functional sewing

It’s Melbourne, and the days are getting cold.  Clare’s school pants were showing her ankles.  She’s actually grown since last winter!  A few years ago I discovered the perfect pattern for her school pants – the “Neat Beat” pants from Ottobre Winter 2009.  I first blogged about them a couple of years ago, and this would be the fourth size I have traced off.  So if you think you’ve seen these before – you are correct.  But this time they’re bigger.

Okay, they aren’t terribly exciting, but you get the general gist. The pattern is designed for a slim child – which is why it fits Clare much better than the school pants she has tried on in the shops.  Although it is intended for stretch wovens, I have used cotton/lycra knit in the past and this time used poly/cotton knit that is fleecy on the inside. You know, typical tracksuit fabric. Clare likes the flat front waistband that dips down a bit under her belly, and the higher cut at the elasticised back.  Less bum crack!

Wide elastic is sewn directly onto the pants at the back through a facing.  Most of the rest of the construction is on the overlocker, with twin needled hems.  I have made numerous pairs of these now and can whip up a pair in less than an hour. Which is a good thing, because I have another two pairs to sew for this winter.

My girl is growing up – she had an overnight sleepover at Luna Park on the weekend with hundreds of Girl Guides from around the state! Oh, to be ten years old.

Roselettes

I think it’s been a whole week since I sewed anything!  Things are pretty much hamstered here at the moment.  In between Girl Guides AGM preparations, Principal Selection Panel duties, my part-time day job, working three extra days next week, a sick child last week, minor medical issues, preparing for a trip to Sewjourn in a few weeks time, a variety of social commitments, a visit to family to farewell my Mum who is now touring in Canada/Alaska, and being a household manager have me exhausted.  Let alone that other job, being a mother.  My brain is close to exploding with the effort of remembering everything that I am meant to be doing!

So in the meantime, whenever I’ve been in a situation where I have the opportunity to sit, I have crocheted.  A Roselette for my niece’s gorgeous daughter Chloe, and one for Stella.

I have been lax in my great-auntly duties, and this is the first hand-made item that I have completed for Chloe. And she’s nine months old. I crocheted this in Cleckheaton Country Tartan, following the instructions for size 4 but with a 4.5mm hook, which theoretically makes it suitable for a 1 year old. I hope that it fits – she’s a beautiful, contented, dimply little thing! I took the opportunity to use a couple of kitty buttons on the back.

I pretty much used up three balls of yarn making this. The length is longer than the pattern specifies – I didn’t want to waste that yarn! More details on this top can be found on Ravelry here.

So, to Stella’s! She chose the yarn herself (she actually chose the yarn for Chloe’s as well) – it’s a Shepherd Colours 4 Me print. I looked at it and thought “this will crochet up looking like fairy barf”. But it’s okay.

This time I used four balls of yarn, with a 5mm hook and following the instructions for size 6. Unsurprisingly, Stella has refused to try it on as yet, but I reckon that it will be fine for my petite five-and-three-quarters-year-old. Kitty buttons on the back again (guess how I keep her occupied and what she asks me to buy her as a reward whenever I subject her to Darn Cheap…)

This one is on Ravelry here.

So if you’re looking for a quick crochet fix that is quite straightforward and can be made in a wide range of girl sizes, this is the pattern you need!  I’ve made it twice before, and will probably make it again.  I will show you modelled photos when they become available.

Now I’m off to finish a glass of wine before I retire for the evening then get back on the wheel tomorrow…

Caprione

Last month I did a little crochet pattern testing, and now that the pattern has been released I can show you what I made!  Caprione skirts, one each for Clare and Stella.

I crocheted the 8-10 year size for Clare and the 3-4 year size for Stella, each based on their waist measurement. The waistband has elastic threaded inside it once you have finished crocheting, so has a little size flexibility. I love the floral detail near the hemline, and of course, I love the ripples.

Both skirts are crocheted in Bendigo Woollen Mills Classic 8 ply, in the shades of Lipstick Rose and Blueberry. I ran out of the Lipstick Rose when crocheting Stella’s skirt, which is why the last few rows of hers are done in the Blueberry as well as the feature flower row. But I actually rather like it this way! This skirt pattern would lend itself nicely to varied stripe widths in the two colours. Hmmm, maybe another time. Both girls rather like their skirts and I anticipate that they will both get quite a lot of wear once winter hits.

As usual, I have a few different crochet projects under way at the moment. The Wool-eater blanket that I started back in around 2009, a Noro scarf for myself, and possibly a winter vest. With Easter weekend coming up I’ll need some hooky fun!

world maths day

The girls’ school participates in a number of interesting events.  Today they celebrated World Maths Day.  As part of the school’s participation, each of the students was invited to wear a number to school.  Of course, I didn’t remember that part until last night.  So at 7pm I was scrambling through their t-shirts to find plain ones to applique.  Unsurprisingly, there weren’t any plain t-shirts.  So I had to make some.

It’s the Oliver + S Hopscotch dress/top pattern to the rescue again! I knew that I had this pattern already traced at the correct sizes, and given that I’ve sewn it a few times, I knew that I could whip two of them up without too much difficulty.

Both girls had input into what I made. Clare decided on a dress and chose blue fabric, whereas Stella preferred a pink top. Both chose the elastic neckline trims, and the fabrics for their appliques. And obviously, each chose to have her age appliqued on the front.

But the backs – now, that is much more fun!

Pi and infinity! I finished the sewing a little after 10pm, in between getting the girls showered and off to bed and a few other household chores. It was all worth it when I heard the squeals of excitement early this morning when they got up and found their new “number clothes” and very quickly climbed into them. A great success!

bubble dress

Yesterday was Stella’s last prep “rest day”.  Not that we’ve had a great deal of rest on the day intended for prep children to recuperate from two straight days at school, to be followed by another two straight days at school.  Hey, she’s a former childcare kid!  She can handle full days at school!  Something I’ve already noticed since Stella started school is that she doesn’t need as many clothes.  She’s wearing uniform now, so it really was time that I sewed up the last summer dress that has been cut out languishing in the “to-sew” box for months now.  Before she grew out of it!

This is the Oliver + S Bubble Dress. It’s such a sweet pattern, and one of the earlier ones that Oliver + S produced. It’s now only available in digital download format. I sewed Stella’s dress in size 5, which is the largest that the pattern goes to.

Don’t you love that fabric? Don’t you want to reach out into the screen and stroke the silkiness of it? It is Anna Maria Horner Loulouthi voile. Yummmmmmm! The dress is fully lined, and I think that makes it particularly nice to wear.

There are three buttons to close the dress at the centre back. The hem has a shorter lining than outer, and is elasticised to give the bubble shape. The more eagle-eyed of you may have noticed the scallops running down the side seams of the skirt, adding to the “bubble” effect.

The little cut on cap sleeves are a nice touch too. I’m so glad that I managed to finish this while Stella still fits into it – and while it is still warm enough.

There’s not much left in the already cut out box now. I’ve almost completed a dress for me, then I think that there are around three or four more items. My plan is to either finish them before the end of March, or – gasp – dump them. Time to start the new year afresh – especially because February is almost over! And there are still some unfinished quilt tops and unquilted quilts awaiting my attention.

winter Floreal

It’s still summer here, and it’s really hot.  It’s been hot for day after day after day.  So what have I just finished crocheting?  A Floreal for Clare, for winter.  Yeah, there isn’t really any logic in that.  I even forced her to put on a long sleeved top and long pants in order to model it as it is likely to be worn.  She got really hot, really quickly.

I really started this to use up a big Bendi ball of 8 ply Alpaca. Just one big ball isn’t really enough for lots of garments, but in combination with a small ball of bright pink variegated yarn that Mum had given me, it has turned into a very useful vest.  The colour of the Alpaca was called Prism, but I notice that it’s no longer on their website.

Clare measures 23 inches around the chest, so I made the size 6-7 (25 inches) for her to allow enough ease to wear this over other garments. In terms of length, I just kept on going until I’d pretty much used up the yarn and the length looked about right. This pattern usually has you change colours after every two rows in the body section, to get rows of different coloured flowers. I only did that for the two contrasting rows of flowers closer to the hemline.

This is a lovely little pattern, and it served as my commuting and social crochet project. It was started on the 3rd February, and was finished on the 15th, so definitely didn’t take a long time. It was helped by the fact that I’ve made this pattern before, so the stitches were familiar to me. Rather than use a ribbon for the drawstring, I crocheted a chain about a metre or so long from the contrast yarn and slipstitched back into each stitch. The picot edging around the hem is also in the contrast yarn – mainly because I ran out of the Alpaca!

Stella’s Sunday Swing Coat

Over the past six years or so since I took up crochet I have come to the realisation that I don’t like to crochet garments in pieces, then seam them together.  I know that I do this all the time when I’m sewing, but if a crochet pattern calls for me to crochet the back, front left, front right, left sleeve, right sleeve (or similar) then seam them together, the project doesn’t get finished.  In fact, I’ve even pitched a couple of these partly started projects into the bin recently when I’ve come across them clogging up a bag all unloved.  I only pitch small pieces though – I unravel the rest.  So finally I have learned from my mistakes.  I look for crochet garments that are pretty much crocheted all in one piece, or that have a couple of pieces made, then joined, then crocheted onto again.  Garments that are all done, other than edging or weaving in ends, once you get to the end of the crocheting.

So when I came across the Sunday Swing Coat by Cristina Mershon in the March/April 2013 issue of Crochet Today!, it ticked all the boxes.  Worked in one piece, worsted weight yarn, and ripples!  I love ripples!  But it did take me a couple of goes to get this one right.

Firstly, I substituted the yarn. The pattern called for a yarn that was 100% acrylic, worsted weight. I had three gorgeous hanks of hand-dyed 100% wool (cormo) yarn that I bought as part of the ton’o'wool project last year that I wanted to use instead. I knew that it would work up quite differently to the recommended yarn. The pattern also called for a 3.5mm hook. I double-checked the hook size with the designer, as it seemed quite small for that weight of yarn. She said that 3.5mm was correct, because it was a coat and was designed to be dense. But because I prefer crocheted garments to be drapey – and because I was working with wool, not acrylic – I bumped up the hook size to 4.5mm.

After it was half done and the sleeves had been joined and a couple more rows worked, I tried it on Stella. Then promptly pulled the whole thing out and started again with a 5.5mm hook. I knew that there was every chance that I’d be doing that when I started, so surprisingly it didn’t bother me too much! And the yarn was lovely to work with. Because I’d bumped the hook size up so much, I followed the instructions for the smallest size in the pattern. The finished length was dictated by the amount of yarn I had available. I’d have liked it longer, but this is okay. There was just enough yarn left over to work a flower brooch to use as a closure. Rather than crab stitch around the opening, I crocheted the front and neck edge as a row of sc from the right side, then a row of sc in the front loop only from the wrong side.

I think that this will be a very useful layer for autumn/winter. Gaugeing up really altered it to suit my drape preferences, and it flows and moves well as Stella twirls. A little less yarn in the stash – and another garment in the wardrobe!  More details and photos are over here on Ravelry.  And of course, Clare wants one in her size.  And I wouldn’t mind one for me…

seashore sundress

I did manage to finish sewing Clare a dress for her birthday!

It’s the Oliver + s Seashore Sundress, in size 8. This is another delightful pattern from Oliver + s. The instructions were the usual excellent standard that I have come to expect from them. The construction was straight forward. I think that I spent more time in cutting out the dress, since I chose a directional fabric. There was a hell of a lot of stripe matching to do!

There are princess seams down the front and the back, and the gathered skirt goes around the back but only to the princess seams at the side front. So I matched up the pattern as best I could aligning the stripes across the vertical seams while still managing to keep the repeat constant horizontally. Starting with the centre front piece and then working around the rest of the dress from there was the trick to the cutting layout! Much of it was single layer.

There are little pockets tucked into each side of the skirt. So sweet! This dress lends itself very well to piping around the pocket and along the princess seams, but I didn’t include that detail.

Such a terrific style for the hot days that we are now having in Melbourne. It is easy to sew, and I think it was assembled in around two hours (after cutting time). The fabric came from Spotlight some years ago. It’s such a fun design! I’ve used the alternate colourway before here and here and here.

Clare had a lovely tenth birthday, and is spending as much time as possible glued to her new iPod touch. They have been the tenth birthday present of choice amongst her friends.  We’ve held off on hand-held electronic toys or games consoles until now, as the kids watch enough television and play enough computer games on my desktop computer (and my android phone) as it is. But now that we have succumbed, we’re amazed at how much they can do. She’s particularly enjoying Facetime with her grandmothers. Of course, now we are hearing the refrain of “can I have an iPod” from Stella.  My reply of “when you turn ten” is a difficult one for her to process at only five years old!

New Look 6974 – Stella’s Christmas Dress

Still working my way through those 2012 makes!  Finally, some details on Stella’s Christmas Day dress. It’s New Look 6974, view B with the view C/D underskirt.

Although I had cut this out weeks earlier, I didn’t start making this until Christmas Eve. Yes, I know. I did make a start at about lunchtime, and I really didn’t think that it would take me too long to make. I was wrong. Once I’d finished hemming the overskirt and the underskirt, I noticed this:

Did you spot it straight away? The underskirt band, attached to the lining, wasn’t covered by the overskirt, especially at the sides. Aaaarrrrgggghhhh! The fabric I used for the contrast godets, shoulder straps and underskirt band was a medium weight linen, so I’d chosen to use a fabric that was much softer on the skin for the rest of the underskirt/lining. Which also happened to be a nice neutral colour that didn’t show through the floral – but did show at the sides, because the overskirt just wasn’t long enough to cover it! What was going on with the drafting there? And why didn’t I notice it as I went along…oh yes, I was rushing to get this finished, wasn’t I (because I still had my dress to make too).

So, what to do? I wanted a quick fix – so jumped into the car (it was 4pm Christmas Eve by this stage) and headed up to Spotlight to find an appropriate trim to sew to the overskirt to lengthen it and cover the underskirt/contrast band join. They had three broderie anglaise trims that seemed wide enough, one in pink, one in white, and one in cream. I took quick snaps and uploaded them to facebook to get some input from my sewing buddies as to which they thought would be best – then went and bought all three and rushed back home! After varying opinions from my friends and some deliberation on my part, I went for the pale pink trim. Which of course was the only one that wasn’t pre-gathered. So I gathered it all up by hand, pinned it on and stitched away.

So, what do I like about this pattern? I do like the contrast godets, and the gently gathered shoulder straps. I cut these much wider than the pattern pieces – I think that there was a printing error for the pattern, as the pieces I originally cut just gave normal flat straps. I recut them double the width, which worked fine. I also like the front and back yokes. There are ties at the back which form a nice bow and give some additional shaping.

I wasn’t thrilled with the instructions for the zipper insertion. It’s a lapped zipper, which is okay in itself, but the instructions have you insert it at the end. This means that it’s not nicely enclosed by the lining. Because I was following the instructions pretty much in the order they were written, I hadn’t thought ahead about the construction enough to vary the zipper. If I had thought about it, I’d have used an invisible zipper and had it inbetween the lining and outer fabric. As it was, I bagged out the centre back seams with the lining and outer fabric so that the zipper opening edges were nicely finished, then turned them under and inserted the lapped zipper in the usual way. It looks fine, and you can’t really tell from the outside, but I know that it could have been done in a nicer way that would have enclosed the zipper tape. You live and learn – wherever possible, read the instructions first and THINK about the order of construction before you dive in! Why is it that I don’t always follow my own advice?

As it turned out, Christmas morning dawned quite cool and crisp, so Stella decided to layer her Christmas dress over a long-sleeved top and leggings. Not quite what I’d originally planned! The day did warm up, and by lunch time she had stripped off a little. The dress fitted beautifully. I cut it out in a size 3 width with size 4 length. She’s a skinny little thing! Happily, she liked her dress. Considering that it was her fabric choice (the floral print came from Spotlight a couple of years ago), it twirled, and had gathered pale pink lace on it – all the things that my five year old requires – I was not surprised!

 

vintage Style 3300

You’ve already had quite a few glimpses of Clare’s Christmas Day dress, vintage Style 3300, view 2.

I am inordinately pleased with how this dress has turned out. The pattern is copyright 1981, and when my mother saw it she was quite certain that she had once made me a dress from the same pattern (I’d have been around 13 or 14). I thought so too – that was what had initially attracted me to the pattern! But despite our best efforts, we couldn’t find any old photos of me wearing it.

There are some delightful details in this pattern. The little tie at the front neck, with the same little ties on the short sleeves. The four gored flared skirt, and elasticised waistline. The high back neckline, and gentle gathers into the front and back yokes.

Even with all these details, this dress didn’t take terribly long to make. All the pieces went together beautifully. The facings for the ties worked well, and the grainline running down each skirt gore makes it hang in graceful folds.

This dress was mostly constructed on the sewing machine, with seams finished on the overlocker. I used my machine’s blind hem stitch to finish the hem. Clare rummaged around in her drawer and found a belt that matched the dress colours, so we didn’t need to go hunting for one at the shops and I didn’t need to make one.

The fabric is voile from Anna Maria Horner’s Innocent Crush range. The print is called First Impression, in the Blush colourway. I think that the modern print and the thirty year old pattern have worked together extremely well!

Today is the last day of my big girl being nine years old – tomorrow she turns ten! Those ten years have passed faster than I could have ever imagined. She is growing up so quickly! I’d better get sewing if I’m going to get her birthday dress completed before tomorrow. Is that a familiar refrain? Nothing like a deadline!