Showing posts with label green. Show all posts
Showing posts with label green. Show all posts

Monday 2 June 2014

The new addition to my daughter's handmade wardrobe - little green trousers

Firstly, I would like to thank to all who voted for my golden dress in the Improvisational Pleats Contest. It was fun taking part in it and seeing what other ladies have come up with.

Now back to my latest project.
It's already a fact - I have sewn my first trousers.




I am not sure why it took me so long to try my hand at making trousers. Somehow I always ended up making tops and dresses and never trousers or shorts. I suspect it was my conviction that it wouldn't be easy to achieve a good fit.
Well, starting with toddler trousers was a good point as they were more undemanding to make.



I drafted the trousers pattern myself. If you have followed me you would probably know that I don't like using shop bought patterns. It takes half of the pleasure of the whole process.

For my first trousers I chose not to make a front opening and insert a zipper. I added elastic on the back waist and incorporated two pleats on each front side. I thought this would make trousers look more stylish and less babyish.

I had a dilemma whether to attach a separate waistband or just to fold at the waist. Well, I decided on the second option. And guess what?.....I forgot to put the fusible interfacing to the waistband. This is the second time I forget about the interfacing when making a garment! I am really mad at myself for being so forgetful.


There is a little pocket flap on the back, without a real pocket. Toddlers don't need pockets on the back, right? They can't even reach them!

"These trousers are so comfortable that I can exersise in them!"


"I can run really fast in them!"


"They are not making my bottom look too big, aren't they?"


"This photoshoot is exhausting!"


For the trousers I used lightweight green cotton fabric which I bought from Bulgaria not long ago. It was for clearance and was unbelievably priced at 2 leva/metre which was around 80pence/metre. Now I wished I had bought all of it. I was told that it was cotton but the cheap price makes me wonder whether it could be polycotton instead. Next time when I go to Bulgaria, I intend to stock on some more cheap fabrics. The downside is that I can't actually find good printed cottons. There are mainly polyester and single-coloured fabrics.

"Ok, I am off now!"
Thanks for reading!

Saturday 28 December 2013

From a jumper to a dress


That's the journey I took a few weeks ago when I decided to transform two of my old jumpers into a dress for my baby girl. Maybe you are wondering how this idea came to my mind and whether I am not running out of fabric to resort to that. Well, not really. I still have dressmaking fabrics to be made into something.
What else could I do with two old jumpers (not so old in fact, I think I bought them about 7 years ago when I was feeling comfortable wearing short and tight jumpers). Anyway I don't feel comfortable in them anymore and as one of them had a bit of fading near the neckline and the other one had a few tiny stains I could neither give them to charity, nor sell them. And throwing them into the bin also wasn't a good option. So that is how I started toying with the idea to make something out of them.
And since I had a baby girl I found that thoughts of lovely girly dresses and accessories were circling my mind more than ever. Not that I still don't imagine sewing a fabulous dress or top for myself, but not that often.
Here you can see how the two jumpers looked before cutting them. Nice green colours!


It's very challenging to make something from another garment as it's very restricting in terms of fabric and you have to adjust the pattern pieces according to the grainline.


For that dress I drew a pattern only for the bodice. The rest of the dress was made just by draping the fabric until I got the a look that appealed to me. It's one of these projects that you don't really know what the final look would be until you get there.


 Here I have experimented with different stitches and some lace. The lace detail wasn't planned at first, but it somehow gives the dress a fresh look. And I felt really happy using it, as I had bought it together with four more laces without being sure what I was going to use them for.


And here is the final look of the dress. In fact there is just a tiny bit more to go - to accessorize it with a fabric flower, but I still haven't quite decided where exactly to place it, so I have left this aside for a while.