Shirt Tales

Back in April, after I'd visited the Textiles in Art Exhibition at the Fashion Museum I strolled along to John Lewis and bought some fabric.

The fabric on the left I made into a reversible skirt but the pieces on the right remained in the fabric pile until August when I cut out and started to sew a shirt.  I was making good progress with it and then I tore the tendon in my elbow.  Since then sewing has been a painfully slow (in the literal meaning of both words!) affair but I have eventually finished it.

Although I had 2 different prints I didn't want it to look like I'd used them just because I'd bought them so I've used the contrast print very sparingly.  It's on the inside of the cuffs,

and on the arm opening band.  It's also on the inside of the yoke (which no-one will ever see!) and on the collar band and the inside of the button band.

I also covered all the buttons in the contrast fabric.

I have to admit that the double lines of top stitching brought out the worst of my perfectionist nature and many 2nd lines were ripped out and re-stitched as they'd strayed off course by a millimetre or so!

But despite that, and my arm injury, I have now finished it - ta daa!

(You'll have to excuse the poor ironing of the finished shirt, that's something I'm still struggling with as I can't actually lift the iron in my right hand yet).

I'm hoping to go back to the Fashion Museum at the end of October to see the Knitwear Chanel to Westwood exhibition - have any of you been yet?

Repurposing

Repurpose - verb. To alter to make more suited for a different purpose. (wiktionary)

I'm not sure when this term came into use in the English language but it's what I've been doing this weekend.

About 10 years ago I bought a skirt which I loved and wore and wore and wore.  It was long and floaty and eventually started to fall to pieces - the seam around the zip had ripped and the hem was starting to fray too.  But I couldn't bring myself to throw it out so it lay in the fabric pile until Sunday when, after watching an old episode of 'This Old Thing', I had the idea of turing it into a top.

Armed with a stitch ripper I took the yoke off the  top, removed the zip and green band and started to work out how it might change into a top.

This involved lots of cutting and pinning and trying on - what I'd forgotten was that the skirt was cut on the bias and this made it an absolute pig to work with. At one point I added the original green band around the neck (after phoning a friend for emergency supplies of green thread!) but the bias made it all twist so I unpicked it.

After a lot of fiddling it has become this:

I'm pleased with it and I know that I'll enjoy wearing it.

A 150 year Skirt

When I went to London in April I bought this fabric from John Lewis to make a reversible skirt as I'd been inspired by Gina's.

I bought it not realising it was part of their 150 year celebration prints.  The yellow fabric is in the Cummersdale print which dates back to their founding year in 1864 and was originally a furnishing fabric, whereas the Bricks print on the right was originally a 1950s dress fabric.

I used the Viola skirt pattern from Sew Me Something, and despite a few problems with the fit (it seemed to grow and be much bigger than me!), I'm pleased with the finished result.

It can be worn either with the yellow skirt on top,

or with some clever turning, with just the longer skirt showing.

I reversed the buttons too, yellow on bricks, 

and bricks on yellow

I won't tell you how long it took me to get the pattern on the yellow buttons all centred the same but it was a long time even for my perfectionist nature!

I was going to wear it to work this week, but I had scabby knees from gardening so I'm hoping to wear it next week instead!

I've also just bought another of their 150 year prints, daisy chain, to make a blouse from,

but not just yet as the sun is shining and the garden needs my attention :-)

Fashions in London

Yesterday I took myself off to London for the day.

It was a beautiful sunny day and after a cuppa at the Festival Hall I wandered off along the south of the river, past many sights, to the Fashion and Textile Museum.

It was my first visit here and I'd taken Gina's advice to go on a Wednesday when there's a free talk at 1pm.  The talk and the exhibition were fascinating, tracing the history of 20th century art in textiles.

It's hard to pick favourites but here are a few:

1950's Designs by Andy Warhol

Screen prints by Estelle Laverne (1947), Ben Rose (1951) and Angelo Testa (1947)

1955 dress designed by Clare McCardell in a fabric designed by Picasso 

and these gorgeous dresses from Horrockses in the 1940s and 50s made from textiles designed by Alastair Morton and Graham Sutherland.

I also loved the smaller exhibition by Sarah Campbell 'From Start to Finish' (of course I knew I would as I'm a big fan of her work) - a room showing a film about her and her work and huge boards like this on the wall showing the journey, from start to finish, of a design  (this one is for M & S bedding 2013).

After spending quite some time in the museum I then wandered up to Somerset House as I wanted to see the Boro exhibition.  These are items made by the Japanese poor who couldn't afford the new cotton cloth so literally pieced together scraps and rags to make clothing and household goods.

Some were quite geometric whereas some really revealed the original shapes of the scraps of cloth.

Outside Somerset house, a costume drama was being filmed, so I stayed and watched for a while. 

I have no idea what it was, or if any of the actors are famous, but it was fascinating to watch and the costumes were amazing.

Finally I made my way to John Lewis, really to look at curtains for the lounge but I seemed to end up in the dress fabric department and ended up coming home with this little lot (and no curtains!)

There's a distinct 1950s influence in the fabric I bought isn't there!

Five Little Makes

The first thing on my 2014 list of 'Nice Things for Me to Do' wasn't to go anywhere but was to have some sewing/making days at home.

First of all I made a pincushion.

I'd made Fran one for Christmas but couldn't blog about it before Christmas for obvious reasons! They involve a bottle lid (for the base), pretty cotton fabric, cotton velvet, ric-rac and emery grit.

This is the one I made for Fran.

Then I made a necklace from a glass tile, fabric and some velvet ribbon.

I think I'll make some more of these in different colours as they're really easy and effective.

Next I made a new case for my work phone as I managed to lose the previous one a few weeks ago during a muddle of phones ringing, loading the boot and getting into the car!

And finally, today, I made a new case for my glasses as the hinge had gone on the old one.

It has a stripy bottom, is slightly stiffened and has a co-ordinating lining, and I'm really pleased with how it turned out. 

I've had a lovely few days, even though I did make a bit of a mess!

No More Burnt Hands

A little while ago I was given a very cute little enamel saucepan with a metal handle - cue lots of 'ouching' as the handle gets very hot and using a tea towel to hold it is a bit risky as it tends to catch in the gas!

So at the weekend I had a lovely few hours sifting through fabric scraps to and sewing them together to make a pot holder.

A mix of vintage and new,

quilted, backed and edged.

No more burnt hands

and it looks rather nice hanging up too.

I also made this card for my Dad's birthday, from silk tops and threads worked together on the embellisher with beads and wire hand stitched on.

I hope he likes it as the beads made it too thick for a standard stamp and it cost me a fortune to post it!

And the Winner Is...

It's been a bit of a busy week and I'd meant to draw the winner of the needle case on Wed but, better late than never, tonight I drew the winning name out of the cup.

Cathy Daniel of Potter Jotter is the winner.  Cathy, if you email me your address I'll get it into the post for you.

The Secret Sewing Project (part 2)

As you'll know if you read part one I still had something to finish using the fabric from Celia's new fabric collection.  On Saturday morning I drove to Tiptree to replenish the supplies that I was missing and am pleased to say that the final items are now finished!

First to be finished was a bag.

Slightly padded, trimmed with ribbon and lined with a dark patterned cotton.

It has a little pocket inside 

and is going to come in very useful on a certain trip I have planned to the Knitting and Stitching Show at Alexandra Palace later this week.

 Then I decided to use up the tiny scraps of fabric that I had left and I made two needle cases.

Both are slightly padded, have twisted and tassled cords and have wool felt leaves inside for the needles.

The one with the button fastening (below), has already got a new home to go to

but I made the other little one (below) to give away - it's about 3" square and has a tie fastening.  If you'd like to give it a new home then just leave a comment indicating that you'd like it and I'll draw the names out of the hat.

As before all of Celia's fabrics can be found in her Spoonflower shop and links to the other gorgeous things made by herself, Gina and Tracy can all be found on her blog.