Nautical Palazzo Pants

Look! I made a thing!!!!!! That's basically the crux of this post, like most of my posts I guess now I come to think of it! Before these beauts were completed I only had two pairs that fit and are ok to be seen in the outside world. With the amount of five-month-old-baby's puke flying round these days, it was rapidly becoming clear that another pair of trousers would be mighty useful. 

Pattern:

Back in December I put the call out to you lovely readers to help me figure out what sailor style trouser pattern would be the way to go, considering my limited free time for sewing. I am very grateful for all the tuppence worths that were subsequently put in. The lovely Handmade Jane threw another pattern option in to the mix by offering to lend me her copy of Simplicity 2654 (pictured above) from which she had previously made an awesome pair of sailor trousers herself.  

I decided to take Jane up on her kind offer because I loved the notched waistline plus she explained how she found the front pleats made them easily adjustable (no time for toiles these days). In the end the pattern size that Jane had already cut out was fine with no modifications required. The loose style and forgiving fabric helped make that so. Styling wise, the simple omission of the side tab detail from the original design and the equally simple application of buttons, and BOOM!: vintage-style sailors slacks are go. 

The only change I made to the pattern was to lengthen the legs by 5cms to be safe, even though I'm fairly average height. I'm pleased that I did because they are just about long enough with a modest amount of hem turn-up. 

Fabric:

If this grey something-or-other-type-of-fabric looks familiar, it's because I have already used the same stuff for these cropped trousers and my mild-maternity Tova tunic dress. So like the porridge debacle in the story of Goldilocks and the Three Bears, this fabric was a bit too thin for the cropped trousers, and a bit too thick for the Tova tunic dress, but just right for this project! Hurrah! It has enough body for the notched waistline shaping and is warm enough to be wearable in Spring, but it also has sufficient drape for the wide legs to flow nicely. I have just enough scrap-age of this fabric left over to create a false hem or false turn-ups if I need to lengthen them in the future (I found with my black and denim wide leg trousers that after heaps of laundering, they slowly shrunk in length to a state of unwearability). 

Extras and thoughts:

The navy buttons are purely decorative, and it may not surprise you to learn that they have anchors carved into them. They were a gift that had been dwelling in my stash, along with this fabric that I don't think I paid for either in the first place, so effectively this was a free garment. I'm not sure if the final trousers are a bit too dressy for my day-to-day life, and I've only worn them to a house-party (daytime baby-friendly house party to be precise) so far. They did glean some compliments and there were vague hints from others to suggest that they would like me to make them a pair, that I managed to expertly side-step! 

So if you've managed to read this far into this post, I shall now reward you with a pic that includes one of the cutest babies in town!

Offset Warehouse's Big Spring Contest! What's your idea of 'Everyday Awesomeness'?

**THIS CONTEST IS NOW CLOSED. THANKS SO MUCH TO THOSE WHO ENTERED**

Oh hi sewing-competition fans! Ethical fabric purveyors, Offset Warehouse, have just launched the Big Spring Contest, and guess what...? I’m one of the blogger judges! Hurrah! Want to win some fabric and a whole bunch more stuff? Of course you do. Read on, friends...

As one of the judges, I’ve been asked to come up with a theme and judge all the entrants for that theme. I get to pick one lucky winner who will get sent the fabric of their choice to make their design in three weeks. If you are selected as the overall winner out of the four 'theme finalists', you will win a whole goodie-bag of prizes!

The theme I've come up with is 'Everyday Awesomeness': garments that you wear day in day out that make you feel great, whatever that means to you. To enter, let me know what you would like to sew for the theme of 'Everyday Awesomeness' using fabric from the Offset Warehouse. You could choose an existing sewing pattern, commercial or self-drafted; you could adapt an existing sewing pattern; or you could design something entirely from scratch. Whatever you come up with, if chosen, you will need to be able to actually make the garment design you have submitted. Make sense?

To submit your idea, please email me your 'Everyday Awesomeness' idea by Sunday 16th March to sozoblog (at) gmail (dot) com. Your entry could be a link to which existing pattern you'd use, a sketch of a new design idea, a photograph: basically whatever you want as long as it adequately conveys to me what you would like to make. Along with your design/pattern choice, you must include details of which Offset Warehouse fabric you’d make it with, plus a sentence or two explaining what's 'everyday-awesome' about your submission. Please include 'Big Spring Contest' in the subject line of your email.

After that date I will choose a finalist who will be sent the fabric/s they need to make their garment. After those garments have been made and judged, an overall winner from the four theme finalists will then be chosen to win the goodies.

To get started, have a browse on Offset Warehouse's site and see what fabric inspires you! Or have a browse of the other themes. Here are all the bloggers participating and the themes you can choose from (click on each image to be magically transported to their blog for details of their themes):

'So what can I win?', I hear you ask! Well quite a-bloody-lot actually!

These bambu Adjust-A-Bowls are the ultimate 'hold everything' bowl and Green Tulip are generously giving one of each - a hemp organic denim one and a cork one. Fold 'em down, or pop 'em up, use them to store your sewing bits and bobs, pop it in the kitchen for fruit, vegetables or bread etc. Hemp has eight times the tensile strength and four times the durability of other natural fibers, and is mildew resistant and anti-microbial. Cork is renewable and biodegradable, and cork forests are essential to preventing soil erosion, maintaining water resources and storing CO2.

This gorgeous leather trim buckle basket is handmade in Morocco with palm leaves. It is lightweight, strong and free standing, great for shopping, the beach, picnics, gym, nappy bag and much more! The leather handles are incredibly soft and long enough to go over your shoulder and tuck under your arm. With the added bonus of a leather strap and buckle to keep everything safe - it'll be your new best friend!

DIY Couture: Create Your Own Fashion Collection, by Rosie Martin (former interviewee here on this little blog). The DIY Couture collection is 10 stylish, easy to make pieces of clothing that can be endlessly reinvented in different fabrics, textures and colours. This is the perfect book to give to someone who always sighs wistfully saying 'I wish I could sew...' whenever you rock up in a new creation! With no complex sewing patterns, even beginners at sewing can make their own beautiful clothes.

Make It Your Own, by Anna Alicia, the designer-maker behind eco-ethical homeware and jewellery label A Alicia, brings you 25 beautifully designed projects to help transform your home into a wonderful living space that truly reflects your personal style. The gorgeous photography throughout shows how the projects can work with your existing décor to transform your space. Anna also gives tips on using eco-ethical and vintage materials, a subject close to her heart. Whatever kind of space you live in, this book is about creating beautiful handmade objects that will make it really feel like your home.

For more details, check out Offset Warehouse’s site here. Now go and get your crayons or have a rummage through your pattern and start planning your everyday awesome garment!

Back to Work...

So I'm about to get back in the game and teach a few sewing classes! I must admit that I'm a little bit nervous, having been out of the game for nearly six months, but I know that they'll be heaps of fun. If you or anyone you know might be interested in attending a class, please read on...

At The Village Haberdashery, North London:

The Renfrew Top class 

Saturday, 8th March, 10:00am - 1:30pm, £90

(image source: Sewaholic Patterns)

The Sewaholic Renfrew pattern has become a firm favourite with the online sewing community. And with good reason, it is basically the perfect women's basic tee! In this class you'll learn how to sew with knit fabrics whilst making your own semi-fitted v-neck, scoop-neck or cowl-neck t-shirt. The fabric and pattern are included in the course fee. The Village Haberdashery have some fabulous organic jerseys by Monaluna for you to choose from, check out their ranges Raaga knits and Woodland knits (pictured below). You'll leave class with a great new top and the confidence to tackle any knit pattern you've been coveting!

(image source: The Village Haberdashery)

Sew Your Own Knickers class: SOLD OUT! Sorry peops...

At Sew Over It, South London:

Introduction to Commercial Sewing Patterns class
Tuesday 1st April, 6.30pm - 8.30pm, £40

This session will designed to demystify and explain how to use commercial sewing patterns. This is a discussion and demonstration based class, not a practical 'doing' one. This class is perfect for someone who has already taken a beginners sewing class or generally feels ok using a sewing machine, and now wants to amp their skills to become a confident dress-maker.

Topics covered will include:

• What to do if your measurements span two or more sizes on the pattern 
• What to do if you are taller or shorter than the pattern has been designed for 
• What the differences between vintage and modern patterns are How to select appropriate fabric for your pattern 
• What all the symbols on the pattern mean and what to do about them 
• Plus lots more. 

Dolores's Christmas Dress

Here's some makery for you. I started this cute little dress for my little lady whilst I was still pregnant, a time that feels sooo far away now but was actually only just over 4 months ago, and picked it up again to complete and give to her for Christmas. This garment is for a baby of about 1 years old so there's still ages before it will see action. My main issue with it is that I want to wear it myself! 

Pattern:

I'm not sure if it's Burda magazine or me, but for ages now I haven't liked any of the women's patterns in it. However the above edition (9/2013) had some baby's wear patterns that I definitely felt belonged in my pattern-arsenal. I imagine I'll come back to some of these patterns again and again, tracing a bigger size each time. If you want to get hold of this dress pattern you can find it on the Burdastyle website here (along with the other baby patterns from the magazine edition). 

Fabric and Notions:

Like the majority of my makes these days, this dress is comprised of 100% stash stuff. The navy fabric is some poly/cotton bought in Shepards Bush market years ago that just won't seem to disappear despite having made several things from it now. The contrast polka dot fabric that I used for the yokes and pockets came from my last 'proper' job. The heart braid was bought from a tiny shop in the Gothic quarter in Barcelona that sold only braid (!). I really love how these randomly sourced elements look perfect together. 

Construction:

This was a relatively simple garment to whip together, although I overlocked all the raw edges inside to give it a clean finish. The only problem I encountered was my own laziness and reluctance to figure out the old school manual method of making button holes on my new (to me) sewing machine, so I cheated and stitched poppers down the back instead! To be honest, with seven sets of tiny poppers to stitch on, it probably would have taken the same amount of time to just sit down and work out how to use the machine, but at least popper stitching can be done on the sofa whilst enjoying a small vino. 

Conclusion:

Sewing baby/children's clothes is frikkin' awesome! Who knows if it'll fit (if you're making it as far in advance as this one) but when it takes as little time and fabric as this project, you're unlikely to mind so much if it doesn't work out. Plus there's not so many fit issues to consider so the likelihood of it not working out is reduced as well. So, who's up for the challenge of grading this pattern up to an adult-lady size?! I've still got some of that damn navy poly/cotton left...

1940s Tea Dress Pattern Giveaway!!!

**THIS GIVEAWAY IS NOW CLOSED, THANKS EVERYONE WHO ENTERED**

To celebrate their first sewalong for their new sewing pattern range, 'Sew Over It' is offering readers of this blog the opportunity to score themselves a 1940s Tea Dress sewing pattern (pictured above). This dress style is a gorgeous, updated version of a vintage look that I guarantee looks amazing in both printed and solid fabrics. In fact, this pattern is close to my heart as it is one of the classes that I have taught at 'Sew Over It's' bricks and mortar shop/sewing school in South London, plus I helped develop the instructions for this pattern. Check out Lisa's delightful peaches and cream silk version pictured below, plus you can see my black version of this pattern here.

How to Enter:

There are three copies of this pattern up for grabs. This giveaway/competition is open internationally and with no cost to yourselves. All you have to do is help 'Sew Over It' decide which of their in-the-flesh classes they should release as a sewing pattern next. So head over to the classes page of their website and decide which garment you'd most like to be made available as a pattern and leave a comment in the comment box of this post. Along with your answer, please leave a way for me to contact you if you are successful (i.e. if I can't find your email address within two clicks of my mouse, leave your email address in the body of the comment). Email addresses will not be used for anything other than contacting you if you win this giveaway.

Make sure you have commented by midnight GMT on Wednesday 12th February to enter. The following day I will use a random number generator to select three winners for the three copies of the 1940s Tea Dress sewing pattern and contact them to get their postal addresses to forward on to Sew Over It so they can send out the prize.

Good luck lovelies!

Toddler Leggings Vs Napping

No, this project not going to set the sewing world alight with it's complexity, but the fact that I have managed to make something, let alone something that is actually wearable, means that I win. My baby girl blessed me with a succession of tiny windows of opportunity (opportunities that perhaps I should have spent napping or trying to excavate the lounge under all the nappy sacks) to make her cousin Anya (18 months old) a couple of pairs of leggings for Christmas. 

Pattern:

'And then came Ottobre magazine, and lo, it was good...' My mum bought me a subscription of the children's version of Ottobre for my birthday last year and I flip out with excitement each time one appears on my door step. Well technically it's not my door step, we share it with another flat and the pub below (yes I live above a pub). I digress...

This pattern is a super simple toddler leggings pattern that consists of two pieces, a front and a back. I omitted the knee patch piece, but I have some ace ideas for making knee patched versions in the future. To be honest I haven't really got my head round baby and toddler sizing yet. These magazines use height guides rather than age suggestions, plus I haven't figured out if Ottobre patterns generally come up big/small etc. They then confuse things further by telling you age and heights of the models wearing the style. It nearly melted my sleep-deprived mind. But after some texting with my sister-in-law and further deliberation, I chose to make the smallest size (92cms) but add about 4cms to the leg length just in case. In the end they did come out a bit long, but they looked pretty cool with turn ups and it means that they should have a longer lifespan. 

The pattern is a great basic, but I feel that the illustrations are a little misleading. Even taking into account the extra 4cms I added to the leg length, I think the final garments (as seen at pictured at the top of this post) came out quite different in proportion to the stubby, baby wear-esque illustration in the magazine (pictured above). 

Fabric:

Anya is quite a girly girl so I chose some fabric from my stash that reflected that. The fabric on the left is some Liberty jersey that I've had knocking about for about as long as Anya is old. The fabric on the right I've had for longer, I acquired it at a sewing meet up/swap in Brighton a couple of years back, I think it used to belong to Tilly. Both are very sturdy jerseys with a good recovery, just what you need for a toddler, I'd imagine.

Details:

These garments are obviously pretty plain and functional items, so I added these little labels (also acquired from a sewing meet up/swap) to make them a little more special. I also think it's handy to clearly indicate in some way which is the front and back on an ambiguous garment style like this, particularly as getting babies and children dressed can be like trying to wrestle an octopus!  

Conclusion:

I think these came out really well and I was pleased to see got quite a few wearings by Anya whilst we were in town visit Pat's family. I'll definitely be making a whole stack of them for Dolores when she is big enough in a variety of solids and prints. I'll probably be doing that instead of napping. 

If you sew for babies/toddlers/children, do you have a favourite 'workhorse' pattern that you come back to again and again?

Goodbye 2013: Plus Sewlution Success!

January 2014 is already into double figures but I don't want to wave goodbye to 2013 without a little look back:

(image source: Me-Made-May'13 flickr group)

Me-Made-May '13

2013 saw the most well-subscribed, exciting and vibrant me-made/self-stitched challenge yet. So many people signed up for Me-Made-May '13 by pledging to wear their self-made creations more often, and the flickr group reflected that with over 6000 outfit images posted there! You can hear (yes hear) me chatting about the challenge here. I'm so excited about 2014's Me-Made-May!

(image source: Miss P)

The Refashioners

I also had the pleasure of taking part in The Refashioners challenge. Organised by the ever-awesome Miss P, the purpose of this challenge was to bring the concept of refashioning to a wider sewing audience by asking a whole mixed bunch of talented soles to transform randomly assigned second-hand items into reworked wondrousness. Have a look here at what the unassuming collection above became if you didn't already...

My Sewlution

Along with a large slice of the online sewing community, I took up the challenge set by Karen from Did You Make That? at the tail end of 2012 to identify our own sewing aims for the forthcoming year. My personal sewlution was to make 12 garments in 12 months. But not just any old makes, I specified that these garments had to be successful in the areas of comfort, fit and in reflecting my sense of style. These items had to become regularly worn items, not just items that get dragged out for Me-Made-May!

Regular readers of this blog will of course be aware that I spent the majority of 2013 pregnant. Before I started to show I racked up some nice makes all of which fit my criteria (or would have done if I'd had a chance to wear them for longer had I not started changing shape)

1) leopard print Mathilde blouse (pictured above),
2) 40's Tea dress,
3) Mustard Marinière trousers,
4) Lady-like Pussy Bow blouse,

But from April-ish onwards my pregnancy began to dominate most of my sewing activities and effected the sewlution challenge. Because the maternity garments would naturally have a limited lifespan, I wasn't so worried about accurately reflecting my sense of style and felt freer to use fabric and try styles that weren't entirely 'me'. They included:

5) Africa Wax fabric Washi dress
6) Grey Tova dress
7) Peter Pan collar batwing tops (counted as one because the pattern is the same)
8) Vintage fabric handbag (no, not technically a garment but these are my rules and it sure as hell sees a lot of use)
9) Black and blue maternity treggings (once again, counted as one because the pattern is more or less the same)
10) Stripey long sleeved T-shirt
11) Nautical jersey dress and black batwing jersey dress
12) Modcloth-inspired maternity top 

PLUS there was the spotty maternity T-shirt remake and the fancy-sleeved grey T-shirt (pictured above) if you don't think the bag should count in the list! So you see: sewlution success! How did you get on with your sewlution if you took up the challenge last year?