Grey Suit Part 1: The Skirt

So, today I was planning on showing you my blazer, but unforeseen difficulties mean that you'll be seeing it next week instead. Instead you can feast your eyes upon the skirt part of the suit.

 You may be thinking oooh panels, what an interesting design feature! I was short on fabric so had to improvise. I had 3 metres of this grey suiting.  I used a metre to half make a blazer last year which really didn't work out well leaving me with 2 metres. From this I decided I wanted to make a new blazer, pencil skirt and dress consisting of a princess seam bodice and a half circle skirt. And I think I've just about managed it. The first "stripe" was from the under-sleeves of the first blazer and the hem band was salvaged from the peplum of said blazer. The first "stripe" had to be sewn on the cross-grain  which is why there's a bit of a change in colour.

I did have a few issues with the skirt, mainly with figuring out where the darts were because they weren't marked on the pattern pieces I had. I think I got them okay in the end. The back is a bit wrinkly but I'm not quite sure why. I did put a bit of a slit in so I can move about easily. The zip is handpicked. 

I'll see you next week with my blazer. Thanks to Mum for taking the photos.

Lauren xx

Sweater Knit Two Piece

Hello all! This ensemble was inspired completely by the Sewcialists Grease sewalong. I re-watched the film, looking for something  to make that would be practical for the coming winter and suitable for fabric out of my stash. Sandy's cheerleading jumper stood out to me, as well as Rizzos pencil skirts so that's what this outfit is inspired by, albeit fairly loosely in the pencil skirt sense. 

 The fabric is an amazing sweater knit which I found in Edinburgh while I was there for the university's open day (they do a cracking course on costume for performance). When we went fabric shopping I was firmly set on finding something seasonally appropriate because I didn't want to buy some beautiful fabric, make something and then not to be able to wear it for ages. It's quite a thick knit, and the wrong side is fleecy making it really warm and snuggly.

The pattern for the sweater was the raglan tee from Wendy Mullins book "Sew U Home Stretch" which is the same pattern I made my lace bomber jacket and black hoody from. It's a great base to adapt to how you want it. The sweater isn't as fitted as it could be, but I think that's okay because I will want to fit layers under it when it gets colder.

The skirt part of the outfit is very much improvised. I started with a rectangle the width of my hip circumference and overlocked a center back seam. I then tried it on and pinned out the excess 'til it fit.To avoid a dodgy hem and to add length I used a folded rectangle, similar to the sweater. It is quite short because I had to squeeze both the sweater and skirt out of a metre.

The back of the skirt is slightly iffy. As you can see the center back seam (the only seam) is wriggling up causing a bubbly effect which ism't the most flattering thing. I tried pinning them out but they just don't seem to want to go away.

Overall I am really happy with the jumper, it's really cozy and it's great that it goes with all my highwaisted skirts and jeans.

Thanks very much for reading and to Ed for taking the photos 

(Todays price was to drive him to school tomorrow)

Lauren xx

The hard to miss penguin dress.

Hi all! Today's dress is pretty special because a) I have a massive thing for penguins and b) because I bought this fabric when having my awesome fabric shopping day with Susan in Sydney so it has great memories attached to it.

The reason I've only used the fabric now is because the colour scheme is decidedly halloweeny and also because I wanted this dress to be a fit 'n' flare dress with a twist and I'd only just decided what I wanted the twist to be. The twist is obviously the 2 black organza strips near the hem of the skirt. This was my extremely technical drawing of how I wanted my dress to look.

\

I used my bodice block and then 2 gathered rectangles the width of the fabric. I then cut 4 organza strips for each rectangle with matching penguin strips. I tried to rip the penguin fabric into strips to get even rectangles but it was a disaster so maybe the fabric was off grain? In the end I just cut them instead. I did end up beheading all the penguins though... Whoops.

The rectangles were then gathered to the bodice which resulted in a really nice full skirt. I may have accidentally matched the skirt side seam to the front dart but shhh no one will notice. Also, one of my legs is missing in this photo... Weird.

The back was a bit of a total disaster. The zip was in, I tried it on but it was too tight and I couldn't get the zip done up to the top. This made me a not very happy bunny considering I wanted to wear it the next day and it was 11pm. At that point I just went to bed. This morning I unpicked the zip and the centre back seam and sewed it with a 1cm SA rather than a 1.5 SA which was fine thank goodness. The reason it ended up so low was that it originally turned back to show the black lining like in this dress so I snipped the SA for it to sit better but then it was too tight and I reduced the SA which meant there was a snip either side of the CB seam which would be seen, so I redrew the back neckline to below those snips and it was fine.

Now for some insides. I lined the bodice with some leftover black cotton so all the insides are clean.

And here's a close up of the organza insets. The bottom penguin rectangle was cut on the fold so I had no hemming to do.

Overall I'm really happy with it as a dress that now fits pretty well. And the penguins make me happy. I'm actually quite liking the longer length than usual.

That's all 'til next Sunday. Thanks for reading and to Mum for taking pictures!

Lauren xx

Hudson Pants

 Today I have to present to you my new P.E kit! I'm in my last year of school and we still have to do 2 hours of P.E a fortnight and this year I wanted to do it in style. Enter the amazing True Bias Hudson Pant pattern and some amazing ponte knit from Minerva Crafts which is actually the most expensive fabric I've ever bought. I did only need one metre of it though but I want a whole roll of it to make a myriad of things with it. What can I say, the print and colour and comfy-ness of this fabric just makes me happy.

I was worried about the fit because my hips are a good few inches smaller than the smallest size on the pattern but it was just fine because I could just adapt the amount of elastic used for the waistband. The length is great. Next time I'll make the rise a bit higher, they feel a tad low to me, especially when I'm bending down and stuff.

Is this how people stretch?!

I used the back of the fabric for contrasting pocket bindings and cuffs. It took me 3 tries to overlock the cuffs wrong side to wrong side because I automatically always go right side to right side which in this case was the opposite!

The back of the waistband is a tad iffy because I didn't use the right width of the elastic but it's nothing that a long top can't hide!

These are really really comfy tracksuit bottoms and I can't wait to wear them more and more as the weather gets colder. 

Have a picture of me losing balance when trying to do one of those leg stretches

That's pretty much all I've got to say today and it's back to homework for me.

Thanks for reading and to Ed for taking the pics!

Lauren xx

V&A Dress

Hi everybody! Today I've got to share with you my first autumnal make of the season, another self drafted dress! The design has been in my head for ages and ages and ages but I ran out of time to make a summer dress out of it so made one more appropriate for autumn instead. I wore the dress on a school textiles trip to the V&A to see the wedding dress exhibition which was just incredible.

To manipulate my bodice block, I slashed and spread from the top to the bottom of the side seam to add more volume for gathers. I made it up in calico and pinned it to the mannequin. Then I drew a rough shape of what I wanted the waistband to be like, pinned it on, drew on it, and refined the shape until it was how I wanted it. I then marked where the top of the waistband was on the bodice, added a 1.5cm seam allowance and cut off the bottom part of the bodice that wasn't needed anymore. The skirt is just a gathered rectangle.

Then I made it up in the real fabric, which is a cotton that I picked out of the remnant bin at Fabricadabra. I've decided on a specific colour palette for Autumn/Winter in an effect to make my wardrobe more cohesive consisting of black and navy as neutrals and green, red purple and teal.

If I made this style of dress again I would add gathers to the back bodice because it looks a little bare without them. I was just worried about them adding unwanted volume. The dress did end up a bit short due to not enough fabric.

To keep the insides neat I lined the waistband and neatened the neckline and arm holes with bias binding made from the same fabric. The hem was overlocked and folded over twice and there's an invisible zip in one of the side seams.

As I'm slightly more long waisted than the usual and the whereabouts of the waistband was determined on the mannequin the dress is a little higher than my natural waist so next time I would lengthen the bodice a bit.

The architecture of the V&A is just so amazing!

And of course I couldn't resist doing a princessy walk down the fancy staircase...

Thanks so much to Rebecca Hurrey who took such wonderful photos, and thanks for reading!
Lauren xx