A Week of Handmade Outfits - Summer 2021

Back in 2017 I did a round up of the handmade clothes that I brought with my on my summer holidays. Whilst I always intended to write another post like that, I somehow never got round to it. I always love seeing how people wear their handmade clothes and I know that the way I wear mine everyday isn't necessarily the same way that I photograph them for the blog post, so I thought it would be nice to do a roundup of a week of handmade outfits from time to time.

These photos give a more accurate depiction of the makes that I actually wear on a daily basis, and it's also a nice way for me to showcase the things that I made years ago. Although it's always fun to write-up new garments on my blog, to me sewing is about wearing the clothes that I make and this series should hopefully express that more clearly. I will add that it isn't always easy taking photos of my outfits! I'm sharing 5 handmade outfits that I've worn recently but they are by no means the only handmade clothes that I've worn over the last few weeks - I tend to wear something me-made most days.

True Bias Shelby Dress

The weather has been variable to say the least over the last few weeks but we have had some sunshine! It's often too cold for me to wear my summer dresses so they're the first thing I reach for during a heatwave. I made this floral Shelby Dress last summer and I still love it just as much, I'd definitely like to make another.

White Twist Top and Floral Midi Skirt

My other favourite heatwave make is my viscose midi skirt that I made last year. I'd never worn a midi skirt before making this one and I was unsure of how much wear I'd get out of it, but it's quickly become one of my all time favourite makes. I love the pretty fabric and its loose and flowy, making it ideal for summer heat.

I've started wearing it mainly with the white twist top that I made in 2019. I had no idea how successful this top would be when I made it but I wear it all the time - it's literally falling apart! You can see from photos of my gingham Lander pants, black joggers and checked Anima pants that it pairs well with everything. 

Sherpa Jacket

I've continued to frequently wear this jacket since making it, and though it may seem like a strange choice for summer it's been a great one to wear on cooler days. My newer corduroy jacket has also seen a lot of wear recently and I'll try and take some photos of that one next time.

Pink Fluffy Jacket

On the subject of jackets, I thought this photo of my pink fluffy jacket paired with RTW clothes sums up the way I wear my handmade clothes quite well. Rather than aiming for a fully handmade wardrobe I enjoy wearing things I've made with clothes I've bought. As for this jacket, it's probably my least worn make out of this list but not because I don't love it - it's pretty 'out there' but always makes me smile.

Button-up jersey top

This t-shirt is one of my most worn makes ever. It's another one that I made in 2019 but continue to wear now. I think its success is based on the fact that the style is very 'me', it's the kind of thing that I wear on an everyday basis because it's so easy to throw on and I really like it.

Like I mentioned at the start this is by no means a full list of all the handmade outfits I've worn recently and I'm determined to photograph my other favourites! Some of the other handmade items that I've worn a lot over the last couple of months include my Balloon Jeans, my Dawn Jeans, my Gingham Trousers, this zip-up hoodie and these tops.

DIY Tie Strap Top

Sometimes the most simple projects are the most enjoyable and can give the best outcomes. Sleeveless tops seem to fit best into this category, and for me they have the combined bonus of being really quick to make and requiring minimal amounts of fabric. I've been on a roll with these kind of tops recently, having made a couple of  sleeveless turtleneck tops and a ribbed vest. After seeing this floral jersey fabric from Craft Cotton Co the opportunity to make yet another sleeveless top became clear. I wanted to make something that was simple to sew and easy to wear, letting the pretty fabric do the talking. The great thing about these tops is that that the style can be easily changed depending on straps, neckline etc to give rise to lots of different garments.

My initial plan with this fabric was to try and do something with elastic, perhaps to include puff sleeves or create an off the shoulder top like this one. I'd still like to have a go at one of those projects but I decided to go for something more basic that I knew I could pair with different trousers. 

Last year I made myself a super simple pattern for a strap top that could be made from fabric scraps. I wanted to focus on the armhole and position of the straps to make it fit me perfectly, something that is hard to find with tops like these in RTW shops as they're often made cheaply. I'm so pleased with how well the fit turned out. It's a great pattern to use both for scraps that would be thrown away, or a fabric like this one where I wanted the design to be visible. Simple, easy to make and good for wearing on holiday. 

As mentioned I chose to go for a simple design in order to focus on the fabric. I did want to include some kind of fun detail though, so I decided to add a tie to the straps. It was so easy to do, I just cut the straps about 7" longer and tied them over my shoulder. It adds a nice bit of interest and works really well with this fabric as it's quite a small print. I went for a double knot with the ends hanging out, but a bow would look nice in a draper fabric or you could change the length of the ends.

One thing I like about the design of this top is that the straps also act as bias binding around the armholes. It gives the armhole a really neat finish and avoids a messy or weak attachment of straps to the bodice.

The first time I made a top like this, I left it un-hemmed and simply cut it at the length I wanted it to finish. It worked well on the rib I used for that project, but I wanted a neater finish on this top. Also, the jersey would have probably rolled if I hadn't hemmed it. I'd say the main thing I've learnt through sewing with jersey is that small hems do not work. They go wobbly and turn under, giving a messy finish to the project. It's something that's always bothered me about some of my older jersey tops like this jumper and this t-shirt, and I now make sure to finish all jersey makes with a hem that is at least 1" deep. 

For this top I sewed a double row of stitching, a finish that I love. It doesn't take a lot of effort but I think it shows that you've put thought into the whole sewing process and just makes it look a bit nicer. It's so tempting to rush hems but I think a neat hem does make a real difference. I do keep meaning to buy a twin needle but for now I just sew the two rows of topstitching individually.

I think this was the perfect project for this fabric and I'm looking forward to wearing this top in the summer, hopefully whilst on holiday. It goes well with my new Lander Pants too!

DIY Ribbed Vest Top

I really enjoy upcycling old items of clothing to turn them into new ones (this top made from old jeans remains one of my all time favourite makes) and often do this with clothes that I no longer wear. Upcycling isn't limited to RTW garments though, altering old me-mades which are no longer worn is also a great way to make turn something unwearable into something new - and as a bonus you get two items of clothing from one piece of fabric. 

I'm really proud of the fact that most of the things I make are really wearable, and pieces such as this skirt or this dress which I made years ago I continue to wear now. But often the things that I've made in the past require some small tweaks. For example, I have since added pockets to and turned up the hem of my Delphine Skirt to make it more wearable. I'm particularly pleased with the way I altered these Dawn Jeans into flares which I have worn a lot more. Other things that I've made in the past no longer fit me or the sewing isn't good enough (any knits made pre-overlocker feel rubbish in comparison to those I make now!) and so these require more drastic changes. 

Of course not all things that I've made previously that no longer fit can be adapted. My Ginger Jeans, for example, got a lot of wear at the time and whilst I was disappointed that I couldn't continue wearing them - they took so long to make! - I'm still so pleased I did make them and enjoyed wearing them. Those jeans were also part of the learning curve which has enabled me to make several pairs of jeans recently which fit perfectly. 

I made this stripy turtleneck top way back in 2017. In fact, the blog post was written in January so I probably started the project in 2016! I'd been making my own clothes for a couple of years then and was starting to learn how to self-draft my own patterns. I'm actually still quite pleased with how the turtleneck turned out as I hacked the Tilly and the Buttons Coco Top pattern which has a very different neckline, but since making turtleneck tops following actual patterns I haven't been wearing that one anymore. The sewing also wasn't great as the side seams were sewn using a zigzag stitch rather than an overlocker. 

I really liked the fabric that I used to make the turtleneck so I decided to salvage it and make a new top from the old one. The fabric I used was a black and white rib bought from Guthrie & Ghani, so ideal to make a vest top. I was obviously limited by the amount of fabric available and the fact that it was already sewn into a top, so a sleeveless vest top was probably the only option. 

The first thing I did was to entirely unpick the top, giving me flat pieces of fabric. I then cut out the front and back bodices from the old front and back and used the sleeves to create strips of binding. I copied a RTW vest top to make this and I really liked the detail of having the binding overlap round the edges to enclose the seams. It's possible to do with a rib that doesn't fray and makes a change from the method that I used for this top. 

This was such an easy make and I'm very pleased to have given this fabric a new life. I was able to enjoy it both as a turtleneck which I wore quite a bit at the time and now as a new top which better fits my current style. I'm wearing this top with my grey Anima Pants here and have also worn it with my wide-legged Dawn Jeans, it's a great basic that I'm very pleased to own.

Making a velour zip-up jacket

 

I've always enjoyed making things from fabrics that they wouldn't normally be made from (like this shirt top made out of jersey) and having seen a resurgence of velour type fabrics recently I thought it would be fun to make an item of clothing from a fabric which is often used for upholstery. I chose a deep jewel green colour velour (the colour way is called 'petrol') for this project which seemed like a good fit for a zip-up jacket.

This project actually started off with the assumption that it would be a zip-up hoodie, but the structure of the fabric makes it feel much more like a jacket. I actually used the same self-drafted pattern that I made this black zip-up hoodie from, which goes to show how different the same pattern can look when made from two different fabrics. The pattern still worked really well for this fabric, although I should have widened the sleeves slightly as they are a little tight when made from a non-stretch fabric. Because it's so difficult to find matching ribbing I just used the same fabric for the hem band and cuffs on this jacket, but I think the velour would have also paired well with a rib for those.  

The only change I made from my black hoodie was to add in some pockets. I got this idea from a cropped RTW hoodie and, whilst the pockets aren't functional as they're so high up, I really like how they look. It's also a nice addition to a plain fabric as they add a bit of interest, especially with the topstitching. Rather than drafting a disproportional pocket I used my pattern piece from the Tilly and the Buttons Stella Hoodie (which I've made before here, here and here but without the pocket) and cut it in half to allow the zip to run through it. The pockets are fully lined which is a nice finish to have but they were almost impossible to attach! Because the velour is a fairly heavyweight fabric having a double layer for the pockets and then a double layer for the hem band made the topstitching around the bottom really tricky. It probably would have been better to turn the pocket fabric under and hem with this kind of fabric.

As always I enjoyed focusing on the smaller details like topstitching. Like the pockets, adding some rows of stitching adds a bit of interest to the plain fabric. The hood is also fully lined (unlike the pockets I think that was necessary, the wrong fabric would have showed) which creates a bit of stiffness but that will probably soften with wear.

Zips can often make or break a garment (literally, I was so sad when the zip on these jeans broke!) so they're definitely worth spending extra on. I've found that YKK zips are a really great quality and used one with silver teeth for this make. As I mentioned above it's really hard to match colours online, especially with a colour like this green one which isn't a classic shade. I decided to go for a green zip which seemed like the closest match but the shades were completely different and I reckon it would have been better to go for black or grey. 

It wouldn't usually matter so much if the zip isn't a perfect colour-match but for a jacket like this one the zip tape would have been visible whenever the jacket wasn't zipped up. To fix this problem I made some bias binding out of the velour fabric and sewed it around the zip tape. As a bonus it also makes the inside super neat, although I had to hand sew it down which took forever!

I think I must have been unusually distracted while making this jacket as it I had to unpick quite a few sections (I actually forgot to add the pockets when I first sewed in the zip!) but it was a really enjoyable project. I definitely think that velour can work for clothes and not just cushions, and I'm very pleased with how this jacket turned out. Looking back through some of my older makes I realised that I've actually used velour before on a dressmaking project - I made this dress back in 2017. I'm still proud of that dress but it's also really nice to see how much my sewing has improved, this jacket was a self-drafted pattern and is much more suited to something I would wear on a daily basis. 

[This fabric was given to me by Minerva in exchange for a blog post]

DIY Sleeveless Turtleneck Top

I started off this year with quite a few long, involved sewing projects. I made a pair of jeans, followed by a lined jacket and another pair of jeans. My sewing fluctuates between wanting to make more complicated things that I can be fully absorbed in, followed by simple makes that take a short amount of time. For me, those simple makes are always t-shirts. I know I'll get a lot of wear out of them and I really like using t-shirt sewing patterns as a base for pattern hacks. Recently, I've been focused on exams and revision so simple t-shirts have been ideal sewing projects.

I've had a sleeveless turtleneck top in mind for a while and of course turned to the Tilly and the Buttons Freya top to use as a base to hack. I've made the pattern over and over, including this sparkly version and this plain black version so far this year. One of my favourite Freya hacks that I've done is this zip-neck version. This is my first time making the pattern sleeveless and for this project I kept the turtleneck, but I think it could nice to make it as a vest top too.

My biggest challenge when it came to this top was getting the armhole to fit well. I wanted to give the armhole an inward curve, as well as narrowing the shoulder seam by about half its initial width. To make sure there wasn't any gaping I tried the top on quite a few times while making it and pinned the fabric in place. The main thing that made the fit work was to add an armband around the armhole. Much like a neckband, this was a piece of fabric that was folded in half and then stretched when sewn in place. It worked really well and has drawn the fabric in place to ensure that there's no gaping.

I wanted to make a simple top that I could pair with my wide-legged Dawn Jeans which are really high-waisted, so I cut it quite a bit shorter than I usually would. The length has ended up pretty good for pairing with those jeans as the top finishes just above the waistband, but it meant that I couldn't lose any length when it came to hemming the top. I wasn't sure how to avoid a wobbly hem which is how jersey hems often turn out if anything less than 1" has been turned under. When I mentioned the problem to my mum, she reminded me of some white jersey bias binding that I had in my stash. It was the perfect solution, I sewed the bias along the bottom of the top before flipping it to the inside and stitching it down. Not only is it really neat on the inside, the hem is perfectly straight and I only lost 1/4" in length. I happened to have some shop-bought binding in my stash but it would be really easy to make and it's definitely a finish I'll use again.

For the fabric I used a plain white cotton jersey from Craft Cotton Co, one of my favourite fabric types. I've actually used this same plain white colour way before to make this jumper and this top, I love it because it's much more opaque than most other white jerseys and also feels nice to wear.

I remember talking about how sewing often feels like a superpower when I made this top a few years ago, and my new sleeveless turtleneck feels like another example of that. Sewing allowed me to replicate a design that I liked while making it in a lovely fabric, achieving a great fit and adding something to my wardrobe that I know pairs with other items. 

I actually loved this top so much that I immediately made another one in black! That's definitely a sign of a successful sewing project. I know I'll get lots of wear out of this style of top and having one in white and in black means that I can wear one of them with pretty much any trousers. I'll share more about the black version in a seperate blog post. Seeing as they're both identical and are both very basic colours I'll be interested to see which one I wear more.

Megan Nielsen Dawn Jeans - DIY Balloon Jeans Hack

I've always enjoyed the in-depth sewing process of making a pair of jeans. Not only are they enjoyable to make as the sewing involves more thought than a simple top, being able to wear a pair of handmade jeans is an amazing feeling. As my sewing skills and confidence has increased I've started to hack sewing patterns into different styles but I've previously steered away from hacking jeans patterns. The fitting is more complicated on jeans, and I worried that I wouldn't get the proportions right. Now that I've made quite a few pairs of jeans I feel more comfortable with the fitting and sewing process and after the success of my flared jeans hack I thought I'd venture further jeans hacks.

The Megan Nielsen Dawn Jeans is a great pattern for non-stretch jeans, I made my first pair out of corduroy last year and have recently made a wide-legged pair. I especially like how high-waisted they are, making them comfortable to wear. Having made two pairs previously I've managed to alter the back pieces to get the pattern to fit me perfectly at the waist, so it seemed like a good pattern to use as a base for future jeans hacks. With three different views, the pattern also has a variety of different leg-widths which provide a great starting point.

Quite a few different styles of jeans have emerged recently and I always like to use RTW clothes as sewing inspiration. One style that I kept going back to was balloon jeans, which have a fitted waist and ankle but go out in a balloon-shape before coming back in. I looked at quite a few photos online and the main technique seemed to be having darts around the base of the leg to bring the fabric in whilst keeping volume around the knee.

In order to make these jeans I cut my fabric pieces out as view C of the Dawn Jeans which are wide-legged, I made a pair of these without any hacks a few months ago. For this pair, I constructed the jeans as usual until it came to sewing the legs together, at which point I basted both the inner leg seam and the side seams in place. Then came a lot of pinning! I tried the jeans on and basically pinned the shape I wanted in place. The wide-legged jeans were quite a bit wider than what I wanted for the balloon jeans so I took quite a bit of fabric out from both the inner leg and side seams, especially around the thigh/knee area. 

To get the shaping that I wanted I needed to add in some darts. Again I basted these in place so that they could easily be unpicked and re-sewn at a different length. I was expecting the darts to take ages to get right but they were surprisingly straightforward to do, I added one up the middle of the back and two in the front at equal distances from the side seams. My darts ended up being about 1" wide at the bottom and 11" long, but depending on how much fabric you want taking in at the ankles you could vary the width.

Once the darts were in place I basted the seams for a second time, following the shape that the pins made. This took quite a while to get right and I ended up taking more fabric out than I was expecting as I found that I didn't like the really baggy look that the jeans had. The great thing about making these myself is that I was able to create a pair of balloon jeans which go out in the right shape but weren't too baggy, I think I might have found a RTW pair a bit loose and harder to wear.

I'm very pleased with the shape that I created, like I said they don't go out too much so aren't overly baggy but the balloon shape is there and is especially visible from the side. 

Because the legs are quite loose it was important to me to make sure that the waistband fit really well. It means that the jeans can be worn with a more fitted top to balance out the looser legs and I think having a pair of jeans that fits well on the waist makes them seem a bit smarter, not to mention that they're much nicer to wear if they fit.

It's taken me so long to get the fit of jeans right but I've finally got there with the Dawn Jeans. The main adjustment I made to the pattern was to remove a wedge from the centre back seam and also take the side seams in by 2cm either side at the top. I wrote more about the fitting process in this post. I'd really recommend making a jeans pattern without hacking it several times to get the fit right and to then transfer those markings to the pattern. Having the pattern already altered to fit me makes the sewing process so much more enjoyable as I don't have to think about adjusting the fit every time I make a pair of jeans, I can then focus on hacks to the leg shape instead. 

As well as having darts to shape the legs, the main thing I noticed when looking at RTW balloon jeans was that they featured pleats at the waist. I did consider leaving off the pleats as I was worried about over-hacking, but they link to the more relaxed style so seemed like a necessary addition. Fortunately the denim I used was the perfect weight. I'm not sure the pleats would have worked in a thicker fabric, I didn't want them to stick out stiffly.

In the end adding the pleats was a fairly simple pattern adjustment. When cutting out the front trouser piece I marked on the pattern where I wanted the pleat to go (ideally about 1/2" away from the pocket) and then moved my pattern piece to add in an extra 2" of fabric which would then be folded to create the pleat. The proper way of doing this would be to alter the pattern but my lazy method worked fine too!

Initially, I folded and basted the pleats in place and just left them as they were. However, when I tried the trousers on the pleats seemed to get a bit lost among the other features and didn't really stand out enough. To get past this I sewed together the pleat, adding about 1" of stitching down from the waistband. It's hard to explain but this post gives you an idea of what I did, you can see from the photo that it makes the pleat stay in place at the top. The pleats remind me of these trousers that I made a few years ago and loved wearing.

I really enjoyed adding topstitching to these jeans. I used a matching colour thread (I didn't want a contrast colour to take away from the leg shape which is the main feature) but I think that the texture of a heavyweight thread adds a lot of interest, especially around the waistband and on the back pockets.

Possibly my favourite feature was my decision to add topstitching to the darts on the leg. I wasn't planning to do this but kept thinking that it could look really cool, so I decided to go for it and I love how it looks. It makes the darts seem purposeful and ties the legs to the waist. It helps that the inseam has a double row of topstitching which I then repeated for the hem, again drawing it all together.

When it came to hemming the jeans it took me quite a while to decide what length I wanted them. I turned them up by a couple of inches to start with and really liked the slightly cropped length. However, I've noticed that the length of jeans seems to be increasing so I wanted them to be slightly  longer. When I compared the two lengths I actually really liked both of them, in the end I went for the longer length but either would have been nice.

Like all handmade jeans these were only complete once I added rivets. They're surprisingly easy to add but I think they go a long way in making these look shop bought rather than handmade. I chose to go for silver rivets with this colour denim although it probably would have looked nice with bronze ones too.

Another lovely detail of handmade jeans is being able to add pocket bag lining fabric. This is always something that I like to do in a fun contrast fabric, it isn't visible from the outside but always makes me smile when I put the jeans on. I chose to use this floral cotton print from Craft Cotton Co, I think it pairs perfectly with the navy denim.

I couldn't resist adding a 'pattern hacker' label to the back pocket. I tend to add labels to the insides of makes but this one is so perfect for these jeans and it's quite subtle so isn't too much of a statement.

I'm honestly slightly surprised by how well these turned out! I had a very clear picture of what I wanted these jeans to look like in my head but it's often really hard to transfer that onto an actual garment, especially without a ready-made pattern. The time it took to baste the side seams of these jeans really paid off as the width is just right. I also love how the darts are used to bring the fabric back in at the bottom, it's a clever design feature that I like the look of too. I'm definitely going to be hacking the Dawn Jeans again, once the fit has been perfected the possibilities are endless!

Sparkly Tilly and the Buttons Freya Top

Despite having made countless Tilly and the Buttons Freya tops, it's still a pattern that I turn to again and again. Not only is it perfect to hack, the original version with a mock neck can be made to look completely different depending on the length and fabric choice. As soon as I saw this fabric from Minerva I knew that I wanted to make a cropped turtleneck top from it. It was exactly the kind of fabric I've seen RTW tops made from and my sister even has a turtleneck top made out of a lurex rib like this one. Most of the time I use RTW clothes to inspire my sewing, but sometimes I want to make something exactly as I've seen it so when the right fabric comes along the plan falls perfectly into place.

The top that I wanted to recreate was a fairly simple cropped turtleneck neck which seemed like a great way to show off an interesting fabric like this one. I like that it isn't too bright, for me having a sparkly fabric which was also brightly coloured would feel a bit much to wear but having a black lurex fabric like this one is perfect. It means that I can wear the top not just as a going out top but also as something that can be dressed down.

One thing that I've found to be quite annoying when shortening the Freya top (or any similar pattern) is that the side seams flare out slightly at the hem. It's because the pattern side seams are designed to be curved not straight, and I often forget about it until after I've sewn the hem. I regret not doing this on my most recent Freya, so for this top I straightened the edges of the pattern pieces  before sewing the side seams so that the hem lies completely flat. I also made sure that the hem was 1" deep which is a must on stretch fabrics to avoid it turning up.

I've made turtleneck tops out of quite a few different jersey fabrics with varying degrees of stretch but using a rib tends to give the best results. My zip-neck Freya top made from a red rib fabric my favourite of all the Freyas that I've made. Ribs are great because they're so stretchy, but they also bounce back into shape really well meaning that the neckband doesn't get stretched out. I've found this to be true when comparing two Freya tops that I made ages ago, this one is made from a really stretchy rib and is much easier to take on and off than this one. I also like that rib offers a different texture to a cotton jersey so that even if the fabric is plain the top doesn't feel boring. 

The only problem I found when it came to making this top was that the right side of the fabric is quite itchy. This isn't a problem for most of the top because its the inner fabric that I can feel (which is very soft and comfortable to wear) but it did pose an issue when it came to the neckband. The neckband of the Freya top is designed to be folded in half with the right side of the fabric on both the inside and the outside of the neckband. When I tried the top on the neck kept bothering me, so I unpicked it and resewed it so that the inner layer of the neckband has the wrong side of the fabric touching the neck. It was really simple to do, I just added in a seam around the top and cut the neckband into two pieces rather than folding it in half. I don't think you'd need to do this with a thin neckband but it was an easy adjustment to make on this top and has made a big difference.

The best part about this top is that I was able to make an improvement on the RTW version in avoiding having the right side of the fabric touching my neck. It's the kind of thing that RTW clothes wouldn't think to do, but when the clothes are homemade they can be tailored exactly to your wishes. I'm really happy with how this top turned out and have already worn it to a zoom-party! Hopefully I'll be able to wear it out in the real world at some point soon.