Comfy stuff

If Me Made May has shown me anything, it's that there is a major lack of comfy house clothing in my handmade wardrobe. So, never one to be stuck (and awaiting a payday to buy jeans making supplies) I found a nice looking free pattern here at "If Only They Would Nap"  and a metre of grey Ponte Roma. Aw hey, that was a no bad 2 hours spent! 

The pattern is one size and luckily fits like a glove (I'm a UK 10) and I love the foldover waist.

I barely had enough length for the leg (they are a teeny bit not as long as I'd like) and I had to cut the waist band on the cross grain so it hasn't as much stretch as it's supposed to. But it actually works great not being super stretchy.

Next pair won't be so heavy weight since I don't like the lack of creasing in the leg folds. It's a bit wetsuity for my tastes. But a success for £6!

Garment deets:

Pattern: free as above

Fabric: Ponte Roma from Ebay. 1m of 60in wide. Hardly any left. 

Size and changes made: as the pattern with a 3/8 inch seam allowance

Me Made May week 4

I can't believe there's only 2 days left of May! I managed five full outfits this week again - yay! Two were copies of one's I'd worn before (on the top here) but the other two were new. 

 Do you see my trousers in the bottom right pic? Yoga pants what I made!  Heh heh. I'll give the details another day. Because I also made this!

It's the dress version of my sleeveless Coco hack. I made it for my mum's 60th birthday party yesterday but it will also get an outing to my father in law's retirement do next weekend and a work thing in 3 weeks. £11 of Ponte Roma well spent!

Garment Deets:

Pattern: Tilly and the Buttons Coco

Fabric: Ponte roma from Ebay, 2m with some left over

Size and changes made: size 4 with a graded 3 waist, funnel neck as per pattern, my sleeveless version. I scooped the armscye more than in my turquoise tee and lifted the sides of the hem an inch near the side seams.

A first pattern hack

So I have a few little parties coming up in the near future and fancied a new dress. My first made-for-an-occassion garment! They aren't fancy dos so smart casual will do - a new Coco dress maybe? Well when I came across one online with no sleeves then nothing would do but to have a go. But a trial run sleeveless top first, please.

Not bad! The thing about taking sleeves out of a sleeved pattern is the shoulder will be too wide and the armscye may be too big. So it means redrafting the pattern a little. And then there may be gaping in front of your shoulder - it's an armscye (armhole) thing.

No gaping there!!

I put in a binding round the armscyes like I do round the neckline. There is a great formula by Maria Denmark patterns (at the bottom of this post) that gives a great size if binding. It is small enough to pull in the raw edges just enough to give a great, snug finish.

I finished the binding by twin needle stitching the raw edge down and finished the bottom the same. I do love the a-line finish on the Coco tops.

Result! So I'm cautiously optimistic that a Ponte version with a funnel neck might actually work! You should see my fabric - it is awesome!

Garment deets:

Pattern: Coco top by Tilly and the Buttons.

Fabric: £9 knit from EBay! 1m of 150cm wide. About 10 inches left.

Size and changes made: size 4 graded to a 3 at the waist. Shoulders reduced by 3/4 inch. Binding at neck and sleeves. Cut 4cm (inch and a half wide) strips. Length is hole size plus seam allowance (1cm/ 3/8 inch) minus 15%. Sew to opening with 3/8 inch (1cm) seam allowance. 

Me Made May week 3

I made up for only doing 3 outfits last week by getting in 5 this week! Go me!

And, yeah okay, on one day the sum total of my make wearing was a belt! But it still counts.

I definitely have a lack of loungey me-mades. I'm hoping to change that soon!!

Sweary sewing

When I ordered this hacci knit from Girl Charlee a few weeks ago I was a bit bummed when it was much more open textured than I expected. My plans for a knitted style Longley cardigan looked in jeopardy - how the heck was I gonna sew that?!

Well I asked opinions and did my research. Removable stabiliser came up a lot, as did using an overlocker. Neither of which I had on hand. But my real revelation came when I discovered my sewing machine has an adjustable pressure dial for the presser foot. Game changer! So Thursday night I had the bit between my teeth and started cutting. 

And on Friday night with my stitch lengthened and my foot pressure reduced as far as it would go I started sewing. My first shoulder seam turned out well!

And by Saturday afternoon I had this! There were a few wee wavy bits on seams but nothing a good steam press didn't cook into submission.

You can see here how really open the weave is - I've been calling it fishnet!

This is inside the seam of the bottom cuff. It's finished not too badly - I thought it might be dropping threads and fluff for ages but it's pretty good.

Here's me testing it out yesterday. 

It drapes really nicely and is surprisingly cosy. You know when you just need a wee extra light layer sometimes?

So my gung-ho approach paid off this time. Yay! And onto the next thing.

Garment deets:

Pattern: the Longley cardigan by Wendy Ward

Fabric: 2m of 156cm wide boucle hacci knit. Used every last bit! super high end designer fabric! From a private label designer for high end stores comes this amazing Hacci sweater knit in black and white with a violet blue stripe pattern. Fabric has a boucle, or needle out looped knitted effect, and is light to medium weight with a nice stretch."  cotton/poly/spandex

Size and changes made: medium, cuffs omitted.  I might go back and add an additional neck binding like my other one. Stitched with walking foot with shallow zig zag to join (1.5mm by 4mm) and foot as low pressure as it will go.

Copperfox Horses

For a long time Chookie has been a collector of model horses. Mostly Breyer but other makes, too, and a large proportion of them have been bought from Utterly Horses - a shop in south England. Well the lovely owner, Becky, decided about 18 months ago to start manufacturing her own brand of Copperfox Model Horses featuring British breeds. Her Kickstarter campaign was a roaring success and her first range has just become available - yay! To help promote them (and I think just to get out and about to see other collectors) she announced a little UK tour at the start of the year. And one was near us!

Live Shows for model horses are kinda like country shows crossed with car shows. There are breed categories but obviously your animals aren't animate! A class is called, everyone entering lines up their model, judging happens and ribbons awarded. This is a wee selection of Chook's entries in the foreground.

It doesn't matter how expensive your model is, they are judged on breed conformation (how the  model compares to a real animal in terms of shape and proportion) and model condition. Those ones that have been clip-clopped round our garden for years? Not great show quality. *g* 

So her first class in her first show? Was Arabians and this wee girl (who is only about 6 inches high) came away with a first! And bet some very expensive Peter Stone glossy models (about £150 compared to our £8). To say she was stunned and thrilled would be an understatement - we had already had the "we're going home with nothing, you know that?" conversation. That moment when she turned round and excitedly mouthed "she got first!!" across the hall was fantastic to witness.

Here she is setting up another class - Other European breeds. No, that's not her in the pink. *g*

He got a second! (beating out a £200 special edition Breyer) And so did her Peruvian Paso.

She has wanted to attend a live show since she first found out about them when she was about 7. It was a lovely thing to finally do together and we met some really nice people and bought a Copperfox Model of our own to bring home. The winning was the icing on the cake, really!

Another Brumby

I absolutely love my first Megan Nielsen Brumby skirt so when I needed something to go with my Heather Ross strawberry print Ondee sweater? It was a no brainer. 

I bought this lovely grey cotton blend chambray on Ebay. It is really lovely and takes a press beautifully but after having worn it all day today to work there's hardly a crease in it - bonus!! It was only £16 for 2 metres, too.

The zips did have to come from Slovenia in the end. *blinks* But I might have a UK supplier now!

Skirts with pockets! So handy. And I do love those birds.

And a close up of my lovely zip (although Spouse's "but it's green!" earned him a scowl) and even finishing on either side.  That makes me happy.

And next? I am determined to find a yoga pants pattern. And make some everyday tees. Before the jeans extravaganza next month. Squee!

Garment Deets:

Pattern: Megan Nielsen Brumby

Fabric: cotton blend chambray, 2m of 112cm wide

Size and changes made: size small, version 1, no changes