Coco Loco: Three / Five Coco Tops

I loved sewing up a very quick lady skater dress from this gingham ponte so much that I immediately cut out a Tilly and the Buttons Coco from my leftover fabric. I am a chronic overbuyer of fabric, so usually have big enough offcuts that I can make something "proper" out of them. I still have more even after this top is finished! Perhaps enough for a baby pinafore dress. Wouldn't THAT be cute?! 

I was a bit worried the gingham would look weird as a top. I’m still not sure to be honest, but it has proved very useful as a warm, practical, easy to look after kind of garment. My only gripe is that this fabric bobbles terribly. In these pictures the top is about 3 months old, so has been worn and washed a bit, but not a huge amount. I don’t know if you can see but it is very very bobbly. I’m a bit disappointed but I know now I should invest in better quality ponte di Roma. This ponte also didn’t have the same type of stretch or the weight of ponte I have used before. It’s rather odd. As soon as I looked at these pictures I threw the thing away. The gingham is way too stretched out over the bust, so that coupled with the bobbling made the decision easy. It’s not a good look.

Library Card Top (Tilly & the Buttons Coco pattern)

I made my lovely sister a pair of Coco tops for Christmas, in solid magenta and a navy and white Breton stripe. I liked the idea so much I made myself a matching pair! The Coco is such a great, quick sew, and a very practical item of clothing for my life right now. I can see why the Breton tee and jeans is such a mum uniform. It just works! The same with short hair! I seem to be conforming to stereotype here but again, it just works! Haha.

HTO Top 

For All the Family Top. Camera could not capture the magenta colour!

The navy and white stripes are my favourite. I am not sure what is going on with the Coco sleeves. I often have this problem as I am an apple shape (thin arms and legs, all my extra padding in the middle), so the sleeves here just look a bit baggy. Must fix.

For Christmas I got a twin needle - finally! - and was so excited to try it on my pink Coco which was still not finished. Imagine my disappointment when I discovered that my machine doesn’t do the kind of twin needle finish I was hoping for! This is the only stitch on my machine that looks remotely like what I was after, and that produces these stitches:

It looks ALMOST how I had imagined, but because it’s a stretch stitch it is not just straight lines of stitching. Is this normal? Does anyone else have a Janome 525s and know how to get it to look like two lines of normal stitching?

To add insult to injury, just when I had decided it didn’t look that bad and I’d just go for it on the neckline, sleeve hems and hem, disaster. I had got all the way round the front of the neckline when the needles jammed going over the thick shoulder seam. Drat. By the time I had freed it all, the twin needle was bent beyond usefulness. It would have hit the throat plate if I had used it. Well, I wanted to get the top finished so I just finished the rest with zig zag. At least I had done the whole of the front neckline with the twin needle before it got bent. Design choice. Ahem.

ANYWAY I am not in love with these tops, but they are simple, and that’s exactly what I was after. 

They got worn lots but now, months on, the navy striped one is bobbling horribly too. This fabric wasn’t even that cheap (though it was from an eBay shop I hadn’t used before), so I am a bit annoyed about that. 

The quest for the perfect Breton top continues!

Baby Sewing - Drew Leggings

During my last little stretch of maternity leave I made a couple of things for my baby.

I have had the Drew leggings pattern from Spit Up & Stilletos saved for yonks, so I thought I'd use up some jersey leftovers and sew some leggings for the baby. It's a great easy pattern, and very quick to sew up. The only downside is that putting in the elastic waistband is a bit fiddly, and so neither of mine were very neat. I think I need some elastic that's not quite as firm.

I made a red pair and a goose/ducks pair out of jersey offcuts, both in size 0-3months. The sizing comes up pretty small so I'd actually say they're more Newborn size.

Here they are on our little girl at 2 weeks old. Look how little she is. You think you won't forget but you do.

I also made a floral pair in size 12-18 months, our little one's current size. These have ended up super long, longer than her RTW 12-18months clothes. I'm confused about the sizing but I do still love these leggings. For now she is wearing them with the cuffs turned up. The cuffs are from an old T-shirt I was throwing away about a year ago. By "throwing away" I mean "cutting off the best bits of and adding them to my jersey stash for just this kind of thing."

We love a print clash!

Well, I should go and immediately cut out ten pairs of leggings in various sizes and production-line sew them. I SHOULD. I will add it to the ever growing list!

The Red Wren - from Pregnancy to Breastfeeding

Having read about how successful Zoe's Colette Wren dresses were both for pregnancy and for breastfeeding, and of course seeing how gorgeous and effortlessly stylish they looked, I had my heart set on making one for myself.

I bought this red lightweight jersey from Minerva with my birthday money in February, cut it out in March but only finished this dress in early May when I was 38 weeks pregnant. So rather than attach the skirt to the bodice a few inches higher up to make it a Maternity hack like Zoe did, I decided to make it up as normal so that when (if!) I got my waist back after having the baby, the dress would have a more flattering line. I really didn't want to make anything that I couldn't wear after baby was born at this point! It seemed like such a waste, especially since the last few weeks of pregnancy saw me mainly mooching around the house and the park, not really needing any special clothes.

Er, sorry about the dodgy mirror selfies. They're all I have of this dress! These pictures were taken the day before I went into labour. It was SO HOT, and every day I would go for a stride round the park to try and bring on labour. It worked!

Anyway, the dress worked out perfectly. While still pregnant I just hoiked the waistline up to above my bump, and afterwards it worked really nicely as a comfy but smart-ish nursing dress. Zoe was right, this style really is perfect for breastfeeding. I know the red makes me look a bit like the Special K lady but I'm embracing it. She always looks pretty happy!

Things I changed / would change when making this pattern again:

• I cut the skirt length to the largest size (XXL). I did this so I'd have good bump coverage for when pregnant but I actually quite like this length anyway.
• I cut the skirt back on the fold since I had enough fabric.
• I used ordinary elastic to shirr the waist of the skirt rather than clear elastic. It's such terrible advice in the pattern instructions to use clear elastic for the waistline shirring - it just is not stretchy enough. I knew this really when I cut it but doubted my instincts and went with the instructions anyway. I should have trusted myself, as I ended up ripping that clear elastic out and using much stretchier ordinary elastic instead.
• the sleeves were massive on me. I've left them as is for this version but will definitely make them much smaller next time.
• next time I think I will make the neckband pieces doubled over rather than have to turn and stitch the hems
• I don't have a twin needle so I used zig zag stitch on all the hems. I'd like to try a twin needle next time as I think it looks much neater.

This is 6 days postpartum in the dress, on our way for baby's check-up, our first trip out with the pram! I was operating on another plain entirely of course but I remember thinking it would be a good picture for this blog post, whenever I finished it. So there we have it! Blog post finally published only 10 months after making the blooming dress! Haha. Better late than never! These babies do keep one busy!