MachMade

I have a couple of makes from the Summer to share with you... Flowery culottes! I totally love these!! I used the trousers from the Holly (ByHandLondon) and just shortened them. They're quite flattering, but that's partly because they are a bit too tight, so I have to hold my tummy in the whole time. Yep, no secrets here! The blouse above is a refash from a charity shop. I downsized and unpicked the sleeves. I wear this all the time - for work and casual. *poser alert* And here is a blouse that I made from simplicity 1538. I've made a shirt from this pattern before and I've since donated it as I hate it. Bad colour, bad shape... But without the sleeves and with a soft, drapey viscose, I like this a lot more. It's a cute green, white and orange flowery print. I wear it for work approximately weekly. Being on holiday with my family, they were pretty keen on getting involved in the photography... Dad - directing the photo shoot. Mum - demonstrating how to pose using a ...

I've been absent a while - work totally took over. But I finally did some sewing yesterday! It is minor, but it needed to happen. Let me explain. I have a big bottom. And a fairly small waist. Which means that I almost always get a huge gape at the small of my back, where my trousers are too big. But u can't go down a size or my bum won't fit! Yesterday Mr M. and I popped down to Kent to see my baby sis who has just started Uni. And about 10 minutes before leaving, I decided I couldn't deal with the gaping any longer!! It is cold, uncomfortable and unflattering. So I did this: Decided roughly how much elastic I would need to get the waist to fit better. Use seam ripper to rip a hole on the inside. I decided to cut it under the belt loops as the stitching will be visible, but this did make stitching much trickier later on! Tuck elastic in and pin it firmly. The first time I did this, the elastic pinged away, so then I pinned it all along the length. Use a safety pin to p...

I made this quite a while ago, but there are limited opportunities for shoulder flashing while moving house. So my first chance to really enjoy wearing it out is now, at this beautiful French farmhouse in the Dordogne.  It has princess seams, which I think really work for me, despite my love of darts. Someone recently told me that it's easier to get a good fit with princess seams than with darts, so I think that's an area for me to investigate.  Looking into the sun... The pattern is from burdastyle, and the fabric was a naughty purchase just before moving. Check out the cute print: So fun! My little brother was appointed photographer for these pics and he took it pretty seriously. Oonaballoona (www.oonaballoona.com) had a blog post a while ago about how she gets such awesome pictures of her creations. She said that one tactic was to get looow. Here's our attempt: Think I need more evidence to be convinced that this angle works for my lower half. We're having a heavenly...

It's been over a month. I am so sorry!! In my defence, in that time we have moved house. We are now very contentedly settled in our gorgeous new home. We've done some painting and decided that painting is super boring and we won't be doing anymore for a while. So now I have time to sew/blog. This was actually something I finished before we moved. It was made for a friend in Leamington, so I wanted to give it to her before we left! Here is the lovely Jen, wearing Butterick 5748. I've made this pattern loads - it was my One Week One Pattern dress for 2014 - but this is the first version not for me!  I bought the fabric several months ago. It is bold, happy and floaty, but pink isn't really my colour, so I offered to make something for Jen. I also have some bright pink neoprene (enough for a skirt) that I need to convince someone they want. Since I know this pattern really well, it was easy to put together. I did mess the bodice up a little - I sewed one of the back pi...

It's been a long time since my last post. Yes. In that time, we've emptied out the furniture from our downstairs into my patient parents' garage, taken up the flooring, had builders in for a week, done activities week at school AND attended a funeral and a wedding in the same week. So you'll have to forgive me for not managing to keep the blog up to date. I've made a pair of dresses recently that took a huge amount more thought than normally goes into a dress. The Neoprene Dream: So apparently sewing with neoprene (that's wetsuit fabric in case you need a translation) is in. I found some in a remnant bin and decided I may as well jump on the trend. I was still on the afterglow from my Coletterie Pastille dress, so I decided to have another go. The grey neoprene would work brilliantly! Having read on blogs about full bust adjustments (apparently to overcome the saggy back that I often suffer from), I decided to give it a go. I followed instructions on a blog, sew...

That's the song that was playing through my head as I sewed the final stitches to this: my longest running UFO to date. (UFO=unfinished object) It is New Look 6123.  I aimed to make view B. And I started it around October last year. It has been a very slow process, but I have kept plodding with it, shockingly! It hasn't languished in a cupboard, but has been halfheartedly stitched about fortnightly, but completed all of a rush during half term. At the time of cutting I was clearly in a low patch in terms of confidence as I cut a size 18. If I cut it now, I'd cut a 14. But hey! What difference can 2 sizes make?! Well... It actually isn't a disaster. It fits badly, but I quite like the comfy, loose fit. I don't have a defined waist in it, but I'm confident enough these days that that's no problem. I had to take at least 6 inches off the upper back after sewing it as it was sagging badly! Here's the back. If you look carefully you might be able to see the p...

The fixing process: Last time I showed you this nightmare inducing disaster. Let me list the problems. Bad fit (waist, back, boobs), overwhelmingly busy print, huge sleeves, fussy neckline. Overall a highly unflattering dress. I could never have worn it in this state. So. I started by putting it on inside out and Mr M pinned me until I had shape! I did a quick movement test... ...then stitched new seams! I also hacked off the sleeves to make 3/4 length ones: I folded it like this so that the sleeve hem would still be even around my arm. To make sure both sleeves matched, I then did this: Lined up and cut! By that point it looked like this (I hadn't finished the sleeve ends - that's a TV watching job for tonight). Apologies for the trousers. Much better, no?! Just needs that neck sorting!! I just unpicked the gathered seam, hacked off the offending ruffles and then resewed it.  I'm not going to claim that this is a nice dress. Mr M says that the fabric itself was a bad choic...

Hooray for half term!! I've been mostly chilling in my me-made PJs or tshirt/jumper thing, but today I planned to wear a new dress.  This was the plan: I wanted a shirt dress, but a normal one wouldn't work with my waist-hip zone, so I thought this pattern was a real find!  But then I made this monstrosity. I am so ashamed of this that you can't even see my face. It's horrific, isn't it! I think it looks like a cross between an old ladies housecoat and a Shakespearean men's tunic. Urgh. Mr M has suggested removing the sleeves, but I'm really not sure that can save this. It fits SO badly that I'll just end up with gaping around the armpits. I might try adjusting the fit a bit.  I'm especially sad as this is the pattern I had in mind for the pretty fabric that I bought to match my fascinator. That plan has gone out of the window now. Rethink needed. Thank goodness it's half term, so I can get on with another project. If this was my only chance to s...

Monday 18th: Lovely pencil skirt from the sewing bee book. The facing has a tendency to pop up as this fabric doesn't iron well, so I can't brutally press it into submission like I normally do.  Tuesday 19th: Oscar still trying to get in on the photographic action!! This skirt was unearthed in a charity shop. It was size 22 and floor length, but I thought the print was so cute that I bought it. A few days later, I was really chuffed skipping about in it! Wednesday - Friday: I did wear Machmade all week, but failed at photos again. :-( A couple of tops and a skirt on Friday. And today, I'm chilling in my me-made jumper/tshirt. This is my only really casual me-made item, so I have very little choice for non work wear! It is the same outfit I wore last Friday for the film night of hen do, so here's a pic from then: Haha!! I was about to dig into that choc... Yeah, you can't see the top that well, but you can see how much fun we had! Thanks to Aunty Jill for the pic! It...

Although I love blogging about what I'm sewing/wearing/doing, I am still sensible enough to know that actually living is more important than talking about living. And this week has represented that ethos perfectly. Apologies for the lack of pictures. On Monday I wore my awesome new red dress for the second time. I didn't blog on Monday night because I went to a powerhoop class instead. Seriously good fun, but I was bruised and sore the next day! On Tuesday I wore a stretchy pencil skirt which I love! Unfortunately it was a hot, uncomfortable day and I was all bruised from powerhoop, so I had to do a mad dash to buy an alternative outfit from tesco before heading from work to dinner with some lovely (preggers - super congrats guys!) friends. With us moving away in the summer, we're really trying to make the most of our friends being nearby. So that's my excuse for the lack of blogging on Tuesday! Wednesday was a fairly casual outfit - chinos and my blue mimi blouse. We g...