Category Archives: By Hand London

Saturday Silk Sewathon

Polly-Anna top
True Bias Sutton blouse

I had a fun Saturday, getting reacquainted with my machine after two weeks away (a long time in my books!). Josh was away too, so I stuck some catch-up TV on and had a little silk sewalong. I’ve just started a new work contract which is vaguely in the fashion industry, so my mission was make some slightly smarter yet still comfy tops. Enter some lush fabrics and two brilliant little patterns: a BHL Polly-Anna lovechild, and True Bias’s brand new Sutton Blouse.

Polly-Anna top

I was inspired by the current BHL #Patternhackathon contest to have a go at mashing together the the Polly top and the Anna dress to make an autumn-appropriate top. It’s a Pollyanna! – that name reminds me of that horrendous film that’s regurgitated every Christmas, but I suppose it’s too good not to use.

Polly-Anna top

Hacking the patterns together was very straightforward. I simply laid the Anna over the Polly, lining up at the neck edge and along the shoulder line, and drew Anna’s extended kimono sleeve and underarm curve straight onto the Polly. I also copied over Anna’s lovely neckline.

Polly-Anna top

The main fabric is a black sandwashed silk from Goldhawk Road, with the dull side facing out. I love how it looks and feels, but it was kind of a pain to work with because the rough surface doesn’t feed through the machine that easily – I had a few skipped stitches and ripply seams to deal with. The front panel is a beautiful printed lightweight silk that I actually bought the same day at a local Peter Jensen sample sale which Kathryn and I popped along to in the morning. The Polly pattern piece just fitted onto the little scrappy remnant, so it was clearly meant to be.

Polly-Anna top

I can’t get over how well it fits: I suppose it makes sense since I’d already tweaked both patterns to fit me, but I absolutely love them together. The guts are just as pretty: you gotta do french seams, narrow double-turned hems and self-bias necklines when working with a sumptuous silk. Only the curved panel seam is overlocked, but I bet you could french seam that too if you were feeling brave. Fingers crossed for the competition – there’s a heck of a prize hamper at stake, I hear.

True Bias Sutton blouse

My second make of the day was the True Bias Sutton blouse. Kelli asked me to test the pattern but the dates fell over when I was away in Mexico. I was so disappointed because I loved the design at first sight, so Kelli very kindly sent me over the finished pattern anyway. Yeah, I’m wearing it with my Hudsons, not that they really go together but I couldn’t resist.

True Bias Sutton blouse

I used the last scraps of the sandwashed silk for the all-in-one shoulder yoke, and another silk that I got from a House of Hackney sample sale for the main. Again it was a small remnant that the pieces only just fitted onto, and then only if I cut on the crossgrain hence the sideways leopard print. I do get an odd sense of achievement from fitting a pattern onto the scrappiest of scraps.

True Bias Sutton blouse

The pattern came together really easily. The instructions are great and I made no fit adjustments, just grading from a 6 at the top to an 8 at the hip. I love the technique for finishing the front V-neck nice and precisely, and you’re instructed to use French seams throughout for a swish finish. The only design tweak I made was to leave off the side splits and level off the hem so that I could French the side seams too. I’m pretty sure I’ll make both of these tops again – just keep me rolling in fancy silk!

Holly dress, and a how-to

Holly dress

Ahoy-hoy! I’m in beautiful Mexico right now, but I have a little project from earlier this month to show and tell – it’s another By Hand London Holly Jumpsuit dress hack, and I’ve also guest posted the tutorial on BHL’s blog. Scroll to the bottom for a link…

Holly dress
Holly dress

I love how this version turned out! My paper pattern tweaks from first time worked out well, though looking at this pic I could probably go down a size as it’s a bit loose above the waist, which shows up more in this crisper fabric. BHl have done an amazingly comprehensive sewalong for Holly by the way, with all sorts of useful fitting tips from swaybacks to the dreaded neck gape.

Holly dress

I think the fabric really makes this dress. It’s a Ghanaian wax cotton that I bought from a lovely lady at Spitalfields Market; only 5 or 6 quid for 4 yards. Wax is so nice to work with, especially when you have to do any kind of folding/pressing since it holds a crease so well. A wash with fabric softener before and after sewing really helps it to relax into a soft and comfy cotton, and it stays surprisingly un-creasy all day. I used to feel a bit uncomfortable in garments made from stiffer woven fabrics, but I think getting the fit/ease right means they feel a lot better to wear. I don’t get changed into sweats when I get home after wearing this, a sure sign that a garment is comfy!

Holly dress

The fabric also let me do one of my favourite things: get nerdy with print placement! I ran the directional print horizontally on the bodice and vertically on the skirt, doing my best to centre and mirror the design across the fronts. The darts get pleasingly camouflaged into the geometric print rather than breaking it up too much. The blue stripes across the waistline and down the button band weren’t intentional but have become my favourite feature. I totally zoned out when it came to matching the side seams and sleeves though, ha.

Holly dress

Such nice tidy guts, mmm. I finished the neckline with bias again instead of facings. This is a bit of a slovenly confession but I only very recently started threading my overlocker with 4 threads instead of 3, literally because I couldn’t be bothered to re-thread that one extra spool when changing colours. Turns out the 4-thread looks way neater and has a much stronger finish, so consider me convinced.

Holly dress

Soooo, if you want to see my walkthrough on exactly how to draft and attach the gathered skirt to the Holly bodice, I’ve done a tutorial as a guest post on the official Holly sewalong, so pop over to the BHL blog and have a read.

Holly dress

This is the LAST button-down dress I have to show for a while, you’ll be pleased to hear. It’s so hard to pick a favourite from all the ones I’ve made recently, but this one has racked up the most wears (and compliments) so far. I wore it to the SewBrum meetup and it’s come out to Mexico with me – I’ve been doing very well on wearing handmades here, as well as a bit of fabric shopping… update soon!

Holly (not-a-)jumpsuit

Holly Dress

Forgive the slight repetition – I’ve got a thing for button-down(up?) dresses at the moment. Two makes in a row, and two more to come! I think it comes down to a combo of my distaste for zips (yes, sewing fifteen buttons and buttonholes is somehow preferable) and a love of the shirtwaist look but actually disliking the whole collar part on myself. If it helps, this isn’t another Darling Ranges at least – it’s a wee hack of the new By Hand London Holly Jumpsuit.

Holly Dress

I’m by no means anti-playsuit (I love View 1 of the pattern as it is), but decided to hack the Holly onto a simple skirt for a much more everyday-wearable garment. The skirt is just a wide gathered rectangle with the button placket continued right down the front. Easiest hack ever.

Holly Dress

I had to make a couple of minor fit adjustments to the bodice itself, similar to those I made for the BHL Anna: taking a wedge out of the back neck, raising the waistline a bit and a swayback adjustment. I did these on the fly because I was sewing this dress up chez Tilly but I’ve now transferred them to my paper pattern for next time. I also sized up to a 14 because I like more ease than is built in (props to any pattern company that, like BHL, gives finished garment measurements so you can work this out ahead of time!). The four front darts and two back darts all hit the right places and give good shaping – it’s a slightly more tailored look than the casual babydoll of Darling Ranges. Good to have button-down dress options, right?

Holly Dress

I actually pinched an idea from Darling Ranges and used narrow bias binding to finish the neckline instead of the included facings – if I can avoid a facing, I will. The neckline is such a pretty shape: the perfect collarbone-showing off scoop. The sleeves have a sweet turn-back effect cuff using a separate pattern piece – a lovely detail that gets kind of lost in this print. It would be cute to do them in a complementary fabric like the envelope model.

Holly Dress

This fabric was an eBay scoop, just a cheap poly but it’s got nice drape and a pretty rad distressed triangle print with flashes of colour. I had some small coral buttons in my stash that matched one of the colours quite well so on they went. I tend to add more buttons than recommended because I’m scared of malfunctions… also I secretly quite like sewing buttonholes with my one-step foot. I also just got a button-sewing foot which makes the whole process dead speedy.

Holly Dress

This dress was a really fun sew and I’ve already worn it twice – it’s a nice one to pair with coloured tights as I’ve got lots of accent colours to pick from! Holly is such a lovely pattern and, seemingly like all BHL patterns, ripe for a bit of hacking fun. BHL are just about to kick off the official Holly sewalong – and watch this space if you want a bit more guidance on how to make this dress hack as I’ll be sharing a full tutorial (and my second take on this pattern!) next week. Anyone else take a button over a zip any day?

Camisole crazy

Hallo! Thanks so much for the kind comments on my swimsuit. In a happy twist of fate, I am unexpectedly taking a pattern-cutting crash course this week (more on that soon – it is blowing my tiny mind) so if you fancied the pattern do watch this space. Now for something silly…

cami gif

Sooo, these projects are all so quick and kinda throwaway that they don’t seem worth a post of their own. But I’ve been rigorously testing out seemingly every cami/tank/singlet pattern under the sun lately (and wearing them almost daily – London is HOT, by the way) so I thought I’d jot down my thoughts on each of them.

(What do you think of my new photo setup by the way? I actually finally found a wall in my flat that’s plain white and gets decent light. Can’t decide if it’s a bit boring, though…)

Camisoles

You probably recognise this first cami from its background role in some other posts – I barely took it off for like two weeks straight when I made it. It’s a Salme double-layer cami made from a slinky viscose remnant from Abakhan. Unfortunately, a quick learning for me was that the seemingly simple camisole proves tricky to fit on my body. I have a very small high chest / overbust measurement compared to full bust and overall frame. That means I get mad gaping through necklines (fixed here with a crafty front box pleat) but then get tightness through the bust and underarms if I size down too much. I’m working to perfect the fit with each cami I make, but luckily I actually rather like the pleat detail here. From what I’ve already learned in pattern class this week, I could/should have pivoted out that excess into the bust dart.

Camisoles

Another Salme one using the offcut from my Anna dress. This time I folded the excess fabric out of the neckline, but forgot that the pattern doesn’t include seam/hem allowance and merrily cut my fabric without it. Luckily it does still fit as I sized up anyway as I always do for woven tops, but it’s a wee bit snugger than I generally like. I like the Salme pattern because the underlayer is attached RS together all around the neckline, meaning you don’t need to finish the raw edges with anything fiddly like bias or facings. I’ve been using my seemingly endless stash of stretch mesh as linings to avoid adding much weight or bulk.

Camisoles

Lucky number three, a plain black self-lined slinky viscose version of the Salme – perfect fit!

Camisoles

Ummmm, this one has tiny tumbling cats on and I have run out of things to say. Cats.

Camisoles

Here’s a different pattern, the free Diana cami from Sewloft, made up in a beautiful Liberty tana lawn that I bought as a pre-cut 1m from Liberty’s sale. (Anyone know the name of this design? I love it so much!) I had exactly the same gaping issue, and pinched it out with a front tuck this time. It doesn’t hang quite as nicely as the Salme one as it has no bust darts – notice the ripples down the sides – but that could also be a side effect of the crisp lawn.

Camisoles

I love the back detailing on this one, even if it’s not so bra-friendly. I lined it in white cotton voile to make the print ‘pop’ a bit more and get the same clean neckline finish as the Salme one (the pattern as written is unlined with self bias to finish the neckline). I treated the lining and main as one when sewing the side seams, but I think I prefer the lining hanging loose inside like the Salme one for an easier drape.

Camisoles

Finally the free By Hand London Polly top. I don’t know why I held off making this so long – it’s so sweet, fast to make, and a really good scrapbuster. This is made in a Ghanaian wax cotton that I scooped up from a lovely lady at Spitalfields market for just £2. It was already half-sewn into a skirt so I had to cut carefully to make it fit; the awkward seam right up the front is an unfortunate effect of that. The fabric has two ‘good’ sides with a nice colour contrast; I think the centre panel is supposed to be the wrong side.

Camisoles

I cut a 10 at the top, grading to a 14 at the hips – next time I will pinch more a bit still out of the front and back necklines and perhaps attempt a sway-back adjustment. I only had enough fabric left to cut self bias binding for the neck; the armsyces are just turned and topstitched which luckily worked fine in this easy-press fabric. I really love this top and can see it becoming a TNT as the potential for colour/print blocking is high and it’s so fast and fun to sew. A Polly dress might be on the horizon too…

Fabric cat

So there you go, a veritable bevy of camis. Be rewarded by my cat lounging inconsiderately on my pile of to-be-photographed tops, the adorable little jerk.

Fabric cat

Which is your favourite, Yoni? No surprises there.

Celebration Anna

Anna dress

This dress is a double celebratory one for me. Firstly, I think it shows how much I’ve progressed in my sewing, even since March when I made my last Anna (which I cringe when I look at now!). Secondly, I got round to re-making the Anna in order to wear to By Hand London’s Kickstarter celebration party on Friday!

Anna dress

This time round my Anna fits like a glove, and a few little tweaks here and there have got it just to my liking. I used Ginger’s tutorial to take out some back-neck excess (quite a lot in my case) and lowered the front neckline a little.

Anna dress

I moved the zip to the underarm side seam – I’ve grown to dislike centre-back zips a lot, both from an aesthetic and practical point of view. The zip is even hand-picked! I’m a changed sewist, man.

Anna dress

The bodice is lined in my beloved stretch mesh instead of using facings. I burrito’ed the lining to attach it to the sleeve edges with all raw edges enclosed, but found that I needed to both understitch and edgestitch the neckline and sleeves to keep it tucked inside. Like with my Centaurée, I didn’t make a duplicate bodice for the lining but traced the constructed bodice, leaving the bust pleats off. I like this technique with a stretch lining as it lies very smoothly with no additional bulk from two sets of pleats.

Anna dress

I swapped out the gored skirt for one of my all-time favourites, Simplicity 1610 – same as my kitty dress (which has recently undergone surgery to make it fit better). I maintain that it has the quickest and cutest yoked pockets ever. I had a feeling it would be a successful match for the Anna bodice and love how it turned out.

Anna dress

The pocket edges match up nearly exactly with the first set of bodice pleats, and I pleated the centre of the skirt by eye to match the other line of pleats. Looking at this makes me happy.

Anna dress

The back is just gathered between the darts and the skirt hem is a deep machine blind. Look at the perfectly fitting back! Don’t think I’ve ever had a non-stretch bodice fit so well.

Anna dress

The fabric is part of my Quito haul. I wish I’d bought more of this one as it’s totally dreamy: it’s a fairly heavy poly crepe so hangs really beautifully, sews easily and doesn’t require lining. The subdued but fun (Pacman, anyone?) print and colours make it suitable for day and evening occasions: a real wardrobe workhorse but still a bit special. It reminds me of something that my ultimate brand crush Sessun might make. Luckily I think I have enough fabric left for a little cami or something as well.

BHL Party
BHL Party
BHL Party

As I said, I wore this frock on Friday to the By Hand girls’ party to celebrate reaching their Kickstarter goal to fund their foray into fabric printing. Naturally there was a bunch of beautiful By Hand dresses on show, including no less than ten Annas. It was an amazing night, which culminated in a circle-dance lovefest to ‘Let’s Get It On’ before a sprint down the road to catch the last train home. Congrats, girls!

Operation knit-stashbust, and overlocker tips

I’m on a bit of a fabric-busting mission at the moment: matching up all my stashed-away fabrics to appropriate patterns and getting them sewn up. I get a bit antsy when there’s too much stuff accumulating in my house, and my fabric pile(s) are getting slightly out of control. I now have a Google spreadsheet so I know exactly what I have and how I want to use it, and I promise I won’t buy any more until it’s significantly reduced. Apart from that Goldhawk Road visit with the Spoolettes last weekend, ahem.

The main things in my stash are printed jerseys (thanks to a few binges at Rolls & Rems, Girl Charlee and Fabulace), and awkward sub-1m pieces left from other projects. Naturally jersey is easier to think of projects for and is also a large component of what I wear day to day, so I’ve been whizzing my way through this pile. I don’t have all that much to say about them though, so I thought I’d dump them all together here. I also thought I’d jot down a few tips for working with knits/an overlocker, in case anyone find it helpful.

Franken-Anna dress

First, a simple elastic-waist frock in a rayon knit from Fabulace. The skirt part is Simplicity 1800 again, like my favourite feather dress, and the bodice is By Hand’s Anna with minor alterations. In retrospect the large geometric print wasn’t the best choice for Anna as it gets chopped up by the waist pleats and you can’t really see the ‘blossoming bust’ detail, but I really just wanted to see if it worked in a knit.

Franken-Anna dress

I had to take a large dart out of the centre back to compensate for the stretchy fabric. Next time I’d do this before actually cutting the piece out, I had to kind of fudge it afterwards. To be honest, this was one of those ‘it’s 9pm on a school night but I really feel like making something NOW’ kind of projects, so it’s a bit rushed and wonky in places, but I still like it a lot. How nice is the green with the black and white? I need more green makes, I think.

Burda 07/11 pants

Next, another pair of Burda 07/2011’s (see more here and here), made in another rayon jersey from Fabulace. Jazzy prints are apparently my Achille’s heel.

Burda 07/11 pants

This time I made a waistband with encased elastic rather than the folded-over ribbing band the pattern recommends. These are basically a copy of a pair of RTW trousers that I wear all the darn time for work-at-home days, and they’re just about outside-acceptable too. Right?!

Hemlock tee

A Grainline Hemlock using some slubby grey knit from Minerva and a scrap of a darker grey. Lovely pattern, takes like an hour, will sew again and again.

Peplum tee

Here’s a peek at what’s been my little project since the new year: a totally self-drafted peplum tee, which I’m going to make available as a free PDF download very soon. I’ve made several during the process of drafting the pattern and think this plain black one is my favourite, even though it was an earlier version and the bust still isn’t quite right. Watch out next week for the pattern release if you like it.

Overlocker tips

Now, here are some of my top tips for working with jerseys, as I know a few people got overlockers for Christmas so might find these useful.

Cutting

Overlocker tips

I use my pleasingly matchy-matchy weights and rotary cutter to cut. I find using scissors and pins can cause distortion and a ‘hacky’ uneven edge, and you want to be as accurate as possible to make life easier when sewing. I only have a small cutting mat, so I have to move it around under the pieces as I cut.

Setting up

Overlocking tips

Buy the big cones of thread in packs of 3 or 4 depending on how many your machine takes (my machine can take 4 but I usually sew with 3). eBay and Jaycotts are good sources, they can be tricky to find in shops. I’ve only ever needed black, white and a medium grey, which seem to blend into nearly everything I’ve made (telling, huh?!), and they last forever – over a year and counting for mine and still nowhere near finished. Rotate the spools often, because the lower loopers use more thread than the upper needles.

Once your machine’s threaded up, you never need rethread it, even when changing colour. Simply snip the threads at the top, tie on the new colour and knot securely. Snip the loose ends short then run the machine in short bursts to pull the threads through, stopping when they get to a tension dial and manually helping them through. You’ll find the lower loopers feed through first as they use up more thread, so I usually run the machine until they are done then pull through the top needle thread manually and rethread the needle (or both needles, if using four threads). This takes under 90 seconds when you’ve done it a few times. Andrea has done a photo tutorial of basically the same technique I use. I can make a video on my process if anyone would find it helpful?!

Sewing

Overlocking kit

If you’re a bit scared of the overlocker, there’s no harm in basting your seams first with a regular sewing machine. Either stitch close to the edge so the stitches are covered by the overlocking, or further in so you can easily pull them out later.

Always do a quick test run on a scrap of fabric before starting each project. Tension can vary quite a bit between different jersey weights.

Sometimes I remove the knife from my overlocker, trim down the seam allowances if necessary (but leaving an allowance the width of the overlocked stitch, in my case about 5mm), and stitch my seams without using the blade to cut off any excess. This can be handy when going around tight corners so you don’t accidentally slice a bit off, and can also create a more stable seam at shoulders as the fabric bunches a little into the stitches. It also means you can unpick and re-sew if you make a mistake!

Unpicking overlocked seams is quite easy – quicker than regular stitching, I think. Here’s a tutorial.

I use Clover wonder clips instead of pins, as I’m terrified of what would happen if I accidentally ran a pin through my overlocker blade *shudders*

A walking foot is a great investment for sewing with knits on your regular machine. Mine is a cheap unbranded snap-on one and does the job fine.

Overlock tips

To finish an edge where an overlocked end is left loose (as opposed to being covered by another seam), I thread the tail ends onto a large darning needle and weave it back into the overlocked seam, cutting after an inch or so and securing with a drop of Fray Check or a small bar tack.

Hemming

Feather dress

My usual technique is to finish the raw edge with the overlocker, fold up once anywhere from 1/2″ (on a sleeve) to 2″ (on a dress hem), press, and stitch directly over the overlocking using a walking foot and zigzag or twin needle stitch. A double-folded up edge can look bulky on some jerseys and affect the drape. You want to catch the very edge, or even tip over, the finished overlocked edge so your seam won’t flip unattractively to the outside. I also love to do a machine blind hem on jersey dresses as it won’t ever flip outside, looks nearly invisible, and doesn’t affect the hang or drape. Press well after stitching.

Neck and cuff bands

Feather dress

I sometimes use this Megan Nielsen technique, which has you stitch the neckband to the inside (wrong side) of the garment, then press to the outside and topstitch. This has the benefit of giving a bit of stability, but can look a bit poor in lighter or loopy knits as the topstitches will just sink in. Or you can sew a band straight to the right side and press upwards, like this tutorial.