Twinkle Sews - Age of Innocence

So I don't like this. The pattern was rated easy and it was. But I had make design changes. At the bottom where your hips are Wenlan has you gather the lace on the outside the attach it gathered to the lining then insert elastic into the seam allowance where the gathering is RESULTING in massive baggy and puffy poufs ON YOUR HIPS. When I realised this I took the top apart at the hips removed the elastic and removed the gathering from the lace. I then sewed the lace to be the same size as the lining at the side and re-attached it. I then added elastic to the seam allowance using it as a casing as Wenlan suggest but all the way around to distribute the gathering. The back yoke is long and once again you are asked to put elastic in the seam
allowance. This makes the back fit your body but causes the top of the yoke to flop out as its longer and not gathered so your bra is exposed then when I pinned the lace to it as its top stitched on as the last step it just hangs right down. So I took it in with my overlocker before attaching the lace over the top. This photo shows how much I cut out. Its a lot as the lace goes over the top you don't see this at all from the outside. This also meant I had to make to two extra pleats to match the lace up to the lining. All this work for a top that I don't really like now its done.The photos in the book show you a flat picture of the whole top but the bagginess is not obvious  in this picture and when they show it on the model you don't see her hips.

Twinkle Sews - Skyline Skirt

I love this skirt. Easy to sew but it is rated intermediate and it would be easier if the book had told me that I had to cut the fabric on the flat or I would end up with two half skirts with the points going in different directions by cutting with the fabric folded as you do for most patterns. All other patterns in this book are full patterns so not cut on the fold but when you have so many small pieces you think it makes sense to fold and cut. I noticed before sewing so only my cutting time was waisted. I used the size 4 as the instruction say to add 2" of ease. This meant that I had to take the skirt in by 3" across all seams to keep it looking right. I now realise that the skirt sits lower than my waist so I could have taken more out but its too late now. I used black and white thread as I didn't want it to show through so I re-threaded my machine a few times to make this skirt. I also only lined the skirt to the highest point of the white so more like a facing than a lining this worked well.

I used my first invisible zip with the invisible zip foot. Its okay but I think I can do better.
 I used catch stitch on the hem as I have seen it used in other people's sewing. It worked really well it is a fast stitch to sew.

Twinkle Sews

This is a great book with some lovely patterns for clothes. You really need to know how to sew with this book.  The instructions are all written and brief. I read them over many times before starting my project. Even then I still made fixable mistakes. I printed my patterns on A4 which means my printer misses the very edges of the pattern this is not a problem as I just allow for this when sticking them together. The sizing is hard to work out as each pattern has different instructions for picking which size pattern. I will explain what I have done when I post about the individual projects.