Camber Set Top #3

My sewing friend Sophie currently lives in Hong Kong and she sends me lovely little packages of beautiful fabric for birthday and Christmas presents. Previous garments I've made from Sophie's amazing fabric choices can be found here and here.

I received this cool white cotton seersucker with a black grid pattern for my birthday last year and have waited a while to use it. After sewing a couple of successful Merchant and Mills Camber Set tops (here and here) I felt it would work really well with this fabric.

I happily cut out all the pattern pieces and decided to be really careful with pattern matching and cut all pieces flat (rather than folded over) to ensure the grid pattern matched. Unfortunately, I totally forgot to reverse the sleeve pattern when cutting the second sleeve out and ended up with two left sleeves. Ooops!

The only remaining scrap of fabric left forced me to be creative with pattern placement. I managed to eek out the sleeve on the bias. With no remaining fabric left I had to just go with the idea of a 'design feature' sleeve with one cut on the grainline and the second on the bias!

When I finished the top the odd sleeves didn't turn out quite the way I envisioned. It is partly because the pattern matching on the grainline sleeve doesn't match with the gridlines of the body of the top due to limited fabric amounts. BUT, after a little internet research of ready-to-wear black and white grid tops I felt a LOT better about my own version. Here is a little selection of not-so-perfect commercial pattern matching (or non-matching).

Here is the final top. I didn't make any changes to the pattern from my previous versions but I am planning to cut it a little shorter than my usual hem-line for a cropped top similar to the image fourth from left. I haven't hemmed it yet until I make a final decision on how cropped it should be.

To co-ordinate with this top, I am going to make another Colette Mabel pencil skirt in the last remaining Girl Charlee UK fabric win from SewBrum 2015 in a black terry sweat fabric. My idea is to hack the waistband to create a high-waisted version of the pencil skirt. I will keep you posted about that when I make it!

Have any of your makes had to change mid-way through due to sewing / cutting  / human error?

I am pretty happy how this version of the M&M Camber Set top turned out in the end. What do you think?

Pattern: Merchant and Mills Camber Set Pattern = Original price £13 but as it is 4th make = £3.50

Fabric: 1 metre of Japanese seersucker = free

Gutterman Thread: White = free

Total: £3.50

Tropical Fifi

My second Tilly and the Buttons post within the week! When the new patterns were released from T&tB HQ there was a £20 offer for both the Bettine and Fifi.

The Fifi is a cute little camisole and shorts pattern - a summer PJ set!

My friend Sophie gifted me a beautiful metre of this tropical cotton voile from Hong Kong when she came to stay in London in July. As soon as I saw the Fifi pattern I knew it would be a perfect match!

I didn't quite have enough fabric to cut the camisole on the bias so had to stick with the stright-grain

Lovely pleat detailing on the camisole bust area 

The finished camisole set with self-made bias straps and along the hem of the camisole

I am really happy with the final garments but I have to say these are very teeny tiny shorts and definitely only to be worn inside the house! If I had the time to do some unselfish sewing these would make a great present to make for special female friends or family members.

I would like to try a second set but cut the camisole on the bias this time because it would fit so much nicer than on the straight-grain as it's a little snug when getting it on and off.

Overall it was a quite satisfying project with lots of French Seams and carefully considered detailing. Despite the large amount of bias binding you have to make I found it an enjoyable experience. It did make me consider buying one of those bias-binding makers - have you ever used one of those before?

Chevron Ginger

I wore my new Colette Ginger skirt this Monday after completing it on Sunday afternoon. I'm pretty happy with it overall. I used this pretty coloured striped cotton that I bought from Samuel Taylors in Leeds last month.

This has been in my WIP pile for a week or two after doing the heavy-lifting of cutting out the tedious stripe matching for the chevron effect.

Laying out the pattern on the bias to create the chevron effect

After getting the chevron down the centre line pretty darn close I realised because of the many coloured stripes of the pattern it would be almost impossible to match at the side seams. I aimed to match the black stripes which worked well in the end.

The hidden zip went in OK with the chevron stripe quite close to perfect. A nice decision to make was to consider whether the waistband stripes should go vertically or horizontally! I opted for the horizontal stripes as a constrast to the chevron and sewed the waistband facing in vertical stripes.

I thought the horizontal striped waistband worked better. What do you think?

Overall I am really happy with my second Colette Ginger skirt (my first is blogged about here) and I'm thinking of making another one - perhaps in that lovely Lucienne Day print cotton from John Lewis?

I really enjoyed wearing it at work on Monday because the sun was out; even if that meant I inflicted my lily white oh-so-pale-I'm-almost-see-through legs on a very unsuspecting public!

Pretty Polly?

So I've managed to cobble together a new top because:

a) I'd love a warmer weather top to wear with plain skirts / jeans (I live in hope)
b) I wanted another something me-made for next months MMM challenge
c) It's my first foray into the By Hand London indie pattern-istas and I've been meaning to make something of theirs forever!
d) I wanted to incorporate the lovely Designer's Guild fabric (in the centre section) into something and it was too small for anything else

Here is the journey of how this Polly top was born! Free pattern download here. 

Step one - Friday Evening - Cut out all the PDF printed A4 papers on the train from London to Leeds.

Step two - Friday Night -  Stick together all the A4 pages whilst relaxing in a Leeds hotel watching trashy TV in bed with PJ's on - the bliss.

Step three - Saturday Morning - Lay out pattern pieces on fabric and cut out.

Step Four - Sunday Lunchtime - Pin and hand tack the insert panel-piece on return journey from Leeds to London.

Step four - Sunday Evening - At home, got out my sewing machine to whizz up the main seams of the Polly top using a long stitch.

Step five - Sunday Night - Lop off about 3 cm from each side seam and re-pin. When happy, re-sew using French Seams. Then reduce shoulder seam by about 2.5cm.

To be completely honest at this point I was sort of randomly pinning and re-stitching to get it to fit better.

Step six - Sunday Bedtime - Realise I should have cut a different size to begin with but hey, I got there in the end!

The bottom of the top has sort of flared out a touch and it may be to do with my shop-bought stash busted bias-binding (I was too lazy to make my own at the weekend) or that the two different fabrics are sort of not being too friendly or compatiable with each other. Either way I can wear this top with a palin skirt or jeans when (or if) the sun comes out.
I'm also not 100% happy with the placement of the centre panel but fabric restrictions on the grainline were a bit limited... oh well....

What do you think?

The finished Polly top with a Designer's Guild centre panel.
The outer shell is a lovely soft cotton from Samuel Taylors in Leeds.

My Clematis co-ordinates with my new Polly top! 

UFO busting - Colette Ginger skirt

The first UFO (un-finished object) I have busted today is the cerise Ginger Colette skirt that I almost finished as part of a two-part sewing workshop at Ray Stitch in Islington back in June!  I would have got it finished during the workshop time if I hadn't tried to be clever and pimp the pattern to include pockets and extend the length of the pattern by about 4 cms.

The (ex) pockets in the side seam of the Colette Ginger skirt

I also decided to line the skirt, which again added to the construction time.... Enough excuses back to the finishing of the skirt. Well, after trying the skirt on with the addition of the side-seam pockets I realised that it badly affected the fall of the skirt and gave me extra 'hips'!!
Sooooo, after all that additional work I decided to sew up the regular side seams and cut out the pockets. I ironed a rolled hem on the skirt and lining and quickly sewed them up and here is the finished article!

Finished Colette Ginger skirt with lining!