Navy Wool Chardon

 Hello all! Today I have to present to you my wool Chardon skirt to go with the Victoria blazer I blogged about a couple of weeks ago. I wanted a fuller skirt on rotation in my school wardrobe because the practical subjects I do (textiles and drama) involve a lot of moving around and sitting cross legged on the floor, which is incredibly hard to do in a pencil skirt which most people wear with their blazers.

I didn't have a lot of fabric left, so I opted to make a Chardon which doesn't take metres and metres of fabric, but is still full enough to move around in. Plus, it has pockets and the pleats are adorable. It's great to have a navy suit now, because it's opened up a whole different range of wardrobe options. I can also sneakily wear dresses underneath, which just makes me happy to be able to wear garments in lots of different ways. And guys, pockets are so useful! I don't know what I did without them!

It's fastened with an invisible zip in the back , all raw edges were zigzagged for some reason that I can't remember and I used an awesome floral bias binding for the hem which I bought when I first started sewing and only now have had the right project to use it on! I had just enough. 

All in all, it's a great skirt and I feel great wearing it! 

Thanks for reading and to Ed for taking pictures! We moved to a different corner of the garden today. 

Lauren xx

Dotty Shirt Refashion

 I haven't done a refashion for a while, but the lovely Darren gave me this massive shirt to play around with for my birthday. I didn't end up doing anything particularly creative in the end. I was considering making the back the front but the complete lack of spot-matching in the back seam put me off that idea.

Instead I opted to slim it down at the side seams, and extend them further up the shirt. The sleeves were kimono, so they were pretty much chopped off with the rest of the excess.  It ended up too short be a dress but too long to be a top so I chopped a fair bit of length off. Maybe I chopped a bit too much of the length off, but it ties in a knot nicely at my waist so that's okay.

It was pretty quick and easy to do which is nice if you don't have a lot of time. It was great not having to fuss around with getting buttonholes right! It wasn't however as quick and easy as I thought it was going to be because the fabric was very slippery and the hem ended up being a bit crinkle-y.

See what I mean about the back not matching! Now I look at the back it seems that there is more sleeve on the left than the right so I'll have to fix that!

I need to make some high-waisted jeans quickly, because I got a very cold midriff when taking these photos!

That's all for now! Thanks very much for reading, and to Ed for taking the photos!

Lauren xx

My second blogaversary!

I can't believe that I've just finished my second year of sewing and blogging! I guess that doesn't make me a beginner any more. This year I managed to make a total of 48 pieces of clothing compared to 37 items made last year which is pretty good going! I'm proud of how I've been able to consistently post for 2 years, given my track record with diaries (where entry's are usually made every couple of years when I find them when spring cleaning.) 

 This year was obviously the year of the dresses, which isn't surprising when I've finally managed to draft a bodice block that fits the way it should. I've had great fun with lots of pattern adaptation, and in this coming year I'd like to draft more complicated projects, like outerwear and maybe swimwear. I would like to master a proper long sleeved shirts with cuffs and everything. I'd also like to look at tailoring techniques like welt pockets. 

. This last year has been very much a winner for wearability, compared to the 57% of wearable items I made in my first year of sewing. I think even when projects haven't turned out quite right, this year I kept going until they were wearable, which was a good habit to have, and obviously paid off.

 My most popular post this year was very unexpectedly my Holiday Capsule Wardrobe Planning post on how I was organizing my suitcase for the 3 week trip to Australia. I did have great fun drawing all the little outfits on photoshop. Maybe I should do more posts like these? The second most popular post was my Strapless Maxi dress which I made for the sewalong on Project Sewn. I'm seriously missing it this year.

I did make my first pair of jeans, although arguably they aren't proper jeans because they didn't have a fly front. They aren't particularly comfortable which I'm blaming the lack of stretch on so I'm going to attempt some ginger jeans in the near future.

I've done pretty well for suits this year, which is good considering that I have to wear them 5 days a week. My Victoria blazer with a navy Chardon is getting loads of wear, because I do practical subjects I need to be able to sit cross legged on the floor, which I cant do very well in a pencil skirt!

The standard of the inside of my garments is steadily improving which is great. Very few of my makes have unfinished edges thanks to my overlocker. There had better be room for it at uni!

Anyhow, here's to my third year of sewing! Cheers to everybody who reads about my adventures in sewing. Very little can beat the feeling I get when a new comment appears in my inbox ;)
Lauren xx

Quilted Lady Skater

This week I finally had a chance to sew up my birthday fabric from the lovely Beth into yet another Lady Skater dress.

The fabric is a quilted knit from Minerva Crafts in a lovely wine/burgundy colour which I'm really loving at the moment. Because of the various layers in the fabric, it did fray so all the seams were overlocked. I could just about get the whole dress out of the metre which is pretty economical.

The dress was originally a top and a skirt because I thought a quilted crop top would work really well over my dresses, but I didn't take the neckline into consideration when I cut out the pieces. The lady skater neckline is below most of my dresses, and it didn't look right when I wore it over them so I just joined the top and skirt together to make the original dress.

It does look however, a little too long in the back. When cutting out what I thought was going to be a top, I lengthened the bodice which seems okay in the front, but there is a  bit of excess in the back. Nothing that a bit of pulling down won't solve, I'm sure!

Overall, it's a really cozy dress and I'm going to get as much wear out of it as I can until it gets too warm! I'm curious to know whether you wear different colours according to the seasons? Is burgundy a colour suitable only for Autumn/Winter because it's a dark shade? Please let me know your thoughts!

Thanks very much to Ed for taking photos and to Beth for the fabric and to you for reading!

Lauren xx

Navy Victoria Blazer

It seems that I'm on an indie sewing pattern binge at the moment! Today I'm showing you my version of By Hand London's Victoria blazer. They had a 20% off certain patterns a couple of weeks ago, and I've been eyeing Victoria up for ages so I bit the bullet. I decided that it was time to add another suit to my rotation and I thought that I'd give Victoria a try.

I used a 100% wool fabric that I scored in a charity shop last year. Just under 3 metres for 8.99 was a crazy price and I obviously couldn't leave it there! Unfortunately I only noticed after it was sewn up that there are some teeny holes in parts of it, but they've been patched up the best I can.

The only changes to the pattern I made were to extend the sleeves to full length (because I want to wear it all year round) and to take a wedge out of the back to make it slightly more fitted. I also lined the sleeves as well as the body because that wool is itchy! It was interesting to sew up in comparison to my other blazers. This one doesn't have a facing, which means that the lining sometimes shows.

It ends at exactly the right place which is good. I tacked down the collar ends to keep them in place. The lining was bagged, to keep the insides neat.

I'm pretty happy with it, and I think it looks good with the matching Chardon skirt (yet to blog).

The navy colour seems to go with pretty much anything, so no doubt I'll be wearing it in the spring out of school. I love it with the stripey dress.

Thanks very much for reading and to Ed for taking the photos!
Lauren xx