Holly Playsuit

Oh hai peops! Here's a little something that I made a whole bunch of weeks ago. It's my version of the new By Hand London Holly Jumpsuit pattern. Those crazy cats asked me, along with a great pile of other awesome sewers, if I'd like to test the pattern to help them with its development. Seeing as I have yet to act on my playsuit/jumpsuit dreams I, umm, jumped at the chance (sorry, I couldn't avoid that). Please note that this is NOT a review of this pattern, as a tester I was obviously sent the pre-tweaked beta version of the pattern, so what you get if you buy it now will be a bit different. 

Pattern:

I greatly admire the By Hand London girls, their attitude and their business. But usually I find the style of their patterns to be too contemporary for my personal taste so I haven't sewn any of theirs before. However, I could see the retro potential in the sleeved and shorts version of the Holly (pictured above, image from the By Hand London website). To start with I made a few of the standard pattern alterations that I always make to give myself a fighting chance of a well fitting garment. I made the size 12 but graded out to the 14 at the waist. This probably wasn't necessary but I HATE feeling restricted round my belly. Secondly, I extended the back rise by 1.5 cm to accommodate my junk, as usual. And thirdly, I reduced the length of the bodice by about 1.5 cm due to my short-waistedness. 

After a mid-way fitting sesh, I noticed that the waistline was coming up VERY high, so clawed back as much of my bodice-shortening adjustment as I could by making the seam allowance as small as possible. If I were to make this again, I'd probably actually add a little bit to the length of the bodice. I also found the bust darts to be VERY high. Like, at least 6 cm too high. I know I have slightly saggy mum-breast-feeding boobs now and the application of a decent fitting bra will probably do wonders, but I feel that all but the most pert among us would have found these darts pointing north of your bust points to some degree. I'm not sure if the final version of the Holly pattern addressed these two issues, but I'd keep an eye out for them. 

The final issue I found was that the shoulder/neck area is very wide and quite 'gapey', making my bra straps visible a lot of the time. I think you can see the gapiness a bit in the picture at the top of this post. I haven't done it yet, but I intend to move the top few buttons over a touch to see if that closes up the neckline and reduces the gaping effect. If I make this garment again, I'd be tempted to 'fill in' the neckline on the pattern a little around the shoulder/neck area. 

One change I do know that By Hand London made since the testing process of this pattern, extra room was added to the butt area. I didn't find any issues with that on my version, but then maybe my additional 1.5 cm to the rise negated the tightness that other testers must have found. 

But that's the negatives out the way. There is a lot I love about this pattern. You can't see too well in the pictures of my version because of the busy print, but it has a delicate row of tiny buttons down the front. Those buttons are functional as well as decorative: you need them along with the side zip to get in and out of the thing. I also love the proportions of the little turn ups on the sleeves. In general wearing this garment feels fun and a bit cheeky! But it's not great for quick visits to the loo, just sayin'. 

Fabric:

So that we testers didn't need to delve into our fabric stashes to make the Holly pattern, we were very helpfully paired up a fabric purveyor who supplied us with fabric to sew our versions in. I was paired with the UK based Fabric Godmother. I got to hunt through their stock and had my choice to make my playsuit in. Oh. My. Goodness. That was a fun process. As I've mentioned in previous posts, in normal circumstances I try to sew exclusively from my fabric stash or by sourcing second-hand textiles, often from unwanted clothing. But when I do get offered free new fabric, I'm not mental, I say thank you very much. 

My first choice was out of stock so I went with this Tui Bird & Pohutakawa print cotton (close up below, image from the Fabric Godmother website). Seeing as this was free fabric, I wanted to go with something outstanding! The lovely lady at the Fabric Godmother got in touch with me a little while later and offered me a length of my first choice of fabric for free when she received a new delivery, as long as I mentioned where it came from when I blogged about my creation, which I promise I will. 

Although the fabric I used for my playsuit was my second choice, it has more body than the Aloha fabric and therefore worked better for this project which I feel needs a bit of structure. The buttons I used for my playsuit were some little fabric covered ones I'd had in my stash for a squillion years. Their turquoise colour is the same as the main part of the little birds in the print. So this project only required me to buy a zip. Hurrah! 

Thanks both to By Hand London and the Fabric Godmother for helping my finally get round to making a wearable playsuit!  

Liberty Cord Baby Romper

You know when you've had a sewing project in your mind for so long that you kind of start to think that it's already been completed? This is one of those. I had the pattern and the fabric for months and whenever I opened Dolores's clothing drawers, I was kind of surprised to find the romper not in there. So last month I eventually got round to making it IRL. 

Pattern:

I was given this sewing pattern by Jenna (who has recently started up an AWESOME new blog, Just Sew Jenna). Quick backstory: I 'met' Jenna when she was the winner of a giveaway/competition I hosted last year. She won 1 metre of her choice of fabric from Sewbox.co.uk. She was sweet enough to indulge my request to see what she made from it (you can see her gorgeous top here) and we've continued to email ever since. She also came to one of the Renfrew t-shirt classes I taught at The Village Haberdashery (the next Renfrew class is on Saturday 2nd August, BTW!) when she made this fabulous garment. Anyways, Jenna is a massive inspiration to me as she sews most of her daughter's clothing herself. This Burda 9652 romper pattern (pictured below) is one she used regularly when her little girl was littler, and she kindly gave me a spare copy she had.  

It really is an easy pattern, and a good basis for your own customisation if you so desire. I made view B without the pockets (I felt my fabric would be too busy for the pockets to be noticeable) but I did hack the pattern to include poppers around the inside leg seams for easy access when nappy changing. I eyeballed a hand-me-down romper of Dolores's for how to approach the hack and basically ended up applying a self-bias strip along the inside leg seam to form a base for half of the poppers. The only other change I might make in the future is to elongate the body a bit, as Dolores is a relatively tall and skinny baby (takes after her papa).   

Fabric:

Speaking of Sewbox.co.uk, this super-soft baby cord was a given to me by them. Susan, owner of Sewbox, sent me lots of samples of her impressive array of baby cord and I picked my fave. This is Liberty Kingly Cord - Tatum Trail and you can snaffle your own here. It is an ideal fabric for babies: it's really soft but also holds its shape, AND the garment doesn't need ironing (IMO) after being laundered. I chose this print because it reminded me of the 70's baby/children's garments that kids were still wearing in my youth (early 80's). 

Thoughts:

It seems, if my explorations on Pinterest are to be believed, a big trend in children's wear is to look as much like mini-adults as possible! This freaks me out somewhat. I love that this garment is firmly a baby's garment. Is isn't close fitting, she can move around in it with ease. She can wear it on its own when its warm, or layered with onesies/vests and tights when it's chilly, and various combinations in-between. With poppers at the shoulder straps rather than buttons, it's a really practical garment that is relatively easy to get on and off, helped in part by its roomy fit. I'll definitely be using this pattern again in the future. How cute is it going to be when she's toddling around in it?!

My Sewing Pattern Hoard: Playsuits

Lately I've been thinking about how to catalogue my expanding (largely vintage) sewing pattern collection. To be honest, this is something of an impossible task because my pattern collection is generally in a constant state of being added to and whittled down, but I still think trying to do so would be a valuable endeavour. My patterns currently reside on a shelf at work, so unless I go and flick through them, I often forget what I've actually got. I try to sew (almost) exclusively with secondhand fabric and textiles, which is obviously more difficult as a starting point than if I allowed myself to wander into a fabric shop and pick whatever I wanted in whatever quantity I needed. As the fabric lengths I get hold of are finite, it's often tricky to marry up those pieces of fabric with suitable patterns, so listing my patterns here might help that process a little.

Also, reminding myself of the patterns I already have might steer me away from purchasing more when so many in my collection have yet to be tried out. I'm going to comment on each pattern, which should help me figure out what appeals to me and what the issues are with each. If anyone reading these posts has any useful comments, they will be gratefully received as they are likely to help my analysis still further.

I plan to tackle this task in catagories (though I'm going to have to sub-divide the 'dress' catagory somehow!) and today's is 'playsuits'. It's almost the beginning of August, not that we've had much in the way of a summer so far, but any remaining opportunity for making and wearing such a warm weather item is fast disappearing so I thought it'd be a good place to start. Vintagey inspired playsuits are all over the high street and internets right now, so I found these original vintage 50s playsuit images (and Dita) as a bit of scene-setting inspiration. Not that I'm necessarily looking to create a completely vintage/retro feel garment, but let's face it, if I'm going to make a playsuit, it probably will have that flavour!

For the purposes of this post (and to not confuse my tired brain) I'm defining 'playsuits' as a one piece item, the bottom of which is shorts, meant for summer. I'm not including those shorts and bra/bikini type separates, or one-piece items where the bottom part is a skirt. Perhaps those type of outfits/garments could equally lay claim to the title 'playsuit', but I've drawn my line in the sand. I guess you could also refer to them as jumpsuits but that tends to conjure more '80s type garments than I feel I'm aiming for here. (Having said that, it was Veronica Darling's incredible candy-striped '80s jumpsuit that got me even considering this whole garment genre in the first place, but I think if I'm venturing into this trend, I'd best head for a more mid-20th century vibe.)

Let's start with my most recent pattern acquisition:

I bid hard for this beauty, completely blowing all my usual self-imposed ebay bidding limits. But it's such a nutty pattern. I didn't include all the line drawings, but the panels and style lines in the bodices are unusual, bordering on bizarre. It calls itself a 5-piece holiday emsemble and although I have yet to fully investigate, I'm assuming all three bodice options could be paired with the shorts to create a playsuit.

It was the buttons and contrast collar that initially lured me in:

But on closer inspection, it was this strapless bodice alternative that really got my heart racing (it looks similar to the beautiful picture at the top of this post, don't you think?). I LOVE those crazy style lines. Might be hell on earth to fit. If I make this, I'll probably add straps like my Summer Holiday Dress's so I can wear a normal bra and comfortably omit the boning that I noticed the pattern requests for this bodice option:

HOW beautiful is the artwork on this pattern? One day I'll have a sewing room and I'll frame and display my favourite pattern illustrations and I'm pretty sure this'll be one of them. Unlike the pattern above, no-one challenged my ebay bid of this stunner and I snared it for bugger all! Seriously. Where were you all?!:

Anyways, what I don't like is the pleating at the front of the shorts, so if I deploy this one, I'll probably try and frankenstein this top with some other bottom section. However. This pattern is labelled size 14, but it wasn't until I got it in my grubby mitts that I realised it pertains to a 32" bust, which will mean some grading and hefty alteration if my body measurements are to be alligned to its!

A more modern interpretation that has done the rounds a bit in blogland:

I like the cross-over top version with the shorts, as illustrated in green. Having read mixed reviews of this on Pattern Review, I started some preliminary toiling and the initial signs are not great. It's one of those patterns that has been published in two size chunks, I went for the smaller that goes up to a size 12, as per the measurements on the back of the envelope, but maybes I should have gone for the larger pattern and started with a size 14. I can probably tweek the copy I have, but either way I really can't see how you are meant to get in and out of this without a major struggle. I'm really not sure about this pattern, any opinion?

An older, '40s one:

I was lucky enough to acquire this pattern as part of the Brighton meetup and fabric swap last month. I'm slightly allarmed by the shoulders, and in general how the proportions of the illustration bear so little resemblance to what I see in the mirror; I just haven't a clue how this would look if made. Considering the summer weather/time restrictions I'm facing, the amount of toiling required makes me think this isn't the playsuit pattern I should start with.

So, lovely readers, how should I approach this? Is there enough summer left for this to be a worthwhile endeavour? What's going to look the least silly on a curvy 31-year-old whose not afraid of a tiramisu or 3? Maybe I should use the top from a halter neck dress pattern instead? One that potentially requires less of a faff? Have you made/fitted a playsuit? Nightmare or joyous success? Help!!!!!