Category: gail

Advance 8190 – wrap top and meet up

~ velosews ~ 18 Comments

Thank you for your words of encouragement with my triathlon post. I know it wasn’t a sewing post but I thought it was a fun thing to share.

Advance 8190
There are so many steps you can avoid when sewing with knits. No seam finishes, so hemming or just a quick rolled hem on the overlocker.

Anita of Studiofaro had a weekly pattern puzzle of this pattern. At the end of the weekend, she solved the puzzle and posted the instructions to make this top up.

Redpoint Tailor made her wearable version in pink.

I was trying to do a 1950’s pose. Oh well…

My work version is made from a grey light-weight knit and I’ve worn it a wee bit with my self-drafted Veronica skirt by Mercuryhandmade. The wrap band is 20cm wide and its length is twice the fabric width. I think this was a Fabric Store piece. Grey is a my work staple.

Gail of My fabrication has been sewing up a storm with Anita’s help too. I’ve never met Anita  but will be on Sunday 27 October, 2.00pm at the Powerhouse Museum. She put out a call to all sewing bloggers on her facebook page. You don’t need to have a blog to join!

Draft it

~ velosews ~ 12 Comments

Drafting rocks.
Earlier this year I drafted an A-line dress using Enid Gilchrist. TJ gifted this publication to me and it opened my eyes to pattern drafting again. While studying, I saw a call for sewers to test out an instruction sheet to draft a pencil skirt from Studio Faro. So I put my hand up to help out.

Anita from Studio Faro sent through her updated Pencil skirt worksheet and I’d finished 3 assessments and DH was watching the rugby so I took an hour to draft my own pencil skirt. What a sewer rush I got once I put together the test skirt. Sewing geek dance of joy. This is the same dance as the Pattern Magic dance of joy.

My drafting tools at home are minimal – a standard 30cm ruler and a curve shape of some description. This skirt has 4cm of ease at the waist and on checking the fit I felt this was a bit much but once you put on the waistband, 4 cm is worthwhile having.

You know how we put fly facings or Zip guards on jeans? Well Anita suggests adding a zip guard for this invisible zipper. I originally though – why would you do that?

But I decided to stick with the instructions and learn something new from Anita’s suggestions. Now – I like using the zip guard for skirts.

If you’ve ever had one of ‘those’ morning where you’re rushing around to get ready in the morning and forgotten to zip up the back of your skirt after doing the top button on the waist band, having the zip guard would help me get through one of ‘those’ mornings. The zip guard also stops the zipper teeth getting caught on other fabrics such as tucked in silk tops and other ‘bits and pieces’.  I really like zip guards on skirts.

Keep an eye out for Gail’s version of this pencil skirt. I saw her lovely hand sewing on her version last week. I’ve hand sewn the hem. on my skirts.

Belated thanks:
Thanks for your comments about the PR a-line skirt. Carolyn is right – I now need tops to suit the dropped waist a-line skirt:))  And there are some pics to show soon. Being part of the Dandelion blog hop was fun. There were so many variations that everyone made. The top version is in my sewing list.

Beatrice:
Is being made up with brocade right now. It’s my post-study project. 
 
Blogger on my phone
And I’ve been using the mobile version of Blogger lately. It’s more limited to the computer version so I’ve only used it to updating text and not pics.
5 pm update: I’ve used blogger mobile to update the text on this post:))