Skirt

Hello again. So, it’s March but this week has been the coldest and snowiest I have ever experienced here in the UK (though today it started to warm up again). OK, for German standards this is not a lot of snow but over here it brought everything to a standstill. Which was fine with me, I enjoyed a couple of quiet days working from home, watching the snow fall. And while my sewing plans are already anticipating spring, I still have a backlog of garments I sewed up this winter and did not yet blog. Instead of writing individual posts I decided to throw them all together into a final winter outfit: a skirt (sewn up for Christmas), two turtlenecks, my winter coat (blogged here) and a self-knit hat.

Just a quick note about the hat (I know you are here for the sewing). This was my first knitting projects in ages (probably 5 years) but over the Christmas break I wanted to have a project that I could pick up easily, so I decided to brush up on my knitting skills. I used the free Pome Hat pattern from Ravelry which I adjusted to add a turn-up. It’s actually a really lovely pattern. While it took me a little while to familiarise myself with the English knitting abbreviations (not sure if I ever knitted in “English” before) the hat was knit up in a couple of days. I used this Landlust Merino wool which was nice to knit up (though I’m really not an expert on wool) and is not itchy at all to wear. I really love the style of the hat. Unfortunately it’s slightly too loose (I’m a very loose knitter) so it’s not as warm as I’d hoped. Still, it was a lovely project and I’m glad to know that I have not completely forgotten how to knit.

Let’s move on to the sewing. I have the feeling that this was the winter of the turtleneck. There are now so many indie patterns featuring this style that I feel like every last person in the sewing world has made one. I have always been a fan, it’s the perfect style for someone like me who is always cold and constantly wears a scarf. I have sewn some in the past (see here and here) but I decided I could really need some more in my wardrobe. The fabrics for these two I picked up at Sewbrum in Birmingham last autumn. The blush rib knit is from Barry’s Fabric (a clearance fabric, probably viscose) and the silver green one from Guthrie & Ghani (not available anymore but they have other lovely options).

For the pattern I decided to use the Papercut Rise Turtleneck. I have made the Fall version before, which has a really cool shape but the over-cut shoulders make it difficult to layer and I was looking for a more classic cut, so Rise it was. For the blush version I made a size S. The final top is quite slouchy and the neck collapses with wear. However, is is super comfortable in this drapey rib knit and I have worn it a lot over the last few months. As expected at that price (£2/metre), the quality of the fabric is not the best and it is starting to look a little worn now. Still it’s one of the garments I reach for all the time.

For the green turtleneck I sized down by just using a larger seam allowance. It worked quite well, in particular the neck fits a lot better but I could probably size down even further. While I finished the hems with bands on the blush version, I decided to go the lazy route and leave the hems raw. On knits I am still struggling to get a nice hem, so a raw hem gives me a cleaner finish. As expected this fabric is a lot nicer quality and is holding up well so far. And the green is clearly more flattering on me than the blush which is very close to my skin tone. Still I love the other one more, I’m such a millennial!

Finally this skirt. I know what you are thinking. Did you strip a 70ies sofa to get that fabric? And I do have to agree it’s not my usual pattern and fabric choice. It’s a cotton stretch mole skin from this ebay shop here where I also got the fabric for my coat. It was super cheap and this pattern is basically a collection of all my favourite colours so it ended up in my cart. I knew it had to become a mini skirt (anything else would have been too much in that print). Realising that the new turtlenecks would go well with it, gave me the final push to actually sew it up. The shape of the pattern is loosely based on a BurdaStyle skirt (not sure anymore which one, I should file my patterns better!) and then I just played around with the darts to get the right fit. To give the fabric more body I underlined it with a sturdy polyester satin. I did not have a suitable invisible zip in my stash so I decided to use a normal one and hand-pick it for a cleaner look. The waist is finished with a gold bias binding. Originally i was planning to fold it to the inside but then Christmas was coming up and I felt it could use a little sparkle. So I left it and added a hook and eye above the zip. The hem is finished by hand.

This is quite a fun skirt to wear. The simple shape works well with the bold print and for a mini skirt it is long enough so that I can even wear it to work. I might have to make more of these, looking at my wardrobe there is clearly a lack of skirts.

So that’s it, a summary of my winter sewing. Now I really am ready for spring. I’m already dreaming up a flowy summer wardrobe in whites and blues, preferably in linen. Am I too optimistic if I start sewing now?

And here a picture with me and my new friend the snow man, looking a little sad with the rising temperatures.

Let me tell you the story of THE dress…

My now husband and I got engaged in autumn last year and had a lovely private wedding (just the two of us and two witnesses that we borrowed from the hotel we were staying at) in beautiful Cornwall last week.

Like for many sewists, the question was to sew or not to sew my wedding dress. I was never sure if I wanted to sew my own dress. I thought it might be too much pressure to sew a wedding dress, which everyone will closely look at and which has to withstand a whole day of wedding activities. With everything else there is to organise for a wedding it might just be too much?Then however, we decided that we wanted to get married just the two of us, and since there was barely anything else we had to organise, I had plenty of time to sew a dress.

In terms of inspiration for the dress, I did my share of Pinterest browsing and wedding magazine reading. In the end though it came together quite organically without a concrete plan.

I knew that I didn’t want a wedding dress that I could only wear once and then would gather dust in a closet. I thought about doing a simple style dress and then dying it afterwards. I quickly realised though that I wanted to do separates, which I could wear individually and easily incorporate into my wardrobe.

Before settling on any patterns, I first went to buy some fabric. I find it easier to let the fabric inspire me rather than trying to find a fabric that matches my vision. While I didn’t think it was necessary to wear white at a wedding, I did decide to go with white, because I wanted to work with lace, and pretty lace is a lot easier to find in white than in colours. So off we went to Goldhawk Road on my birthday. I knew I wanted to work with nice quality fabrics. In the end I got some sand-washed silk, some dupion silk and some 3D floral lace. I had already ordered some lace swatches from a bridal fabric shop before our shopping trip and while they were gorgeous, they felt a little bit too fancy and formal. So when I came across this simple floral lace, I was immediately sold. All fabrics were in slightly different shades of natural white. I didn’t try to match the colours exactly to allow the dress a little bit of dimension.

The first element of the ensemble that I decided on was the slip dress in sand-washed silk. I had wanted to make a silk slip for ages to wear under some unlined dresses. For the pattern I used the Tessuti Sadie Slip Dress. It’s a simple bias-cut dress with a nice v neckline. I made a toile in some polyester lining in size S, graded out to an M at the hips. Overall it fit well, I only had some fabric pooling at the lower back. I tried to find out if there was such a thing as a sway back adjustment for bias cut dresses, but the only way I could remove the access was with darts (which the Sadie Dress pattern includes). As I knew that I would wear it under a skirt, I decided to leave them off and embrace the blousiness. I then moved on to my sandwashed silk. To make sure to not distort the fabric while cutting I used some spray starch to turn it less shifty. This worked reasonably well but was still quite a pain to cut out. To assemble it I used french seams. The neckline is finished with a facing which I cut with the pinking blade of my rotary cutter to avoid any hems showing through at the right side. Instead of the suggested spaghetti straps, I made slightly wider and less fiddly straps. Then I let it hang for some days before hemming it. To do this fabric justice, I did a hand-rolled hem for the first time and I must say it’s utterly satisfying. This might be my new favourite hand-sewing technique!

Next I had to decide on a skirt. I was contemplating different pleating and gathering versions, but in the end I realised that I wanted to keep the volume at the waist to a minimum. So the obvious choice was a half circle skirt. Funnily enough this was my first circle skirt ever. Luckily I found By Hand London’s Circle Skirt Calculator, which made it super easy. I finished the waistband with a white grosgrain ribbon which I stitched down by hand. The skirt is closed with an invisible zipper and hooks and eyes at the lapped waistband. Again I let the skirt hang for several days before levelling it. Originally I wanted to finish the hem with some gold bias binding to add a little sparkle. Half way through attaching it though I realised that the bias binding was too stiff and removed it again. To preserve as much length as possible I just serged the hem and folded it up once to attach it with invisible hand stitches.

Once I had the base of the dress, I had to decide on the lace top. To figure out what would work best I played around with the skirt toile and some top ideas to figure out how the shapes would work together. In the end I went with a dart-less loose crop top with a boatneck and bracelet-length sleeves. The bodice is based on a top I had in my closet and after trying some different sleeves, I settled on the sleeves from Lotta Jansdotter’s Esme Top from her Everyday Style Book which I shortened to the right length. This lace has a lovely scalloped border which I used for the hem of the bodice and the sleeves. The seams are all french seams, for which I removed some of the appliques to make sure the french seams wouldn’t be too bulky. The trickiest part of the top was definitely the neckline. Originally I wanted to finish it with some bias tape cut from the sand-washed silk scraps but somehow it didn’t look right. So I decided to mimic the scalloped hem by sewing a dense zigzag stitch around the neckline. To stabilise the fabric I used tissue paper. It still turned out a little wonky but some hand sewing and some appliqued flowers fixed it.

I have to say I thoroughly enjoyed the process of sewing this dress. It helped that I was working with simple shapes and not too complicated techniques. In the end a lot of hand sewing went into this dress, but I really liked that (it gave me the perfect excuse to watch Project Runway). Overall I probably spent 5 days working on this dress (including the toiling) which in hindsight seems quite short for a wedding dress. Then again I didn’t sew a princess dress like some others do.

The final dress was perfect for the occasion. It was fancy enough to say wedding dress but simple and practical enough for our low-key celebration. The fabrics were a joy to wear and the skirt was perfectly swishy. I love how the silk skirt looks different in each picture depending on where the wind came from (and wind there is plenty in Cornwall).

Here some of the details:

Fabrics: Sand-washed Silk (UK Textiles), Dupion silk (Goldbrick Fabrics), Lace (Classic textiles); all Goldhawk road; estimated costs £130
Haberdashery: Silk thread, zipper, hook and eyes, grosgrain ribbon; all Minerva Crafts, estimated cost £15
Shoes: Clarks
Dried Flowers: English Flower Farmer –> highly recommend them, they have gorgeous flowers and perfect service
Engagement and wedding ring: Goodman Morris

In the end we decided to take our own wedding pictures. My pictures were all taken by my lovely husband (who had lots of practice thanks to this blog). The couple pictures were taken with a tripod and self timer. I love how they turned out, this gorgeous yellow colour was everywhere in Cornwall and turned out to be the perfect back-drop.

Oh, and we had our own fluffy white wedding cat who wanted to be in all the pictures. So here is a picture of a cat. You’re welcome!