Duck Egg Blue Anima Pants

What better way to celebrate the arrival of spring that to make a pair of teal trousers?! While the idea of this sounded slightly over the top in my head, in reality the right fabric and pattern lead to a very wearable and already much loved pair of new trousers.

I used this stunning loopback jersey from Guthrie and Ghani to make these trousers. The fabric is truly gorgeous, it feels so soft and the colour is lovely. I actually planned these before I made my grey pair of Anima pants. I asked for the pattern and fabric for my birthday but the time of year seemed wrong to make a blue pair of trousers. I'd always planned on making a grey pair too and ended up making those first as they were more seasonally appropriate. The blue jersey wasn't forgotten though and I'm really pleased that it was finally sunny enough to justify making them!

Sewing this pair was slightly different to sewing the other pair due to the different fabric weights. Loopback jersey is more of a medium weight jersey wheras the grey fabric that I used last time was very stable and more like a sweatshirt knit. I don't mind sewing with stretchy fabrics but I definitely noticed a difference, in particular with the waistband which was much harder to sew than last time as the jersey was so stretchy. I was slightly worried that the lighter weight jersey wouldn't work as well for the shaping of the pattern but they hang really nicely. The way the two pairs hang is different, but I think that the pattern is a brilliant design as both fabrics seem to work well.

It's not often that I find a pattern (especially a trouser pattern) that fits me perfectly but the Papercut Patterns Amina pants do. Elasticated waists are, of course, much easier to fit but it's the shaping of the legs that I think works really well. I mentioned last time how much I like the faux fly detail - well, I still do! I also love the look that the channelling on the elastic gives, definitely worth the horrors of trying to sew it.
I finished these exactly the same as my last pair, with a 2.5cm roll up at the hem. Despite having made two pairs of these I anticipate making a third, I'd really like to make a pair in a woven fabric next.

Perpetual Spring English Paper Piecing

I've found that I tend to share mainly dressmaking projects for a couple of reasons. The first being that dressmaking is definitely my favourite creative outlet and the second being that it's so much quicker than a lot of other types of sewing. However, there is one other type of sewing that I also love: English Paper Piecing. Because EPP projects are finished so much more rarely than dressmaking projects (perhaps two finished items a year as opposed to two a month) I never really got into the habit of writing about them. I considered not writing about this one at all due to the fact that it has been finished since 2016. 2016! For 2.5 years it has been completely finished yet I only just got round to actually taking photos of it. So writing about it now seemed slightly pointless. However, it's not only one of my favourite things but also one of my proudest things I have ever made so I decided that it warranted a blog post nevertheless.

I started EPP in December 2015 having aboslutely no clue how to do it but finding that it quickly became the perfect evening passtime for me. As with much of my sewing I was inspired by Florence whose English paper piecing projects are incredible. Shortly after my first couple of projects I decided to launch into a long term project (which in hindsight was far too ambitious!) as it was around this time that Florence released her Perpetual Spring EPP pattern and immediately wanted to make it. As you can see I not only made her pattern but I also copied her colour scheme - her version just looked so lovely and the pattern reminds me of daffodils.

I started this project in March of 2016 with the aim of giving it to my Mum for Christmas. I'm quite impressed with myself for managing to make it in 9 months! I also managed to keep it a secret from her for that duration, I believe she knew about the colour scheme and the fact that it was English paper pieced but had no idea what the final outcome would look like. I loved being able to give it to her after all that work! I left the framing down to my Mum who I think framed it perfectly. Despite being unframed for quite some time as an addition to all the months it took to make the finished piece is now up in our living room. While yellow isn't maybe the most obvious colour choice I really love it and although I technically made it for my Mum, the fact that it's in the living room means that I get to enjoy it too!

In making this I discovered that I really love having a big EPP project on the go. Since finishing this I've only really made small EPP projects but I found that I missed having a large project too much and started another a couple of months ago which is perhaps even more ambitious than this one was - I'm hoping to write a bit more about that soon. I can't believe how long it took me to write a blog post about this but I'm glad that I have now, as I said it's one of my favourite and proudest makes ever and that still stands 2.5 years on.

White Tie Top

My latest sewing is a top for a friend of mine, requested for her birthday. I've made quite a few things for others now and while it's definitely is more stressful sewing for someone else I do enjoy it. One of the nice things about sewing for my friends is testing myself to try and copy a ready to wear design. Most patterns created aren't aimed with my age group in mind and while there are a lot of lovely trouser patterns that I love, I find that patterns for simple tops with a slight twist are much harder to come by. This means that they have to be self-drafted - definitely easier said than done!

You may remember that I also made a top for a another friend last year. With both of these tops I asked them to choose a ready to wear top or style for me to copy. This time I used this top as my inspiration, the detail requested being the tie at the front. As you can see the tops look pretty different, I like to think of this one as a slightly more wearable version of the ready to wear one! I left the ties untied in the photos but in reality they will probably be tied together when worn. I did initially plan to have the bodice hold together simply using the ties like in the photo, but issues of decency prevented this from working out! To solve the problem I kind of pleated the ties to gather them in the centre and then and sewed them together. I also hand sewed the left and right side together up about 1" just above where the ties meet. The final result actually worked really well. The ties provide enough coverage for the top to be worn comfortably and the desgin feature is still kept if they're tied together.

Drafting the front bodice was not easy! For most of the time I had absolutely no idea if the end result would actually look OK. The ties on this top and this one aren't dissimilar so I had a vague idea of the pattern shape that I needed, just scaled up in size. The hardest part was probably figuring out the depth that the bodice needed to be in order to have a smooth curve to join the front onto the back. Once again my mannequin was priceless when I was designing this top, especially because I couldn't fit it to me as I was sewing for someone else.

I still can't quite believe that the top actually worked - it looked amazing on my friend when she tried it on! During the drafting process I was very much tempted to throw it out of the window but I just about managed to ignore the impulse and carry on. I also now have a pattern piece for the bodice meaning that if I make another one I will never have to go through that same drafting process again!