All the way from Glengerry, Victoria

Which is in Australia.

I fell down the Etsy rabbit hole a couple of weeks ago, sparked by a blog post about patterns and capsule wardrobes best suited for traveling. I have more to say about that in another blog post, but for now I wanted to share the three patterns I got and how amazing it is to me that I could look online at vintage patterns that were the right size and reasonably priced—in Glengerry, Victoria, Australia!—and have them show up in my mail box not two weeks later.

It’s a small world, after all.

Here are the patterns (yes, the last one is most definitely a child of the 80s, don’t say anything mean about it, I love it and can’t wait to make it up):

The economics of sewing

One of the maternity dresses I made

Thinking back to how I got into sewing as an adult, well it was mostly to save money and partly due to not finding what I needed when I was pregnant and living in (then West) Germany. Sure, I could have bought maternity clothes from German stores, but they were expensive. I could have also mail ordered from Sears (remember when we did that?), but again, the options were limited and cost more than I wanted to pay, plus shipping to Europe took weeks. So I made my maternity clothes—a couple of dresses, some tops, some pants—nothing elaborate and not a whole lot of them either. I figured I didn’t need a lot of clothes since pregnancy isn’t all that long anyway.

I'm second from the right,
in a dress I made

I kept sewing in my 20s and 30s because it was still cheaper. I remember making dresses for myself that cost between $10 and $25, including the pattern and notions. This was also when you bought patterns by the size, no multi-sizes printed on the same sheets of tissue the way they’re printed today. I was a straightforward size and didn’t need to make any alternations (nor did I learn how).

The first time I bought fabric that cost over $10 a yard, I was very nearly sick with nerves cutting it out. I was horrified by that high price, although today I’d think it was a good bargain.

This is the jacket & skirt I made
from the expensive stuff

I’ve sewed off and on ever since. Kent and I got into sewing in a pretty big way in Boston and now we own two sewing machines and a combo serger/cover stitch machine. And we have a fair amount of fabric. We joined Julie’s Club through Fabric Mart and let me tell you, fabric buying can be pretty impulsive especially when you can touch and see the little swatches they send you every month.

I felt a little guilty about having bought all that fabric and not using it, until the last couple of weeks. The clothes I’ve made this weekend definitely aren’t cheaper than what I could buy at places like H&M or Uniqlo (more about that in a second), but I already had the fabric on hand. Oh and the thread, patterns, zipper and interfacing.

So here’s what I’ve made the last few days.

First up is a dress which is meant to replace the one on my dress form. That dress is a lovely Eileen Fisher dress made of a soft merino wool. You may not be able to tell in this photo, but the Eileen Fisher dress drapes beautifully and absolutely doesn’t look like a sack when worn. My copy is from a sweater knit I got when we were in NYC a couple of years ago, and I used Butterick 6258. I'm pretty pleased with this one, it's got the same body skimming style of the Eileen Fisher one.

This outfit is completely me-made, skirt and top. The skirt is a very simple knit skirt, also from Butterick 6258. The top is another Burda pattern, 7051. I’ve made this one before too, but a different view. This time I made view A and I absolutely love it.

Next up is a sweater I made to replace the one you see in the dress form (another lovely Eileen Fisher sweater). My new one is from a merino wool knit and I used Burda 6990 (view A). I’ve made this pattern before and fortunately I’d traced it and not cut the tissue. That meant I could cut a smaller size and not have to re-purchase the pattern. The skirt is the same knit skirt from the photo above. Also ignore the cheesy expression, I blink super fast when my photo's being taken so I end up concentrating really hard and I look kind of strange but it's better than blinking.





And this skirt is a pattern hack. I want to make a couple of pencil skirts but don’t have a pencil skirt pattern. I do have this New Look pattern (6123, no link because it's out of print but you can see it in the photo), This dress is basically a bodice (top part) attached to a pencil skirt. I’ve got some lovely Italian wool I got when Kent and I were in Rome a few years ago, but I sure didn’t want to experiment with that! So I used this ponte knit. To be honest, I have no idea what I was thinking I’d make with this but pretty clearly I had something in mind because I bought three and a quarter yards of it. As it turns out, I like the fabric a lot and it feels amazing on.

Cheesy expression

Close up of fabric

Dress pattern I hacked

Finally, back to Uniqlo. If you’ve never heard of Uniglo, well they’re a Japanese clothing company and I love their styles and their prices. They tip toe just this side of fast fashion (i.e. cheap fabric), and since we don’t have a brick & mortar store in the area, returns are often more of a pain than they’re worth. But when the clothing works, it’s pretty amazing.

Ignore the scowl on my face, I was in a great mood when Kent took this—but I wanted to show you why it’s not always the cheaper option to sew my clothes. This coat is made of a felted wool knit and cost $69. I can’t buy fabric to make it at that price; I know because I looked.

No guts, no glory

I decided that I should go ahead and sew something up this weekend, even though I didn’t lose my job. I struggle sometimes in finding the time to do creative things like sewing, especially if I’m not 100% positive I’ll get a wearable item out of the time and money I spend on it.

In this case, I was inspired by another sewing blogger who wrote about yet another blogger who suggested that using up fabric already purchased is a Very Good Thing. I’ve got, well not a lot but enough fabric that I could make a fair number of items without having to go to the store. And I’ve got plenty of patterns on hand.

Then Friday night Kent and I were at Nordstrom’s Rack and I found an Eileen Fisher dress that I liked but it didn’t really work on me (I am short waisted so sometimes dresses hit me at the wrong place on my hips). As with so many of Eileen Fisher clothing, the lines were long and elegant with a minimum of embellishment; it was a tank dress but was fluid enough to also feel like a column dress. I’ve had some lovely black with white polka dot silky knit for a few years now and thought I could probably create my own version of the Eileen dress.

But that meant winging it for this dress because I started with this pattern. It's intended for for woven fabrics, not knits. But I thought  hoped I could make it work anyway and I liked the overall lines of the dress.

The pattern calls for a zipper, which I didn’t include. The knit has enough give that it wasn’t necessary. I also didn’t include the ties in the front; instead, I used elastic stitched from the wrong side to create a tiny bit of gather under the bust. I didn’t gather it a lot because I want the dress to flow and was also concerned that it would look a bit like a maternity dress if I did.

Here’s the finished product—the photo doesn’t capture the fluid drape of the dress and in fact I think it looks a bit sad sack. But it doesn’t in real life.

Vanity Fair—a third bag

I’ve made this bag three times now—the first time was for me and I’m not sure I ever posted about it. I made it out of a grey fabric that looks like (but isn’t) linen. I didn’t realize at the time, but I actually made it up wrong. You can see the way it’s supposed to look in terms of how it’s pieced together on the outside here, on the pattern envelop.

And here’s the one I made for myself. See the difference? The pattern has the pieces stitched directly under the handles while the one I made for myself has the pieces meeting in the center.

To be honest, I prefer it this way but when I cut out the one for my friend (posted about here), I followed the directions and pieced it together as intended. I was pretty confused as I was sewing it up because it was so different; I had to go get out my own bag to see what I’d done.

I’ve made a third version for another friend. She’s a creature of sunshine stuck in very overcast Ohio so I picked bright fabrics for her and used the same sunny yellow fabric for the lining as I did for the bag I made earlier this year.

I’m not sure if I’ll make this bag again. As with a lot of independent pattern makers, this one gives some pieces and then tells you to cut out a strip in given dimensions. That bugs me, and I think it’s an unfortunate short cut because honestly? I need a pattern piece. Yes, I can (and did) trace out my own but still for the price of the pattern ($10), I want all the pieces.

And another bag

Here’s the second finished bag of 2016. As with the first one, the outside fabric is a very dark blue, almost black denim. And also as with the first one, that dark color wants to rub off. This time when I turned the handle right side out, I wore my dish washing gloves to protect my fingertips and you should have seen the ends of those yellow gloves. I'm sure I looked ridiculous but hey, it worked and kept the dye off me and on the fingertips of my yellow dish washing gloves.

The lining is fabric I got from a fabric stall in Walthamstow a couple of years ago. I read the blog Did You Make That? and the author is from Walthamstow; she wrote a post about finding fabric there. So off we went, and here’s one of the pieces of fabric I got. It’s got a border—the pink stripe—and although I didn’t photograph it, I matched up that stripe perfectly. Too bad it’s on the inside or everyone could see it.

This is probably my seventh time making this Amy Butler pattern. While I'm tired of making this particular bag, it's always well-received and the recipients have uniformly told me how much they love their bags. It's hard to argue with that kind of success.

A new year and more bags already

I finished this bag on Thursday—it’s for a friend who’s having her first baby (a boy) on January 18. She and her husband have decorated his room in a baseball theme so I carried that idea into the bag and on the two burp cloths.

They are both avid Royals fans, and I did look for Royals-specific fabric but couldn’t find any.

Although I pre-washed the denim, I'm still a little worried it might bleed when washed. I warned the parents-to-be, so hopefully they remember to wash it only with dark fabrics and in cold water.

I’m making another bag out of the same exterior fabric but a different lining. This is for a co-worker in India who helped me shop for some things when I was there last month and I want to thank her for it. I'll post those pictures as soon as it's finished. Then I need to ship it to India!