A little red dress

My first make in almost a year.

When I started my PhD 3 years ago I naively thought I'd have as much time for my hobbies as before. But of course I don't. And it's not even because of the PhD, but because I work part time on the side of it, and in addition have chosen to live far from the university and have a commute (I did until the lockdown anyway). That still leaves me some free time, but there has been a shift in my priorities. Now I'd rather use that time to be out walking, or read books, or bake some bread.

The other reason I'm sewing less is that I've lost my appetite for it. I have been critical of fast fashion for a long time, but I've only relatively recently turned that critical view to my own production of clothes. Because ultimately, whether I buy more clothes than I need or make more clothes than I need, both have an adverse environmental impact.

So I make a LOT less than I used to, only a handful of things per year, and that suits me fine. When I sew something it's an absolute treat, and I'll put in so much more care and effort to make something well so it can last me a long time.

Like this dress. I've wanted a little red dress for the longest time. So I bought myself some nice cotton jersey, and sewed with care, attention and joy. I used the Rachel wrap dress pattern by Maria Denmark, but made it a lot shorter, and I'm delighted with the result.

Unfortunately I didn't take the same care when taking the photos as when sewing, so it looks ill-fitting. The truth is that I was sunbathing for a few hours, waiting for that magical evening light, and was pretty sweaty and sticky when I pulled this on. So it clinged to all the sweatiest parts of me, and I didn't have a mirror to hand to adjust before snapping a few shots of it. Ah well. You'll just have to take my word for it that it fits better than it looks.

A magical Moselle top

This is another make that started with the fabric. I got this wonderful, wonderful fabric from Nicoletta (@stitchandcappuccino on IG) years ago now. Dusky pink cotton lawn (I think!) with the most magical broderie anglaise border.

It is so beautiful, but there wasn't lots of it, so I didn't want to make something with it until I found the perfect thing. In the meantime I hoarded it like a dragon.

I mean, just look at it! You can hardly blame me for not wanting to waste it on the wrong project.

Now and then I'd go back to it and trawl through my pattern library, but nothing felt right, so back into the stash it went.

And then, a few weeks ago I saw a photo online of a ruffled off-the-shoulder broderie anglaise dress. Can't remember what store/brand now, but it's irrelevant. I fell in love. The love was made even sweeter by the fact that I could make a version of it myself, in this, the most magical of fabrics.

Because I didn't have tons of the fabric I made a top rather than a dress, and the ruffle is not densely ruffled. But I absolutely love it. Like, so much.

(It looks in these photos like my jeans are dirty, it's various seeds and pollen from wading around in these weeds.)

I used the Moselle top pattern by Nina Lee, and it sewed up so quickly and super easily. There was only one mishap, in that I accidentally cut off a piece of the fabric which should have been part of the ruffle, and had to patch it back together (you can kind of see it in the photo below). No idea why I did that, I was probably distracted (was listening to Michelle Obama's 'Becoming' on Audible when cutting/sewing this, it must have been a good passage!).

And that's it, I have nothing else to say about it. I love it, and am excited to wear it lots and lots and lots.

Thanks again Nicoletta for this magical fabric!

On a final note, I think it might look better tucked into an A-line skirt or high-waisted trousers, than the black jeans I wore here, but I was chasing the last of the evening light and couldn't afford wasting time on styling it. Worth it though, look at that light!

A v9251 (kind of) wearable toile

Wow, since my last post winter has turned to the peak of summer. While not quite true to my sewing output (there has been a Suzon blouse, two Stellan T-shirts and one Hemlock in organic cotton since the knitted hat), it does reflect the fact that I have cut down on sewing and knitting A LOT. But that only makes me more excited about the things that I do make. Most recently, the dress in the above photo. So let's talk about that!

First things first though, apologies for the slight blurriness of these photos. I edited them on my phone, and when I copied them to my laptop the resolution was less than ideal. But I don't have time to re-edit them (another make is already photographed and waiting to be edited!). Hopefully they are clear enough to show how the dress came out.

Right, disclaimers out the way, onto the dress.

This dress, like many, started with the fabric. Last year a friend gifted me some beautiful viscose challis that she purchased for me in Pakistan (how sweet?!). I immediately thought it would look fantastic as a wrap dress, and the v9251 seemed like the perfect choice. I'd never made it, but I had seen plenty around the Internets and they all looked fantastic.

Before I made it up in this special fabric though I decided to try the pattern in a different one, in case it needed modifications. And I'm glad I did.

The short story is that this was quick and easy to sew and the finished result looks great, but I'm not super happy with it.

Here's why. I initially decided to make the short version of the curved hem (view A, but shorter still). But then when I cut it like that and tried it on I didn't like how it looked, and decided that I'd rather have a straight hem. However, at that point I had cut away too much fabric in order to make the curved hem. So I did the best of the situation and straightened it as much as possible. But that means that the front piece that wraps over the other is cut somewhat on the diagonal, which presents one major issue. This is that it doesn't wrap over properly, and the lightest gust of wind blows the dress open.

This is easily fixed with a safety pin or two, but ideally that's not something I want to think about whenever I wear it. It's bad enough with RTW wrap dresses, where throwing modesty out the window by scrimping on fabric seems to be the norm - the beauty of homemade clothing to me is as least partly to solve such sartorial issues.

(Ugh, the photo that made me realise I needed a hair cut badly.)

Then there is the fact that the bodice is probably a size too large and therefore gapes. So that introduces the need for another safety pin.

I have modified the ties, by making them longer and leaving a small hole in one side seam to thread one through, which helps with the bust gaping, because I can just tie them tighter. But it's not ideal.

But, this was the purpose of making the dress in a different fabric - to figure out what changes I need to make. And these are: bodice one size smaller, cut skirt straight rather than curved and wide enough to wrap over fully, keep ties modification. I also think I'll underline the next one. Mainly because the fabric I want to make it in has a white base and it might be see-through otherwise.

However, despite all the issues with this one I really do like it. It's super feminine and looks effortlessly nice. And the fabric is just dreamy. But the wrap blowing open is a real problem. So I'm tempted to cut it into blouse length and just wear it with jeans. I think that would be a really cute look and would let me get a lot more wear out of it. Not to mention that it would reduce the need for safety pins from three down to one!

It would be a bit of a shame if I don't keep it as a dress, but on the other hand, it makes me more eager to sew it in the fabric I have intended for it. Realistically that will be next summer, because at the ridiculously slow rate I'm sewing these days I won't get around to it until about November time. But that's ok, I am anyways going through a phase of disgust for producing too much clothing, memade or otherwise, (this is a topic for another post) so PhD-imposed lack of time for sewing suits me just fine now.

So in summary... v9251 turned out to be an as easy and fun pattern as it seemed from everybody else's makes and from this wearable toile I feel confident that I have learnt what I needed to do the lovely fabric from my friend justice.

What I did
Size: 12
Modifications: Straightened skirt pieces and shortened hem, made longer ties that wrap all the way around, and left an opening in one of the bodice side seams for the ties to go through.
Fabric: Wonderful blue floral viscose challis from Minerva Craft.
Time spent: One Sunday, including cutting of fabric.

What I'll do next time
Size: Bodice 10, skirt 12
Modifications: cut skirt pieces straight from the start, probably also shorten like this time. Keep long wrap around ties.

An Epistropheid hat for winter

This time last year I was waiting for spring and desperately looking for signs of it. What a fool! This time around I know that spring does not grace the North with its presence until much later. So instead of looking for signs of spring I'm preparing for more winter by knitting woollens. 

I don't knit a great deal of stuff for myself, mainly things that I gift to others, so even though I've been knitting for 4 years now I still haven't made myself a hat.

I didn't actually plan to do much about it, but some of the best handicraft projects are spontaneous ones, in my experience. Well, as spontaneous as knitting can be. 

This one started with the yarn. Two winters ago I bought a couple of skeins of quite rustic Norwegian yarn in a yarn shop in Stockholm without a plan of what to do with them. Was just checking out some yarn stores with a friend and really liked the look and feel of the Sandnes Garn Peer Gynt. So I bought two skeins in dark grey and one in off white. And then sadly I kind of forgot about them. 

This winter I got a craving for learning colourwork knitting, and decided to start with something simple, like a cowl or a hat. And then I remembered this yarn....

A small project in only two colours felt like a good start with colourwork, so I started looking for suitable patterns. I fancied a pattern that would remind a bit of traditional Scandinavian patterns or Fair Isle, but more clean and modern shapes.

After a few weeks of searching Ravelry I found the Epistropheid hat by Kate Davies Designs . It was perfect!

I knitted a size M exactly as per the pattern instructions. It knitted up quickly, in a few evenings over the course of a week, and was surprisingly easy.

I don't know why, but I had an irrational fear of stranded colourwork knitting. So it was a very pleasant surprise when this was not particularly difficult at all! 

I wet blocked it and then debated whether to add a pom pom. Really wanted one, but also did not want to cover the beautiful crown of this hat. In the end I compromised and went for a smaller pom pom than I initially planned. 

Funny story about the blocking. I blocked it on Saturday night and woke up to gorgeous sunshine on Sunday morning. There was still some snow on the ground and because the forecast for the coming days did not look good I knew this was my only chance to get some photos of the hat in the snow-covered landscape. But, the hat wasn't dry yet.

I'm not proud of what I did, but desperate times... I whacked the heating on high and put the hat on the hottest radiator in the house. Do you know what happens when you put wet wool on a radiator? It smells like wet sheep. But worse. Like, if you were to guide a wet sheep into a sauna and sit in there with it for a bit. (Only a little bit of course! I'm not painting pictures of animal cruelty here!)

But it gets worse. It still wouldn't dry quickly enough, so by noon I just gave up and grabbed the still slightly damp hat, my camera and tripod and set off looking for a suitable location. So in the end I kind of blocked it with my own head by wearing it. On the upside it is shaped absolutely perfectly for me now. On the downside, I smelled like a wet sheep for the rest of the day.

Totally worth it though. I'm superhappy with this hat and can't wait to do some more stranded colourwork! I'm thinking another hat...

A last make of 2018 and some year end thoughts

Happy holidays everybody! I hope that everybody who's reading this is having a peaceful, relaxing time wherever you are.

I certainly am! So much so that I'm borderline bored! But I'm sure I can think of something to fill the time with. Like updating here with my last make of 2018.

I'm probably safe to assume that most of the traffic to this blog comes from my Instagram account. So if you're reading this you have probably noticed that there have not been any sewing updates for a very long time. The reason is pretty straightforward - there has not been any sewing happening for a very long time.

I just haven't had the time. Or the motivation to be quite honest. A lot of things on my sewing list for this autumn have been really boring items. T-shirts and black skirts and the like. The 'cake' of sewing rather than the 'frosting.' And when time is limited sewing boring items just feels like a chore. Another thing to procrastinate on.

I managed one of the items on the list this autumn, before deciding to (metaphorically speaking) rip up the list. That one thing was a new version of an old red tartan skirt.

I made a skirt in this fabric and exact style years and years ago. But I made it sloppily. No lining, no waistband, no pattern matching.

All these things irritated me, but I loved the skirt. Since I had about 1 m left of the fabric I have been intending to make a new one for ages, addressing all the problems of the original one.

A couple of weeks ago I finally did. The pattern matching is near perfect, if I do say so myself. The waistband is the barely there narrow one I was missing on the original skirt. And it is lined. So tick, tick, tick. But it was soooo boring to sew! 

It feels fitting to end 2018 with a chore that I've been procrastinating on for years. Like the pressure (that I created myself) is off. So now I'm looking at 2019 sewing with the intention to only make 'frosting.' The new list is full of dresses, frills and fun fabrics. Can't wait to get started!

What sewing are you planning for 2019?