Crosshatch Denim Collection

January 18, 2018January 18, 2018 ~ Tia Dia ~ 15 Comments

It’s not very often I find fabric in my local Fabricland that I totally fall in love with, but this was one. It’s a brown-white crosshatch cotton-poly-elastene lightweight denim that I circled around for weeks until it went on clearance, and then I bought the entire bolt for $5/metre. I can’t remember exactly how many metres I purchased, but I knew it would give me several pieces, none of which I planned to wear together, but would provide a nice collection for other pieces.

The first piece in this collection was a skirt, sewn last summer. I’ve made four of these, in lime green, black, khaki, and now, brown. I don’t have pictures of the black one, but it’s made from the same beautiful cotton denim as these jeans. I don’t have any photos of my wearing it, so this will just have to suffice. I’ve worn it a lot over the last couple of summers.

Then I wanted some capris, and decided to try Burda 04/2010 #143. These were an experiment in Burda’s plus sizing/drafting, and I’m surprised at how much I like to wear them. They have more wearing ease than a typical stretch denim pant pattern, as they’re drafted for non-stretch fabrics. I made a curved waistband, not the elastic one as in the pattern.

I love the little tab details on these. The front tab is like a little built-in belt, and the hemline tabs are fun. These have been in constant rotation through my wardrobe since last summer.

I did make up a jacket in this fabric, but didn’t like it much, so I gave it away. It was my mistake in shortening the back waist and grading it into the side front that caused the fail (I did do a pattern fitting session on my dress form… in my defense… It was the execution that was subpar…) and in the end I just didn’t like the fabric enough in a casual safari-style jacket.

When I purchased this massive length of goods, I initially thought of doing a safari style set of garments. This dress is probably the only things that would actually qualify as having typical safari elements: big patch pockets, lacing, buttoned tabs, etc. The pattern is Burda 5/2010 #112. I only have a German copy of the magazine, so it was a bit fun translating a word here or there in order to get the gist of Burda’s construction suggestions. Between reading the instructions aloud (my ear can hear hints of English sometimes) and studying the magazine photo, I managed to put it together without pulling my hair out.

I underlined the back of the dress with a cotton batiste.

The front interior is a bit messier than I like with all the pockets (total of four) and the laced opening. See? Mess on the inside.

This is a construction pic, and, no, you’re not looking at it upside down. I’m in the process of doing the welt pockets with the flaps in this photo.

And a back view.

It’s dartless, and I wanted to keep it that way… loose fitting and cool in the summer. And one last view from the side. The sleeves are long, and after playing around with rolling them or just gathering them up into the tabs, I decided I liked the ‘careless casual’ vibe proffered by the latter. Hmmm…. maybe it could use some shaping in the back. We’ll see…

2017, 2018 and other tidbits

January 13, 2018January 13, 2018 ~ Tia Dia ~ 19 Comments

2017 makes 2 — Vogue 1491, DD3’s middle school frankpattern formal, Burda 04/2010 #112

I’ve been enjoying all the year-end reviews that have popped up in my reader over the last 6 weeks or so. It’s crazy how 6 weeks seems like it’s a lifetime ago, and obsolete. One reason I really hate social media these days.

I haven’t blogged very much this past year for a variety of reasons, and it seemed to be a reflection on what I’ve actually done creatively in my sewing life. But after reading Naomi’s wrap-up post I thought I would set up a similar Excel workbook to track my makes. And my fabric inventory.

Lo, and behold! I actually sewed 62 garments during 2017! I was so surprised! Only about half got photographed or blogged, some were thrifted, and only a handful haven’t been worn yet, as I decided in December to sew up a collection of short-sleeved summer tops.

2017 screen shot

I must say, compiling this list was encouraging. I sewed a lot last year! It makes me feel I can move on to 2018 with a right good will to getting some of the larger projects going that I have been purposely avoiding out of fear for the last couple of years (fear of fitting, fear of less-than-perfect execution, fear of garment-lifestyle clashes).

And speaking of 2018, there has been a lot of kerfluffle in the sewing universe about the 2018 Burda Challenge. I’m sure Burda appreciates all the variations on this challenge every single year, although each iteration to date hasn’t gotten a lot of social media attention. When I participated back in 2013, only a few bloggers were interested, but this year, I guess the right person with enough clout in the sewing blogosphere decided to get on board, so everyone’s talking about it. I think credit should be given where credit is due, however, and so here’s to ReadyThreadSew and Pattern Review with the idea of a year-long challenge from waaaaay back when. I always find it amusing when the masses jump on a bandwagon that’s been around for a while simply because they hear a louder or more popular voice talking about it. No rant intended! It’s just my observations from the sidelines. 😉 Ideas need persistent, loud, popular voices in order to take root and get people on board. But that smacks of politik, and I am not going down that rabbit hole.

Anyways, I’m looking forward to actually getting photographs of all my 2018 makes – both successes and failures – and sharing them with you this year. I’ve tried IG for the last year, and it is sooooo not my thing. I’m a sideline girl, and although I occasionally like to scroll through my feed and see what you all are up to, posting prolifically is not my style. Of course, this article went a long way to explaining why, never mind that I like my neurons and my privacy.

That said, this year I have resolved:

to actually blog and share my makes this year, and not get dopamined-up and depressed on my IG feed. There is a small part of me that screams, “But you’ll be missing out on so much!”, and I’ve decided to ignore it and stay true to my watching-from-the sidelines self. Sharing all my makes is also not really in my comfort zone (I often feel I have nothing interesting to say, or any pretty pictures to share), but I have also resolved this year to…
take baby steps. Baby steps in healthy activity, in French, in social settings; permission to be creative, including TAST (an embroidery and stitching challenge); and..
sewing up some of my prolific stash, including ticking off the
2018 Burda Challenge box and a
Year of the Jacket personal challenge with each make. I have so many beautiful coatings in my stash, and I really want to attempt a French jacket, so I have set this as a many-birds-with-one-stone step.

And here’s a teaser, although I probably won’t blog any of these, as they were last year’s makes.

2017 makes — Collection of lace and silk tops from BurdaStyle & Vogue; brown skirt Burda 02/2006 #114; blue linen trousers Burda 12/2011 #133; and a stack of tops from Simplicity 4076 and BurdaStyle

EuroCup 2016: Team Portual Bomber Jacket

July 6, 2016July 5, 2016 ~ Tia Dia ~ 13 Comments

Back in the fall of 2015, I participated in the 2015 PR Sewing Bee. The last challenge was making an Olympic team uniform, and this was part of my submission. I thought it would be fun to blog it now that Portugal is playing in the EuroCup semi-finals today.

I made the skirt, trousers and top as blogged in my previous post. This is the first bomber jacket I’ve made, and I thought it would be fun to pull out all the red silk and linen scraps in my stash to make up this John Richmond bomber-style top from Burda September 2013. And it is not the most simple with a gazillion pieces, but it worked perfectly with all my little pieces of red.

I used red linen from my jumpsuit for the front bands and collar; a cotton-silk voile for the lower jacket, upper front and sleeves; and a rayon plisse (a double-layered fabric where the pleated fabric is loosely attached to a flat back) for shoulder and side constrast sections. The centre back panel and elasticated sleeve and bottom bands are made from silk taffeta. Here’s the front. You can see the contrasting fabrics with the piping. The single welt pockets are silk taffeta, too.

Here’s the back view.

The sleeves have a pleating detail, which is just beautiful. I made the lining for the sleeves separately instead of pleating all layers together as one.

I did a double row of piping around each section using gold and green silk shantung. Labourious, tedious, and quite satisfying, for sure, once it was done. This is a close-up of the back shoulder (from L, clockwise: silk taffeta, rayon plisse, silk-cotton voile).

I’m not a big bomber jacket fan, but this is so luxurious to wear, and doesn’t advertise it’s patriotism too loudly, which suits me. Back view, waving my flag.

Here’s the interior. I fully lined the jacket. The body and sleeve linings were sewn as separate pieces. I put the sleeve lining/fashion fabrics together, added the sleeve elasticated cuffs, and then stitched the sleeves to the jacket body. The armscyes are bound with gold and green silk shantung. The facings are linen.

Here’s a side view.

If Portugal wins this round, we’ll be downtown at my MIL’s in Little Portugal on July 10th, cheering frantically for them to win. If they don’t, I have some pieces to wear when I feel a bit Portuguese. 🙂

EuroCup 2016: Team Portugal Tee

July 2, 2016July 1, 2016 ~ Tia Dia ~ 13 Comments

With EuroCup in full swing, and living in a Portugal crazy household (my DH’s family is Portuguese), I thought some red-gold-green would be timely on the blog. Let’s start with a TNT tee pattern, Burda 02-2013-126, in an appropriately patriotic colour block.

I have always done the neck binding by folding a strip in half, stitching it right sides together to the neck edge, finishing the edges, pressing the seam allowance towards the garment and edgestitching it in place. This time I followed Burda’s instructions and actually bound the neckline. Slowly, carefully, and with a little unpicking here and there it worked quite nicely.

I added a skirt made from a stretch cotton and trousers. The trousers have since left my house because they were too wide and sat too low, and were too straight-legged and I just couldn’t be bothered altering them to fit properly because I didn’t like them enough in the first place. Well, I liked the line drawing and the idea, but….

Both patterns were from Burda 2006 issues. I actually bought the skirt issue (February 2006) after coveting Allison’s version in denim a year ago. It’s become my favourite summer skirt this year, edging out the wonderful Vogue 1247 for most wears so far this season.

I’ll be happy to wear the shirt in when Portugal plays in the semi-final next week. And if it’s too cool for a tee, I’ve made a red-gold-green bomber jacket, which I’ll share in detail next time.