Papercut Patterns Kyoto

Burda
This year's Me Made May (once again) highlighted my startling lack of tops to pair with my many culottes, growing trouser collection and the odd skirt. I struggle with finding appropriate summer tops as I'm fairly self-concious when it comes to strappy things, so when I saw the new Sakura collection from Papercut Patterns, the not-too-revealing Kyoto, with it's quirky ruffles, really excited me! It's also aptly named, as we're jetting off to Japan next month and plan to visit Kyoto while we're there! Here are the two versions I've made so far:

2 Papercut Patterns Kyoto tops
The PDF pattern was reasonably priced, and there really aren't too many pages to print. If you're savvy and only want to make the t-shirt version, you could save a few more pages by skipping the sweater sleeve (I'm saving that version for the winter). One of my only criticisms of the pattern is the suggested lay plan. Cutting 'on-the fold' pieces out on the flat feels like so much effort, so I opted to fold both sides of the fabric so they met at the middle and all pieces that needed it could be cut on the fold - much more efficient!
Suggested lay plan...
...vs my alternative lay plan - note I did actually move piece 4 so the grain was the right way
I'm a long time fan of the Papercut Rise/Fall Turtleneck pattern, and the instructions aren't too dissimilar to that - easy to follow and quick to construct. I cut a size Small based on the finished measurements (my actual measurements fall into the Medium), first in the white jersey. I was clearly really confident that this pattern would be a hit when I did my jersey shop, buying white, black and pale pink in one go. It only takes 1.1m (and you could probably squeeze it out of 1m) making it a pretty cheap pattern to sew up! Here's a look at version number two, in a pink jersey mix:
Wearing my pink Kyoto with a new pair of B6178 culottes
I used my machine fitted with a walking foot and stretch needle to sew all the seams and finished raw edges with the overlocker. There's some fairly delicate topstitching to be done around the neck edge and along the hem of the ruffles, but nothing too challenging. The most time consuming bit of the make was gathering the ruffles to fit them into the sleeves, but the whole thing only took a few hours - hence making two in a very short space of time!

I really like the fit of the finished top. It is over-sized in style, so if you want something a bit closer fitting then definitely down size. The neckline on my white version came up quite wide, but I think I may have accidentally stretched it out while making. The neckline on the pink version, made with a slightly more stable knit, sits spot on, so this might just be something to keep an eye on depending on your fabric!

My boyfriend questioned why all of my recent makes have 'clown-features' - with reference to this vintage ruffle shirt - to which I protested that it was most definitely the year of the ruffle/sleeve (back me up on this ladies)! I love the ruffles and I think they add just the right amount of interest to an otherwise plain t-shirt, without being totally over the top (or clown like).


I'll definitely be making the Kyoto again - of course, as I've already bought the fabric in! Both versions actually mark an end to my long time aversion to wearing white/pale colours, and it's quite refreshing - I'm going to have start putting a white wash on..! Will you be making anything from the Sakura collection?
Quick look at the new Papercut Patterns collection
In other jersey sewing news, I recently tried out my very first Burda pattern, the #114 knot dress from the 05/2017 issue or online here. I really liked the tie waist detail and luckily for me, it was the 'sewing lesson' for that month so it had extra instructions and the pattern pieces were shaded in pink to make tracing them off spaghetti junction that bit easier. I made a size 42, which came up really big! I took huge amounts out of the side seams and cut a big chunk off the hem, which has actually changed the fit of the dress completely, but it's definitely 100 times more wearable! I had intended it to only be for holiday, but here I am wearing it during a bit of a heatwave we had here in the UK recently, and I really quite like it :)

Braving Burda
I feel like I might be getting into this sewing with jersey thing! What are your favourite summer patterns for working in stretch fabric?


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Reeta Shirt Dress by Named

finished project
I snap-bought the Reeta Midi Shirt Dress pattern the minute that Named released their SS17 Playground collection, so it's safe to say I've been planning to sew this for a while. But it took the #sewtogetherforsummer shirt dress challenge to give me the encouragement I needed to get started (thanks Sarah, Suzy and Monika for the push)! Just inside the deadline, here's my finished Reeta:
Reeya Midi Shirt Dress - Named Clothing
I chose the fabric to make it up in pretty quickly too - this beautiful striped olive green poly-crepe from Minerva Crafts.  I was smug at finding the perfect fabric for only £4.99p/m... until I came to cutting it and realising that it was only 45" wide rather than 60"! This left me almost half a metre short and meant some very creative pattern placement, as well as the struggle to keep my stripes straight! By some miracle, I managed to squeeze the whole thing out of just 3m. Disclaimer: any pattern matching is completely accidental (though my contrast horizontal back yoke was totally intentional).
Minerva Crafts poly-crepe
Reeta was a fairly straightforward sew, arguably easier than the '3 scissor' difficulty level stated - I made it in just a day. I saved myself a few extra steps by skipping the pockets. As much as I like the style of them, the placement, combined with the style of the dress, just wouldn't do any favours for my bust. The only real difficulty I had was with attaching the collar, mainly due to the severe curve at the front - a couple of attempts sorted it though. I was also a little confused over how to hem the dress with the way the facing was attached at the bottom as earlier instructed, so I sort of freestyled it.


Interior waist detail
I was quite surprised that the pattern didn't include a drafted piece for the inside waist casing, though to be honest, my limited fabric wouldn't have stretched to that anyway. As recommended, I used length of ribbon in green to match the dress, which makes for a really nice finish - perhaps something to make an external feature of in future. I threaded my cord through the ribbon channel and finished it with two toggles (leftover from my hardware purchase for my Waver Jacket) for a sort of 'utility' look.

Waist detail

When trying it on, I noticed pulling between the button holes at the waist if the cord wasn't tied as well as toggled, so I've stitched the centre front closed. And moving onto the buttons... I had total shade amnesia over the exact green of the dress when I went button shopping and came home with these little brown-looking ones that although aren't the worst, also aren't the best match. (I also do this regularly with zips too - anyone else?)

Side view
In terms of fit, I made the size 42 and it's pretty much spot on! In future I would change the placement of the top button as it falls slightly too high on my bust. And something that a lot of people comment on with Named patterns is the length. The patterns are designed for an average height of 172cm which is almost 5ft 8". For reference, I'm 5ft 6" and had to take a good few inches off the length of the Reeta when it came to hemming - I should've known better having hacked a good 8" off many Kielos. I still think it might be slightly too long, so the question is, should I shorten it more?

Back view
I really like the finished dress, though I can't help but feel that there is a fine line between frumpy and cool, and it's very much sitting on it - dinner lady chic vibes in this fabric anyone? I love the detail of the dress, particularly the sleeves and the waist cord/casing and choosing such a good quality, drapey fabric gives it that extra special finish - I think it almost looks like it could be hanging in Whistles, though coming in at less than £20, it definitely doesn't have the price tag to match!


A few tweaks to future versions - length and taking the side vents slightly higher - will make hopefully increase my love for Reeta even more. I'm thinking a lighter weight cotton version to add to add to my holiday handmades in the very near future!

Looking thoughtful - thanks Sara for photo-taking!
Did you make a shirt dress for #sewtogetherforsummer? Leave a link to your blog in the comments if so - I'd love to see it! :)


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All Me Made May-d out!

Me Made May
This year marks my second full Me Made May attempt. And considering the challenge I'd set myself, I think I did quite well to deviate from my 'majority handmade' pledge (i.e. all separates have to be made by me) only once!
Here's what I wore for the second half of May:

Week 3
Week 3! Top row: Days 15, 16 & 17; Bottom row: Days 18, 19, 20 & 21
Day 15 - Ralph Pink Sahara Shirt; Day 16 - Rise Turtleneck hack and GBSB pencil skirt which was my first ever blogged item; Day 17 - Named Talvikki Sweater and vintage-pattern hacked trousers; Day 18 - Fall Turtleneck and self-drafted skirt; Day 19 - Rise Turtleneck and velvet split-side skirt; Day 20 - A new wedding outfit! Vintage ruffle blouse and B6178 culottes; Day 21 - Fall Turtleneck and GBSB casual trousers.

Week 3 was a little bit of a mixed bag. I was really trying to incorporate a few older items that don't get much wear, but I felt like a bit of a jumble sale on a couple of days. Day 16's full outfit has since been designated for the charity bag - it just didn't feel very me and although I love the Rise Turtlneck hack, it needs work on the fit and remaking in a more suitable fabric. On the other hand, I LOVED wearing Day 20's newly made outfit to a wedding. Considering how the separate garments would work together from the point of making definitely worked and it's something I should aim to do more often.

Week 4
Week 4. Top row: Days 22, 23 & 24; Bottom row: Days 25, 26, 27 & 28
Day 22 - Sleeveless Rise Turtleneck and B6178 culottes; Day 23 - Ready to Sew Jane shirt and GBSB casual trouser hack culottes; Day 24 - Kielo Wrap dress with sleeves; Day 25 - Kielo Wrap Dress; Day 26 - By Hand London Flora/B6178 jumpsuit mash up; Day 27 - B6178 culottes and vintage-pattern wrap top; Day 28 - Sleeveless Rise Turtleneck and my brand new tester version of the Ready to Sew Joanne Culottes.

The warm weather combined with an insanely busy week at work should have thrown me in week 4, but looking at the week as a whole, I'm pretty pleased. I got some great wear out of my now many pairs of B6178 culottes and enjoyed adding the new, more relaxed, Ready to Sew Joanne culotte to the mix on Day 27. My main struggle was finding summer appropriate tops to pair with my many bottoms - as mentioned in my mid-way round up, I have masses of Rise/Fall Turtlnecks, but very little variation outside of that. 

And in the final few days, here's where I got lazy/fell off the band wagon...

Days 29, 30 & 31
Days 29, 30 & 31
Day 29 - A RTW top with B6178 culottes; Day 30 - Repeat wear of the Joanne culottes and sleeveless Rise Turtleneck; Day 31 - vintage-pattern hacked trousers and Rise Turtleneck

I was feeling a bit of pledge-fatigue by this point and just threw anything in my bag whilst packing for a bank holiday trip to Bristol. That included my favourite RTW top, which I broke my pledge in wearing on Day 29, and a few other repeat wears. In all honesty, I'm not too disappointed that my commitment tailed off towards the end. It was a long and busy month and I really did set the bar very high with my pledge.

Things I'll take from this month:

- The need to make a wider variety of tops.
- More consideration for how a new garment will work in an outfit as a whole before making it.
- A need for a couple of summer work-appropriate dresses. Luckily we're on the casual side of smart/casual, but it would still be useful to have some smarter dresses for warm days.
- I have LOADS of handmade clothes, many that I didn't even get round to wearing in the month. There's no need to kick myself or feel guilty if my sewing output is slow.
- I very rarely buy high street clothes, but the my few remaining RTW clothes have lasted this long for a reason - I really like wearing them! Although it was good to challenge myself with my 'majority handmade' pledge, it was also perhaps unnecessarily harsh in that it prevented me from wearing some of my most loved items. I'll eventually replace these old RTW favourites with a handmade alternative when needed, but until then, I'll be mixing them with handmade and aiming to get as much wear out of them as possible.

Whilst I'm relieved to relax the daily selfie game, I'm also already looking forward to next year's Me Made May to see how my efforts compare. It's been exciting and inspiring seeing everyone share their outfits as ever this May. Thank you Zoe for organising. Here's to another year!


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    Joanne Ready to Sew

    Culottes
    Hi all! I've had the absolute pleasure of testing Joanne, the new 2-in-1 culottes and shorts pattern from French company Ready to Sew. When Raphaëlle kindly got in touch to ask if I'd like to be a part of the testing team, she had me at 'culottes', so the addition of an on-trend paper bag waistband came as a total bonus. I loved sewing the Ready to Sew Jane shirt, so I had high hopes, and I'm pleased to report that I wasn't disappointed. I think a lot of you are going to love Joanne as much as I do...
    Ready to Sew Joanne culottes!
    The two options for Joanne - culottes and shorts
    If you follow me on here/Instagram, my love of culottes (particularly the B6178s) is pretty evident, so I obviously chose Joanne's culotte view for my test garment. Like the Jane Shirt, the PDF pattern is accompanied by a couple of cool click through features including tutorials and a playlist, which was totally my type of music so I stuck it on and got started.

    SQUEEZE
    I selected a size 40 based on my full hip measurement and the advice given by the pattern (my waist measurement falls into a 42, but the elastic waistband is pretty forgiving). The fabric requirements are given at 2m for the culottes (and only 1m for the shorts) but I had my heart absolutely set on using the 1.5m of mid-weight mustard cotton I picked up from the latest Hebden Bridge WI Rag Market. Needless to say I made it work, but when I say it was a squeeze I really mean it. I'll definitely be be sticking to the given yardage in future!

    Patch pocket detail
    The make was a real breeze and I managed all the cutting and sewing in just half a day. The pattern design is really simple, but it has some fun detailing to make it an interesting sew, particularly the topstitching around the curved patch pocket edge. Personally I love topstitching, but if it's not your bag, don't let that put you off! It's a great opportunity to learn or practice the technique and the pattern provides a clickable link to a topstitching tutorial to help.

    Paper bag waist detail
    Creating the paper bag waistband was a totally new technique for me and I love it. It's definitely something I'd like to do again and a feature I might even consider exaggerating in future. Essentially you just stitch a couple of rows in the middle of your waistband that act as a casing, and thread a skinny length of elastic through - who'd have thought it would be so easy? The pattern also has the option of a classic waistband as an alternative to the paper bag style.

    Back view
    Overall, the Joanne is a beautiful pattern that's both easy to sew and easy to wear. The finished style of the culottes is relaxed yet cool, and I think I could wear them in pretty much any situation. The patch pockets and the seams in the back mean there's a bit of room to play around with prints and different fabrics too. 

    The Joanne pattern is available to buy from Ready to Sew here.
    It's a great pattern for summer and I'll definitely be making more use of it before I head off on my holidays to Tokyo in a couple of months! (Recommendations welcome!!) I'm going to try a pair of patterned shorts next!

    Sunshine appropriate bottoms!
    Which version of Joanne would you make? Shorts or culottes?


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    Thanks for visiting!

    Thanks for visiting!