Still chugging along with Me Made May, although I’ve now officially run out of new me-made things and am on to repeats. Here’s what I wore in the second week:

 

So last year, when I was pretty new to the blogosphere, one of the things I really wanted to participate in was the Sew Bossy initiative! Since I can often be a bit indecisive about what to sew and I love surprises, I figured it would be fun. So when Melanie of The Seeds of 3 put the call out for a Sew Bossy partner, I didn’t hesitate for a minute. After some discussion and admiring of each others’ styles, we exchanged our patterns and materials and…well, up until now, that’s been it.

I know, I know. It was a year ago! I don’t really have any good excuses for why it took me so long to get around to sewing up Mel’s vision for me. When we packed up all our things to move to New Zealand, I found her little box with all its ingredients for a skirt, and dutifully packed it all into my suitcase. And once I got a sewing machine here, I set to work on finally making her bossy dreams come true!

And here’s the result! The pattern she sent me was the Asymmetrical Folds Skirt pattern from Stitches magazine, along with a gorgeous blue linen and a cotton houndstooth for the facing, interfacing, thread and a kit to make my own buttons!

I sewed it up in a size L, which is actually slightly smaller than my body measurements – there are no finished garment measurements on the pattern or instructions, but I found some comments online saying it ran a bit large, so I thought that would be my best bet. I shortened the pattern pieces by about 4″, using my Kelly skirt as a guide for length, but it’s still a bit too long because I have to wear it on my hips, rather than my waist, due to the way the skirt fits. Because I like a bit more security in my wrap garments, I stole an idea from a RTW skirt I sadly no longer have in my possession – an inner, hidden button to secure the layers together.

 I also used 5 buttons, not four, to secure the skirt. Making the covered buttons was my favourite part of the whole process – they turned out so well! I had no idea they were so easy to do, but they’re genius. Cover all the buttons!

You can see above my five little buttons, and their placement – which varies quite a bit from where they were supposed to be placed, according to the pattern. The pattern actually says to sew the buttons on first, before the buttonholes – I highly recommend you don’t do this. Doing the buttonholes first allows you to place the buttons in the best spot for a good fit. I did the buttonholes first, tried the skirt on and then adjusted until it felt like it fitted in the best way, then marked the button placement with chalk through the buttonholes onto the skirt. Since my buttons were shank buttons, and quite small, I used an extra button up the top for more stability. I also ironed squares of extra interfacing onto the skirt behind the buttons before sewing them, for extra stability. Despite this, they still pull on the skirt a lot when I sit down. I’m not sure how to fix this.

Here’s the skirt with the folds, as I chose to do them. According to the pattern, the last fold should lie opposite to the others, but I thought that looked a bit weird, to be honest. I had to fiddle with the folds for a long time before I was happy with them – since I shortened the skirt so much, following the original markers for the folds would have meant a very tiny skirt front! So I just winged it and folded them until they looked even.

Can I stop and be honest for a moment? I don’t love this skirt. I mean absolutely no disrespect to Melanie, she chose a skirt that is totally my style, and the fabric choices are spot on. I love the idea of this skirt. But the actual pattern design itself lets it down. I haven’t made it clear in any of these photos, but the facing is a bitch. A total, utter, bitch. In fact, I don’t really know what the deal with it is – in every photo I’ve seen of this skirt (including the promotional photo on the sale page), the facing has been showing a bit above the waistband. I don’t know if this is by design, as the pattern certainly makes it sound like it shouldn’t be showing – there are instructions to understitch it and everything. Despite understitching it, adding extra buttons that should help keep it in place, and pressing the shit out of it, I have to spend about 5 minutes after I put it on tucking the facing in. And even then, at the back, due to the way the skirt curves, it’s nigh on impossible to get it fully invisible. I’m sorry, but having it showing just looks bad to me – like you’ve made a mistake with the construction.

Also, since it doesn’t fit on my waist (it’s way too big if I wear it up there, and there’s only so much you can wrap a wrap skirt around you before things look weird), I have to wear it on my hips, which feels a bit uncomfortable – like it might ride up and swivel around. It’s possible that, with some darts and adjusting I could get the pattern to fit around my waist, but given the other problems with the pattern, I’m not sure I’ll bother.

I hope that I haven’t seemed too ungrateful with the pattern Mel sent me – she nailed my style, and the colour of the linen is gorgeous (and a dream to press and stitch) – and I will still wear the skirt, since my husband loves it on me and I do like the way it looks in photos. All in all, I’m glad I got the Sew Bossy experience – it’s a really cool idea!

So, the first week of Me Made May is over, and in keeping with my pledge, I wore me-made items not once, but twice! Not bad, considering how few I actually have.

For the last two years, I’ve spent the month of May following a constant stream of amazing blogger creations, and wishing I could participate. The first year, I’d just moved to the USA with very little clothing, and only the vaguest idea of how to actually make clothing. Me-Made-May wasn’t happening that year. The second year, I did have some handmade pieces, but I didn’t feel like I had enough to do a week, let alone a month, so I sat out again – but I thought to myself, 2014, that will be the year I rock Me-Made-May.

And now, here I am, in Auckland, with half a suitcase of clothes. Seriously. I have one pair of jeans, one skirt, two dresses, and some tops (and underwear, I’m not some kind of commando-loving weirdo). Oh, and some recently-purchased-because-damn-it’s-getting-cold-here trackie pants from Countdown. So stylin’, y’all.

However, of that pathetic pile of clothing, one of the dresses, the skirt, and a top are hand-made. So, that’s like 50% of my clothes that are handmade! Ha! Plus, I just got myself a nice, new Husqvarna Viking sewing machine. So, let’s do this. It may already be the 1st of May (oops), it may not be a super exciting wardrobe, but I’m determined to try my best at Me-Made-May!

‘I, Kirsty, of Tea & Rainbows, sign up as a participant of Me-Made-May ’14. I endeavour to wear my own handmade clothing, for at least one day per week for the duration of May 2014′

Let’s do this!

I probably should have made this update sooner, but the last couple of weeks have been crazy busy for me, and I’m only just getting a minute to sit still and type it up.

As some of you may know if you follow me on Twitter or Instagram, my husband and I packed up our life in California and are in the process of moving to Auckland, New Zealand. At the moment, we’re in Adelaide, Australia – our home town! We haven’t been back in two and a half years, so we’re trying to see as much of family and friends as we can. It’s hectic, but I’m loving every minute of it.

I sold my sewing machine in California, since a) it didn’t cost me much in the first place and probably would have cost the same again to move it to NZ and b) it wouldn’t have worked anyway, due to voltage differences etc. I did look into getting a new one in the US and sending it over (because they are SO much cheaper there) but everything I read suggested that one shouldn’t use a transformer/plug converter with a sewing machine for a long period of time, so I chose not to. So I am currently without a sewing machine, and probably will remain that way for another month or so, until we get settled in Auckland and have found somewhere to live.

It seems like the worst possible time to be without a machine – there are some amazing sewalongs happening, some fantastic patterns being released, and all I can do is sit and watch from the sidelines. But, such is life. I can’t wait to get back into it once I’m settled in Auckland, and I hope you’ll all stick around so I can share my new makes with you 🙂

And any sewing bloggers from Auckland – hit me up! Tell me where I can find the best fabrics, and more importantly – a good sewing machine! I know a lot of sewing bloggers from Wellington, but only one from Auckland, so I’m hoping there’s more of you out there somewhere!

If you want to follow me on Twitter, you can do so here, and I’m kirstyteacat on Instagram if you want to see some of my adventures in Australia and New Zealand!

Thank you to everyone who entered my birthday giveaway! Your comments were all so sweet, you sure know how to make a girl feel special on her birthday 🙂

I used a random number generator to pick the winner for each prize, and without further ado, here’s who won what!

Catja of Gjeometry, you’re the lucky winner of the Japanese pattern book!

Josephine, you won the fabric that everyone wanted so much, so congratulations to you!

And finally, Sally of the quirky peach, you get the 3 sewing patterns!

I’ll be in contact with you all shortly so I can send your goodies on their way.

I hope to have a couple of finished garments up on the blog by the end of the week – things are getting crazy around here while we prepare for our next big international move, and I’m racing to finish up all my sewing before my little machine goes to a new owner *sob*

Omg, you guys! I’ve been nominated for a Liebster Award! Thank you, Sarah Kate Creations! It’s totally made my day 🙂

In case you’re not familiar with the Liebster Award, it’s to help people discover new blogs with less than 200 followers. There are a couple of rules associated with receiving the award, which are:

So, today (or yesterday if we’re being pedantic) is my 30th birthday, and I wanted to share the birthday love with all of you! Truth be told, I’ve been wanting to do a giveaway on my blog for a while now, but I kept missing the various milestones that I planned for – 5000 blog views whizzed past, 100 Twitter followers came and went, and so I figure my birthday is as good a reason as any!

Since I’ve been around for three decades now (!) I’m going to give away three different things. All you have to do to enter is leave a comment for me and tell me which item you’d like to win – it’s that simple! I’ll draw the winners in a week from now, which is the 23rd of February. You can enter three separate times if you want to win all three things, that’s totally fine! This giveaway is open to anyone from anywhere in the world, so international bloggers, you’re welcome to enter!

So first up, we have 3 patterns from my collection!

Vogue 8723, McCall’s Vintage 9263 (size 16) and Megan Nielsen’s Banksia Blouse (not pictured because it’s in a box and I have to dig it out, but I promise it’s included!)

Next up there’s 3 yards of a beautiful rayon challis fabric from FabricMart – it would make a lovely dress or blouse, I think!

And last but not least, we have one of the Japanese Stylish Dress Books by Yoshiko Tsukiori – this one is the Wear With Freedom book, and the dresses in it are so pretty and summery!

I also have some other little goodies I’ll be tucking into the giveaway packages 🙂 Good luck, everyone!

Like the rest of the blogging world, I jumped on the new Deer&Doe Plantain t-shirt pattern the moment it was released! Not only is it FREE, but it’s also a great, simple pattern that takes almost no time to make! Win-win, yes? (I know I don’t look too thrilled in the above photo, but the early morning sun was very, very bright).

So the pattern itself is very easy to make – I probably took longer taping the pattern together than I did actually sewing it! I used some fawn fabric I got from Girl Charlee a while back – I’m actually pretty disappointed in it, since it’s not very soft (despite being described as such on their website) and also, not very stretchy! In fact, I spent a good ten minutes crouched over the fabric, pulling it this way and that to try and work out which way had the most stretch – I honestly couldn’t tell, since neither direction seemed to stretch much at all! I even got Luke involved, but he was just as clueless as I was. As a result of this, my Plantain is a little more snug than I would like, especially around my upper arms. I cut out a 46, which is the largest size the pattern offers, and I’m happy with the fit everywhere except the bust and upper arms. I do need to do a small narrow shoulder adjustment for the next one, and I have a couple more stretchier fabrics I plan to make this up in next, and I expect the fit then will be just perfect!

I was worried this top wouldn’t be flattering on me, given the flared design, but actually, I really like it! You may notice I omitted the elbow patches – they’re just not my style, I don’t think, and I really want to focus on making things I’ll actually wear this year. I don’t have a serger, so I sewed this up with a narrow zig zag, and used a twin needle to hem the bottom and sleeves. I’m super happy with how my neckband turned out – this fabric curled like a bitch when I tried to stretch it out to sew it, and I thought it was going to be a disaster, but I went slowly and thankfully the end result looks pretty sweet.

So in short, love this pattern, love Deer&Doe (as always) and I’ve got some fabric sitting in the laundry basket ready to be prewashed for another Plantain this weekend!

This is actually a make from the end of 2013 – I made it up quickly just in time for the Bay Area sewcialist meetup! And I’ll make another admission while I’m at it…this isn’t even my first Lady Skater. I never blogged about the first one because I made a poor fabric choice, it stretched so much it wasn’t funny and didn’t stretch back, and consequently is now in the bin. C’est la vie.

So, the pattern is the ever popular Lady Skater by Kitschy Coo, in a straight size 14. I shortened the bodice by 2″, and I still think it could stand to be shortened a tiny bit more – the weight of the skirt pulls the waist to just below my natural waist (in this fabric, anyway). The sleeves are too long (a recurring problem of mine), but if I fold the cuffs back, they work. I’ll definitely shorten them next time.

The fabric is a nautical-themed knit from Girl Charlee that they don’t seem to stock any more – the anchors are silver and red dots are actually little boat tillers. It’s one of the better quality knits I’ve bought from Girl Charlee, in that it’s quite soft but not too thin and curly when I stretch it. On the whole, though, I’m generally disappointed by my purchases there, and probably won’t be making any more in the future.

Construction was fairly simple – I used knit stay tape instead of clear elastic to stabilise the shoulder and waist. I used clear elastic from Joann’s the first time round, and that stuff is god awful. It stretched while I sewed it no matter how hard I tried, my needle didn’t like puncturing it, and it felt horrible and scratchy against my tummy when I wore the dress. Ugh. I can highly recommend the knit tape, it was super easy to use and made sewing the seams a dream. I hemmed the skirt with my twin needle and two different coloured threads, because I’m classy like that.

In case you were wondering, these photos were taken at the San Francisco Zoo on Christmas Day. A bit of a change from my usual roof backdrop! It was quite nerve-wracking taking outfit photos in a public place, but I tried my best not to let it bother me. I wear this dress ALL the time – it’s so comfortable, and looks good, too! I have some more knit fabric with fawns on it (FAWNS!) that I’m planning to make another with. Please look forward to it!