I've lost my sewing mojo

I sort of let the KCWC posts slide on by, because other than the repurposed skirt, it was kind of a disappointment and it has dented my confidence! Well not in any serious way but it sort of sucked the joy out of clothes for the moment. It went like this - the Sunki tunic was too small so I went on to the next item which was a gauzy tunic from the Japanese book I got in Sydney. Very simple, with a drawstring waist and little ruffly cap sleeves. I did NOT make the mistake of just forging ahead based on measurements alone and the tissue fitting looked good.

I got this far

and then decided I should do a quick try-on just to make sure it was going to fit. I couldn't actually tell you if it fits or not because it wouldn't go over her head. Now I will admit that she is something like 100th percentile for head circumference (both her parents are serious fat-heads too) but I've never, ever had that problem before! There was no way I was going to undo this neck binding though

because it was an utter bitch to get on - gauze on the bias has a mind of its own - so what to do? At the momentI think the best solution is to make a opening at the back of the neck with a facing so I don't lose too much width. But I can't quite face it right now and feel a bit sulky.

Ok, so what next? Winter pyjamas! I got out the trusty Oliver + S Bedtime Story pyjama pattern and made up the pants using that pattern and cut up a couple of tshirts Mat hadn't liked to make the top. I even found some pink poodle iron-ons at Spotlight. Success?



No. "The sleeves are too looooonggg... and the pants feel funny...and they're too longggg...and the poodles are coming off and how come you didn't put the roses on instead like you said?" They aren't too long, it's just that she insists on pushing the front right down under her tummy and there are limits to how much I can compensate for that! You can see I already tried. I guess I'll just have to wait until it gets cold enough that she will swallow all these ridiculous protestations and wear them!

Anyways, I've given up on the ungrateful little so-and-so for the time being and I'm going to try and regain some mojo sewing up a Lisette Portfolio tunic for me. However, given my track record I have misgivings and doubts and fears that run something along these lines

• Tunics on full-busted women can look like muumuus. I am full-busted
• It may make me look pregnant. I am not, but my tummy isn't exactly flat at the moment
• It will be too big - all the reviews say it has too much ease
• It will be too small - I tissue-fitted it last night and it seemed like it will be only just big enough.
• I can't make a muslin because I don't have almost 3m of anything other than the fabric I wanted for it in my stash.
• I should line it so it sits over leggings nicely but I can't be bothered.
• It will look awful but I'll wear it in public anyways because I can't bear to waste the effort and fabric.
• I will look crap in any photos I take of myself in it to put up here.

I'll let you know how it all goes!

KCWC Day 3

Big sigh. All that work and the great fabric and the Sunki tunic only fits if she stands completely straight and still.  I re-checked the measurements and she should just be within the 6/7 size range, but obviously this fits slim and more towards the lower end of the range of measurements. The sleeves are also a bit short. So. Dress goes next door to Abbie, who fits it, and I try again. This time I will also raise the bottom of the arm scythe as it's too low and causes the dress to lift when the arms are lifted. Boo-hoo. I'm pretty gutted about this, but serves me right for not tissue-fitting eh?

Luckily I also made up a skirt from an old shirt of mine, so the day wasn't completely wasted!

It was so simple to do I almost hesitate to consider it 'sewing'! The shirt was a tunic-style one with a seam that ran around just under the bust, so I cut off the bottom half, folded over the top and put in some elastic. I didn't even have to hem it!

I'm pleased she really likes it because the fabric is lovely, and buttery soft from age. I was kind of sad to give up on the shirt but to be honest it made me look pregnant and I had stopped wearing it almost a year ago. My stomach is a long way from its pre-baby flatness, but I don't need to make it look any larger than it is!

KCWC Day 2

Phew! This one was a bit of a mind-bender at times but got there in the end! It turned out there was heaps of the blue flowered fabric to do the Figgy's Sunki tunic, so even though I suspect it's a bit crisp for the pattern I couldn't resist the combination!

Hazel hasn't tried it on yet, but I thought I could say a couple things about making the tunic because it's not the most straight-forward thing I've ever made. The tricky bits are the pockets that are set into the princess seams down the front. Unfortunately, the pattern illustration shows one piece a totally different shape than it is in reality which is extremely confusing, and the instructions are fairly brief. There is a further tutorial on the Figgy's site but that didn't really clarify things for me at all and I was in despair! Luckily I found Hemoglobinhummingbird's great tutorial on Flickr, had an "ah-HA!" moment and I was away. The rest of the tunic was pretty straightforward and even the pocket thing isn't that complicated once you have it straight in your head. One thing I did notice though is seam finishing happens in some places and not others - so you need to use your own initiative and finish the facings and some of the pocket areas for example. Same with curve-clipping. Not a biggie, but if you weren't paying attention and didn't do it in those spots, you might not be as happy with the finished result. The next time I do this I will also make the pockets deeper because they're quite shallow and Hazel was a bit put-out she couldn't get her whole hand into them.

I like the pleats in the sleeves - very 80s! I like to think Hazel will be wearing the Year 2 version of the power suit ;) You can see the effect the pleats have better on Angry Chicken's example. The overlap detail is neat too, although I couldn't find any reference in the pattern to sewing them down on each other, perhaps I'm just not reading it right - so I just sewed over the top stitching again.

I'd like to try it again in a heavy knit I think, at the moment I'm thinking the fit might be a bit uncompromising in a fabric with no stretch like this one. Wouldn't it be great if it came in adult sizes though?!

ETA: Aaaah! It's too small! Noooo! All that work and the great fabric and it only fits if she stands completely straight and still.  I rechecked the measurements and she should just be within the 6/7 size range, but it's obviously a very slim fit and more towards the lower end of the range of measurements. The sleeves are also a bit short. So. Dress goes next door if they want it and it fits Abbie and I try again. I will also raise the bottom of the arm scythe as it's too low and causes the dress to lift when the arms are raised. Boo-hoo. I'm pretty gutted about this, but serves me right for not tissue-fitting eh?

KCWC - there has been progress!

And it's my birthday! But that's incidental to this post :) I have been working away on the KCWC stuff, but only got the buttons sewed on this tunic this morning. It's from the Ottobre 1/2010 issue and size 110cm (but 116cm in length - glad I finally came to terms with Ottobre sizing and don't fight that discrepancy between width and length!). I might need to shift the buttons left a bit though, it's ever so slightly tight across the chest.

I was really pleased with the puppy applique, I've never done it before and it went beautifully. I fused the fabric down first, and then went around the edges with zigzag with a tear away stabiliser underneath. As usual the pinks have blown out in the photo, it's just a really deep fuschia, not neon! Styling by Hazel, she also chose all the mismatched buttons and was also quite firm that the puppy had to be pink, not blue as in the image for the pattern. The embroidered eye reflections were my addition as it looked a little creepy and soulless otherwise, and also the line for the muzzle - which isn't quite in the right place but I don't think I can be bothered changing it to make it angle down a bit more.

She seems pretty keen on it so far, which is making my heart happy. So is the birthday cake I just took out of the oven (yum, sultana cake, the Craig family traditional birthday cake) and the new radio/iPhone/CD player Mat and Hazel got me for the kitchen so I can listen to National Radio properly! My old radio was...old, and couldn't keep stations tuned in properly and would fuzz out if someone stood in a particular part of the kitchen or walked past. And now I can listen to all my music on my iPhone, and podcasts for when there's nothing decent on the radio - like on Saturday afternoons.

KCWC Day 1

KCWC Day 1, originally uploaded by Hazelnutgirl

I was hoping to have all this pattern tracing and cutting out done by today but have more than spent my allocated hour on it! I'm not adding on the seam allowances which saves a lot of time, but makes me awfully nervous! I'm hoping to get some cutting out done tonight.

I committed the cardinal sin of totally forgetting to prewash the fabrics and only discovered it when I went to grab one to start cutting out. Cue hurried wash and bunging through the drier and a hot iron and they're all good to go. Thank goodness for modern technology sometimes!

I have to say that this is the bit of sewing that I really don't like, it's boring and fiddly and unfortunately totally necessary! I dislike cutting out even more, but again, kind of necessary. It seems to take me an inordinate amount of time, and I don't think it's just that trick that time has where it telescopes out for less desirable tasks! I think I'm too focused on being exact when I don't need to be quite so anal about it. Or maybe I'm just slow. Either way I hate it! Onwards and upwards though. Dad says I should say "Excelsior!" instead - go and read the poem and tell me if he's right.

KCWC - the plan

I'm excited about Elsie Marley's Kid's Clothes Week Challenge which starts tomorrow! Well tomorrow for me, which is a day ahead of most people which sounds all fine and dandy because I feel like I'm getting a legal head-start, but then I have to finish a day earlier which is a drag. Perhaps I could have the best of both worlds and start tomorrow on my Monday and finish next Monday because it's everyone's Sunday?

Anyways, this is the plan (all chosen by Hazel):

Puppy tunic (Perkier than a Terrier)



Pattern from Ottobre 1/2010 and in a light jean fabric. I'd like to make a tshirt to go with it too, Ottobre have a very cute puppy picture you can download for free and print out on transfer paper. But I have to say I love the blue stripes of the tshirt and splashes of yellow in the skirt in the pattern picture. Hazel's very keen on this top. Very - she's all about the puppies at the moment and would die to have one. Unfortunately for her we already have a cat and I'm not a dog person.

Dress



Pattern from Dressy Little Girl -From one piece dress to coat (Onnanoko no oshare fuku) by Araki Yuki, ISBN 4529045269 / 9784529045261 and the fabric is a light cotton. I'm fairly confident about her wearing this one too, she mostly just wears dresses at the moment.

Pinafore



The pattern is from Innocent and lovely girls' wear by Mano Akiko, ISBN 457911194X and the fabric is linen. She says she'll wear it but we'll see! I suspect when she sees it made up she won't be keen but it's worth a try!

The two Japanese patterns will be a great time to test out the seam allowance guides that came in the mail this week. I was delighted to discover that they stick on to the middle of a rotary cutter too, so I'm going to test using it both ways.

KCWC Days 6 and 7 - Success and failure

Days 6 and 7 of KCWC were meant to be spent making up the Vappu voile tunic from Ottobre 1/2010

I had a lovely blue polka-dot voile from my stash all picked out until Hazel said that no, actually she didn't like that one and how about this old voile shirt of mine I was going to pick apart at some point? So I agreed to pick it apart right away and make her top from it. It was one that I loved and would still be wearing if I hadn't somehow managed to spray bleach up the front and ended up with a fine scattering of white dots. But I figured that I could disguise that with a bit of fabric pen and organise it so it was on the back of something for Hazel. It worked out pretty well (though I still wish it were mine)

This was the first time I'd ever done shirring and I don't know what I was so scared of! Well I do know - the variety of ways of doing it and number of problems I'd read about on other people's blogs. It seemed too complicated and waaaaay too daunting. When I read the instructions in the magazine I was all "yeah right it's that simple" but dammit it was! At least on my machine. The only quibble is that perhaps it wasn't doing it tight enough, but I knew you could pull on the elastic to tighten it up and I needed to do a lot of that around the neck. I especially love the ruffly sleeves and bottom - it's a rolled hem on the overlocker and then shirred. Yummy.

Sadly, Hazel and I aren't in a very good place vis-a-vis the handmade clothes so she's refusing to wear this or the zigzag dress I made for the first project - so no pictures of her modelling either of them at this point. She's wearing that Fancy Flower Fields tunic though, so I guess it wasn't a total bust. Sigh. I'm trying to remain upbeat about this because I know it comes and goes and I can't make her wear things she honestly doesn't like, but I know she likes this top. She loved it while it was in progress, but now she says it's disappointing. Seriously, she knows the buttons to push! I'm going to take a break on the kid's clothes front I think, let us both recover.

KCWC Days 4 and 5

I went ahead and made up the Fancy Flower Fields tunic from Ottobre 1/2010 (image from magazine in the previous post here) and although it was a size 128 it seemed like it would be ok. But of course it was miles too big so I had to take it in down the sides on Day 5.

It's turned out ok, I think my vague dissatisfaction with it is more to do with the quality of the fabric than anything else. It looks nice but it tends to stay stretched rather than rebounding to the original shape, so I think it will spend a fair amount of time looking baggy despite being taken in down the sides.  I love the shape of the hem though and it does look very nice in RL.  In this photo the wind has blown it out to the front a bit

I can't quite get my head around the Ottobre sizing - in terms of height she's just over 110cm but all her other measurements are more like a 98 which is two sizes smaller. Are Finnish kids incredibly stocky or something?

The funny thing is that I realised after she got dressed this morning that everything she's wearing bar undies, socks and shoes was made by me!  The mess from chocolate icecream on her face, the pastel crayon smudges on the top, and the soy sauce on her leg was made by her. 

KCWC Day 3

My hour today was taken up with redoing that Zigzag top, sewing some more dachshunds, and tracing out a pattern. I've decided to try making this top from Ottobre 1/2010

 It's for 128cm and Hazel's only just over 110 so I'm going to try and take it down a size. If it's too big it doesn't really matter, she'll grow into it!

I'm also thinking about this top as I have a perfect spotty voile in my stash.  Luckily this one also comes in a smaller version that's identical except they haven't put the shirring on the bottom, so I won't have to change anything. I've noticed that there is a slightly odd distribution of sizes in the Ottobre magazine and Hazel is slightly in-between the smaller and larger size groups. There are a few pieces that transition across but it would be interesting to know how they decide to allocate the styles and sizes.  The skirt that goes with the spotty top is also really sweet, very A-line so it has a great shape, especially in heavier fabrics. 

Sort of wish I hadn't gone to the Ottobre site to get the images now, the latest women's magazine looks great and I've been hankering after 1/2008 for awhile. Damn...

Kids Clothes Week Challenge - Day 2

The pillowcase skirt.  I've been buying old sheets with the aim of making a quilt at some point and Hazel took a shine to a pillowcase in this blue pattern and asked me to make a skirt for her. And I thought "why not?" and did.  Of course when I opened it out I realised it was faded in patches but went ahead anyways. I notice it for sure but I'm not sure if others would or not!  She's pretty keen on it - it got a much better reception than the Zigzag dress, although I'm still holding out hopes on that one and preparing my psychological assault on her to get her to love it as much as I do!  Anyways, this skirt amuses me and I'm pleased I made it.

The pillowcase opened out to one piece of long fabric so I just sewed it up in a seam at the back, hemmed the bottom and folded over the top to make a casing for elastic. It's trimmed with giant ric-rac and a couple of ric-rac flowers. Unfortunately I pressed them with the iron and can't get them to look as lovely and full as they did initially! And I also slightly melted the giant ric-rac because I thought it was cotton and it's obviously a blend. Oops! But you can't actually tell except that one little spot is slightly smaller and feels a bit hard.

If anyone has tips on sewing this giant ric-rac I'd love to hear them - as you can see above I did the usual straight line through the middle as waggling up and down was too hard. But it's not sitting particularly nicely and the tips are curling in. Do I need to get the free motion foot out?

Kids Clothes Week Challenge - Day 1

Yeah yeah yeah, so I should be writing a lecture but who can resist?!

The brief is to commit to 1 hour of sewing a day for a week. This dress took just over an hour to sew up, I'd done the cutting last week.  Super-simple and I love it!  Whether Hazel does or not is another matter but I'm hopeful.

It's the Zigzag Dress from Tina Givens.  Since I'm hosting her on her book blog tour next month I was really keen to try one of her patterns beforehand and this one looked like it would suit the Fuccra to a T.  It's only 6 pieces - two bodice pieces cut together on the fold, two rectangles for the skirt and two strips for the neck binding.  I love how the bodice is put together

It's still unfinished at the seam for skirt and bodice as I need to try it on Hazel to make sure the neckline isn't too wide.  I'm also considering putting in a lining on the skirt as the double gauze is very 'sticky' and I think it will cling to leggings something awful which would negate the lovely looseness of the dress.  It's designed to be tight along the sleeves and then it goes all big just past the elbows - lots of room to move in! Geez I hope she likes it...

ETA: Mixed reaction from Hazel (she laughed because it was too big). It's too wide across the neck so I need to dismantle it and increase the overlap. The sleeves are close-fitting on her lower arms; it looks nice but she's a bit funny about things being tight. She hasn't complained yet so I'm not about to ask about it!