Tag Archives: Summer Sewing

Dawn Jean Shorts

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Last Summer I went on holiday with my university friends (to attend the wedding I made this outfit for) and I realised I didn’t own any shorts! This seemed like a terrible oversight – and was very gladly remedied since the week we were away – in the UK – was boiling hot!

I bought this relatively light-weight denim at the same time as I bought the blush pink cotton/linen I made the suit from. It made them nice to wear when it was so hot as the denim isn’t too thick!

I made my standard size 4, which is the size I’ve made all my dawns in (and I’ve made 2 more pairs I haven’t shared yet!). I did my usual adjustment of taking and extra 2cm off the back seam, tapering to the standard seam allowance at about 10cm down. I maybe need a little more room in the bum, though, as these are a little hungry! I have one other pair that does this and they are also from a light weight denim so maybe the pattern needs a certain weight of denim to hold it’s structure?

What’s slightly funny to me is that they look kind of long in these photos (though they don’t feel long on!) and they are sooo short when I’m sitting down! Something to bear in mind if you spend a lot of time seated – you might want to add a bit more length!

I did do gold jeans top-stitching on these as I wanted the jeans feel for them. I also did the zip fly variation – you can follow Megan Nielsen’s Ash Jeans sewalong for the instructions for this. The Dawns are drafted with a button fly and while I like that on my first ever pair of dawns, I don’t love it on the only other pair I did a button fly on – I’m just more of a zip fly person I suppose!

I may make another pair of dawn shorts in the future – maybe out of a cotton drill or something a bit more summery than denim – though of course, as I mentioned, this is a light weight denim. I do also have some pairs of linen Arden shorts planned so I’ll see how many pairs of shorts I really need in my wardrobe before I commit to make more dawn shorts! I slightly don’t feel like I need any other trouser patterns in my stash than Dawn and Arden! They’re so much my go to’s!

I think I need to plan another summer holiday so I’ll get some more wear out of these! Any warm/hot places you love going? I’m open to suggestions!

Cotton Lawn Robe

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Since the weather is now getting cold, I’ve made a robe out of some beautiful light-weight cotton lawn from Sew Me Sunshine (she only has a remnant left of it alas). #sewingappropriategarmentsfortheweather

I used the Simplicity K1108 pattern which came free with Sew Magazine, which I only buy when there is a pattern I want to make. I can’t remember when it came out, but I knew I wanted to make it and I waited for the perfect fabric. I actually found this cotton lawn on a couple of websites last year when I was looking for fabric for the culottes I made for the New Craft House Summer Party (though I realise now it wouldn’t have worked) but it was sold out everywhere, so when I saw that Harriet had it in stock I bought it IMMEDIATELY!

I made the size medium and cut it at a length in between view D and C – they’re the versions without the more bat-wingy sleeves as they’re not so much my style.

Here is a close up of the gorgeous fabric! It fits perfectly into my colour palette.

The pattern is really simple to make – definitely a good make for a beginner. The only tricky bit was the bias binding around the whole neckline – and that was only tricky because I made my own bias binding using this brilliant tutorial from Helen from Stitch My Style and didn’t do the most accurate of measuring, so my binding was a bit too narrow in places so it was impossible to enclose all of the raw edges in places. I cut a couple of wider bits from the leftovers and just put them over the top of the narrow bits, it’s a bit shoddy but it worked. Sometimes you just have to bodge it!

I did manage to wear this once before the weather got a bit chilly! And I was promised that September would be warm, but so far it’s not really warm enough to wear a thin robe as opposed to a proper cardigan. Boo.

I know that for various reasons some people really didn’t enjoy the heatwave/proper Summer we had in the UK this year, but I am lucky to live in a flat that is cool (because it’s old – the pay-off is that it is also freezing in the Winter) and I work in a place with air con so I am a bit sad that we’re heading back into Autumn and Winter again already.Also I barely got to wear my Birkenstocks! Although I like snuggling up when it’s cold, last year Winter seemed to go on forever and I get a bit sick of sitting at my sewing machine usually in 3 layers, with a hot water bottle and a blanket! Maybe I need to move to warmer climes…..

Anyway, season rant over.

Have you ever actually made a free pattern from a magazine? I think this is the first I’ve made and I deliberately don’t subscribe to any sewing magazines because I don’t want to increase my pattern stash exponentially with things I know I won’t make.

 

 

Bright Turquoise Inari Tee Dress

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As I mentioned in my Summer sewing plans, one of the things on my list was an Inari tee dress made from some turquoise cotton twill I bought literally years ago and was cut out last year. Well this year I made it – it really is a quick sew so I don’t know why I didn’t get around to it last year!

I’ve made the cropped tee version of the Inari pattern twice before – once in stripey jersey (which I just added a hem band to to lengthen it a bit) and once in crazy silver fabric for the New Craft House Summer party last year where I won best outfit!!! Coincidentally (or not, I don’t know) I’m wearing the Tatty Devine necklace I won at the New Craft House in these photos! The dress felt a little ‘surgical gown’ so I decided I needed an accessory.

I made the dress in the same size as the tees, which is size 8, and it fits really nicely. I went through a phase with patterns where when making them to match my measurements, the sleeves and armholes were too tight, making the garment a little too uncomfortable to want to wear, but I’ve not had that problem with the Inari, thankfully. I think this might become my go-to tee and tee dress pattern.

I really love the cocoon-y shape of the dress and the split hem. It adds enough interest to make it not as simple, but it was still really simple to construct  and the instructions are perfect.

I also love that the sleeves have cuffs – I’m in favour of any design element that means I don’t have to measure and sew a hem. I think hemming is my least favourite part of sewing, though hems never take as long as I think they will!

I think my choice of white overlocking thread was adding to the ‘surgical gown’ vibes I was getting from this dress. I don’t know why I thought white would be the best colour – probably because it was already threaded with white! Anyone else do that? Slightly in my defence, the only colours I currently have are black, navy and white. Maybe navy would have been better? But either way it was never going to match completely. I think I need to invest in some other colours of overlocker thread! At least a mid blue as I do sew blue things fairly often.

 

Today’s outtake is brought to you by ‘what pose should I do next’ face. I took outfit pictures of several things at once and this was the last one so I – and the boyfriend – was getting a bit fed up and this is the result! Also you wouldn’t believe how many times I’ve ironed this dress to get it not looking crumpled, to no avail!

Have you got a go-to tee/tee dress pattern? I’m slightly tempted by Tilly and the Buttons new Stevie pattern, but I’m trying to not buy so many patterns until I’ve sewn more of the ones I already have – and especially if I already have a pattern that serves the same function, then do I need another one?

But shiiiiiinnnyyyy……..

 

 

Atelier Brunette Collins Top

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Back in August, when it was still kind of warm (though some of October has been unseasonably warm!) I made another Collins Top by In The Folds. I really love this top, and the swingy shape of it. My first one was definitely one of the most comfortable things in my wardrobe when we had a heat wave! I might try the version with sleeves for Winter. Sadly because September went pretty cold, I haven’t worn this top yet apart from to take these rather blurry photos. But it will be waiting for my next Summer!

The fabric is some cotton from Atelier Brunette, from Sew Over It. They don’t still have it in stock, sadly. I had admired Atelier Brunette fabrics for quite a while, though they were always a little out of my budget. The I decided to have a little splurge a few months back and ordered either 1m or 1.5m, thinking I could squeeze a sleeveless top out of it for the Summer. I have to confess I was a little disappointed with the fabric, because it is a little see-through and not as soft as I had expected. Maybe it will soften with repeated washes and wears?

I used a yellow button from my stash and as with my first version, I made a rookie error. I was clipping a seam and cut through the stitches, making a little hole – perhaps this pattern is cursed, even though I love it?! I managed to sew the little hole up with some zig-zag stitches – the hole wasn’t as bad as the overlocker hole I made in my first version!

Love the high-low hem! Speaking of the hem, I just turned this one up, without using the bias tape method I did on my first one. It seemed to work fine, as this cotton has a little give, so there weren’t any massive puckers, as I had feared!

I can’t wait until next Summer so I can wear this top! Or maybe I should move somewhere warm!? Any suggestions? 😉

 

 

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Pink Stripey Collins Top

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This is definitely one of my favourite makes I’ve made in a while, and certainly one that fits me the best straight out of the packet. As I’m sure you know, I am lazy when it comes to fitting things, and I treated this as a sort of wearable toile – I basically always do that but then I never make any fit changes to the second version!  But this fits me really well, and I like how it falls.

I made the size b and used some leftover fabric I’ve had for several years after making my first Banksia top out of it. It was from Goldhawk Road, probably one of the first times I went, if not the first time I went. It’s just a cotton, but it’s really soft. I thought I wasn’t going to have enough fabric, but given that this pattern was made for the stripes to go different ways,  I managed to do some expert tetrissing (I know this isn’t a word, but it should be: v the act of squeezing a sewing pattern out of a tiny amount of fabric) and just squeezed it out. I did the version with the facing, which is in some cheap white polycotton I had in my stash. The only change I made to the pattern/instructions was to stitch the facing down to the side seams – I did this as top stitching right in the ditch of the seam line.

If you follow me on Instagram, you will have seen that when I was overlocking a seam on this top, I was pulling it through to get a long enough tail to cut and stopped paying attention for a second, which led to me accidentally cutting part of one of the back shoulder pieces. Luckily I cut it along the same direction as the stripes and so I put an odd piece of white fabric behind it and zig-zagged it a few times to secure it. And now you can’t really see it – I think unless I pointed it out, you wouldn’t know it was there! It must be visible in the below photo, but I can’t see it, hurrah!

I wanted a close up of the stripes all going different ways, so here you go!

I think I might be pretty bad at gathering all the supplies I might need for a certain project – I always think about the fabric and, say, a zip for a dress or buttons for a shirt, but I rarely actually check the list of notions needed for a pattern, so when I got to the hemming stage of this make, that was the first time I realised I needed bias binding. I could have maybe done without, but luckily I had this baby pink stuff in my stash – it was literally the only bias binding I had and luckily it sort of matches! I think I might do bias hems more often as I like how it looks and it’s pretty easy!

I feel that with more of these makes I share, the less I have to say about them. I’ve got a few more of these kinds of quick projects, but I do have some ideas about some more involved projects, so then hopefully I would have a bit more to talk about!  Jeans are definitely in this category and I want to make a coat (it’s one of my #2017MakeNine after all) and a bag, so they should keep me a bit busier.

I have already bought some more fabric to make another version of this, but given I’ve only managed to wear this one about twice because the weather has gone totally to pot in the last couple of weeks, I’m not sure how much wear I would get out of it. *sobs* I’m wondering about layering them over long-sleeved basic tops when it’s cold, though. What do you think? Would that look terrible? I feel like a white top with this one would look okay?

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