Friday 21 March 2014

HELP! Sewing v Bloglovin Conundrum

Work and life has just stepped up a gear now that the honeymoon with the new year is now over.   Because I own my own business work takes first priority after ensuring kids and husband are all organised and loved.  Which means time for things such as sewing take a back seat :-(

But now I've got a conundrum of what to do with the little time I do have and a Friday evening is most definitely still my wind down time - for the past two weeks I've been so exhausted it's been blob in front of the TV kinda evening.

This week I have a little more energy despite already working some long days this week.  But what do to - shall I spend a little time trying to finish my muslin for my Marfy jacket sew-along (that I am so far behind with) or should I spend some time reading my 500+ Bloglovin feed, and show some lovin to the sewing community that gives me so much inspiration and encouragement.

Sew Along  v.s  Follow on Bloglovin

On top of this, I have three blog posts that I can be writing and comments on the existing post that I need to reply (which I will do in a moment).

How do you decide?  What do you do? Please help, Please ....

Okay for now I might just procrastinate a bit more and go watch some TV!

Saturday 8 March 2014

Wolfies on the Longside

This was going to be my Project Sewn entry for the shoe inspiration challenge - but life got in the way and I didn't get photos taken and edited in time to add the link.

Snake Skinny Wolfies

The shoes are Mia Piaci that I got on my last trip to Auckland.  You may have seen them on my Instagram feed!  I totally love them.  Let me show you a close up ...

Snake Skinny Wolfies

These shoes look best with a skinny jean/pant, so I decided it was time for a couple of pattern hacks, ha-ha-ha!

The pants are Peter and the Wolf by Papercut patterns.  I made my first pair of Wolfies in December, you can read about my first dance with this pattern here.

The first pair was made straight out of the box.  The fit needed some small tweaks to move fabric from the front to the back, but the bones of the pattern were good.   I needed to add some depth to the back and remove some length from the front in the high hip and waist region.

For the second pair I picked up some heavy black cotton sateen and snake skin print from the Arthur Toye closing down sale.

Snake Skinny Wolfies

I'm not a huge fan of the 3/4 leg pant, so this time I wanted to convert the pattern to a skinny fit.  Changes to the pattern included:
  • removing 1/4" from about the centre of the front crouch seam, by creating a hinge.  I dropped the crouch at the inner leg seam by 1/4" to put back the same amount of fabric I had taken out.
  • I lowered the centre front by 3/4" and the front leg seam by 1/2" tapering up to the original height of the side seam.
  • I added 1/2" to the centre back seam, about 2" below the top edge.
  • I added 6" to the length and tappered all four pieces so the circumference around my ankle was 9" in total.
  • Added 5" to the waist band because the pants now sit on my hip rather than my waist.
  • Added belt loops.
The major change I made to the pant was to insert a front fly rather than having a side seam.  I copied the fly front and pattern pieces from my favourite Jalie jean pattern.  This is the best fly front that I have ever done, although it is only my third!

Snake Skinny Wolfies

I also attempted to put in some faux pocket openings in the back, copying a concept from one of my ready to wear jeans.  This was a bit of a fail!  They look okay from a distance and give the look I was trying to achieve but don't look to closely at them, cause they aren't pretty.

Snake Skinny Wolfies

For the leg hem I used a self-drafted facing and included a small side split.  I'm really liking the hem facing concept, it gives a really nice crisp line.  I used a bit of contrast fabric for the front facing, just cause I could :-)

Snake Skinny Wolfies

I made an Ensis tee (pattern hack) to wear with these pants.  After my other recent Ensis Tee, I wanted to play a bit more with the lace concept.  This time I selected a black merino and some left over stretch lace from this dress.  I hacked this pattern quite severly ...
  • For the top pieces and sleeves I cut a XS - the fit of my previous tees where perfect.
  • The body needed to be a closer fit, so I cut the bottom body pieces down to a size XXS.
  • I had to reduce the upper body pieces under the arm to a size XXS, which now means my sleeves wouldn't fit, so I added the extra 5/8" back into the armseye by lengthening the top body pieces under the notches.
  • I dropped the neckline by 2"
  • The bottom body pieces were shortened to the waist so I could add a peplum.
  • I decided to take the peplum from the Cake Hummingbird pattern
Lace Ensis Peplum

I had a slight hiccup in that I didn't quite have enough of the merino that I got from The Fabric Store and had to use some that I just purchased from Arthur Toye.  They are slightly different in quality and colour - not that I think anyone but me will notice.

I'm not that in love with this tee.  I didn't allow any fabric for the bust so the seam at the front waist is higher than the back.  I kinda wish I had made it without the peplum.  I have more merino and more of the lace so I might just do that yet.

More photos on my Flickr --> I used a different camera for these resulting in smaller images than usual.  I must work out the setting, or get another camera!