Ree-Made May 2016

It's here again! For the third year in a row I am going to join in with Me Made May. I've found it really useful in the past and I love seeing how people style their hand made clothes in everyday life! 

I've got my sewing plans for the moment pretty much set - I've already identified the gaps in my wardrobe and I've got stash fabric to work through, so this time I don't think MMMay will be about finding out what else I need to sew, but more about finding new ways to style my hand made clothes, and noting the most and least useful pieces.

Last year, I pledged to wear me-made for twenty days in May. I did manage to do this without much difficulty, so this year I want to up the ante. One of my problems though is that I haven't actually made many new pieces in the last year (and one was a wedding dress... I can't really wear that one in everyday life, sadly). So, here is this year's pledge:

'I, Marie of Ree-Sewn  sign up as a participant of Me-Made-May '16. I endeavour to wear me-made clothing on at least 25 days in May 2016'.

I'm going to do a weekly update every Sunday, purely because I usually have Sundays off. 

I'm also hoping I'll be able to do lots of sewing in May, but I'm not going to put any pressure on it. Let's see how I get on! 

I'm looking forward to seeing your Me Made May posts! Go forth and wear stuff you've made! 

A Tartan Emery

or: "the dress that did not want to be"

The Big Ol' Machine dress (Christine Haynes Emery pattern with pleated skirt)  

Hi folks! I hope you've all been having a splendid March. And April. How the devil did time whizz by so quickly?! I am bemused.

Naturally I chose the time of year when we all start to feel that Spring is finally making an appearance to sew up this lovely Winter dress (a dress I have been meaning to sew for the past TWO Autumns and Winters). 

It's another Emery with a pleated skirt, and it was a gigantic pain to sew. It just fought me ALL THE WAY. But, in the end, it has turned out pretty well. However It is a bit (nay, a LOT) mysteriously small in the bust - perhaps down to using a poly lining this time which has no give? I don't know, but I only realised when I had at long last finished it. I was so fed up with sewing it I seriously could not entertain unpicking it and letting the seams out. Maybe I will at some point! So apologies it is not being modelled by me here. I did try and take some pics but couldn't inflict those on the world. Poor squished boobs!!

So, why was it so awkward to sew? Unsurprisingly it wasn't due to pattern matching, that all turned out pretty well, all things considered. It was mainly my stubbornness in wanting a fully lined bodice (ie lined sleeves as well), which I bodged three times. The first time I thought I had figured out the order and method of construction and merrily went along my sleeve lining way - only to find  a twisted mess when I tried to turn it out. So I unpicked and switched my brain on, worked out a way of doing it that would work, but then the sleeve lining was all misaligned and was pulling the main fabric in funny ways. I swore. Banished dress to naughty corner. Had a cuppa. Calmed down. Unpicked again. Redid it. The sleeve still doesn't sit perfectly, which I know is down to the lining, but it's so much better than it was. 

I still maintain that a Winter dress in a heavy-ish fabric like this one needs the sleeves lining, so no regrets. No one wants itchy pits. To be fair it was the fabric that caused problems too, it just frayed like nobody's business. I overlocked every single edge as soon as I had cut all my pattern pieces though and that kept it in check (haha).

So I'm sorry to say that I really didn't enjoy sewing this, but I actually do like the end result. It's just a shame it doesn't fit me!! I've almost finished a sundress (using the lovely yellow floral print in my projects in the pipeline post), so hopefully this one will play nicely and, you know, fit me and everything! 

Projects in the pipeline & birthday fabrics!

Hello! I've got a few projects in my head that I'm really excited about, so I thought I'd share my plans. These are a mixture of using up the stash and new fabrics. We are really trying to save for a deposit for a house at the moment. Well, I say at the moment, but it will be for a good few years realistically. So I am trying to be restrained when buying supplies for my sewing hobby! It is difficult. But hey ho, worth it!

Because of this proverbial tightening of the belt, I was extra thrilled when my best friend gave me fabric for my birthday! I've never been gifted fabric before and I was super happy. Here are my birthday fabrics:

A stack of lovely fabric

This is my favourite. I've seen it around quite a bit, and I know it's slightly OTT for some but not for me! I love it. Can't wait to make a measuring tape dress!!

This one reminds me of a costume I wore in our final show at drama school (I was in the show with my best friend who bought me this fabric) so I know it's going to be extra sentimental! Perhaps it will be a shirt dress?

I feel like this one, too, might want to be a shirt dress when it grows up. It's slightly stiffer than the others so I also think a nice full skirt would hold it's shape well. 

From some of my family I also got some birthday money, which I immediately spent on a couple of things I absolutely LOVE. Firstly, Hell Bunny Paloma cardigans in pale blue and mint green. I was only going to buy one, but people, the pastel coloured ones are getting a bit scarce, only one pale blue one left in my size!!!! Anywhere on the Internet! Shock, horror, gasp, clutching of heart. And I adore these cardigans, I wear the four I've already got pretty much constantly. So I'm excited to add these two to my wardrobe!

I also bought some fabric. I saw on Twitter that Weaver Dee had got this gorgeous yellow floral spray print in, and it just stayed in my head. I don't know why. I've a hankering to make it into another Flora dress. It was cheap as chips, with, er, quality to match the price, but the print makes up for it!! It's so pretty! I love yellow but don't have many yellow clothes. 

Then I was just, you know, browsing Minerva to make sure they didn't have a better yellow floral fabric, when I saw this. Stop the bus. They had Liberty carline poplin in the bright pink colourway for £9.99 a metre (and its 60" wide). Oh my word I tried to resist, I really did, but I could not. No regrets. It needs to be something fabulously feminine and romantic. I may just have to make an Anna like Roisin did! Her dress rocks. 

So. Those are my new fabrics. On to my stash plans....

Top row L-R: Navy polka dot fine cotton twill for a shirt dress, striped interlock for a Coco sweater, leftover stretch tulip print cotton for some capri pants

Middle row L-R: leftover floral viscose for a tee-shirt, tartan for a mini skirt and a dress (I actually just finished the dress over Easter weekend! Woohoo!), my WIP which I need need need to finish soon as it has been unfinished for over a year - my Liberty silk dressing gown

Bottom row L-R: Black drapey viscose for an Anna dress, leftover striped stretch cotton for a mini skirt, more of that Liberty silk for some PJs.

Things I need fabric for:

A few more Lady Skaters 

Another Coco top 

Wow. Them's a lot of plans. This should keep me busy for the rest of the year! I'm not saying I won't buy any new fabric (in Autumn 2016 I really want to make a coat, for instance) but I am going to try and make everything off this list first, and remember that I have such a lot I can make without buying more stuff!

I will keep you posted on how I get on! I hope you all had a lovely Easter x

Magpie Feather Dress (Flora / Emery hybrid)

Hello lovely people! I hope you're all well. I've been sewing this week, and it feels great to be making stuff again. One of my 2016 goals is to "perfect the fit on my TNT dress patterns and make lots of versions of them". I decided to start with the Flora, mainly cause I really wanted to make it up in this fabric! 

This one is the Flora high tank bodice with a pleated Emery skirt. I adore the massive pleats of the Flora skirt but I didn't have quite enough fabric for that, plus I figured a less volumous skirt will be more everyday-wearable (I'm looking at you, gusts of wind). 

Magpie Feather Dress (BHL Flora bodice with a pleated Christine Hayne's Emery skirt)

I actually really love the Flora bodice with the Emery skirt. I used my Marion dress as a guide for my pleats, keeping them to the sides again, and the result is a lovely bell shaped skirt which I think looks lush with the tank bodice.

Pleased as punch

The fabric is by Hillberg fabrics, and I got it at a bargain price on Goldhawk Road. I was actually shopping for fabrics for my niece's Christmas skirts at the time, but on impulse bought extra of this one as it was an end of bolt, and I'm really glad I did. I know it's pretty twee, but hey, so am I. I love that because it's navy, it feels winter appropriate (with a cardigan obviously), but it also has lovely sunny colours in the print that will make it perfect for summer. A dress for all seasons. I LOVE THAT. 

So, I toiled the bodice a few times and made a few alterations until I was happy with the fit:
- began with a size down from my last version (UK14)
- a 2 1/4" FBA
- moved the front waist darts over towards centre 1" (to be pointing properly at apex of bust)
- lengthened the bodice by 1/4"

I did also lower the front waist darts slightly, but ended up raising them again! You know when you go one alteration too far, and actually it was better before?! 

What is it about a self-lined bodice? This brings me joy.

So it didn't take too much effort to get the fit working for me. It almost makes me a little bit cross at myself that I didn't do a toile the first time round! But I shall console myself with the fact that I've done the fit work now, and I can go forth and make loads of Floras. I'm trying to think of ways to change it up a bit, and obviously there are lots of skirts I could pair with the bodice, but I'm also thinking that maybe a Flora playsuit would be nice?

Anyway, I'm pleased with my new frock, and mainly just glad I've got my sew-jo back! 

Til next time x

I'm in love with my new dress!

The Flibbertygibbet Lady Skater (a wearable toile)

The Flibbertygibbet Dress (Kitchsy Coo Lady Skater)

I've been starting the year off by trying to tick off some of the practical items from my mental "to sew" list. There was the quilt, of course, and now my first go at Kitchsy Coo's Lady Skater pattern. Having read Amber's wardrobe building post where she advocates shopping for your real life, not your imaginary life, I decided I needed to make more work appropriate clothes. I do wear my lovely structured fifties dresses for some of my jobs, and days off, and that's when I feel the most like myself. However I do spend 1.5 days a week crawling around on the floor teaching baby and toddler music classes, for which my uniform is usually a stretchy dress and leggings or jeans and a jumper; and 1 day a week where Lycra is the only appropriate clothing choice as I'm teaching kids dance. So I decided it was time to make some knit basics which I still feel like me in. Rest assured I will not stop sewing full skirted woven dresses, I would never want to do that! I am just going to aim to make some stretchy basics as well. 

I had the pattern in my stash, as well as the fabric. See, I am trying to stick to my stash busting goals!!

I cut out this Lady Skater right at the beginning of January while watching The Sound of Music Live. Then it sat in a pile for a month - a MONTH! - while I got round to sewing it. Of course,  once I found time it was super easy to sew up. This is only my second time sewing with knits,  and it was way easier to put this dress together than I expected! 

I'm really pleased with the finish. My overlocker made things super easy and even my topstitching is neat! Hooray!!!

I played thread chicken though when hemming the thing. I used a triple stretch stitch and it really uses a lot of thread! My spool ran out not even half way round, but I still had some on the bobbin so I switched the navy bobbin to be top thread and used black as the bobbin thread. Shhhh, no one will ever know. Anyway there wasn't that much on the bobbin either, and this is how close I was to not being able to finish my hem:

Thank you, sewing gods!

So, the only thing I'd like to refine for next time is the fit. Obviously this ponte is quite forgiving in terms of fit but there are a few things I'd like change. To be honest I think the fit looks worse in these pictures than in real life, but it definitely needs work, and was intended to be a wearable toile anyway. On this version I took the side seams and the sleeves in by about half an inch all the way down on each side, and I feel I could still even go a bit smaller. So next time I will cut two sizes smaller. Hopefully this will also sort out the shoulder problem - as you can see the shoulder seam is hanging off the end of my shoulder. Perhaps I shall raise the shoulder seam, too.

With this one I had to lop off the curve at the bottom of the bodice pieces. That curve was crazy big. My body may be round but it ain't that round. I also raised the waist seam a bit but it's still too low! I need to shorten the bodice more for next time.

Without the belt, you can see just how low the waist seam is. That's not where my natural waist is.

You can see some of the fit issues a bit more clearly from the side:

Look how gigantic that sleeve looks! Bloomin' heck. I've got some work to do! 

And, yep, fabric pooling ahoy.

Don't get me wrong, this dress is super wearable and very comfy. I've wore it to teach in a few times already and really loved wearing it. In fact I'm wearing it right now! I can vouch for its warmth, comfiness and practicality. The stretch recovery got well and truly tested too as on Thursday a little (adorable) toddler kept grabbing fistfuls of dress to pull herself up to standing. 

This dress was really quick to sew. I am usually really slow so this is such a novelty to me to be able to sew up a dress in a few hours! Once I've sorted out the fit I need to make a good batch of Lady Skaters so I never have the "I've nothing to WEAR!" feeling when I'm off out to teach the little 'uns. 

If you're nervous of sewing knits but would like to try it, I urge you to have a go at this pattern. Even with no overlocker it would be super easy and fast. The instructions are really good, too. 

I'm so happy tonight to have a few hours to myself to sew. I'm going to do some fit work on the Flora bodice and catch up on some TV. Ahh a lovely evening ahead! 

xx

The Scrappy Quilt of Joy

Yes, that is it's official name. Here it is!

The Scrappy Quilt of Joy!

After banging on about using up scraps for ages, and showing a few progress shots during my Sewvember post, I finally finished the Scrappy Quilt of Joy within the first few days of January, which actually turned out to be pretty great timing, because oh my word it suddenly got COLD after that!

One of the reasons this quilt brings me so much joy is that it was all either from the stash, and completely free. Well, apart from my sewing machine electricity, I guess, but I can live with that. Oh, and thread. I bought thread. I can no longer claim this quilt was ENTIRELY free, but, hey, it was pretty close to it.

Even the wadding (batting to some)? YES. Because it is actually a very old polar fleece blanket. Just one of those cheapie Ikea ones that has graced the back of our couch for about 5 years, and was all grey, a bit stained and generally sad-looking. But it was still warm. I have a really hard time throwing away something that is still useful, which is why I decided to make this quilt, and it worked so well. In fact, if you're quilting on a budget I would really recommend using a polar fleece blanket as wadding!

So, the quilt top is in lovely window-type patches of four with white sashing around the edge. You can see I even did some patchwork within the patchwork if you know what I mean. DEDICATED to using up those scraps! Even some of the white sashing is pieced.

And the back? Well, it is, er, perfectly imperfect. I went patchwork again (because scraps), and used an old bed sheet for the white strips, having run out of the white cotton I used on the front (and I was determined to not buy any fabric for this). The only reason I'm not completely thrilled with the back is because it's a bit (a lot) wonky, and the quilting makes it quite obvious. If you don't look too closely though, I actually really like the stripey back.

The lovely wonky striped back of the quilt

And how did I choose my fabrics? The test was: any colours which appear in the cow painting were allowed. The cow painting was my wedding present to Liam, and I really love the colours in it. You can see it in some of the "quilt with feet" pictures. I would hold up a piece of fabric, and if it seemed to "go" with the painting, it was allowed in my quilt!

I made scrappy binding as I went along, and I'm so glad I did. I love how it looks. I will definitely do this again with future quilts. I SAY future quilts, but I don't have any immediate quilting plans. It takes a while to forget just how annoying it is to wrestle all that quilt through my little machine. I'm sure I will make another at some point, but now I really want to get back to dress making.

This project was the first time I used my new walking foot (which I bought ages ago). Yep, I love it!! Such a great purchase! Beginner quilters: if you don't have a walking foot though, don't worry! I made my first quilt without one and it turned out pretty great.

The Scrappy Quilt of Joy does bring me a lot of joy, whether it's folded up on the back of the sofa or (preferably) when I'm wrapped up in it with a nice warm cuppa. Especially whilst I rid myself of the cold I seem to have picked up! Time to grab the quilt and hibernate for a bit!

Goodbye 2015, hello 2016!

Last year I set myself some sewing goals, so this seemed like the time to have another look at them and see whether I achieved them. Here we go!

My goals for 2015 were:

1. Restrict the lists! 
I did way better at this! I didn't write crazy long sewing lists this year. Although, even though I haven't been writing them down, lists do still happen in my head. It's just part of my personality. But I have been trying to be a bit freer, and make what I feel like making, remembering that this sewing thing is for fun, you know, it's not just a big list of things to do! It's about the process, which is one of the reasons I love it. So YES, I have done better with this goal, but I have to say, a good list is sometimes very helpful!

2. Make an awesome wedding dress! 
Big old tick! I am, as you know, over the moon with how well my wedding dress turned out. 

Photograph by Hannah Mia Photography

3. Sew some knits.
Well, I made one, does that count?! I made a Coco top, right at the beginning of this year, which I've never blogged about. It turned out well and I've worn it a lot, it just didn't seem to warrant a post of it's own. I'm actually making a knit garment at the moment. It's a Lady Skater, all cut out just waiting to be sewed up. Hopefully I'll be able to blog that soon! Anyway, here's the Coco top.

Tilly & the Buttons Coco top I made this year but never blogged (and apparently didn't iron either)

4. Make a big quilt for our home.
Ah, nearly!!! It's so nearly done! The quilt top is done, the back (which is patchwork as well) is almost done, the binding is done (I made my own scrappy binding - are you proud?) it just needs to be all put together and quilted! I so wish I could tick this one but technically it's not finished yet. 

Scrappy blocks being made for my quilt

5. Use my stash. 
Yeah, this one was mostly a success, and I think I put in a pretty valiant effort on the stash busting front. I used loads of scraps (see above: scrappy quilt!), but of course I am also constantly making more! DAMN YOU, SCRAPS! Also up until the end of the year when I caved a little bit, I didn't really buy any new patterns and I didn't really buy any new lengths of fabric (maybe a couple...) and I made a big effort to use what I have. There's still more, though!

I decided to set myself some goals for 2016, too, and 5 seems like a good number, so I'm setting 5.

My Sewing Goals for 2016

1. Make my perfect coat. 
It appears that this season my perfect coat isn't in style, as it's nowhere to be found in any of the shops. So I'm excited about making my own at some point in 2016. 

2. Perfect the fit of my TNT dress patterns and make lots of versions of them.
Because I love all of my home-sewn dresses, and one can never have enough lovely dresses in my humble opinion.

3. Make more separates.
I'm thinking, cropped trousers (Clovers perhaps?), shorts for the summer, tee shirts, cardigans. All those things I keep saying that I'm going to make and never do because I get distracted by a dress pattern instead. THOSE. It's time to actually make them this year.

4. Restrict my internet time!
I have got into the habit, without really meaning to, of spending lots of time on the internet looking at ideas and inspiration for sewing projects, when I already have plenty of ideas and inspiration for sewing projects! I think I just get distracted and end up looking at lovely dresses that people have made, which, don't get me wrong, I LOVE, so I'm not going to stop reading sewing blogs (don't be ridiculous) or going on Pinterest (hahaha), but I do need to beware of spending time I could be using to create something myself, looking at other's creations instead. Does that make any sense? I'm thinking that sewing little and often is better for me than using an hour's down time at home to read blogs, not get round to making anything of my own but then blocking out a whole day to sew. Spending a whole day sewing to the exclusion of all else is not really healthy for me, either, so I need to strike a balance! 

Pinterest is great but it's a time sap!

5. Keep using up the stash! 
Use it or lose it, as they say!

I know my pattern stash isn't huge, but there are still lots in there that I've never used! Must rectify!

Well, everyone, thank you for reading my little blog this year. It's been great to get to know some of you over the internet! All the best for 2016! 

Ree xxxx