LLADYBIRD

Sewing the Robson Trench Coat, part 2

Following up on last week’s Robson progress post, I have a few more bits and pieces I’d like to share before the ~big reveal~. I normally hate dragging these types of projects out over several posts, but I think this coat deserves more than just a single post (plus, I haven’t taken pictures of my newest projects! So consider this filler, ha!).

Last week, I left off with the main body of the coat completed – everything from the collar, to the facing, to the hem. All that was left was the sleeves, the belt and belt loops, and the buttons. Easy enough, yeah?

I WISH. I about killed myself over those dumb ol’ sleeves! Putting them together was easy – even with the added step of trimming/grading the sleeves and adding the bias binding – but setting them in took me close to 2 hours, and there was lots of scream-cussing involved. The hardest part was getting the bias binding on the sleeve seam allowance once everything was set in – mostly because the area was obscenely thick with all those fabric layers, and also because I’m an idiot and I trimmed the seam allowances to super short before putting on the bias binding.

PROTIP: Sew one side of the bias binding on before you trim down those seam allowances. It will give you much more leeway in an area that’s already pretty tight to maneuver around.

I will say that, despite my troubles, those sleeves set in perfectly the first time – and they look beautiful! The drafting on this thing is pretty amazing.

Hemming the sleeves was also kind of tough, because the total circumference of the sleeve was smaller than the circumference by the throat plate. Which means I couldn’t just slide the sleeve over the arm of my sewing machine and go in the round – I had to do some horrible wedging and go VERY VERY slowly. To keep my hem even, I stuck a piece of tape on the arm of my machine (you can barely see it in this picture, if you squint) and used that as a guideline. My hems turned out pretty straight and even – not that you can see it with that busy lace pattern :B

I did come across one problem when sewing the sleeve tabs – the pattern calls for you to sew 3 edges, right sides together, and then turn right side out and press. Well, I tried that…

And, um well, I’m not sure exactly what happened. HAHA. I guess my loop turner just grabbed the lace and not both layers? Anyway, I was able to shove the underlining back inside the lace tube with a knitting needle, but it made me think about how I was going to tackle the belt and belt loops, since they are also sewn the same way.

To make the belt loops, I followed the same procedure as for the Thurlow belt loops. You can see a tutorial on that here (from my Thurlow sew-along!).

For the belt, I folded in 5/8″ along each edge and pressed it.

Then I folded the whole thing in half…

And topstitched along all four sides. This made for a nice, crisp belt – without having to worry about turning a long tube and ending up with that… thing.

Here is my finished belt. As you can see, I made a few changes – I decided to use a buckle instead of tying the belt, as I think it makes the coat look a little more trench-y. It’s just a basic self-covered buckle that I pulled out of my stash, and covered with the navy sateen that I used for underlining (also, the sticky guide in the kit was all dried up, so I used spray-mount on the fabric to get it to stick aaaaand I didn’t go outside to do this, so my sewing room may or may not be covered with spray glue jsyk). I also narrowed the belt by about an inch – I’m not sure exactly how much, I just kept hacking at it until it fit in the buckle. With this in mind, the belt loops were also shortened to accommodate the narrower belt.

With all that done, it was time to add the button holes and buttons! Not much to report on that – I used my button hole cutter to slice through the holes, and I am pleased to report that they are decidedly unhairy. The buttons were sewn on with silk thread, which I first ran through beeswax – I wanted them to stay on that damn coat! I moved the bottom buttons outward slightly, so the coat is more straight than A-line (I just think that suits my figure better!). Oh, and I didn’t bother with the interior buttons – I don’t ever use those things anyway, meh.

As it stands now, the coat is finished! I am so proud of it and I can’t WAIT to show it off 🙂 I even got some super-fancy pictures taken, and damn it looks good.

Here is a sneaky peek because I can’t help myself.

Stay tuned!

Tags: coat, lace, Lace Trench, Mood Fabrics, Mood Sewing Network, work in progress

Comments 51 Comments
Categories Mood Sewing Network, work in progress

Completed: Peacock Pullover

26 Apr

Hey look, I finished another sweater! What does this make, 8? Give me another year and I’ll have all those nasty arcylics in my closet replaced with glorious handknit wools, woohoo.

As boring as this name is (“Peacock Pullover”? Really? Whatever, you should know by now that I’m not imaginative with my garment names), calling something a pullover will always make me think of this:

Which is pretty much one of the best things (from one of the best movies) ever, amirite? Unfortunately, this sweater isn’t very exciting. You could stop reading this post right now and still get the general gist of it. It’s a basic raglan pullover with a crew neck. Snore.

But y’all know I’m a big proponent of making ~basics~. And this is totally a basic sweater, but hey – the color is fun, yeah?

This pattern is the Ladies Classic Raglan Pullover. Obviously, mine looks a bit different than the pictures on the project page, and I’m not just referring to the color. Mine is much more fitted as I prefer to have a bit of waist definition with my sweaters. It wasn’t too hard to get the fit adjusted, although in my first go, I didn’t try the sweater on enough and after finishing the waist I realized that it was WAY too big. Ugh! I spent an entire week ripping out about 30+ rounds of stockinette. It’s still a little big – there’s some weird bagging on the sides of the chest where the ease suddenly becomes positive instead of negative – but it fits pretty well for the most part.

If this is starting to look like deja-vu, that’s because Tasia recently(ish) knit this pattern in brown. I swear, I had it in my queue long before I saw her finished project, buuuuut I fully admit that her pictures were what moved the pattern to the top of the queue. God, she always knits the best stuff. I gotta stay out of her Ravelry or else I’m going to start looking like a total creeper, ha.

Anyway, I’m just going to glean over the basics here (if you want the full deets, check out my Ravelry notes). This is a size 33, with modifications to the waist and arm width. I used Plymouth Galway in a lovely peacock blue; it’s similar to my beloved Cascade 220 except a bit cheaper (and this was REALLY cheap, as I picked it up during the after-Christmas sale at Haus of Yarn). I started it during my flight to NYC, and finished earlier this week. It would have knitted up much faster had I not spent a week unknitting my boo-boo, but oh well 🙂

Next time I make this, I will probably go down another size, as well as make more decreases. It’s still a little too baggy for my liking.

At any rate, this is a great pattern – quick to knit, easy to customize (look at the other Raveler’s projects; some people have made their with STRIPES. Ooh!), and fairly mindless stockinette. I think this would make a great first-sweater pattern. Bonus – it doesn’t use a whole lot of yarn! Which means I still have like 3 skeins of that peacock blue laying in my yarn stash. Uh.

Sorry these pictures are bad, by the way! I took these yesterday as soon as I got home from work. Lesson learned – wait until the brightness of the sun goes down JUST A BIT. And yes, I am totally wearing shorts with my wool sweater. Whatever, it was like 80* outside and this is my blog and you can deal with it :B

But hey, spring is totally in the air. Here I am looking at the birds fussing at each other in the tree above me.

And lest you think I live in a mud pit (naw girl, that’s just the one part in front of my nasty-ass shed, ha), here is proof that the rest of the yard has exploded in green. I just realized that bush behind me is honeysuckle, and you have no idea how happy that makes me.

Tags: completed, knitting, Raglan Pullover Sweater

Comments 54 Comments
Categories completed projects - new

Sewing the Robson Trench Coat

22 Apr

Spoiler: There are no finished projects in this post, sry2say! I’ve been working on this coat for the past week, and I thought it might be beneficial to show some progress photos as well as share some tips 🙂

Anyway, let’s get down to business. Have y’all seen the newest addition to Sewaholic patterns – Robson Coat?! AHHH. I’m on Tasia’s pattern tester email list, and every time she sends out an email for testing, I’m almost always too busy with current projects/too poor to buy fabric (as was this case) so I have to pass… and I always think, “Man, I’m going to regret passing on this.” Sure enough, when the official announcement came out, I considered punching myself in the face out of frustration, because, FUCK. That coat is awesome and I need one, weather be dammed.

What really sealed the deal for me was getting an eyeful of Novita’s lace version. It’s just jaw-droppingly beautiful, and I immediately wanted to be a shameless copycat and make my own version (of course I asked first ;)).

This is the lace I am using for my coat:

It’s from Mood, of course, and I think I bought the last of the bolt in the store so you can’t have it nyah nyah nyah 😉 It’s labeled an outwear fabric, and it’s nice and weighty for a trench coat. At $20 a yard, it was definitely a splurge (and remember – I had to buy underlining, bias binding, buttons, thread, interfacing, all that fun stuff!), but I recalled Novita saying she only used 4m to make hers, so I ordered 4 yards and it was just enough. Yay! The lace is underlined with navy cotton sateen, and the bias binding is made with white/navy polka dot cotton batiste.

I’m not going to sugarcoat – this jacket requires quite a bit of stamina to make, as it takes a loong time. I spent at least 8 hours just prepping the dang thing, before I even got to sewing! Cutting the fabric pieces (twice, since they are underlined), making my own bias binding (because I clearly don’t have enough to do as it is), attaching the interfacing, basting the underlined pieces together, marking the notches, etc etc. I chose to do all this before I started sewing, just to get it out of the way.

My garment press made fusing interfacing fun! I just stuck the pieces in the press, sprayed them with water, and set a timer on my phone for 30 seconds. After 30 seconds, I flipped the pieces, sprayed them again, and fused for another 30 seconds. Since the press doesn’t require you to stand over it and hold it down (like an iron), I could get other things done in the meantime…

Such as prepping my thread and winding bobbins. My bobbin winder is amazing and self-motorized (no holding down the pedal!), so I was actually winding bobbins, fusing interfacing, AND dicking around on Instagram at the same time! GLORY.

Since my coat has several different colors going on, I am using three different thread colors. Part of what is making this take so long is that I have to keep changing out the thread with practically every step!

Deciding on how I would handle the underlining took a lot of thought. Since my lace is see-through and the inside of the coat is not lined, I had to take that into consideration when it came to fusing the (BRIGHT WHITE) interfacing to my pieces. Thankfully, all the interfaced pieces do require a facing on the opposite side, so I simply fused my underlining to the wrong side of my cotton sateen.

Then I stacked the lace on the sateen and basted the pieces together – all 30+ of them (yeah, there are a LOT of pieces in this pattern!). THAT PART TOOK FOREVER AND EVER AND EVER. Thankfully, I was able to get them machine-basted, which definitely sped up the process – I think I would have cried if I had to hand-baste all that!

More info on underlining can be found in this blog post, fyi!

I also had to consider how my button holes would look on the lace. Fortunately, my machine makes pretty awesome button holes, so combined with my new button hole cutter, I think they look pretty profesh, yeah?

I was planning to do a whole series of posts on this coat – but honestly, once I started sewing (like, actually sewing, and not prep :B), it’s pretty fast and straight forward! There isn’t a lot to elaborate on as far as the instructions are concerned. I did want to share a how I dealt with the binding, though – the instructions just have you fold the binding in half and wrap around the edges of the seam allowance (as like this), which is fine when you’re working with a lighter weight fabric – but not two thicker fabrics sewn together! I actually tried to bind a seam as per the instructions, and then laughed for about 20 minutes when I saw how ugly and sad it turned out!

So here’s my advice to you~ for those bound seams-

First, pull your seam allowances apart (you will need to remove the basting stitches holding the layers together) and trim down the shell fabric to 1/4″. This will greatly reduce the bulk of your seams, making it easier to wrap the bias binding around the remaining seam allowances.

Here is the seam with the shell fabric (blue lace) trimmed down. You may also want to trim down your underlining at this point – not too much, just enough to get the edges even if they aren’t already. As a sidenote, sorry about all the thread/cat hair. Apparently, cotton sateen is a magnet for EVERYTHING. Who woulda thought?

Open one side of your bias tape and pin it to the seam allowances, right sides together with raw edges matching.

Sew the bias tape to the seam allowances – try to get your stitching line right along the opened fold. I use a long basting stitch for this step; it’s really just to keep things in place while you top stitch.

When you flip the binding to the other side, it should naturally fall into place.

Top stitch with a matching thread. See how nice that looks? It’s an extra step for sure, but totally worth it in my opinion. With a thicker fabric, it can be hard to get that tiny bias tape folded around the edge with an even stitch and both sides caught in the fold. I’d rather take my time and get things done right the first time, rather than try to take short-cuts that result in a personal one-on-one with my seam ripper 🙂

Another tip if you’re sewing the Robson is to be sure to aggressively grade those seam allowances by the collar, because they can get real thick real fast.

I have the body mostly done at this point and it’s become quite a beast to wrangle under the sewing machine. I’ve taken to pulling my top drawer out and using it as a tabletop for the bulk of the coat.

Since all the interior seams are finished with binding, I haven’t needed my serger at all for this project – so I took the opportunity to take it in for it’s yearly cleaning/maintenance. As you can see, Amelia is pissed that she has to share her ~window seat~ with that dumb ol’ machine.

Anyway, it’s look great so far-

I love how nicely that collar rolls! Just beautiful!

I plan to have this finished within the next week or so. Since it’s for the Mood Sewing Network, The Big Reveal won’t be until May – sorry! I’m such a tease.

Tags: bias tape, coat, Lace Trench, Mood Fabrics, Mood Sewing Network, Robson, tutorial, underlining

Comments 65 Comments
Categories work in progress

Completed: Another Kelly Skirt, In Denim!

15 Apr

Let me just start off by saying I LOVE this Kelly skirt pattern. It’s incredibly simple – 5 pieces, and the skirt sections are nice and rectangular (which is magical when it comes time to make flat pattern alterations, especially to the length). Easy and fun to sew, and super duper flattering. I love it and I want to make its babies.

And I love my denim version – I really really do – but DAMN GIRL we got off to a rough start 😦

I bought this denim at Mood while I was NY (I’m starting to sound like a broken record… sorry! I told you I bought a lot of shit while I was there, deeeal with it haha). While I can’t tell you exactly what it is so you can find some for yourself (although George might, he found it and squirreled it away for me because he is awesome), I can say that it is a lovely light/medium weight, dark dark denim with no stretch. The color is super rich, and it has a nice body without being super heavy and stiff. Also, I bought like 3 yards of it. Expect more denim-wear, aha 🙂

So, like I said – this is the Kelly skirt. I made this lil’ dude before in corduroy. I wanted to make this immediately after that silk near-disaster, as something easy and mindless that didn’t require a lot of focus. Plus, my wardrobe was desperately missing a denim skirt, as my faithful denim Ginger is just way too big for me to continue wearing at this point. Kill two birds with one stone? Don’t mind if I do!

Well, I don’t know what I did wrong here, but the making of this skirt was a HOT MESS from practically beginning to end! You can’t tell from the finished skirt, because it’s awesome (and I’m totally tooting my own horn here, dgaf. toot, toot), but there was lots of screaming and cussing during the process. I know, I cuss even when I’m thrilled with how things are going – but I’ve never cussed AT my machine until this. Sorry, Nina $:\$

My biggest issue was that top stitching thread. My machine was NOT having it, and kept throwing fits at me every time I tried to sew. If you think the topstitching looks good – well, that’s because I ripped out out several times. I had a lot of practice at that point! Good thing denim is forgiving when you hit it with the steam iron, because I had a big ol’ denim needle and everything. The machine just kept flipping it’s shit over the thread – I had to use all-purpose (aka, regular) thread in the bobbin, which caused the tension to freak out in a major way. I probably spent about an hour fussing over the bobbin tension, trying different threads and needles and changing the numbers and… ugh. That was the biggest issue. I was so concerned, I actually asked the Bernina store if my machine was behaving normally or if I needed to take her in for a check-up. General consensus was that the machine was being finicky due to the thread, that these things happen, and next time I should try a topstitching needle (me: oooh, those exist?!).

So, I spent foreeeeever messing with that, and ripping seams and restitching and re-ripping, and finally I had my waistband on – topstitched and everything. I put the skirt around my waist to check the fit. Uhmm… I know my last skirt was a tiny bit big, so I sliced off just the tiniest bit of size for this time… and it was TOO SMALL. Like, a good half-inch smaller than my actual waist measurement. Wtf?! I don’t know what I did, but I must’ve fucked it up somewhere. I also couldn’t let the waistband out at the seam allowances because I’d aggressively clipped the corners for when I turned them out :X

In the end, I unpicked the old one and cut a new waistband. It wasn’t too painful to do – especially with that steam press interfacing fusing masterpiece I now have. YEP. I also ripped out one of the front plackets and sewed it slightly narrower, to give the skirt a little bit of extra room up top.

I also had problems with my button holes. The machine just wasn’t having it… especially when I tried to make them vertical. I ripped out 4 button holes before I just let them be horizontal. I also had problems with top stitching the hem, but I won’t get into that. I can just be an idiot sometimes.

After seam-ripping my button holes open, I don’t really like the way the threads are hanging out there everywhere. So sloppy! Soooo, I bought myself a button hole cutter. FANCY. I can’t wait to use it!

You may notice that I didn’t have enough buttons – the pattern calls for 7, I had 6. I compensated by only putting one on the waistband, and sewing a hook and eye below it so it wouldn’t gape.

The topstitching did turn out nice in the end, after MUCH finagling. Just a little tip – when you’re topstitching, increase the stitch length slightly (for me, I go from 2.5 to 3). It makes for a prettier stitch 🙂

And hey, here’s a little surprise – polka dot in the pockets! This is the same Marc Jacobs fabric I used for my Miette wrap skirt.

One last thing – remember when I said I only had 6 buttons for this skirt? Wellllll, I was trying to jump on Landon’s back and unfortunately I broke the bottom button. Haha! I mean, split the shank and everything. So now I only have 5. If the hem stitching looks mis-matched, it’s because I pinned the skirt together at the bottom for the pictures and I didn’t do quite a good job. I promise that shit actually matches… I spent a good 45 minutes futzing with it, you know 😉 OH, and in case you were wondering… that is totally an original Stray Cats shirt, and it is totally awesome.

This will be great for Me-Made-May – I LIVED in my denim Ginger last summer. So glad we can finally be reunited, even if it’s a different pattern 🙂

Tags: completed, denim, Kelly skirt, skirt

Comments 60 Comments
Categories completed projects - new

Completed: My Easter Outfit

12 Apr

Remember that wool crepe I bought while I was in NYC? Remember how I was afraid it was going to be too winter-y for a climate that’s already rapidly approaching summer weather?

WELL, CHECK THIS SHIT OUT:

I made me a fancy lady flouncy pencil skirt! Totally banking on Carolyn’s reassurance that wool is a lovely fabric to wear during the summer, I decided to test that theory by making it into a skirt. I really wanted a whole ladysuit – or even a dress – but unfortunately, this kind of saturated yellow doesn’t do favors for my coloring. I went with a skirt so there would be plenty of space between my face and the yellow.

I felt pretty silly making a wool pencil skirt just as we’re creeping into 75* days – I mean, I’ve always thought of wool as a winter fabric (and I’d guess that a lot of people feel the same way). The best coats are wool – why would I wear wool in the summer heat? Isn’t that just asking for a sweaty disaster?

So here’s my little wool crepe pencil skirt for spring – in the kind of bright yellow that would almost be embarrassing if it wasn’t so awesome. But sit back down for a spell, there’s a lil’ surprise in the back…

… a circular flounce insert! I call it a party in the back, Landon calls it my tail. Either way, it’s a fun little addition to jazz up an otherwise plain pencil skirt (well, as plain as a *bright yellow* wool crepe pencil skirt can be, I suppose!).

This pattern is Vogue 8317, which I received during a sewing swap (also while I was in New York – thanks, Oona!). Just based on the envelope art, the pattern is a bit dated looking (I originally thought it was from the earlyl 90s, but the copyright date is 2006 wut), but the line art showed promise. I made a 10, although I probably should have done a smaller size as I needed to take in quite a bit at the waist. I also shortened the skirt by about 2″ before cutting into my crepe.

The skirt is fully lined with Bemberg Rayon. I originally wanted a bright yellow like the crepe, but there wasn’t any in the store when I was there (nor was there any white – at least not in rayon!), so I ended up getting a light peach that is very close to my skin tone. Surprisingly, it picks up quite a bit of the hue of the wool and almost looks like the exact yellow I was trying to obtain. Love it when that happens!

I also made my bow-neck blouse, using polka dot cotton batiste (from Mood, of course) and Simplicity 4676, a vintage pattern. The batiste is quite sheer, so I underlined the body with white batiste. I love this stuff – it’s incredibly soft and lightweight, and the black and white pin dots go with EVERYTHING. Seriously. I will probably end up wearing this top all summer, it’s so good!

I made this outfit to wear for Easter dinner with my family, but I can definitely see myself wearing it all throughout summer, as well as pairing up the individual pieces with different tops and bottoms. Oh, and to answer my own question at the beginning of the post- wool crepe gets two thumbs up from me when it comes to summer wear. Just make sure you pair it with a lightweight, breathable lining, and you can wear this amazing fabric year-round.

Do I sound like an advertisement, yet? 🙂 WOOLCREPEWOOLCREPEWOOLCREPE

Tags: bowz, completed, flounce, Mood Fabrics, Mood Sewing Network, pencil skirt, vintage, vogue, wool crepe

Comments 77 Comments
Categories completed projects - new, Mood Sewing Network

Completed: A Bow-Print Silk Chantilly

11 Apr

Here you go, folks – the reason why I’ve been absent (well, completed-project-posts-wise) for like a week and a half:

I made the mistake of sewing a silk dress. Can you say WOOF? Because… woof. So much woof.

This is the Chantilly, by Colette Patterns. Secret time – I got this pattern as a birthday gift last year and this is the first time I’ve sewn up the dang thing. Honestly, I was a little put off by the amount of fabric needed (both fabric AND lining, mind you!), especially since this is the type of dress that really needs a floaty voile or silk to really work. As some of you may know, I was on a really really strict budget for almost all of last year, and my fabric buying options were *very* limited. So, hence, the reason this pattern sat for so long. Bc forreal – this is a gorgeous dress, and it needs to be made up a million times, y/y?

Of course you can’t see the detail too well, because it’s black – sorry! That’s probably a good thing, because I really hacked this one up and some of the construction is a little embarrassing. Silk is hard to sew, yo – and it didn’t help that I didn’t even bother to give a muslin a chance, which would have solved some of my fitting issues before I was dealing with a fabric that floated away every time I sneezed.

I sewed this up in a straight size 2, except the waist seam was sewn with a 3/4″ seam allowance instead of the standard 5/8″. This is version 1, without pockets. I actually started with version 2, put the neckline/shoulder yoke thing together… and realized that my silk was so sheer, you could see directly through it to the WHITE interfacing on the back of the lining. Of course, I didn’t notice this until after I’d already clipped, trimmed, graded and understitched the thing, UGH. I actually threw it in the corner of the sewing room (where the Bad pattern pieces go to sit in time-out until I can decide what to do with them) and finished the dress while I contemplated what to do. I didn’t have enough bow fabric to cut a second yoke, and the silk was so delicate, even the finest microtex needle left holes after unpicking. I ended up very very carefully unpicking all my stitching (srsly this took like an hour to do), cutting a new underlining with the seam allowances trimmed down to 1/4″ to match, and then putting everything back together.

Fortunately, my mistake was spotted before I dealt with the midriff – since it is also interfaced, we could have had 2 disastuhs on hand. But I remembered to underline it, so yay me! I also just want to take a moment here to brag about my new interfacing revelation – I found a digital steam press at the flea market last month (similar to this one, although my model is slightly older) for $30. Did you click that link and see how much those fuckers cost? (don’t worry, I don’t have affiliate linking or anything like that, ok!) YEAH BUDDY. I bought the shit outta that thing. AND IT IS AMAZING. You just put your fabric and interfacing on the board, close it, and thirty seconds later it is PERFECTLY fused, without you fussing over it with a hot iron. Plus, the board is much bigger than an iron, so it covers much more fusing ground at once. I am in love, and I shall never go back.

I should probably stop and talk about the fabric for a sec – this is the fancy bow print silk that I picked up from Fabrics for Less in NY. It’s Betsey Johnson! Actually, I don’t care much for her clothes – too much price for too much polyester, yeeck – but her fabric prints are always fun. And hey, since this is Betsey Johnson silk, does that mean I can now say I have a Betsey Johnson dress? Huh huh?

Real talk, tho – this fabric was a BITCH to sew. It was exactly like what sewing butterfly wings must be like – just really really hard to get under control. It was worth it in the end, but oh god I need a silk break. My lining is a plain black rayon from Mood – it’s not Bemberg, it’s much heavier than that. Honestly, I was a little disappointed at first because I wanted the floaty bemberg to go with the floaty silk, but having dealt with the silk… I’m glad the rayon I ended up with had more body. It was MUCH easier to sew, and it gives the skirt some foof. Yay!

Here’s another foofy skirt picture, because of reasons.

Isn’t the bow print delightful, though? Ah, I just love it! I was rushing to finish this dress because I plan to wear it for my friend Colleen‘s wedding on Saturday, so I’m glad that’s done!

I can’t even tell you how glad I am that I FINALLY finished this. Seriously, the agony of construction made me start to hate it toward the end. I seriously considered throwing the whole thing in The Corner and leaving it until I had my head back together, but I was too invested in the beautiful fabric. Which, by the way, going back to the yardage needed for this dress… I squeezed mine out of 3 yards of 45″ fabric. Check those layouts before you make a big silk splurge!

As a bonus – the skirt looks totally fabulous with my Chuck sweater, yeah? 🙂

Tags: chantilly, completed, dress, silkkk

Comments 61 Comments
Categories completed projects - new

Me-Made-May ’13!

9 Apr

Well, folks, it’s official – Me-Made-May is back for 2013! Yay! I had so much fun participating last year – so of course I’m signing up for this round!

‘I, Lauren of LLADYBIRD, sign up as a participant of Me-Made-May ’13. I endeavour to wear a minimum of one handmade garment each day for the duration of May 2013, with no outfit repeats.’

This is basically the same pledge I had last year, but I suspect this year won’t be as easy – I’ve been slowly pulling summer clothes out of storage (I really should just make the swap and put all those winter clothes away; we’re up to nearly 80* at this point), and a good chunk of them are much bigger than they were last year 😦 Some of the stuff can be altered to fit my new size, some I will just need to chuck and remake altogether. Instead of focusing on wearing a different garment every day – something that I easily accomplished last year (gah, my closet) – I will be using MMM’13 to encourage mixing different pieces to create new outfits. I can wear the same shirt every single day in a week if I want to – but it has to be styled in a different outfit, and no outfit repeats. I can do this!

In addition to my shrinking closet, May tends to be a pretty busy month with different specialized outfits (at least, for me!) – it’s Bike month, my Birthday month, and my family generally likes to go on a beach vacation for Memorial Day weekend, which means… Bathing Suit month as well! I guess this means I need to get cracking on those planned swimsuits I bought fabric for, so I can fulfill my MMM requirements even while laying out in the sun 😉

Same as last year, I won’t be posting daily outfit photos to my blog (although they will be uploaded to the new Me-Made-May ’13 Flickr page), instead, I will recap every Friday. This should make it easy to skip if you aren’t interested in looking at outfit posts 😉

Speaking of Me-Made, I’ll be back later this week with a finished dress 🙂 Honestly, it should be finished by now – it’s been hanging in the sewing room for 3+ days, waiting on a hem – but I’ve spent the entire last week drinking in the sunshine with friends instead. Sewing takes a backburner when there is a pretty spring day to enjoy, amirite? 🙂

Here’s a little peek – I used my Betsey Johnson bow print silk. Man, that stuff sucks to sew haha.

Tags: Betsey Johnson bow print, Me Made May '13

Comments 26 Comments
Categories Me Made May

Pattern Testing: The Miette Wrap Skirt

1 Apr

Ohhhh, I’m so excited to finally post this! Keep secrets is not exactly one of my strong points 🙂

Ladies and Gentlemen (… are you there??), may I introduce the Miette Wrap Skirt:

Our now-famous Tilly has released a new downloadable pattern – the Miette! Miette is a gently flared wraparound skirt that ties at the front in a delightful bow. The skirt has a wide back overlap (no danger of flashing!) and optional practical patch pockets. Guys, this is the perfect beginner pattern – wrap around ties (no fiddly closures!), simple to fit, and it’s actually cute and wearable… not to mention highly customizable. Can’t you see this with a contrasting waist tie, or even some embroidery or applique on the front pocket? Another bonus is that the simple shape works with a variety of fabrics – even the scary ones, like silk or plaid – and since there are only a few pieces, it’s a great pattern for testing the waters without a huge commitment. I love it!

I also love that it’s a non-flashing wrap skirt. I took these pictures on a windy day, wore it out on a windy day – even stood on the street corner and waited 15 minutes for my ride to pick me up – and things stayed exactly where they belonged. I haven’t had a chance to fully test this theory, but I very strongly suspect that this skirt will also work well for cycling.

In addition to being a simple skirt design, the instructions are also super easy for even the most amateur of beginners to comprehend – think full, in-depth tutorial, with scads of color pictures and lots of words to guide you along (there is also a set of basic instructions for those of us who don’t need quite so much hand-holding ;)). Consider it a sewing lesson with a bonus pattern!

I cut my pattern in a size 2, omitted the pocket (otherwise it would’ve gotten lost in the sea of dots) and shortened the length by about 4″. The fit turned out perfect; I couldn’t be happier!

Isn’t my fabric gorgeous!? It’s a lovely medium-weight linen by Marc Jacobs… from Mood, of course 😉 I actually chased the bolt around the store, which made me spend an extra long time cutting and thus made me late for the round-up at the end of our first shopping segment during my NY meet-up. Totally worth it, though – this stuff was a dream to sew, to wear, to just look at. And it goes with half the tops in my wardrobe! YUS.

Psst! It comes in other colorways as well… I have an entire fistful of swatches to prove it. Who wants to be twinsies with me?!

As you can see, here is an entirely different set of pictures. I didn’t like the way my first batch turned out! I was also super eager to try pairing this skirt up with a mint top, after seeing my homegirl Kaelah’s mint+navy outfit and being jealous of her color-matching skillz. This is my Pavlova Wrap top.

Since this is a wrap skirt paired with a wrap top, I will be calling this outfit the Wrapper’s Delight. Go ahead, groan.

Speaking of groaning, I know I shouldn’t be wearing black tights with this outfit. I promise I didn’t go out in public like this. Just ignore them, please and thanks.

I love my new skirt and I can’t wait to find new combinations to wear it with (as dorky as that sounds!). I also can’t wait to see all the different versions that are sure to start popping up – judging from the maker’s gallery, I think we’re all in for a treat 🙂

Want one for yourself? GET IT GET IT (you know you want it!!). And thank you, Tilly, for letting me be a pattern tester!

Tags: completed, Miette Wrap Skirt, Mood Fabrics, pattern testing, skirt, Tilly

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Categories completed projects - new

Completed: The Wild Side of Butterick 5078

27 Mar

Apologies in advance for the lame post title. This dress, though, is NOT lame. Unless you think leopard is lame, and if that’s the case – I’m afraid we can’t be friends at this point, so you need to GTFO, bye.

This is my third (!!!) make of Butterick 5078 – and likely not my last, although it probably should be for right now. I love this pattern, although I’ve had to make a few modifications to get it exactly where I want it – shortening the skirt, eliminating the waist runching, and streamlining the sewing process. It appears to work well with a variety of fabrics, from slinky to ones with lots of body. Now that’s a versatile pattern, yeah?
(ooh I just noticed how crooked that picture is. My tripod doesn’t stand straight, so I usually have to straighten them in editing… and I guess I didn’t straighten that one enough. Sorry! I’m also not fixing it, mwahaha)

My fabric is a lovely knit ponte from Mood fabrics – it has a nice heft and body to it (unlike the rayon jersey I used for my slinky 5078), as well as a good amount of stretch, even though it’s also quite stable. This fabric was a joy to work with, especially when it came time for my twin needle topstitching. Usually I have to play around with the tension and stitch length to get a good smooth stitch without that weird bump down the middle, but with this stuff the stitches just sank right in. It also presses really well – which yeah, pressing a knit seems kind of weird, but I like to press my hems before I topstitch as I find it makes it easier to sew. And while it’s nice and cozy, I also think it’ll be totally suitable for warmer months.

As I mentioned before, I switched up the construction order for this to makes things easier. I basically just sewed everything flat, and then swooped up the side seams at the very end. This is what I love so much about knits – having those open side seams means it’s really easy to suck everything if you need to size it down a little. Which I ended up doing, since the super stretch of the fabric made the dress too big originally. I also narrowed the width of the midriff section, as the skirt is very heavy and the weight was pulling it down.

Also, I wasn’t thinking when I bought this stuff (well I was thinking, but more along the lines of “OOH LEOPARD OOH SEXY DRESS LET ME WRAP MYSELF IN THIS HERE BOLT OF FABRIC), and I only bought a yard and a half. It would’ve been enough if the bodice wasn’t cut on the bias. Whoops! I spent foreeeeever trying different cutting layouts to get this to fit on my piece of fabric. In the end, I shortened the sleeves to elbow-length, took an additional 2” off the skirt, and now the bodice back has a seam (it’s supposed to be cut on the fold – can you see that seam tho? It kind of looks, oh, camouflaged trololol).

Sewing the actual dress took barely any time at all, though. Seriously. It took me 45 minutes to stitch the thing together.

Here it is without the belt. You all know I’ve been on a major belt kick lately, but this looks pretty good sans belt, too!

Consider me a ponte convert! Special thanks to Carolyn, she dragged me to the section I would have otherwise ignored. Now I wish I had one of everything that was in there, gah.

Man, I love leopard print. It really goes with everything… expect maybe more leopard print. I probably shouldn’t wear my leopard coat with this, eh?

Tags: butterick, completed, dress, knit fabric, ponte knit

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Categories completed projects - new

Completed: The Pavlova Wrap Top

25 Mar

Well, you guys. I done goofed. I put this outfit together in hopes of the emerging spring – and oh, it is indeed emerging… so much that Landon had to mow the freakin front yard a couple weekends ago because it was sooo lush and green and, like, springy – but today is heartbreakingly gray, freezing, and the windiest of windys. I don’t know why this didn’t occur to me before I left the house this morning, but a giant circle skirt is NOT appropriate for this kind of wind. I managed to learn this lesson immediately after I flashed everyone on West End Avenue. Hope someone out there was nurturing a stockings fetish! Ahhh!

Anyway, I think this skirt fabric is a pretty amazing floral for the weird transitional months – it has those pretty, bright, springy flowers, but they’re smashed up against a black background so it’s still a little srs bsnss. And it looks great with black tights (I always get all weird about what color tights to wear with my spring dresses, ok!). I got it at the flea market last year and I’ve been hoarding it ever since.

I originally cut this skirt out a couple of months ago, during an afternoon sewing date with my boo Lauren W. My fabric was large enough for me to cut a full circle, but hers wasn’t, and I wanted to be a good friend (and also get an idea of wtf I was doing before ripping into her fabric), so we pieced the pattern out so it has 4 skirt pieces, and then added pockets. You can’t see my skirt seams because my fabric is so robust and floofy, but trust me, they’re there.
Anyway, the sewing-date ended with a fully seamed skirt with pockets, and then it sat in my sewing room for… well, until last Friday. Lauren has been making progress on her own skirt at home (aw yay!!) so I decided to finish mine up, so I could wear it with my new wrap top. Don’t they match so well?! Like it was ~meant to be.

You probably guessed that the skirt is not the Pavlova circle skirt – it’s just my standard, self-drafted circle skirt pattern. It’s like a sneaky Pavlova, since it was cut into 4 pieces. Also, it’s not hemmed with anything but a very simple narrow hem. The fabric has a lot of body, so it stands up pretty well on it’s own. Which is great, because I don’t have any horsehair braid right now 😛

Anyway, let’s talk about the top! This is the wrap from the Pavlova pattern. I’m not even going to lie, I was a liiiiiittle apprehensive about sewing this pattern – something about that lapped seam on the neckline, not to mention the shoulder darts, looked intimidating! I really shouldn’t have worried, though – Steph has an incredible way of relaying instructions that makes them sooo easy to understand. The only problems I had with making this top was my topstitching – and I fault that to my fabric and lack of fusible hem tape to keep shit in place. I sewed a size 30 and made no alterations to the pattern.

My fabric is from NY – I bought it at Fabrics For Less. This was my very short, very solo return to the Garment District on Monday afternoon. Yes, after 2 full days in that madhouse, I WENT BACK. And I bought more fabric. Honestly, I was very upset about the lack of knits in my suitcase, so I got this mint cotton jersey as well as a matching red, and also the french terry for my Avocado hoodie. What? Why are you looking at me like that?

I don’t know if this jersey was the very *best* choice for this top – you can see everrrrrry single little lump under there (fyi, the line across my chest is actually from the hem of the wrap top, not my bra. Just so we’re clear ;)), as it’s super drapey and tissue thin. I just love the color though, and it goes with a huge chunk of my wardrobe! Word of warning – this is a short top. The front barely clears my waistband (which comes above my navel), and all my pants are too low to wear with it. The back is nice and long, though, which is sweet.

Also, this is one hell of a twirly skirt.

I forgot to mention – I added a thin line of mint piping between the waistband and the skirt, using a perfectly matching bias tape I had in my stash. Yes! I love it when these things work out!