Tag Archives: Grainline Studio

A Pair of Archers

Ooooh, something new and different for me – more sshirts! And you’ll be pleased to know I’m making more shirts while I’m stuck at home!

These are yet more Archer shirts. I’ve made a few archers in my time (1, 2, 3) and the little alterations I made on the 3rd one make these fit pretty well.

The fabric is a lovely, soft cotton linen mix from Fabric Godmother. I bought it with the voucher my friends at my old job bought me…..back in June!

In my defence, I did make these back in September. I’ve worn them quite a lot since they were finished. Especially as I work in a bookshop which has to have the doors open so during the Winter I was wearing 6-8 layers to keep warm. Shirts are definitely a good layering piece!

I decided to just put one pocket on each shirt, and I changed the direction of the stripes for a bit of interest. I like how it looks – and I couldn’t be bothered to stripe match the pockets so this is a good way of avoiding some pattern matching!

I think these will be great shirts for when the weather is warmer (it has to warm up eventually, right?!). I’m picturing them with the sleeves rolled up, with jeans and sandals. I might be dreaming a lot of warmer weather as this Winter seems to have been going on FOREVER!

I still really like making shirts – the top-stitching is so satisfying! As I mentioned I’ve got a couple more I’m sewing at the moment but then I should probably pause on shirt-making as there are only so many shirts one person needs……while only having one pair of jeans!

Do you like making shirts? Do you have a favourite shirt pattern? I think mine is between the Archer and the Kalle.

Me Made May 2018 Round-Up

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Now that May is well and truly over, I thought I’d do a recap of Me Made May. You can see my pledge here.

My main take-away is that I failed to make jeans. What a surprise. I’ve been saying I’m going to make jeans for 2 months (plus about a year before that!). I have a free weekend in a couple of weeks and it is my plan to make some jeans then – I wasn’t in the mood to make them on either of the bank holiday weekends in May as it was so bloody hot! The last thing I wanted to be doing was wrestling denim through my sewing machine.

I also found it pretty hard to decide what to wear as the weather was all over the place. I know it’s very british and boring to talk about the weather, but on the first bank holiday Monday when I was playing out with the brass band, it was 28 C and then there were other days that were 14 C.

I documented my outfits daily on Instagram and after a couple of days I decided to add another dimension to my challenge and try to have my photos look different from each other. This was kind of fun for the first week and then I just got even more fed up with documenting my outfits than in previous years because I then felt I had to think of somewhere new or a new pose for the photo. It was supposed to be a fun thing to try to break me out of my rut of the same few poses, but it didn’t really work out that way. I did, however, post as many outtakes as I could. It makes me laugh to see the stupid photos that The Boyfriend (who was a very patient Instagram Husband through the month) accidentally took. This might be the last year I take daily photos as it’s the least fun part for me, so I might try a different way of documenting my outfits so I can continue to scrutinise my wardrobe and plan my makes accordingly.

Here is a recap of all my outfits:

Day 1: silver toaster sweater
and navy simplicity trousers

Day 2: refashioned suit trousers
and gifted cashmere jumper

Day 3: mustard corduroy skirt
and thrifted navy spotty shirt

Day 4: flowery archer shirt and
black corduroy simplicity skirt

Day 5: electric blue coco top
and navy simplicity trousers

Day 6: yellow flowery plantain
tee and refashioned trousers

Day 7 part 1: white archer shirt
and black simplicity trousers

Day 7 part 2: yellow and navy
flowery sallie maxi dress

Day 8: refashioned raglan top
and black simplicity trousers

Day 9: spotty rushcutter
and freemantle coat

Day 10: refashioned coral, navy
and mustard dress into shirt

Day 11 & 12: spotty melilot shirt
and black simplicity trousers

Day 13: silver toaster sweater
and black simplicity trousers

Day 14: greyish melilot shirt and
navy simplicity trousers

Day 15: breton plantain tee and
navy simplicity trousers

Day 17: electric blue jersey
dress

Day 18: tester honeycomb
shirt

Day 19: refashioned coral, navy
and mustard dress into shirt

Day 20: white archer shirt
and black simplicity trousers

Day 21: navy and white
marianne dress

Day 22: stripey cropped inari tee
and refashioned trousers

Day 23: greyish melilot shirt
and navy simplicity trousers

Day 24: mustard astoria top and
refashioned suit trousers

Day 25: black simplicity skirt
and thrifted jumper

Day 26 & 27: navy simplicity
trousers and gifted top

Day 28: navy simplicity trousers
and spotty thrifted shirt

Day 29: spotty meilot and
mustard denim cleo

Day 30: mustard refashioned
skirt and thrifted shirt

Day 31: mustard astoria and
navy corduroy cleo

What I’ve learned about my handmade wardrobe:

I need more trousers! I wore the same 2 pairs most of the month in rotation, and the suit trousers a couple of times.
All of my knitwear is still ready to wear and I’m okay with that. I don’t have time to knit myself new things and most of the cardigans are still wearable so it seems not very eco-friendly to replace them all for the sake of having a 100% handmade wardrobe. I will make replacements as and when they wear out, but it’s not desperate.
One of my favourite things in my wardrobe is my navy with white spots shirt (as you can see in Day 30) and it was from a charity shop. I think this is a good way to add to my wardrobe with things I wouldn’t necessarily make or things that I just like.
I re-wore a few things that I had forgotten about, like the mustard corduroy skirt refashion.
I didn’t get to wear a few things I really like because it wasn’t warm enough on enough days. I’m particularly sad my 2 In The Folds Collins Tops didn’t make it, but apparently the UK is going to have a 3-month heatwave so I’m sure they’ll get some wear this year.
Most of my outfits fitted into the colour palette I decided I wanted to wear when I did the Wardrobe Architect last year, which is pretty cool. It is definitely easier to put together outfits when you like all the colours and they go with each other. The 2 cleos I made are definitely going to be a great addition to my wardrobe and fit into my palette. I’ve tried to be more focussed when buying fabric, and I guess it’s working!

What did you learn from Me Made May?

Honeycomb Shirt (and my first time pattern testing)

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I recently did my first bit of pattern testing, for CocoWawa Craft’s newest pattern the Honeycomb shirt (and shirtdress). I’ve met Ana a couple of times and she is as lovely in person as you would imagine, so I was thrilled when she asked me to pattern test for her. I’ve made quite a few different shirt patterns before and I was excited to give a new one a go. I haven’t pattern tested before because, although I’ve seen calls put out for testers a few times, I’ve always worried that I wouldn’t find the time to make the pattern in time. Especially as my output is quite a bit lower this year than it has been in the last couple of years. But I did get it done in time, phew!

The pink fabric is some mystery drapey stuff I’ve had in my stash for years – I originally bought it from Rolls and Rems on Holloway Road, which I think might not be there any more. I used some of this fabric to make one of my very early makes, a Grainline Scout Tee (long since consigned to the charity shop) and I lined a Tilly and the Buttons Delphine skirt for the #SewDots initiative last year or the year before. I think it was a good choice for this pattern as it’s quite loose fitting (which is, handily, how I prefer my tops to fit) so I think it benefits from a bit of drape.

I made the shirt version as since I changed jobs (from a boring office job to rolling furnishing fabric) I’ve not worn so many dresses. I already have a couple more dresses cut out and didn’t think I really needed any more – I definitely need more separates. I made it in the size 3 (which is a UK size 10) as this was the size closest to my bust and waist measurements – my hips were a little big for the size, but there is so much ease there that I figured it would be fine. I also left off all the ties which can be included with the shirt or the shirtdress as they’re not really my style. I also made the short sleeves so I could wear this in this weird warm weather we’ve been having recently – the fabric is quite thin so not the best for Autumn/Winter.

I feel that the short sleeves are a little long on me – I am only 5’3″ so it might be that I have short arms. I might take them up a bit the next time I’m at my machine and have white thread in it.

The instructions were really easy to follow and I would definitely recommend this as a first shirt pattern to make – there is a grandad collar rather than a collar with collar stand and there aren’t sleeve plackets on the short sleeves. There are also some nice seam details which would allow you to adjust the fit to be a bit closer if you wanted.

Heh, I like how the wind caught the peplum skirt. Also, not sure what I’m doing with my face in the below photo!

The buttons were some I had in my stash – they’re leftovers from my Kalle Shirt, which I haven’t got around to blogging yet.

I did enjoy my first time pattern testing – I had enough time to make the shirt in time for the deadline and the pattern came together really easily. I’m not sure I had any particularly useful feedback, though. But I guess pattern designers try to have the pattern as finished as possible before it goes to testers, so I wouldn’t expect ti find major errors or anything. Maybe I’ll sign up to pattern test again in the future.

And this week’s outtake….

Colour Blocked Linden Sweatshirt

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I made this Linden a month or two ago, so it seemed more weather appropriate then than it does now – today has been the warmest day of the year so far by miles! Autumn/Winter feels like it’s been going on for at least 3 years now so it was nice to finally not need 4 layers of clothing!

This make actually fits into the series Shauni is running on her blog, The Magnificent Thread, called sewing leftovers, which is pretty self-explanatory. I’m sure we all have those projects where we have half a metre or a metre of fabric left – I have a whole box full of such leftovers and I do go through phases of getting enthusiastic about using them up but this might be one of the first times I actually followed through and made the thing!

The fabric of the body is from my first Linden and my first Mabel skirt (neither of which I really wear). I think it was a really long ‘remnant’ from my old London haunt, Rolls and Rems on Seven Sisters Road. The sleeves are some black ponte I had left over from my Moneta party dress. This didn’t have enough stretch for the cuffs and hem band so they are made from some other mystery black jersey I had in my stash, which I used to make a not-very-successful Hemlock tee. So this was definitely a good buster of my left overs! Though I probably could have done without the cuffs as the sleeves are a little long!

Although I didn’t have a huge amount of the patterned fabric left, I did manage to match the pattern on the side seams. #winning.

I find with these kinds of basics I don’t have a huge amount to say about them. I sewed it completely on my overlocker, which was a first for me – usually I sew on my machine first and then neaten the seam allowances on the overlocker afterwards, but I thought I was pretty safe with this as I’d made it before and the construction is pretty straightforward.

This might actually be a good transitional garment for cooler Spring days as the fabrics aren’t that thick, so it’s not really warm enough for Winter, and it’ll be too hot on really hot days but those in-betweeny ones might make this perfect!

Are you struggling to dress as much as I am now it’s finally warmed up?

February Make and March Plans

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Well it’s been a while! I didn’t mean to take a break from the blog but I felt quite down through most of February and just wasn’t in the mood to blog. I did finish my coat, though, which is pretty amazing! I was in the mood to sew but not to write about sewing. Weird. But I’m back and I have most of March already planned with posts for things I made in January! I’m a little backed up!

My only make for February was my coat – but I knew that would be the case, and I actually really enjoyed taking my time over a bigger project and learning some new skills to boot.

This is just a sneak peek – I thought it would be a good idea to take advantage of the apocalyptic snow we had last week to take some nice Wintery photos……maybe it would have been a better idea to have waiting until it had actually STOPPED snowing!? I do have better photos for my forthcoming post about my adventures in coat-making, I promise!

Now onto my plans for March. As I mentioned in my post about my plans for the year, I’m going to try to join in with a couple of months of the Sew My Style challenge and March is one of the months I’m going to join in with as it’s the Closet Case Patterns Kalle Shirt/Shirtdress and this was on my to-make list anyway.

I’ve got this lovely cotton/linen blend (I think) from the Great British Sewing Bee Live. My only questions is: which version do I make? I’m tempted by the cropped version, but with the proper collar. Or I could make the dress version – I don’t actually have any shirt dresses, though I do have a lot of other dresses so it feels like I’m more in need of separates at the moment.

My other main plan for March is to finally make some Closet Case Patterns Carolyn Pyjamas, which have been on my to-make list for months and months. The pattern is one of my Make Nine so I really need to tackle it this month! I have this slightly ruined liberty fabric, which I bought years and years ago on Goldhawk Road. I carefully pre-washed it……with some other fabrics, one of which was pink and stained everything else. The other fabrics weren’t quite as stained as this one, though, so I thought this would be the perfect practice fabric for the pyjamas because there is 3 metres, it’s still nice quality, and the discolouration won’t matter for pyjamas.

Then when I’ve made the practice version, I’m going to finally cut into this gorgeous boat-y liberty fabric my friend gave me ages ago! I have red and white striped piping already, too, as I want to pipe this pair. I think both versions will be long-sleeved and trousers as our flat is really quite cold and even in the heat wave we had last year, I didn’t really sleep in my Grainline Lakeside Pyjamas which I made the previous year as it didn’t feel super warm indoors, even when it was 34 degrees outside! (For reference I currently have a blanket and a hot water bottle on my lap and it’s not as cold as it was on Thursday/Friday last week!).