You will want to sew this for summer because...

Is it summer where you are?  I was woken this morning by a tropical downpour.  I love to stand on my verandah, at the edge of the rain, looking out, feeling the cooled air.  It will get hot very early.  This time of year I am in and out of my swimmers several times a day.  I used to be a one-piece girl, but the practicality of a bikini has won me over.   

Over at my other blog - The Strawberry Milk Run - I have published a pattern and tutorials for a colour block bikini.  The pattern is free.  The links are at the bottom of this post.

Sewing a bikini is probably easier than you think.  You don't need a fancy machine, just one that does a zig-zag stitch.  You may need to change your needle to a stretch needle, but that is all. And think of the positives - once you can sew your own bikini, you will never need to go swimwear shopping again!

The hardest part will be choosing your colour combinations.  Turquoise, watermelon & sunshine yellow would be very summery.  If you are more of a bronzed beach goddess, you could combine different metallics together.  Prefer something more classic?  How about black, white & black?  I have gone with peach, copper and jade.

Get all the posts

• The pattern #12011
• The pattern instructions
• Tutorial to assemble the pieces
• Tutorial to make straps
• Tutorial to make the halter top
• Tutorial to make the bottoms
  

So go on, sew your own bikini!  And if you do,I would love to hear how it went.

Screamin' Summer Spearmint Shorts

Don'tcha just love the colour of these shorts?  Don't they just scream out SUMMER.  I purchased this fabric with view to make a Spring pencil skirt, but I am forever ducking out to the washing to fetch my Marfy linen shorts, so I thought a repeat pair was in order.  In magazine speak, they would say that these shorts were "on high rotation".

This is a new colour for me, so I have been pairing it with all sorts from my wardrobe.  Which is your favourite look?  Early opinions will be heeded as I love these shorts so much that I am thinking of wearing them to the kid's Christmas concert tonight instead of a dress.

Starting with Christmas colours, just because that is the top I was wearing today. 

Next in jewel tones.  This Vogue blouse does not seem to have featured on my blog previously.  I made it before I started blogging from a stretch silk georgette. 

Perhaps with neutrals.  I did not make this top; it was a gift from hubby.  It has a lovely neckline edge.

More casual with a t-shirt.

A beachy look with my Tessuti fave top and a tote.  I did make this tote out of Japanese cottons but have never got around to blogging about it.  I actually made 2 of them and donated one to the school to be raffled off.  I am moving house soon and my new neighbour was the recipient of the raffle prize.  I wonder if she thinks it was a unique one-off.  Do you think I will be able to keep using my bag.  Ah, the dilemmas of living in a small town.  Incidentally, the necklace in this photo is the first piece of jewelry that I ever bought myself.  I never dressed up much as a teenage, never wore make-up, never wore jewelry.  This frog caught my heart though.

Perhaps less colour?

Looking back at those photos, I think that the longer length tops are more flattering than the waist length ones.

Anyway, some sewing details.

The fabric is a linen from EmmaOneSock, still available.   The description calls it a tie dye.  It was more uneven in colouring than I realised until I sewed it up.  Look at the photo below.  I am considering this "charm" rather than a defect.

The pattern is Marfy 1668, reviewed previously here.  I did modify the waistband to be a contoured band this time around.

I worked hard on not getting the inside of the front waistband to peek out (which is a problem that has been annoying me for years), using a method described on fashion incubator (method is for collars, but I adapted it to waistbands).  I may have exaggerated the effect a little, but it has worked.  The underlap still peeks out over the top, so I will have to work out how to prevent that in future.

Notice how neatly I have sewn the hook and eye?  I have had plenty of practice lately, on a very exciting project that I will reveal shortly.

And finally, a photo to remind me how I blind stitched the cuff up.  In all the times that I have sewn cuffs, I could never work this out.  Now that I have, I want to remember.

Ugly Bug Ball

I was not-so-secretly delighted when my son decided to go the Ugly Bug Ball as a green ant.  I had seen some ant costumes in a show that I wanted to replicate...you know, the fantasies we hold...

Do you know about green ants?  I didn't know about them until I moved to North Queensland.  They are a really pretty green colour.  They have large green bottoms.  Apparently you can suck the juice out of their bottoms, but this is not something that I have tried.  They stick leaves together to build nests in trees.  You have to watch out for them when cleaning up fallen leaves in case a nest has fallen out of a tree, because they will bite you.

The nice thing about this costume was that it took only 30 minutes to make (not including queuing for fabric) and $3 worth of fabric.  No pattern used.  That's about the perfect level of effort and expenditure for a school costume.

Dancewear

I have been sewing dozens upon dozens of dance costumes this past few weeks.  This year I have even sewn a couple of costumes for the principal dancer, including her undergarments.

I did have some input into the design of this costume.  The brief was a demi-tard with frilly legs.  I combined a Jalie 2915 bodice pattern with a Kwiksew leggings pattern and added a flounce between the two.  I modified the Jalie pattern to ruche some of the panels.  I added frills to the bottom of the leggings, which are above-the-knee in length.  It turned out rather cute.  I did not choose the fabric.  I imagine that there will be nowhere to hide under the bright lights in this white lycra.

To determine the attachment line on the leggings, I tried the leggings and bodice on the dancer and marked where the bottom of the bodice sat on the leggings.
 

I had a frilly elastic that I used along the top of the bodice.

It turned out to be rather easy to gather lycra for the leg frills.  I just used a long stitch and a high thread tension and the frills gathered by themselves, no pulling of threads required.  I attached the frills to the leggings with a zig-zag stitch so that the legs could still stretch.

I did not hem the legs or the flounce.

Donna Karan Vogue draped dress in a stripe

I wanted a quick project to complete whilst I was visiting Cairns recently for a gymnastics competition.  Knit dresses are usually pretty quick so I rifled through my pattern and fabric stash and chose Vogue 1159.  All the reviews said that it would be difficult to modify to fit, so I was thinking that lack of fitting would save me a bit of time.  Of course, it was entirely likely that I would end up with a dress that didn't fit, so I paired it with a fabric that I wasn't sure whether or not I loved.  Well, I loved the fabric, but it was one of those fabrics that just seems more striped when you are holding it than when you are clicking that "Add to cart" button.  I have talked about the traps of stripey fabrics previously here and here.  Okay, so I am a slow learner, but I am doing creative things with stripes!

The pattern: Vogue 1159

The fabric:  rayon/lycra knit from EmmaOneSock, lining is a lightweight power mesh, also from EmmaOneSock.

Some notes:

Sizing - for Vogue knit dresses, I usually cut an 8 for the front top half, a 12 for the back top half and grade the skirt out to a 16.  For this one, I cut a straight 12.  It seems to have worked for the dress, which has pleats in the front skirt, but I do have problems with the lining, which I will detail later.  Next time (and there will be a next time, probably in a plain) I will grade the skirt out along the diagonal centre back skirt seam.

Length -  I shortened the dress to above the knee.  I would have made it a tad shorter, but the blue stripe looked better on the hem than the reddish stripe.  This shorter length is not as elegant as the original length, but I lead a pretty casual life.  You can see here that I have paired the dress with thongs.  I was on my way to a school picnic that involved scooter riding. 

Lining - I am having problems with the lining.  The dress is only lined in the skirt portion, and the lining is necessary to hold the draping in place.  When I am wearing the dress, the lining works its way up to my waist.  I presume that this is because it is a couple of sizes too small.  I have released the only seam in the lining, which is at the centre front, but this does not help.  I am wondering if I should insert some width into the back of the lining.  Any other suggested solutions will be appreciated!  Next time, I will add width to the lining and use wider darts so that the waist circumference does not change.

Pattern placement - This dress is pretty lean on fabric for all its effect.  Size 12 takes only 1.8 m of fabric.  Of course, this is all I had, so I could not do any pattern placement.  It just worked out as it worked out.  It would have been better if I did not have the lightest stripe across the widest part of my butt.

Shoulders - I bought this pattern because it had the cap sleeves, but like other reviewers, I found that the sleeves shift position when you are wearing the dress so that it is more like a sleeveless dress.

Underarms - the dress has very low underarms.  Different reviews show various methods of fixing this, including adding a piece or sewing up the side seams further.  I just folded a pleat out and topstitched it in place, as shown in the photo below.  This would be equivalent to the narrow chest adjustment that I often make if I cut a Size 12.

Marking - as other reviewers have noted, the instructions for this pattern are not always easily understood.  Take the time to mark the fabric properly before you start sewing.  I used little triangles at the notch points.  I would recommend this rather than little nicks in the fabric, as it makes it a bit easier to match your sewing with the Vogue illustrations.  My print was busy, so I used tailor tacks to mark the squares and circles.  I marked the pleat lines on the front with a fine-point sharpie, as I thought that would not be seen once the dress was made up.  Usually they aren't, but I noticed that they do peek out when lounging on the couch for reading homework.

I do like this dress and I will sew it again, probably in a dark, plain knit.  I should have made more effort with the hair / make-up, but life has been crazy busy lately....I just seem to look in my diary every hour or two to see where I should be going next.  I promise that when I wear it with heels, I will do my hair as well!  In the meantime, I am finding it a great grab and go casual dress.

Denim Skirt

My daughter is reaching that dreadful, dreadful age.  You know, the one where you can't eek a piece of clothing for her out of the side scraps from your own projects.  It is also the age at the upper end of sizes for many children's patterns in Burda magazine. Sad, I know.

I did manage to scrape together this denim skirt though.  It is leftovers from some denim shorts that I made myself and haven't shown you yet.  The pattern is from Burda 11/2010, style 149.

The fabric wrinkles in the wash more than I expected.  I guess that will reduce over time.  It is an unusual colour, with a slight purplish tinge to it.

I did modify the pattern a little.  She has narrow hips.  I modified the waistband so that I could elasticate the waist.  I split the waistband into an inner and outer piece, rather than cut it as a single piece with a fold at the top edge.  I then pieced the inner band, so that it had seams  about 5 cm from the button closure.  I thread elastic through the waistband at these seams and then stitched it in place.  I used regular elastic rather than adjustable button hole elastic as I find that the adjustable elastic is not firm enough.

The same issue of Burda had some stovepipe jeans for boys.  I want to try these out, as my boys have such narrow hips that they really have to gather in the elastic on RTW adjustable waist jeans. 

BTW, can you all zoom in on photos anymore?  I seem to have lost this ability in blogger, but I don't know if it is just my settings or the if it is the way they manage photos now.

Gymnastics gear

This blog entry is more for my own records than for interest, as I am aware that making boys gymnastics clothing is not a popular global pastime!

My son trains 3 times per week, and his club gear is expensive, so I have persuaded him to wear gear that I have made him.  Naturally, he would prefer to wear his club gear over and over without washing, but I am trying to get good habits in place before those teenage hormones kick in!

This leotard is my design, although I did restrict myself to a simple tank style because that is what he is used to.  It looks a little big in the straps.  Part of drafting a tank style is reducing the length of the straps to account for the reduced width.  Reduced width results in less rebound tension.  I understand all this, but I do not yet have a grip on how much to reduce the strap length.  On the up side, he will fit in the leotard for longer.

The colours are his club colours.

The shorts were made using Jalie 2914, although I modified the pattern for the striped side panel.  They are a much closer fit than his club shorts, so it took some convincing for him to wear them.  I have already had to repair the crotch seam.  I sewed them with fluffy thread in the loopers of the overlocker, but perhaps my fluffy is not strong enough.  Incidentally, when I tried to buy fluffy thread at Spotlight last week I found that they do not stock it anymore.

The longs (that is what they call them!) were also made using Jalie 2914.  He is wearing them over the top of his shorts, because that is what they do.  I used 2 different sizes to get the width and length right.  He is so used to wearing baggy clothing because of his small frame that he is not used to a close fit.  They have stirrups, though he has them pulled off in the photo.  His club longs are white, which is a very impractical colour for 9 yo boys, so I have gone with his choice of purple.

The Jalie instructions have you fold the longs down the crease and top stitch to form a pin tuck.  You can see in the above photo that this stitching has broken.  I inspected his club longs, and they make a pin tuck using twin needles.  I guess the zig-zag underneath, between the twin needles, allows you greater stretch, so next time I will use a twin needle.