A floral Japanese dress

A couple of weeks ago, I made a second Japanese dress (here is the first one, which turned out to be a tunic for reasons of public decency).  This time I added 16cm to the length and  graded the side seams so that it continued the full, swingy shape.  This one is the perfect dress length for me - it falls a couple of centimetres above the knee.

I bought the fabric from Stitch in Wanstead, which is a wonderful fabric shop specialising in dressmaking fabrics.  The staff in this shop have so much knowledge, and are happy for fabric ditherers like me to prowl around the shop for hours before finally purchasing something.  It is a cotton lawn, with a fine, light crispness which I love, and only cost me £8 a metre (I bought 3m to be cautious, but totally could have got away with 2.5m).  This makes the dress incredibly good value.

I absolutely love how the dress turned out, and I wear it often (as I do the first tunic-length attempt, which looks great over jeans or leggings).  The shape is full, but there are enough details to make it look stylish and not sack-like.  The pleated bodice is particularly pleasing.  This time I added a narrow velvet ribbon hem on the bottom, which is definitely my favourite way of finishing a hem on a dress, tunic or skirt (I learnt the technique many years ago, from this free Oliver + S skirt pattern).  Both this dress, and also the first tunic version, have attracted so many flattering comments from random people on the train - and even two policewomen walking past me in the street.   I love how both the style and the fabric are such a long way from anything you'd ever find in a shop. 

For my birthday, my father gave me a second dress pattern book by Yoshiko Tsukiori (this one), and I have spent a great deal of time happily immersing myself in the book, and deciding what I want to make next.  This one, pictured below, is the most likely contender simply because of the delicious neckline. 

This stage of planning and thinking is possibly one of the most enjoyable parts of dressmaking for me.  By the time I am ready to sew I have a very definite idea in my head of how the garment is going to turn out.  Then I'm just so eager to get on with the sewing so that I can start wearing it.      

Two new tops

It feels like a long time since I made any clothes for myself.  When I checked on my blog I discovered that it was indeed a long time ago - May 2012, just before I applied to University and started my nursing course.  Dressmaking takes time - even the simplest piece of clothing is a challenge to make in one day when you've also got to cook tea, take someone to ballet, clean out the chickens, draft an essay and read a couple of articles on diabetes.  I used to set aside whole days at a time to making new clothes, but I just can't do that any more.

So I've approached it differently.  I took my time, did a bit of pattern tracing one day, and had a happy few hours choosing fabrics the next day.  Then I had a couple of days at University and some more studying at home, before I spent another few hours pinning and cutting the fabric out.  The next weekend I sewed everything together, and finally finished the hemming as I waited at the station to pick up Olivia a few days after that.  Of course I can still make clothes when I am working or studying.  It seems obvious now I write that, but having been given the luxury of staying at home the last few years, it took me a while to understand how.

Over the past few weeks I've made myself two cotton tops.  I used the Lisette Market Dress pattern, Simplicity 2211, which I just discovered is now sadly out of print.  I bought the pattern when it came out and just hadn't got round to making it.  I made the first version exactly as the pattern directed, except that I left off the strange fake button placket down the centre front.  When it was finished and I wore it for a day, I had a number of issues with it.

• it has rather a boxy shape on me - snug around the hips and too roomy around the waist.
• the puffed and gathered sleeves look too babyish on a woman of 41
• the interfacing I used on the contrast fabric around the neck and sleeves, left the top feeling a little too stiff at these points.  The neck is very high anyway, and the interfacing in it made it sit very awkwardly on me.

Version 1 - not bad, not great

Hemming the first top, waiting in the car to pick up O

So, I embarked on version 2.  This time I left off the interfacing, left off the cuffs at the bottom of the sleeves so that they were no longer puffed, and took the side seams in at the waist and out at the hips.  I also bound the bottom edge with ribbon rather than hemming it.

I am delighted with this version.  Leaving off the interfacing made the process of putting on the neck much more sweary, as the fabric really takes some serious manipulation in order to lie nice and flat.  However, my patience (and swearing) paid off as the resulting neck is still neat and clean, but much softer to wear and somehow a little more casual too.

Version 2 - much better tailored to my shape, and with more grown-up sleeves

Thick, richly embroidered Swiss ribbon

For both tops I used fabric that I absolutely love.  The first one uses a wonderful spring-fresh quilting cotton from Amy Butler and the second one is an insanely patterned printed cotton which I bought in Switzerland in 2010.  It has little scenes of Switzerland on it, including my favourite - a tiny fondue pot!  The ribbon on the hem is also something I bought in Switzerland - a traditional Swiss, floral, embroidered ribbon.

There will be a third version too - incorporating all the changes I made for the second one.  I am just dithering over fabric choices at the moment.  A home made top deserves distinctive and beautiful fabric, and one of the reasons I love making clothes is that I end up with something you would never be able to buy in a shop.  I wear jeans a great deal, and their plainness is off-set nicely by a fancier top. 

This term at University we've been talking a great deal about how we will cope with the stresses of the job once we qualify, and one topic that keeps coming up is that of hobbies and interests outside nursing.  Mental wellbeing is something I wrote about a little bit on this blog back in October last year, and I now consider my mental health much more than I used to.  I am beginning to realise that although I love having new clothes to wear, I actually love dressmaking just as much for the creative challenge it provides.  All the measuring, adjusting, fiddly lining up of notches, pinning, overlocking and stitching requires just enough concentration to take my mind off whatever else is going on around me.  And now that I spend my working hours in a uniform with a high polyester content, the importance of beautiful, well-made clothes in natural fibres becomes even more significant.

The best tailor's chalk in the world, ever

Ready to set the sleeve

A kimono for my niece

I have another new niece on the way.  It is The Year of New Nieces, because Miss A arrived in early February, and Miss M is due any day now.

I've been thinking for a while about what to make her.  A June or July baby doesn't really need a kicking bag like a winter baby does, and I also had an urge to make something I hadn't done before.  Eventually I decided that what every summer-born baby girl needs is a floral, lace-trimmed kimono.

The pattern is from Weekend Sewing by Heather Ross - a book that is certainly the most used of my many sewing books.  I added vintage lace, which was given to me by my grandmother, as an additional trim onto the bottom.  I like the idea of passing a little bit of lace trim down to a fourth generation.

All I need now is the baby, and some greedy-Auntie cuddles with her.  I can't wait.

10 things

• I went to a fancy dress party with a theme of Icons from the 1980s, as a ZX Spectrum.  I like to retain an air of dignity as much as I can, so I rejected my family's suggestions that I dress up as Madonna or Anneka Rice, and went for an inanimate object instead. A black dress and a homemade badge was all I needed.

• Naturally, the children couldn't quite believe that the latest home computer thirty years ago, was lauded for games like Elite and Manic Miner.  They live in another world, and can't quite get their heads around how we moved from the ZX Spectrum to Xbox Live in one generation.
• As I applied eye-shadow for the first time in years, I realised that I didn't wear any make-up at my wedding last year.  That seems very odd, but also kind of cool.
• I have some new earrings, which are making me smile.

• My saxophone is down from the loft, so that I can accompany O on her new french horn and give her a middle C to tune to.  She has to do all the tuning with her mouth, for each note she plays, and this is by far the trickiest thing for her at the moment.
• Once I'd played a few notes, I remembered how much fun it is playing an instrument. I dug out some music, reminded myself of the fingering chart and had a play around.

• My saxophone is even louder than O's french horn.
• I've got the bug now. My saxophone is going into our local music shop for a service later this week and then I'm going to save up for some refresher lessons and investigate local orchestras and wind bands.
• Amazon sells tenor saxophone reeds, and even cork grease.  Is there anything they don't sell?
• Olympic preparations have come to our street.  Because we live so close to the Olympic Park, we are having residents' parking restrictions put in for the duration of the summer.  This is our side of the street this morning, waiting for the contractors to arrive.  I've never seen our street without cars; it looks lovely.

A tunic for Spring

I wanted a new top, so I sat down and made one.  Sometimes the simple, non-dithering approach works well for me.  I started cutting out the fabric at 8pm, and finished the last stitch of the hem at 1am.  G was away so I had rubbish tv and some good podcasts for company.

This morning I am incapable of taking a decent photo.  I am sporting dark shadows under my eyes but also a funky, slightly psychedelic, new tunic top.  I'm happy.

~~~~~~~~~~

Sewing notes:

The pattern is the Portfolio Tunic from Lisette (Simplicity 2245), which I have made twice before.  This time I left the collar off and finished the raw edge with bias tape, because the collar comes out very high.  I much prefer the lower neckline this way.

The fabric is quilting cotton from Amy Butler's Soul Blossoms range, and I think the colours and swirly flowers are very reminiscent of the 1960s.  The relatively heavy weight of quilting cotton works very well with this pattern.  The previous two versions I made were from much lighter cotton lawn, which are cool for summer but crumple more easily and don't hang quite so well.

Two pink bags

I haven't done any sewing since Christmas, and I've missed it.  Over a couple of evenings this week I sewed two bags.  What I had forgotten was how quick sewing is compared to knitting, and how deeply satisfying it is to create something from nothing and end up with an item which solves a problem.  Both these bags were made to solve problems.

O's old ballet bag was looking a little childish suddenly, and it was awkward for her to carry into class because it had a drawstring rather than handles. 

She really wanted a stylish tote bag like everyone else has.  I was very happy to make her one and asked her to pick out fabrics.  Despite declaring that she isn't into pink at all any more, she chose two eyewateringly bright pink fabrics for the bag.  I think she likes to keep me on my toes. 

O's new ballet bag - extra pink

I whipped up this tote bag for her in an evening, and she loves it.  At ballet this week she sauntered off into class with her new bag slung over her shoulder, looking very pleased with herself.  All the other 9 year olds in her class were exclaiming over the deliciousness of the cherry, polka dot and gingham fabrics, which pleased her even more.  She can be sure that no one else will ever have a ballet bag quite like this one.

O's new ballet bag - everything still gets stuffed inside any old how

The second bag was made for a friend's 12 year old daughter.  S didn't want her small bedroom cramped with a big washing basket, so her mum asked me to make her a drawstring laundry bag which could hang on the back of her door instead.  S picked out the fabric for her laundry bag, and also chose pink - but in much more muted colours than my 9 year old.  Like me, S's mum also thought her daughter didn't like anything pink, but was proved wrong.  I think maybe all girls like to keep their mums on their toes.

Embroidering a label

Laundry bag label

I embroidered a label for the bag, and was delighted to find a little steam iron image amongst my vast collection of embroidery transfers from Sublime Stitching.  I really love this bag, and the fabric S chose.  I think it would be a nice idea to have one of these myself to pack into my suitcase when I go away, and keep dirty washing separate from clean clothes.

S's laundry bag - to hang behind her bedroom door

I hope S likes it as much as I do - I have a feeling she will.  I know her mum will just be delighted to get those dirty clothes off the floor and tidied away.  What is it with girls and discarded clothes?

O's bedroom this morning - with discarded bath towel, pyjamas and tops flung around.

We've come a long way from red satin

Last night I finished the dress for O to wear to our wedding.  It has been a long time coming.

O is a girl who dreams of weddings - she was so excited when we told her that we were getting married ("Finally!", she said) but the excitement wore off rapidly once she realised that our plans for the marriage ceremony were vastly more minimalist and laid back than hers.

For the past few days she has been illustrating her Dream Wedding, to show me how it should be done.  At the moment it stretches to 5 sheets of A4 paper taped together, but I have no doubt it will end up even bigger.  It is most definitely not a minimalist wedding.

The groom is unnamed, but frankly that doesn't matter.  He has a very small role to play in all this.  She has two of her friends, three of her cousins and her brother as attendants.  C was very cross when she drew him wearing a red checked shirt, so she is still pondering what to put two of her boy cousins in.  The friends and her girl cousin are dressed in long white dresses with gold necklines and gold hair accessories.  All the family are there to watch, and all of the girls from her class at school too.

There will be a limousine to transport her from the wedding to the party afterwards.  The wedding feast features all her favourite food - brownies, strawberries, blackberry pie and cinnamon rolls.  Well, why not?

So you can imagine, with her deep enthusiasm for all things wedding-related, that when I asked her what she would like me to make for her to wear to our ceremony she had a detailed description, and illustration, all ready.  It went something along the lines of 'what Pippa Middleton wore, but in red satin'. 

That was never, ever going to happen, on so many levels, and it has taken weeks of delicate diplomacy to find something that both she and I were happy with.  What she chose in the end surprised me.  She wanted this simple camisole dress from my Japanese pattern book.

And even more surprisingly, she wanted me to make it with some pink cotton printed with roses (by Tilda), from my fabric shelves.  This fabric is much more to my taste than hers, so I was surprised but delighted.

The dress is very simple and quick to make, but annoyingly came out far, far too big for her.  This is odd because everything else I've made for her from the book, in the 140cm size, has fitted her beautifully.  So I unpicked the side seams and re-sewed them at the top with a whopping 3.5cm seam allowance rather than the 1.5cm it should have been, grading out to the 1.5cm allowance about half way down.  I also added a pleat into the front, to stop any gaping around the neckline. 

As so often happens with fudges alterations to dress patterns, I have ended up liking the amended version a whole lot more than the original.  My re-drafting of the side seams has given the dress much more of an A line shape, and the pleat at the front makes for a more interesting neckline.

Most importantly, however, it meets with O's approval, and the arguments about red satin have finally been put to rest.

An eclectic list of small happinesses

It is still the small things which are delighting me this week.

• Progress - at last - from the Foreign Office, who have been slowly preparing important certificates for me and G, so that we can get married in France.  G's certificate is finally here, and mine is on its way.  The deadline for handing them in to the Mairie is next week, so I can breathe a little easier now.

• By contrast, the officicial translators we've used have been a model of efficiency and speed.  We have to get all our birth certificates translated into French by a traducteur assermenté (official translator) and we used Bond Street Translators, who have been incredibly quick and helpful.  Should you ever need anything official translating into French, these are your people.
• C has been awaded Young Runner of the Year by our local Park Run, and we are so proud of him!  He came home from this morning's run with a big box of chocolates, a fancy certificate and a big grin on his face.

• The garden has had a proper drenching from the weird, stormy weather we've been having all week.  It really needed it, and now all my busy lizzies and geraniums are dazzlingly bright and producing new buds.
• I made a cotton summer dress for one of O's friends, using the Japanese pattern book I blogged about here.  The fabric is what makes this dress so special - a metre length of printed cotton from Ikea.  Ikea always have a few properly stunning fabrics in stock, and if you live close to one it is well worth popping in regularly to see what you can find.  Many fabrics have print that is a little too big for dressmaking but every now and then you hit the jackpot, like with this bird one.

• I saw photos of my nephews and niece having fun on holiday in Norfolk.  The picture of my 18 month old nephew looking very solemn, in a wetsuit, was too sweet for words.  He looks so much more a part of the family now that he is big enough to run around the beach with his older brother and sister.
• I made fresh strawberry and vanilla muffins for brunch this morning.  They taste and smell of summer.
• G has headed off to Snowdonia with his bike, wetsuit and other triathlon clobber for a half-ironman race tomorrow.  He's well rested, filled with carbs and optimistic for a good time and straightforward race.  Or at least he was until he saw the latest weather forecast.
• While G is away, secret plans are afoot for Father's Day next week. Sshhh!

Japanese school dress

Yesterday I made a dress version of the pretty Japanese top I wrote about here, in school uniform colours.  O's school allow either light blue or navy blue gingham for the summer dresses, so when I saw this two-tone gingham cotton at Shaukat for only £3.50 a metre I did actually shriek with excitement.  I think it's meant for men's shirts, but it is perfect for school uniform as well.

The dress version of this pattern is so simple in its design - I really love that.  Very un-fussy.  I used narrower bias tape for the neck this time, which I think works a little better.  It makes for a narrower bow.

Another change I made was to cut the front in one piece rather than two.  I then made a placket for the neck, which saved having to match up all the gingham squares down the front seam (which to be honest I probably wouldn't have had the patience to do anyway).

I hemmed the dress with ribbon, to give it a little more interest, and because I know O loves anything to be trimmed with ribbon.  In a very small way I also get a kick out of the little element of rebellious satisfation there is in making an item of uniform with a little touch of individuality to it.

She loves it, and pranced off down the road to school swishing her new dress and looking very pleased with herself.

An outrageously pretty Japanese blouse

I've been having adventures with a Japanese pattern book this week.  I bought this book last year from Tikki in Kew.  I have no idea what the title is, because I can't read Japanese, but the subtitle is "Homesewn summer wear for girls 120 to 150cm tall".  I hope the title is something snappier.

The patterns inside are what counts, however.  I truly love every single one of them.  Something that I particularly like is that there are patterns for dresses, trousers, skirts, shorts, tops, shirts and camisoles - truly something for every possible occasion or mood.  O agrees because when I asked her to mark which ones she'd like me to make for her, she put a post it note on every single page.

I started with this sweet blouse, which also has a dress version.

I decided to start with this blouse, because I think the dress version, made with the capped sleeves of the blouse, would make a wonderful school summer dress this year.  I've made the blouse first as a practice run for the dress.

This is the first time I've ever made anything from a Japanese pattern book before, but I wasn't too intimidated because there is a wealth of information on the internet about how to do this.  The tutorial I mainly used was this one from The Purl Bee, but I also found the recent series by Kate, at M is for Make, really helpful.

I spent roughly three times as long drafting the pattern as I did sewing. 

The patterns do, inevitably, take a long time to get right.  You need to trace them, add seam allowances, adjust them as necessary (for example there are in fact no pattern pieces for the top in this book, just pieces for the dress, with recommended adjustments for the top), and then label them.  But I went slowly and none of the process went wrong - I think I may even have learnt the Japanese symbol for sleeve! 

Japanese patterns - like Ottobre ones - work in cm, rather than inches, which is an absolute delight after years of sewing American patterns in inches, which I just find so counter-intuitive.

The blouse was incredibly quick to cut out and sew - barely two hours from start to finish.  The top has no facings which makes life much simpler and quicker (and yet, still looks neat and finished inside as every single seam is overlocked).  There were also very few pattern pieces to work with.  Just two sleeves, two front pieces, one back piece and some bias tape.  Really very simple indeed - even with absolutely no knowledge of Japanese whatsoever.  I just followed the illustrations, which are very clearly drawn, and I had no moments of puzzlement or swearing when I sewed something in back to front or upside down (which happens to me surprisingly often when I am dressmaking - much as I love it).

And the finished article?  Well, I just love it.  I find it outrageously girly, pretty and summery, all at once.  I know it will get worn and worn, and I'll end up making a whole pile of them.

When O tried it on, I found I'd made the elastic on the cuffs too tight, so I re-threaded it to make it a little looser.  There may have been instructions somewhere that told me what length to cut the elastic, but if there were I didn't understand them, so I had to guess.  I also guessed how much to gether the neckline by, as there were no notches to line up.  But both the sleeves and the neckline turned out beautifully so I can't have gone too far wrong.

O loves it too, and said she'd probably wear it all year round, with a long sleeved t-shirt underneath in winter.  Clever girl - that would look great as well, of course.

The fabric I used is a Cath Kidston haberdashery fabric which I know from experience is very stiff until it has been washed a few times.  This blouse would look more floaty in a voile, or lawn or soft linen.  I think one in a plain buff-coloured linen with a bright flash of bias tape around the neck would look wonderful, but I can see that the jazzy Cath Kidston fabrics are more to an 8 year-old's taste.

If you, like me, have been dithering about whether to take the plunge and have a go at making something from Japanese pattern, then I would absolutely urge you to give it a go.  If you've even made one or two items of clothing from a regular pattern you will be fine.  I found I rather enjoyed figuring out what to do - it was just tricky enough to keep me interested, but I promise you, there was absolutely no swearing whatsoever!

My blossom dress

I didn't hang about with the dressmaking.  Earlier this week I made a second Lisette portfolio tunic (you can see my first one here). 

I made some adjustments to my first one, which I repeated with this one.  I took in the seams around the waist - between the armpit and the pockets at the hip - by 2cm on each side, and I lengthened the sleeves slightly by sewing the cuffs with the seam on the inside (they are meant to be sewn with the seam on the outside and then folded back on themselves, but I just knew that would irritate me).

I still love this pattern but I think I could take it in even more around the waist - I am going to try putting some back darts in.  They're easily reversible if they don't work as I imagine.

I love this floral fabric.  I bought five metres of it at a vide grenier in France last summer, for the princely sum of €3.  No that's not €3 per metre, that's €3 in total - amazing!  It is a vintage cotton lawn, which the lady who sold it to me said was bought by her mother shortly after the war.  I'm inclined to believe her because the selvedge to selvedge width is narrower than usual, just 91cm rather than the more usual 137cm, and the floral pattern looks typical of the 1940s or 1950s.

I'm calling this my blossom dress, because the blossom is out everywhere now, and just wearing this dress makes me feel like spring has sprung.  I wore it when I went to Kew yesterday with Tracy and Kristina, and we found more than enough spring blossom there to keep us happy.