Basic Briar

Just a quick post as I know I've raved on and on about how much I like Megan Nielsen's Briar top pattern. I think this is my 6th version (including one for my mum and one that I haven't blogged) and I'm nowhere near sick of this pattern he yet ;-)

I made this longer length version a few weeks ago as a winter basic, out of a navy blue merino wool (on sale from The Fabric Store). For a bit of interest I added shoulder patches (tutorial here on Megan's fab blog) made from some upcycled scraps of  suede that I keep for making soles for my felted slippers. And by the way I haven't had to hand wash this or treat it delicately - the suede washes up really well. Which is what I was hoping for - a garment that needs handwashing in this household is one that doesn't get worn very often!



And speaking of Megan, who probably thinks I'm stalking her, poor woman (hee hee), imagine my surprise when I saw her recent blog post on her latest Briar and it looked very similar to this. Hey, great minds think alike ;-)

Taking stock

Hello! It's been such a long time since I posted here that I kind of don't know how to restart. Ironically, when I'm busiest creatively I seem to blog the least. I guess that's to be expected but I've still missed it. And it has been feeling hard to get a post done too - no time to take pics, edit them, write etc... so I thought I'd join Pip and try something different to get back into it :-). Here we go...

Making : 4th birthday party stuff & Book Week costumes
Cooking : orange cake for a lovely friend's birthday
Drinking : red wine
Reading: The Inconvenient Child by Sharyn Killens
Wanting: More time to sew (what's new ;-)
Looking: at nature with the kids
Playing: Lego
Wasting: some food scraps: too much for our compost heap :-(
Sewing: Red Riding Hood costume
Wishing: I could get my stash down a bit
Enjoying: a burst of cooking inspiration
Waiting: for everyone in the house to get well again after a bout of colds & tummy bugs
Liking: dreaming of my next sewing project
Wondering: if I should try to get more organised with my sewing (probably)
Loving: watching my kids play
Hoping: my scratchy throat won't develop into more
Marvelling: at the colours of spring flowers (in winter)
Needing: to get to bed earlier, as always
Smelling: carrots roasting
Wearing: one of the growing number of Briars and my new Fly boots
Following: some inspirational Instagrammers
Noticing: this post on sewing and getting so much from it
Knowing: if I keep trying hard I can be more patient with my kids
Thinking: about the trials and wonders of motherhood
Feeling: like I want to fix everything for them
Bookmarking: kids clothes patterns/ideas
Opening: my very welcome subscription to Inside Out magazine
Giggling: about my crazy 8 year old's sense of humour
Feeling: OK

Have you tried taking stock?

An admission, mending and knitting

OK, OK, I'm going to admit that sometimes... just sometimes I think it's better to buy a ready to wear garment than make it yourself.

It's not often I feel this way but recently I'd been finding myself wanting a drapey cardigan - you know the type: soft and flowy with interesting drape giving movement and shape. I scoured Pinterest and pattern companies for ideas and patterns. It didn't even occur to me to go and look in the shops. These days I hate having to shop (except for fabric or patterns of course, which goes without saying ;-) Nothing was appealing to me and in the end I got out of my stash a mid weight wool and thought I'd sew a poncho type thing.

But then I went to my favourite charity shop to look for some woollen jumpers to felt and repurpose (more on that another time) and there lurking in the bottom of the crate was a lovely Country Road fine wool blend cardigan in soft grey in my size.



I quickly scanned it for any tears or staining and all that seemed to be wrong with it is a couple of small holes in the sleeves which will be easy to fix. And that is another issue that makes me so glad I sew - if I had to throw a garment away because it needed mending and I didn't know how it would be such a shame. What would our Grandmothers who were brought up with 'make do and mend' think of this I wonder? Maybe they'd be horrified at the way we throw away anything that's not perfect nowadays, or maybe they'd be happy that we have the option to buy new more often, who knows... but I do think its a shame not to pass these skills down to our children at least, which makes me determined to be more patient when teaching them!

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And in other crafty news, something I have been loving working on lately is knitting another seven circle scarf. I love wearing my grey one (seen in the pic above) and had been thinking I'd like to knit another one this winter. Even though I am a novice I do enjoy knitting (though I only seem interested in winter) and I find it so much more sociable than sewing. I can sit in the lounge room with the Mr and knit of an evening rather than disappear to my sewing space. It's portable in a way that my sewing almost never is and just a lovely relaxing activity. And I just love this pattern, it's fun to knit.



So when I was fabric shopping with my crafty buddy Deb recently and she took me on a detour to a wool shop (bad influence ;-) I couldn't resist this lovely blue wool/cotton mix to go with all the blue I've been enjoying wearing.

Deb also introduced me to her favourite metal circular needles and I am in love - so smooth and lovely to knit with. Do you have favourite needles? A favourite pattern you love knitting? And are you a cop-out knitter like me and just knit in winter? :-)

Little boy pj's

Before we went on a trip away recently I looked ashamedly at my little boy in his tired old pyjamas and decided it was time to raid the stash and make him some new pairs. I mean, he's almost 4 and I was still squeezing him into size 2's. For a sewing mad mum it was embarrassing!

For the first pair out came the 'sleeping johns' pattern from the book Growing Up Sew Liberated. I used a groovy aeroplane print jersey I'd been hoarding for a while, adding a yoga style waistband, which I find works well with knitted fabrics and kids love for the softness - it's just a folded over band of ribbing, cut a few inches smaller than the waist of the pants and stretched and sewn to fit. For the top I chose a RTW basic t-shirt I'd also been hoarding and embellished it with a pocket in the plane fabric.


For the next pair (he could do with a few) I used the pants pattern from Oliver & S's Bedtime Story pattern. I find this is a good simple shape for woven fabric pjs. I bought the goldfish graphic print flannelette at Spotlight with this very purpose in mind, so it was satisfying to finally use it!

And this time I made the top too, finally succumbing to buying the Made by Rae Flashback Skinny Tee pattern. This pattern had definitely fallen into that mental category of mine called something like 'patterns I like but don't want to buy because they're too simple to spend money on and I could draft it myself'. Hmm. The problem is that I don't get around to drafting them myself, and what I'm finding is that patterns in this category that I do buy end up being incredibly useful and used lots. This pattern I've used 6 times already! Lesson learnt.



And here's the third set, again Skinny Tee / Bedtime Story combo, this one in a little boy's perennial favourite - dinosaurs :-)


Again using the Flashback Skinny Tee pattern I also refashioned an adult t-shirt (remember this one?) into little boy size. He likes the monsters and I like the feeling of satisfaction of ticking something off my huuuuge sewing list.


And this final one I like for it's cute colours and I'm thinking it could be a daytime t-shirt rather than a pj top but needs something printed on the front. I'm waiting for inspiration to strike. Any ideas welcome :-)

Denim Belladone

My 4th version of Deer & Doe's Belladone Robe had been sitting in my UFO pile for a few months when I decided recently to reduce the size of the pile (it's still big unfortunately!!). Plus, as we were going away for a week I really wanted something new to wear and knew it would be much quicker to finish this rather than start something new with limited time available.



All those months ago I set out to make a simple denim version of the Belladone to wear as a plain base - I often find myself sewing with prints and bright colours which can be nice but I end up lacking some basics. Still, I couldn't resist embellishing it by adding some colourful piping to the waistband. I made the piping using leftover pieces from this belladone.

Adjustments I made to the patterns were to take out the pleats at the front (I think overall I prefer a flat front to my dresses) and I just turned up the hem rather than using the hem band from the pattern (laziness). I also used a metal exposed zip at the back (see 1st pic, and BTW I'm wearing the dress here with a short sleeved t-shirt underneath, though it looks a bit like the sleeves are part of the dress here).

And can you see the glaring error I made on this one? The back is crossed the wrong way - the shoulder pieces should go over the pieces below. I realised the mistake as I was about to hem the dress and just laughed... no way was I going back to correct it!



Well I'm not sure if I achieved what I set out to do with this dress, and I'm not even sure if I like it but I think I'll keep wearing it and see if it grows on me. I have no idea how to style it at the moment (not great in these pics), but maybe it will come to me, or maybe it will be a better warm weather dress sans t-shirts, tights and boots.

Hmm, I'm going to pack this pattern away now unless I get a sudden urge to use it again - there are things that frustrate me about it, like never quite getting the fit right (my fault for not persevering) and I don't think the armhole and neckline cut really suits me (I keep thinking about adding cap sleeves to see if the balance is better). OK, I am getting picky now... I think it's just a case of 'the honeymoon is over' for me and this pattern ;-)

How about you - do you fall in and out of love with patterns or are you loyal til the end?

Victory patterns Ava in silk

Finally it stopped raining long enough for me to take some pics of my Ava top. Yikes - our back yard looks like a swimming pool!

As I mentioned in my last post about the muslin for this, I love the Victory Patterns Ava pattern. And even though it had its trials I was pleased with this version, which I wore to a friend's birthday party recently.



It was my first time working with such fine and slippery fabrics and I found them pretty difficult to work with, so it was quite a frustrating sew. The main part of the top I made by cutting up a silk sarong gifted to me from a lovely friend. She had found it in a charity shop, and the tag said 'Akira' - what a find! It moved around and seemed to stretch in a weird way - the side panels of this pattern are cut on the bias, and they dropped a lot. Maybe this is typical of silk but when I went to hem it the hem was extremely wonky and I ended up adjusting it by eye.



I'd wanted to use a sheer fabric for the top part, and grabbed a piece of what I think might be organza from a local shop, not having time to go looking elsewhere. This was a real pain to work with! all those little seams that need to be perfect as they were all on display drove me mad! Not only could the fabric not be pressed but also it just didn't roll well. I ended up with sore fingers from overworking the synthetic fabric and very grab that it would be night time when I wore it so all the imperfections wouldn't be seen!!



I swore that next time I had something special to sew I'd take the time to find a natural fibre fabric, especially when my main fabric was so lovely. Then on the afternoon of the party I was looking for a scarf to wear with it and found not one but 2 garments in silk that I'd reserved for repurposing - and either would have been perfect!! So that's a lesson to me to always check my stash first. I'm hoping to one day unpick the awful organza and replace it with the cream silk. I made the this little scarf from the 2 fabrics, just joining them with a seam and then hemming it.



And just as an aside, something I love about going out somewhere special is being able to get out some of my old favourites - I never get tired of my origami earrings, my ankle strap heals got an outing and wearing my old black satin trousers is always fun :-) How about you, do you like dressing up now and then? And does working with sheer fabrics make you crazy?!

Upcycled Victory Patterns Ava wearable muslin AKA the 'never say never' top

What a convoluted title!!

I recently had a special event on the horizon - a birthday party for a lovely friend - and couldn't let the opportunity for a bit more sewing slip by ;-) I was planning on fixing up my botched Belladone dress, but when I tried it on again I just wasn't feeling the love... then I stumbled upon Victory Patterns Satsuki, hmm, could work in the lovely silk gifted to me by a friend, BUT then I thought about using the silk on the Ava pattern and was smitten. I asked the opinion of the Mr and big girl between the two patterns and they both voted for Ava. Done!

The gifted silk was so precious that I knew I had to make a muslin. I'm usually not patient enough to do this but I really didn't want to stuff up the silk (I'll show you in the next post) and thought I could repurpose the skirt I bought recently into a nice wearable muslin.



The skirt turned out to be just enough fabric for the top, which takes quite a lot of fabric even though it looks quite simple - the side panels are cut on the bias which adds to the quantity required. You can't see from the pic, but the skirt is lined in a solid green voile, which I used for the bodice, sleeves and also the side panels - I would have liked to use the poppies print for this but ran out of it.

The Ava pattern comes as a downloadable pdf. I like these for the instant gratification of getting it straight away and being able to start immediately rather than going to the shop. I really loved using this pattern, and found the instructions all very good, though I did get stuck on how to get the V of the sweetheart neckline to sit flat. The instructions said to snip the V and pivot the needle to change direction but I still couldn't get it flat so I'm just going to live with it. I'm sure some extra practice and patience would do the trick.



I am glad afterall that I made a muslin, because I did adjust a couple of things: I'd made the right size according to the pattern but it was gaping a bit under the arms so I just took the side seams of the bodice in about a centimetre. Also in the silk version I extended the bodice by about 10cm as firstly I have a long body, but also I don't think a 'baby doll' style is particularly flattering on me and with the high waistline that's what its ended up looking like. I think the pattern is intended to sit just above the natural waistline but this was way too high for me. Having said that, it will not stop me wearing this as I love it overall :-)

And the reason it's a 'never say never' top is that I always thought a sweetheart neckline and peplum were definitely not me, but somehow in this pattern I love them. I love the swishiness and it just sits beautifully, which I think is down to it being a really well designed pattern.

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In other sewing news: I saw for the first time last night the Amelia dress pattern from Green Bee. Do you know of it? I am seriously considering buying it after seeing this lovely version. Oh, the temptation!!!
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Next post I'll show you the silk Ava. Have a lovely weekend!