I have a lot of things to take photos of – my pink jumper, a shawl I finished and blocked over a fortnight ago, socks…and a polka dot top and my kilt, shown below.

I’m happy to have indulged my kilt whim as I learned far more than I expected from it! The top I have looked forward to making and it was a fun, quick project. Looking forward to showing both.

I also sewed up a muslin for my Mum’s blouse. Sorry about the poor light, it’s been dismal weather.

I need her to fit it on before I cut out the actual fabric. I measured it and it should be in the money but best to be sure! And so that we’re all on the same page, THIS is the fabric (not the other one, Mum).

Nice, isn’t it? It’s a polycotton I got in Murphy Sheehy’s last summer but couldn’t find a pattern ‘perfect’ enough for it. I’m training myself out of that. Sometimes, you should just use it. Anyway, this works out in Mum’s favour! It’s definitely her colours.

The other thing I have to show you is this funny little thing I’ve been meaning to make since I got Bertha (my bike). I finally found clips in Hickey’s the last time I was there and made this up in about ten mins.

It’s a piece of elastic inside a cotton casing, attached to two clips…and it works like this…

It keeps my coat over my knees when I’m cycling, with still enough leeway to put my foot on the ground when necessary. In windy weather, my coat flaps open and when it’s raining, results in a very wet lower half. I’ve been using it constantly and it works perfectly. The clips were about €3.

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I hope everyone enjoyed their long weekend! We get a bank holiday Monday here for May day. I got someone to fill in for me at the organ on Sunday so I had three whole days off. Unthinkable. It turns out that I really needed it. We didn’t really go anywhere but we did lots of little things. It doesn’t feel like I did a lot of sewing but I must have, because I finished this blouse. I’m putting it with a finished-in-April skirt.

The blouse is a vintage pattern that I made again with modifications. The skirt is self-drafted. About the blouse!

I used 2m of Tilda cotton from Rubanesque. It is so pretty I literally became weak at the knees when I set eyes on it. I knew it had to be a spring blouse.

I modified the collar to make the tips rounded because I felt it would suit the print better.

I also adapted the cuffs to make them rounded and open. I had to pare down the shape of the sleeves because I didn’t want them too wide without a placket and closure. I sacrificed the tidiness of seaming the sleeves and then enclosing the seam into the cuffs for sewing the cuffs flat with all the top stitching and them seaming the sleeves. It looks fine from the outside. If I were to do it again, I would probably suffer through topstitching the cuffs with an already seamed sleeve.

The buttons I salvaged from another unwearable blouse. Now, for the skirt! I dug out my drafting notes from five whole years ago and drafted this up. I pity my younger self as I took the drafting course without ever having sewn any sort of clothing! It made a WHOLE lot more sense this time around. Unfortunately, when I was cutting out my pattern pieces I managed to chop off the side seam allowance and only discovered when I could barely get the skirt on. Thankfully I was able to salvage it through some manipulation of the darts but gosh! Never again! I basically made up the pleat bit by holding my muslin up against me and saying, ok, I’d like my pleat to go from about here to here and be about this long. Turns out, that’s kind of the way to do it.

My mum helped me get my pleat to behave itself. I did myself no favours in the way I’d hemmed it but I will know for again!

I actually made this skirt to go with my cape. The skirt I originally made was just the wrong shape. As you can see, it goes very well now with the straight skirt.

It is a peculiar outfit! It is a bit dull for a bright May day such as today. Maybe later in the summer with hot pink tights? I should probably just wear the cape with jeans also – although I put it on Sunday and Alb asked me if I was going to meet Batman :/ He does not see capes as a proper item of clothing unless for dressing up. Isn’t that what clothes are for anyway?!

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This outfit-a-month thing is working well for me. I made a blouse to go with the spring pants I showed a while ago. It’s been a heck of a week for me – I was hoping to have this finished a good while ago – but that’s how things go.

The weather has finally warmed up enough to make wearing the pants an option some days now. They have pros and cons: they’re amazingly comfortable and pliable (you can see that they already look a bit looser from having been worn a few times), but they wrinkle and tend to pick up fluff. As for the blouse, here are the details!

Pattern: Alma blouse by Sewaholic.

Fabric: Cotton poplin from Murphy Sheehy’s. I used about 2m because I wanted the full-length sleeves. The trim I got from Rubanesque. The total cost was somewhere in the region of €20-25. I didn’t have to use the trim but I think it’s nice and was happy to pay for something unique.

I made a few modifications. I (thankfully!) made a muslin first, cutting a size 2. The fit at the neckline and shoulders was great but too fitted throughout the body. It was only a bit – I could still squeeze in and out without needing a zip – so when I cut my actual fabric, I cut 2 for the neckline and collar, and 4 for everything else, including the armholes. This was a good adjustment.

Putting the trim was a pain. At first I wanted to use some piping because that’s what I had to hand and I thought it would be nice. It was but I didn’t really know what I was doing. In a desperate attempt to smooth out lumps, I trimmed my seam allowance too closely. Then in an attempt to salvage that, I topstitched the whole thing. It was a mess. Thankfully I had just enough fabric left over to cut another collar. Then, using this excellent tutorial on applying trim to a peter pan collar, I carefully got my new trim to behave itself. It wasn’t that hard.

As you can see, the collar lies pretty well. I have had all sorts of nightmares with peter pan collars. I think they are so pretty but my narrow shoulders don’t work well with something so curved.

The only other thing I think is worthy of mention is the cuffs. The instructions for the placket and cuffs is pretty limited. It’s fine if you’ve sewn them before, but if not, watch out! Look up a youtube video before progressing. It’s not particularly difficult but the diagrams are not at all clear. I discovered when I finished that I don’t even need to open the cuffs to get my hand through so if I make another long-sleeved version of this, I will probably leave off the cuffs altogether. Nice to have the option though.

I love to see how blouses with collars lie underneath a top layer such as a cardigan or pullover. Such photos are hard to come by so I thought I’d start the ball rolling maybe! Here is a very typical I’m-a-piano-teacher outfit.

So, two thumbs up for the Alma pattern! I’m looking forward to sewing up some other variations.

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I made these in the hopes that they would encourage Spring along. No joy yet, though if today is anything to go by, the April showers part is well underway.

Pattern: #122 from Burda 1/13. This is a reallllly basic slim-leg pants pattern, perfect for woven fabric, and one I’ve noticed that they repeat in different guises frequently. So if you missed that issue, chances are they’ll have it again soon – this month’s issue has a model very similar and also includes shorts and capri-length pants.

These pants actually started out as a different pair cut from a vintage pattern I bought online a while ago. They seemed similar but have pockets and so decided to give them a go. In my experience, the sizes I buy for vintage patterns have been exactly on the money, fit-wise, so I didn’t bother to make a muslin first. Yikes! Although the waist (I guess you could call it that) and the hip both fit ok, the crotch depth was a bit long. I noticed this when pinning but figured it would be ok, it didn’t seem too long. However, I did not take into account just how deep the waistband was. The two together meant that the pants came up to my boobs! Holy cow! Thankfully, it turning out so big meant that I definitely had enough to cut the Burda pattern out of the existing pant legs.

Fabric: About 2m of Tilda cotton from the inimitable Rubanesque. Did you know they’re hiring at the moment? Get your CV in!

I had already interfaced the waistband from the previous pants so I just used that instead; it fit perfectly.

I had to make a few tiny tweaks to the fit of the hips but otherwise, it came together easily. I went on a bit of a perfection-fest with the top-stitching. Usually in wool pants and skirts, I hand-stitch the waistband down on the inside. It does give a nice finish but my main motivation for doing it is more that I am afraid of my top-stitching not being very good. I have been following the Archer sew-a-long over at Grainline Studios. Her discussion of top-stitching made me realise that this is something that’s never going to go away and that the sooner I figure out a way that works for me, the better.

So! I tried out a few different feet to try out various visual guides. I became quite confuddled about sewing at 1/16″. It got to the point where I wasn’t actually sure what I was striving for. Before taking out my attempt for the fourth or fifth time, I decided to measure. Turns out what I had been attempting was more along the lines of 1/32″. Insane! Impossible to handle and barely distinguishable from any sort of distance. I went back to my usual presser foot and, using a combination of moving the needle position and the 1/8″ guide on the foot, achieved a reliable 1/16″. Hallelujah!

It’s nice to be able to learn something from a project I’ve already made before. I hemmed the pants to 27″ leg and they’re pretty much a perfect length. For my last pair, I was forced into making them shorter due to fabric constraints, so this was satisfying. The fabric is really soft and comfortable and I’m looking forward to wearing these alot over the next few months.

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I hope everyone’s enjoying the long weekend! I’m sitting out in my shorts and flip flops with a coffee and my knitting, squeezing every last drop out of the sun! Next week I go back to cycling in 5°C weather.

Here’s what I’ve been working on this week. First up, some crochet doilies.

I find the whole Japanese zakka ideal very inspiring. When I saw the new Debbie Bliss book for home in This is Knit, I knew what I wanted to bring with me on holidays. I have a lot of crochet motif resources myself so I spent some time perusing and settled on this design from a Japanese magazine. Lisa and Eimear helped me pick out the colors.

The yarn is a Rico Essentials cotton and I used a 3mm hook. These turned out a really nice size so I can use them as coasters, tea pot mat, that kind of thing. They were really easy to pick up and I could complete one in less than an hour.

My main project has been this.

I didn’t like how the Pomegranate sweater was going. The lace chart, though beautiful, was to fiddly to follow without total concentration. I realised after putting it down to consider my progress that, really, all I wanted was a plain sweater in this colour. I immediately cast on for a top down raglan à la Barbara Walker. I’m at the waist now.

And the sewing FO for today is the Madeleine blouse from Deer and Doe.

I’ve had the pattern for ages and have been dying to try it out. It’s perfect for light fabrics – I used a cotton voile from Hickey’s. I made some modifications. For a start, I cut out at least 2 sizes smaller than the recommended size after checking out the finished measurements. This was a good idea!

There are a lot of gathers. I did the ones at the shoulders but did pleats instead at the cuffs. You might notice, too, that I didn’t do the collar like in the pattern. I thought it would be too fussy for what I wanted. I also didn’t have interfacing light enough for my material so I just left it. I used my bias tape maker to great effect and made enough binding for the neckline and the little bow. I didn’t have quite enough to tie the bow so I just sewed it in place by hand.

Paired here with my denim shorts from last summer, it’s a nice outfit for the weather today.

Home tomorrow! I’ll bring as much sun as I can…

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