sew your wardrobe basics – THE COMPULSIVE SEAMSTRESS

Wardrobe Basics – Trousers

When you live in trousers, they’re not simply a wardrobe basic, they’re an essential item! I decided to add some pleated trousers to this year’s Autumn/Winter wardrobe, and have finally made something from one of the Burda magazines from this year. Burda have, unfortunately, not exactly been exciting this year. Only a couple of patterns have caught my attention, and until August, none caught it enough for me to actually bother to trace. But this pair is different, it’s 119 from August 2021. What caught my eye was the small pleats on the front, the neat waistband and tapered leg.

I traced the 44 and 42 and made an adjustment to the height of the waistband. While I liked the neatness of it, I also knew I’d prefer a slightly deeper waistband. I toiled the 44, but started grading towards the 42 from the hip down. The toile was successful, I only had a couple of adjustments to make.

Not making my usual shorten the length adjustment – this style should be slightly cropped, but it’s heading to winter and I don’t want cold ankles!
Altered the CF line – straightened it a bit so it was 5mm further out at the top, giving me an extra 1cm overall.
Took in the inseam by 1cm front and back from crotch to knee.
Made the waistband 1cm deeper.

mocha 1

mocha 3

The adjustments have worked well, I like the fit on these, so will be making another pair soon. I will, however, make them a little longer. The length looks good, and while it’s not freezing, they’re fine, but I want a longer pair! So the next pair will be 3cm longer. Looking at the photos, I think I need to take in a bit more on the inseam, it looks a bit baggy there, but I also need to remember that these are not supposed to be skintight!

mocha 2

collage mocha 1 — In-seam pocket details

In toiling, I realised there’d be a lot of bulk at the waistband from the pockets, so I cut a pocket facing for the back pocket piece and rifled through the stash of scraps for a lightweight bit of pretty cotton. I found I had just enough to cut the rather-large-for-Burda pockets from the pretty stuff, and only tiny bits leftover to head into the stuffing bag. These inseam pockets are a really good size, phone in one and mask and card wallet in the other, with space to spare for hands!

mocha 4

The trouser fabric is a cotton twill in Mocha bought from the Rag Shop in August, I don’t think they have any of that colour left now. It’s Kobe cotton twill, and it’s also one of those fabrics you need to be sure to wash inside out. I washed the trousers after the first wearing without turning them inside out and the creases formed while washing have lost a bit of colour. This means that all folded edges will lose colour too. I wouldn’t mind if it was a cheap, £7/m fabric, but it wasn’t. I haven’t bought a Robert Kaufman fabric before, and it might be joining Lady McElroy fabrics in the “avoid” pile due to colour fade. It’s beautfully soft though, and lovely to wear. Just watch the colour fading.

mocha 5

I wore these for the first time on a long weekend trip to York, they were very comfy to wear traipsing round the city all day. They’ve since been worn a few times and I really do like the pattern. I know Burda don’t have the best sizing these days, they used to go from a 34 to a 46 in the “everybody” section of the magazine, but these are just 36-44. I feel they are trying to save money by reducing the sizes available, the number of patterns in the magazine and the quality of the magazine paper itself. It’s a shame, as the old magazines were fabulous! Perhaps a revisit of those older magazines is in order.

mocha 9

79a991f0-8f45-4e7f-a58c-38700fb06608 — York Minster behind, trousers worn with silk Burda top made in 2018.

In the mean time, I’ve traced a jacket pattern from the August issue to toile, I have a retro (90s) pair of Burda trousers to show you and I have Lander pants to make for both girls – not to mention a VikiSews blouse for daughter no1 and a Bellatrix blazer for each of them. Thank godness the garden and allotment have stopped shouting for my attention!

Shweshwe Zadie Jumpsuit

spotty zadie 9

Me again! I might finally be back in the UK, but the sewing is s.l.o.w.! I haven’t quite got back to “normal”, because life isn’t normal. Mr W moved his office into my sewing room while I was away and he had to work from home. Now that work can happen at the “proper” office, but only twice a week, he’s still firmly ensconced in the sewing room. It’s hard to find room for sewing machines and ironing amongst the computer, A3 files, boxes of samples and other paraphanalia a busy architect needs. Not to mention the constant phone calls, with and without video…

spotty zadie 19

So the sewing has been happening on the dining table, cutting out on the living room floor. It’s not ideal, and I’m still itching to sew more, but I think we all need to get used to life as not-normal. It’s been weird to have continual company nowadays, instead of being on my own all day! But, I do actually have something I made to show you.

spotty zadie 7

Back in June, there were a couple of “challenges” I thought I’d join in with, the #JumpingIntoJune sewalong encouraged the making of jumpsuits, and Stephanie at Sea of Teal was promoting sewing with prints for June’s Sew Your Wardrobe Basics. So, on the last day of June I cut and started a print jumpsuit. Not so much jumping into June as jumping out of it!

I do love the Zadie Jumpsuit, it’s so comfy to wear, and quick to make. This version is the size 16, with no FBA! I had realised with the last summer version I made last year, that with the FBA the waistline seam sat too low. So I reversed that adjustment and just made the smaller size. I’m happy to report that it’s all worked, fits properly, doesn’t gape, and the waistline is in the right place.

spotty zadie 1

The fabric is a cotton shweshwe print I bought in South Africa in May. This isn’t the Da Gams Three Cats fabric. It had “Cheetah Shweshwe” in the selvage, but I can’t find much info about it. It’s wider than the Da Gama fabric at 150cm and slightly stiffer, but that will go with washing. It’s no stiffer than the blue linen used for my first Zadie. I love the spotty print, it caught my eye in the fabric shop immediately, and straight away I knew I wanted to make the Zadie Jumpsuit with it.

This isn’t the end of my Shweshwe journey, I bought another piece for myself which will become a nice new pair of Carolyn PJ pants, and lots of pieces that I bought for making things for the girls. Now I just need the time to make it all up!!!

February Wardrobe Basics

When Stef announced February’s theme I knew I’d be taking part! I love stripes of all shapes and sizes – and directions! I had thought the best thing to do would be to combine last month’s denim jacket and the stripes from this month – in the denim jacket! The denim I have has a herringbone pattern, so effectively, it’s stripes, right? I managed to get the second toile of the pattern fitted and checked earlier this month, but as I was too busy making coats, didn’t make the alterations to the pattern.

I then got distracted with other striped fabrics! I love stripey tees, so decided I’d have a few new ones for the summer. I started with a piece of organic cotton lycra from a local store – white with narrow black stripes. I knew I wanted to make the Basic Instinct Tee from Sasha at SecondoPiano. She has a clever formula on the pattern that helps to line up all the stripes on the shoulders and side seams – if you have a stripe pattern of the correct repeat. Thankfully, this stripe fitted the 6mm repeat, and my shoulder seams are just perfect!

module 5 — Organic stripe jersey in the Basic Instinct Tee

IMG_20200211_181726_773 — The most perfect shouldeer seam stripe matching ever!!!

Then I got stripe-happy and ordered some fabrics from Montreux Fabrics and cut another Basic Instinct Tee from the black and white stripe. Unfortunately this pattern repeat wasn’t suitable for Sasha’s clever formula, so I had to choose between lining up the side seam stripes, or the shoulders. I couldn’t have my cake and eat it too. But I tell you, keeping stripes lined up on viscose jersey is tricky! I ended up using a ton of pins and then basting by hand. Machine basting just didn’t work, the stripes all jumped and danced around and got all out of balance. If you have a machine with a walking foot you just might be better off! Anyway, I was satisfied with the matches I got, and more than happy with another comfy Basic Instinct Tee.

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For my third tee, I chose the Stellan Tee from French Navy. I like the boxy shape for the summer, and the curved hem is a cool detail. The fabric is viscose jersey again, but has more weight than the black and white. I decided to try to get all the stripes lined up on this one, and marked the intersection of the shoulder seam and stripes on the pattern so I could match them. And it worked! There is only one stripe on the shoulder because of the pattern repeat and the angle of the shoulder, but it doesn’t matter, it lines up!!

So – I have managed to fulfill the challenge brief and stock up on good tees for the summer, but I still want to get that denim jacket made…. if there’s time! These three tees also tick the box of the three tops required for the Great Module Sewalong. I made a pair of trousers to go in the module, but although they’re comfy and all, they aren’t right. Why? Well… Let’s leave that for the next post, shall we?

In the meantime, let’s see if I can get that denim jacket done by the end of Saturday!!

Sew Alongs and Sewing Challenges

Hellooo! It’s been a little quiet on this front lately, but rest assured, the sewing has continued! The cashmere coat is finished, I just need to get photos that do it justice! Standing in my sewing room with my phone propped up on a pile of books just isn’t doing any good. And, there’s another coat to show you now! I’m making good progress on shrinking the coating pile – at last! Again though, I need some nice sunny weather and a helper to get some decent photographs.

With the coat and jacket sewing, there’s good focus, but I need little, quick projects to break it up a bit. That’s partly why I thought signing up to Stef’s #SewYourWardrobeBasics would be a good idea. There’s no pressure, you participate in that month’s challenge theme if it suits you, and don’t if it doesn’t. So far, so good. This month is stripes, and if you’ve been following me for any length of time, you’ll know that that’s my favourite sort of pattern!

I decided to splurge on Tees for the challenge and bought some cotton lycra from a proper fabric shop to make a Basic Instinct Tee, and a couple of pieces online from Montreux Fabrics for a Stellan Tee and a Lark Tee. This will top up my summer tee pile quite nicely, but I wanted to squeeze in other projects too.

107 08 2019 — Trousers 107 Burda August 2019

There’s an interesting pair of trousers in this month’s Burda that I’m keen on and might make in a linen, I’ll have to check the stash to see if there’s anything suitable. I also rather liked one of the tops in the magazine. However, when Fabworks posted on Instagram that they had a pistachio viscose ponte as their fabric of the month this month, and that was just £3 a meter, I gave in. I knew right away that I wanted some for another pair of the trousers I remade last year, 107 from August 2019. I imagine they’d be perfect secret pjs! And to go with them? That top from this February’s issue! Under it the stripe tees, and over the top, one of the coats still on the list! Sounds like an outfit on the way to a mini wardrobe – yes?

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I’m excited to announce a new sewing challenge hosted by myself and @carlamayfield5 ! It’s the #thegreatmodulesewalong and here are the rules: Contest runs from January 28 – March 24th, 2020. Participants must complete a 6 piece module (one topper, 2 bottoms and 3 tops) and post their finished module by midnight EST on March 24th. Entries need to use the #thegreatmodulesewalong and tag @tomkatstitcherycarmel and @carlamayfield5 . 4 winners will be randomly selected at the end. For more information, head to the channel. Link in bio! Feel free to share this if you’re planning on following along! There will be a TON of support information and help over on YouTube (so make sure you’re subscribed to TomKat Stitchery and Stay Stitching). The more the merrier and let’s create some cohesive closets in the new year! Prizes sponsored by @minervadotcom @sewingworkshop @lovenotions @itchtostitch @figandneedle @cashmerette @seamworkmag #sewingchallenge #sewingvlogger #sewingvlog #modulesewing #caspulesewing #capsulewardrobesewing #fashionsewing #garmentsewing @christieressel

A post shared by Whitney Luckenbill (@tomkatstitcherycarmel) on Jan 17, 2020 at 4:48am PST

This is when I decided I might sign up to a bigger challenge, The Great Module Sew Along. The idea is to sew 2 bottoms, 3 tops and a covering/jacket. So far I have plans for all of the garrments, and don’t see why I shouldn’t be able to make the deadline for the challenge. And best of all, it gives me focus to make those quick projects in between the bigger coat and jacket projects. Oh, and there’s also the sewalong challenge in the Facebook sewing group I’m part of. This month is bottoms, so two pairs of trousers it will be! 🙂

Ash Jeans, slim leg or skinnies??

Just to keep you on tenterhooks a little longer with the big coat reveal, here are the jeans I made a few weeks ago, and have worn almost constantly without getting any photos. Oops! I guess that at least by wearing them contstantly, you can infer that I rather like them and am pretty happy with how they turned out.

ash slim 1 — Ash Jeans, slim leg version

So, after the debacle of the last pair and its toile, I made the same alterations to the pattern for the slim leg jeans and got cracking. The fabric this time is black denim from Croft Mill, I can’t link to it because I got the last piece, mwahaha! It has much more stretch than both the toile and the fabric used for the wide leg version of the Ash jeans. Which means that I could, in hindsight, have made them tighter from the hip up. Is it a problem? No, not really. Certainly not enough of a problem to have me unpick the topstitching and re-do anything!!

ash slim 4 — I like the fit, but they do get a little loose as the day goes on!

I used a deliciously contrasting thread for topstitching this time, not denim thread (because I didn’t have enough left and was too cheap to buy more), but a similar colour to the denim thread I had. It looks pretty good against the black of the denim, and so I needed a button that would go with it too! Luckily for me, I’d had a good raid of the local charity shops a couple of years ago and had built up a collection of military buttons. The old gold/bronze colour of a particular set matched perfectly.

Pocket fabric this time comes from another one of the other half’s shirts that have got all holey in the wash. How do you guys keep your man’s shirts from getting holey along the collar and cuff edges? I swear these shirts aren’t all that old, but they’re all going tatty and definitely unwearable in polite company. Under the car or in the garden is a different matter all together…

There’s only one thing I definitely need to change about this pattern – the leg length. Remember how I said with the wide leg pair that they could do with being 2-3cm longer, but that it would be ok with the narrower versions because you can get away with shorter on tighter?? Well – you can’t! Or at least, I can’t! I’m constantly using my feet to slide the fabric down to where it should be, so a definite alteration for all versions needs to be the addition of 3cm in the leg length. Not something I thought I’d need to do, but there you go.

ash slim 3

Also, what should be the difference between a slim leg pair of jeans and skinnies?? Because these feel like skinnies to me! Is it just that I have chunkier calf muscles? Should they fit looser? I cannot tell, having gone down a rabbit hole on google images with this pattern and got nowhere. Can anyone tell me if this is how they’re supposed to fit, or do I need a full calf adjustment??

ash slim 2 — Excuse the wrinkly bits, it was mid afternoon before I managed to get the other half to take these photos, and they just emphasise that I really should take these jeans in!

And so I’ve completed the first instalment of the #SewYourWardrobeBasics from Stef at Sea of Teal. February’s theme is stripes – challenge accepted!! You just cannot beat a good (or bad) stripe! Is anyone else doing this “challenge”? I’m going to make a Basic Instinct Tee with my stripe fabric, I need more tees for the allotment, and I can’t wait until it’s already warm to get making!