The Butterfly Mabel Skirt...of many tears

Well, thank God that's over! This is the skirt that almost ended in the bin!!!

As soon as I saw the email from Tessuti announcing the newest arrival of Ponti's to come in to their store I did a mad lunchtime dash via bus + very speedy walking to the Surry Hills store to make sure I could get my hands on some ponti before it all sold out (this stuff goes like hotcakes. And this is what I walked out with (well, one of the pieces anyway)...

I bought 1.3m of this Italian ponti with the view of making a Mabel Skirt. I bought a little too much to account for shrinkage but it now turns out that I have enough left over for the front panel of a Linden Sweatshirt. Yay! Not yay was the price - at $59p/m I was almost in tears when things started to go pear-shaped with this make.

I've made quite a few Mabel Skirts by now - some winners and some failures - so I don't have much to say about the pattern other than it's a great way to use just a little bit of a great...and sometimes pricey fabric. I'd just made three Mabel's in a row with NO issues and I was feeling pretty confident. Pride, as they say, always comes before a (sewing) fall.

That said this one is a bit of a fail. All was going well but the waistband must've stretched out as I was sewing as this one turned out too big...like "wardrobe malfunction" too big despite my "clear elastic sewn into the waistband trick" that has NEVER failed me before. I look glum in this photos as I hadn't figured out how to fix this.

I thought I could shrink my waistband back into submission so into a hot wash and dyer this very expensive fabric went. This did shrink the skirt...in length, but not in width. FARK!  Why are the sewing Gods so against me? So, I unpicked the waistband from the skirt and let it sit in the "very naughty corner" for a week or two. I'm not a fan of short skirts so I drafted a thicker waistband which in theory would work, but I decided to use proper, wider elastic in the waistband, not my usual clear elastic, which left everything too bulky. Back to the naughty corner...

So in the end I ended up making the waistband from some thick black elastic that I have. I was paranoid about it being a) too loose or b) too tight - always my fear with elastic waistbands.  Sewing in stressful. It worked; no trouble attaching the elastic with my overlocker (blade up so the elastic didn't get cut) BUT I did manage to melt my elastic a bit with the iron as I doing my final press so it's lost a bit of its elasticity. Honestly...you couldn't make this sh!t up if you tried.

So in the end I have a skirt from some lovely fabric, but not without a lot of stress and worry. I will wear it (as the fabric goes so well with my lovely new red clogs) but I'll always feel anxious about it when I wear it as I know it's not perfect, and that the elastic is kinda disintegrating thanks to my ironing it.

In typical "Melanie fashion" though as soon as things went belly up with this I hopped online and found some of this fabric still available for sale at a store in Tassie...so I bought 1.1m and I will make another of these when this one carks it. I'm calling in my "safety stash".

Pattern: "Mabel Skirt" by Colette Patterns
Size: XL, sewn with 3/8" seam allowance and lengthened by 15cm (and then shrunk in the wash/dryer)
Modifications: elastic waistband
Fabric: Ponti (again) from Tessuti (again)
Changes for next time: I will probably use this elastic waistband method again, it's less fiddly than what I have been doing, quicker and the elastic is pretty comfortable. Will continue to lengthen by 15cm.

Seamwork's Oslo Cardigan

When we in Melbourne last weekend for Frocktails a few of the Melbourne ladies were lovely enough to chauffeur a few of the out-of-towners around to some Melbourne fabric shops. I was very excited to tag along as I strongly strongly believe (very strongly) that Melbourne's fabric shopping game sh!ts all over Sydney's. Melbourne seems to HAVE so many great fabric shops. We visited Rathdowne, Darn Cheap Fabrics and the Cloth Shop at Ivanhoe.

It was at the famed Darn Cheap Fabric were I picked 2.5m of the fabric below, initially ear-marked for a Lady Skater Dress, but when I got it home I thought perhaps a cardigan might be better for this slightly thicker cotton/poly/spandex mix. The fabric is sort of quilted...with material on the front and back that are stuck together somehow. It's quite cozy and feels lovely to wear.

The Oslo Cardigan is one of the first patterns from Colette's Seamwork Magazine. I don't pay for a magazine subscription (if you do the patterns are free) so this pattern cost me about $6 - pretty cheap really. I bought the pattern AGES ago but bulked at putting the PDF together as it's about 1000 pages long. Like the Colette PDF patterns the page margins are 1" on each side which seems a bit...wasteful. I was sick all of last week however so had plenty of time to stick this thing together *grumble grumble*.

The pattern is an "oversized" cardigan with sleeve cuffs and a collar that goes the entire way from hem to hem. I sewed a size XL leaving the length at the 3XL as I'm tall-ish so didn't want a short short cardigan to wear with skinny pants.  It fits as expected (it fits = YAY) although I am wondering if I could size down next time...the only thing stopping me is that there is quite a big difference between each size - so going down just one size could make it too small.

There's not much to say about this make really. I read through the instructions before starting and referred to them again only when it came to attaching the collar - just to make sure I was getting things right. It was a very easy garment to sew and (for a change) I had no machine troubles so everything went swimmingly.

The pattern piece for the cuff was ridiculously long so I decided to half the length of the cuff, and even then the sleeve is still too long for my liking, but I guess that goes along with the whole "oversize" thing the Oslo has going on. Next time I will stick with my shorter cuff, but take about 1" off the sleeve piece.

The only other change I made to the pattern was to tack down the collar piece as it would not sit flat due to the bulkiness of the fabric and it was making me feel a bit messy and swamped by the garment. I put in a few machine stitches at each hem and at the back of the collar to stop it flipping up and standing at attention. I feel a lot more tidy in this cardigan now and less swapped by how big it is.

Just gotta say though that this cardigan desperately needs pockets -- how would I go about that doing you think - robbing the pockets from the Tessuti Jacket perhaps?

Back view...just for kicks. I think the cardigan does look big in this photo, but again that is the style and in a more drapey, snuggly fabric I think it would be OK? Still cannot decide if should size down or not?

...and side view...you can see how "drop shouldered" this style is...

When I first put this on my thought was "uh-oh, I've made an old man's kimono-style bathrobe" mainly due to the pattern on the fabric and how stiff the fabric makes the collar. That said, I still wore the cardigan out today for lunch and a walk in the park and whilst it is pretty comfortable I'm not sure how I feel about it, or if it's flattering. I had visions of a Metalicus type garment when I bought this fabric but I'm pretty sure I am not challenging Metalicus at all. Hmmm...

Pattern: Oslo Cardigan by Seamwork Magazine
Size: XL with the length left at size 3XL
Modifications: reduced the length of the cuff by half; stitched down the collar at the hem and back neckline to stop it flipping up.
Fabric: Cotton, Poly, Spandex from Darn Cheap Fabric
Changes for next time: add in some pockets and try it in a more "jumper-like" material. Maybe next winter though...

A Gabby Dress for Frocktails

On the weekend was the long-awaited Frocktails shindig down in Melbourne (sew a frock and come drink cocktails with like-minded souls). I had been looking forward to my weekend away in Melbourne ALL year and decided to take a few extra days off work and make a real long weekend of it.  Just my luck though I came down with a cold the day after arriving in Melbourne which had escalated in to a full blown cold on the night of the party. Wah! 

After having six attempts at coming up with a wearable dress for the night there was no way I was going to miss Frocktails, so I took my Codral, gargled some aspirin and dolled myself up for the night....

You've seen this fabric before - in the toile for the Lady Skater Dress that I made recently. The fabric is a lovely ponti from Tessuti which I had always intended my Frocktails dress to be made out of (I initially bought 2m to make a Casual Lady Dress which my overlocker ate, so I made it again from the remaining 1m...which my overlocker also ate - turns out the needles needed to be changed)! The fabric is comfortable but I think the lace print makes it look a little bit fancy.

There's not a lot to say about this dress that I've not said before. I made the dress with short sleeves as I remember being SO hot at the Sydney Frocktails last year and didn't want to overheat again this year.

The dress is worn with some big, bright beads bought in Bali a few years ago.  The bag is a cheapie from Colette (matches the beads as I'm all about matchy matchy), stockings are from Sonsee, shoes from Paul Dane and the sparkly cardigan is from Sarah Jane in Newtown. The cardigan is made from wool so was warm up to race up to the venue in without donning a big coat. I was really comfortable all night and my shoes only started to hurt as I walked back to the hotel - not bad for brand new shoes.

All in all it was a great night though I only managed to stay for 3 hours before my cold got the better of me. I was a bit out of it all night and SOOOO tired so my conversational skills were really lacking which is a shame as 51 people attended and I'd only met a handful of the ladies I'd wanted to say HI too. Oh well..there's always next year...

Pattern: "Gabby Dress" by Tessuti
Size: M, sewn with 3/8" seam allowance and left at a size L at the shoulders. The hem is 1"(behold my knees people)!
Modifications: none
Fabric: Ponti (again) from Tessuti (again)
Changes for next time: none, though I think it's time to try this dress again in a woven, I have some nice soft silk/cotton that I bought in Malaysia that I'd like to bust out of the stash.