Spring Heart Giveaway!

I have only but a few of these hearts for home left in stock and I would love to give one away for this spring! This is a lovely cotton/linen navy heart with a removable cover, so you can pour scented oils on the main heart piece- a perfect mother's day present or something for yourself!
All you need to do is leave a comment below with the website or blog which you draw inspiration from for your creative projects (and also your own email address). You have until Tuesday 29th March, 11.59pm GMT!

2 hour Maternity top

As many of you will know I'm expecting our second baby in a few months. I'm at that stage where I need proper maternity clothing, tops more than bottoms. I love many of the items for sale at Isabella Oliver as they are stylish as well as wearable. I also like the range of jersey tops they have which are fitted under the bump area instead of gaping, which in my opinion makes me look 5 times bigger! However, as usual I don't have the budget to fork out £49.00 on a plain jersey top so I set myself a challenge. As I'm busy with the summer collection, I don't have heaps of time so the challenge was to design, draft and make a simple, versatile maternity top which could be made in a couple of hours. Yesterday afternoon I managed to do just that!

I started off my altering an existing basic jersey top pattern. You can get the Lydia pattern from burdastyle for a dollar (or free if you email me, I'll send it to you).
I created ruching by cutting and spreading the tummy area, roughly the length of my bump.



For detail I altered the neckline so it was more of a bateau shape and also inserted a gathered shoulder yoke.

Then to finish it off I drafted some very simple grow on cap sleeves.
Voila! A simple jersey top which can be worn as it is or layered in colder weather.



The length and fitted hem is perfect for wearing as a gathered top (allowing you to wear your usual trousers with the fly undone) or a tunic. For this first top I used up some spare petrol coloured fine jersey I had in storage and it's incredibly comfortable, but I think I'll try using some jersey which is a little thicker but still very stretchy. I hope to be making a few more of these in the coming weeks and maybe try out a few other styles too.

Spring Sale..

Our Spring sale has now started! Do check it out! Up to 30% Off selected items, only a few items are left! (the Liberty print ties are also included in the sale but are not currently featured in my etsy shop. For any inquires please drop me an email!)

Bloom

I often take a lot of inspiration from nature when designing clothing or with other projects I have on the go. As I'm currently designing the summer collection I've found a great deal of inspiring images from one of my favourite magazines, Bloom - a unique forecasting magazine which includes a lovely blend of fashion, horticulture and design.






The photography is edgy and exciting, and there are countless depictions of the beauty we see around us in nature. I would love to own more copies of this magazine but with a price tag of £55 per copy I think I'll settle for gazing at their amazing online photo library for free!

Norio Surikabe

Recently I've become more interested unusual pattern cutting and drafting. After viewing some of the clothing made by Natalie Purschwitz I've been inspired to plan some pattern cutting experiments of my own and try out a few new ideas. Along with Roland Mouret I also love the garments of Norio Surikabe, a Japanese fashion designer who continually pushes the boundaries of garment construction and does so in such a playful and interesting way. Here are a few images from his 2011 Spring collection..

(photos courtesy of supportsurface.jp)

The Final Mouret dress!

Happy new year and apologies for the lack of posts over the holidays! Before the Christmas break I managed to finish the Mouret inspired dress for my friend, Carol. I was really happy with the outcome and so was Carol. Carol choose the perfect colour to complement her complexion and also found some really lovely accessories which matched the dress perfectly. She looked beautifully elegant.


I was especially glad to have been able to achieve that square neckline which didn't gape but sat nicely on the shoulders and chest. I find that this is a great difficulty for me and many others when wanting to buy an 'off the peg' dress from the shops. The chest area always gapes! so I end up wearing dresses/tunics mostly made from a stretchy fabric like jersey. A big thanks again to all those more experienced seamstresses from The Sewing Forum who answered a few of the queries I had about this neckline!




The poly satin fabric we used wasn't too much of a nightmare to work with although I did find it difficult to press on a low heat and take to the fusible interfacing at times. This fabric frayed very easily, especially at the bust points where the seam allowances were clipped. Using iron-on interfacing on the seam allowance of these seams really helped me out! and will be something I will be definitely trying out again on other garments.


Hemming this dress was also a tricky choice as it was so fine and snagged very easily. I thought I would be able to hem it by hand but the impression stitches on the right side would have spoilt the hem for sure, no way was I going to spoil the dress right at the end!
So I researched into hemming satin and silk fabrics and decided to use fusible hemming tape which worked beautifully! One word of advice - always, always try out stitches or fusible tapes on a scrap piece of fabric. I had quite a few tries with the tape on scrap pieces of satin before I went ahead and tackled the dress itself. The patience was well worth it!!

Stylish Dress Book vol 1- How to make a tunic dress V

I managed to sew up the next dress from my Japanese sewing book a few weeks ago, dress V which is the shirt dress with a collar and pocket. I found sewing this up was much like the first dress although I did find sewing the collar a tad tricky as I've never actually sewn a garment which has a fold over collar. I did however manage to work it out by looking at an existing shirt I had which had a similar collar.

I made a few alterations to the pattern which I thought would give it a slightly more feminine touch to it. I noticed on the original pattern the shape of the shoulder is quite straight and was of a dropped nature so I raised the shoulder line and added gathers. I also added gathers to the cuff. Below is how I did these alterations.

For this dress I chose a lovely soft cotton plaid fabric (about 1.7 metres). Matching up the lines wasn't too bad with this pattern, it just took a little extra time to make sure they were in line.

The alterations

Raising the shoulder
Trace your sleeve pattern onto tracing paper. To give the shoulder a raised look you'll need to increase the head by about 2cm. Mark 2cm above the very top of the sleeve and then draw a gentle slope, starting from the back balance point mark. This line will continue over the top of the sleeve head and to finish at the front balance point mark.



This is your new sleeve head. Now you've altered the sleeve you'll need to take 2cm off of the front and back bodice piece. This is to ensure that the sleeve will comfortably fit the sleeve hole.
Mark 2cm in from the end of the shoulder on the front bodice piece. Start from that mark and draw a gentle curve sloping inwards until you reach the sleeve line where the balance point is. Then cut off the area you've just marked.




Do the same with the back bodice piece and you're done.

This technique of raising the shoulder is really useful when you require a gathered shoulder head. Raising the shoulder allows the gather to sit slightly in of the end of the shoulder which aesthetically looks better.

Gathers
So onto creating those gathers. At the bottom of your sleeve measure the desired height of the cuff you want, I think I made mine 5cm. Mark across and cut this amount off. This is your cuff- remember to add seam allowance to the top edge of your cuff after pinning it to your fabric.

Starting from the top centre line on your new sleeve piece draw 5 lines, 2cm apart. Cut down along these lines.


Number your strips and then spread them out leaving spaces of the desired amount (I did 2cm). Stick these all down on top of a new sheet of tissue paper, tidy the top sleeve curve by re-drawing the line. Go onto cut around the whole sleeve shape.


This will be your new sleeve. Your gather line will be from where the first strip starts to where the last cut strip ends. Now you're ready to sew the rest of the dress.

Step 3. Sew pocket

Take your pocket and fold in and press the seam allowances according to the image in step 3. remember that the top edge folds over twice, once by 1cm and again by 1.5cm making a total of 2.5cm. Sew down your top edge, 2mm from the edge.


At this point I actually sewed all the edges down as shown in the main image on page 76 and then sewed the pocket to the dress front. However the proper way would probably be to just go straight ahead and sew the pocket onto the dress without sewing the edges down first. by the sewing the edges down first it did help me to neatly sew the pocket to the dress more easily, especially as the pocket it cut on the bias but it's up to you which way you do it!




There are quite a few steps to this tunic so I'll be posting them up in stages! Stage two coming soon...