And so another year...goodbye 2019

Another year has whizzed by and I find myself looking back on a pretty meagre sewing year, averaging just over a garment per month. If the surprise from last year's review was how many finished garments there were then this year's is how few. I knew there hadn't been much sewing in 2019, with long dry spells of no sewing, but only seventeen finished projects is pretty slim pickings from which to write a review. Certainly not enough to do a top five series, especially when it takes a couple of weeks to write this single post.

The classes

Two in-person embroidery classes were taken at Nancys Stitch Studio in Wellington. The classes were hugely enjoyable, taken by a very experienced and talented embroiderer AnneMarie Moorhead.

The first class was Fred the Frog a lovely taster of goldwork techniques, on the left is the class sample and the right my unfinished piece. My piece will end up considerably smaller than the class sample as I want to mount it as a brooch. The girlfriend who did the class with me and I have a pact to finish our pieces by Easter 2020. This is entirely achievable with a few hours of stitching a week. Maybe I should take up watching television so that I could sew in front of it.

The second class was to make a hussif, which is essentially a long strip of fabric used to store basic sewing tools. These small sewing cases were given to soldiers as their housewife and are typical artifacts from the WW1 era. The hussifs we were making with AnneMarie are highly decorated whilst still being a practical item for storing sewing tools and small projects. Mine hasn't progressed far enough for pictures.

The third class of 2019 is Peggy Sagers of Silhouette Patterns on-line Pants Fitting 101 class. I was a bit wary about taking this on-line course having already fitted a pants muslin in person with Peggy in 2018. This class was brilliant. It started back in September and you can watch it as often as you want for four months. This cemented into my mind the principles I learnt in 2018 but also produced a few moments of enlightenment. I know I'm a Peggy fan girl but I can't recommend this class enough. Hopefully you will see the fruits of my enlightenment with a pair of well fitting trousers on this blog soon.

The purchases

Despite the meagre sewing output the fabric and pattern input was substantial and so the collection grew.

In 2019 I purchased sixteen second-hand patterns and twenty-four new Vogue patterns. I don't keep track of my independent pattern purchases so these thirty patterns are nowhere near my final total for the year. The one different thing about my pattern purchases this year is that I bought two Jalie patterns for men and the Japanese pattern book Men's clothes For All Seasons. I have good intentions of sewing for others in 2020.

As well as purchasing fabric from both The Fabric Store and Fabric Vision here in New Zealand I discovered a new localish source of fabric and patterns in 2019 Miss Maude Sewing. My favourite overseas fabric sources continue to be Silhouette Patterns; Marcy Tilton Fabrics; Cutting Line Designs; The Sewing Workshop and Stonemountain and Daughter Fabrics. There are those who record how much fabric entered the building and how much left. This may be a good approach to horrify me into abstinence.

The sewing pattern purchases in particular required a bit of a rethink of my storage solutions and KonMariing the stash.

The organising

I accumulated many fabrics for the black, white and red Minnie Mouse wardrobe which was the focus of my sewing at the beginning of the year and features on the top row left and right as well as the bottom row left. The middle of the top row is evidence that my new rattan trunk was extremely useful for coat fabrics (I have another one which is still empty for more of the coat fabrics). Bottom right is a small sample of my Liberty of London fabrics, with the centre being fabrics I gathered together for other wardrobe plans that never eventuated.

The middle row shows my new pattern storage. This has worked extremely well and I love having my patterns organised and more accessible. It didn't encourage sewing but I did flick through them and think about possibilities.

The sewing

The Minnie Mouse wardrobe was not quite as extensive as first envisioned. However nearly half of my sewing fitted the black, white and red theme.  Clockwise from top left is TSW Ann's Red Letter Ensemble (tank and cardigan); Minnie Mouse jeans; Papercut Fjord Elongated Red Cardi; Ulysses Horizontal Hold Trench and The Sewing Workshop Era Floral Faux Fur Coat.

Ann's tank and cardigan by The Sewing Workshop are both too long because I lengthened the pattern. The cardigan is wearable but the tank bothers me. I have some ideas for shortening it without taking it apart. If that is successful it will stay in my wardrobe otherwise it is destined for the charity bag.

The Fjord cardi is still as scratchy as when I made it. Whilst still occupying space in the wardrobe it isn't worn and should really be exited.

With the jury still out on the floral faux fur coat only two of this montage of Minnie Mouse garments are a success - the jeans and the trench coat. Love them both and wear them often.

Then there is the forgotten dress which may be loved and worn but the black and white stripe Silhouette Patterns #4000 Swing Dress does not feature in a blog post and there are no pictures of it being worn. It too fits into the Minnie Mouse Wardrobe theme, so I was relatively consistent in following my wardrobe plan even if some of the finished items didn't feature in the original plan.

And the DKNY leggings. My self-drafted leggings pattern produced two new well loved pairs, the DKNY ITY knit on the left and right Double Diamond ITY knit. An ITY knit is a favourite for leggings and both these fabrics came from Silhouette Patterns.

The tunic with the leggings on the left started off as Silhouette Patterns #4000 Swing Dress which looked terrible so was cut down to tunic length worn once and left the wardrobe. The black stripe down the middle looks good in the photo but horrible on me in real life. So horrible in fact that there is no photographic evidence!

Two pairs of trousers that filled a wardrobe gap. Left are the Papercut Patterns Peter and the Wolf Coloured Mote jeans and on the right are the Silhouette Patterns Lana's Wildwood jeans. Both of these pairs of trousers are loved and worn. The fit isn't perfect but is suitable for appearances in public places. In 2020 I want to refine my trouser fitting skills using the knowledge gained from Peggy and develop well fitting trousers in the current more flared style.

Dresses are my biggest success story of 2019 having made five of them, using a variety of patterns both old and new, mainly from independent pattern designers (only one dress is made from an OOP Vogue pattern). Clockwise from top left is Vogue 9243 Twirling Rebecca Taylor Dress; Style Arc Toni Mike Designer dress; Style Arc Gertrude House of Gifts Christmas Dress; Kobayashi Squiggle Squares TNT Midi Dress and in the middle the Style Arc Rosie Alice top.

With the exception of the Christmas dress which hasn't been made long enough for a final verdict all of these garments were a success. My favourites are the Kobayashi dress and Vogue 9243 twirling dress.

The top was a bit of a wildcard, meant to go with my Wildwood jeans. The two don't go together at all but the top is great with other trousers. Given the substantial alterations it would be more apt to describe it as a top loosely based on the Style Arc Rosie pattern.

Sewing out and about

Only two trips away involved taking my sewing machine this year, our Easter break in Ahipara and our December weekend away in Te Miko. My Singer Featherweight seems to enjoy tripping around New Zealand and it is great to have the opportunity to sew when the weather is inclement.

Top row left and centre at Ahipara, Northland; and right at Te Miko, West Coast.

The Easter trip to Ahipara saw me finish sewing Ann's tank and cardigan, as well as start a new pair of Silhouette Patterns #3300 Lana's Jeans in deep red linen metallic blend, which remain unfinished (bottom left).

2019 reflections

More time was spent thinking about sewing this year than actually doing it and in many respects I am fine with that. My wardrobe is well stocked and I get pleasure from the clothes I have. The sticking point is what causes the lack of creativity. I give so much of my mental energy to work that I don't have enough in reserve to want to spend the weekend using more of it to pursue my creativity. Yet the route to growth is through practice. If I want my creativity to flourish those skills need more use. I also need to use a lot more fabric or curb my purchasing before the house is completely overrun.

Surprisingly I have enjoyed the tidying not so much the activity itself but the end satisfaction of seeing a mountain of fabric neatly ordered. It is much easier to see what is in the boxes, to select fabrics for a project or just stroke and imagine.

Goals for 2020

From a word perspective I am still working on balance and I wonder if this should be a theme for life rather than just twelve months. I am strangely reluctant to abandon this word for another when I haven't achieved a successful balance in either of the past two years.

On the sewing front there have been a few occasions where I have developed the plan for a sew-along but not done the sewing. One of my goals for 2020 is to not only develop the plan but do the sewing and post my entry. I am very tempted by the Stitchers Guild Reloaded 2019 Sewing with a Plan. I have an inspiration photo and a collection of possible fabrics. The rules this year are very permissible and in theory it is entirely feasible to make 10 garments by the end of April. Making could start on 26 December when I had ten days of Christmas holiday remaining yet I have sewn nothing which rather puts completion in doubt. The wheels are still turning on this idea. For it to have any possibility of success I would need to develop a schedule of what gets sewn when and stick to it. And so the light of inspiration is snuffed out or maybe not...

The Sunset SWAP

If I do rouse myself to participate in the Stitchers Guild SWAP I have the ideal project for something I have never done before. I dug out the pattern for The Smaller Dress by Julian Roberts which is a free pattern available on the Centre for Pattern Design website. This is a subtraction cut dress and the lines of the finished garment look avant garde but wearable. Will be interesting to see how mine turns out.

Style Arc Gertrude House of Gifts Christmas Dress

For a change this was a fast moving fabric and pattern (fast fashion?) with no stash maturation. The fabric was ordered on 29 November, received on 7 December, cut up on 12 December with sewing starting on 15 December. The pattern was purchased on 17 November. Almost unheard of in my sewing life for two recent purchases to come together so quickly.

The finished garment

I'm not sure how long after Christmas you can wear your Christmas dress. As you can see from me posing in the sunshine by the grapevine on 27 December I was a bit ambivalent, wearing it with my Camper sneakers rather than my red shoes.

Can you wear a dress covered in baubles and presents past Twelfth Night? Does wearing it past 5 January cause bad luck like leaving your Christmas decorations up? Although there is also a superstition that Christmas decorations not taken down by Twelfth Night should be left up until Candlemas Day (2nd February) and then taken down. Don't think I'll be wearing this dress over the next month it is now safely ensconced in the wardrobe until December. Tidied away like the Christmas decorations.

There was a thread on Pattern Review about sewing old patterns and did that make you look frumpy. So here I am in a new Style Arc pattern feeling frumpy. The big contributor to the frumpiness is the cardigan, completely the wrong length for this dress but good from a colour perspective. Or maybe its the too high neckline or the flat sneakers. Whatever it is this picture does not have me feeling my best.

The fabric

A pre-Christmas impulse purchase from Liberty of London (I succumbed to their marketing email). The fabric was washed as soon as it arrived and cut out soon after to make the Gertrude Designer dress. The stash came into play for the lining fabric which is a plain black cotton voile.

Liberty of London House of Gifts navy tana lawn

The pattern

The Gertrude Designer dress is described by Style Arc as a designer dress featuring a fitted bodice, dropped shoulder line, tucked sleeves, inverted pleats and a back zip. The reverse inverted pleats give this designer dress its unique shape. This dress has a fitted bodice along with a dropped shoulder. The shape of the engineered sleeve is created by the under-sleeve tucks. The essential side pockets and mid-calf length give this dress its designer feel.

Suggested fabrics are washed linen, crepe, silk and rayon, so similar to the tana lawn I chose to use.

The pattern alterations

Amazingly no pattern alterations were made to this dress. Based on the finished pattern measurements I cut a straight size 12 (I did check the sizing by comparing to my TNT dress pattern). No forward shoulder or sway back. The only change I had to make when cutting out the dress was to shorten it to knee length because I didn't have enough fabric for anything longer. I also omitted the back zipper.

As this is a limited wear dress being made from a Christmas print I did wonder about just doing plain short sleeves without the tuck detail but decided in the end to just go with the pattern flow.

If I make this dress again there will be alterations, at the minimum: a sway back adjustment; shortened sleeves and lowered neckline.

The sewing

This was certainly not a quick sew for me partly because I used french seams and lined it but the pattern itself has a number of details that take time.

There are a number of steps to construct each of the eight bodice pieces (two front outer fabric, two front lining, two back outer fabric, two back lining).
Step one: sew the bodice princess seams together including the inverted pleats at the skirt end. Press the seam open and the pleats flat.
Step two: sew the centre front and centre back seams (two of each). I used French seams on these four seams.
Step three: add the two raglan sleeve pieces to each of the front and back sections. Press the seams open.
Step four: sew the shoulders of the dress and of the lining together. Press the seams open.
Step five: Attach the lining and dress together at the neckline. Trim the neckline seam and under-stitch.
Step six: For the side seams I used French seams and treated the dress and lining as one but made the sewing more complicated by keeping the pockets.

So what about the pockets. I puzzled this a great deal in one of my early morning awake sessions, trying to work out how I could have a pocket in a French seam. I tried to take pictures as I went along but of course when deep into sewing you forget all about pictures.

Step one: sew the pocket bags around the edge wrong sides together leaving a small area unsewn at each end by the side seam edge.
Step two: sew each side of the pocket bag to its corresponding dress side seam wrong sides together. Sew the dress side seam (wrong sides together) up to the pocket bag in two steps - hem to pocket bag, underarm to pocket bag.
Step three: press the first part of the French seam towards the pocket bag.
Step four: sew each side of the pocket bag to its corresponding dress side seam right sides together. This is where you need the small unsewn area of the pocket bag so you can separate the two halves of the pocket bag to sew them to the corresponding side seam. Press the finished French seam of the pocket bag towards the pocket bag.
Step five (no picture): Sew the dress side seam's second part of the French seam. This is sewn how you would conventionally sew the side seam with pocket bag in one continuous length - hem to pocket bag, around the pocket bag, pocket bag to underarm.
Step six (no picture): press the French seam towards centre front in order for your pocket bag to be facing the right direction.

Update 7 February 2020: In early January the Bernina blog (We all Sew) wrote a post which has a different approach to sewing pockets in French seams which can be found here.

The sleeves because of the tuck detail consist of an under and upper sleeve. The tucks were sewn into the under sleeve, the shoulder dart sewn in the upper sleeve and both pressed. The under and upper sleeve were sewn together with French seams and a narrow hem was machine stitched. Once the dress side seams were sewn the unlined two piece sleeve could be inserted also using French seams, treating the dress body lining and outer fabric as one.

The final step was to hand sew a narrow hem. As I only had a limited amount of fabric (two metres) I had made the dress as long as possible but the only way I could have the hem end just below my knee cap was to have a 1" hem (⅜" for the first fold and ⅝" for the second).

After all that sewing the dress was finished on Boxing Day and has had minimal wear. Waiting for Christmas 2020 to shine!

There is much discussion about the quality of Style Arc directions. For me the Gertrude Designer Dress instructions were adequate clearly illustrating how to construct the princess seam tucks and the tucks in the under sleeve. This was pretty much the only time I referred to the pattern instructions, especially as I lined the dress and had to decide how I wanted to treat the lining and outer dress fabrics.

Outfit of the day

Here is the dress in action being Mrs Claus handing Christmas presents to my beloved (which he had to wait until Boxing Day for). I know pathetic but if you are going to the trouble of making a Christmas dress it has to have some purpose and he didn't seem to mind waiting the extra day (or twelve hours if we celebrated with our northern hemisphere family!). He also appreciated the pre-Christmas clean the house got which is what caused the sewing delay.

To be perfectly honest I felt more Christmassy dressed in my Twirling Rebecca Taylor dress with a red cropped top and United Nude Lev Wrap Lo red shoes than I did in my House of Gifts Christmas dress, even wearing the same red shoes.

Sewing out and about

The dress was started two Sunday's before Christmas whilst we were away on the West Coast. The Sunday afternoon was wet and miserable so whilst my beloved read his book I sewed at the little dining table.

After sewing the Christmas dress I gave the little Featherweight a Christmas treat with a good dust, oil and grease, plus I finally replaced her bed cushions (the little rubber feet).

The bed cushions are supposed to grip the sewing surface for vibration and noise absorption. Mine unsurprisingly given the age of the machine were hard and smooshed down.  To remove the old worn cushions I had to dig out the old rubber with a screwdriver. I got better at the digging out with each one I removed. The picture below left shows all four cushions removed and on the right shows the difference between two new ones (face up and face down) compared with the older cushions.