Category: quick sewing

Quick slip of desperation

~ velosews ~ Leave a comment

Last week I decided to wear my purple/grey knit dress (McCall 8557) to work. I’d made the dress from fabric I bought in Melbourne in March and the weather was right – not too hot and definitely not freezing. I had the shoes to match. Because I wore the dress to work, I wore stockings.

The problem was static cling (no picture required here) with my stockings. I felt like a cling wrap piece of chicken. In desperation, I found a stash of tricot knit that I bought at a factory clearance, measured my widest hip measurement (derriere) and cut the fabric so it was above the knee.

I grabbed some basic skinny white elastic and zigzagged it onto the waistline.

On the weekend I added this lace and it’s kind of ruffled, when not stretched. I’ll keep my eye out for some stretch boned coloured elastic and make a second ‘quick slip’ with a bit more time and skill.
I’ve since been told there are products to stop static cling (‘chicken cling wrap), as well as rubbing moisturiser over your legs when you wear stockings.

McCalls 8557 – tunic to dress

~ velosews ~ 1 Comment

Being short is always a design challenge. This season there are some great prints out there and I just love them when the fabric quality is also available.

We (the girls) recently went on a fabric shopping trip to Melbourne and we had a jam-packed three and a half days of scouring the fabric stores in and around the CBD. With so much great quality fabric, how could a girl resist.

The challenge now is to create these fabric into this season’s wardrobe because there’s always nothing to wear…

This pattern has a dress, tunic top and pants pattern and it’s now out of print. The pattern is an early overlocker/serger sized pattern that I’ve made up in a grey jersey sans spandex.

This pattern has both centre back and centre front seams.
This feature makes the pattern easy to fit for instance, I have a sway back so this was easy to fit.I will use an all-in-one facing at the neck opening because it’s a bit tricky for young players. I increased the hip width and straightened the hem width so it wouldn’t add too much bulk around my hips and thighs. I took the fullness out of the sleeve so that pattern wouldn’t engulf me.I did a rolled shoulder adjustment so the collar would sit nicely.

I will sew this again as it’s very similar to Leona Edmiston’s latest dress design.

This fabric is from The Cloth Shop and it’s great to wear. Just ask them for a piece.

Fabric stash catch up items

~ velosews ~ Leave a comment

I’ve finally had a chance to go back to the garments I made during the fabric stash competition. The patterns I’ve used were ones that I’ve made before so this was the best way to make the fabric into clothing during the eight week period.

I adjusted this twist top by raising the neckline by 3 cm. It now sits better on my chest so I feel more comfortable wearing it. And I feel less embarrassed when I reach forward…


I enjoy this a-line dress and the fabric is a piece I bought at the first Akira fabric sale, a long time ago. The fabric is made with a crushed look so fitting isn’t a really issue, so it’s reliable to make up, when you have limited time.


This is a favourite and I made it up at a Sewing guild session on sewing with knit fabrics. The class was on during the fabric stash competition so while a learn a bit on the day, I was able to make this up within two hours, give or take a few minutes as I unpicked the gold trim because it had very little elastic in it 😦

Kimono belt

~ velosews ~ Leave a comment

This outfit now has its own kimono style belt. With a bit of research I’ve grabbed some fabric from the stash and created a waist. I’ve handsewn the facing so now you can see the v-neckline.

Project runway for Christmas – McCalls 9356 and Butterick 3386.

~ velosews ~ 2 Comments

Every year, I try to make something that fits the Christmas party theme for my husband’s work do. This year is the last year at his current workplace because he’s moving on next March. The party is on Saturday night and it’s always a big event.
This year’s theme is oriental and as much as I would like to have worn a fitted slim-line dress, I have too many curves to ‘make it work.’ So I chose a two-piece outfit in a non-traditional colour. I’ve made the top and skirt before so the main challenge was sewing this up fast enough before the fabric frayed away. It’s rayon and I bought it from my favourite place, Pitt Trading at San Souci on Thusday night for $10/metre.
My plan was to sew this yesterday but life got in the way – shopping, buying zippers and then last minute family requests just stole my day. I cut the skirt right front the wrong way so I also drove back to Pitt Trading and bought another metre. By the time I got to sit down it was 9pm, so Saturday came and went quickly.
This morning I woke up and went for a 30km bike ride to get rid of my excess energy and after breakfast I got into it. So what you see is a very overlocked outfit sewn today. I’ll play with it during the week just to get the fit right. The last time I made this skirt up was five years ago and I took some bulk out of the tummy area. I didn’t use the extra metre so I might try another top, just for fun.

Whipped up easily

~ velosews ~ 2 Comments

Some fold-over elastic, a bit of visoflex and extending a knit top pattern made this dress quick and easy to whip up this weekend. There were some ruching features that I would have added if the pattern was less prominent, but I’ll do that next time.

I tried this on without the fold-over elastic and the neckline was fairly open, so the elastic makes this a more wearable dress for me while drawing your eye to the neckline for design reasons and not due to a plunging neckline. I’ll keep that for another day…

var gaJsHost = ((“https:” == document.location.protocol) ? “https://ssl.” : “http://www.”);
document.write(unescape(“%3Cscript src='” + gaJsHost + “google-analytics.com/ga.js’ type=’text/javascript’%3E%3C/script%3E”));

try {
var pageTracker = _gat._getTracker(“UA-7221807-1”);
pageTracker._trackPageview();
} catch(err) {}