Category sewing

Loungewear capsule wardrobe plans

bellecitadel 9 Comments

It’s all about loungewear right now, eh? At least in this house it is. I’ve had vague plans in the back of my head for a new hoodie and some joggers for ages now – way before the current global situation made them de rigeur – but it seems like a good time to put those plans into action. My recent experience with putting together a capsule wardrobe also made me realise that it makes sense to approach it with a small sense of structure. I know already that I would have whipped up the aforementioned garment in whichever random fabrics I fancied and, while there’s nothing wrong with that approach at all, perhaps the idea of a loungewear set might be a more practical idea. Note: this is a picture-heavy post!

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New skirt: 1975 Stretch & Sew skirt for the Sewcialists Sew Your Birth Year challenge

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I wasn’t sure whether I should go ahead and finish this skirt and, more to the point, post it, but I do think it’s important to post fails as well as successes and this skirt unfortunately did end up largely in the former category. There is one overriding reason for it being in this category and that is because I picked a totally unsuitable fabric for it, which is something that does occasionally trip me up.

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Okay, so here’s the story. The Sewcialists recently did one of their mini-challenges, which was to sew something associated with your birth year. It could be a pattern from that year, a copy of a design from that year or basically anything associated with the period around your birth year. Mine is 1975. At the same time, I’ve been meaning to sew one of my Stretch & Sew patterns for ages. I got a large number of them from the 1960s through the 1990s from my local Buy Nothing group.

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New jeans: Tapered Dawn jeans by Megan Nielsen

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I’ve got a few minutes of downtime from teaching the youngster how to make rain sticks and plasticine dogs (!) to write down a few notes about my rigid denim Dawn jeans by Megan Nielsen. I’ve been meaning to make a “proper” high-waisted garment for ages as I have quite a few cropped items and -ahem- garments that might have turned out shorter than planned or shrank in the wash – and wanted some bottoms I could wear with them. I will be honest and say that I wasn’t completely sold on the high-waist thing. Partly because I have a long torso, so wasn’t sure if I could make them work for me, but also I just wasn’t completely sure it would suit me somehow. Or possibly even be comfortable with the high waist in rigid denim in my advancing years?

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Of course, now that I’ve made some, I’m kicking myself, because they’re great! I didn’t really make many more adjustments than normal (more on that later) and they go with everything. They also “hold me in”, which is a very definite plus and are super comfortable. Like realllyyy comfortable. I am 110% going to make another pair asap and have been eyeing my stash for the best candidate. I have some lovely wine corduroy that’s definitely high on the list. Continue reading “New jeans: Tapered Dawn jeans by Megan Nielsen” →

Working on the bias: Bias Cut Tee and Sew Expo round-up

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One of my goals for 2020 was to experiment a little with more advanced techniques, and working with bias is one that I’ve been interested in for a little while. When I saw that one of the classes at Sew Expo this year was “Making a Bias Tee”, I made sure to sign up as quick as possible when booking opened! I’ve also wrapped the rest of my Sew Expo trip in at the bottom as I forgot, as usual, to take many photos, but wanted to document it again this year. This was pretty much the last time I was out as the Covid 19 situation ramped up right after this, but I was glad to attend something before everything shut down.

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Before I get into details though – a little intro to what I mean by experimenting with bias. I’ve flicked through the odd fashion history and famous designer book since I started sewing and was rather captivated by the work of Madeleine Vionnet (amongst others). Continue reading “Working on the bias: Bias Cut Tee and Sew Expo round-up” →

New coat: Coat Q from Atelier to Nani Iro in polka dot linen

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Hello again! How are you all doing? Have you been sewing up a storm or has your sewjo been dampened recently? I would say it’s a 50:50 split with the sewists I know. If you fall into the latter, I can completely understand, but take heart in the fact we’ll be over this soon and I’m sure all that sewing enthusiasm will come roaring back with a vengeance! Anyway, that’s my public announcement over, so time to give you a few more details on my recent linen coat project.

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This was a very fun and quick coat to make. This is my second project from the Nani Iro Atelier, or Atelier to Nani Iro book (as the Instagram translation has it) and I took a bit of a risk on it. It was the topper for my capsule wardrobe as part of #thegreatmodulesewalong project hosted by Whitney and Carla over on Instagram and was the piece that was supposed to hold the collection together and, in fact, the garment around which I based everything else. There weren’t too many reviews of the coat I could find outside of Instagram, but I know Elle Gee Makes made a great one last year, so that’s a good review to check out if you want to take a look at another version of the coat. Continue reading “New coat: Coat Q from Atelier to Nani Iro in polka dot linen” →

The Great Module Sewalong: the results!

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The deadline for #thegreatmodulesewalong is today, so I managed to scrape in by the skin of my teeth. I haven’t been getting a ton of sewing done since the Coronavirus stepped up and changed our daily routine (in fact, my sewjo has been slow all year to be fair), but I was determined to finish this if I could, so put in a good few hours at the weekend and managed to succeed without cutting any corners. I wrote about my plans and the challenge background here back in February if you’re interested or haven’t heard about it, but, otherwise, here are the clothes!

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New top: Victory tank by Chalk and Notch plus Ogden FBA results

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Hello there! How’s everyone doing? Strange times we’re in, strange times indeed. We spent a good bit of today outside in various spots where I got a few pictures and it’s just a weird thing to only see a couple of other people around (although that’s the idea of course) and to awkwardly try and keep 6ft between yourselves as you pass by each other. Anyway, I hope you are all keeping well and your loved ones are all safe. And let’s hope it all passes by sooner rather than later. There’s much more I could say, but I’m sure you’ve had your fill of Covid-19 news, so let’s crack on with a bit of sewing.

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New top: Hacked Seamwork Sadie top

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This was a very fast and satisfying sew. It’s such a palate cleanser to whip up a speedy knit top after you’ve been working on more detailed projects for a while. This Sadie top is the third item from my #thegreatmodulesewalong capsule wardrobe (although the second blogged) and is probably the simplest garment in the collection.

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It was also the only garment that I didn’t have an exact pattern for. I knew I wanted a knit top with a funnel neck or some sort of longer neck detail, short sleeves and it to be slightly cropped. I had a few pattern ideas in mind – the Sew House Seven Toaster Sweater 1 and Seamwork Astoria among them. My friend Megan mentioned that an altered Sadie might do the trick – and I realised she was right. Even better, she already had the copyshop version printed, saving me a lot of cutting and sticking together, so I decided to go for that one. Continue reading “New top: Hacked Seamwork Sadie top” →

New trousers: Robinson Pants from Ensemble Patterns

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The first of my projects for The Great Module Sewalong, this was an interesting sew. I’ve had the Robinson trousers on my list for ages as another comfortable pair of trousers with some fun details, that I thought might work both for running around after a pre-schooler and also out for drinks with the girls or similar. I really loved making the Perkins shirt by Ensemble Patterns and was hoping for a similar result here, but it was a little less straightforward than hoped, although I still ended up with a pair of perfectly wearable trousers.

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New bags: Summit Packs by me and the husband (!) Sew My Style Feb 20

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My first Sew My Style project this year and it’s a goodie! Even better, you get two for the price of one, as my husband nearly blew my socks off my saying he would be up for trying to sew one as well! He had fancied trying a crossbody bag for a while and when I saw the Summit Pack was one of the choices for the February pattern, I showed him the pic, thinking he’d have forgotten all about his desire. To my surprise, he seemed keen and so his first sewing project was game on.

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Now, I have to be honest – this is not necessarily an ideal first project. It’s quite a complex bag, as bags go, with lots of zippers, pockets and other details that make it a fantastic pattern, but a lengthy effort for a beginner. It’s actually rated as Intermediate or Higher, but, nevertheless, we decided that with me here to help and demonstrate, we’d give it a go anyway.

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