Belt by Cassie Stephens

Cassie Stephens has a lovely Esty shop full of these fabulous belts. I loved this one and it arrived today. Cassie makes the buckle and the belt and the fabric is mostly vintage.

You can have your belt made to the length you want. I didn't know how long to have mine so I sent Cassie a message telling her my waist and hip measurements and she suggested a length she thought would suit and its perfect.

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.

Burda 8361

First Top

Is the one on the right (black, green and white). I had the same problem as everyone who has reviewed this pattern the baggie bust. I have found it is because the gathering goes to far down around the bust to the side of the top your bust is higher than this. The top was way to long from the shoulder to the bust so I had to take 2.5" out of the shoulders at the top. Lucky the arm hole opening is quite long so it still fits under the arm.

Under Bust

Second Top

I adjusted the pattern for this top so that the arm hole would be the original size this is much better. This would be especial important if you wanted to sew the top of the sleeve together. You cant really see it in these photos but I left the sleeve top open as option A suggests. To fix the baggie bust I have only gathered from about 1" away from the centre point until the pattern pieces fitted together. This had made the sides of the top sit perfectly flat against my side. I also angled the line under the bust up just a bit as I felt it went to low for me on the original. This is a great top it is an exact copy of a top that I bought RTW which is why I picked this pattern. I have plans to make this in a few different fabrics.

Burda 7866

I am happy with mine but I made the smallest size which is 10 it looks so much bigger on me than it looks on there model. Its really comfy I used a double knit. It is a little annoying fixing the unattached belt all the time. I have plans to make a modified version based on what I saw someone else do with this pattern. They eliminated the belt by using elastic at the sides of the bottom piece to give it a gathered look.

Simplicity 2364

This was quick and fairly easy. I combined VIEW D, E and F because I wanted the sleeve plus I like to ware a bra so I wanted the strap. My husband didn't tell me I was showing my bra strap rather than covering it up when he took the photo. The only alteration I made was the strap was way to loose for me and I had to unpick it at the back and make it tighter then it was fine. I found the gathering part a bit tricky as when I sewed it up I used the stretch stitch and it just stretched right out so I pulled the gathering up and used a straight stitch so then it held. But its not as neat having to fix it up as it would have been if I had straight stitched it in the first place. This will be a great top when its warmer.

THE PERSONAL TOUCH

I picked this up at the op shop this week. Its an ex library book I paid $1.50. Its all about creating your own unique style. It shows ways of mixing and matching patterns to make your own look. With suggestions of making your own fabric buy sewing ribbon and scarf's together, using crochet accessories, monograms and bold patterns to add flair and re-fashioning skirts and dresses. All accompanied by helpful hints and diagrams. It also has history about fashion trends like Lord Spencer cutting off his coat-tails after burning the ends standing too close to the fire. He then avowed, so absurd were the vagaries of fashion, he could start a completely new style simply by strolling around London in his chopped-off attire. "In two weeks," according to one journalist, "all London was wearing the 'spencer'."

The book also includes patterns for all the crochet, knitting and embroidery. Plus stencils for the monograms. I love the pink knitted dress, it has all the instructions for the dress, hat and scarf. Its probably above my current knitting skills, seeing as the scarf is the same knitted pattern as the dress, if I master the scarf, I could one day attempt the dress. I will be attempting a crochet belt, not so wide as the one above, nor will it be in shades of pink.

I scanned the pages and made a collage with Google's picasa. It was so easy and much better than adding heaps of photos. I used the cover of the book as the background as the library had used double sided sticky tap to stick on a plastic cover (which my 2 year old removed before I could stop her). This has left some dark marks on the front. So setting the cover as the background has hidden the sticky marks and unfortunately most of the lovely butterfly's.