Straight Stitch Designs Madrona Skirt

I was lucky enough to be part of the Straight Stitch designs testing team for the Madona skirt. The first time I saw Kimberly post this on her Instagram I was instantly drawn to the girly floaty front petal shape of the skirt and how lovely and unusual it was, THEN I saw she wanted pattern testers so I jumped at the chance!

I used this beautiful Vicose Rayon from Sew Me Sunshine with lovely dandelions on. I was torn between this and a plain mustard one as I thought the lovely frill may be better suited for a plain fabric but I did an office poll as we voted dandelions, and I can bu
y plain clothes not as easy to buy pretty fabric skirts!

The viscose has a lovely drape to and even so walking around is floats around and will be perfect for a spring dress or skirt. I don’t think I’ve ever sewn viscose rayon before but it’s very like cotton lawn to sew so nice and easy and not slippery like you would think a viscose is.

The skirt is super easy! It’s two pieces with a French seam joining the back then a waistband! I have decided my favourite method of creating gathers now is to sew elastic on so I did that again to create the even gathers around the waist. I just large zip zag a piece of ¼” elastic all around the top, stretching it as it sews, then when I let go of the stretch it gathers the fabric beautifully!

I made the waistband a little wider than the pattern because I found the most amazing button that matches perfectly. It was brilliant timing as I was making this skirt at our Sewing day at The Cambridge fabric company. When I popped upstairs to the shop for the elastic which I forgot to bring, I saw these ceramic buttons in a little basket on the till. It matches so perfectly it’s almost spooky!

In my excitement of matching buttons, I put my button hole the wrong way up! I put it portrait when it should be landscape but I have remedied this by moving the buttons along to where they sit nicest of my waist.

I can’t wait for the warmer weather to wear this without tights and some lovely summer tops (think ALL the Ogden Cami’s!)

Big thanks to my photographer Lisa for taking these at lunchtime on our day job, anyone else struggling with daylight to get nice photos this time of year?!

The Fairfield Shirt by Thread Theory Designs

My first foray into shirts was this tread theory designs shift for my husband. he's been asking me to make something for him for ages but since my hexie quilt is going no-where fast I thought I'd make him a fancy shirt. For this shirt I used the beautifully soft Dashwood sudios cotton that I got from Sew Crafty online. This particular range is called bird song, if you look closely the pattern is lots of groups of birds flying in formation, i kinda love it's peacefulness, yet business. It's a lovely pattern and sill doesn't seem too busy.

The shirt pattern form Thread theory comes with to styles of back, pleated or darts. it also comes with t front shapes, 'slim fit' an 'rounded belly'. I made the pleated back and the rounded bely because using hubbys measurements his shoulders and waist measurements fitted this style front best.

The best bit about this pattern is how easy everything comes together but yet looks like a really difficult make. I mean don't get me wrong I had to practice, which I did using the ASDA duvet for the mexican party, the collar on that one is truly awful but practice makes perfect and that's why you practice!

As you can see the back fits lovely across his shoulders so I know I used the right size. The burito method is brilliant for shirts! Having never done this before I read the instructions and ended up a bit flummoxed, but once I watched a video on how to do it the instructions made loads more sense so I used these for making the next shirt.I like (and so does hubby) he pleated back because it leaves it nice and floaty and when i made this is was very warm and summery!

I probably could have made the normal front of the shirt despite his rounded belly. As you can see it sticks out quite a bit over his belly but hat is probably because it is balancing on the front!

Please excuse his terrible line up pictures, he's not a good insta husband and doesn't really like having his picture taken! This is his off to a family Bbq back in July so the sun was out but he has since worn it tucked into jeans for going out for inner and it works really nicely. I'm planning on making more of these as christmas presents for all the men in my life as they can easily be made and are a lovely heart felt gift!