New Look 6843, Mini Skirt Hack

Yet another autumnal mini skirt using my heavily modified New Look 6843 patternm which features a slightly A-line cute, an inside facing band rather than a waistband, and is fully lined. 

I was on the hunt for the perfect autumn skirt fabric and I knew I'd found it with this. Upstairs in Abakhan Manchester I found this brown, almost felt-like fabric, which was half price!! The colour was perfect and with it being a bit felt-ier than other fabrics I have made skirts from it was already giving me winter-warmer vibes before I'd even laid the pattern pieces out. 

I was a little bit worried how heavy the fabric was would cause the skirt not to hang quite right, but I was already dreaming about matching it with a brown beret, and did I mention it was half price?! Already in my basket was a slightly textured plain black wool blend from downstairs, and the faun-flecked wool blend from my previous post. I knew all three would spice up my autumn wardrobe even more than a spooky-season Costa menu, and the wearability of a mini skirt in each fabric was high; suitable for work and play! So I felt no guilt in buying all three fabrics and the concealed zippers ot match. 

Knowing how much wear I would get out of these made me feel much less creative-guilt for deciding to make the same pattern a further three times (I already have two 🥲). 

Lining choices were a bit sparce in Abakhan that day, so I had to wait to sneak a trip into Hillsborough Fine Fabrics and get this, all linings were half price that day! Honestly this skirt was such a bargain make! 

In between securing the fabrics, I set-to cutting out the skirts in a kind of conveyour system, which I knew future me would be grateful for (who else hates sitting down to sew only to find, oh shit need to cut my interfacing😑). This was by far my most efficient cutting out and sewing together mission. I had piles of each pattern piece and sewed each step on each skirt before moving onto the next step. So you know that feeling you get after finsihing a garment (that fits super well!)?? Well I got that three-fold when I had finsihed sewing! 

This fabric was little harder to handle in places given the thicker nature of it. I used the overcast stitch on the normal sewing machine rather than overlocking as this just seemed to match the fabric really well (cough, overlocker fear on bulky fabric, cough). 

Despite it's qualities, the skirt does hang well, the body of the fabric making the shape definitive, creating a 60s silhouette. There isn't much give in the fabric and the facing adds a bit of bulk, particularly around the darts. This perhaps makes the skirt sit a little higher on my waist than the others do but that's not at the detriment to comfort or style. 

If you've ever spent time in my company, you'll know I'm a big fan of fast-walking (who has time to amble, really?), and the fit of these skirts allows for a wide stride, which is also great for the cooler seasons when you just gotta keep moving to keep warm! 

Something tells me these three skirts won't be the last I see of this pattern. These little mini skirts are already the best thing about autumn. Now, if only I could find a sewing pattern to salvage winter! 

x

Location: Ponderosa Park, Crookes Valley Park
Currently listening to: Man on a Mission, Black Keys

New Look 6197, Summer Shirt

I keep getting targeted ads for P&Co. clothing. Their American 50s style bowling shirts particularly keep catching my eye. Sadly for P&Co, instead of reaching for my wallet, I decided I'd rather have a bash at making my own. 

This Hawiian-style shirt pattern has been in my stash for ages - a classic fit for both men and women, however I hadn't actually made one for myself yet. I was tempted to have a go at hacking the pattern so that it had raglan sleeves, but there were some cool bowling shirts on the P&Co. website that didn't have raglan sleeves, so in the end I will admit I chickened out and stayed pretty try to the pattern. 

I did decided to make it 2 inches longer, as I wanted to created that oversized/throw it on at the beach look. This was definitely the right decision length wise, however I'm gonna skip to the conclusion here and say, I should have made the shirt wider as it got longer in order to accomodate the extra hip width. Luckily, the shirt tucks in really nicely AND it looks pretty good to wear open over a vest top, so no drama here really. 

I took a trip to Fabworks in Dewsbury for my birthday and bought these 2 crepêy drapey fabrics with shirts in mind, I wanted to used something a bit differnt to a classic Hawaiian shirt print, a) to make it more feminine, b) to at least pretend to be office appropriate, and c) well, just to looka bit less Hawaiian. I had trust in the cut of the pattern that it would still create the retro vibes I was looking for. 

Next came deciding on the colour blocks. I had plans for a sleeve band in white but it looked a bit naff (bordering some kind of uniform territory), I do wish I'd have planned a strip across the top of the pocket, or at very least some cream top-stitching, but I am hapy with it's placement and crisp corners so we'll not spend too long criticising the pocket thanks. 

I took a bit of a gamble, as I knew I wanted the contrast between the outside and the under collar, however I knew the black fabric was likely to show through the white. In order to try and minimise this, I interfaced the black fabric with white and did my overlocking in white, To be honest, when I'm wearing the shirt, the white isn't AS see through as I feared, but I'm definitely glad I used a pale interfacing for the neck and front opening pieces. 

I do wish I'd done the underside of the collar in black. I did cut the under collar smaller in hopes that the seam edge would roll around to the underside and you wouldnt be able to see any of the white fabric, but of course some bits still peek out 🙈 

Another learning curve was using cover-your-own buttons. I knew I wanted the buttons the same colour as the main fabric of the shirt (In Mark's words 'you don't want to look too checker-board'), and I thought I wanted them in the smallest size. Try as I might, however, I really really struggled with the smallest size cover-buttons. Either the backs didnt fix properly, the button bent, the edge of the fabric was baggy or fraying... Sure I was trying to do this with banding toothache - so maybe on a better more focussed day I'd achieve (or maybe when mI'm using a less frustrating fabric, hey?), but after attempts across 2 days, I considered it a twist of fate that I found slightly larger cover-buttons peeking out of a misc tray in a charity shop I'd popped into on a whim. For 20p it was meant to be. The larger size was much easier to cover and I love the effect. 

After 2 attempts hemming the sleeves on this wavy-wavy fabric, I unpicked, re-pressed and cut a strip of 5cm wide innterfacing for each. The result was a much better, structured sleeve that gives that holiday shirt pizzaz. 

The fabric was nice to press, the hem was hard to hem, and the colour-blocking did exactly what I wanted it to (why have I never made contrasting lapels before????). I think there is some really elegant sewing on here that wasn't always easy to achieve with due to the qualities of the fabric. 

I'm pleased with this one 🌴🌊🌺

x
Location: Sidney Street Car Park

Currently listening to: Cutthroat, Shame

Burda 6456, Ruffle Blouse

The Burda 6456 is a blouse pattern that's been sat in my stash for a while. The pattern has been prepped and ready to go, but I've never quite found THE fabric to let it loose on until I snapped this up from Abakhan. The unusual geometric print of this fabric caught my eye in. I bought a big piece so I have some left over I can make something else out of. 

I cut a straight size 10 for the Burda blouse. The fit is intended to be quite loose so I didn’t make any alterations to the patterns pieces.

As the fabric is very drapey, I wanted to ensure I was cutting the patten pieces as accurately as possible. I usually pay a lot of attention to the straight grain but very little consideration to the crossgrain. As the fabric was an offcut I decided to take extra care to ensure my fabric was laid out flat before cutting. I Googled the best method, and am embarrassed to admit that 10 years into my sewing journey, I had never pulled a thread to determine the cross grain before! Once the pulled thread identified a straight line, I could line this and the selvedge up against my cutting mat and lay my pattern pieces out flat. This helps to avoid wobbly pieces that sag into a completely different shape once cut out! (we’ve all been there right…). 

The main attraction to this blouse is the central flounce down the front. This is made up of 2 bendy pieces of fabric with a slightly daunting curved edge to hem. The pattern suggests folding over a 1.5cm s/a and zig zagging closed to the fold before trimming away the excess. I tried this tentatively, not keen on zigzagging or trimming something that was going to be so visible on the blouse. A few zigzags showed that the fabric was going to tunnel in between the stitches and not look great. Instead I folded over and pressed 1.5cm, stitched a straight stitch close to the edge, trimmed and then folded over again- another row of stitching to secure. As a result, 2 rows of stitching are visible on the back of the flounce, but they are neat and petite, and definitely an improvement on the zag zag and raw edge method. The hem is so narrow that it finishes the edge without distorting or wibbling the curve. 

Reluctant to put a delicate fabric through the overlocker (because I am a wuss and the settings still puzzle me…), I decided to French seam the side seams and centre front of this blouse. I haven’t French seamed in ages and every time someone mentions French seams I think ahh I have got to get them back into my life! I was pleased with the result – my tip would be to be brave when trimming the seam allowance down before the second row of stitching. The moveable needle placement on my machine made it much easier to sew small (and straight) seam allowances than it was on my old machine. 

The CF French seam did lead to a bit of confusion when it came to cutting the notch at the neck and attaching the flounce to the neck edge, as there was fabric folded this way and that, however I also think the instructions here weren’t quite right. From the images, and logically, the seam allowance of the neck should sit underneath the flounce, so effectively on the outside of the garment, but hidden. Following the instructions, however I placed the fabric the seam allowance seemed to show on the outside of the garment. I would be interested to know if anyone else experience this by following what was said?

I was able to figure out flipping the fabric round so the seam allowance lay flat and hidden, though admittedly the French seam did add a bit of bulk/confusion at the V-point of the neck, and I had to put a couple of sneaky stitches in to finish the top of the seam allowance. 

The rest of the neckline is tacked then hidden inside the collar band. The curve at the front is really tight, and when pinning the neckband to the raw edge I was convinced I’d cut the neck band a size too big! I persevered though, and found the neck curves easier to pin while the blouse was on the mannequin rather than on my lap. The neckband DOES fit, but I would recommend super accurate cutting and sewing around the neck to make this as trouble-free as possible. 

The armholes are bound. The binding is cut from the same fabric, folded in half, seam allowance from the armholes is reduced but 0.5cm, raw edges of the folded piece are then matched with the armhole and stitched before trimming the seam allowance, turning the folded edge over the seam and securing by hand. The pattern does suggest top-stitching here but I did a slipstitch by hand - we will see if it survives! If not I can always secure this with a machine stitch. 

Quick double turned hem (quite easy as the bottom of the blouse isn’t particularly shaped), though once I’d done this I saw the pattern did suggest side slits, woops! The blouse fits well though and there is no struggle getting it on or off so why add the hassle! 

x
Location: Milton Street, Sheffield
Currently listening to: Doom Bikini, James K

McCalls 8240, Polo Pullover

After making a stack of Autumn mini-skirts one after another, I was keenly looking for a new pattern that I hadn't made before that would help to fill a wardrobe gap. Something versatile and comfortable, and ideally fairly easy to sew as I'm feeling a bit out of practice and not massively adventurous right now! 

The McCalls 8240 was the one! I'd already got it saved to my Minerva wishlist, then I stumbled upon it on Vinted for a pound or something silly, so how could I say no? 

I wanted a comfy knit fabric that was going to go with lots of things in my wardrobe (no crazy big print this time round thanks). I found this lovely green knit upstairs on a solo trip to Abakhan Manchester and proceeded to carry it around the city wth me for the rest of the day (with a bundle of other winter knits and wools!) 🥵! 

I cut a straight size 10 and made no adjustments to the pattern. If I made it again I would just take a bit off of the shoulder point on the front and back pieces and then extend the sleeve by that much. An Instagram poll suggested that everyone (bar 4 people) thought that there was nothing wrong with a drop shoulder and it suited the top. I'm inclided to agree with the 4 people who said take the sleeves off and make the adjustment as I don't think the effect is dropped enough for a solid drop shoulder, but I am really happy with the sleeve length so I left them as there were this time around. 

The overlocker whizzed round this green fabric like a dream so the cuffs attached nicely. 

I like that this top will fit nicely over a vest or tee, and jumpers and jackets will fit nicely on top. I think this is item number one of my Spring trip to Berlin holiday wardrobe complete! What's next! 

x
Location: Neepsend
Currently listenting to: You Don't Need a Gun, Billy Idol

McCalls M8009, Dress hack

My last few projects have slowly been using up the fabric stash I got for my Birthday this year. The final fabric in the bag was this lovely mini-polka dot crepe. Being a May-child, I was inspired by the sunshine when I found this fabric and recall telling the lady at the counter that I was going to make a summer dress when she asked. 

Fast forward to the middle of September, and I'm wearing said summer dress at my friend's wedding on what was definitely the last day of summer 2024. 

I'm so glad I got chance to wear this this year before the climate becamen unkind to that deep v-neck! I even got to pair this dress with my sunnies for the day which ensured the DJ knew for sure (and woudn't stop telling me) that I was the coolest there. 

The dress pattern relied heavily on the M8009 McCalls play suit pattern, which I have made twice now. My skeleton version if one of my favourite makes ever and I was excited that I wouldn't have to make summer dress toile to know this bodice would fit me well. I made all the same alterations as before, though did find myself needing to take the side seams in more than I did last time which I assume is down to the drape of the fabric. 

I didn't interface the bodice or even the neckline, as rigitity isn't a word that goes hand in hand with languorious summer's day. Don't go thinking I skipped detail though. I understitched, I hand stitched the arm binding, I even added my first lil Made With ❤ woven tag into the back neck. 

The skirt pattern was as simple as using the pattern piece I used for my recent Serena Dress hack. As the skirt is gathered at the waist, I just kept gathering until it fit the waistline of the dress. I left just over 1.5cm un-gathered at the centre back so I could fit the zip without any dramas. 

After assembling, I decided to make the dress a bit shorter so it looked a bit less 50s housewife. I think I took a couple of cm off max, as I know what I'm like once i get snap-happy with the scissors! 

A quick single turned hem allowed the dress to remain floaty and not too heavy in keeping with the summer vibes! 

Currently trying to figure out if I can team this with something long sleeve or some thick tights to get some more wear out of it before next summer! 

Another fab pattern from McCalls! 

x

Location: Tideswell
Currently listening to: Again Again, Lady Gaga