Cami Adaptation Gallery

As promised, you can see below the gallery of Cami shirts and shirt dresses:

Clearly I'm a bit of a fan of this pattern, it's definitely not the last one I'll be making. I love the SewOverIt new shirt dress pattern, perhaps I'll be able to get as much variety out of that too!

A & A Cami 3: Shirt Pattern

Good day to you all good fellows. I am back once again from another trip away! What was that people say about resting during pregnancy? Ha ha. No, to be fair these trips have been very restful if not a little sore on the hips. I've worked from home again today so I can recover. 

So I'm back with the last of the adjustment and alteration posts for the Cami pattern. Last week you saw my Cami-Washi hybrid, and I will do a post to show you all of the different iterations of this pattern so far at some point. I hope it goes to show what can be done with one pattern and a few changes. 

Chronologically, after my last Cami shirt I made the Christmas dress that you can take a nosey at here. The one change that I made to the shirt at this stage was to widen the lower half of the armhole. You may remember that in the last installment of A&A I had extended the armhole, so this now fitted well. However, the width across the arm was still tight, especially in the non-stretch of the navy cotton I had used. Therefore I made the following adjustment to the sleeve pattern, 

I began by drawing a straight line down the centre of the sleeve pattern:

I then cut through the sleeve pattern piece, leaving a very small amount of the pattern at the top of the sleeve. This was then used as a pivot point, splitting the sleeve by the amount that I wanted. I ensured that the gap was equal on both sides by measuring the amount from the tip to the base of the split. 

I then re-drew the armsleeve, including in these changes, and removing the angle which was caused at the bottom of the sleeve by the pivoting.

This was a speedy fix and probably caused a bit too much at the bottom of the sleeve, especially on the 3/4 sleeve. This may need a little work if I make another longer sleeved version, but it is perfect for the shorter sleeve. 

I'm wearing the shirt here with the maternity version of New Look 6128, unfortunately it no longer fits. I think I could make another one with a bit of extra pleating, but I've only got four weeks of work left now so I'm not sure if it would be worth it. I'm very happy with the fit of the shirt, though obviously I can no longer close it ha ha. It works tucked in though, and I have some floaty skirts I can wear with it. I made this in a plain fabric for once which I'm proud of. I didn't even add a quick spot of embroidery to it. Very unlike me!

Cat bombed! You can see that the bottom of the shirt has been shaped more like a shirt than the previous version. I laid a shirt that I had in the drawer over the adapted pattern piece, and traced a new version with a little more room in the hip, and the curve at the bottom of the shirt. 

The back of the shirt fits well, though as you can see there are quite a lot of wrinkles in the bottom half of the shirt. I assume this is a sway back issue which needs to be adjusted some more, though maybe it's caused by bump so maybe best to wait before making any changes. 

Here's a little picture of bump, though the usual disclaimer applies, I'm bigger now blah blah ha ha. 

Washi Cami Sixties Inspired Day Dress

Good day to you guys and gals! Hope you're all doing well, the past couple of weeks have been a bit crazy with last minute flights, trips to Birmingham and London, and this weekend we're off to Scotland. Who says pregnant ladies need to relax?!

To be fair I have done myself a bit of damage trying to do too much so am working from home today. I can't tell you how amazing the flexibility of my new job has been, I'm not sure I would have survived this long without it. Though sitting on the comfy seat does seem to make baby want to press his head against my rib.

Did you take part in Me Made May? It's all over now... and has been for a while ha ha! I had a fantastic time this year, and actually made it all the way to the end, which is the best I've ever done out of three years of taking part. You can see my pictures on my instagram account. What normally happens is I'm really enthusiastic at the start and then slowly lose enthusiasm for it all and go silent. But this year I managed to stick to the documentation as well as (generally) wearing a me made item a day. That was my only goal, to stick with it so I'm really happy I managed it. Next year I'll try and take a pic a day, but this year I'm just proud to have finished it. No sweeping statements about what I have learned about my wardrobe for as you can imagine the only thing I learned is that my belly is getting bigger and there's not much I can do about that!

So this dress is another Washi make over ha ha. Once I find something that works, it's very difficult to sway from the path, I jsut make hundreds of the same type of thing until I don't want to make it ever again! In this case it's a good thing though especially as it's important these clothes take me through to the end of my pregnancy. This is a hybrid of the skirt from the Washi by Made by Rae and the bodice of the Cami by Pauline Alice.

I used my fully adjusted Cami bodice that you can read about here. I've still got another post to do for that series, but I've covered all the fitting adjustments now, now I just want to show you all the different versions I've made!

Instead of having the bodice its full length, I scooped the bottom of the bodice pattern to the length of the Washi bodice, following the shaped curve. This means that the bodice is now the right height to accommodate bump.

I then used the back piece of the washi pattern, laying over the cami pattern to create the correct neckline and armholes. To ensure a comfy fit I left off the shirring elastic and replaced with fabric ties. It makes for a bit of a creasy ripply back, but it's so comfy and not everything has to fit to within an inch of its life ey? Ha ha. Oops, just spotted a loose thread on the bottom of this skirt. I don't think I've ever made anything where all threads are well trimmed.

Argh! Giant face! I wanted to include this to show off my collar. Every time I make this, the collar gets a little bit better, I'm still not the neatest sewer, but i'm getting better! Also, just look at that pattern match across the seam! So proud.

I think I managed ti avoid the points on this design falling exactly over my nipples, they are pretty close, but they did have to go somewhere, so I'm not worrying about it too much.

I don't often make clothes that fit well into the bracket of a certain decade, but this is definitely sixties, the design of the fabric, the fit of the skirt and the style all come together to make one heck of a sixties day dress. I feel pulled together and yet comfy, so important with Spud getting bigger. I think I'd like a fleet of these for post-baby clothes so I don't feel slobby when I'm comfy. Not that I can slip into the jeans and top routine as I don't own any jeans ha ha.

Again, these photos are from quite a while ago, so you'll have to take my word on the size of the bump, but it's getting pretty big!

What am I up to?
Have any of you got your tickets for the handmade fair yet? I'm going to be doing a workshop! So excited, some of you may remember that I (and my mum) made masses of flowers for the decorations at my wedding. Learn how at my workshop! http://www.thehandmadefair.com/skill-workshop/yarn-textiles/

Hope I see you there, Debs x

A&A Cami 2: Widen Armholes

Good evening kind folk!

First off, thank you so very much for all your kind words of congratulation in comments and on Twitter. We are overwhelmed by your generosity! Me and Mr T have been doing our usual dealing with the little stuff, and the big stuff is taking care of itself. Thank you for your luck with the scan, everything looked grand, working organs and everything, I'm not sure how interested you are in our baby's organs... but now you know :-)

The weather has been amazing! We went to Whitby for the weekend, and I brought my thickest Mum knit jumper along as obviously I knew I would freeze. However, I got a sun burn! I know, nothing to brag about, but the first time you are caught out by the sun in the year is always worth a little celebration in my book. Here's me delighted just to be on holiday, however cold. I'm wearing my purple rain mac that I made last year, it's finally warm enough to wear it yay!! It really needs a zip though as half the buttons have popped off due to the inflexibility of the fabric. I'm trying to find a suitable double ended zip, but it's hard work getting one the right colour and size. Any tips?

Just imagine how big my smile was when it was sunny! I'm saving those pics for an outfit post, as I've finally got pictures of the map top I wore in episode one of the Sewing Bee. I've had quite a few requests regarding how this was made, so can't wait to show you the process.

So where were we? I've been taking you through some of the adjustments that I made to the Cami to make myself a standard shirt dress and shirt pattern. We have made adjustments to the shoulder seam, so it should now sit directly on the edge of my shoulder. You can read about this wide shoulder adjustment in my last Adaptation and Alteration post. I was hopeful that this would give me a little extra room in the bodice that would get rid of some of the pulling. However, I knew that the armholes were still tight, so I made an adjustment to widen the armhole. 

You can read a little bit more on this technique here:

1. If you previously cut a smaller size for the armholes, and you can still see the pattern marking for the larger sizes, then just cut along this line. If not, then mark the amount that you want to drop the armhole (I did this in 1cm increments) on the side seam. Using a french ruler copy the curve of the original seam line lower down, matching your mark up with the original curve as you can see in the diagram.

2.  Then you want to extend the side seams on the arm piece to match what you have just taken away from the armhole. I found the easiest thing to do was to re-trace the sleeve piece, then add the amount you need (should be the same as you have taken from the armhole in step 1) horizontally from the end point of the curve on either side of the sleeve. Taper this down to nothing at the end of the sleeve piece. 

So! As the original dress fitted so well, and I had now added so much room to the pattern at this point, I paused. I didn't want to go completely the wrong way and add in too much ease which would then result in a massive unwearable garment. So this is when I decided to make wearable muslin No. 2. 

I don't like the term wearable muslin... it makes it sound like it's a practise run, which I guess it is but doesn't do justice to the amount of work that goes into something like this. I wanted to do something a little different this time, as I didn't want to jump straight into another shirt dress. Therefore this time I opted for a shirt

In order to make a shirt pattern from the bodice, you extend the lines of the bodice out into the length for a shirt. I usually copy a shirt I already have:

1.  I first laid down my pattern piece on the table, I then covered this with see through medical paper which I use for tracing patterns. you can use any paper which is durable enough to withstand being pinned etc but is still see through enough to see the pattern pieces beneath. 

I then laid a shirt that I already owned over the pattern piece that I had made all of the adjustments to so far, matching up the end of the armhole and shoulder seam. I then traced the new hem line and hip angle up to the shirt side seam. I took away the shirt, and traced the rest of the shirt pattern that I had previously made adjustments to. 

You will want to ignore the bottom dart, but add in the bust dart to provide some shaping to your shirt.

2.  Using a ruler, follow the placket lines down from the pattern piece to the new hemline. Also you want to smooth out the harsh edge where the bodice and the hip line meet. You can do this by eye, or with a french curve. 

Hopefully you will now have a fully altered pattern piece to make a shirt with! Phew! With this pattern I made the Fantastically Generous Bloggers Shirt that you can see here! 

There is a lot more room for manouvre in this, but it still has its issues. The least of these issues being that it has now gone in the cupboard as I can't fit Bump into it anymore. But let's not dwell, there's plenty of time to deal with any further changes to be made in the next installment! I hope you're finding these posts useful, I always enjoy reading more in depth about the fitting process that someone goes through, as it reminds me that we don't all fit straight out of the envelope, and that there are fixes out there for these issues. 

I've got a weekend to myself this week, and I can't wait to sink my teeth into a more in depth sew. However, I really should make some more stretchy work skirts. Lets see whether head or heart win ey? You can follow me on instagram to get more up to date posts on what I'm doing right now @dfabricater.

Easter week - Christmas Dress

Good day my dear friends! How are we all on this miserable freezing Easter Thursday? It's not just me right? It's chillyyyy! I was so excited to get out my Spring mac, as I mentioned in that blog post, it was a very seasonally inappropriate make once it was finished so I was counting the days 'til Spring. However, it's still a bit chilly for it really, so I've had to layer up rather dramatically but I don't care. It's Spring dammit and I'll freeze if I want to! Those females are strong as hell!

So anyway, to match this chilly chilly weather I'm showing you my Christmas dress... yeah it's a little bit late I know, ha ha. What can I say? time got away from me. I made it for the Autumn of 1,000 shirt dresses, and I definitely made it within the time frame, so I'm counting it as a win... don't judge me?

You may remember all of the alterations from my last post about the cami dress. Here you can see how all of those changes translated into the next dress that I made.

The skirt is one very large rectangle with lots and lots and lots of pleating. I love a pleat, I really enjoyed the pleating process on The Great British Sewing Bee kilt I made. It's a very relaxing process, (however stressful the Bee may have been) to sit and pin, especially with such a lovely pattern as a tartan which gives you a good bold stripe to match to. 

It made for a very swishy skirt as you can see me demonstrate here. I'm giving the camera total side eye here, you may be able to spot my fancy new remote control gizmo. This is why I'm giving the camera the eye, as I've not quite gotten to the stage where I know that photos are actually being taken ha ha. I made myself so dizzy taking these!

Here you can see a close-up of the pleats, and the pattern matching across the main seam in the middle (can you tell I'm proud?).

You may see that there is a little bit of a belly bump in the following pic....    Any guesses?

I'll give you a hint... I haven't been eating too much ice cream. Well, I probably have but that's not the reason!

Me and Mr T are having a baby!! His/ her name is Spud and we are now twenty weeks in. The big scan is tomorrow but we want to keep the sex a surprise, it's all very exciting, and has taken a while to sink in. This is really happening people! It is not a drill!

These cami dresses are holding up well to the bulging waistline, but not for long probably. Hence all of the washis in my life recently! I did find it very satisfying to go through my wardrobe and put away all of the things that wouldn't fit me. It was a great excuse to put away all of those things that you keep 'for occasions' but never wear. It really made some room, though it did show I've probably got way too many clothes. I'm sure I'll quickly get to the stage where I don't have enough though, so I'm enjoying it while I can.

Hubbie and I are off on holiday for Easter, very excited!

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.