Category Archives: Finished items 2020

Winter ‘rees

I’ve been wearing a lot of my older dungaree makes – namely Roberts and Ronja – during these stay-home times: I love just throwing on one waistband-less garment and being comfy yet presentable. So I decided to add a heavyweight winter-white version to the canon.

This is an old pattern, the Pauline Alice Turia. I made it back in 2014 for my sister, but bought the PDF afresh for these as I was cutting a different size and I’ve heard the pattern has been updated recently to address some feedback on errors in it.

I would say that some of the feedback on the pattern still holds true e.g. all the curved edges are finished with a basic single-turn hem – but, while this may not be the most elegant finish, I think it worked out fine for me here as my fabric is so rigid. In a lighter fabric you may get rippling or stretching that you’d probably want to stabilise somehow. There are also a few other lacking details that would make it work harder, like properly trueing up seam allowances and giving the straps an angle where they join the back so they fall over the shoulders better – both adjustments I made myself but would agree the pattern should have included.

I made a few other changes for aesthetics:

  • Changed up the pocket designs, making the back pockets larger and squared-off and adding an asymmetric chest pocket. Moved the front pockets towards the side seams; I wish I’d made these a bit deeper too.
  • Added a carpenter-pant style hammer loop. I’ve been wanting to try this for ages and it’s obviously really easy – just a tube of fabric wedged between the back pocket and side seam stitching.
  • Narrowed the straps at the front to account for the width of my buckles (a kit from Stoff & Stil)

I cut a straight size 40 and really like the fit. It’s loose on the waist, but I didn’t want to over-fit. The rise is perhaps a tiny bit short making the waistline sit lower than my natural waist, I would prefer the whole thing hiked upwards a bit but then I’d get a wedgie so I would consider raising this if I make them again. I like the straight leg fit a lot and the length is unchanged apart from a generous outside-cuffed hem. I’m not sure exactly what defines the term ‘boot length’ but I find this ankle-grazing length works well with my staple winter boots.

I used Merchant & Mills 11.5oz ecru denim. Oddly, although this denim is only a tiny bit weightier than the 11.2oz denim I used for my recent Landers, this one feels much tougher, more structured and was trickier to sew with. I made liberal use of the hand-crank when I went over areas of multiple seam intersections to avoid cracking the needle. I absolutely couldn’t turn the straps right side out first try due to the stiffness and bulk, so had to sew them from the right side with the seam allowances turned in instead.

Galaxy Wilder

Definitely leaning into some sewing frivolity in the last days of 2020 – finally using a long-stashed fabric to make a festive loungewear frock that I wore at home on Christmas day.

It’s a Friday Pattern Company Wilder gown; I bought the paper pattern a while back and always had it earmarked for this fabric but never quite had the nudge to get going until now. It’s one of those projects that I thought would be long and faffy but actually came together super fast; I was mostly done in an evening session, just finishing the final tier and hems the next day.

I cut a straight size small except for adding about 1.5” to the bodice length (might reduce this a bit next time), and due to fabric scarcity had to reduce the dimensions of the skirt tiers a bit – 3m is recommended and I think I had 2 or 2.5. I actually like the resulting proportion and fit a lot – the clever gathered neckline means there isn’t a lot of fit finessing needed.

The fabric has been in my stash for years, it’s one that I kept periodically digging out to unfold, pet and drape in front of the mirror but was waiting for the right pattern match. It’s a very fine silk-cotton which I think was originally from The Fabric Store. I used a sharps needle and french seamed most of the construction. It gathered and pressed like no problem (although creases a bit with wear) so sewing was really a pleasure, aided by the thorough and friendly-toned Friday instruction booklet which I enjoyed following along with. I didn’t have enough fabric to be careful with pattern placement though I think it worked out okay, especially that I ended up with lighter cloudy pieces on each shoulder which pleasingly highlights the raglan lines.

I was left with the merest literal handful of scraps which is always pleasing! Exactly the sort of project I was after and I’m glad to finally have this fabric made up.

Fluffy floral coat

This was a real fell-in-love with the fabric and had a vision project, and luckily it just about turned out how I imagined! It’s yet another spin on the Lysimaque Nenuphar pattern, taken the way of Shrimps with a bit of hacking and that statement fabric…

I bought this fabric as soon as I saw it on Simply Fabrics’ Instagram feed (it’s still available and agh check out this ex-Gucci cornflower blue faux fur too??!!) and knew I’d be making a fun coat from it ASAP. It’s apparently ex Paloma Wool, which happens to be my favourite RTW brand, although I can’t find the matching garment in question in their archive.

I still love last winter’s Nenuphar but it’s quite plain and who doesn’t need a bit more enjoyment in their clothes right now – not to mention warmth, this thing is wool-rich, heavy and c-o-s-y. I was a bit intimidated when the fabric arrived: it’s got such mighty, puffy loft that I could barely fold it into my fabric storage cubbies, which was at least good motivation to sew it up quickly rather than get sewing stage fright and put it off.

I added length to the Nenuphar pieces to get the below-butt fit I was after and similarly to before cut self-drafted facings. I also increased the depth and spread of the collar to account for the bouncy fabric’s turn of cloth, and finally added a jaunty side-angle to the pocket tops for more ergonomic hand-stuffing.

The fabric really dictated the sewing process and I had to play it slightly on edge at times to tame it: it’s an alarming-to-sewists blend of thick, loopy-textured and very ravel-prone. I overlocked all the raw edges prior to sewing and even that was shedding off in places by the time I picked up the pieces again!

That said, I used most of the normal tricks for such a combo – walking foot, sturdy needle, elongated stitch length, judiciously applied interfacing, reinforcing stress points with twill tape, not trimming seams too closely, using a lighter weight fabric for the undercollar and pocket lining, pressing and clapping the life out of it – and other than getting a bit of a workout manhandling it around my sewing room by the end it wasn’t too dramatic.

I gave it the full bagged lining treatment, both to add more stability and because the inside of the textile was quite rough. I used Stoff & Stil’s woven viscose, a favourite for being silky and fluid but still relatively stable to work with, and was pleased that the dark grey was a decent match for my flowers. It’s been a while since I bagged a coat so I referred to the method and pattern cutting from the Named Yona coat to jog my memory.

It closes with concealed sewn-on chunky snaps also from S&S, because buttonholes in this fabric hahahah are you kidding me.

Enjoyed a couple of weekend walks where it kept me admirably cosy, in and around the frankly horrible news of the new Covid strain to hit the south of the UK and resulting new tier 4 restrictions. So it’ll be walks around the park only in this guy’s near future.

Craze Crop

I launched straight from my last knitting project into a new one – it’s the perfect lockdown balm and chunky wool-rich knits are a very useful wardrobe addition as temperatures drop and WFH in my draughty flat continues. This is the Pickles Craze Crop pattern, a modern Norwegian pattern company (the pattern is in English) and I was completely smitten with the tiger-stripe colourwork.

I was a bit trepidatious when I first read the pattern and realised the colourwork is formed by short-row shaping instead of the intarsia chart I assumed. But after reading it through a few times and googling how to wrap and turn I got stuck in and realised it was actually really straightforward and fun. You essentially oscillate between making staggered short rows from each side to build up a triangular ‘wedge’ of colour, then switch colour/sides and build up the ‘gap’ to make it straight again. Sounds complicated but you get in a rhythm quickly and the counting becomes quite intuitive. I actually re-wrote out the pattern with the relevant stitches for my size only and ticked off the rows with a pencil as I went which helped me stay on track.

The body is worked bottom-up, then you cast off and on to form the neckline hole and work down the back in one piece – no shoulder seams. There’s no real shaping anywhere, the sleeves are rectangles with a scaled-down version of the same colourwork as the body and the neckline and hem are simply ribbed picked-up stitches with a smaller needle (I picked up every other stitch for the hem to cinch it in, which in retrospect was a little too extreme but does give the silhouette I was after.) It sped along on 7mm straight needles – I finished the body over a weekend and each sleeve took a couple of evening sessions. I just had a delay when I ran out of yarn and needed to stock back up!

I used 3 balls each of Debbie Bliss Merion in rose and gold – it was hard to pick colours as this yarn comes in such pretttyyy tones, I’m very tempted to make another one in lilac and moss green. It was a bit splitty to work with as it’s unplied and was completely unsuitable for mattress-stitch seaming as it pulled apart like candyfloss (I switched to a stronger yarn to seam up in the end) but it’s so squishy, hazy and soft and I love the firm texture it turned out in the garter stitch.

As I get back into knitting I’m learning a bit about my project preferences – I definitely prefer the process of knitting in the flat as there’s less weight of a whole garment on the needles, but I don’t enjoy the feel of bulky seaming, so circular certainly gives a neater overall result. I think if I continue going (to which the signs are pointing to yes, just bought some lovely royal blue yarn) I need to slow down a bit and pay more attention to my technique and fit. I’ll happily wear my slightly wonky cosy jumpers for now anyway.

Patchwork Pullover

My annual craft switcheroo, as I call it, has occurred as usual and my latest lockdown 2.0 project has been this slightly off-piste yet rather joyful knitted sweater.

This guy is based on on the Patchwork Pullover pattern by ShanaKay Salmon, which I fell in love with as soon as Jasika posted it on her IG stories. I think it was a mix of the pastel hues of the sample, the cosy silhouette and the mild Paloma Wool energy it was giving me that made me purchase the pattern plus some yarn pretty immediately and dig my needles out.

But being me–as I do so often with sewing too–once I started knitting I took my own route and did a lot of things differently to the pattern as written. The pattern is assembled of individual squares which are all seamed together at the end, with an under-sleeve ‘gusset’, hem band and neckline pieces also sewn separately and seamed on. While I loved the simplicity and ongoing gratification of knitting little squares, once I had a few of them made up I realised that all the seaming would be both tedious and cause bulk, so it’d actually be a lot more straightforward to knit the main panels as whole pieces with intarsia colourwork instead. So this is what I did, deducting one stitch from the width of each block to account for no longer needing to seam up.

Once I had the front and back made up, I realised I could also do away with the under-sleeve/side gusset as I already liked the width of the body. I introduced some shaping to the sleeves (which as designed are made up of squares all the way down), adding an increase row every four rows as I worked up from the cuff, to give more of a tapered fit. I also added some shaping to the neckline, casting-off stitches in the centre when I got six rows from the shoulder line and working the two sides separately with additional stitches gradually cast-off from the centre to scoop out the neckline a bit.

Finally, to finish the neckline and hem I picked-up and knit in 2×2 rib directly with an elastic bind-off rather than construct them separately and sew-on. I should add that none of these adjustments are strictly necessary or even true improvements to the original pattern, I think it would have turned out just fine as written too and would be particularly well suited as a warm-up for a beginner knitter.

Nonetheless, for something with that much on-the-fly hacking and essentially made of rectangles, I really like the resulting fit! The length and body ease are exactly what I was hoping for and actually do feel similar in proportion to my RTW Paloma Wool jumper.

I’m not quite 100% enamoured with my colour choices. I spent ages on the LoveCrafts site putting various colourways of Rico Mega Merino into my cart before deciding on this blend of darks, neutrals and brights, but actually I think I’d like it better in a more tonally harmonious blend, i.e. all-pastels or all-dark. It’s certainly warm and cheerful though so I’m pretty sure I’ll wear it a lot anyway.

I enjoyed making it so much that I already have my next knitting project on the go: the Pickles Craze Crop sweater in beaaauitfully snuggly pink and gold Debbie Bliss Merion yarn which I’m hopeful I will love even more. Hurrah for cosy and colourful knitwear projects to see us through lockdown…

Note: LoveCrafts links throughout are affiliate links, I get a small commission if you click the links and make a purchase. I am not paid to promote them – just a happy customer!

Tutorial: Colour-blocked button-front Claudia dress

Just a quick one to share a tutorial for altering the Claudia dress to include asymmetric colour blocking, with an offset button band on the front. I used Lamazi’s viscose linen for this version of the pattern (my third) and it’s great to have a little variety of my print Claudias with the same summery wearing ease. I didn’t even bother with real buttonholes as it pulls on – just sewed the buttons through both layers.

Click the image to enlarge it
  1. Remove the side split/hem facings from the front and back pieces: you can keep them if you want, but they aren’t necessary for walking movement as the button band will provide a vent.
  2. Trace the front onto pattern paper (including dart and notch markings), flip it along the centre front and trace again so you have a full front piece.
  3. Draw a line where you want the button band. Mine was 3″ away from the centre line. Cut the pieces out.
  4. Cut a 2¾” wide strip of pattern paper and tape it flush along the length of both cut edges – this is the button band extension. Notch the original cut line as the button band centre mark (where you’ll place buttons), and next to this mark two more notches 0¾” and 2¼” away from this – these are the fold lines. (This makes a 1½” wide finished button band.)
  5. Trace both halves of the back as above and cut a new off-centre seam line – I aligned this to the strap marker notch. Add ½” seam allowances.
  6. Cut the wider front and narrower back pieces from one colour, and the narrower front and wider back pieces from the second colour. Don’t cut the facings as we’ll bias-face the edges instead. Cut a strap in each colour!
  7. Construction: after sewing the darts, sew the side and back seams. Then pin the back straps in place, make bias binding and finish the top and front armsyce edges, catching the straps in place.
  8. Finish the button band corners: press the button band to the wrong side along the notches at ½” and 1½”. Now fold the band back to the right side and stitch at ½” parallel to the top edge. Turn the corner out to the right side. Repeat this at the hem edges.
  9. Press the rest of the hem allowances under by ½”, tucking the raw edge under by a couple of mm too, and topstitch the hem, button band and top edge all in one pass, catching and securing the front end of the strap in place as you go. Finally add your buttons (real or faked!).