This version is from a beautiful quality shirting cotton I found on eBay. The colours are a little odd but fine for office wear. Back in may, I did a tissue fit, toile fit and adjusted the pattern. So this time all I did was whip out the pattern and start cutting. Now, here’s the problem, I’m a few pounds heavier than in May and this striped fabric doesn’t have any give like the black and white floral did. You guessed it, it’s skin tight. Not the look I go for in the office – especially when I sit down and the back buttons gape! So you’ll have to be satisfied with seeing it modelled by duchess…

The top is lovely, very much like a bodice sloper with capped sleeves and back button fastening (a lovely detail providing you can do monkey arms and button it yourself). The Palmer Pletsch pattern has great fitting instructions which are wonderful for a relative novice like me. I’ll certainly be looking out for some more patterns Palmer Pletsch in the McCalls range. If I make this again, apart from checking it fits (!), I would probably redraw the neckline because it is a bit too high for my liking.

This weekend I spent some quality time with my sewing machines and had a mammoth sewing session. What’s that? Yes, yes I did say machines but I’ll keep you in suspense and save that for another post. And before I show you the 2 and 1/2 things I completed this weekend, here’s a sweet little bag I made for my neice’s birthday.

It’s a scaled down version of the Classic Tote on Sew Mama Sew (link to the tutorial here). She’s 10 so I reduced the size and missed out the corner gussets to make it a mini-tote and added some decorative buttons to the front pocket to brighten it up a little.

I absolutely love this tote pattern and have made it many many times. If you know me and haven’t received one as a gift then you should probably expect one sometime. It’s quick, simple, a good design and easy to obtain a professional finish. Just the right size for shopping, files, books or gym clothes. Actually, the one I made myself has mysteriously disappeared so I need to whip up another.

If you’re looking for ideas for Christmas gifts, make this!

In between all this, I managed a few tiny bits of sewing including these cushions for a friend’s birthday present.

Yeah, I know cushions aren’t the most exciting present but he’s 30 now so has to expect gifts to become a little less exciting. There is some reasoning behind the cushions though, the recipient has a lovely house with a swish new sofa and these will go perfectly. When I saw the fabric it was a case of “I saw this and thought of you”. It’s a lovely, buttery soft Japanese linen from U Handbag called ‘Silly Sausage’. With the miserable weather we’ve seen in the UK the past few days I wouldn’t mind some cosy cushions to snuggle up with for myself.

Things will probably be a bit stop-start for the next month or so for my sewing but I’m confident and excited that I’ll have much more sewing time in the Autumn and Winter.

If you want to have a nosey at what I’ve been busy doing then pop over to www.darlingimages.co.uk and look under ‘Recent Weddings’. These are weddings Mr Pie and I worked at this Summer and they were all so much fun and beautiful in their own way. Go on, go and have a look because I’m so proud of what we’ve done in the past few months.

]]> http://parakeetpie.wordpress.com/2010/09/07/long-time-no-see/feed/ 0 parakeetpie _MG_9858 _MG_9861 http://parakeetpie.wordpress.com/2010/06/04/wedding-weekends/ http://parakeetpie.wordpress.com/2010/06/04/wedding-weekends/#comments Fri, 04 Jun 2010 10:30:15 +0000 Rachel http://parakeetpie.wordpress.com/?p=385 ]]> I don’t think I’ve mentioned here before but over the past year I’ve been working on some wedding photography. Mr Pie and I do it as a team and after photographing a few weddings last year, we have several booked over the next few months. I absolutely love doing it and would dearly love to do more. It’s hard work but fun and exciting all at the same time.

New business cards which arrived last week

Anyway, back to the point. We have 2 weddings this weekend (Eek! We’ve done 2 in a weekend before and it’s seriously hard work) so between attending weddings and then spending hours on end sorting and editing the photos afterwards on top of my normal job there isn’t going to be much time for sewing in the next few weeks (sob). However, in true sewist style, I’ve made a new top to wear to the wedding on Saturday using the leftover fabric from my Heidi dress and should find time to post something about it soon.

I’d had this scant 1m piece of khaki green poly cotton (I think) fabric for a while and had been wondering what to do with it. It was too dark for a top, too short for trousers and I didn’t fancy it for a skirt so I trawled through my growing pile of Burda magazines and decided on this shorts pattern, No. 120 from 06-2009.

Shorts are normally something I’d rarely wear and  only on the beach but inspired by last weekend’s mini heatwave and current high street trends I dove straight in. As usual, I spent some time puzzling over the Burda instructions since they included 2 firsts for me: 1. in seam pockets, 2. turn up hem/cuffs, plus I completely ignored the zip fly instructions and as a consequence I think I screwed up the facings but it didn’t look too bad in the end. I didn’t have the right colour thread so was using black (yeah, I know, I’m too impatient but I was trying not to buy anything for this project) and I didn’t think black would look great for the fly top stitching so inspired by a few blog posts I’ve seen on the matter recently, I prick stitched it. Prick stitching is probably not recommended for this type of thing but I gave it a go anyway.

Another thing which I’m not entirely happy with is I inserted the zip too high up so there was hardly any room left for the buttonhole and button which is why they’re squeezed in right at the top of the fly. Oh well, when I reach that point on a project I really am not prepared to start seam ripping to redo it.

The pattern gets a big thumbs up from me. The fit is generous but flattering and I’m pleased with how they look (I would not have been prepared to traipse round the high street trying on shorts like this so am happy these turned out as they did). I made a size 40 with no alterations but next time I should get real with my measurements as size 42 would give more room for my ample behind. They are a bit tight as they are and I only got away with it because of the front pleats. Going a little large on these wouldn’t be a problem because the waist tabs and buckles (although I used D-rings) allow you to pull the waist in to fit, a bit like a paper bag waist.

Now, the sun is still shining but the temperature has dropped. Come back Summer so I can go out and show off my shorts!

All photos are of me, taken by Mr Pie (think I might start calling him Pork) whilst on safari in our garden apart from the last one which is across the road in the park. I can take no credit for the garden since it’s shared with the neighbours and we have a gardener but it has some great photo spots.

I’m not really a floral person and tend to stick to plain fabrics and block colours. It’s not that I don’t like pretty prints and fancy frills, I just have trouble translating them into a look I feel comfortable in. Sticking with wardrobe staples means never having to think too much about what goes together at the same time as struggling to open my eyes at 7am* each morning. Having a wardrobe full of grey, black and pale pink means I can dress myself in the dark and know I won’t attract any strange looks at work (to be honest, in my office I could probably rock up in pyjamas and no-one would notice – it’s all men apart from me).

Sometimes, just sometimes, I see something I absolutely have to have. You see, I love things that are a little bit different, things that make you look again and think “Hey, that’s clever”. When I found the 1960s dress kit (which sadly didn’t work out) I began wondering if such things (i.e. mail order clothing kits) were still around today and then I stumbled upon Cloth Kits and this skirt.

The designs at Cloth Kits are, in my view, really simple, basic and incredibly expensive. It’s the fabrics that stand out and when I saw this Nana Jigsaw skirt, I simply had to have it. The fabric design is from Mini Moderns and a quick search yielded nothing in way of shops selling fabric by the metre apart from Cloth Kits who sell it for £29/m!  So more searching of the Cloth Kits site saw that they were selling a seconds version of the skirt kit for a much lower price. The kit comes with a pattern pieces printed onto a sheet of fabric ready to cut out and sew together along with instructions, zip, lining and thread. The facings of this design have a really cute wood effect print and on the seconds version one of the facings is blank. Oh, check out the pattern matching on the centre back seam – wholly down to Cloth Kits’ attention to detail and not my own.

I feel a bit of a fraud for buying this skirt kit when I’m perfectly capable of cutting and sewing my own version from a pattern and it was way more expensive than any other sewing project and probably even cost more than a shop bought skirt. Had I seen this skirt in a shop, I would have bought it regardless of the price because I love the print so much. And the easy, hassle free mid-week sewing fix was worth the expense so I won’t beat myself up over how much I paid.

*I know that 7am is probably not early for many of you but it is for me. I need my beauty sleep.

It was handed to me after my own wedding along with some other things which were left behind at the restaurant where we held our reception. It’s a lovely fabric flower and I thought someone must be missing it so I asked around to see if I could find the owner. No-one claimed it. When we received the photos I kept an eye out to see if I could spot who had been wearing it but to no avail. A while later, when our album arrived I again scoured the pictures to try and solve the mystery of the lonely flower without success. A house move and 4 years later, the lonely flower sat on a shelf occasionally being moved to dust or pointed out to visitors to see if anyone would claim it.

Last week, when I was assembling my outfit to be a guest at a wedding I saw the lonely flower and thought it deserved an outing and it would add a little something to the plain jacket I planned to wear. Pinned to my lapel, it sat proudly in the English May sunshine being photographed with my new Heidi dress.

That’s the last I saw of the lonely flower. As we were leaving, I picked up my jacket and noticed that the flower was missing. A quick scan of the room, under the tables….nothing. And so ends my part in the story of the lonely flower. I like to imagine it floats around from person to person, home to home, waiting for the next wedding where it can slip into the life of another.

If you ever become the custodian of the lonely flower, please treat it well.

(You think I’m mad, don’t you?)

You’ll see from the pictures that the top is rather roomy. The neckline gapes despite me taking a bit out of the centre, the arm scyes are huge (I made sure to wear my  best white bra underneath incase it was visible!) and the back is pretty baggy. If I make another Heidi I’ll probably cut a 38 for the top and 40 for the bottom. The size 40 skirt fits well but I felt the original front pleats were a bit puny and would get lost under the belt so I slashed and spread the pattern piece to give slightly wider pleats although the change is hardly noticeable. I wasn’t sure if the skirt pleats were meant to point towards the centre or towards the sides. Looking at lots of other people’s versions of the Heidi dress it seems they can go either way and I decided to keep mine towards the centre, mirroring the bodice pleats.

I’m fairly sure that taking in the shoulder seam by ½-1 inch would fix most of the bodice fitting issues but would mean unpicking the lining and I had neither the time nor inclination to do that before wearing it on Saturday. I’m such a lazy seamstress. I want instant gratification from my sewing projects and when they don’t turn out exactly as I envisaged on the first attempt they’re often cast aside in a fit of rage and disappointment. I had intended to post a few construction and detailed photos for this project but once caught up in the whirlwind of garment creation I completely forgot. Whoops, sorry.

As for the rest of the outfit, the cropped jacket and belt were bought some time ago (maybe last year or even the year before) and the shoes are from Clarks. Heels and my feet don’t often go well together so I was delighted to see these lovelies in Clarks which have a slight platform sole with gel inserts to improve comfort. I managed to wear them all day with hardly any aches or pains so they get a big thumbs up.

The weather forecast is good for this weekend so I might dig through my cupboards and see if there is any champagne lurking in there so I can sit outside in the sunshine and sip away at the bubbles – mmmmmmmm, delicious.

The Burda Heidi is quite a simple dress but the instructions for attaching the lining made absolutely no sense to me so I made it up as I went along. I made a size 40 and it’s quite roomy on the top but not so much on the bottom which is a pretty good fit and I made a change to the centre front panel to allow the pleats to be bigger. Anyway, all will be revealed in the photos which are coming soon.

On another note, have any of you photography peeps seen Epiphanie bags? They’re a cross between a handbag and a camera bag so you can carry a DSLR plus lenses and accessories without lugging around a big, ugly black boxy thing. You need to visit their site to see the full glory – www.epiphaniebags.com

I’m seriously lusting after this red Lola version. How cool would that be to take to a wedding (or anywhere for that matter) and do some subtle papping? Much better than what I have been doing when I don’t want to take my whole kit, which is to shove my camera in a canvas shopping bag and then wrapping my extra lenses and flash in socks and sticking them in too. That’s not really a good way to treat equipment which cost as much as my car (I actually sold my car to buy the camera and now the Pies share a car). The seamstress in me is now wondering if it’s possible to make something like an epiphanie bag myself or if I could make a padded insert for a regular handbag….. oh the possibilities.

It was from French Connection and is made from a simple, summery lightweight cotton. I wore it loads last summer and plan to wear it just as much this year because I still love it (and let’s face it, at £65 I can’t really afford to ditch it after just 1 season! ).

When searching for inspiration for something to sew to wear to a wedding in May, I came across the Burda Heidi pattern and was struck by the resemblance. The neckline, cap sleeves, front skirt pleats are all incredibly similar.

Picture from www.burdastyle.com

And then when I saw this lovely black and white floral cotton from Croft Mill, I knew what the foundation of my wedding outfit would be.

I’m going to make a muslin first to test the fit and make sure I’m happy with the design. I can’t expect the Heidi dress to be exactly the same as the one from French Connection and want to make sure the pleats are all alright and I don’t need to switch to darts on the bodice.

There’s nothing like a good bit of wardrobe/sewing planning to perk up the beginning of a long week.