2015

Happy New Year everyone! 

In the sewing blog tradition, I'm going to look back through my 2015 blog posts and pick out the hits and misses - what really got worn, what was loved, and what simply didn't work. 

This year I feel like I had a lot of misses.  Apart from the garments I'm listing as certain misses there were several more that I'm in two minds about - for example there were a few where the fit wasn't good but the fabric was awesome, and a few more where I wasn't sure whether the "look" of the garment was my kind of look, even though it was perfectly fine as a garment. 

Hits

Love it but wear it only occasionally:

I don't think I've EVER worn this out! It's too sexy for work with its very low cut underarms and fit, but surely there's got to be an occasion for this dress? 2016, I'm looking at YOU!!

 

My frocktails cape and dress - of course! I love these both so much...  I've worn the dress out to dinner a few times, but the cape had its only ever outing in Melbourne at Frocktails last year.  Sadly every time I've got it out of the wardrobe I've put it straight back, thinking "oh no, what if I drip soy sauce on it!".  This year I'm going to resolve to wear the cape out at least a few times, and either steer clear of messy food or try to become more zen about food stains.  

And this one - as loud as I am quiet! Well, when you first meet me, and sans alcool! This one turned out just as I'd envisaged it. I've worn this out a few times in broad daylight and it's been a fun dress to wear - woo hoo for statement clothes!

Love it and wear it heaps:

This Vogue top - the perfect weight for weather that's just a tad chilly, and in several of my favourite colours!  I wear this lots, and it always feels special.  

Oh and this Ruby top, which is beautifully airy when the weather is hot and sticky. And because the outer fabric is seersucker it doesn't need too much work from the iron to look fresh and lovely.  

This top and skirt set make me feel like I'm on holiday somewhere slightly fancy.. so I'm wearing them as much as possible...   

Practical is my middle name:

Sometimes the useful stuff is not particularly exciting. This "miaow" top was supposed to be test top, but has already become a wardrobe staple; and the skirt refashion saw a never worn dress turn into a garment that garners compliments just about every time I wear it (which is often). 

This simple Vogue jacket is ideal for Sydney's mild winters, and the aubergine / purple fabric seems to go with most things in my winter wardrobe. 

Misses

Fabric woes:

I wish, wish, WISH I had waited to find some proper fabric before making this "deckchair" dress. The fabric is just so awful (thank you Lincraft) that I didn't even let this dress enter my wardrobe :(. 

This painterly fabric looked good but sewed badly, and the wrinkles you can see in the blog photos never went. I wore this dress several times till I realised I'd be embarrassed to tell a colleague I'd made it. It's gone.    

I quite liked this jungly fabric, but not enough to want to wear it. Every time I looked at the top I thought of the plain white cotton top I really wanted to make from the pattern... And then when I wrote that post on vents I noticed how bad these vents looked! Gone... 

My New Year's resolution is fit:

OK, so these shorts also tell the story of inappropriate (interior decorating) fabric, but the main problem is that they're too tight. They probably fit me now, but I don't need disco shorts. 

Ah Inari, why do you TAUNT me so??  I chose the wrong fabric (no drape), but really, the pattern didn't fit me very well...

Sometimes a dress is really a top - or a cushion - in disguise: 

This merino dress is very handy when I'm cold but I hate the way it looks - too clingy and a dowdy length. For next winter I want to turn it into a top and a lined, elastic waist skirt. 

And I love the Gabby dress pattern and LOVE the Nani Iro fabric, but together they seem to jar. I think the fabric would be better on a child - or a cushion. I might be able to get two cushions even... 

How was your sewing year? Did you have more hits than misses? Any surprises? 

Aside from what you've seen on this blog, 2015 was a very social year for me. I'm pretty active on Instagram, and I've been meeting up with lots of sewing people in real life - I hope 2016 can be just as much fun :).

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I've been sewing up a storm over the Christmas / New Year break and have lots to blog, so I'll be back soon! 


- Gabrielle xx

Print Charming

In the weeks leading up to Melbourne Frocktails I had grand delusions of sewing myself a whole new casual wardrobe to wear while in Melbourne - some denim culottes, a cool top, a skirt in a great print and a vintage swing jacket. Of course there wasn't time for all that sewing, but I did manage one thing on that list: a cool top which I wore all day on Saturday before the party.

I think the colours are pretty true in the above photo - I don't normally like butterflies but the flowers and lovely orange, teal and pink are right up my alley!

I bought this fabric from Tessuti's Chatswood store a couple of months ago, within about a day of seeing someone in Melbourne post their purchase of the fabric on Instagram. Instagram is just terrible for making you realise there's a fabric you need, but it can also get you on the case quickly before a fabric sells out :).  This fabric is a digital print ponti, and it came in two colourways - both sold out very quickly so unfortunately I doubt you'd still be able to get it anywhere.

I only bought about a metre as from memory it was quite expensive - I think it's an Italian fabric, and it is a beautiful quality, but I don't like spending too much on stretch fabrics for some reason! Anyway, I soon had buyer's remorse and wished I'd bought more - I would really have liked to be able to make something like Kirsty's dress.





Oh well, with my little metre it had to be a top or a skirt... I thought I'd get more wear from the fabric as a top, given I spend my weekends in jeans and weekdays in a fairly conservative office, plus the colours seemed pretty good on me when I held the fabric up against myself, so a top is what it became!

I can see in these close up shots that the top had wiggled to one side - oops :). When it's not moving off to the side the shoulders actually fit very nicely!

And what pattern is it, you ask? Well this is very boring, but for a basic top, these days I seem to be using the same pattern over and over... and that staple pattern is Vogue 8916. I've made the top pattern before both as a t-shirt (my Splat! top) and with lengthened sleeves as a sort of sweatshirt (this pink / striped top).  It's very simple, but I really like the fit - it's about a million times better than the Papercut's raglan-sleeve Undercover hood on me!


As usual I sewed a size 14 in this pattern as it runs a bit smaller than the Vogue designer patterns. I cut the body to hip length according to a bit of tape measurement work (shorter than the pattern) and lengthened the sleeves based on my arm length. The neck band is a simple addition; a rectangle of fabric folded in half lengthwise, and pinned to fit to the neckline with the excess length trimmed away at a small centre back seam.

I think I have the fabric at 90 degrees to the right way up, but the fabric stretches in both directions so this direction feels fine on. And this orientation allowed me to place the flowers and butterflies where I wanted - an orange flower with a starring role in the front, pink flowers on the shoulders, and butterflies positioned to be less noticeable on the front. I know there are butterflies up high on the back, but as I can't see them they won't creep me out :).

In terms of sewing techniques, this was dead simple - I used a straight stitch on all the seams (yes, heresy, I know, but I think a straight stitch works perfectly well on a stretch seam so long as that seam isn't under stress!) and then used the overlocker to tidy everything up. The hems are top stitched with a single line of coordinating teal straight stitching at a stitch length of 3. Easy peasy!

I've come back from Frocktails incredibly inspired to sew and blog - in terms of sewing, the denim culottes are still on my radar but they're now competing with some really fun fabrics from Darn Cheap Fabrics and a couple of Named pdf patterns I bought in their recent sale. Where to start!!! And blogging - well I still need to get photos of my frockails dress and cape (sorry, I had too much on this weekend!) but I've also got a bit of a backlog of basics to blog (maybe consolidated in a single post so I don't bore you to tears) and a new top made over a couple of evenings last week with some of that Darn Cheap Fabric...


See you soon!

- Gabrielle xx

Vintage Sewing Pattern Pledge 2015

Hello everyone, I hope you're feeling well and not too tired - it's only Wednesday, and barely that!   Let's talk vintage sewing patterns and the vintage sewing pattern pledge (hosted chez A Stitching Odyssey and Kestrel Makes) for a bit, shall we?

I'm guessing just about everyone loves vintage sewing patterns - is that right? Basically if you like ANY style of line drawings there seems to be a decade to suit you, and if you're prepared to trawl shabby second hand shops and the myriad online shops, OR harass old ladies into giving you their patterns, you can quickly build yourself an impressive collection that represents all your wardrobe daydreams. In 2013 and 2014 I did just that, without any of the harassment. Well, to be honest, it may have started earlier than 2013, but that's when I recall buying into the grading myth, and that's when I went a bit nuts with buying vintage sewing patterns (and luckily I have mostly now stopped, as prices have really risen!).

This dress was made from one of the rare vintage patterns I own that actually fits me! Very bizarre - I would have thought my proportions were a bit different to the norms of that era, but using a stretch fabric probably helped massively with the fit...

Mad Jaywalking (proper vintage sewing)

Do you know what I mean by "the grading myth"? 

Do you remember when there were all those blog posts around talking about grading vintage patterns? I don't remember where they started, but the message seemed to be "Yes, you SHALL have that tiny sized pattern you covet because darling, you too can grade that pattern to your regular human size in two flicks of a fairy's ponytail!" I say that with a slightly sarcastic tone (could you tell?) because although I believe that grading IS a theoretical possibility for most of us, it's not that easy to get around to it - grading takes extra effort, especially when you need to add a couple of fit adjustments into the mix! 

This retro pattern was a quick and easy sew - my daughter even helped make the dress! 

NYE Little Dress (the retro end of vintage sewing)

Anyway, my realisation that despite having a glorious collection of vintage sewing patterns, the ones I wanted to sew were too small, is what stopped me from joining in with Marie's vintage sewing pattern pledge last year - I was pretty sure I wasn't going to get around to the full grading, adjusting, muslining effort for even one of my beauties...

Isn't this next pattern a cracker! The line drawings look quite dated to me, and YET the boxy top, loose pants and long gathered skirt actually seem fashionable!  

Boxy Hibiscus Top (more retro sewing)

And then a few weeks or so back I opened up the post by Kestrel Makes on the subject of this year's vintage sewing pattern pledge, kind of expecting to hear about beautiful 30s or 60s patterns. But right near the top of the post she said "Patterns up until the 1990s are eligible..."

Woah! That's the 1990s, not the 1890s! So - that means - what? It means the vintage sewing pattern pledge this year isn't just for OMG gorgeous bias cut dresses and stylish sailor garb, designer Vogue frocks, and cheeky 60s mod cool; it's ALSO 70s freedom, 80s over-the-top-ness and 90s minimalism!

I'm sure you can imagine what I did next. I counted up my "vintage" sewing from 2014 - and for a wonder, I'd made 4 or 5 garments from patterns from the 1990s or earlier! So I'm in - no excuses left:

During 2015, I, Gabrielle Corbett of Up Sew Late, will sew up at least four of my vintage (up to and including 1990s) or reproduction sewing patterns. 

I'd like to make this little Weigel's dress again, with a nicer quality of both fabric and stitching! I love the version on the right with the button-on bib, but I didn't have enough fabric for the bib first time around. 

Vintage Weigel's Dress (more proper vintage sewing)

This pledge is a really low key one - no penalties for failure, and it's not just for the "cool" kids either. I'm looking forward to discovering some new-to-me sewists and interesting patterns - are you joining up this year?



See you soon

- Gabrielle xx