I have been sewing more skirts recently, which will surprise many who know my passion for dresses! However since lock-down, we’ve been staying in France with far less sewing space than in London, so I thought skirts would just be easier to make than dresses. Here is the first of my skirt makes, the Jupe Midi by Vanessa Pouzet, in a beautiful seersucker cotton from SewMeSunshine.

The pattern for this skirt is extremely simple, with no physical paper pattern but just measurements – 5 rectangles in total, which you cut directly on the fabric. So it definitely fitted the “I have no space to sew in” bill! I also really liked the possible contrasting of belt, skirt and bottom band, perfect for my current stripe frenzy!

The skirt closes on the side with an invisible zip at the skirt and buttons at the belt. Instead of making button holes with my rather unreliable sewing machine, I experimented with (my daughter’s hair) elastics: I folded them in two to create a button hole, then sewn them into the margin allowance on the side of the skirt. The hardest part was to align the buttons and get a good fit at the waist – but this is due to the very large belt, despite the pretty look I would have made it narrower had I known…

It was all good to have a skirt and I tried to wear all kinds of top to go with it – I even made a cardigan just for this skirt!

But this is a summer skirt, it definitely called for a summer top and I am a matchy-matchy girl. So I searched and searched top patterns (which I am obviously not familiar with at all) and found McCall’s M7958, which suited me for several reasons: it looked easy to make, was (decently) cropped, and it came with several bust cup options, yessssss!!!! McCall’s and Vogue pattern always fit me like a glove and I am a huge fan but the bust options are always the cherry on the cake, as I am not the one making the FBA!

I was too impatient to wait for the post and the pattern was luckily available online (which is a very recent option for McCall’s pattern, not available for all their patterns) so I went the PDF way. Clearly McCall’s PDFs are not fully up to speed, compared to many independent pattern companies: they take a while to be available on their website once you’ve ordered them; the files are not super easy to naviguate (the instructions in particular look a bit grim); and there was a mistake in one of the pattern pieces, which was missing 1cm in width – lucky I made a muslin and corrected this before cutting into my fabric! Emily Hallmann had also mentioned a mistake in a PDF she recently used too so just be very careful!

That put aside, the pattern was perfect as ever. I picked view C and cut a size 10 with D bust cup (as I always do) and the fit was spot-on, without adjustment needed except slightly narrowing the top of the back. It is all lined so the inside finish is exactly as I like. I had difficulty fitting the shoulder straps but I widened them, to make them bra-friendly, so I think that’s what caused the problem. I also used elastic and buttons for the back, as I did for my skirt, instead of the recommended zip.

And here is the set – a perfect match! I obviously very rarely wear them as separates!

As promised, back to sewing at last! – the weather is so hot currently that none of my models wants to wear woolen sweaters anyway! This year I’ve transitioned directly from winter to summer sewing and here is my first summer make: the McCall’s M7952 dress, with its beautiful back.

The pattern was released in Spring 2019 and I feel in the love with the presentation picture (view A) – the contrasting stripes, the pockets, the back, I wanted exactly the same…. just not in yellow!

Despite having the perfect fabric in stock, a lovely striped cotton poplin from Bennytex, it took me a full year to actually get going on this dress. My main problem was the bust: this pattern sadly has no bust cup options, so to make it fit properly I had to do an FBA… and I find them such hard work that it really held me off. Here is a picture of my adjusted bodice, where I added 1.5cm in width at the bust. I added a side dart on top of the existing waist dart to avoid a pointy boob effect – and even with two darts, I did have to fiddle quite a bit between to get where I wanted shape-wise. I am still not fully happy with the result but it will have to do I’m afraid…

My other issue were the stripes – until June 2019, I had astigmatism, a vision defect which among other things make stripes very blurry so nearly impossible to sew! I got my eyes lasered last June and now stripes are sewable ad nauseam – brace yourself for a lot of them this summer!

Cutting the fabric took ages, as I really wanted to get the same effect of horizontal versus vertical stripes as the one shown on the presentation pictures. But I’m happy I took the time because the effect is exactly what I wanted.

A really charming aspect of this dress is the back – not only the crossed shoulders, which fit perfectly well, but also the buttoned skirt. However this dress is definitely not bra compatible – keep that in mind when doing your FBA (bra-less measurements should be used, not that it occurred to me initially, hum hum…).

Being completely uninterested in dresses with pockets (unlike the rest of the world it seems), I was surprised to love them so much in this dress. They are actually the only reason why I used the skirt suggested by the pattern instead of something a bit fuller. That said, this skirt is a bit to tight to my liking for hot summer days – but I’m used to big and floaty so I may not be completely objective here.

As for technicalities:

• I cut a size 10 and made no adjustment whatsoever (except for the FBA), which is always the case for all the McCall’s and Vogue patterns I’ve sewn and the reason I adore them!
• The pattern explanations are very straightforward and result in an extremely neat inside finish so I strongly recommend that you follow them.
• I used way more fabric than I would have thought, due to the stripe contrasting – and the many mistakes I made while cutting! So a good 2.5m.

Other than that not much to say, I am quite keen to try this dress with a circle skirt – but I would need to give-up the stripes for that. We’ll see.

Last knitting article before more sewing I promise! My fourth and last knit of an 8-week lock-down was the Enchantée Sweater by Atelier Emilie in royal blue for my elder daughter – beware that I am due to explore all shades of blue in the near future, as this is her absolute favourite colour!

After my recent wave of knitting articles, you are probably well aware that I adore knitting lace. After the Blossom motif which I explored extensively ( one shawl, two jumpers, two cardis here and here), I fell in love with the Enchantée lace when seeing it on Atelier Svila’s blog.

However I was not overly keen with the dropped shoulders and the loose fit. So I decided to follow the pattern very loosely. So from the inital pattern I kept:

• the lace motif – I adore foliage lace and have been on the lookout for some time; and this motif has the added bonus of being extremely easy to memorise.
• the i-cord finish of the neckline. I was never keen on the traditional ribbing finish and i-cord is genius idea, it is a perfect match with the delicate details of the lace!

But otherwise I made a number of changes:

• I worked with completely different yarn and needles to what is recommended ( double strand of Drops Kid Silk 21 cobalt blue and Drops Baby Merino 33 electric blue), so ended-up with a completely different gauge – not a problem as I wanted the exact same size and shape and my blue Blossom sweater and the Enchantee lace is very similar size to the Blossom one (17 stitches wide versus 16).
• I wanted a close fit and reasonably short length; so I cast on 8 motifs of the lace, knitted 3 cm of ribbing and then the lace up to under-arm (37cm in total) in the round. I then split the back and front, knitted another 10cm at the front and started the neckline decrease, following the pattern indications. I knitted 19cm in total from underarm to top for sleeve opening.
• For the sleeve head, I dislike the dropped shoulder effect, so I used German short rows to create a rounder should head: cast on 56 stitches, knit full 56, then knit 34 and back 6 then German short rows adding one stitch at each row end until only 6 stitches left ofn each side; then knit everything on the round, decreasing by 2 stitches every 16 row.

Nothing utterly complicated but quite a different look from the initial jumper, much more to my and my girl’s liking!

Now I am pondering whether I should knit an Enchantee cardi, how typical…

I promised in my previous article about my white Blossom cardi that I would show you my second Blossom cardigan very shortly – so here it is, in coral pink.

My knitting is definitely becoming as repetitive-addictive as my sewing – oh well! This coral Blossom is a twin to its white brother, which I introduced in my previous article – so to avoid unnecessary repetition I refer you to this article for all details about how I hacked the Blossom jumper pattern into a cardigan. The only changes I made for the coral version are the following:

• The wool colour obviously: I knitted in double strand, using Drops Baby Merino 46 (Rose Tea) and Drops Kid Silk 32 (Strawberry). They match perfectly and end-up in this divine pink- orange coral, more orange than my usual but definitely a big colour crush!

• The bottom band, which I skipped – I started knitting directly with the lace to see what it would look like and I rather like the scalloped effect.

• The button and collar bands, which I knitted in reverse stockinette this time, thinking it would match better with the lace than the usual ribbing.

I think I love this coral cardigan as much as the white one – the coral is stunning, it is overly soft and comfy to wear, and my love for the Blossom lace is everlasting – one shawl, two jumpers, two cardis, where will it stop???…

Just for those who have not been as faithful to this blog as they should, here are my other Blossom creations – which one do you prefer? (click on the picture for each article about these knits)