Me-Made-May 2016 Round-Up

The month of May is now finished and I am quite proud of the result of my MMM challenge.

1. wear me-mades everyday - I did follow for 3 weeks but loosened up the 4th week. The weather is pretty bad and I am constantly freezing, be it in the office or outside. I was ready to get out my cute summer dresses and ended up wearing almost my winter clothes.

2. Blog a new item every week: Done. I managed to show some new items, as well as photograph some of the old which means that I still have a few articles to write and my blogging activity will hopefully continue.

3. Sew 4 pieces this month. I am the most happy for this one because it gave me the motivation to sew:
- wool grey dress - this one still needs to be hemmed, but apart from that it is done
- khaki wrap blouse - a wearable muslin which proved that I should not be sewing it again :o)

- green lawn dress - what to add, just check it

- Sorbetto top - yes, I finally got to sew THE Sorbetto top, but more on that later.

I most certainly did not go the easy way, these were all new to me patterns, I muslined two of them and both the dresses are lined.

I figured out that having a fixed plan for the month actually makes me responsible. Just as at work: Make a plan. Follow a plan. Deliver.

This is basically the reason I am now making a plan for sewing in June:
The objective is to sew 3 items next month.
I have in mind the following:
- cream-white top (a big hole in my wardrobe) - I have the fabric, but will see for the pattern
- orange silk faux-wrap dress: Burda 127-03/2015
- a third item which will probably be a dress as well - I am still hesitating on the model to do : another Kay Unger dress V1432 or a Burda 101B-042016

Wish me luck here

Kay Unger Lawn Dress

This dress was actually a wearable muslin, but an extremely successful one, I dare say! So the original plan was to test Vogue 1270, Kay Unger dress, just to sew the pattern without the pleats (version lining, actually) to test the fit basically.

The point is that the more I went forward, the better the final result seemed. Ok, I need to admit that the fabric is little bit out of my comfort zone but I liked it a lot. It is a simple quilting cotton, so everything worked just so smoothly, it pressed like a dream and sewed even better. When sewing with silks, I always forget how easy and trouble-free sewing can be :o)

I like how simple things work well. I tweaked the fit little bit around the shoulders, but apart from that - no major issues. The pattern reminds me of NewLook 6968 which I admire all the time on Kristy's blog - over here. But this pattern is just desperately out of print and cannot be found anywhere. So hopefully, I have just found my basic dress pattern.

The dress is lined with fine white/cream silk. The lining was sewn in by machine, apart from the armscyes which were attached by hand. All the lining/fabric border is stabilized with running stitches. Many of the dress seams are also fixed with catching stitches, just for the calm of my mind.

I love this finish, it just looks so crispy and neat. And even if the lining might peak out, the colours match perfectly together.

The dress is also a part of my MMM challenge, so I one more good point, I am now ready to go with the original Kay Unger.

Inspiration: search for a basic dress pattern

Pattern: Vogue 1270 from Kay Unger

Pattern changes: shoulder tweaks

Technique: running stitches

Fabric: 

Time to Complete: one week-end

Total Cost: 19 EUR

Me Made May - Week 3

With a little delay...

Wearing me-mades:

I am missing Friday and the week-end when I stayed at home and only went running.

Sewing:
Finished 2 wearable muslins:
This blouse in khaki cotton-silk which is a great fabric and I am now regretting having used it. I was in love with the Burda pattern since ever. Probably because the Burda version is made from pink gingham... c'mon, pink gingham. I had planned to sew this blouse from a gorgeous cotton sinc ever. Fortunately, I was wise enough to try it on this model. This wearable muslin has proved that it is not a good idea for me.
Actually, it is not a first wrap blouse/dress I tried and failed. Should probably investigate this topic more, because I am am having serious problems with it.

The other wearable muslin is a green dress from Kay Unger, a total success, more on that later.

Blogging: according to the plan, 2 articles per week are here as a proof.

Mixed-Impressions Top

Another almost-black top from my series. But contrary to all the others, I still have quite mixed emotions about it.

First, the fabric: it is supposed to be silk I bought lat year in Malaysia, but it does not feel like that, even though it passed the burn test successfully. I have chosen this one from my black and orange collection as it was the most black.
Once I started sewing, I was afraid the result in black and polka-dots would look more like a pyjama. I was quite reassured by the final result, mostly when worn.

Then the pattern: Burda 107-03/2016, again a pattern from a recent Burda, so I am proud of sewing newly bought things. I was too lazy to muslin it and ... most importantly... to compare it to my basic pattern which means that it does not feel good in the shoulders. I would say the armscyes are just too narrow which is creating tension elsewhere. Oh well.
Apart from the placket, there is nothing extraordinary, it is of course sewn with French seams, with no special finish on the hems.

Anyhow, I have forced myself to finishing it, it allowed me to practise placket sewing which is alwasys a good thing. And I think I quite managed it.

Anyhow, it cost me 9 euros to try the placket on silks :o) I still need to force myself to wear it. Often, some things hang in my wardrobe till the first "courageous" time and then get worn quite often. So I probably just have to wear it the first time and see.

Me-Made-May: Week 2

On track! I managed to think about wearing me-mades every day, but once. Thursday was a special occasion day at work, so I opted for classics. I could have probably made an effort and choose something different but well, I will not cry for that one day.

The better news is that I wore me-mades also while travelling, thus the different photo shoot places. We have had a long week-end back at home, fortunately the weather was really nice and sunny and we could walk outside a lot.

Voilà for a little bit of a documentation:

Day 9: black silk top (cannot be seen due to the horrible photo quality)

Day 10: blue “lace” dress, took also pictures for the blog

Day 11: grey-squares dress

Day 12: no me-mades

Day 13: black wool dress, visiting Karlstejn

Day 14: grey wool dress, visiting Konopiste

Day 15: black-blue “remnant” dress

 

An what about the other challenge: I have already posted 2 blogs about finished projects and am close to finishing sewing a dress and a top. More to come hopefully.

Black-Blue “Lace” Dress

This dress was my single make in March, even though I must have started other things. 

And surprisingly, it was not a very well planned project, I even used a piece of fabric bought in the beginning of my fabric stashing. I remember buying this fabric over the internet (before learning that buying fabric on internet is not the best idea, as the reality rarely corresponds to what I thought originally) and it was meant to be a jacket to accessorise my blue silk dress for the weddings I attended that year. 

However, sewing on the deadline, I barely had time to finish the dress and also had only a meter or so of the fabric. Not talking about the fact that it is little bit stretchy and would not be the best option for a jacket.

I somehow found this piece of fabric and figured out that a little mid-season dress would actually be cool. I used my true and tested pattern which is actually a copy of a RTW dress adjusted to my little frame and which I have already sewn here. Quick decision, quick project which got worn a few times already. 

The fabric is a blend of rather stiff cotton and lycra which means that it keeps perfectly its form while being quite comfortable.

My previous version was lined only on the bodice and I think it was a mistake. So this time, I lined the dress completely.

I was thinking about matching the pattern, but

•        I did not have enough fabric to do that
•        the pattern is so messy it does not matter much
•        the colour difference is not enormous, so I can totally live with this

Just check my seam matching here….

And that is about it, I am happy I could take pics of it (merci Me-Made-May) and finally post it, which makes half of my MMM posting objective attained :o)

Inspiration: just wanted to finish a project

Pattern: RTW copy

Pattern changes: none

Technique: seam matching

Fabric: false lace in black-blue cotton

Time to Complete: 2 weeks

Total Cost: 28 EUR

Me-Made-May 2016: 1st Week

The first week is going pretty well, I managed to wear me-mades every day I went out.

Day 1: top under a flowering cherry tree

Day 2: the no-leopard top

Day 3: the grey wool dress which is becoming shorter and shorter

Day 4: brown skirt

Day 5: black cotton-silk top. This top got so much wear last summer that it is starting to be kind of washed out. Fortunately, I had some more of this great fabric and already made a copy of it :o).

The only reason I went out this day was to buy new curtains and some big chunks of wood... please don't ask...

Day 6: stayed at home at made pictures for blog

Day 7: flower viscose top

Day 8 : stayed at home, so no picture...

Apart from that: 2 older projects photographed, 1 blogged. 3 new pieces muslined, 1 project cut out from fashion fabric and 1 hopefully to be finished by this evening.

The long four-day week-end definitely helped, even though I spent quite some time on small improvements, including shortening our new curtains, what a booooooring and long thing (I had 6 meters of white polyester organza to hem, you cannot imagine how "not funny" that was).

So yey, I am on the track :o)

Little Top to Revive My Sewjo

All the moving is now over so I finally found a place for my fabric stock. It is far from properly stored as I would like to sort them out based on the type of fabric, colours etc. But I will concentrate on diminishing the stock first.

The funny thing with this top is that I have imagined it in a completely different fabric. Only when I got it out, I found out I was too far from having enough. So I went quickly back to my stash and found this fabric which I bought almost 2 years ago, originally as a lining as I considered it too much colourful and too red (yes, it can be too red, above all when you are at the end of a black-brown-grey winter period).

I even hesitated to use the wrong side which is much less punchy.

Anyhow, I am so glad I did not spend too much time thinking about it and just wanted to sew something because the top went together quickly, without any major issues (despite the slippery silk) and I must have finished it in like 2 evenings or so. So a big WIN!

The pattern is Burda 114-04/2016, so another positive point: sewing old stash with newly bought patterns. Seeing the pattern I did not do any modification, I just hoped for the best.

And voilà, it is the best…

French seams, invisible hems and one little snap which was not even necessary.

I did not follow the instructions much (had the French version of Burda and have quite difficulties to understand their vocabulary in French), and I admit I must have improvised on the end of the front slit :o)

The colour and the pattern are just so right for the sunny days which finally arrived…

Inspiration: Burda

Pattern: Burda 114-04/2016

Pattern changes: none, yes, none

Technique: French seams

Fabric: red flower silk

Time to Complete: 2 days

Total Cost: 16 EUR