I don’t live all that far away from The Cloth Shop (or from a whole lot of other fabrics shops actually, which is sort of good and sort of bad) and like to just “pop in” every now and then to see what they have in stock.  I especially like the range of wool coatings that Kim has stocked this winter.  On a recent visit I spotted this one.

I also spotted a sample vest that looked very straightforward – all one piece! As it turned out it was based on the above pattern, Vogue 8559, which is out of print but fortunately already in my pattern stash. Kim explained how they had altered the pattern to use just one piece cut on the fold for the vest.

The only seams are the shoulder and back neck seams. Fantastic!  I lengthened the pattern piece considerably to use the full length of fabric that I had purchased – I think I bought around 80cm.  I also used the full 150cm width of the fabric, so really the pattern piece was used just for the shaping around the neck and armholes.

Unfortunately all my finished garment photos are foggy, so the colours are quite off, but you get the general idea. I used my machine to sew the back neck and shoulder seams, then pressing them flat and topstitching near the raw edge. I ran a line of straight stitching about 1/4 inch in from the raw edge of the armhole to give it some support and structure, and that was it. No other sewing. The fabric is a knit and I utilised the selvedges for the front edges, and the bottom hem was cut with a rotary cutter.  The neck/collar edge was turned once and topstitched.

This vest could easily be made to any length that you like, and fabric choice would definitely affect the final look. This wool knit is super cosy and warm, and it’s just like wrapping myself in a blanket. I love it. The fabric was a little off grain, but until I decide to gently wash it and straighten it I’m happy to wear it looking slightly asymmetric.

While I was at The Cloth Shop I ferreted around a little in the remnant bin (do you sense some definite themes in my shopping habits?) and found this jacquard knit. It coordinated beautifully with the vest fabric, and was very quickly purchased and sewn into yet another Vogue 9057 top. I’ll use the photos on Ada because the colour representation is more accurate.

I’ve sewn this pattern before (you can see my previous versions here, here and here) and once again I’m very pleased with the finished result. This time I chose to try a twisted neckband, as per instructions in The Artful T-shirt Craftsy class.

This is actually very easy to do. Sew the neckband into a loop. Fold it in half widthwise with the raw edges together, offsetting the the seamline about an inch. Then if you move around the raw edges, pinning as you go, the twists will form. Staystich to secure, then apply the neckband to the top as normal. You do need a decent width of neckband for this to look good in my opinion.

So, to the skirt. It’s based on the Style Arc Fay skirt pattern, and was sewn in jacquard textured knit scraps left over from another (as yet unblogged) project. It originally came from Rathdowne Fabrics. It is a fairly substantial knit, so rather than making a double-layered Fay skirt as per the pattern, I just cut a single layer to the hem length then just turned and stitched the bottom – I wore this skirt yesterday, and everything I wrote there isn’t true!  I did sew it as per the pattern as a double layer, self-lined skirt (albeit shortened by taking a fold through the pattern in order to fit it onto the available fabric).

The waist is a simple circle of elastic cut to my waist measurement minus a little bit, overlocked to the wrong side of the skirt waist then turned to the inside and zig-zagged to secure. This provides stretch, looks neat on both the inside and outside, and keeps bulk to a minimum.

I have been trying to sew in “outfits” lately, and am really pleased with these three pieces. They fit into my wardrobe very nicely, and I am enjoying the change in colour palette as well.

I originally sewed the Lekala two-seam skirt in my last blog post as a “wearable muslin” for a sequinned skirt to wear to the Dressmaker’s Do back in June.  In the end I only used the Lekela pattern as a vague guide.

Events like the Dressmaker’s Do and Frocktails are a great opportunity for me to try styles and fabrics that I wouldn’t otherwise get a chance to wear. Wedding invitations petered out years ago – I’m now more likely to be attending 50th birthday celebrations – and given the age of my children it’s going to be some time before invitations to formal events become more common again! Well, I’m sure that I’ll be sewing formal outfits for them, but not necessarily any for me.

This sequinned fabric had been sitting in my stash for some time. It is a remnant from Darn Cheap Fabrics, and is small sequins embroidered onto a stretch mesh. I used my Lekela skirt pattern as a base to get the width of the skirt pieces correct and provide me with some waistline shaping, then just cut longer rectangles. You may have noticed that the sequinned fabric is actually sheer. I decided to use a light beige lining to just above the knee underneath.

I was literally sprinting out the door to catch the last bus to the Dressmaker’s Do so only managed a couple of quick outfit snaps before discovering that I can actually run in these heels. So, back to the skirt. It’s essentially two rectangles with elastic in a casing formed between the sequinned fabric and the lining. I sewed the side seams with the overlocker, stopping somewhere around knee length on one side to allow for a walking split. The lining was sewn the same way, with the lining and outer fabric sewn right sides together at the top of the waistline then the fabrics flipped and a casing sewn with a zig-zag (leaving an opening to thread the elastic through). I hemmed the edges of the side split and the bottom of the skirt with a very narrow hem simply turned once and sewn with a narrow zig-zag. The skirt took about an hour to sew. Ridiculously easy. The sequins were small enough and placed far enough apart to not create any difficulties.

So, to the top. It is top I from the book Stylish Party Dresses by Yoshiko Tsukiori. Because it was from a Japanese sewing book I was forced to trace the pattern, but as there weren’t many pieces it wasn’t too onerous. I will need to pull out the pattern to check what size I traced, but I assume it was size Large.  The fabric is a poly crepe that was a remnant from Rathdowne Fabrics.  I really enjoy sewing with crepes – the weave gives such pleasing results.  This was a mid weight fabric so is rather substantial and has enough weight to fall in graceful folds. The colour changes a little depending on the light – I think that it is really a deep teal.

The front is a simple rounded neckline with a yoke and gathers just above the bust. The back V neckline stops just above my bra. Hooray! I added strap keepers to the inside shoulder seams to stop the top from showing my bra and to help keep it in place. I didn’t want to add the back tie as shown in the pattern book.

The sleeves are fairly wide, and in the pattern are simply hemmed. I decided that there was too much volume in the sleeves as they were as there was already plenty of volume in the hemline of the top, so threaded elastic through the sleeve hems to softly gather them in. I think that this worked well.

There were so many lovely outfits! All sorts of styles, all sorts of fabrics, and all sorts of colour! We had a wonderful evening – a delicious sit down meal, and plenty of opportunity to chat and chat and chat. Thanks so much to Nichola and Liesl for organising the night.