Voila: Pusan Wrap Dress by Couture Nomad

Hello! Today I have another Couture Nomad dress, sewn up over several weeks at my lovely Teacher Catherine's Couture Nomad Sewing School here in Shanghai!

This is called the Pusan dress, and part of Catherine's Urban Jungle collection. She uses a business shirt style fabric for her version, and when I saw how easily she pops on her pushbike with it, I thought I've got to sew it up for Spring... well spring kind of came and went here in Shanghai, there were some nice warmer days, but it's RAINED so much. At least once a week, and today... it actually was quite cold. Humid AND cold. Not fun!

So I started this to wear in Spring, and only just wore it yesterday on a lovely humid & sunny day... AND in our NEW HOUSE! I have so much to tell you about... I definitely need a pause button for our life right now!

Pusan Dress was Couture Nomad's Pattern of the Month a few months back, and is a light and loose wrap dress with optional collar and different ways to tie/clasp. Catherine has a lovely light mustard one that I've seen her wear, and I wanted something green for me... and this polka-dotted light linen cotton was the first thing I spotted across the road from the Renmin Lu Haberdashery Spot... but a funny thing, half the store was a fabric shop along the left wall.... and the other side of the shop was a camouflage sport gear shop... Strange Combo, but CHINA! And so I asked how much the fabric was on the roll, and the shopkeeper didn't know... she was the camouflage shopkeeper! Not the fabric shopkeeper. So I waited a while, no one came back... more waiting... I thought I'd go buy some stationary (Yu Garden Markets have SO many things you can buy for cheaps!) and then come back to get the green fabric.

So probably half an hour later, after buying my pens and envelopes, I came back ... and NO shopkeeper! Ridiculous! I waited another 15 minutes... and in the end haggled with the Camo Shopkeeper to sell me the fabric for 38RMB a metre (it's usually that at the other market for this kind of think...) and she was sooooo reluctant selling her fellow shopkeepers wares... but I couldn't stick around, I had sewing class and a three year old to pick up from kindergarten!

So funny, and so China!

As for the pattern, it was a great trace, cut & sew over 3-4 sewing nights... love the shape with this light fabric. I did felled seams for the back yoke, and they came up quite nicely... I had a wrong machine bobbin problem on one side of the dress (also felled sleeves) so there's some wobbly stitching, but it's under my arm... so who will know! It's a well covered wrap dress too, in that it doesn't gape and reveal my undergarments. And the coverage around the legs is also great!

I shortened the sleeves a bit, and then made the bands half the width, for I decided I would fold them up anyways... and last minute decided not to do a button/snap close and then attached the ties. It's the same material as my Bettine Dress from last year, actually... so having the ties reminds me of that. I loved wearing it yesterday!

It's a great wrap dress pattern, and very quick to make! For all up my sewing hours wasn't too long, but just spread out between all the other things going on! I'll share another update soon on the busy-times here... but at least you get to see my lovely balcony, on the 5th floor of a normal building, no elevator, but in a Chinese compound. So we're stretching all our conversations, and practicing Chinese all the time now! In our old house, lots of people spoke English... but not here! We're still around downtown/Former French Concession, but more in the thick of it... brilliant green Plane Trees are all along the street and heaps of local places to check out. And walking distance to kindergarten!

Thank you to Teacher Catherine for sharing her pattern & her skills with me! If you're interested in sewing in Shanghai, I highly recommend getting in touch! Send me an email and I'll connect you with Cathy! If you're in Singapore, or other parts of the world... do go and visit Couture Nomad for there's lots of e-learning spots but also there might be a Nomadette teacher in your hometown!

Speak soon, and hope you're well wherever you are in the world!

Making: A Giant Crochet Toy Bag

So here’s another funny thing I’ve made recently! I noticed a lot of ‘dress ups’ floating around our apartment recently… a pirate costume from Halloween, a ‘Backson’ outfit I made for our Winnie the Pooh loving child and lots of accessories like dinosaur tails and binoculars always on the floor.

Time for a dress up basket!

Without ever wanting to spend money on anything, I decided to try some large scale crocheting with my rope that was too thick for my normal sewing machine… and using a small rope as the main crochet or weaver material… it was a long process but it’s a fun and easy accessible basket for the small boy.

I used the large crochet hook, and used the thinner rope as the main crochet thread... and crocheted around the big rope, I didn't really know where I was going, so just went around in circles for ages and then adjusted it for the sides as I went around and around...

After lots of sewn (zig zag machine stitched) rope bowls, my domestic machine isn’t keen on sewing this thick rope… I think an industrial one would do a better job… but I can’t really justify getting one … especially since I’m not really bringing in stacks of dosh (just a few voice over jobs here and there isn’t really a regular pay day!)… anyways!

When we get more dress ups, I think I’ll unravel it… but Felix likes it for now and his favourite dress ups are the Tiger costume (a cheapie Chinese made synthetic mess) and the Backson costume (that I made last year and never blogged about) and his pirate hat.

Voila: A Venus Kimono of Sew This Pattern

As it’s winter here in Shanghai, and probably will be for a while now we’re in the very low temperatures, I have been sewing with warmer fabrics and first up is Sew This Pattern’s Venus Kimono. It hasn’t been below zero (celcius) that often but kind of averaging 3 or 4 degrees this week. Last week we had snow a couple times and frozen water pipes! EEP.

Anyways, let’s talk sewing! This is a pdf pattern, and I’ve been avoiding them just for the time factor of sticking them together… For a while, I had a problem communicating to the printer place about the large copy shop size… Over summer I tried to print my Lily & Sage dress at the full size, but they just couldn’t. It’s hard enough getting the size right with printing places, but also tricky without speaking fluent Mandarin. But, I had some successful attempts and was able to get the Venus Kimono by Sew This Pattern printed up, so no stickytaping for me! Yay!

I chose this stretch fabric offcut I got for cheaps at the fabric market here in Shanghai as it had a huge stitch in the middle - you know where they join the fabric roll together with another roll or something…? It was easy to cut around though and maybe only cost $6 Australian dollars for up to 3 metres of fabric… the kimono doesn’t need to be cut on the fold, so it did help get the stretch fabric neat by cutting one layer of fabric at a time… sometimes when I'm cutting in the layers I’m not cutting correctly… wonky or off grain… might also be because I”m cutting on the floor… but let’s revisit that another time! No further options for sewing at home right now! The floorboards are flat but slippery!

Because of the chilly winter, the light is really weird in my apartment... this is just around 4pm, and it makes the photos look a little like a painting... there's just not enough light for the camera to latch onto clearly... so interesting. Hard to see the garment though, but we can't change winter I guess!

Of course, a stretch knit fabric probably isn’t exactly the right fit for the Venus Kimono… but it was the best winter stuff I had (some wooly stuff would have been fun to try, but with it being so cold right now, I don’t really want to wade around in my puffy jacket in a freezing cold market!) and so I decided to change it a bit! You might have noticed I’ve added a huge cowl neck/band to the entire neckline/edge instead of the rolled hem that is suggested! I really like the shape and was inspired by an old cardigan that I wore to death a few years ago that had the same neckband all the way around… love it.

So throughout the sewing of garments, I am trying to keep track of my googling process… for it helps put together these notes… and I only investigated serging and sewing a french seam because of course, a lovely kimono that you occasionally will see the insides of deserves to have no serged seams showing I reckon! And yes you can! It made the thicker bits here and there a little harder but I”m sure with floaty fabric it’ll be deadset dreamy.

The pattern is extremely easy to put together, and I’m already thinking of a fun rayon cotton I can do for spring time.. this is the relaxed version so not as much fabric as the oversized, but probably better for little petite bods like mine, because with this neckband this is a LOT of fabric as it is. Annie from Sew This Pattern provides some beginner details in the pattern too… if you’ve never sewn a rolled hem or a french seam, this is quite helpful. As I don’t do these things all the time, I appreciate the reminder.

And the big change of course was adding the massive neckband, it's probably about 20 inches wide, folded right sides together, and attached wrong side first to then do a french seam with right sides together. As with french seams ironing is always your best friend... so the inside seam is now very neat.

I used my twin needles for the hemming of the sleeves and a couple times when I slipped one off the folded edge it looks a bit wonky, but otherwise I’m pretty happy with it! I bought them ages ago on Tao and forgot about them, and I say them because I went to buy just one and was sent 10… that was a deal! surprise Taobao purchases are pretty fun!

Annie from Sew this Pattern shared her Venus Kimono digital pattern with me as a gift but without any strings to review, but why not… it’s certainly a lovely ‘One Size Fits All’ cover up, and in particular has some nice shoulder seam pleats that really help shape the drape of this kimono… for you could certainly guess a kimono shape without a pattern, but it might not look as lovely. I know my friend took a H&M basic one into the fabric market here and it was a very straightforward rectangle style… but I guess that’s where we as DIY fashionistas get to experiment what suits our bodies and most flatters us…. And now I’m finding that really funny as a 150 cm tall woman in a completely big oversized floppy thing! I love it though!

Overall, the stretch knit fabric here has made this kimono VERY loungey and when I wore my store bought pajamas the other day (Uniqlo soft ones): the fabric is identical! Ha! So perhaps the kimono in this fabric will now be a dressing gown. COSY!

Making: Toy Bag & Play Mat for Duplo

A few days before Christmas I had a quick idea, my son was getting a few Duplo boxes for Christmas (we found a special deal on Taobao on the famous 11.11 sales) and as I suddenly realised he’ll need some extra storage for the colourful blocks, I remembered the lovely playmat I’d seen on pinterest five years ago (or around then) that you could easily build and sift through the blocks, but then once finished you can draw it all up and hang it on the back of the door or somewhere out of the way for next time.

I googled up a few photos and tutorials, but for these first attempts, I followed the very straightforward Fabric Mill idea. It was great and used up some fabric I had in the stash leftover from birthdays through the year and other bunting adventures… the smaller ones are for smaller children who also got their first batch of Duplo this Christmas, so a useful bag for them for the next year.

The one I made Felix is bigger, around a metre wide at least… and now that I’ve sewn it up, next time I’ll put the drawstrings on both sides… kinda like the Swoop Storage bags I later found… (you can sew your own, or just buy them from this small business!) as that distributes the drawstring gathers a little better and less likely for the bag to be too heavy. As right now, with the amount of Duplo Felix has (about 4 boxes of the stuff over the last 2 years) is just ok, but it’ll get too heavy if we have more.

What storage ideas do you have for Duplo or Lego? I love something that can serve two purposes, like a playmat and a bag. I’m really happy with how neat this was to sew, it was a bit of time getting the circle flat and neat and matching the two fabrics up… but the stitching part was super quick and very easy to put together.

The Vera Bradley fabric I’d got from my very small fabric shop (it usually doesn’t have much on offer, it’s like the bargain cotton bin at Spotlight - if you’re Australian you’ll know) but the green and pink colour combo was intersting to me, but I had no idea how to sew with it… my sewing teacher declared it for quilting and not good for garment sewing… so I’m happy I’ve used it here… I love the khaki green with it.

Duplo is our preferred building block right now, as Felix is 3 years old and very happy using this size block, but I know eventually it’ll be Lego and that stuff is small.

What are you sewing at the moment? I tried a green velvet dress last week, that just went so wonky everywhere... Wrong pattern I think! Will try a skirt next!

Voila: Pattern Testing Lilith & Eve LE201

My first sewn up thing to show you this year! And very unlike me, it’s a top... that’s woven! It’s also not my best effort but oh well, it’s wearable!

I saw online that Lilith & Eve needed pattern testers for their second pattern, released last month, and thought I’d volunteer… mainly because it’s a woven top, and I wanted to sew something like this for something different. I always sew stretch fabrics when I wear tops and t-shirts, I'm so boring! The Lilith & Eve patterns are pretty new, I don’t know much about them, but I like the idea that they offer two versions (a Lilith and an Eve one) of their patterns and had some time in November so volunteered to sew their second release LE201, a long maxi dress or a casual top, both with the raglan sleeve/neckline.

The positives for this top is all the Lilith & Eve design, it’s cute and relaxed. The pattern is really clear, and I didn’t have any major concerns with the pattern pieces, or the instructions. (The girls had sent me a paper pattern version, it’s lovely and large packaging, A4)

BUT, you’ll see it’s different than Eve’s version because I choose ridiculous cotton silk and anything with a curve was stretched out in the wrong way because of my cutting. The top version has a loose peplum (a petal skirt) and should be lovely instead of wonky like my hem. I dove into the project but a little gungho without really checking what I should be doing. The fabric market here is very vague with any silks, and I wanted more cotton so I wouldn’t stuff up but wanted it to be drapey as well… but oh well… next time I’ll definitely cut with one layer (instead of folding it) if I do use this kind of fabric.

Anyways, I like the rest of it, of course I didn’t iron it to wear out though as our iron broke before Christmas! Luckily Santa brought me a new one which hopefully will last a bit longer, hey!?

Notes & Summary:  
Pattern: LE201 by Lilith & Eve
Fabric: Completely unknown silk cotton with a floaty light drape. Purchased from 168 Dongmen Lu, near Zhongshan Dong Er Lu, 东门路168号，近中山东二路  
Size: Size 4  
While Sewing: Complete noob with this fabric, but you gotta try it sometime!  
Will I Wear It? Yes, I like it! I should probably have sewn the buttons on, but who's got the time to sit still over the festive season!?

It was FREEZING as you can see from the face expressions but really wanted to show you something I’ve sewn because I’ve gone a bit crafty lately and not really making any clothes… I have some patterns to print up (as usual with me now) so really wanna get some things for winter and springtime sewn before it’s summer!

Happy first week of January! And thanks so much for all your lovely comments on my last blog post! You’ll start to see some changes on my name here and there.. for did you know Veronica Darling is my sewing superhero nom de plume?!

Talk soon, xoxo

Voila: Two Dresses for Summer Part 2

We made it! Ah! It's a Happy Friday!

Here's my second version of the summer dresses I've made recently; for some reason the entire week has flown by due to sickness in our house! *glee* being ill in summer just hits you for six! *gush* love being sick with a toddler around! *squeal* (actually genuinely here) I watched the rest of Orphan Black season 3 and now all of Sense 8. I am officially addicted to Sci Fi TV shows when I'm sick. Learning new things all the time about being me!

This fabric was also from Taobao, and while it's not my usual colour, I actually just picked it because it looks weird. I thought it looks like pixels like the flowers are hidden underneath gingham pixels or something. I like it. It also has a little stretch in the fabric, and while I used the same pattern for the bodice pieces as my black dress, this fabric is a lot more floppier, so stretched out a little differently widthwise... I noticed this week after wearing it a bit that I have to wear a certain bra that doesn't show too much of the boob because this dress is way scoopier.

See?

I just checked the Taobao store where I got this weird fabric, and there's Liberty fabrics (if you're into that stuff) for really cheap! Maybe they're fakes? It's so hard to know!

For this dress, I cut it the same, but had less fabric for the skirt pieces... I decided to sacrifice a little for bias binding tape, so that the neckline/armholes had the same fabric... so I only had about 50cm to 70cm for the skirt pieces each... and actually turned them to be on the opposite grain (what's that called again?) so that the longer widths were gathered, to make a fuller skirt. The print pattern is so weird, I didn't think it'd be noticeable and I like the effect it gives the skirt.

There's the front bodice pattern piece above, and I kept the back bodice a little longer to accentuate the high low hem. But in this dress, I had to go with what fabric I had left, and so made the skirt this length and slowly graded the back to match it... it's not perfect, but I made a very thin hemline so it's ok for now.

The neckline also sits very flat! Yay! Very happy with that!

And this is my "I'm not sure I like this one" face:

It's hard fabric to photograph too, some shots came up really overexposed. Don't stare at the dress too long though, it'll make you feel weird.... I think it's like stripes on television, sometimes it doesn't work...!!!

BUT, I wore it a couple times in the last week and it IS cool, and it's much better than I thought... after making the two-for-one I thought the black one would be the best and I'd give this one away... but I like it now.

And, since Carolyn asked about the turban style attire with my last post, here's my blog post from wintertime on wearing the 'urban turban' and where I found some great videos on tying different styles! I've often liked a headscarf in helping pincurls set, but have a read of my post for some more thoughts.

Lastly, next week, it's my BIRTHDAY and I'm going to be hosting a GIVEAWAY! So if you like sewing things (and sewing patterns!) check in for that one (and to wish me happy beeday!) xoxo

Voila: Two Dresses for Summer Part 1

Darlings, today I have some double trouble darling dresses! Have you ever needed something sewn up super quickly because the weather calls for it? You need to wear it EVERY day because everything else in your wardrobe is so hot and heavy, you need a floppy frock STAT!

Here’s my quick fix for that humid hotness and I quickly created two dresses at once and I made this first black one, put it on, and then started the next one right away. Shanghai has been a huge bowl of hot velvety air, and just these last few days thanks to a (very) southern Typhoon, we’ve started to breath normally again and felt some fresh cooler winds! Oh it’s hard to do anything when it’s THAT hot, so you can imagine me slowly plodding through the days with a 2 year old…dragging him from various pools to indoor play centres trying to avoid the crowds and any stickiness!

So, the first dress to talk about today is the black one, and tomorrow I’ll post about the creamy/greeny one!

The fabric is light cotton, that my Chinese friend helped me buy from Taobao (maybe you can see here, if you use Chrome it'll translate for you - that's how I do most of my shopping online here in China!), and while I asked for 3 metres, I think it was '3 units' where 1 unit is 50 cm. Oh well! It's super cheap for such lovely fabric and I kind of wanted to test out buying fabric from Taobao to see what the quality was like! This says it's South Korean in 'style' but have no idea! Anyone able to read the characters for me in the selvage? Luckily there was only JUST enough for this dress. There is also a slight stretch to the cotton, and thought it could be good with making a summer frock even comfier and floaty.

I have used this dress shape a few times in my sewing, originally I had an 80s dress that I refashioned to be a cute shortie toddler looking thing (yes I have often dressed like I’m a child/Strawberry Shortcake) and then I made a red floppy summer dress one morning because I didn’t have anything to wear to a music industry panel I was talking on. You know that feeling, when there’s NOTHING to wear. But I also wore it on holidays in Bali. And then I made this floppy frock for a few summers ago in Australia and I wear it ALL the time. From the MMM month of wearing my handmade clothing, it was the thing I grabbed the most as the weather hotted up and so I had it in mind to sew up a couple more when I had the chance.

So pretty much the pattern is two bodice pieces and whatever fabric you have left over for the skirt. This time, since I have tracing paper, I decided to use the Plantain pattern pieces from Deer & Doe’s free pattern, and make them a little more like the dress I wear. So the pattern is now a hybrid shape that’s evolved to this silhouette… but I’m kinda happy with how you can just chuck it on, no zipper or clasps and flop around on a hot day. For you step by step readers/sewing peeps, I cut the bodice pieces, measured what fabric I had left and then cut two rectangles, for back and front skirt pieces. I used the longer rectangle edge for the gathered skirt piece to create the volume/width to the skirt.

For the construction, I stitched the shoulder seams, attached the neckline bias tape, gathered the skirts, attached the skirt pieces and then stitched the side seams with the overlocker. I then did the armholes with bias tape, and that turned out great, but I’m not so pleased with the neckline. I had to guess the length of bias tape (I think I even googled to find a measurement tutorial or some such thing - I found Grainline’s fantastically smooth tutorial on attaching), and used this gingham bias I made earlier in the year because there was no fabric left to make bias tape to match. While this is totally wearable and fine, I’m not too happy with my skills on the neckline though...

It curls up and I think that’s because I haven’t included enough bias tape length, so that made it harder to stretch out the tape to the curves… sound right? I have done this in sewing school just three months ago, so maybe I should check my notes. Also, in the above right photo, you can see my little patch up job under the arm... as my scissors snipped a little too much as I was cutting the loose threads and I had a teeny 5mm hole right on a fabric spot... so it was easy to patch and stitch up... I got a bit carried away by the swatchy patch though, so it looks much worse.

But YAY for summer floppy frocks, soooooo cool to wear and the high-low hem is perfect for bike riding, I sit on the longer hem while pulling the front around a little so it doesn't fly up while riding around town. Last week when it was oozy steamy hot, we all went on a trip with the children to a museum and the pool and I felt just lovely and as cool as one can be in that heat.

Notes & Summary:  
Pattern: None but used Deer & Doe’s Plantain as a guide for shape even though this is woven, and that’s for stretch fabric.
Fabric: Cotton with a seersucker look  
Size: Not sure, my size!  
While Sewing: All fine, but snipped the fabric with the little scissors while cutting loose threads! DAMN.  
Will I Wear It? Already worn 5 times in the last 2 weeks! And what a special day for you, you've had an EXCLUSIVE glance at my indoor slippers! Glamour inside the house here in Shanghai my friends!