Sewing Japanese .... in French

Work on my 'Minoru' is ongoing, but slow because really, I realised that a non-waterproof raincoat would be ridiculous for the weather we have here. What was I thinking! So I've been making it waterproof which involves slightly changing the pattern and looking for waterproofing products which needs another post.


Meanwhile I just HAD to sew something quick, a dress for my daughter. The jersey dots are from Hilco (I think), bought from Dotsnstripes a while ago, and the cotton (voile) floral I bought locally - both sewn up using a Japanese Pattern.

This Japanese pattern book is unusual because it is in French, which I got hold of through Amazon. I studied French in school so I can now understand some of the instructions at least. The diagrams are still the same as the Japanese vesions though, incredibly clear. I'm sure it's only a matter of time before these books will be translated into English and available in Europe and Penguin Australia has already some English translations . I used pattern 'E'.

My daughter picked the ribbon (from Farbenmix) an interesting choice for my 5 year old because some other ribbons that matched, included flowers and birds and dogs! I added ribbon to the hem to give some weight to the voile. The selvedge is showing just below the ribbon.

The skirt is 4 metres in width (I think the pattern calls for 2 metres) and pleated which means lots and lots of twirl.

This 'Butterfly' dress is also from a Japanese Pattern book, a pattern I have sewn a few times before. I made this last October, but didn't blog. The butterfly and dots fabric are Robert Kaufman cord. The green top is an Ottobre pattern and Patty Young jersey fabric.

I have gathered quite a collection of Japanese sewing books so at least I feel I can justify them if they're being used!

Hoping to sew a Minoru!

It has taken me ages to decide on fabric for this coat, so I didn't commit to joining the sewalong on the Sewaholic blog ....... yet!
I want to sew a raincoat, but finding a waterproof fabric I liked has taken me weeks of searching, mostly because I didn't want a solid colour, or to use laminated cotton

I had narrowed it down to some lovely Westfalenstof coated cottons or Hilco coated cottons, and finally went for the Hilco which I bought from Dotsnstripes. But OMG!! :-) it's so 'flowery' I'm still not sure I'll be able to carry off wearing this, and maybe I should be making it for my daughter.


I had picked a flannel for the lining, as our weather here is wet and cold. The flannel was prewashed twice, but just this morning I decided I didn't want to use it so found an organic red cotton in my stash that I'm happier with.

The sleeves will be lined with the dots, which is a silk that I got as a Christmas present last year (2010).

Hilco have very good quality fabrics, so I didn't doubt that it was waterproof. I still tested it, just for a picture. It will be interesting to see how it deals with heavy downpours when I'm collecting the children from school.

I considered waterproofing the seams, as I remembered that Dawn from Two on Two off did a post on that a while back, but getting these type of products isn't easy. There is a UK site Pennine that looks good, maybe for a future coat!

So far, I have cut and marked the outer fabric, after raising the elastic placement and shortening the sleeves.
Hopefully I'll get to sew it before I chicken out and decide that flowers are not 'me'!

Christmas Dresses

In planning my daughter's Christmas dress, I had a black cotton velvet bought locally last year and picked up a metre of silk duponi in a sale from Fabric.com, but it took me forever to decide on a pattern. This pattern turned up on eBay and I liked the style lines.

My procrastination didn't end there. The waist measurement fit my 5 year old, but the rest of the bodice was completely out of proportion - much too long and with front bust and back waist darts that were unnecessary. I basically had to redraw the bodice, while trying to keep the curve at the waist. All this meant that I had a lot of sewing to do the week before Christmas.
Sewing that centre point at the waist was very difficult. These photos were taken before the underskirt was finished correctly, and the wrinkles in the picture were not too evident when she wore the dress on Christmas Day (without the socks and pj's!)

The new bodice fit perfectly. Inside I lined the bodice and bound the armholes so it is comfortable to wear. I couldn't get the ribbon to meet exactly at the back waist, but I decided it was "good enough"

I also sewed a dress for myself. When I did an internet search afterwards for Vogue8593, it turns out that the pattern is based on a dress Michelle Obama wore. It seems that this dress was popular to sew in 2009 and 2010, so I'm really late to the party!

I made a major alteration to the pattern - no zip because I was sewing with knit, though I did measure the neckline to make sure it would go over my head. To ensure the fit, I measured the pattern against a knit top I wear a lot and that fits well over my tummy and hips to help me cut the correct size. I cut a 12 on top and a generous 14 at the hips.

When I was cutting it out, I tried really hard not to focus on the fabric being Liberty jersey - if that thought had taken hold, there would have been no dress for Christmas! It was incredibly quick to sew, once I got the neckline pleats done. I was so pleased with how it turned out.
My daughter took this picture just before her bedtime because she wanted a picture of me with the chocolate they bought me for Christmas, not sure that explains the "rabbit in headlights" look, but at least it's one less "missing head" shot.

SMS Giveaway Winner

I'm quite late posting this, as I've just sat down after a busy day - family for lunch and then we took 9 children for a visit to Santa Claus.

Thanks to everyone who took the time to comment for the giveaway, I'm looking at that piece of jersey in a new light and seeing colours in it that I hadn't noticed before. I was thinking of something like this Burda dress for my daughter, but might go for leggings if I don't have enough fabric. The idea of a tank/vest top for myself is very appealing though!

I took a screen shot from Random.org (61 comments + 2 bonus entries = 63. And the no. 1 comment from Cindy gets the fabric and patterns.

Cindy, I'll be in touch for your details.

Catching up - Birthday Sewing

Re SMS Giveaway Day - I'm really enjoying all the suggestions for what to make with the jersey fabric, lots of really great ideas.

Besides the Christmas sewing that I've piled up for myself, some recent makes include my daughter's birthday dress and a hobby horse. She has wanted a hobby horse for at least a year and I finally used the Melly and Me pattern Giddy Up to make one for her. The major changes I made to the pattern were using wool for the mane, and ribbon for the bridle and reins. She loved it and my six year old son also looked for one, though his is still in 2D form, ie not stuffed!

I managed to get away with one cake this year, unlike 3 last year
She wanted a surprise cake, so this was my first effort at a doll cake. She was so pleased with this she wouldn't let us cut it for 2 days, and I made her a cream sponge instead, so we would have one to cut.

So, onto the dress. The pattern is 'Appliquée' from a lovely French pattern company 'Her Little World'. There is an English version of the pattern, but the instructions have lots of diagrams, so the French version is also easy to work from. I used a Liberty print cord for the outer layer and the stripe is Paul Smith.

It has an asymmetrical collar and a lot of twirl.

.... and a matching dolls dress.

I'm still without a camera, so borrowing my son's which is full of short Lego videos that I have to be (very) careful not to delete.

Sew Mama Sew Giveaway Day!

I have lots of sewing (dresses, hobby horses, bags and more) to post, and lots of reading to catch up on, but as I've been missing in action from here lately, I thought what better way to get posting again than a giveaway.

Sew Mama Sew coordinate a twice yearly Giveaway Day for bloggers which is well worth checking out.

So what I have for you.........
firstly there's an unused/uncut Vogue pattern for a girl's occasion dress age 7-10.

Secondly I will include a Spanish pattern magazine 'Patrones' issue 307
I wanted this magazine so badly for the child's coat, that I got 2. There are no English instructions with this magazine, but if you have some experience you would be able to work from the pattern pieces.

Also included will be a lovely half yard (generously cut) piece of 60 inch wide Liberty Jersey (which I have prewashed) originally from Sewbox

How to enter:
Leave a comment to let me know what you would sew with this piece of Liberty jersey. (I'm looking for ideas, as I'm not sure what to make with it :-)

There's a bonus second entry if you have commented here before.

Be sure to leave contact details/ email
Giveaway is open internationally
I will randomly pick a winner Saturday 17th at 12 midday Irish time (GMT)

Good luck!

Sewing for School

After my complete non-show here for August, I thought I'd better make an effort for September! August was full of meeting cousins, travelling to see family, sleepovers, and more reluctantly getting school supplies in order.
The upside to the lack of sunny weather, is that there was lots of sewing - about 14 items, mostly clothing and some pieces for school.

This post could be renamed Tea-Party Part 3, as I managed to use this Oliver+S pattern for the 6th time as a school uniform for my daughter. It is unfinished in this picture.

I used navy bias binding of a different colour, which helps add structure to the dress, and the buttons are dark blue shell buttons from Raystitch

My daughter picked the lining (Robert Kaufman fabric) and I put in Minnie Mouse pockets as a surprise, as she has had a Minnie Mouse blankie since she was a baby. ( you can tell that I was sad at the thought of sending my baby off to school!). The inside of the dress is completely mismatched, but when my 13 year old niece saw it she decided she wanted a school skirt with a fun lining and pockets. I offered to teach her to sew it, so we'll see what happens.

The apron is from the Oliver+S book Little Things to Sew, and is very easy. I loved sewing it, and was amazed by the quality of the laminated cotton, so much different to oilcloth which just perforates. It's from Amy Butler and bought from Pippablue an Irish online shop.(edited to add: this is an actual shop in Galway city, and they were very helpful when I ordered this fabric) The fabric label is from Farbenmix, and put there just to add a bit of pink!

Inside view of French Seams.

A matching pencil case, front ....

... and back.

I've just realized that I also made 1 cardigan, 2 white blouses, 2 tracksuit pants and a tie, but I only have pictures of two red polo shirts added because they were the first plackets I've ever sewn,( here without buttons or an ironing) and they turned out surprisingly well considering the fabric is a knit. The pattern is from Burda magazine 4/2010 #130A

Last, but of course not least, one of the boys gets something. The six year old started reading Dr. Seuss as soon as he learnt to read in school. I bought enough Dr. Seuss fabric to make a duvet cover, but I couldn't resist cutting some off to make a pencil case. It could be slightly bigger, as there was paring down of a few pencils the night before starting school -to make them fit!

With my daughter starting school for the first time and my eldest son starting secondary school, there's been a lot of adjustment around here, and not all of it the children.

Overload of dresses

Before all the pics of the recent dresses I made, I want to show a picture from a website I came across recently. This company is selling beautiful dresses, but on a second look, it's a Feliz! sewing pattern made up. Can you imagine having the cheek to use that and market it in such a large scale. Not only that, but the Laguna skirt from Studio Tantrum and Patty Youngs Kyoko and Sydney are also on the site, the latter two are even made up in Patty Young fabric! Oh, and to even top that, they call their Feliz 'Patty'. All these patterns are copyrighted, most of them I have, so seeing a company being this blatant is unpleasant and must be so upsetting for the designers.

Back to my own sewing ..........

I'm almost finished the Lonsdale Dress by Sewaholic. I was going to shorten it quite a bit but after seeing the pictures, I think I'll just sew a narrow hem.

The two dresses below are for my nieces 7th birthday. I wanted some pictures of them, so my daughter had some fun trying them on, odd socks and all!
The orange dress (my niece specifically wanted an orange dress - this is the girl who wanted the green dress at Christmas) is made from a sewing magazine Sue & Blu #3080, 2006 with Anna Maria Horner 'Innocent Crush' fabric. I sized up the dress to size 8 to make sure it would be long enough. This was the second of the 2 birthday dresses I made and I wanted something easy to sew where I wouldn't be forever finishing seams. So it's a bubble dress.

Very straightforward to sew, all seams hidden and no zip, just 2 buttonholes, with lovely patterned shell buttons from my stash.

I even made belt loops, which are a bit twisted, but much improved on my first effort. There is no belt in the pattern, but the dress looked too wide for my niece, so I added it a simple ribbon belt which worked perfectly.

I lined it in white rather than any other colour because it seemed to brighten the orange on the outside.

Of course, the requisite bag, made from the Japanese pattern I've used many times before.

Another action shot!

The second dress (which I sewed first) is a combination of 2 patterns, the Analise from Portabellopixie for the bodice and Studio Tantrum/Farbenmix Redondo for the skirt. I had decided for quite a while that the skirt would be the Redondo, but it took me ages to settle on a bodice pattern. I make these dresses without my niece's measurements, so I'm always trying to make sure they're adjustable in some way. The elastic and shoulder straps of the Analise were ideal.

The Analise is easy to sew. I made 2 changes to the pattern - adding 4 more rows of elastic to the back, which means the back of the dress lies flat even with the straps tied which is not the case in the pattern pictures. The other change was to cut the underarms higher because these seemed to be too low, also in the pattern pictures.

My fanatical seam finishing continues ..... I sewed flat-felled seams on every curved seam to neaten the inside, hence, my choice of an easy bubble dress after.
The flowery fabric is Heather Bailey and the purple is Kafe Fassett, and I bought all these from Quilt home.

The bag pattern is a drawstring bag and was adapted from a picture I saw in the 2009 Sue & Blu magazine, because I wanted it ruffled like the dress.

Finally, the Redondo part of the dress. What a fun pattern! I added an extra panel so I could have an even mix of colours, this meant I had to do some calculations on the pattern pieces to make sure they would fit to the bodice.
The pattern pieces are like a puzzle, and when I had the fabric cut out, I had no idea how I would make the curved seams fit together, really NO idea, even after reading the translation of the pattern instructions.

Once I realised that the inner circle of one piece was only sewn halfway down the outer circle of  another piece, it started to come together. Two other tricks helped: sewing the curved seams with the fabric to the right (rather than the usual left) of the sewing machine needle and foot made these curved seams dramatically easier to sew; and tapering to zero seam allowance at the hem made hemming the skirt much easier.

On the day of my niece's 7th birthday, she opened the bag with the dresses, pulled out the orange one and put it on - a happy Birthday girl! and a happy sewist!!!

Working on a New Dress for me - Lonsdale by Sewaholic.

Treating myself for my birthday, I went to buy some Liberty Needlecord from Sewbox.co.uk (hmmm, treating myself by buying fabric for my daughter??) and I noticed that the newest Sewaholic pattern was in stock. My brother-in-law's 40th birthday is on in a few weeks, and I thought I might make myself a new dress, so the pattern arrived on Friday.

I really didn't mean to start this dress. I thought I might wait for the sew-a-long on the Sewaholic blog.
The blouse and dress I promised to make for my mother are still in the pattern drafting and alteration stage, but the Lonsdale dress was calling me so loudly, that I decided last night at 9pm after the younger two went to bed that I would start.

The fabric is a cotton with some stretch and a lovely drape that I bought from my local fabric shop. She sometimes stocks ends of bolts from RTW designers, and this is a Karen Millen piece and I found the colour irresistible. I had 2.60m at 144cm wide, which I hoped might do if I cut the bodice lining in a different fabric. I also cut the front skirt piece on a fold to help save fabric and I omitted the pockets, though I had just enough fabric left to cut them if I wished.

Needless to say, no muslin, but based on the finished measurements on the pattern envelope. I decided on a 12. However, I tissue fitted the waistband piece and got a fright when it wouldn't go around me (too much MIL's apple tart for tea!) I then cut a size 14!


I sewed all the bodice pieces last night, and tried it on for fit this morning.

There was some gaping at the top edge and when I fit the bodice closely, I could overlap the back by about 5cm. This is a fitting rather than a pattern issue, and because I decided I preferred the bodice very close-fitted, I took in the side seams.

I ripped out the side seams and re-sewed them, sewing with a much larger seam allowance at the top. When I went back to compare the pattern piece, it equaled to a size 8 at the top out to a 12 at the waist.

This felt to be a much better fit on me.

The waist edges were left uneven, but as I am also short-waisted, I decided to sew the waistband higher, though the pattern pieces have shorten/lengthen lines marked. A lot of this could have been prevented if I did a muslin, ha! The construction of the neckline is a neat design, and needs lots of close clipping so it doesn't pucker.

So this is where I'm at, terrible pictures and all!! It is not finished, but not bad for 6/7 hours work.

I have to understitch the neckline, turn up the hem, stitch the lining to the zipper tape, and sew the lining waistband to the outer waistband. These last 2 steps are explained differently in the pattern instruction sheet. I chose to sew the lining at the waistband differently.

I'm very impressed with this pattern, it's the first one I've tried from Sewaholic. I love, love the pattern instruction sheet, the best I've come across which suits my style of sewing. When I skimmed through it first I thought it could do with more detail, but reading it, this is the perfect pattern sheet for me. It's not too wordy, each step has a drawing to clearly explain it, and I could visualize the construction method and steps quickly and easily, and then decide if I wanted to sew it in the same or a different order.

After my burst of energy in getting this sewn, I hope I won't be finishing it the day of the party! I will get some better pictures in the next day or two.

Family Reunion Dress and Sewing with Liberty

The children are all on summer holidays since the end of June and there seems to be a lot that I need to catch-up on and post.
I was trying to get sewing a few weeks back and came across a sew-a-long on the Above All Fabric blog.
It was more for the motivation that I sewed along, but the posts about the different pattern steps were also very good.
I was originally planning on using these buttons, but one of the benefits of sewing along is getting others opinions at each stage, so I changed the buttons later.

I considered adding lots of ribbons, but I'm glad I resisted!

I bound all the seams with Liberty binding mostly to satisfy my perfectionist streak, but also there are no scratchy seams, so my daughter will enjoy wearing it.

Sewing interruptions in the middle of the sew-a-long included a Father's Day Tie in Liberty for my husband, made from a free pattern from the Purl Bee blog

and totes made for teachers from the Oliver + S Mother-Daughter Tote Bag which I made bigger. Maybe a 'little' over the top, but this year the boy's teachers seemed to be extra helpful to them and I felt the box of chocolates wouldn't be adequate.
The 5 year old just started school last Sept and initially loved it but started complaining of stomach pains very frequently. After deciding it might be boredom his teacher put together a folder of more advanced activity sheets for him and all the stomach pains stopped. The 11 year olds teacher supported him with a bullying issue and gave a lot of her time preparing the class  for an engineering competition. The 13 year old is moving on to secondary school, and was very attached to one of the assistants in the class, and his teacher also gave a lot of her time preparing the boys for confirmation, tours, and their new school. The teachers were really delighted with these bags, but the only issue is I've set a precedent for next year!
I lined 3 of the bags with Liberty and the blue one is O+S fabric which I won a few months ago.

But back to the dress......... I'm so pleased with how it turned out, especially as there was a lot of fussy-cutting of the fabric to make sure the large and small flowers matched.

The buttons don't photograph very well, but are a lovely pale pink colour, and I'm glad I changed them.I bought them from Raystitch.co.uk, another great and very helpful online shop
I dropped my camera taking these and smashed the lens, so there was no chance to take better pictures of the neck details.

Liberty fabric is a real treat to work with, the quality is consistent across each type of fabric, lawn or poplin, and it drapes perfectly for clothes, yet because it's cotton is also perfect for other uses.
All of the Liberty fabrics here, I've bought online from Sewbox.co.uk which is an excellent source for these fabrics, and more reasonable than the Liberty online shop, whose shipping is just too expensive. And Sewbox has just started stocking Liberty Needlecord/ corduroy!

I'm not done with sewing Liberty yet. My mother has asked me to sew a blouse for her, so I'm in the middle of adapting a Burda pattern for that at the moment....