All posts by Peneloping

Moar maxi

Floral stripe maxi

Floral stripe maxi

Floral stripe maxi

Floral stripe maxi
dress: self-made, self-drafted, fabric here

I lost the stupid screw-on plate thing that attaches to my camera that then slides onto my tripod. It’s meant getting a little creative with outfit photos, which is why I’ve been sitting in all of the maxi dress photos. Boyfriend was making fun of my contortioning in the last photo and I realized I rarely smile in blog photos so I threw that one in.

I’ve spent the past week falling further and further down the rabbit hole of researching sewing machines. Last week I was dead set on getting a Bernina. Then yesterday I was positive that one of the Pfaff Ambitions was what I needed. Today I still want a Pfaff but I’ve decided I also need a vintage Bernina. Probably a 730/830 Record.

I’m currently sewing on a borrowed really basic Brother that only sometimes likes to play nice, and my machine back home is a pretty basic Janome. After over a decade of sewing I think I want something a little fancier. Especially since playing around on the machines at Grey’s made me realize that no, you’re not supposed to have to fight that hard to make a straight line.

Sidenote: IDT sounds amazing. Not having to shell out an extra $100 for a walking foot also sounds amazing.

So yeah, any sewing machine advice would be greatly appreciated.

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Horses prance through a silver storm

Horses maxi dress

Horses maxi dress

Horses maxi dress

Horses maxi dress

Horses maxi dressdress: self-made, fabric here // belt: thrifted 

To be totally honest, I kind of hated maxi-dresses until kind of recently. I usually prefer short floofy skirts. I think it was having to bypass more than half my wardrobe when getting ready for work that made me reconsider going maxi. Now I’m kind of addicted.

A few months ago I bought an olive green maxi-dress with two super high slits up the leg in the front. It was super hot in a slightly Khaleesi kind of way, but also semi-skanky. I thought about returning it until I decided that would be dumb because I can sew things and it was a really gorgeous dress. I’m really glad I decided to listen to myself on that one because once I sewed up the slits 3″ on either side it’s become one of my favorite dresses. So much so that I ended up tracing it and making a pattern from it, from which I’m basically creating a small maxi army.

The first one was that black maxi skirt from a few weeks ago, and this is the second one. I’m normally horrible at waiting for things so the word “preorder” makes me run the other way, but I saw this horse knit at girlcharlee.com and was so smitten I didn’t even mind waiting the extra two weeks for my entire order to get to me, just to have these horsies.

Now, I’d heard some mixed reviews about Girl Charlee and I’m still a little on the fence about them, but it’s the kind of fence where I just spent $60 there and already have another cart full of fabric I’m coveting. Most of what I’ve bought from them has been awesome but about half of it has ended up being lighter weight than I had expected based on the product descriptions and some fabrics (like the horsies) have been pillier than I’d hoped. On the plus side I was worried this one would be see-through but it’s totally not! Anyway, I’ll keep buying from them since they stock such cute prints but probably not for things like leggings because my tush does not need to see the world.

Sidenote: I did not realize I had a tan line.

The dress pattern is pretty simple. I think this one took me an hour to put together. It’s just a front and back bodice with two identical skirt pieces. I cut a strip of fabric the length of the waist (all the way around, front and back) and stitched in the ditch to attach it to the bodice/skirt seam, then sewed the other side down about 1.5″ above, making a nice cozy tube for some elastic to live inside. My pattern drafting skills are still nonexistent but I can do a tutorial if anyone’s interested.

In other news, I recently re-watched the entire X-Men series (holy inconsistencies though) and just started reading some of the comics. Sooo if I start sewing exclusively in spandex, please stage an intervention.

 

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Tap shorts giveaway winner!!

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*drum roll please*

The winner of the Tap shorts giveaway is…..
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Congrats to Kat H! You’ll be receiving 2 yards of luscious cotton/linen polka dot fabric from Grey’s, 2 coordinating zippers, thread, interfacing, and a pdf of the Tap shorts pattern. I have faith in your welt-pocketing abilities!

Please contact me to receive your prize. And thanks so much to Katy & Laney for the awesome giveaway!

If you didn’t win and are still lusting over this fabric (for which I would totally not blame you because I’m totally eyeing it in a Gollum-esque manner and might go snag some for myself..), you can find all of these items at Grey’s Fabric and Notions. And the Tap shorts pattern can be purchased here.

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K&L Tap Shorts + giveaway!

Denim Tap shorts Denim Tap shorts Denim Tap shorts Denim Tap shorts Denim Tap shorts Denim Tap shorts Denim Tap shorts

shorts: self-made, pattern here // top: self-made, pattern here // earrings: Michal Golan // kitten: named Kaylee, borrowed from Seester

Once upon a time (last summer) I came up with all these big ideas about making shorts. I was going to use this pattern, there were going to be two bows on the sides where the pockets are, and they were going to come out perfectly. Except everything became a huge mess, nothing came together correctly and I was slightly traumatized.

Fast forward to a few weeks ago, Katy and Laney announced they were making a pattern and did I want to test it? Um, yes! These guys always look amazing and I had no doubts their pattern would be super cute as well. Oh, but it’s shorts. Ruh roh.

But then I remembered all the times I’ve shown up sewing club dramatically proclaiming that I could never in a million years learn how to do a particular thing (e.g. button holes, invisible zippers, self-made bias tape, etc.) and each time one of them has been like “Nay, here is how,” (not an exact quote) and within ten minutes I’m pretty much able to do it myself. So I had faith in their instructable abilities.

And I was not wrong! These shorts came together easy peasy. The pattern comes with two back views, one with welt pockets and one without. I’m just going to say that I 100% do not understand how welt pockets work so I went into it extremely tentatively. They just looked so cute I knew I would be sad if I didn’t at least try. Luckily Katy and Laney’s awesome instructable abilities didn’t let me down one bit and I managed to make two pretty decent looking welt pockets! There’s definitely room for growth there but practice makes perfect and all that.

I did make a few changes to the pattern. I was somewhere between a size 0 and 2 so I cut a 2 in the waist and graded down to a 0 around the crotch area. I wanted the leg openings to be a little less dramatically wide and going down a size in the bottom half achieved that for me. I also trimmed off a good 2-3″ off the bottom so these are quite cheeky. Hee.

When they sent me the pattern it only included the pleated view so that’s the only one I’ve tried so far and I absolutely love it. I made it in a thick denim (and a second soon-to-be blogged pair in a lighter weight linen) and I love the way the heavy weight fabric holds the pleat. They do puff out a bit when I sit down but I don’t really mind. I can’t really speak for how curvier ladies might find this effect. I do want to add though that I think it’s pretty awesome that the K&L ladies took the feedback they received about how the pleat might not be for everyone and created two whole new views. I, for one, am super excited to try out a pair of front-zip ones. (Maybe I’ll get my side pocket bow shorts after all.) Tap Shorts for everyone!

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Andd to celebrate the release of their inaugural pattern, Katy and Laney are generously offering up a Tap Short kit to one lucky Peneloping reader! You’ll receive:

-a PDF copy of the pattern
-2 yards of fabric + required interfacing
-coordinating zippers, thread

Just comment below telling me one sewing technique you never thought you’d be able to master. Make sure you include your email so you can be contacted about receiving your prize!

[CLOSED]

This giveaway is open to readers worldwide and will be open until midnight Friday, June 20th. The winner will be announced shortly after. In the meantime, make sure you check out the rest of the Tap Shorts blog tour!

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Thursday, June 12th: Heather at Closet Case Files

Friday, June 13th: Ping at Peneloping

Saturday, June 14th: Jenny at Cashmerette

Monday, June 16th: Mary at Idle Fancy

Wednesday, June 18th: Sarah at Grey’s Fabric and Notions

Thursday, June 19th: Jennifer at Workroom Social

Friday, June 20th: Kelli at True Bias

Saturday, June 21st: Mary at Young, Broke, and Fabulous

Sunday, June 22nd: T at Uandmii

Tuesday, June 24th: MacKenzie at Some Real Things

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Schmimmin’ + Perfect Pattern Parcel #3

Dotted Bombshell

Dotted Bombshell

Dotted Bombshell

Dotted Bombshell

Dotted Bombshellswimsuit: self-made, pattern here // necklace: Michal Golan // photos taken by Boyfriend

Can I just get overly squeal-y for a second and proclaim that I MADE A SWIMSUIT?!

I’m not usually one for one-pieces but I loved the bombshell silhouette and I literally have not seen a single person not look good in this one. I know people say that a lot but Heather did something magical when she designed this.

I only changed two things when I sewed this up. First I lengthened it by one inch at each lengthen line for a total of 2″ extra. In retrospect I think this was excessive because the side seam ended up a little wonky with all the extra material. I think next time I’ll only add one inch total. The other thing I changed was that I used Sophie’s strap tutorial (except I just sewed mine straight onto the swimsuit) instead of using the thicker straps in the pattern.

Another thing to keep an eye out for is how much the top edge stretches out during the sewing process. I had originally cut my elastic to the exact length of the top edge but due to massive amounts of gaping I had to rip it out and cut off 2-3″ before reattaching it, which was not really a huge deal to do.

I’ve talked before about how I used to be deathly afraid of sewing with knits, so you can imagine how much exponentially lower my confidence in my own swimwear creating abilities used to be. Those fears have mostly all vanished. I made this entirely on my sewing machine and everything turned out fine. Swimwear fabric is not actually that hard to work with (unless you have the super slippery stuff but the interwebs is full of tips and tricks on how to handle that), the zig zag stitch is never going to look as professionally clean as a serged edge but it’ll do just fine. Just make sure you invest in ball point needles for your machine! ***EDITED TO ADD: Sonja from Gingermakes made a really good point (bahaha) that some swim fabrics don’t get along with ball point needles, so if you’re running into issues try a stretch needle!***

The only thing I was most concerned about was the boob-age cups because I’ve really never used them before. The ones I bought ended up giving me quite the cone boobs so I ended up going the Lladybird route and snagged some from store bought clearance swimsuits and all was well.

I also highly highly recommend using Heather’s sew along tutorials as a guide. This was me before I started:

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In the end I managed to cobble together a gorgeous swimsuit that’s super comfy, sticks to me like a glove, and survived all kinds of lake-related shenanigans (including inebriated night swimming). I even bought fabric for another Bombshell and have decided I need a black two-piece one too.

And the best part is that Heather’s Bombshell pattern is part of Pattern Parcel #3! If you haven’t heard of this program, the way it works is that for a two week period, select designers offer up their patterns and you not only get to decide how much you want to pay for the set, but also how you want to split it between the designer, a charity supporting children’s education, and PPP itself. You can read more about them and what they do here.

These are all of the patterns offered in the current Pattern Parcel:

Bombshell Swimsuit by Closet Case Files
Jorna Tank Dress by Jenna Brand
Staple Dress by April Rhodes
Poppy Tunic by Make it Perfect
Water Bottle Tote by Radiant Home Studio
Bonus Pattern: Prefontaine Shorts by Made with Moxie (only offered if you choose to pay $28 or more)

And you can see the rest of the Perfect Pattern Parcel #3 blog tour here:

Friday, May 30 Sew Busy Lizzy // Pienkel // SeamstressErin
Monday, June 9 Sew Sweetness // True Bias // Ozzy Blackbeard
Wednesday, June 11 Peneloping // YoSaMi // sewVery
Thursday, June 12 la inglesita // La Pantigana // Sanae Ishida
Friday, June 13 Seamster Sewing Patterns // Paunnet

 

Buy Pattern Parcel #3

 

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