Me-Made-May the roundup

I know we are halfway in to June (I have no time because of exams) but here s my roundup of Me-Made-May. Me-Made-May was even more difficult this year. I was expecting it to go easier this year because I have more handmade clothes. I still wear most of the clothes that I made a few years ago, so it adds up. What I didn't count on this year is that I started working. And I have nothing to wear to work. The dress code at the office is pretty casual but even then I didn't have enough to wear. I always wear jeans with a top when I need to go to construction sites. But I don't have any handmade trousers (culottes don't count) and also not that many tops. Lucky for me the first two weeks where warm and I could wear my summer dresses. 

I like to make dresses! I also used to wear them a lot, but now I walk to work and I have not found any comfortable shoes that look good with a dress. If anyone knows some pretty but comfortable shoes please let me know! 

Anyway here are a few of my crappy outfit pictures :) I like those culottes.

The hope cardigan

The first thing I realized during me-made may is that I don't have enough handmade separates. I have made a lot of dresses over the years but not so many tops. And almost no bottoms at all. So basics are much needed. I didn't really know what to make. I wear a lot of long sleeved blouses at the moment but I don't really needed more of them. Trousers would have been an option, if I had more time. I hope I have more time to work on that during my summer break. So what it make? I'm participating again in Allie's social sew I like the concept a lot, an inspiring theme but not to constricting. This month it is me made basics in honour of Me made may.

So I made the hope cardigan from La Maison Victor. A nice easy to make bat-sleeved cardigan. The fabric came form my stash I bought it at a local fabric store. It is a white, navy knit with a bright blue glittering thread running trough. You can see it on the last photo. The navy blue border knit comes from my grandmothers drawer of border knits. I matches the dark blue from the main fabric perfect.

The cardigan was a fast make. I did everything according to the directions except that I turned the collar piece inside-out. And I had the collar run through to the bottom edge instead of cutting it of with the bottom edge of knit ribbing.  

It ended up being a great make for me made may. I have worn the cardigan already a few times. The nice things about this cardigan are the bat-wing sleeves, it means that you can wear them over anything. 

Main fabric:         30€ - Den Boom 

navy ribbing:       free (grandmothers stash)

bordeaux Pam blouse

I'm that pale that I glow in the sunshine. 

I'm still trying to hold up to my pledge for Me-Made-May. To be honest it is not easy. But more on that in the next post where I show you a lot of selfies. 

I almost forgot this blouse, I made it a while ago. I tried to take photos 3 times, first time I forgot the trousers that I wanted to wear with the blouse. And the other photos where to over exposed. These are not great either but I'm not going to take them an other time. The pattern is a great a very classic style with the ties in the neckline. It is the Pam blouse form La Maison Victor. 

I made a size 36 without any alterations. That size always fits me well in their patterns. 

The fabric is some kind of polyester blend. The fabric pressed really well and I was able to achieve a great finish. The best top stitching I have ever done. Maybe slightly to stiff, now I'm looking at the photos. I got a nice wool fabric in the same colour as the blouse that I'm going to use for a skirt. But those are plans for next winter.

Me-Made-May

I almost forgot to post about my participation for Me-Made-May. 

'I, Nathalie from Nathalie Sews, sign up as a participant of Me-Made-May '16. I endeavour to wear one handmade item each day for the duration of May 2016'

Last year I participated as well and I really liked it, it helped me a lot with finding out what I like to wear. And also with realising that I don't always sew the clothes that I wear most of the time. I don't care that much, I don't endeavourer to make an entire handmade wardrobe. Sewing is a hobby it should stay fun as well. I'm thinking about doing a weekly or biweekly update. 

Black and white Ivy dress

I started working on this dress in December of last year. I ran out of seasonally appropriated fabrics so I decided to work on a summers dress. I cut out the fabric but never started sewing. It was way to cold to even think about a summer dress, so I left it until I came across the social sew hosted by Allie J. The dress I had planned fitted perfectly within the spring shower theme and it gave me the motivation to (finally) start sewing. It is still way to cold to wear it but at least it is ready to wear when the weather turns nice. 

I bought the fabric quite a while ago at the stoffen spektakel. Because of the print I never knew what to make form it. I wanted a dress but nothing with a seam at the waist breaking up the pattern. Most patterns that didn't have a horizontal seam at the waist had vertical darts and I didn't want that either. 

So when I saw this pattern in La Maison Victor I knew it was perfect for this pattern. As always I made a size 36. The only thing I did different are the slits in the side seams. I have rather wide hips and I could not get the dress over my hips. Because I didn't want to put the dress on and off by stepping in to it, I choose to make two slits. 

I love the low back but unfortunately it does show my bra strap at some moments. In the first photo it doesn't show but you can see it in the one below. I should find a solution for this, probably buy one of those extender straps that wrap around your waist.  

I tried to pattern match the fabric at the sides. But It didn't work well because the fabric was not symmetric. I folded the fabric in half there where the print was the narrowest. I put pins in the fabric after it was folded at the border of the print but the print didn't match. Nothing I could do about that. So I just centred the print in the front and the back, and didn't bother with the sides. One side looks good, the other one not so. The fabric was really cheap, 10€ for a coupon of 1,5 m. Maybe to be expected?

Now I just hope it gets warm enough soon so that I can wear it. It was so cold when I took those photos. 

Dusty top

The second piece in my spring sewing spree! You might have seen it already in my previous post about the Milly culotte. I was not planning on writing a separate post, but I like it so much that it deserves  its own post. It is the dusty top by La Maison Victor. I love the asymmetric design with all the pleats at the shoulder.

I already made this pattern once, this one. The fabric was a bit to thick and the neckline to low. So I made alterations. Razed the neckline with 3 cm It was not as easy to do that because the pattern is not cut on the fold. Because of the pleats at the one shoulder the pattern is not symmetric. After a few tries to get it even I folded the facing pattern and drew a new higher neckline on the facing pattern. Once I got the new facing piece I used that to altered the front pattern piece. I also narrowed the waist a little bit, I lost some weight recently and I didn't want it to be to loose. The pleats on the shoulder make it full on the top and I wanted to balance it out a bit. 

I guess the fabric is a polyester blend of some sort. The right side is a shiny very smooth, the wrong side is mat and coarser but nice to wear. 

This top is rapidly becoming one of my most worn handmade items. The colour goes with nearly everything I own. I never know what to wear during spring. It is often to cold to wear a skirt without tights and I'm to stubborn to wear them in spring.  So it is lovely to have a new top to wear with my trousers. 

Milly culottes

It has been already about a month since my last post, I made a lot. I just have not had the time te make photos. You can expect a lot of spring clothes coming up on the blog in the next few weeks. One of them I even started during winter break. 

But the first one to show you all are these cullotes.

I know culottes are supposed to be trendy, but I still had my doubts. I used to wear them as a child when they where just called pant-skirts or skirt-trousers, and I wasn't sure how flattering they would be. The Milly trousers are rather long, a not very flattering length on most people.

But I made them anyway! They just look great in the magazine and I wanted to sew something else, not a dress for once. I wanted to learn how to sew trousers and thought these would be great to begin with. They are trousers but because the fit is so lose getting them to fit properly is not as difficult as 'proper' trousers. I made a size 38 based on my measurements but they ended up way to big. I took them in by 8 cm in total at the waist! The reason for this was probably a combination of a slight stretch in my fabric and the pattern calls for elastic in the back waist band. I didn't feel like elastic, I mean, If I'm going to make my own clothes I can just as well make them fit nicely without. I interfaced the waistband pieces and attached it in the same way as instructed but without the elastic.

With the length as it was designed they cut my calves in half and it was not flattering at all. I got my mum to pin them at different lengths while I stood on the table. The best length for me was just below the knee. It was long enough to make them look like a skirt but short enough to be flattering. 

I have no idea what kind of fabric it is, it is heavy, flowy and doesn't crease at all. It is a woven fabric but it has a bit of give to it. That also means that it doesn't press well. It wasn't a problem with the construction of the pants, the pleats and so. But It was horrible for the waistband. The end result looks nice but not as crisp as they could have been. 

The weather has been way to cold to wear them yet. But I look forward to wearing them. I just don't know which shoes to wear with them. I like the high heels but they are not very practical. What do you think?