Stitch Sessions

October 8, 2020January 26, 2023

Jeans and Overalls with Simplicity 8447

Nell, a Caucasian person, stands in front of a wooden bench and a concrete wall. They are wearing a yellow knit top over a cream, tie-neck blouse, and high-waisted denim jeans that button down the side. They are mid-dance move with hands in the air and one leg raised.

Having completed two versions of this glorious, glorious pattern; I can now understand both the love for Simplicity 8447 and the love for sewing with denim. I had been fortunate enough to find a rather kind person who was willing to part with several meters of this glorious, dark denim – along with several other pieces from their stash, which I thought would be perfect for attempting to embark on a new adventure. It also meant that I could in fact get my hands on an otherwise prohibitively expensive fabric! I had no denim overalls, a piece I very much wanted to add to my winter and autumn wardrobe, and I was keen to learn how to sew with denim so that I could produce my own jeans. I had seen and heard very positive reviews of this pattern and so hunted out a secondhand copy for myself to try.

September 15, 2020January 26, 2023

Sewing Trousers with New Look 6718

Nell, a Caucasian person, stands in front of a wooden bench and concrete wall. They are wearing a black button-up shirt and highwaisted grey wool trousers. They have one hand on their hip.

One thing I love about sewing, among the plethora of things I love, is that it is a constant process of learning new skills and refining old ones. New materials pose all kinds of challenges, from learning to handle slippery fabrics, to testing thread tension, stitches – and learning to go back and forth between machines. Although New Look 6718 is hardly my first trousers pattern, it feels as though this was the beginning of quite a lot of adventures in learning and developing new techniques and revealing weaknesses in my current sewing practices. For one thing I worked on a range of tasks between the first of this make, and the second, and I feel I came so far between them that they were an excellent snapshot of my skills at each point in time.

August 17, 2020January 26, 2023

Learning about Stretch Fabric with The Gable Top

Nell, a Caucasian person, sits on a cabinet covered by a white sheet. They are wearing black jeans, and a blue slash-neck top patterned with cartoonish lemons of different colours.

Let it be known that I am now a convert to the wonders of stretch fabric! I had honestly avoided stretch fabric in the past as learning the ins and outs of certain fabrics isn’t at all intuitive for me, and I thought it would be best to attend some online classes on the topic first before I dove in. But at the time I first started working on this pattern, I had been thinking quite a lot about the gaps in my wardrobe, and how to continue this passion for sewing without making things for the sake of simply having something to make. I couldn’t ignore the fact that I didn’t have a lot of winter tops, despite the fact that I live somewhere with long-lasting cold seasons. So after researching patterns for vintage inspired stretch fabric tops, I at last settled on a PDF version of the Gable Top, by Jennifer Lauren Handmade, which had a plethora of positive reviews.

June 1, 2020January 26, 2023

Simplicity 6550 – Vintage Blouses

Nell, a Caucasian person, stands in front of a wooden bench and concrete wall. They have their hands in their pockets, on a slight angle to the camera. They are wearing a brown and white polkadot blouse and black culottes with suspender straps.

Hello friends! After the incredible success I had with my first attempt at a proper pattern hack, I was looking forward to testing even more wintery makes that would be appropriate for the chilly weather. I was keen to try all sorts of new heavier weight fabrics and see if I couldn’t create some more vintage inspired, seasonal clothing. However, my laptop took a not entirely unexpected turn over one weekend and simply refused to hold a charge. This meant a lot of hasty backing up onto an external hard drive while I still could, and the generosity of a friend’s brother in sharing his store discount to help me afford a new machine. As someone who rarely buys brand new this all was a bit exciting, but also meant I had to seriously rethink all my immediate sewing plans for the next while due to the budget change. Enter Simplicity 6550.

May 17, 2020January 26, 2023

Butterick 9779, Shorts and Pattern Hacking

Nell, a Caucasian person, stands in front of a wooden bench and concrete wall. They have their fists raised and one leg kicked back - mid dance-move. They are wearing a white and brown striped shirt and highwaisted, green corduroy shorts.

If someone had tried to tell me this time last year that I would not only be making shorts that fit perfectly, and from a vintage pattern; but that I would also be pattern hacking to make pants and overalls! Well, I don’t think I would have believed them. But despite that I have now completed some of my most successful makes to date, and it all begins with my purchase of the circa 1960s pattern, Butterick 9779. It was a somewhat risky purchase for me, being a little bit pricer and coming from an overseas seller – my last experience of which had been truly terrible. However, I worried over nothing! The seller was lovely, the pattern arrived in a brilliant condition – albeit with a slightly wonky waistband from people accidentally trimming bits off. Over the course of one virtual craft evening with a friend I very gently ironed out the pattern pieces for the medium size and got to tracing and copying the markings into more modern versions.

April 13, 2020January 25, 2023

Butterick B5748 – A reprint of a vintage dress pattern!

Nell, a Caucasian person, stands on an angle to the camera in front of a wooden bench and concrete wall. They are wearing a deep pink dress with a pink sunflower pattern and have one hand in a pocket.

Hello friends! I cannot even begin to explain how excited I am to be sharing this particular post! In all the time I have been focusing quite seriously on developing my skills in sewing, I had never once successfully made a dress. I think, similar to how pants and shorts are now my Everest, dresses were a fitting challenge I didn’t quite have the skills to unravel at the time. But having acquired two large pieces of fabric from a community stall event prior to all the shutdowns which simply told me they had to be made into dresses, I knew it was time to confront this challenge again. So when I stumbled over someone selling Butterick B5748, I knew this was going to be the pattern I would sink my teeth into. It’s a gorgeous reprint of a 1960’s pattern, with updated instructions and multiple sizes – which worked very well for me.

March 31, 2020January 25, 2023

Simplicity 2151 – Pussybow Blouse Shirts

Nell, a Caucasian person, stands in front of a wooden bench and concrete wall. They are wearing a blue and green plaid shirt, with puffy sleeves and a pussybow blouse necktie. They are also wearing blue jeans, and are holding the ends of the tie.

Hello friends. One thing that gives me a lot of comfort at the moment is following along with other people’s sewing and seeing what other projects we’re all working through. It’s inspired me to continue working through my own growing pile of secondhand patterns, seeing what I can create with the fabric I have on hand and how creative I can be with the scraps. It’s a chance to flex my creative muscles. I do have a few bits and pieces in mind, and have already begun investigating the possibility of making my own bias binding from odd pieces – leaving the fabric from some old sheets as pocket lining and things like that. But first on my list was this gorgeous blouse pattern, Simplicity 2151, in combination with this secondhand fabric I’d had for about two months or so.

March 16, 2020January 25, 2023

McCall’s M6436 – Collared Shirts!

Nell, a Caucasian person, stands in front of a wooden bench and concrete wall. They are wearing a blue floral button-up shirt with a band collar, and blue jeans. They have one hand on their hip.

It’s no secret that I love button-up, collared blouses. My regular work wardrobe is comprised almost exclusively of collared shirts, cardigans, sweaters to be mixed and matched with black slacks. It allows me to sneak a bit of 50’s and 60’s style into my professional wardrobe, which pleases me to no end. So I am always on the lookout for more collared blouses when I am out hunting for secondhand goodies, and have gotten quite lucky over time in finding a few in very good condition. My current wardrobe is in fact comprised entirely of secondhand and me-made blouses now, which I consider quite an achievement. However, there is still something I am lacking. And that is the truest of staple blouses, the white collared blouse.

March 9, 2020January 25, 2023

Pattern Drafting – Peasant Blouse

Nell, a Caucasian person, sits on a wooden bench in front of a concrete wall. They are wearing a floral peasant blouse and black highwaisted pants.

As much as I love living Australia, being so far from some of the largest viable sources of secondhand fabric and patterns does mean learning to sew can get very expensive. For a lot of people I often hear that it’s prohibitively expensive, especially as very few stores allow payment plans for purchasing machines and tools. So it seemed natural to me that at some point I would need to learn how to do some pattern drafting in order to make the things that I couldn’t find a pattern for. And what better place to start than with my Holy Grail vintage item, the classic peasant blouse.

February 26, 2020January 25, 2023

Simple Sew Lottie Blouse

Nell, a Caucasian person, stands facing the camera in front of a wooden bench and concrete wall. They have their arms in the air and one leg raised. They are wearing a sleeveless shirt with a white and blue square pattern and a pussybow necktie, and black jeans.

Hold onto your hats Theydies and Gentlethem, because I am about to tell you something shocking. What I want to tell you is that it’s normal to fail. As scandalous as that might sound, I believe that it doesn’t matter how old we get or how experienced we are, we will always make mistakes. And I don’t say that in a completely negative way either. Certainly failure is disappointing, mistakes are frustrating, and wouldn’t it be great if things worked perfectly all the time? Well, sure. But how good does it feel to come out the other side of a series of failures with one precious success? How much do we learn from when things go wrong, versus when there’s not a single bump in the road? How connected do we feel to others when they share their mistakes? Personally, I love those stories. So let me share the story of the many failures that led to the amazing success of the Lottie Blouse.