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Medina Linen Blend Blackwood Cardigan // Imagine Gnats Contributor

Thursday, June 27, 2019

Medina Linen Blend Blackwood Cardigan // Sewing For Women

Hi friends! I'm hanging out over at Imagine Gnats today, sharing all about my new summery, floaty, feminine, Blackwood Cardigan!

Medina Linen Blend Blackwood Cardigan // Sewing For Women

I am absolutely in love with this fabric, the lace detail, and the pattern hacking of this cardigan!

Head over to the Imagine Gnats blog to read all about it by clicking HERE!

Medina Linen Blend Blackwood Cardigan // Sewing For Women

Medina Linen Blend Blackwood Cardigan // Sewing For Women

Medina Linen Blend Blackwood Cardigan // Sewing For Women

Medina Linen Blend Blackwood Cardigan // Sewing For Women

Coffee and Thread Madrid Dress // Sewing For Women

Tuesday, June 25, 2019

Coffee and Thread Madrid Dress // Sewing For Women

**Just a little housekeeping. I realize that my text color scheme makes it hard to see which text is hyper-linked (unfortunately, it is a purchased blog scheme and I cannot change it), but be aware that they are there and in numerous places throughout my posts, so keep an eye out! ;)**

In my last post, I talked about how much I love pattern testing for motivation purposes, well I love pattern tours just as much for the same reason!

Coffee and Thread Madrid Dress // Sewing For Women

Today I am absolutely thrilled to be part of the #madriddresstour. The Coffee and Thread Madrid Dress is designed by my friend, the owner of Coffee + Thread, Olga. Her patterns always have such great clean lines, and loads of options included. This dress was no different, and I was so excited to dive in!

The pattern includes 2 sleeve options, and comes in tunic length, plus a midi or maxi dress length. As you can see, I decided to go in between and create a swishy, above the knee length, dress!

Coffee and Thread Madrid Dress // Sewing For Women

The Fabric


Coffee and Thread Madrid Dress // Sewing For Women

When I was brainstorming how I wanted my Madrid Dress to look, all I kept seeing in my mind was a fun and bold tropical print. So I went hunting for the perfect fabric! I honestly found many options that would have been amazing, but in the end I settled on this lovely rayon/linen blend that I found on the Joann's website. I know this fabric is carried in-store, but my store didn't have it, so I ordered it online.

Coffee and Thread Madrid Dress // Sewing For Women

When my fabric arrived, I could not wait to get started! The weight of the fabric felt just perfect and the print was everything I had wanted. I did get a question about the sheerness of the fabric when I posted a sneak peek on Instagram, and I'm happy to report that the fabric is perfectly opaque on the body. There was no need for a lining at all! And no slip either. It's really good, y'all!

Fitting

Sewing this dress was truly a fantastic experience! Since the top is a wrap style, I knew I could not get away without making a muslin. In my experience with wrap style tops or dresses, I always have some gaping and/or drooping in the front. So a muslin was absolutely necessary.

Coffee and Thread Madrid Dress // Sewing For Women

My full bust and waist measurements put me in a straight size 8. So I made a quick muslin in similar fabric using only the front and back bodice pieces. As I suspected, I had a lot of gaping going on in the cross-over area. Since I was fresh off of sewing my Ashton Top and had to shorten the area between my bust and shoulders, I decided to test out my growing suspicion that this is indeed an adjustment I need to start making on the regular!

On my muslin, I took up the shoulder seams 1/2" and this placed my darts in the perfect spot as well as lessened the gaping in the front. I reflected this adjustment on the pattern piece by slicing the pattern above the bust and shortening 1/2"

Coffee and Thread Madrid Dress // Sewing For Women

Even after this adjustment, I still had some gaping, so I did a SBA trick that I learned in sewing the Orchid Midi Dress (blogged HERE).

This adjustment is as easy as removing a wedge from the front bodice, starting at the tip of the cross-over (at the waist), and in the case of this dress, I only tapered to the vertical bodice dart. I removed another 1/2" this way and it significantly reduced the gaping in my final dress!

This fabric has a looser weave than my muslin fabric did, and I could have probably removed at least another 1/4" with the wedge, but I'm pleased with the outcome as it is!

Pattern/Style Alterations

Obviously, my dress is not the midi or the maxi length included in the pattern options. I wanted a dress that hit above my knee, I'm crushing on the knee-length tiered skirts I've been seeing everywhere. To achieve the look I was after, I simply shortened the second skirt tier! It could not have been easier.

Coffee and Thread Madrid Dress // Sewing For Women

I held the pattern pieces up to my body, and by eye-balling I decided to remove 6 5/8" from the length. I am 5'3", and I'm super happy with how the length turned out!

Coffee and Thread Madrid Dress // Sewing For Women

The second modification I made to the pattern was to add POCKETS!!! This dress is a fabulous design, but it was screaming for some pockets. Any dress that has pockets is instantly 10x better, am I right???

Coffee and Thread Madrid Dress // Sewing For Women

I can understand why the pattern doesn't include them since the dress has a side-seam zipper to help with getting it on and off. However, I was determined, even though I had never sewn an invisible side-seam zipper AND in-seam pockets on a garment before!

I went to my good pal, Google, and was thrilled to be directed to the ever inspiring and amazing Brittany J. Jones!! She has a YouTube sew-along video in which she sews a skirt with this exact pattern feature! You can reference the video HERE.

Her step-by-step sew-along was exactly what I needed in order to be able to add it to this dress! I just used a pocket pattern piece from my stash that felt like an appropriate size and shape for the dress.

Can I just say that I am IMMENSELY proud with the outcome! Lol. I mean, just check out that side seam! Can you see the zipper? The pocket? No? Yay, that makes me happy!! :)

Coffee and Thread Madrid Dress // Sewing For Women

The Pattern

Other than my truly slight modifications to the design, I stuck directly to the pattern and I am so in love with my new dress!! I feel like pictures don't do it justice, and I basically feel like a princess in the way my 10-year old self would have loved to feel. :)

Coffee and Thread Madrid Dress // Sewing For Women

I attribute this mainly to the flutter sleeves on this dress!! Oh my goodness, they are perfection. The length is perfect, the fullness of the flutter is perfect, and they are just so flattering.

Coffee and Thread Madrid Dress // Sewing For Women

I also am really, really happy with the wrap and how high up it comes. The facing piece is perfect in that it doesn't roll out at all, and gives just the right amount of stability to the front. I found the waist to hit at the perfect spot, and the gathering in the skirt is just enough, but not too much!

Coffee and Thread Madrid Dress // Sewing For Women

All in all, I really couldn't be happier with this new dress of mine!!

I hope you take some time and check out the #madriddresstour on Instagram, there are so many other gorgeous Madrid Dresses there!


For the duration of the tour, Olga is offering 25% off ALL of her patterns, including children's! Just use the code "madridtour" at check out for your discount! Shop all the patterns HERE.

Links:


Pattern: Coffee and Thread Madrid Dress

Step-by-step video for sewing in-seam pockets with a side-seam zipper: Brittany J Jones

Ashton Top // Sewing For Women

Saturday, June 22, 2019

Ashton Top // Sewing For Women

Hi friends!

I'm sharing my tester version of the Ashton Top, one of the two new patterns just released by Helen's Closet!

Pattern testing, especially for my favorite designers, is one of my VERY favorite things to do! I love to be able to be a part of the process in creating a pattern.

Ashton Top // Sewing For Women

I can seriously credit pattern testing with teaching me many valuable sewing skills, especially when I was first starting!

What I love the most about it is that it often pushes me out of my comfort zone and motivates me to try new styles, or to try sewing garments that I would otherwise just keep pushing to back of my queue because of time involved, or depth of skills required.

Basically it just keeps me motivated! :) And it pushes me. If you know of the four tendencies described by Gretchen Rubin, I am an obliger. Which can basically be boiled down to one detail, and that is that I perform best with external motivators. Which is exactly what pattern tests are! Lol.

Now that I've dove way down deep into that rabbit hole, lets move on and talk about the pattern, shall we!?

Ashton Top // Sewing For Women

The Ashton Top is a sleeveless A-line shell that comes in two length options; hip or high-waisted crop.

I chose the cropped view, mainly because I knew it would be the perfect scrap buster for this linen fabric I had laying around, begging to be transformed from scrap to crop-top! I had less than a yard to work with and had no big problem getting this top from it! I did cut the facing in two pieces rather than on the fold, but that was the only minor "fudging" I had to do to make it work. So get out those scraps for this one!!

Ashton Top // Sewing For Women

Helen does such an incredible job with her instructions, and this pattern is the absolute perfect beginner friendly project! She includes two options for finishing the neckline and armholes; the options are a bias finish or an all-in-one facing. I chose to do the facing, and I love how that turned out! The facing is generous, so there is no concern about it flipping out at all while wearing it.

Ashton Top // Sewing For Women

For this tester version, I ended up taking my shoulder seams up by 2 inches total. That is a pretty big adjustment, but I am also a bit shorter through the upper bust area. Since testing, the pattern has been shortened in the shoulder, and the armhole has been raised and brought in a bit.

Ashton Top // Sewing For Women

For my next version, I will start out by taking 1/2" out of the upper bust area (a lengthen/shorten line has been included here), I will also raise the dart, maybe 1", because by taking up the shoulder seam 2" on this version, the dart is now where it should be. I will also be adding in at least 1" in length to the next cropped version, just for my own comfort. Most of my higher rise pants fit just below my bellybutton, and I'm just not a fan of showing my mid-riff at this stage of my life. ;)

That being said, I will definitely wear this top as is, I will probably just wear a cami tucked in underneath most of the time, although with this pair of pants, I don't have to worry much! Maybe I just need to make some more high-waisted pants and shorts.... Hmm... :)

Ashton Top // Sewing For Women

 I can't wait to sew up several more Ashton Tops with some of my (way too many) 1 yard pieces hanging out in my stash!

Ashton Top // Sewing For Women
 
Ashton Top // Sewing For Women


Ashton Top // Sewing For Women

I hope you are all having a wonderful weekend!!  ~Heidi

Pants are Lander Pants, blogged HERE.
The linen fabric I used for the top is leftover from this jumsuit, blogged HERE.

*Disclosure: I was given a copy of the final pattern in exchange for testing. All opinions expressed are my own, all materials were my own resources.

Mustard Yellow Camp Shirt // Willamette Wednesday // Sewing For Women

Wednesday, June 12, 2019

Mustard Yellow Camp Shirt // Willamette Wednesday // Sewing For Women // Hey June Willamette Shirt

Happy #willamettewednesday my friends!!

Have you heard of #heyjunejune19? It is a super fun sewing month in honor of Hey June Handmade. This fun event is hosted this year by our beloved #letssewthistogether hosts, Loni of @Havinsewmuchfun and Jen of @Makerheart.

This month's fun includes giveaways every single day!! So many patterns and so much fabric!! Make sure to check out the hashtags and links above to follow along in the fun. And make sure to check out my Instagram today for a giveaway there too!

Not only are the DAILY giveaways, there are also TWO grand prizes that you could win!! Check out all the details and pertinent info in this post HERE.

Mustard Yellow Camp Shirt // Willamette Wednesday // Sewing For Women // Hey June Willamette Shirt

When Loni and Jen put out the call for Hey June Super Fans who would want to share their love of Hey June patterns, I immediately applied because, y'all... My love of the Willamette Shirt runs DEEP. This pattern has my heart, and my latest iteration of it had me melting in a puddle from the moment I first put it on. I could barely peel it off of myself to add the buttons!

Mustard Yellow Camp Shirt // Willamette Wednesday // Sewing For Women // Hey June Willamette Shirt

But boy am I glad I managed to part with it for that long, because those buttons. OH MY HEART.

So let's talk first about allll the Willamette's that are collecting in my closet. I have made four versions of View A so far, and this is my first version of View C.

Mustard Yellow Camp Shirt // Willamette Wednesday // Sewing For Women // Hey June Willamette Shirt

I didn't think it was possible, but I maaaayyybeee, just maybe, might love View C even a smidge better than I love my View A's??? That feels like cheating. It's like trying to choose a favorite among your children. Lol!

The first 2 versions of View A were made at the same time. My blue striped version was my "wearable muslin", you can see a bit more about that one HERE.

Mustard Yellow Camp Shirt // Willamette Wednesday // Sewing For Women // Hey June Willamette Shirt

Next up is the cream striped version, blogged HERE.

Mustard Yellow Camp Shirt // Willamette Wednesday // Sewing For Women // Hey June Willamette Shirt

The third version is the happiest of all the versions and helped to inspire #sewrtwstyle! You can read all about this version HERE.

Mustard Yellow Camp Shirt // Willamette Wednesday // Sewing For Women // Hey June Willamette Shirt

If you've noticed... Each of the View A's has had some sort of hack done to them, this pattern is so extremely easy to customize into so many different shirts! A tutorial of this gathered shoulder version can be found HERE.

Mustard Yellow Camp Shirt // Willamette Wednesday // Sewing For Women // Hey June Willamette Shirt

And NOW, we can finally chat about the one that makes my heart sing right now! :)

Mustard Yellow Camp Shirt // Willamette Wednesday // Sewing For Women // Hey June Willamette Shirt

This was one of those projects that just "happened". There was no overthinking (which I tend to do alot, yikes), the idea popped into my head, I printed another view of the pattern, grabbed my fabric and went to work! Come to think of it, I don't think I grabbed my seam ripper once during this whole make!

Mustard Yellow Camp Shirt // Willamette Wednesday // Sewing For Women // Hey June Willamette Shirt

This fabric is one that I've had in my stash for at least five years. Yes. FIVE. I remember loving it so much when I saw it on the shelf at Joann's. It was during the time that I was starting to explore using different substrates for the clothes I was making for my children. I remember loving the color so much, but I've honestly been scared of mustard and yellow tones until very recently! I always thought that it looked terrible on my skin tone, and since my kids have similar coloring to me, I guess I projected that onto them as well...??

And are you at all surprised to hear that it is rayon/linen?? My love for this blend started a long time ago. :)

Mustard Yellow Camp Shirt // Willamette Wednesday // Sewing For Women // Hey June Willamette Shirt

For whatever reason, I fell in love and bought the fabric. I even bought it twice! I initially purchased a yard to use for a garment for my kids, and then after a while thought I might be brave enough to try making a skirt for myself with it and purchased another yard later. And there it sat. In a sad little fabric drawer for all these years. Haha. What a story!

When the idea for this shirt popped into my head, this fabric was the first thing to accompany it! I honestly don't know where the inspiration came from. It wasn't a Pinterest image or an ad, or anything like that, it just floated into my brain out of nowhere and I had to make it happen.

This is straight View C, size 6. No fit mods, no changes to the sizing at all. It is sized down one from where the size chart puts me, as are all the Willamettes I've made. I made two slight modifications to the design. I gathered the back instead of creating a pleat. I simply started and stopped my gathering stitches 2 inches on either side of the pleat notches and gathered it in to fit the yoke.

Mustard Yellow Camp Shirt // Willamette Wednesday // Sewing For Women // Hey June Willamette Shirt

The second modification was simply to create a full button placket by sewing on buttonholes and buttons instead of sewing down the front placket as per the pattern instructions. I also opted not to topstich the facings since the button and buttonholes keep things in place. I'm still pondering this decision and may go back and edgestitch because I'm not sure how it will handle a wash? In the meantime I am LOVING the clean look of no topstitching!

Mustard Yellow Camp Shirt // Willamette Wednesday // Sewing For Women // Hey June Willamette Shirt

The buttons were also just meant to be... I got to that stage and didn't really have anything in mind, but knew that I had plenty of options in my stash. I pulled out about 6 different buttons and mulled it over for a few minutes, but the stark contrast of the shiny black buttons quickly won me over.

Mustard Yellow Camp Shirt // Willamette Wednesday // Sewing For Women // Hey June Willamette Shirt

I think it looks like a shirt straight out of a Madewell catalog and paired with my Lander Shorts, it has me singing all the camp songs! And now I need to re-watch the original Parent Trap. Because the remake... Nope. My kids are at "Camp Grandma" this week, but I feel like I need to run to the library and watch it all by myself. :)

Mustard Yellow Camp Shirt // Willamette Wednesday // Sewing For Women // Hey June Willamette Shirt

I think this post is wordy enough at this point, but I'll leave you with some more images, because I hope to convey the awesomeness of this shirt, the fabric, and the whole vibe. I'm seriously going to have to go find me a summer camp. 😄

Mustard Yellow Camp Shirt // Willamette Wednesday // Sewing For Women // Hey June Willamette Shirt

Mustard Yellow Camp Shirt // Willamette Wednesday // Sewing For Women // Hey June Willamette Shirt
 
Mustard Yellow Camp Shirt // Willamette Wednesday // Sewing For Women // Hey June Willamette Shirt

Mustard Yellow Camp Shirt // Willamette Wednesday // Sewing For Women // Hey June Willamette Shirt

Mustard Yellow Camp Shirt // Willamette Wednesday // Sewing For Women // Hey June Willamette Shirt

Mustard Yellow Camp Shirt // Willamette Wednesday // Sewing For Women // Hey June Willamette Shirt

*Shorts are Lander Shorts: Blogged HERE.
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