stripes – THE COMPULSIVE SEAMSTRESS

It’s all about the Tees – Part I

When summer comes calling, I love wearing my t-shirts, easy to pull on, easy to wear, it’s a no-brainer, really. When Montreux Fabrics announced on Instagram that they had a very short 50% discount off all jersey deal, I had to get some, despite having bought a decent amount of fabric at the NEC in March, some of it from them! I also had a stripe binge on, I love stripes! And blue. Especially in the summer, when my wardrobe staple colour of shades of greys turns to shades of blues. Once washed, dried and ironed, they languished for a bit while I finished up other projects – and tried to decide which patterns to use.

birgitte 2

I have a couple of patterns I’ve bought for tees, and my own block. The fit on the Birgitte Basic tee is hard to beat, for me, anyway. I followed Maria’s instructions for the FBA and have ended up with a tee pattern that’s pretty darned good. So I decided two of the pieces would be Birgittes, one V-neck and one scoop. A couple of years ago I raised that scoop neck when I made some contrast colour tees, I like the height of that new scoop, especially if I’m going to be on the allotment, bending over…

birgitte 3

I started with the V-neck, using a blue and white random stripe fabric – no pattern matching required!! Composition is Micro Modal and Elastene, it feels nice and cool to the touch. As all my adjustments were already done, all I needed to do was cut and sew! In hindsight, I should have payed a little more attention to exactly where all those stripes were going, but it’s too late now!

birgitte 1 — Birgitte Basic Tee from Maria Denmark

The second tee, scoop neck version was made using a navy blue and white stripe, which also comes in a red/pink. The fibre content is Viscose and elastane, and it’s another lovely fabric, lighter than the first. This time all stripes were pinned, I pinned the fabric together before cutting out, checked the stripes going across and lined up a white stripe at the underarm on the front, back and armhole pieces so it would all line up. I even pinned every second stripe (front and back) together and basted with the sewing machine before heading to the overlocker! Those suckers were NOT going to move…

birgitte 5

And it worked! I always pin and then sewing machine baste the neckbands on t-shirts, I don’t trust myself enough with the overlocker to ensure everything is straight all the time, it’s much easier to maintain seam allowance width on the sewiing machine! So I stitch with the machine, then overlock. I use a 4mm twin needle for topstitching the neckbands, it looks better than the narrower one. I have a 2.5mm twin needle that’s used for hems.

birgitte 4

birgitte 6 — Scoop Neck version of Birgitte Basic Tee from Maria Denmark

All in all, a very successful pair of tees to wear this summer (and for the forseeable future). I managed another three tees, using different patterns, all new to me. Stay tuned to see them and find out how I got on!

ps: The links are just there for you to find what I used, no money has or will change hands! Or fabric…

True Blue

bias cut stripe dress — Sky-blue summer dress

Another day, another dress!

As the Olympics draw nearer, I think we have a winner!

This dress uses the basic shape of the pattern used for the Simply Red dress, but I have eliminated all the panels and cut on the bias to take full advantage of the stripes.

The fabric is a fine cotton sent to me as part of an estate sale haul by a friend who has ~~abandoned me~~ moved to the States. (Her busband blogs here – an online diary of his aclimatisation) I had to line the dress, this fabric was a trifle too transparent in the light – ok for a shirt, not so good for anything with a skirt!

To give it a little more interest I added some blue broiderie anglaise to the hem of the cotton lining, just enough to peek out at the bottom.

A happy Daughter No2 showing off her handywork – a totebag embroidered, beaded and sequined by her own fair hand as a birthday present for a friend

I will be making another panelled dress, I dug out another piece of fabric sent by the same friend, this time a black and blue print that will look just stunning!!

Quick Missoni Dress-Top

A piece of fabric practically jumped into my hands a little while ago while all I was supposed to be getting was a zip… On the remnants table at Fred Winter was this 60cm piece of ex-Missoni knit fabric. I couldn’t leave it there, could I??

You can just make out the cutting lines in this picture, I halved daughter no 2’s measurements and took 10% off the bust. As this is a stretch knit we didn’t want anything to fall down! Then I added to the hip measurement so the top/dress would flare out nicely toward the hem. Next I cut along the fold and overlocked the sides together. The top edge was overlocked too and then I turned under a casing for the elastic. This I used a twin needle to do, not having mastered the coverstitch on my overlocker just yet… Then I cut the straps off an old bra that had a matching colour to the stripes and sewed them on, daughter no 2 didn’t fancy any wardrobe malfunctions! I used the zigzag selvage for the hem, it just needed some tidying up, but I think it looks great!