Ottobre goodies for my girl

I bought the rose print fabric on a recent trip to the fabric store. It is one of the softest woven cottons I have ever felt and that prompted me to use it up straight away.

I chose the romantic dress from Ottobre (issue3/2007, #19). Since J measurements are quite different from the Otto measurements, so while the dress is 116cm for the height, the width is for that of the 104. Jalisa is actually closer to the next size, but I always seem to use the size under their actual height to get the length I like.

Look out for that mushroom

Jalisa loves the dress - the gathered pockets are a hit too.

I have pulled out a laundry basket full of warmer weather clothes that J has been wearing over the last couple of summers. While she won't run out of anything to wear (having a school uniform is great since she only needs clothes for weekends and holidays) I thought it would be nice to refresh her wardrobe with quite a few new pieces. Here is another Otto peasant top and Otto Bert? short. The peasant top is definitely too short - I think I will need to go up to the next height if I want to get some wear out of them.

Once again, the pockets are a hit. I have just finished a blue pair of shorts, with red and darker green to go.

Thank you God for

My darling husband. While he is not perfect, there is not too much to complain about. He is supportive of my hobbies, he is hands-on with the kids, I genuinely think he tries his best and he believes that I try my best. Thank you Lord.

Anthropologie knockoff / dud

 I have lots of pictures of clothes from Anthropologie and I was keen to make a few floaty tops like the ones shown above. I thought it would be really quite simple (and it was). Looks through Burda patterns. Find a pattern to use as the base. Find similar patterns to make the desired changes.

I started with the cute little number on the left. I thought the sleeves and the neckline were similiar enough to the look I was going for. However, I hated the gathers over the bust. Not my thing. Rather than doing my own thing and just extending the bodice peices, I found the peasant pattern to use as a guide for the side seams. I figured it was a sure thing for having enough ease to slip on over my head.

So yeah, there was plenty of ease there... plenty for a baby belly in there too. Late term baby belly.

I actually took these pictures as the before photo as I was going to fix the problem with lots of elastic thread. Just made it looks worse and it was tight and uncomfortable. So I unpicked the elastic thread and hung the top in my wardrobe. It'll work with a belt, if I ever buy myself a belt, or I can just wear it at home lest anyone mistake me for being up the duff at work.

 So my plan for lots of these tops went out the window - I think I will just concentrate on making fitted blouses for work.

Thank you God for...

I forgot all about this meme last week, but I remembered for today.


I want to thank God for the wonderful teachers that my daughter has had. I am so glad I can trust that they will do the right thing by my child. Being a teacher myself, I am aware of what of the best practise is for teaching young children as well as the great programs that teachers have available for spelling and science. I am so pleased that all three of J's teachers have so far employed best practise and implemented quality programs. Lord, I am so thankful to you. Amen

I am loving this red vee neck jumper and red tee here. In fact, I am wearing the tee today in support of the Morcombe family. I sewed this up a few Thursdays ago and took pictures, but never got to a blog post stage with it.

Jumper details

Pattern: Kwik Sew 1381 neckline, KS 742 everything else. Basically I wanted a tried and tested jumper but with a thicker, cross over v-neck.

Fabric: a red poly rayon blend knit. Lovely colour but lousy to sew. Luckily it feels lovely to wear, even if it was painful to sew.

Tee was my tried and true tee pattern, but I tried a sway back adjustment as per lovely Sherry's directions. Unfortunately this did not solve the puddling issue in my lower back, so I won't worry about that in the future.

It seems like an age since I made something for my daughter, just because. I have all this fabric sitting around so I decided to use it to make some shorts, shirts and dresses for my darling. Here is the tester pair of shorts and peasant top.

The peasant top is Ottobre's Singoalla blouse (#16 from issue 1/2007). I did not shirr as high as Ottobre did, because I was concerned it would not fit and Jalisa was at school at the time. I think any others I will not add the elastic thread at the bottom, and actually add a little more to give it a proper hem and not just a rolled  hem from the overlocker.

The shorts are the Ottobre Bert shorts (#23 from 3/2009). I have seen lots of blog with the women wearing short shorts and I thought it would be a much cuter look on her than me. Not a great snap of the pants. I think I will go down the next size in the width, as they are a little baggy on her. I used size 110 for the width with 116 for the length, but I think it needs to be the 104 width still (see, I have almost completed a dress and I used a 104 width and I think it was pushing it, but it may have been just that pattern. She is still wearing 98 width tees fine).

I have some small cuts of lime green and powder blue to use. I really have a lot of work since I have bought 25m of fabric in the last couple of weeks. I can barely resist a bargain, especially when I am encouraged by my husband.

Frugal sewing – can’t shake it off

For years I was a frugal sewist. Sometimes it was a case of not having much money to throw around. Other times I was saving as much of my money as I could. Anyway, I learnt a few tricks to get more bang for my buck:

• I reused the same patterns over and over. Patterns are pretty exxy in Australia, so if I used the same pattern a few times, I was spending less on other patterns.
• I borrowed Burda magazines from the library to read.
• Refused to pay full price for fabric or patterns.
• I chose patterns that did not use a lot of fabric and laid out patterns to use the least amount of fabric. I used to carry a list so that I only ever bought as much as I needed.

One discovery I made while laying out patterns from the same fabric was that I could cut out a knit top and a tee shirt in the same amount of fabric it took to cut out one tee. You just have to cut out one or two pieces at a time and refold.

While we are no longer watching the pennies so much, I am still careful with my spending and sometimes old habits refuse to die. I was able to cut out a long sleeve tee shirt, a knit shirt (Kwik Sew 3032 Top A) and a pair of undies all from 1.5 metres of fabric. I have just realised that I have made quite a few pairs of undies out left over knit fabric this year!

PS Shannon, thanks for the reminder - I had heard about them. I put in an order with Fashion Sewing Supply last night. Even with a massive postage quote of nearly $28 (yowzers) it works out the same price as the interfacing I have been using with less than stellar results. I think I had been putting it off because of the postage, but it works out if the interfacing is even a little bit better than the whisperweft.

Mulberry Jacket

I fell in love with curved lapels and collars when I made my last jacket. I wasn’t keen to make the exact same jacket pattern again so soon, so I began my search for another Burda jacket pattern.

I found what I wanted in pattern 111 from Burda 3/2009. I love that it is not too long, has princess seams and the sewn in belt was cute too.
I used a stretch cotton twill in a lovely Mulberry shade. It is actually a darker shade than my last jacket. I obviously gravitate towards the same colours. I picked stretch twill since it is fairly casual and comes in some great colours.

I followed Sherry’s RTW Tailoring Sewalong notes again. I think I will be referring to them everytime I make a jacket, because they are so helpful in achieving a lovely result.



I did change the yoke pattern piece. The piece is a combine front and back yoke, so there is no shoulder seam. While I did not mind the look of it I wasn’t sure if my sloping shoulder adjustment would work. So I drew a seam line at the shoulder points and added the front yoke piece to the front, while keeping the back as a yoke.

I just hope I was not too aggressive with my sloping shoulder adjustment. I made the same as I normally do but you can see the diagonal pulls. I wonder if I traced the shoulder point in the wrong spot or something.

Here is a closer view of the collar.



While I cut out the curved pockets and flaps, I ended up not using them. I thought they were a cute feature, but for whatever reason, did not feel like sewing them on at the time.

I am annoyed with the interfacing I chose. I used whisperweft which requires preshrinking. Except a lot of the beads of glue came off. Very hard to bond without the glue on there. Grr. Not sure whether to get textureweft next time, as it requires no shrinking or go for something entirely different altogether.

Here is a peek at the lining. While the lining likes to twist and squirm all over the place when cutting and handling, with the right needle and foot pressure it was a breeze to sew.

My new baby

I have been wanting an iron press for some time but when I had to block fuse my fabric for the RTW Tailored Jacket sewalong I was really keen. I have been keeping my eye on Ebay and this one popped up in a suburb close to me. I am yet to use it, as I want to give it a bit of a clean, but it should be really handy.

MMJ 18-23

Day 18:blue tee, purple cowl jumper, newer jeans
Plans: Going out socialising, outside, in the freezing cold. I had to add a coat plus I had a blanket around me I was so cold.

Day 19: white tee, charcoal grey wide leg pants, yellow RTW jumper
Plans: Sunday school and chores at home.
Day 20: Hot pink tee, blue jumper, black straight leg pants, plus coat and scarf.
Plans:working late. Thhis was taken after work and I was exhusted. Last week of school before holidays.

21: purple jalie top, purple jumper, grey pants
Plans: working. It ended up being a horrible day for me, let's just say good thing I only had one more day of work. My principal gave me chocolate for doing an extra bus duty the day before - he knows how to make me happy.

22: Forgot to take photo. I was in holiday mood.

23:Purple tee, blue jumper, new grey pants
Plans: baking for "bug ball" + attending "bug ball"

MMJ 17 - another pair of pants sewn up

I decided to wear my new pants so I would only have to take one lot of photos for them! I used a charcoal polyester rayon blend, it has a very such metallic sheen to it. Very similar fabric to my other charcoal pants, although that fabric has a faint stripe through it.

The pattern is a combination of two patterns to make some pants with a wide curved waistband, front fly zipper, front pockets and straight legs (just had a look,# 107A from Burda 1/2006 plus #113 from 8/2003). After my last pair of pants (apparently they are flared, I call them wide leg) I wanted to make up my next pair with a skinnier leg. I decided a straight leg wasn't so unflattering at all.



For my next pair, I am going to try the alteration described by Sew 4 Fun. Just to see if I can get rid of those diagonal wrinkles under my butt!
It is really windy today, but sunny so it is not totally fresh. The pockets on the front have been very handy today for holding my keys. I always miss it when I don't have pockets in my pants while out and about.

I am wearing a RTW jumper, but a self made tee under.