Sew a work wardrobe

I’ve been looking for new work clothes and this season, I haven’t come across much that suits what I want/need. I’m a pretty simple person and I rarely stray from the classics, so it’s pretty easy to turn my nose up at clothes that have cut outs/are too short/too long etc.

 

I am looking for a wardrobe that will cover all bases, won’t be too boring and that will suit my corporate job. With those criterion in mind, the garments can’t be too short, too out there, low cut etc. I am thinking to start the base project, I will need to source patterns for the following:

 

   - Cropped trousers
   - Pencil skirt
   - Pencil dress
   - Fit and flare dress (either skater skirt style or pleated)
   - Blazer
   - Simple sleeveless blouse

 

I’ll start with just those items and then work on expanding the wardrobe to include more items as needed.

 

Is there anything that you think I should add to the ‘basics’?

 

Do you know of any good patterns that I can use for the above garments?

Sewing - Simplicity 2444 in Silk Cotton

After a long 18 month hiatus with sewing, I have finally finished another dress. I used Simplicity 2444; a tried and tested dress pattern that has featured around here previously. The dress fits my figure really well, cinching in at the waist and then flaring out.

This pattern seems to be pretty easy to make and I found the hardest part was putting the dress together after I cut the pieces out a little wrong. Fine after I fixed it though. The hem is really hard to do, I've found and I don't even know if they match up to be honest. I still have a little work to do on the dress.

This is also the first dress I have lined which was a far easier process than I thought it would be. For the dress bodice I used a Lisa Ho silk cotton that I bought from The Fabric Store in Surry Hills. For the skirt I used a silk/cotton that I bought from Darn Cheap Fabrics (I also bought the bodice lining from there) and the skirt lining was a cotton voile I picked up from The Fabric Store. 

Even though I pretty much had to sew the dress twice due to my own cutting out, I found the process to be simple and the dress turned out well. In hindsight, I am not sure this pattern was meant for beginner sewers but since I've now made 3 of these dresses they are starting to look better. Can't wait to get back in to sewing and try out other patterns!

I love this photo. Ted came over to see what I was doing while I was trying to pose.

What did Rhi do on the weekend?

My first proper weekend without uni work to do was bliss. S is still studying, so I kept myself busy sewing and watching Orange is the new Black. Has anyone watched that series? It’s good and the episodes are long, so it provides hours of time wasting fun.

S had set up his study resources on the dining room table on Saturday (where I usually sew) and undeterred by my lack of sewing space, I set up a sweat shop in the lounge room. The desk I used is Steve’s sisters (who’s living with us for a couple of months) and sits unused on the front terrace so I re-purposed it as a sewing desk. It was a great idea if I do say so myself because sewing can be pretty boring if you don’t have a tv to watch at the same time. It also allowed my side-kick Teddy to watch and make sure I wasn’t making any errors.

Saturday’s sewing was a pair of shorts that ended up being too small. I didn’t even make it to the hems or waistband and already they were too tight on my legs and bum. I should really have made a practice version first as the material I used was a beautiful DKNY one. Lucky for me I got two metres so I can try again or try and make the first pair a little bigger.

That's a pin in the front..

Teddy got a hair cut on the weekend too...see here - isn't his little bandana cute.

Sundays sewing adventures led me to making a blouse. I had some black and white printed Lisa Ho material that I couldn’t decide whether I’d make a dress or blouse with so I opted for blouse since I hadn’t made one in over a year. It is still a work in progress, but so far so good. Hopefully I get to finish it this week and then I’ll do a proper post on the pattern and blouse itself.

I'm making view C

Sunday afternoon, Steve decided he wanted to play tennis with L (Imogen’s boyfriend), so Imogen and I decided we’d be tennis WAGS and watch with cider, dips and crackers. Ted came with us and tried his best to catch tennis balls through the fence and barked when he couldn’t.

A very relaxing weekend overall – weekends at home every once in a while are good for the soul.

What did you do on the weekend?

Follow me on facebook

Follow me on bloglovin'

I made another dress!

Finally, after a 6 month sewing hiatus I got back in to it and finished a dress ready for my work Christmas party. Even though I stayed up until 11pm the night before, I am so happy I was able to finish it and somewhat tie it in to the Nautical theme of the party.

The dress pattern is Simplicity 2444 which I have reviewed before here. I chose this pattern again as I had it on hand and I love the way the dress comes in at the waist and has a nice full skirt. I love that style on me and find that it is very flattering. A lot of dresses out at the moment are those big flowy ones that don't give much shape and they don't suit me at all.

The dress has front darts to bring in the bodice and the skirt has pleats at the front and back. That is about as technical as I get when describing patterns/DIY clothes as I have no idea about the terminology. 

If you are looking for a dress to sew, I definitely recommend this pattern. The instructions are very clear and if you actually read them (I got the first three steps wrong because I thought I knew what I was doing, HA!) you should be able to put the dress together easily. The hardest part is the zipper, but that is nothing to do with the actual pattern. Zippers are hard to put in generally (Unless you are an awesome sewer, in which case I wouldn't bother taking any advice from me!).

Oh hey, nice dress

I sewed this dress awhile ago using the Vogue pattern 1236. On the weekend when I wore it out, I thought I should get some proper pictures of me wearing it, so asked Steve to take some when we were out.

Well, I think we can all see that I will never ever be a fashion blogger. To quote Steve - 'Hey Rhi, can you be less....awkward?'. 

I love the dress though. It's really comfortable and can be worn with or without a belt. I chose a belt, since I have a waist like most women do. The pattern was really easy to sew and really only had 2 main pieces which is handy for the amateur sewers such as myself.

Perhaps impromptu is my best angle?

*** 

Earlier in the week, I was looking for Teddy in all the common places I usually find him asleep. We recently moved a wooden chest we have to the front window so that Teddy could sit on there during the day and look out on to the street. 

Guess where he was sleeping?

His little cubby house 

A fitted dress - Simplicity 2444

This pattern has done the rounds on almost all sewing blogs that I read. The pattern is versatile, with many options for the dress including cap sleeves, longer sleeves, two types of collars etc. 

I choose to go very simple for my first make of this pattern and didn't use any collars, sleeves or pockets. I actually thought this wouldn't work at all and as such I used cheap Navy cotton. It in fact worked perfectly and the dress fits really well.

I found the instructions easy to follow and there wasn't any stage where I was stumped with what the instructions told me to do. It took me about three weeks to make, but that is because I had very limited sewing time to spend on this dress. In all, I estimate it probably took me about 6-7 hours to make. Not bad for someone who is still a beginner sewer.

The dress has a fitted bodice, front and back darts, front and back pleats and a back zip. I cut the dress out exactly as the pattern showed and made no adjustments at all. I used a 1.5inch hem and the dress still sat just on my knee which I think is a little long. I am 169cm tall, so the dress would be quite long on most people. Next time I make it, I will take it up further.

It has a very 50's feel to it, which I love. So simple, classic and elegant. I wore it out to dinner last night and paired it with a red belt, red cardigan and black heels. 

Red Dress

I made this red dress using the same pattern as my striped dress - Vogue 1236. 

This pattern is simple and easy to follow. It makes a perfect summer dress...just a shame we are going in to Winter!

 Excuse the wrinkles, It was ironed but I had just been sitting on a blanket picnicking with my dog

As can be seen in this pic, the bag sits out a little and needs to be fixed when wearing it. As can also be seen, as soon as the camera comes out, Teddy looks the other way

Easy scarf tutorial

I have seen quite a few 'forever' scarves around lately, so I decided to make a scarf I already owned in to a forever scarf. It is really easy and they look great with almost any outfit.

1. If your scarf has tassles, cut them off

2. Pin the ends together, and then sew a straight stitch along the line. 

You're done! Super easy!

Men's shirt remake

Sorry for the hiatus.. I'm not very good at remembering to blog!

Anyway, a few weeks back S emailed me to tell me he'd ripped his favourite work shirt (while at work) and asked if I could fix it. Upon closer inspection when I got home, I realised I couldn't so I decided to remake it in to a shirt for myself.

I used Colette Sorbetto as my base pattern and since the shirt had buttons I omitted the front pleat. The shirt was just the right size for my size Sorbetto top, I was actually really lucky it worked so well. 

I added the darts like the pattern asks and this made it more feminine. I find the smallest Sorbetto size to be too big on me still so I took it in further at the sides and I placed the pattern toward the bottom of the shirt so I would get the nice rounded hem that the shirt already had...not having to hem was an added bonus!

Here is a before and after. The pictures aren't so great, but I was taking self-portraits because we haven't had time for S to take pictures for me. I will update again when we've got better pictures.

Sewing Sunday

Over the weekend, I started three projects. I have almost finished two and the third is coming along slowly.

Here are a couple of pictures of two of them..

 Teddy helping... This is a lovely vintage fabric my Mum gave me a few metres of.

I got this fabric from Lincraft. I made the skirt pattern based loosely off one I found on Elle Apparel. At the moment it is really long (mid calf) so I will take it up so it's above the knee. It has pleats and a zip!

I will most likely finish the projects by the end of the week, so I will put up some better pictures.

A new dress

A few weeks ago, Lincraft had a sale so I snapped up some fabric and a pattern. I don't have many summer dresses, so after looking at quite a few pattern sites, I decided on Vogue 1236, which is part of the DKNY collection.

I read the reviews on sewingpatternreviews.com and they all said that this dress was easy to make. A few mentioned that the instructions were a little hard to follow and they were right, but I still got through!

I started with a red cotton voile and realised I'd have to line the dress too. I got as far as sewing the front and back of the dress together and have had to put it to one side because I can't figure out how to finish the dress with the lining. 

On Saturday, I started making the dress in cotton which has thick black and white stripes. I worked on it in between going out and doing other things over the weekend and finally finished this afternoon (Sunday). I love how it turned out! I made a little mistake with the pockets and I have no idea how, but I did fix it with some hand stitching. I also had to tack the facing down, because it kept coming up when I put the dress on.

Other than that, I made no alterations at all. I wanted it to be as simple as possible.

Sewing

When I was 14 my parents bought me a sewing machine because I did sewing at school. When I moved out of home at 18 and left it there for storage my Mum decided it was to be hers and I never got it back.

Fast forward a few years and I decided I need a hobby and that I missed sewing, so my parents bought me a machine for Christmas. They bought me a Singer 2277 Tradition. It's entry level and at the moment, it is perfect.

Mum is really crafty and has bags and bags of material and lots of little bits and pieces, so she let me raid her stash and I got some really beautiful vintage materials.. The only problem is that I am not sure if I would actually wear any of them, so I am trying to figure out how I can best use them. 

So far, I've made my Cousin's little girl a skirt and nappy cover (I forgot to take pics), a skirt for myself which I need to fix and a top for myself.

The top was made using the Colette Sorbetto top (free) pattern. I used a black and white striped material which I bought for $10/m from Lincraft. I lengthened the pattern about 1inch because I like the length to be a little longer.. though, it is still too short for my liking.

I am not really that brown.. I love photoshop!

I love the top! For my first proper project, I am really proud of how it came out. I can't wait to make more!

I am also looking to buy some dress patterns to make some nice summer dresses. Colette have some good ones, though I think I would prefer a few more casual dresses. 

Does anyone have any recommendations?