Showing posts with label colette. Show all posts
Showing posts with label colette. Show all posts

Tuesday, December 6, 2011

Dresses and skirts

Frolicked about in my yard last week taking pictures while it wasn't raining or cloudy :)

red plaid dress and a silly face

yellow gingham chantilly

can't really see the dress, but I'm cute, haha

relatively normal skirt in the front...
fancy lace up bustle in the back!
the ivory lace skirt i never wear cause my slip is too tight
more red plaid, half circle skirt and jacket
the stripe are horizontal in front and vertical in back :)



















Monday, October 10, 2011

Time to play catch up, part 1

I finally remembered to get new batteries for my camera, so I'm back, and with four months of sewing projects to photograph and post. I couldn't resist getting some of it out of the way right now, forgive the poorly lit nightime shots in my kitchen :P. I did the tops now, and I'll do dresses tomorrow when there's some daylight to work with :).

blue sorbetto front
I think I already posted a picture of this, come to think of it, but well, here's another one, haha. My first sorbetto, no pleat, blue drapey fabric with a black and white pattern of flowers or leaves or something like that.

...and back
In retrospect, I wish I had made self binding instead of what I had on hand, because the weight is different and it sits funny at the neck and arms because of it. It was still very nice to have around in the hot summer days though.

red sorbetto front
This was more of a refashion in a way, I had used this fabric for a skirt last year, only I cut it with the slight stretch going up and down (facepalm), and it ended up sitting really weirdly because of it, so I never wore the damn thing. It makes a lovely sorbetto though, also with no pleat, and I even got the stretch right this time :P.

...and back
And with this one I learned from my mistakes and made a self binding. While the blue one had inside binding, I did this one on the outside to show off the fun bias  check pattern. It's a bit of visual interest, and this one sits much more nicely.

pink lingerie top front
Somehow I ended up obsessed with Japanese pattern books, and had to buy one. And then it came, became a good excuse for me to finally start learning Japanese (I'm half way through the first alphabet/syllabary :)), and was so cool I had to buy another one. This is the first thing I made from that second one, a bias cut camisole in some weird pale pink slinky fabric that my boyfriend says looks like lingerie because it is so shiny.

...and back
It has narrow straps that cross in the back, and I added a casing with elastic between them because the whole thing ended up way to loose across the back. I mostly like this top because it goes well with the thing I made right before it...

plaid bolero front
This super adorable little half jacket. I've had a few of Wearing History's patterns for over a year now, but this is the first one I got up the nerve to trace off and use, and I have to say it was a quite pleasurable experience. The instructions where brief but sufficient, and the fit is lovely. I find it funny, a lot of people seem to have problems with vintage patterns in regards to modern body types, but I always find that they fit me much better with less alterations that modern patterns do.

...and back
These were my first inset sleeves that didn't have pleats or gathers in the pattern, and I was rather nervous about the whole idea, but in the end they went in like a dream. Not a wrinkle or pucker in sight, and now I'm itching to try more sleeves, haha. Be prepared to see a lot more of this fabric, a co-worker gave me 6m of it, and it's extra wide so I'm squeezing loads of things out of it. I already have this, a dress, and a half circle skirt cut out, and there's still 2 1/2m left! I'm debating how silly plaid trousers would be. And making a dress for me Dad's super cute two year old god-daughter.

polka dot cami front
And finally, this afternoon I felt like I should get something done other than read on this lovely long weekend, so I started a second shirt from pattern book number two. And then it went together so easily that I finished it too! I hadn't thought there was enough of this fabric to make a whole shirt, and had been planning to use it as a big contrasting collar or something, but I just managed to squeeze this out of it. Giant polka dots! And the binding/straps are black with small white polka dots too. This pattern used the same midriff pieces as the pink one, but cut on the straight grain, so I knew to take about four inches out along the centre back this time. It's a little harder to wriggle into, but the fit is much nicer.

...and back
I think I'm going to have to make a whole bunch of cami tops, and a selection of cute boleros to go with them for at work (no bare shoulders allowed). And skirts to match the boleros! And maybe trousers too, all Marlene Dietrich chic. Oooh, I'm getting excited, haha.

Tomorrow, an ode to my new love of dresses: When you just can't be bothered to find two clean pieces of clothing ;)

Sunday, June 12, 2011

I'm back!

I may have been absent from this site for a while now, but I swear I've still been making things. I hope to get better picture of some of them at a later date, but for now, this is what I have to show:


Self drafted skirt made out of ivory coloured eyelet. The weird picture of it hanging in my kitchen doorway is because, being completely devoid of slips, I can't actually wear this yet (stupid eyelet and it's being full of holes, haha). I used the scalloped salvage edges for the hem, so cute.


It has twelve pieces that are sort of right triangles. My original idea was that this would make the hem line lower and pointy at every other seam (does that make sense?) but my triangles ended up being to small for that to really work. That's ok, maybe in the future I will try to make this idea again. In the mean time, I'm quite happy with this one, althought I have yet to see what it's like to wear. There is a vintage half slip in the mail to me though, so soon we shall see :).


I got bored one day, realised I had been sewing for over a year without a pin cushion, and decided to do something about it. I used these instructions, found through the lovely Jo from Bridges on the Body, and whipped this baby up in a couple of hours of hand sewing. Then came the fun part of cramming torn up quilt batting scraps into it and then trying to sew the last side closed without them popping out, lol. I can't believe I waited this long, it's very nice to have something to stab when I get frustrated with unruly pattern pieces somewhere to keep my pins. ;)


In sudden impending need of having something better to lounge around the house in than undies and a tank top, I went on a pajama making spree. Above, we have a nightdress made out of some weird slinky knit stuff I found in the clearance bin of my local fabric shop (100% unknown fibres, haha). The pattern was a ?forties? slip pattern that wouldn't normally have fit without alteration, but this stuff is so stretchy it was fine as it came :). It also pulls on instead of zippering as per instructions. Who would want pjs with a zipper? psha. After some frustrations with skipped stitches, and subsequently discovering that one truly does need to use ballpoint needles for knits, it went together pretty painlessly.


But sometimes a girl need seperates, so I threw together some pj pants as well.


Love the pink check :). So much so, in fact, that I used the leftovers to try out Colette's free madeleine mini bloomer pattern. No, I'm not modeling that one :P. But aren't they cute?


I still have some of both the pj fabrics left over, so look out for more coordinating pieces still to come.

I have another skirt and Colette's new sorbetto top pattern to show off too, but those will have to wait for daylight so I can get good pictures.

Tuesday, March 22, 2011

I think I'm in love...

...with Colette Patterns. I just finished my first Sencha blouse, and it went together so nicely. The instructions are detailed and easy to follow, the pattern was well drafted (everything matched up like it should), and most importantly, it looks really nice finished.

so cute!

The only thing I will change for the next one is an added a couple of inches to the length above the waist. I should have thought to do this to begin with, (for someone so short, I have a strangely long torso) but I didn't, so the waist contouring and the tucks are all about two inches too high.

 
I might also as a little bit of width along the center front, because the bust has no real ease, and the sleeves sit a little strangely if I stretch my arm up high and then down again (which probably isn't a problem for most people, but I do it all day at work). Or maybe I'll just try cutting a 6 instead of a 4, see if that fixes it.

But anyway, I used a poly/cotton blend black gingham, and some super cute buttons made of faceted clear plastic with a metallic backing that makes them extra sparkly. 

ooh, shiny

I almost went with some red vintage buttons I have in stash, but it makes me so happy looking at them that I couldn't bare using them on the back of something, lol.

I love these so much

And now that I've shared, it's off to bed :).

Thursday, March 17, 2011

Insperation

Between work and being completely thrown off kilter by the time change, I haven't made much progress in any sewing this week. I have hopes for this weekend though, because of all the wonderful spring sewing supplies that came in the post for me this week! So much inspiration, I can't wait to make (and wear) some nice spring dresses.

Pretty fabrics from fabric.com

four dresses, two shirts, and a petticoat to be

My Colette Patterns order showed up!

Ceylon, Lady Gray, Chantilly, and Sencha

And I finally got my sewing scissors sharpened. Why didn't I do this a year ago when I started sewing again?! They even sound sharper, and it was only 6$. the store is on the way home from work, it wasn't even out of the way, and they where done in about 5 minutes. I can't wait to cut something out. (maybe a black gingham Sencha?)

So the plan is: finish the silly plaid shirt tomorrow, and then have all weekend to start on something fun, colourful, and perfect for spring :).