautiful day with a light breeze, perfect. I've been getting a lot of sympathy due to the heat, which is lovely. However, the office isn't actually that hot it's just walking about that is warm, I am running low on work clothes now which I'm going to have to rectify sometime soon... in all that free time I have (?!)

I finally got a free evening to try and go swimming last night so off I trotted to the aquatic centre to give it a go. Mostly I went to feel the weightlessness of the baby in the water, as it is amazing! So I mostly just floated (whilst trying not to get in the way of the super serious guy who decided to swim fast in the slow lane that me and a lady were happily occupying). I was a bit surprised when I got out of the pool and felt the weight I'd been carrying around, no wonder I'm so slow getting about.

This top... no longer fits. Neither does the skirt! Ha ha! It's under a little bit of strain in this picture, and it only got worse I'm afraid. But I absolutely love it and can't wait to get it out of the wardrobe post-bump. 

The original pattern that I started from was the Gertie vintage blouse. I know there's actually a blouse really similar to the one that I made in the book, but I'm lazy, and as I'd already traced off the one below I just made changes to that. 

I scooped out the neckline, left the sleeves as they were and left out the large darts at the sides. I also left out the button closure at the back as I wanted this to be a very simple top. I was left with a roomy, comfy plain top. 

Construction on this was crazy simple, I followed the instructions for the BHL Anna, whereby you stitch the shoulder seams together first, hem the sleeves, and then hem under the arms. This means that you don't end up with tiny arm holes to hem all the way around on a delicate fabric, hooray!

PGP Update: I overdid it with the holidays (mixed with a bunch of unusual/ uncomfortable beds) which meant I was pretty sore last week. However, I saw the physio on Monday and have been much better since. I had my first full week in work this week, without having to work from home once!! As a note on what happens with PGP, just look at how crazy misaligned I was at this stage!! (This must be over a month ago now) Look at my shoulders! This is me thinking I'm standing straight, no wonder the physio said, ooh yes you are quite twisted ha ha!

Those of you with amazing memories may remember I talked about the embroidery on this blouse in my Sew magazine column a while ago. The plainness of this top made me want to add a little something, as you know I struggle with plain. Instead of trying to make flowers with any fancy stitches, I freehand drew the design I wanted onto my blouse and stitched this in tiny back stitch, sometimes simple is best. 

If you'd like to learn the art of embroidery, then come along to my next class at the ministry of craft, new dates to be published very soon. Ministry of Craft

I reinforced the section to be embroidered with silk organza, which worked perfectly, however I should have zig-zagged the edge of this as it has frayed as you can see here.

The neckline has also been faced with bias binding for a clean finish on the inside. I love bias binding, I know everyone says that but this a true and deep love that dares speak its name. It just makes things like this hack, (where I have drafted the neckline) so much easier as you don't then need to draft a co-ordinating neck facing.

I hope the weather holds for you this weekend, I'm going back to Blackburn for a family do and also going to a Brian Cox stars talk type thing on Sunday, looking forward to it! Though... not sure what happened to 'I'm definitely done with going anywhere' ha ha. Apparently I don't believe in taking it easy. 

Side note: my ankles are massive, that is all.

Comfy Coco

I think I have to admit that in the case of this dress, I probably made a bad choice.

I loved what everyone was saying about the Coco, that it was crazy comfortable and felt pulled together, so I'll admit to being convinced into it by all the gorgeous versions that were appearing.

However, I never wear jersey because it always feels too clingy, so I was undecided about making it. I do have a jumper though which is a similar shape that I love, so I thought that maybe with a bit of drafting I might love it. Plus I hadn't worked with stretch before so thought that it would go well with my new challenge myself plan! I had some denim look stretch that I used as a muslin, and recreated the jumper. To do this I first traced the coco in the packet measurements, then laid the jumper over the top, tracing the areas where it differed from the pattern. The main difference was the accentuated A line of the bottom of the top.

I really liked this top, and decided for my proper make I would try and adapt it to a dress. Having never owned a jersey dress, and knowing I liked the top, what could go wrong right? Something that I learned though once this was made. I don't just not wear jersey because it clings, I also don't feel 'done up' enough. I've gotten so used to wearing cotton/ woven fabrics that this feels way too casual.

Cat - bombed

So I thought id show you how I do wear this... with my pyjamas (leggings now it's colder) usually a hairband cos I haven't bothered washing my hair. This is officially now my day pyjamas. It serves its purpose well, and I did learn a lot about jersey sewing in the making. So a definite 50-50 make. 

I have since made a jumper from the top pattern, and love it! Just, the dress is not for me... until I need another pyjama dress anyway. Ya live and ya learn

Spotty Anna

The last time I made an Anna dress, I had to make a lot of adjustments to the fit to get it right. This time round I learnt my lesson, I used the finished garment measurements instead. To do this I used my Upper bust, bust and waist measurements.

There is usually only about 1-1/2 inch difference between my upper bust and bust, so I've never done a full bust adjustment, choosing to make any adjustments once the dress is made. Maybe if I find a dress that I find has a lot of issues I might do this in future.

However, I have found that it is useful for me to grade from the smaller size at my upper bust for the shoulders/ neckline to the full bust measurement. I did this on the Anna as below:

This means that I get a closer fit above the full bust line. This dress therefore now fits so much better than my previous version (before all the adjustments). It's so comfortable to wear, and I added my favourite skirt on as well New Look 6723 , this is basically just a trapeze shape which I add pleats to once the bodice is made. In order to do this I stitch the skirt sides together, and pin to the bodice (with pleats sewn in) at the side seams.

I then find the centre of the bodice and mark, and the centre of the skirt and mark. Pinning these two centre points together and then up to the point of the pleat like so:

I then create a pleat from this point by folding over the excess fabric to the inside. I then do exactly the same at the back, but instead of folding the fabric under itself, I create a box pleat by bringing the excess fabric from either side of the pleat into the middle.

Using this method, I can ensure that the pleats on the skirt and bodice match up perfectly. Using this skirt instead of the drafted Anna skirt means I can have a big lunch and not worry about the consequences ha ha. Once I got the bodice right on this dress, I managed to make it up in 2 1/2 hours! I've now made two for friends and two for myself, I'm becoming a bit of an Anna obsessive.

I got the inspiration for this dress from a Cath Kidston one I saw that was navy polka dot with ric rac on the bottom, I really liked the style, though it's probably more twee than I would normally go for. I bought the fabric from ebay though and it has already started to fade quite a bit, so I may need to replace it soon. I've found it so easy to wear to work, I think another couple in some 'sensible' fabrics may be on the cards.

It looks like the back is quite gappy in these pictures, and there is a little bit of ease here, but the dress is so comfortable I wouldn't want to make this any smaller. My other version is in a slightly thicker material, so may have needed to be brought in. But I'll tell ya all about that when I post it!

Do you like the shoes? Definitely not sensible, I decided this year was the year of the shoe. They are the perfect way to feel dressed up, and Ive only fallen in them a couple of times! (I always fall over... even in flat shoes, no real reason just that the ground likes me) I think I want to get some more fancy shoes. I figure I dont buy ready to wear very often these days, so I can splurge occasionally.

Refashion Skirt

Certain ones of these posts are from quite a while back, I have such a backlog of projects that I can't quite remember the ins and outs of the pieces I'm talking about :-S But the sun is shining these days so I'm getting pictures taken, which was my main issue before.

It's not like the darkness in the photos really puts me off, I'm definitely not the worlds best photographer so a little bit of light is probably not going to make a huge difference to what my skills can manage. It's just that when it's light I feel like I can achieve things, I can be bothered to get changed, and sweep the garden, and maybe even change shoes. I never can be bothered to put on make-up, but I never really wear make-up so that would be kind of weird. Though I did for my last make and enjoyed it, I guess it depends on the day.

So anyway, here is my next project! This was a refashion project, I bought the skirt in a shop in Stockbridge. It was full length and I typically didn't take a picture of it before I started. But here's a pic of the finished project!

Just to confuse you, I took these before I changed my hair. The waistband was a little small, but it used elastic so I knew I could make it bigger. I unpicked the waistband, evened it out into a rectangle rather than a triangle... not my sort of thing. I added a full lining of white muslin to give the skirt body as it is a very soft drapey fabric (not sure what it is but it's lovely).

I kept the original pleats in the skirt, and shortened the length considerably. It is now a perfect sunny day skirt for work with a shirt (like in this pic) or at the weekend with sandals. It turned out once I made all this that the waistband was a bit too big, son of a gun!! So I just stitched the back together pinching out 2cm either side at the back waistband. At some point ill replace the elastic and then it will probably fit fine. 

That's it! Signing out

Red Checker Skirt

I'm back to some proper sewing posts! Hoorah! Though if I'm honest I made this skirt last Summer so this post is a bit long in the making. I loved the process of making this skirt, and was so excited while in the process as I thought it would be gorgeous. And then I tried it on.. and though it fit very well, and I was really proud of the finish, it just didn't really suit me (not to my mind anyway). 

I think choosing to make an a-line skirt with this material was where I went wrong. 

When I was making it, the material looked all flowing and lovely, but obviously as I made a slim a-line skirt, the flowing loveliness disappeared.          

In order to make the skirt I adapted New Look 6128, using a combination of the original width of the straight skirt, and overlaying the a line version over the top to add extra fullness.

I then added a placket down the centre based on the back placket on Tilly's Mathilde blouse.

Some of you may recognise that I made Mr T his tie from this skirt material. On the bodice you can see how I wanted it to look, and below is how it looks on me. Not quite right, it catches on my hip and then kicks out, not a great look.

I know how to fix it though. I think I'm going to add a panel in the sides of the skirt in the shape of a trapeze between the side seams, add another couple of pleats, hopefully that will give it back that flowing loveliness like on Betsy!

Don't forget to join my pattern pyramid competition. Time is running out! 

Finishing the wedding dress

So I'm going to jump right in to the technical biz here.

 

The lace overlay was constructed using a lace top that I already had, I was looking for a pattern without separate sleeves but struggled to find anything! Is this something that just doesn't exist? Have you got one? Not that I really want to know as it's a bit late now ha ha.

So anyway, I decided that something I knew would fit was the next best thing. I began by ripping through all the seams of the lace top, (so much black thread!)

With regards the gathering at the sleeve head, I first marked where the gathering began and ended with white tacking thread.

I then used these markings to construct the templates above, tracing around the pattern pieces of the black lace top, and transferring my thread markings on to the pattern piece. In order to negate any stretching and distortion of the pattern piece which may have been caused over time to the top, I then halved my pattern piece, and laid one side on top of the other matching the sides.

I traced over both of these, smoothing out any differences on either side, and cut out a new pattern piece based on this tracing, and came up with the above!

I used this tracing techique to create the bodice pieces as well. I knew the finished bodice of the dress would be at my natural waist, so marked this on to the bodice piece as I went along. Also, on the back I added the Mathilde blouse button plackets, I knew the size of these would work with the buttons I had chosen, and as I had made the Mathilde before, I knew I could follow the super detailed instructions online. Once I had constructed all of this, I added two big gathered rectangles for the skirt and I was almost there!

This is the first pic of nearly done dress I sent to my Mum and Sis halfway through, as you can see it's not the most flattering pic of the dress. But I was so ridiculously excited to see a dress appear! A few changes I made as I went along were to broaden the neckline to something a little more open and flattering, I used french seams on the sleeves which I thought would be really confusing but was actually quite straight forward (I'll try and do a specific post on this the next time I do some).

I added the green/blue silk as a centre band at this stage as I realised I needed something to break up the white of the dress. I had never intended to have a solely white wedding dress, and this piece helped to break up all of the white that had somehow occurred :-)

I realised once I had done this though that it needed something a little special, some bling if you will (and you will). So I found this one online: 

Copyright Nikki Rodgers 

Isn't this pic gorgeous? It was taken by my super talented sister Nikki. If you want to take a look at some more pics of me in the dress, and some great shots of me and Mr T with umbrellas and wellies take a look over on her blog.

So that was that! Dress made, I can't believe I made it in time, though there were a few things I hadn't done yet once I'd made the dress. It kind of went like this, I made the dress! Yay! It's done! Woop!

Oh wait.... I need a veil, and shoes, and what do I wear on my nails? Am I wearing tights? I do really need a haircut.. arg! Ha ha, obviously the dress had taken priority for a while there.

Next time, accessories!

Underneath the dress

Ha ha think I said proud in that last post about a hundred times. You get the idea right?

So where were we? Right! I had adjusted my muslin, I tried it on and all was well. I forgot to mention that I didn't require boning for the dress due to a corset that I had specially made here.

A picture of me in it would definitely be a bit risque for the blog but here are some phone pics of it all finished. It is an over-bust corset with gores. More of a vintage shape which went well with the shape of the dress. We did have to adjust it at the night do to give me room to eat and breathe, but once adjusted I was good to go!

The lady was amazing, and when I told her I was making my wedding dress she gave me some great advice (specifically about the lace, wisdom I will pass on when I get to that point). I got to choose every element of the corset myself, colour, lace inserts, material. It was a great experience and one I would thoroughly recommend, especially as it saved me so much work on the dress.

Next up, the construction of the under-dress and the lace layer. One month since the wedding yesterday, I can't believe how the time has flown. I bought this corset in January! Ridiculous