Megan Nielsen Tania Culottes in coral rayon

Another project that I planned last summer, but the fabric, a rayon from Anna ka Bazaar, was not the drapey rayon that I expected and eventually turned into my Lucie dress.  I knew that I specifically wanted to use drapey rayon and until I found it I had to be patient...

When I walked into a shop in Paris this April, this bolt of coral woven rayon was schmoozing with some sparkly knits in the corner.  I couldn't resist it and it was already saying Tania! Tania!  I wasn't even too concerned about how it is transparent. I got so excited about this project as the temperature rose.  It makes such a huge difference to make projects now that I plan now for now!  I am always playing catch up with the past, with projects planned last summer (luckily I am pretty sure I don't have any that I planned in New Zealand...) I don't have a lot of enthusiasm for those things.  Unlike culottes which seem like exactly what I need right now.  Especially coral ones.

Cutting was pretty easy.  I cut a S as most reviews said that it is true to size.   It was a bit scary to sew the pleats but construction was actually very simple - only I got done with the zip and put them on and had a moment of panic thinking I had skipped the culotte step! (it's near the end.)  My rayon was slippery and made me nervous, especially as my sewing machine has a tendency to chew up things anytime I backstitch or anytime the bobbin gets low. I stabilised the zip and I sewed the bottom together first, although then you have to be careful not to get a bubble at the zip's bottom. I actually took a bit of time with these...I wanted them to be amazing!  I did sew one piece of the waistband upside down.  I think it was the inside back.  But I am not sure.  I am dyslexic with facings and seems like it extends to waistbands...anything that involves a bunch of strips. I was surprised how long the culottes were initially but once I had the hem evened out they got shorter.  Definitely not too short though, I would say they are just right.  I am 5'4''. 

That's about it.  They are amazing!  I let them hang for two days then had a friend trim them.  And then I practiced long and hard with the micro rolly hem thing.  This is the first time I have used it.  Ahem, I mean the rolled hem foot.  It works out pretty good but it is still a long process...I sewed a line of stitching first which made a huge difference in being able to feed the fabric into the curl of the foot. The learning curve is evident, one side is better than the other but any other hem would have been a tragic nightmare so I am ecstatic.

My friend Pädde took the photos when I visited him last weekend in Luzern.  We are on top of the Museggmauer, the city rampart wall, in one of the towers.  It was very windy so I can attest that the culottes do blow up rather far...the Japanese tourists were having a laugh at our photo session in the wind.  I will spare you some of those windblown pictures! 

Emmeline Tee by Little Tailoress

I made versions 3 and 2 as muslins using scraps from my scrap bag.  I also tried a new technique for tracing and I have to report it was a bad idea.  I traced each page one at a time without taping them...I think this leads to serious distortion.  Size S, both in woven fabric.

Version 2 has raglan sleeves. I cut one out backwards and had to sort of match scraps to get it to work, because I had decided I wanted it to be a wearable muslin. Overall I feel like the sleeves are both too long, and funny at the shoulder points.  To sew this shirt together, you basically sew a single 90 degree angle, and that to me is just wrong at the underarm seam.  I'm not sure how to improve it, or whether it was because my pattern piece was distorted by tracing.  I suspect this version would work out in a knit somewhat better. It pulls across my back as well, although it doesn't limit my range of motion like the Scout does.

Version 3, the sleeveless one, is somewhat better.  I french seamed it, despite knowing ahead of time how that would cause trouble with finishing the arm holes. Then I tried out a bunch of things with bias and hem tape and they all look really bad.  Don't use bias tape on rayon!! It just doesn't have the same texture and ruins the neckline.  I can imagine doing a repeat version of this in silk though. With such a simple shell, it's tempting to think of how you can push your comfort limit with perfection, right?  I will probably repeat this (and although I do very dislike making bias tape, I would probably make bias tape for a silk version.)

Overall I think that this pattern is still a work in progress from a new company.  The PDF could have been more densely packed and I was grumpy with it, hence not wanting to tape.  I wouldn't print out the instructions anyway but I feel like they treated beginning sewists a bit like idiots.  I suspect the info could be seriously shortened and simplified.  However, having lots of binding treatment options is great for a newbie and is totally what I would have liked two years ago (well, probably would have helped now if I had read it.) It would be nice to have that info on just a few pages, or maybe a short sewing instruction, and a long sewing instruction, so you can choose which you need. (The Lady Skater had dual options like that and was great.)

Also this pattern is basically not available if you live in Europe.  I had my friend in the US buy it for me...

Colette Sorbetto

I wanted to use this tiny piece of double gauze for a tshirt.  My Scout is a roaring success even though the fit isn't great, because it is just such a lovely fabric for summer. In order to squeeze a tshirt out of less than a yard remnant, I got rid of the central pleat (annoying anyway) and made this up in a size 4.

I dithered quite a bit about how to finish it. I was thinking of just zig-zagging the edges and leaving them raw so it would be soft.  Finally I caved in when I saw this colour of bias tape, but in the end I don't love the bias edges. After so much handling the edges stretched a lot and with wide bias tape there was no way to avoid the gaping.  I may just cut it off and do the zig zag although I am concerned the shirt would fray too much with only zigzag as a finishing technique.

Tilly & the Buttons Miette skirt, a stripe-matching fail

The Miette skirt by Tilly and the Buttons became interesting when I saw Winnie's version.  I am not a bow kind of girl.  I do love an A-line skirt, and I was willing to give Tilly a second try although I still think the Delphine skirt is just weird around the waistline.

I also thought this would be a great chance to make some chevrons, even though I VERY RECENTLY, in the great scheme of things, suffered through and failed on plaid matching on my Waffle jacket.  The fabric is poplin from By Hand London's fabric printing startup, printed with a tiled and reversed sunset taken off the west cost of New Zealand's south island, at Hokitika.  The fabric is very stiff but the picture came out super well.  It seemed to go well with a stable and non-transparent skirt.

I spent ages cutting this out.  I used chalk.  It took days.  And it was a total fail.
Inspect my side seams and cry.  Why are they so amazing when the only place where it mattered is a complete fail?

After hiding this under the table for a week I sucked it up and finished it.  Maybe someone clueless at the op-shop will like it?  Are there people clueless enough to like unmatched chevrons?  It made me consider headless photos.

Here they are, head included.

Meditate on that.

You can't even SEE the seam!

So WHAT HAPPENED HERE???

The pattern again has a sharp angle at the top of the skirt and then an absurd, non-curved waistband.  I still find it irritating but it is not as high as the waistband from the Delphine.  I cut a size 3 and didn't cut the waist ties, just finished the waist bits at the end.  I was going to apply snaps but just went with some velcro instead.  I think this makes a cute skirt actually!  It is very easy to finish and the poplin pressed crisply, which helped.  I am considering using a scrap of raw silk to make another one.  However, this skirt is super long.  I cut off a 5 cm piece at the bottom, hemmed it badly at about 4 cm and I would probably optimally just shorten it when cutting by 20cm so that it doesn't hit below the knee. I am 5'4'', was this drafted for someone 15cm taller than me??

Waffle Caramel Coat

So why am I posting a wool coat in July, you ask?

The story started in January.  Actually in December, when I fell in love with this fabric.  Lizzy made a jacket from it.  I wanted to make a jacket from it.  And the Caramel Coat pattern called to me and insisted it would be the one.  But what followed was an endless repetition of: I am in the fabric store and my plaid swatch is NOT.  I was not happy with any lining material.  It was always the wrong colour.  I was supposed to buy some in LA, and failed.  (red? forest green? What was I thinking???!!) Then I got some blue in Berlin.  The wrong blue.  I now had six meters of jewel coloured charmeuse but still no lining.

I cut the fabric out in January, despite no lining, and it took all month. I cut a size 38 based on my measurements even though I sized down for the Dropje.  I'm afraid the moral of the plaid story is that I am not suited for the precision of cutting plaid.  I cut out one front piece, and then for about a month I couldn't figure out why I couldn't get the other front piece to plaid-match.  I mean, really.  I emailed for help (Juki was fast at replying!) Prepare for the final letdown...when you don't cut out the first piece straight, despite all the straight lines in the plaid, then the matching second piece also can't be straight.  Reeeaaallly?

Yeah man, I got it where it mattered.  This once. 

Instead of sewing everything I could without the lining, I let it languish.  Finally in Paris in April, I forced myself to finally settle for some matching Bemberg.  It is hard to return to a project that has been sitting in the corner for awhile- I think I skimped on some of the interfacing because I just wanted to get on with things.  Bringing the ideas and excitement out of the back of my mind was not so easy, they were dusty and vague, not to mention that it is a coat, and it has a coat amount of details, and I didn't mark my pattern pieces.  However, it is not a very difficult pattern to sew and the instructions are for the most part good at breaking it down into manageable pieces.

However, I found these instructions worse than for the Dropje jacket.  I ADORED the Dropje instructions.  I still like the layout in these.  However, for instance when creating a back pleat in the lining I was lost, because I haven't done this before and the one line drawing didn't make sense.  There were a few spots where the English translation was downright bad.  It was on minor things and didn't influence me much.  If you love this jacket, I still think the instructions are enough even if you haven't made something this complicated before.  I really have a hard time visualising jacket facings, and on this one I sewed it wrong twice before I got it right.  Even with EXACTLY matching the pictures.  (except, obviously, not quite.)  This felt like an intense effort.  But I think that's because I was determined to do it in three days, despite kind of forgetting it for months until now.  So, the fact that it's (almost) doable in three days does speak for something. I ended up hand sewing the lining down.  I am suspicious.  Was there a better way to do it?

Now have some photos.  Even too many.  Thank god this thing is finally done.  I vowed not to do ANYTHING for six months that required pattern matching and I have already broken my vow and the results are terrible.  So terrible.  

Yeah I matched the underside of the sleeve where no one cares.  Not, like, on the top, where you can see it.

Main beef: pocket location.  Bad.

Also my button holer on my sewing machine doesn't work.  All of a sudden all my projects need buttons and they are getting snaps instead.  I have tried, and I will try again, but for now there is no way to make a buttonhole, so I used these fake leather latches instead. I got them in Paris planning to use two of them and a few buttons, but seems like three of them work just as well.

Pattern complaint: I actually loved the kind of pseudo double welt pocket construction. So much easier than all the welt pockets I have ever done.  However, the pocket location is terrible.  Don't put it there.  Put it anywhere forward, but the pocket location marked on the pattern gives you an armpit pocket which is super inconvenient.  

Anyway very happily a friend of mine in the southern hemisphere just happens to need a jacket RIGHT NOW.  So the whole story has a happy ending.  She reports that she has already worn it and loves it! 

Here's proof in action:

 

A trio of panties

So I have been introduced to the addictive qualities of making underwear.  At first you think that this is just not gonna fit.  No way.  Especially on my first pair, which were the:

1. Grace Hipster panty, by Ohhh Lulu.

Interesting features: pieces of bias cut woven scraps, mixed with some knits at the sides.
The little crotch bit is only sewn down to the back.
Wonder of wonders, although it looked MASSIVE, it fits.
I cut a size M, managing not to cut a small out of vanity, for my 37'' hips.
You don't sew anything along the legholes, just fold over and finish, and that is good for minimising panty lines on the butt.  

2. Rose cross over bikini by Ohhh Lulu

This was my third pair.  I again used size M and again tried to ignore how massive they looked.  This requires a bit more attention because you have to sew the fold over elastic twice.  It's also good to baste the overlap very thoroughly.  I learned all this by not doing either of those things.  I just folded the elastic and kind of pulled tension on it while trying to shove the fabric into it and sew at the same time...I missed a spot on the front.

Good thing here: the crotch liner is fully enclosed.

Fit: can't tell you.  These were MASSIVE.  Like I thought the others would be.  Seriously huge.  I am not sure whether to sew a small or XS next, but because this requires big scraps on the bias, I am waiting til I have some scraps for the second pair.  (Or I might just make a silk pair.  I have a lot of silk scraps.) 

3. Watson bikini by Cloth Habit
This was my second pair.  I made a size small. I again thought they would be huge and I made them out of some white stretchy stuff that came in a bra kit from Spitzenparadies.  In fact I think all the materials came from that kit.  I basically dug around and pulled out whatever looked useful.  I don't usually wear underwear made of non-natural fibers, but to my shock, these fit like normal bikini underwear.  No way!!  (I might wear them.) Because this is a fully knit pattern, I will probably use some holey woolen shirts to make more pairs.  I like wool underwear : )  I'm also proud of my random decision to use purple thread.  These look special, what with all that crazy underwear elastic at the top!!

Summary: 2 out of three successes isn't bad at all!  Now it's time to put these to the test...and they are so fast to make that I am already planning more.