Category: The Remnant Warehouse

70s/80s tracksuit for day 13

~ velosews ~ 14 Comments

In the morning it’s a bit cooler in Sydney and I decided to use a really old pattern with a classic tracksuit pattern Simplicity 8887. Not sure if this pattern is a 70s or 80s pattern.

 If you add the braid edging you need 3m of the knitted braid trim for the jacket. I did without the braiding this time.

The green fleece remnant used here was a Spotlight $2 piece but there wasn’t enough for the sleeves. I had leftover fabric from a jumper kwik sew 1997 I made a couple of years ago. There’s still enough of the stripe fabric to make another hoodie.

I wanted kangaroo pockets so I drafted these up from scratch.

The open-ended zipper was a 3 for $1 zipper bought at The Remnant Warehouse.

Here’s how I wore this jacket in the morning to the gym in a pic taken by Bill, a die-hard workout mate who also wears a heart rate monitor. This jacket is going to get a real workout.

After work we went to a bike class. Mr V wore his Me-made Avocado hoodie. A nice Mum going to the gym took this pic for us.

I did manage to take a pic of what I wore to work before going to the gym. Kwik Sew 3378 top and Butterick 3597 skirt.

As soon as the weekend hits, I’ll do some decent photos of Fifth Avenue because it’s finished – flounce and all. I only had to finish the flounce but so many things have popped up since then.

Spotted by Rebecca

~ velosews ~ 7 Comments

Wandering into Metro Fabrics to contemplate making lingerie, Rebecca looked at me and said “I know you”. And she does – through these posts. Then it felt like I was meeting up with a long lost friend. She’s been very succesful in making bras through the bra sewalong via Amy’s Cloth Habit posts.

Notions available at Metro Fabrics

Ok. So our mutual excitment didn’t lead to an obligatory pic, but it did lead to some bra-making enabling and we then headed to The Remnant Warehouse so Rebecca met Anne, Rhona, Renata, Sharon and the rest of the Alexandria ASG sewers.

Notions at Metro Fabrics

So when Rebecca asked, where do you get a separating zip that’s long enough for a Minoru jacket, I took her the dance part of The Remnant Warehouse and we trekked through the dance fabrics, bolts of stretch fabrics, amazing notions and lastly into the room with the buckets of zippers and bolts of linings. I have to sit down.

Notions at Metro Fabrics

I didn’t take pics of the fabric at Metro Fabrics, just some of the lingerie notions for those of you want to find them in Sydney. This is just some of their stock. Go there with a project in mind or else you’ll have sensory overload with what Metro Fabrics has in stock. The owner said he used to supply to Berlie and he still supplies to Booby traps.

I’m not quiet ready to delve into making bras just yet…but soon.

Looking forward to meeting more sewers next week at Tessuti’s. The details are on Little Betty Sews blog.

Pattern magic start

~ velosews ~ 15 Comments

I’ve been admiring the Pattern Magic work that Melissa and Carolyn have been succeeding with for a while.This year I bought all 3 Pattern Magic books and they’re all in English but I have a habit of not reading the drafting instructions too closely. And since I started dabbling with the first book I found the Flickr group and Tracy of ‘the material girls’ work. Yippee!

What I didn’t realise was that once I showed Renata the first Pattern Magic book, she bought a copy too. So was spent a Saturday at The Remnant Warehouse drafting as best we could.

Below are the 3 drafts I attempted so far.

Pattern Magic page 60:
I tried my hand at the collar with two distinct expressions first. It looked simple but a casual observer noticed that the top collar is slimmer than the bottom collar. A head slap moment ensued. I’ve used Connie Crawford’s blouse (Butterick 5538) for this collar because I had used this pattern at a workshop recently.  

Marked cutting points on both sides of the collar.
It was later pointed out to me the top collar is skinnier that the bottom collar.
The collar pieces have been cut and is ready to be spread to size.


This was the first version so you can see what the resulting pattern piece is like.
I was lucky enough to play with a fabric toile version and I made a few more tweaks at the time.

The top collar now has a squared collar point and the top collar is much skinnier than the bottom collar with the help of Angie Zimmerman. Angie was fascinated with Pattern Magic because she has been sewing for others and teaching sewing for a long time and the designs in the book inspired her creativeness too.

Here’s a close up of the collar in the finished toile. The front and back yokes are fake. This is where I took out some room below the shoulders on the front and back bodice pieces. I forgot to take the same amount out of the sleeve head, hence the gathers at the top of the sleeve. Voila, design feature:) The buttons were from my stash. After the bust cup adjustment workshop and the inclusion of the Pattern Magic collar my view is the blouse is baggy but comfortable.

The white eyelet blouse below uses the intented fabric. After many years of wearing close fitted knit tops and jackets I think this blouse pattern could be closer fitting using a stretch woven and with a centre front zipper. I think I’ll look at Pattern Magic for a new sleeve style too. What do you think? 
When I make this collar again I’ll interface all the collar pieces so the top piece stands up. I love this feature so my view is this Pattern Magic collar was worth trying.
PS: When I wore the green shirt to the Sydney sewer meet up, the cuff detailing hadn’t been added. I ran out of time to finish this bit of sewing but sewed on the cuffs, buttons, buttonholes the very next day🙂
The green blouse and eyelet blouse reviews are on Pattern Review.

Pattern Magic page 13:

Then I tried my hand at the Deppari shirt but I used the princess line shirt and did the Deppari detailing on the Front Side piece only.
 
I’m a B size on a good day so the detailing is not as pronounced but may turn out to be a good laugh. I’ve used Connie Crawford’s blouse pattern for this feature. I’m ready to test this out in the New Year.

Pattern Magic page 57: Then I had a go at the Bamboo shoot pattern. This was fun. I enjoyed analysing the design lines, when to start cutting and then “what do I do now” set in. I’ve used the Peony bodice for this trial.

This is the front piece showing the cutting lines. I numbered them to keep tracke of where I was working.
This shows the spread of the cuts.

The piece is now on a paper to draw the final front pattern with the folds marked and numbered.
Now to test this work…
This kinda worked. I did this test piece with Angie Zimmerman.

On closer inspection, the top right  fold was missing.

Here’s the inside stitching. This needs a bit more work. So I now have another draft to test in the New Year.

Missoni like – V8724

~ velosews ~ 18 Comments

At the hen’s night I was waiting in line at the ladies, there was a girl wearing a missoni knit dress. I complimented her on it and she was floored and appreciated the compliment. So I’ve used this pattern with the Missoni like fabric to come up with this simple knit dress. I bought this fabric at The Remnant Warehouse.


Simple is misleading. The toile top that I cut out in January and only finished it this week as a post-gold dress project was how I refined the fit of this dress.


This green version shows the design lines better. The reason I’ve also made this version is to show the princess lines on the back. This is a cool feature for those of us with a sway back. This green knit was again from the $20 garbage bag of remnants from Pitt Trading.

My adjustments were:
1/ Lowered the bodice piece by 2.5 cm so that it sits under my bust. I’ve followed this adjustment through to the back pieces so the waist detailing follows from front to back.
2/ Roll shoulder adjustment. So the back shoulder seam is 2 cm higher at the sleeve seam. The front shoulder seam is 2cm lower at the sleeve seam.
3/ Shortened the hem to above the knee.
4/ Pinched out 2 cm from the front neckline so that the neckline doesn’t gape open.

I’ve used all 3 machines on the Missoni version. The sewing machine for the darts, bodice to skirt seam and side seams. The overlocker was used for the back seams. The coverpro was used for the neckline, dress and sleeve hems.

Now that I’ve finished this UFO, I can concentrate on gearing up to make a formal trench and the gold coat with some trench detailing. I suspect that some of you are in the midst of developing a coat because we have a few sew-alongs happening. More about this next post.
Many thanks to two bloggers I follow. Firstly to Rhonda Buss on Rhonda’s Creative Life  for featuring my sewing on her blog this week. My little Macaron was also featured in a Macaron parade on Rhinestones and telephones by Sarah Gilbert. There are a lot of great Macarons out there. Have a look at the Flickr group. I love sewing amongst so many wonderful sewer across the world.
Thank you to all of you who commented on my gold dress. I appreciate the time you’ve taken to have a look and comment. I did think about glueing and zigzagging the lace on at one stage. I really did:)

Plaid puzzle+MMM12 day 5

~ velosews ~ 5 Comments

This new pair of DH’s pjs pants was made using Simplicity 2503. He suited the medium size better than I did.

The fly front is a copy of a Peter Alexander pair he has.
The fly front button opening is covered so you can’t see the buttonhole and button when worn.

I did have a lovely blue and white silky ribbon to use for the waist cord but I decided (with DH’s approval) to use a plainer waistband cord. He was stoked with this choice.

I cut each leg piece separately so I could get the stripes to match. The pocket on the other hand matches across the body only, as you can plainly see.
The seams are overlocked and the hems have a Coverpro 3-thread finish.
DH is again a happy customer.

And here are today’s MMM’12 pics.
Today a few of us were at the Alexandria ASG sewing session so Sharon and I did a joint MMM’12 photo shoot, courtesy of Alison.

The top is made from the left over fabric from the 5-piece column dress that I made last week in green. I have completed blue/black stripe version made of this fabric.
The jeans are Jalie 2908 made from fabric I bought at The Remnant Warehouse 2 years ago (3m for $5). Nicole who works at the store, remembered this fabric when she saw what I was wearing. 

Make sure you duck over to Sharon’s page to check out her MMM’12 outfits.
So we meet here the first Saturday each month and these sessions are the ones I most look forward to because after sewing on my own, we have ongoing round-table discussions about ‘serious’ sewing issues all day.  

Owen (on the left) who works here has a wonderful habit of bringing a bolt of fabric to tempt the weaker ones in our group to buy fabric. There’s not much you can do in these situations. By the way, Alison (on the right) is also wearing a Made-Me-May top today and the fabric was purchased from Pitt Trading (is that right Alison?).