All posts filed under: Indie Pattern

The Mary Quant Style Dress

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Wonky pockets! No one noticed them when I posted a Reel on my insta. I think they were distracted by my groovy moves! If you’re not an insta fan and not sure what a Reel is I’ve attached a link to the bottom of this post. This dress incorporates a couple of challenges: The #frugalfrock21 organised by Sam at Frugalisma, and Ruan at the Yorkshire Sew Girl and #so50patternmixing organised by @sewover50 The idea behind frugal frocks is to make a dress using a free pattern and to use fabric from your stash to create Frugal Frock! As soon as I saw Alice & Co pattern for the Mary Quant style dress I was sold! HERE’s the link if you fancy downloading this free pattern. The dress is designed for a woven fabric, but my initial thought was to use this pattern to make a dress for golf, so I sized down and made it up in lycra. Most patterns given finished garment measurements which is really useful if you are changing from a woven …

A Sewing Room Miracle

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Some things just never go to plan. When they don’t go to plan in the sewing room, but the creative juices are flowing, a sewing room miracle can happen. I printed off the pattern for the Pona jacket not knowing which fabric I’d choose to make it up in. I initially thought dark blue denim. I love denim and it goes with anything and everything in my wardrobe. So when my pattern was taped together I went to have a rummage in my stash. I say rummage because I had a huge pile of fabric on my table as I was up to my ears in organising my stash. You can’t see it but under there somewhere was a piece of curtaining fabric that I acquired from one of my ‘real life’ sewing buddies. She inherited a close family friends stash who had sadly passed away. The curtaining fabric was from the 80’s and looked big enough for the jacket. It turned out it wasn’t, but before I realised this I’d already cut out all …

Molly Top Hack #SOICITYBREAK

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I’d say the majority of the fabric in my stash is in 1-1.5m lengths.  As I’m very lucky and surrounded by lots of real life fabric stores I tend to pick up quite a few bargain remnants when I’m out and about.  These keep my stash topped up and I can usually make a top or skirt from these shorter lengths.  If they’re less than a metre I often have to have a mash up of 2 remnants and let the creative juices flow. Like this cardigan….. boiled wool and a ponte knit….who’d have thought these would have gone together so well: And these 2 pieces of jersey fudged together for a Molly Top: So as you can see I usually have a happy ending when it marry up patterns and fabric. But the Molly Top from SOI has had me almost loosing sleep.  The grown on sleeves just make it that little big too fabric hungry for some of my remnants that are just shouting out to be a Molly.  Like this wide striped ribbed knit I …

The Cold Shoulder – Lekala 5669

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I was browsing through the Lekala website a couple of weeks ago and stumbled across this little on-trend beauty!  Lekala 5669….. I just fell for it straight away – the cold shoulder detail was bang on trend but subtle enough for a someone approaching middle age to wear – not that I feel it. So it was downloaded and stuck it together before you could say boo to a goose.  Then came the hard bit. I have quite a few jersey’s in my stash.  32 to be exact if I check my Cora App!!!  And true to form I fancied making a muslin of this pattern.  Mainly because it looks a bit confusing how it’s put together, not because of the fit – when I’m sewing with jersey and using Lekala I generally find the fit to be spot on. So I had a rummage through the app on my phone and decided upon this very stretchy see through mesh fabric. I had bought 5 panels, each being 1.2m, for less than £6 inc P&P …

BHL Holly Jumpsuit – No excuses needed this time

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Last year I made a Holly Jumpsuit in the name of frivolity, also known as Jumping Into June. This time I didn’t need an excuse. I’d been given a gorgeous pair of shoes which just happened to be the same colour magenta as some of the circles on this silky fabric that I recently bought from Abakhan when I met up with Jenny in Chester.  This fabric was just crying out to be a jumpsuit! The first thing I did was try on my first Jumpsuit. I knew I’d need to modify the pattern pieces to avoid making a modesty panel like in version 1.  I’d also lost a few pounds too, so needed to check if any other adjustments were necessary. I needed to loose 4 inches from the drape at the front. It’s a bit tricky putting into words what I did to the front bodice piece.  Do the photos make sense? I basically removed the shaded wedge from the top which then created a side dart by cutting into the fabric and …

Do Not Adjust Your Screen – Espresso Leggings

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They really are that bright!! This colourful fabric, an ITY knit, has been illuminating my stash for over a year.   As my gym joining experience has continued and not just been a flash in the pan I thought it was about time I added to my ‘gym wardrobe’ which is over 5 years old, with the exception of the VNA top I made last year. I’ve made leggings before, but not ones that needed to withstand 6 minutes of squats in a Les Mills Body Pump class.  But for starters, and for a speedy make I dug out my TNT Sewing Cake custom made Espresso leggings pattern.   I’ve made loads of these, about 7 pairs I think, but not for a couple of years. In legs than an hour i had them cut out and sewn up except for the waist band:   And then I had a busy couple of days and put them aside.  I googled making active wear leggings as the basic elasticated waist wasn’t gonna cut it for these pants. …

Good Golly Miss Molly

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Does Molly need any introduction? I don’t think so.  There’s Molly Tops everywhere, all over the internet, and probably in a city near you. It’s part of Sew Over It’s new capsule wardrobe for a city break.   And whilst it’s not the first of their patterns that I’ve bought (I have a paper copy of the Pussy Bow blouse) it’s the first one i’ve made. I’m a bit of a sucker for buying ‘bundles’ of patterns as even if I only make 1 from the bundle, as a Yorkshire lass I need to have felt like I’ve had value for money. I’m not here to promote the patterns, but in case you’re wondering, there’s a top, stretch jeans, skirt, shirt/shirtdress and cardigan in the collection.  Apart from the cardigan, I can see myself making all the garments.  And soon! So far I’ve made 2 Molly Tops.  It requires 1.6m of 140cm wide fabric.  I had 60cm of some gorgeous floral jersey and about the same of a coordinating soft grey. Both were bargain remnants …

Getting busy with Belize from Itch-To-Stitch

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Itch To Stitch has just released their latest pattern – the Belize skort and shorts.  She was asking for pattern testers not so long ago and I would have loved to help up but unfortunately the timescale didn’t match up with any free time I had.   I’ve never made a skort before, but have bought quite a few pairs over the years for golf, and they’re usually quite expensive.  In the last couple of years I’ve cheated and I’ve made skirts for golf and worn gym shorts underneath. This week I’ve been on annual leave and has loooooads of free time.  So armed with my new pattern (which I managed to work out how to use layers and just print my size) I set about making the Belize Skort.  This was Monday, and I wanted to wear them on Tuesday for golf! There are 5 views for the skort and shorts: View A: Pleated-front shorts with front pockets View B: Flat-front shorts with front pockets View C: Flat-front shorts with no pocket View D: Skort with …

Grainline Archer – At last!

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One of the first things I lusted over noticed everywhere when I discovered sewing blogs was the Grainline Archer. They really were everywhere and I really wanted one.  I’m fairly certain that most of you seasoned bloggers will have seen them about, but here’s a couple of my favourites……  Click on the photo to be taken to the owners blog post…please! Carolyn from Allspice Abounds is to me the Queen of the Archers!  Her attention to detail is just second to none.  Overtime she made another and I read her blog post I’d want one even more!   Rachel from Sew South London made a gorgeous Chambray Archer which really showed off her stunning topstitching!  And it was her post that lead me to a different way to attach the collar – which worked really well! Thanks Rachel! I couldn’t bring myself to buy the pdf version, not with all those pieces. So when they announced they were selling a paper version I snapped one up immediately!  Not sure now what all the rush was about. …

The Colette Wren at The Yorkshire White Rose Awards

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On Monday we attended the White Rose Awards at the Leeds Arena.  It is the largest celebration of tourism excellence in the UK.  The dress code was black tie.  I didn’t need any more encouragement than that to fire up my creative juices and make a new frock! I’ve already written a post about my first and second muslin of the new Wren dress pattern from Colette.  I had 5m of this sparkly silvery ponte knit from Minerva.  I originally bought 2m to make my sister a coco for her birthday but then couldn’t resist and had to buy some more for me. I intend to write a full post later about the nitty gritty of the other changes I wanted and also needed to make to the pattern so it would be perfect for my chosen fabric and the occasion! This post is all about the finished dress and the awards ceremony. All dressed up and somewhere to go!!  Hubby scrubs up well too, don’t you think?! Wahay! Look at that thigh high spit! …