Toddlermatician shirt

When I saw this fabric a year ago on a WI outing to Bee Crafty I had to have it.  Isn't this just the most awesome badass maths fabric you have EVER seen?

I love the combination of chalk-board effect with areas of mad colour.  The most awesome part about it is that the maths is correct.  It even contains reference to Napier's rules, which I even had to look up to see what they were as I've never had occasion to use them.  (Mr Button the person with the real actual Mathematics degree guessed they were to do with logarithms: they're not.)

I've only spotted one error in the maths so far (a missing factor of 2.l.b):

This will annoy me for ever.

I decided that Toddler Button needed a shirt in this epic fabric.  He likes shirts a lot now, because Daddy wears shirts.  Daddy doesn't have a shirt as loud as this one:

With every snip and stitch, this fabric seemed more awesome to me, but also more loud.  This shirt is quite... mad?  Somehow it didn't make my eyes dance when it was on the bolt, but is definitely individual as a shirt.

Can you see the patch pocket in this image?  Me neither.

The pattern is my self-drafted size 2-3 years pattern, see this previous shirt with the skewered soldiers.  Toddler has just started to wear this size in my shirts (they seem a bit bigger than commercial 2-3 stuff), so there is plenty of growing room left.  I didn't have enough patience or fabric to draft a back yoke for this shirt, so we'll have to wait until I have a longer length of fabric and less inclination to just get going fast (as a break from knitting).

Yellow buttons.

Obviously there was only one choice for the buttons.  If I intend this shirt to become a favourite of Toddler Button, it has to be his obsession colour: yellow.  He's not worn the shirt yet, but I'll be sure to let you know if it has the honour of being selected by his Lordship from his drawer in the morning.  He did want to try it on before I'd had chance to slit open the buttonholes, so I have hope.

How could I let this fabric languish in my drawer for a whole year?!  WHAT WAS I THINKING?

Super fabric haul, much to sew.

Today, I bring you news of great shopping!  Apart from sharing my excitement at cheap fabrics, I'm going to be helpful (to your heart, but not your wallet) and tell you where to get it.

First stop: if you're ever near Doncaster (oop North), go to Waltons Fabrics in Goldthorpe.  Good times!  There is much spandex and giltter, but some real finds amongst them.  Apparently, many roll ends are ex-designer and almost everything was under £5/m.  I filled my boots with fabric, the likes of which I've often seen in commercial clothes but never for sale in fabric stores elsewhere.

Second stop: if you're more local to Cambridgeshire, there are many fabric stalls at the St Ives market, every bank holiday.  This morning I scored some stripey chiffon at £1/m.  You can't beat that for a muslin cost!  I just hope my first chiffon attempt will be wearable, because I quite like the fabric actually...

In other news, it's been real nappy week and I've used the discounts offered to buy a bunch of absorption fabrics to make more nappy boosters for TButton.  We'll see how that goes.  My washing machine wants me to hurry up and make them, because it's fed up of washing trousers.

Instead of making dull nappy boosters, I've actually been sewing a sweet sorbetto by Colette patterns.  I've done two muslins (out of an old circular skirt I found in my fabric box) and a bunch of pattern alterations.  I'm about ready to sew up in the real fabric, a deep red cotton with cream dots from Waltons Fabrics.  I've got purple for the bias binding.  I must be obsessed with polka dots; I've had the same fabric before in pale blue and navy blue already.

Behold, the fist muslin: a straight-up size 12, just taken in by 1.5" at the top of the straps (as is customary for me).  I just noticed TButton in the shot behind me, grabbing the clock off my bedside table: naughty!

In this first image you can see the sad evidence of a need for a full bust adjustment (FBA to its friends) in the drag lines at the sides.

Hello diagonal drag-lines from bust to waist!  Delighted to meet you!

Here is the sad back of the top.  Delightfully too large across the upper back (see baggy fabric at the armholes), and in need of a slight sway-back adjustment (see fabric pooling over me bum).

I also think the top is a little short to be wearing with my jeans, so I decided to lengthen it a bit too.  Before I took the top off, I marked the bust point by drawing on myself with chalk.  I transferred the mark back to the pattern to help with my FBA.

Sad in front, sad behind.  Sad sad sad.

I got out my scissors and set to work.  Behold how I ran out of sellotape and resorted to masking tape like a trouper.

More tape than paper.

I lopped 1.5" off the straps, did a 1" FBA,  changed down to a size 10 from the armholes upward, moved the bust dart up by 3/8", added 2" length to the bottom, did a 7/8" swayback adjustment and added a CB seam, and finally graded in a little at the waist on the back only.

FBA with a moved dart and added masking tape.

You'd think a simple loose-fitting top wouldn't need much fitting, but you'd be wrong, apparently.  Hey ho.

Hoorah!  Time to sew up a sweet sorbetto!

Playing with fabric design

I've been toying with the idea of producing "make your own shirt" packs, where the pieces are pre-printed onto the fabric.  To that end, I've been fiddling with some fabric designs, although now that I'm faced with infinite possibilities I really can't decide what I want!

(All images below at 5"x5" swatch size.)

Firstly, we have the giraffe option.   I really can't decide what background colour is best, and I'm not too happy with the green.  I was thinking pale blue, but then the contrast is poor with the yellow.

There's also a herd of cattle:

The design I got the furthest with is the toadstools.  I've actually laid out a yard of fabric for a shirt in this fabric, with with the underside of the collar and the inside of the collar stand, sleeve turnings and plackets in a matching red dot fabric.

Too much?  All a bit bright?  Or would you buy it?

Sewing for me again!

After what seems like an age (and it is: 1 1/2 years), I'm finally back to making my own clothes again.  The last thing I made was this dress, destined never to fit me again, boo hoo. 

I was so slow to finish it that my baby bump was far too large to fit in it, and I've only just got to the stage where I'm comfortable dieting.  Meanwhile, I've lived for the last year in two ragged maternity dresses, two pairs of jeans, one pair of shorts, and about 4 tops.  I am not exaggerating; if you were wondering why I turned up to your special event in jeans, this is why and I'm sorry.

The good news is that I'm back on the sewing bandwagon, and I have a special resolution to sew more clothes!  Hoorah!

I got Gertie's New Book for Better Sewing for Christmas and I'm really enjoying the read so far.  I love Gertie's style and I also love that the book isn't pitched too low and it's without the "it's so easy" vibe that I find so grating.  It looks like she's about to tell me how to do it properly, and I can't wait!  I hope I'll get around to making some of her fabulous patterns; she gives patterns for a complete wardrobe.

In addition, I bought some stretch-knit dresses to wear.  That's right, real-life friends and family!  I'm going to turn up in NOT JEANS!  I have discovered that jersey dresses are my new best friends, and so I've decided to set about making a whole bunch more in fun styles and colours.  That's the start of my resolution.

With that in mind, I dug out my copy of Sew U Home Stretch.  I've copied out the pattern for the babydoll dress ("hides a multitude of figure flaws!") and I've bought some cheap stretch-jersey online to practice it.  I can't wait for the fabric to arrive!  If it all goes swimmingly, look what I found: JERSEY!  There are almost 800 types here!  What is the catch?!  I CLEARLY NEED 800 DRESSES!

Snippety snip

I made a baby trousers pattern!  This could be good, because I struggle to get normal trousers on over the cloth nappies.  However, after finishing the draft I realise:

• The pattern example in my helpful pattern-drafting book allows for nappies.  I also measured to allow for nappies.  Could he now have room for 2x nappies?!
• The trousers will fit baby NOW!  This does not guarantee a fit at the wedding in two months' time.

Silly me.  Nevertheless, since I got this far I decided to cut some fabric for them anyway.  I found some soft black needlecord in my fabric chest so I'm going to test out the "Gennaker trousers" with that.  They're cut out and ready to sew, but I've never made trousers with a fly before, so I'll probably have my "Great British Sewing Bee" moment.

My ambition is to have elastic in casing around the back, but a smooth waistband at the front and an opening fly so that I can get the pesky things over the nappy.  The fly is intended to close with a button at the top and potentially some concealed poppers the rest of the way down.  We'll see how that goes.

I also cut out some white cotton for the long-sleeved shirt to go with the waistcoat I made.  I got the cotton for £4/yard from the bank holiday market in St Ives, but in retrospect it wasn't such a great pick.  I totally should have gone for the polycotton.  This fabric is a little too thick, not a very fine or tight weave at all, and basically looks like a crumpled bed-sheet even after I pressed it with ooodles of steam.  It didn't look so bad on the bolt, but that was before I washed the finishing out.  Added to that, I got a yard cut diagonally from the bolt.  Disaster!  The moral is that you get what you pay for, and I should inspect the fabric quality more carefully next time.  I'll report back on the quality of the gabardine and printed polycotton from the same stall when I get to them.  Probably I've just been unlucky with this buy.

Before anyone seems impressed, I'm totally bottling out of cuffs on this shirt.  It's for a baby!  I'm just going to turn-under or use bias binding.  However, I am featuring a pocket on the trousers for him to store his chewed up toast in.

The crochet stegosaurus is doing my head in.

Buying fabric in Paris

I found the best area to shop for fabrics in Paris quite by chance.  It's around Rue de Steinkerque in the 18ème Arrondissement.  The nearest Metro is Anvers.  At least, it was here in 2008 when I made my colleague run for the Eurostar carrying 6 meters of wool melton fabric...