The Owl Tunic

So, I'm back. Maybe just for one post, maybe for a squillion, who knows. We'll see.....
The reason for my return is this competition from Simplicity patterns. And here is my entry:

I look a little surprised....maybe it's because my mouth has been replaced by a giant flower?

I'm calling it the Owl Tunic, for obvious reasons when you look at the fabric up close. I used the lovely free pattern that Simplicity sent me and decided on view A, as I liked the pleated sleeves. My original plan was to use this fabric to make a muslin and then use a different fabric to make my final entry, but I liked this so much I stuck with it.

Fabric up close in all its feathery glory

The pattern was quite easy to put together and the instructions were clear and detailed. I made a size 10 without any alterations, as I've sewn Simplicity patterns before and a straight 10 usually fits. Next time I would shave a tiny wedge out of the front as my decoletage decolletege deccoletig collar bone area is a bit narrow, and although the neckline sits fine when I'm still, there is a tiny bit of gapeyness when I move around. Otherwise I am very happy with the fit.

I was a good girl and followed the instructions exactly, even understitching the neck facing, which made a big difference.

I must admit, I do love a bit of understitching :)

I'm pleased to say my invisible zip is pretty invisible. I asked Mr Pickledweasel to confirm its invisibleness by looking at the back of the tunic while I tried it on, and he said 'Yes, but you haven't pattern matched.' That's what happens when you let your significant others watch the Great British Sewing Bee. I did try to pattern match, honestly, but my eyes went a bit funny after 5 minutes and I gave in.

Don't look at it too long, it's a bit like one of those Magic Eye books.

The only thing I changed about the pattern was the length. I tried it on un-hemmed and it was just a teensy bit too short for me - something I'd wear with opaque tights and boots, but as this was intended to be a spring / summer outfit for work, that kind of length would involve the Revealing of the Knees of Doom (not a very pretty sight), so I decided to make it into a tunic instead. I took 5" off and then did a 1" blind hem, something I haven't done for ages. I have a blind hem foot for my machine which makes it a doddle, and I love it. It takes a bit more preparation than a standard hem, but it looks great.

My lovely hem. Look, no stitches!

The fabric was from the Magic Fabric shop (yes, it's still going, they're open 6 days a week now instead of just Mondays and Thursdays!) and was £2 a metre. I think I used about 2 metres and the zip cost £3.90, so the total cost was just shy of £8. Not bad, eh?

The front. It's a very good for hiding lumps and bumps by the way :)

The fabric was kind of like a scuba stretch but without the stretch. It was nice to sew with, quite silky on the printed side but still had enough stability not to go crazy when I put it under the presser foot. In terms of time taken, I'd guesstimate 4 hours from start to finish. I cut all of the pattern pieces when I was on holiday last week on the Yorkshire coast, on a lovely big dining room floor in the cottage we were staying in. I'd seen all sorts of birds during the week, so it felt appropriate to be working with feathery material. I am seriously considering sewing up some capes with the leftover bits I have, so the little pickledweasels can pretend to be owls too.

How much do these wings sleeves look like little owl hoods?

Overall I'm very happy with my new owly tunic. I'm pretty sure there is another one in the pipeline, this time with a bit of a tropical theme (and some lengthening so the Knees of Doom won't be involved). So thank you to Simplicity for giving me the chance to take part, and for the pattern, I've loved making it :)

"This'll never work...what am I meant to do with the flower, eat it?"

Scandi Skirt

I've actually made a wearable piece of clothing for myself, which looking through my past posts I don't think I've done before, except maybe a neck warmer.

I made clothes for myself when I was doing my stuuuupid college course (I'm never going to mention it again, it was that stupid. I have a certificate saying I passed it but I never learnt how to sew a buttonhole. I may have mentioned this before...), but I wouldn't call them wearable :) For my final project I made an A-line under skirt with an apron over skirt, and this skirt was made using the pattern I drafted for the under skirt.


It's just a basic A-line block from Winifred Aldrich's Metric Pattern Cutting for Women's Wear, and although I drew it up using my measurements in May last year I'm pleased it still fits around my post-Christmas podge :)

I look a little crazy - I can't tell if it's because of the recently blow-dried hair or the overuse of blusher...

The fit isn't perfect, as the darts could sit a little smoother at the back, but I think that's my sewing rather than the pattern. I did take a few photos of it without the cardi on, but blimey my middle has thickened over the last few months, so I'll not be sharing them with you. Because the waistline is quite low it sits on the widest part of my middle, and so definitely needs a long top over it or some sort of cardi to break it up. On the other hand it is remarkably comfy to wear :)



You might remember I made Munchkin a tunic using another version of the fabric, and this has been sitting in my stash waiting for my to gather up the courage to cut it since then. I lined it with some bog standard black polyestery type stuff, which was a bugger to sew but does the job. I've called it the Scandi skirt because the fabric makes me want to go to Stockholm and drink strong coffee and look at art :)


I'm very pleased with my zip skillz - inserted using the method that is in the Sew U book (sew side seam up to where zip will start, change stitch to long stitch and tack all way to waistline. Tape zip to wrong side of seam, topstitch using zipper foot, remove tape and tacking). I sewed the zip just into the outer fabric, and then I made the lining up separately. On the seam where the zip would be, I sewed up to where the zip would start then tacked the rest of the way up. I ironed the seam flat and unpicked the tacking. I then attached the lining to the skirt right sides together, flipped them, topstitched around the waist, and then carefully pinned the lining around the zip and re-topstitched where I had sewn the zip into the outer.


And I've found a brilliant new way to avoid failure when attempting new sewing projects - don't do blog posts announcing to the world what you're going to achieve over the next month / year / decade. Then if you don't finish them / they go horribly wrong / you never even start them, no-one will ever know! Success guaranteed :)



So all you're getting from me is the following statement:
I will be sewing things over the next 12 months. I will tell you about them when I have finished them :D

Trousers of ginormous warmth.

It's bloomin cold here. It's barely getting above freezing most days, and yesterday morning I opened the curtains to be greeted with the sight of another good few inches of snow. The novelty of winter has definitely worn off, and I'm wishing for rain, which is most unlike me.

Whilst trying to cope with the icicles and the snow flurries, I've realised how few warm 'bottom half' clothes Munchkin has. She has jumpers and tunics a-plenty, all of which can be layered, but all of her trousers and skirts seem alarmingly thin. With this in mind, a few weeks ago I set about making some lined trousers with the brushed cotton I used for her latest tunic.

I bought this pattern last month, with the intention of using it as a stash-buster. I am still a bit scared of commercial patterns, but when I was looking at the back of the envelope I could see that there wouldn't be any techniques involved that I haven't already mastered, and it would just be a case of reading the instructions carefully. I just seem to get my head in a bit of a tizz whenever I sit down with that big piece of paper and read all those technical sewing terms. And then I fold it all back up again and put it back in the packet :)

But this pattern was fine. I made the trousers up with a few alterations - I essentially made two pairs of trousers, one from denim and one from brushed cotton, and then attached them right sides together at the waistband, flipped them wrong sides together, and then topstitched. They came up quite big, but that means they'll probably last until she's about 5 :) I did a pattern review here, so you can read more about it if you want to.

They look a little bit mid-90's, but they're warm and they match lots of nice red tops that Munchkin already has in her wardrobe. I suppose in theory they're reversible, but I imagine someone would report me to social services if I made her wear them with the brushed cotton on the outside :)

I'm moving to Japan.

It must be the best place to live in the world, if their standard of sewing books is anything to go by :)

Buoyed by the success of the mushroom skirt (I'm still sorting the bow out, pictures when it's done), I started on the little bloomer / pantaloons, which looked equally as simple.


And they were! I remembered the seam allowance this time, so no hiccups. The fit on Munchkin is perfect. They're made from a bog-standard denim from the magic fabric shop, and they'd suit any other medium to heavy weight fabric. I have some nice red cord that I think I'll use for another pair.

Me and Munchkin had an outing to Skipton last week with Grandma pickledweasel, and we went to The Fent Shop to have a browse. I picked up a few bargains, including a lovely piece of babycord that was just crying out to be made into a top to go with the new pantaloons :)

I couldn't quite get munchkin to replicate the poses in the book :)

There were faults on the fabric, so I had to cut the pattern pieces carefully, but it looks pretty good. This pattern was slightly more advanced, and I did spend a long time staring at the diagrams for the sleeves before my little brain was able to make sense of how they go together. I made a size larger, as I wanted it to last til next summer, but the fit is still pretty good. It would maybe be better sewn in a fabric with a bit more stretch, as the chest is a bit tight when munchkin pulls it on over her arms / shoulders.


Three garments in two weeks is pretty good going for me, so you can tell how easy the patterns are :) I'm going to give it a rest for a while now and start on my quilt, but I'll definitely be making more from it. It goes up to 130cm (roughly age 8), so Munchkin can have a new pair of pantaloons each year for the next six years :) I bet Japan is so cool that pantaloons are standard issue school uniform.

The tale of the bow and the big belly

A very lovely friend went to Japan earlier this year, and was nice enough to do a bit of shopping on my behalf. I was quite sensible as a) I didn't want to spend squillions of pounds and b) I didn't want her to have to leave half her clothes in Japan so she could fit all my goodies in her suitcase, so I asked for 2 sewing books and 2m of a girlish print and 2m of a boyish print. She doesn't sew at all, so I sent her some links to Japanese fabric and sewing books that I liked on Etsy.

Needless to say, she did a sterling job :) And here is the first thing I've made with the things she bought. It comes from this book, which according to Babelfish is called 'Foppish Clothes of Girl', although I'm sure the title's much snappier in Japanese.

The mushroom fabric is Alexander Henry, so not Japanese at all, although it cost about £5.00 a metre in Tokyo. How I wish I lived in Tokyo.

The brown contrasting fabric was from the magic fabric shop, and has a lovely nap to it.

Despite the entire book being in Japanese, the diagrams were brilliant and I managed to sew it up quite easily. Admittedly it is one of the easier patterns, but it was a good one to start with and it's given me the confidence to try some of the others, like these little short bloomers which are next on my list.

I did mess up on the seam allowance (I forgot to include any when I was cutting my pieces out), hence the extra band of fabric where the brown ties are, but that was my fault for not looking carefully enough at the instructions, as it was clearly marked.

As you can see from the photos, the skirt looks lovely on the floor, but doesn't quite work on the Munchkin. The two ties pull the side seams forward so it sags, meaning it doesn't hang properly. This might not happen so much if the ties weren't so skinny because of my lack of seam allowance, but I still think it would be a problem. And then there's the matter of the dysentery style tummy:

Munchkin has always had problems with poohs, and usually only goes every other day, which results in ridiculous amounts of bloating. She's managed toilet training really well and is now dry 99% of the time, but is still really reluctant to go for a pooh until she can't possibly wait any longer. Which means she normally looks like she's 6 months pregnant :O

She doesn't wear very many skirts, and when I asked her to try this one on I realised why. Never mind, she can wear it on days where she's managed to go before breakfast :) So, what to do about the ties? My initial thought is to take them off and then use one of them to make a big bow to sew on the front of the skirt. Anyone else have any thoughts?

And if you're looking at this thinking you can't live another week without getting some Japanese sewing books, try M is For Make. Kate has a really nice selection, some of which are in the sale, and they all come with a sheet of translated sewing terms.

Just one more, and then I'll stop. Promise.

I am a bit addicted to this pattern. After the last lot of shenanigans with the seams and turning through, this one sewed up like a dream. But I'm still not going to make them to sell, i value my sanity :) If anyone else is though, use recycled jeans, they work really well!

This one was made on a rainy Lancashire day, but it's being shipped off to sunny Australia, so I thought the tropical blue flowers were quite appropriate. It's going to a very lovely friend who emigrated there about 5 years ago, and who is sorely missed. She has two beautiful boys who I last saw 6 months ago - the octopus messenger bag was made for Ben, her eldest.

I would dearly love to make the trip out to see her one day. Maybe after the neverending loft fund has been repaid. My only worry would be that we wouldn't want to come back...

Show me the money.

This year is turning out to be pretty expensive. Along with the twenty squillion pounds we paid for the neverending loft conversion, we have had to repair the washing machine, then replace the washing machine, replace the hoover, replace the iron, and now the central heating is broken. Not broken in a major way, but it'll still cost about £150 to fix it.


Add to that the extra bill we have from our builder for changing the stair spindles in the loft (they were twirly, and they just weren't right. Now they're straight and they're lovely. Yes it was important and worth the money. Now be quiet) and using better quality wood on the cupboard doors (we're staining it rather than painting), and we're a bit strapped for cash.


I'm still finding things to put on eBay, and we're selling nearly all of our dvds on Music Magpie, but we need more moolah. So one of the obvious solutions is for me to try and sew up a bit of cash. My mum, the lovely grandma pickledweasel, has a little business making and selling glass jewellery and art. She does lots of farmer's markets, and always takes along a little selection of wooden brooches on my behalf. When I started making bags we talked about selling some on her stall, so I thought I'd finally crack on and make up some stock for her. I've been buying bits and bobs of fabric in preparation, and have quite a few patterns that can be used to make items to sell. My aim was 10 bags using this pattern in 7 days. If they sold, I would try a few more different styles out. Easy peasy lemon squeezy.


Er, no. Despite this being the fourth time I've used this pattern, the bag pictured took me around 4 hours to make and is unsellable unsaleable unsellible no-one would buy it. The outer is faux suede and the lining is a bit of vintage soft cotton I found in a charity shop. Both fabrics are quite lightweight so I thought I would use fusible interfacing on the floral cotton to give the bag a bit more structure. Only when I came to turn it through it had obviously added a bit too much structure, because it was like bloody childbirth. The stitches on the strap split, and tore the lovely old cotton. I had to unpick and re-sew the join at the tops of the straps so many times to get the two sides the right length so they would sandwich together properly that there is a whole new pattern of little holes in the faux suede. It just doesn't cut the mustard.

I have to accept that I don't have the speed or the skill to make it worthwile financially. In fact, I'd probably make more money if I stopped buying fabric and bag patterns :) I would love love love to make money out of sewing, but I just don't think it's feasible for someone who works part time and has a two and a half year old the rest of the time. Selling online is slightly easier, as you can make things as they're ordered, but you still need time to promote your business and find patterns that work for you and that you can use to make things comercially (or design your own). I've got rid of my little Coriandr shop, which was rapidly going nowhere due to a lack of promotion on my part. No matter how badly I want it, or believe it's my destiny (in an X-Factor styley), making money from stitching stuff isn't going to happen right now.

So it's back to eBaying the contents of my wardrobe and shopping in bulk at Approved Food in an effort to save money. If anyone has any 100% proven get rich quick schemes, or interesting recipes for tortillas or cous cous please comment below :)

It's curtains for me.

I am no longer in a grump, you'll be glad to know. I don't know what brought it on, but it lingered for a couple of days and was hard to shift. I am very grump-prone, as my mum and husband will testify, and I've never grown out of them, despite now being in my mid early thirties. Munchkin is currently tantrum-prone, but hasn't mastered the art of the grump. I think maybe that comes with teenage years?

Aaaaanyway. Enough of my emotional well being. I have made curtains! That hang straight and everything! The little bedroom is now liveable in, and is temporarily housing Munchkin whilst we decorate everything else so she can move into her new bedroom (our old bedroom) and we move into the attic. The little bedroom will then be vacant for the next munchkin, although me and mr pickledweasel don't currently have the energy to conduct a coherent conversation, let alone create new life. We seem to spend every waking moment stripping wallpaper or trying to fill huge cracks with polyfiller in the hope that the wall doesn't fall apart when we paint it.

But I managed to take a break from DIY duties and make these slightly boring, yet perfectly acceptable curtains. I didn't want them to be too jazzy as the wallpaper is pretty busy already, and didn't need any competition. The fabric was £1 a metre from the magic fabric shop, and is backed with a sort of rubber backing. I don't know if this is a special curtain backing, or whether it's for upholstery purposes, but it means the curtains block out most of the light. I lined them, just for appearances sake, but only bought the cheapest lining fabric as I didn't need blackout quality.

They weren't the easiest things to sew, but I've learnt a lot and I'm sure my next pair will be better. I failed miserably on mitring corners, despite it being one of the very few things I learnt on my rubbish college course, but I'll have a look on Youtube and have a go again with a few scraps of fabric.

I used a book my mum swears by, Soft Furnishings: Ideas and Fabrics by Designers Guild, which was published in 1980, but curtain construction doesn't really change much, does it? There are loads of diagrams to accompany the instructions, and the book includes cushions, lampshades, blinds, upholstery and loose covers as well. You can get it second hand on Amazon here or here.

The neverending loft conversion is nearly nearly nearly finished, and is looking like a real room. The plaster looks a bit funny because it wasn't dry when I took the picture, and yes, I know the arch is wonky :). I'm trying very hard not to get overexcited and start sewing cushions and wall hangings and duvet covers for it, as I still have a floor cushion to make for the little bedroom, and then it's on to soft furnishings for Munchkin's new room, which include two pairs of curtains and a loose cover for a 1970's child's armchair. Does anyone fancy a loose cover sew-along? No? No-one? What do you mean 'it doesn't sound very exciting'? I can feel a grump coming on...

Yeah, whatever.

I am in a foul mood today, so this post will not be genial, or courteous, or even polite. I really can't be arsed with small talk, so you'll get what you're given.

Here's a bag I made.

It's made of my favourite jeans, which I had to sacrifice because they had a big hole in the knee. The lining is made from some other fabric. I can't be bothered to tell you where it was from.

It holds things, and it was easy to make. I made another one before, but this one is better, because.... well, just because.

If you want me, I'll be on the sofa with my bottom lip stuck out and my arms folded. Now go away! >:-p