The Pattern Review Mini Wardrobe Contest - Anchor's Away!

Nothing like a challenge to inspire one. Well I decided to enter the Pattern Review Mini-Wardrobe contest. The idea is to make five pieces that can be combined into six outfits. I've never tried sewing with a plan for more that maybe three pieces before so I thought this was a really good time to challenge myself. I chose some very tried and true patterns from Bernina My Label.

What I chose was:

A sort of camp like shirt made out of the anchor fabric I found at Grey's Fabric and Notions on a recent trip to Boston. This was based on the My Label tailored shirt but without the vertical darts with the sleeves widened and cuffed. I also put a pleat in the center back. I could not resist the buttons I found at G street for this:

A black T shirt but in a really nice knit and with 3/4 sleeves - perfect for summer air conditioned DC area offices. The fabric was knit with a light terry underside which feels great.

Same T shirt pattern with white but with a boat neck and slightly ruched sleeves. This fabric came in a bundle from Michael's Fabrics.

A skirt made of a khaki colored cotton twill. This has side pockets sort of like jean pockets and a fly front. I kept the original slit in the back per the pattern. The fun part was making belt loops with my newly aquired Baby Lock cover stitch machine.  That fun little machine also made short work of the two knit tops.

The last was a nautical inspired skirt using the same basic pattern of the khaki skirt but with a faux flap on the front, welt pocket on the back and invisible zipper as the real closure. The flap was actually two shallow pockets just about big enough to put buttonholes and then buttons on the under portion. I also kept the slit in this skirt as well. This is made of denim and once again, could not resist the buttons I found at G Street:

I wanted a water backdrop for the pictures but I also needed a place to change. I realized that the town of Occoquan which is literally just down the street had a visiter center. I asked the nice guy in there if I could leave the clothes there and use the lady's room to change. He said of course!

The first was the combo of the khaki skirt and black tee:

Then I put on the anchor shirt over the khaki skirt:

After that it was the white shirt with the khaki skirt:

The over to the naval inspired skirt, first with the white shirt:

Then with the black shirt:

Then with the black shirt and anchor shirt over it. And the goofy captain's hat I found on Amazon:

So there are all six! This contest has a lot of fiece competition but the real winning felling was I actually finished and have quite a few pieces of new wearable clothes!

Great British sewing Bee Anorak

This was a recent entry in a Pattern Review contest for outerwear and although I didn't do well compared to all the trenches that entered I wanted to do this jacket anyway.

 If anyone watched the Great British Sewing Bee you will know it takes home sewists and has them compete in challenges. It's not like Project Runway as the drama and egos do not abound. Also no big prizes - a dressform trophy and bragging rights. They also show lessons on how things are done. Each episode has three timed challenges: A pattern they have to follow, then a remodel of an existing garment, then a bigger more creative challenge.One contestant gets eliminated at the end of the show.

This was the book from Season 2. The book on the series had a lot of the patterns used on the show. Quadrille Publishing has a link for the Pattern download.   I'd rather trace then tape so I got the book. It's actually a pretty good book. It comes ith five full sheets of traceable patterns. Also I found the technique for the heat tape there. Amazon has the book here.

So this is what the front looks like:

And here is the back:

Believe it or not on this jacket they were given 3 hours! Needless to say it took a lot more for me! It's actually a men's jacket but I didn't see any reason I couldn't make it for me. I did size it up so I can wear a sweatshirt under it. I found all the fabrics at Seattle Fabrics and got the zipper from G Street Fabrics as they are nice enough to shorten as needed. 

For the heat tape I sewed the wrong sides together and trimmed so the tape is right side. I then opened the seam and ironed it. I positioned the tape over the seam put tissue paper on it like I was using a pressing cloth. The first round I tacked it, the I repositioned the paper and went over it again. I repeated until it was firmly bound.


I wasn't lined but I created a lining because the fabric I used for the jacket, although waterproof is very thin and frankly it would have looked very unfinished otherwise:

I think in the future I would like to make it in another color, perhaps put our boat name on it and maybe add a hood. Hmmmm, red with black tape and ribbing next time? As soon as I finish the whole other bunch of projects I want to do!

Fun with baseball caps!

Wow, I've been away from this too long! Life gets really complicated sometimes. Well, I'm back!

We, last year, found a nice little 20 ft Chaparral bow rider for our PA house. We went looking for a nice used one found one we could afford at Capri Marina on Lake Wallenpaupack. Since we finally acquired a boat slip we decided we needed a boat! Our lake is 13 miles long, has 52 miles of shoreline and three pretty good restaurants on it. We've decided our car does not know where to find lunch when the boat is in the water!

Here it is on the very crisp May day we first launched it. And of course it was a bit of challenge to figure out  how to tie it up!

With the sunny Pocono weather I decided we needed some baseball caps. I designed a logo using Cooper Black type for the back of the boat and also found some key chains (float-able!) we could get with the logo on. I found there was  hoop insert for the oval hoop for my Bernina B580 and of course had to have it. The trick to hooping this was to get the hat really flat. I found staples helped quite a bit. We could get very reasonably priced hats on Amazon. So this is what the result was:

Needless to say we now also have sweatshirts and jackets with this logo!