Chasing Coco

One of my coworkers was wearing a really cute top with a tie-front a few weeks ago and as luck would have it, another sewist posted a tie-front tank top. I asked her about it and she said she'd hacked it and posted a picture of her pattern piece and I thought "well, if she can do it, I can do it!" You can do it too :-) This was a really easy hack! For mine, I used the Ellie and Mac Going Home Sweater  (afflink). It's a pretty basic raglan style pattern with t-shirt, tunic and dress lengths. For this hack, I used the t-shirt length of the pattern and a double brushed poly from CaliFabrics. To add the tie-front, I traced off the front pattern piece on to my trusty bee paper . Instead of adding a band around the bottom, I would need to hem it so I added an 1 inch to the bottom to give myself some hem space. Near the center fold, I drew my tie shape using my French curve . I made sure to not make it on the fold, but near and then made a slight curve inward at t...

This was a fun and spontaneous project! I was hitting up the pattern sale at Joann's and browsing around at their fabric, like one does on a Thursday after work 😎 and I saw their doodles line. I usually don't find their fabric to be the best quality for apparel, my store is more quilting and fleece but I had seen a few makes online using their doodles fabric that were super cute and they had this pink unicorn print that I knew my nieces would love so I bought it totally on impulse! Here it is in my cart! It's a good thing there was also a pattern sale going on because I didn't have any patterns for the girls who are 2 and 4 years old. I picked up a few options and decided to make them M7344 , a simple dress with little raglan sleeves. I made top view B and bottom hem F (sleeveless with straight hem). Sizing & Alterations I will be honest and admit that I know nothing about sizing for kids patterns and very little about sizing for kids clothes. Than...

Last week I made the Ellie & Mac Lucky Girl top ( pattern can be purchased here ) with the split sleeve (style 1) and I really loved the outcome (see it here)  but of course, I also wanted to make the tie sleeve version (style 2). I was looking at the fabric I had available and most of it was double brushed poly (DBP) which doesn't look nice on the back side (usually it's white on the back, printed on one side only), so I knew I’d want to line my sleeves. Last week, I decided to make the split sleeve version because how I was going to construct the lined sleeve was still percolating a little bit but now, I was ready to go! Despite my plan to make more separates this year, I had 3 yards of the fabric I wanted to use and opted to make a dress. I can’t help it, I just love dresses! It’s one garment to have a whole new outfit. The E&M Lucky Girl has a dress option but it’s a sheath style and I decided I would prefer a bodice + skirt option. McCall’s 7313 is a patte...

One of my sewing goals this year is to make more separates instead of pretty dresses, to that aim, I made the Ellie & Mac Lucky Girl pattern as a top. I really like the many sleeve options that are in style right now. Originally, I wasn't going to buy this pattern because I felt like I could easily hack the pattern's sleeve options from other Ellie & Mac patterns , but then it went on sale and I thought I'd save myself the time. More sewing time is always better!   Fabric choice I used some ponte knit that I had leftover from the shirt I made my husband a few weeks ago, a green ponte knit from fabric.com and a new floral DBP from Cali Fabrics. I was a little worried about the ponte fabric having enough stretch because the pattern specifies 50% 4-way stretch and it only had 50% 2-way stretch (which is still pretty stretchy for a ponte!). For that reason, I decided it would be best to use as my main fabric and do the sleeves and bands all in the flor...

This is my second make from my Ellie and Mac pattern splurge after Christmas, the tulip dress (afflink). I made this in a large scale rose print double brushed poly from Cali Fabrics. Alterations I love the look of a tulip hem but I often find that because of the cross-over they can feel really short, especially when sitting down. This is a definite problem with the RTW tulip hem dress I have and that has caused it to largely remain in my closet. The nice thing about sewing your own clothes, is you can make them whatever length you want! Given my past issue with my RTW version, I looked closely at the pattern tester images before making this pattern. This is a great feature of E&M patterns ! It is really helpful to see so many versions right on the pattern instructions. When I looked at the makes of this pattern, I knew I’d also want it longer. I always add 1” to E&M patterns because they are designed for 5’5” and I’m 5’7” but since I also wanted it longer tha...

I have to admit, I was not on the “make your own underwear” bandwagon for a long time. With limited sewing time, there were just always other things I wanted to spend it on. However, I have totally changed course. One of my reasons for sewing my own clothes is definitely to have personalized fit and design options but I also have concerns about the social costs of clothing production (sweatshops) so to help meet this goal, sewing my own everything as much as possibly makes sense. What really changed my mind though, was seeing how easily I could re-purpose my knit scraps into self-made panties! There is always a little bit of fabric leftover at the end of a project and it’s always a challenge to think about what can be done with it! Especially when it’s really cute fabric. This is what turned around my view on making underwear more than anything else, it’s the perfect size project for knit scraps. It takes much less than half a yard and multiple pieces or even fabrics can be c...

Can you believe that until recently I had never made my husband a shirt? I had made him some PJs, pillowcases for his body pillow and of course hemmed an untold number of pants but I'd never made him a shirt. #selfishsewist He has an old man flannel shirt that he loves. It's vintage and made with an ultra thick flannel and he would like a replacement/second version of this shirt. So I bought some flannel, the thickest I could find but thought maybe I should try making him a simpler shirt to check how patterns fit him first. Speaking of which, if anyone knows where I can buy the world's thickest flannel, please comment! Getting back to this shirt, I had originally gotten husband design approval for Simplicity 2318 with the shoulder detail but then I couldn't find the pattern anywhere in my stash. Now that could mean I don't have it but more likely I just can't find it. I did have  Simplicity 1605A so I decided I would make it and alter it to have th...