October Projects

ctmidd
Oct 31, 2018
4 min read

This month I hope to get more done on my other project so I'm not sure how much other sewing I'll get round to.

I have bought some cheap jersey fabric from a pop up shop by Leicester market, everything was £1 a meter I got a few bits to have a go at making some leggings. I have found a template online with instructions for fitting so I think I will get the pattern done ok, it remains to be seen if I can sew a properly stretchy fabric. My machine has some good stretch stitches but the possibilities for puckering are massive. That's why I got cheap jersey, it doesn't matter so much if I mess it up.

I went mooching around charity shops one day and got 4 sewing patterns, 3 for myself and 1 for my friend to tuck in her birthday bundle. One of the patterns I got would make a nice sensible dress, I might need it as my number 2 interview dress is a bit big now and I haven't seen one I like yet.

Well, my plans took a turn again. I was mooching around the internet, I forget what I was looking for but I came across The Refashioners Competition https://makery.co.uk/2018/09/the-refashioners-2018-prize-package-2-2/ . The idea is to find a photo of an item of clothing or outfit that you want to use as your inspiration and use old clothes to make a version for yourself. I went a little backwards as I couldn't find any charity shop items that fitted with the ideas I had or the images I had liked. Instead I looked through my stash and clothes for items that would be useful. I found a black leather jacket that a friend gave me to cut up, a pair of navy linen trousers I had got crazy reduced and had been meaning to take up and never got round to it, and I found a slate grey linen skirt that I got in the factory shop years ago and had never worn.

I googled dresses made from leather and linen and came across a Patricia Boss dress https://patriciabos.com/product/cleo-leather-linen-black-midi-dress/ with a leather bodice and linen skirt, I chose this as my inspiration.

I started with a tube of calico fabric that fitted around my chest and pinned it to fit and folded the edges to get the right shape. I drew down the pin lines and pinned the edges in place. I tidied the drawn lines and traced out the shapes onto paper, I used that pattern to cut a toile. I stitched the toile together and tried it made some adjustments and tried it again, then altered the paper pattern accordingly. I laid the jacket down and decided where to cut the panels from, I wanted to keep the sleeves for the straps and belt.

I cut the pieces out and stitched them together by hand and tried it on, I ended up trimming the bottom by an inch or so. I didn't have enough leather to make two overlays with a belt on top as in the original so I made an overlay going half way round and a belt going around the other half, these were made from strips cut from the sleeves. I added some eyelets left over from a corset and a buckle I'd kept from a belt I'd used for a bag. I added a couple of belt loops, one was quite wide as I needed to hide a join in the strap. When the straps were in place I turned all the hems over and stitched them then added a zip around the bottom. I did have to buy a zip as I couldn't find a used one long enough to go around the whole hem.

It took me forever to unpick the trousers and skirt, I couldn't rip the seams as the fabric is quite soft and would get damaged. When I had unpicked everything I pressed all the pieces and used the smallest piece for size as I drew out my skirt panel pattern. I used the same pattern for all the panels as it's just a gathered skirt. I cut eight pieces from my fabric, the navy was straight and the grey was cut on the bias. I sat with them on a flat surface to pin together each seam in turn and tack whilst it was lying flat to help keep it even. I did this with each seam and left a 6 inches on the last one so I can get the dress on.

I stitched the skirt on the machine and edged each seam. I found an old underskirt I had made years ago with a spiderweb lace trim and stitched that to the bottom edge of the zip. I stitched long stitches around the top edge of the skirt in four sections and gathered each section as I pinned the skirt to the zip. I tacked the skirt in place to keep all the gathers secure for sewing on the machine.

I zipped the skirt to the bodice and tried it on, the bodice was too long and slightly lopsided. I took the skirt off again, unpicked the zip on the bodice and trimmed it back by mostly half an inch a bit more on the longer side. I restitched the bodice hem and put the zip back, it looked so much better. The skirt looked good so I took it off and stitched over the tacking on the machine with zigzag. I then hemmed the bottom of the skirt by hand. The last thing I did was add a lining to the bodice, I tried it on again and found I had to loosen the lining slightly on one side. Once I had finished all the sewing I cleaned and polished the leather with the balm my mum uses on the sofa, it looked great after that.

Mum took some photos of me wearing the dress, I hate having my photo taken, I always look terrible. I made her take a lot so I could choose the least awful.

I have uploaded the pictures onto the facebook page to enter the competition. I have no idea if I will win anything, there are so many really cool things. If you look for #therefashioners2018 on twitter or instagram you will find lots of pics of other peoples projects.

I never managed to play with that jersey fabric I got.