My Most Favourite Skirt in the World

Do you make yourselves a special garment for Christmas day? I do. I've gotten into the habit since I started sewing, and as of next Christmas, I'm going to sew something special for Little M too. I'm also going to sew her birthday dresses every year - I've got the cutest pattern picked out for this year - more on that to come soon.

This year I had a sew myself something that would allow me to breastfeed, and something heat-friendly - Melbourne's weather on Christmas day was tropical - reminded me of my Queensland home! When we were in Italy, Tessuti posted this skirt made by Georgia on their blog. I immediately fell into lust, and wanted to make my own using some of my Singapore cotton. Here is what I came up with:

I used a yoked waistband off a simple skirt pattern, and the tiers are just rectangles of the fabric - the full width and 25cm long. I didn't have enough fabric to make 3 tiers - I stupidly didn't check my fabric width, made the skirt using 3 tiers (1st tier is one piece of fabric, 2nd tier is two, 3rd tier is three), slipped it on to test the fit and looked like I was wearing a bandage on the top half. My fabric was 110cm wide, Georgia's lovely version was 145cm wide. Woops. So I unpicked and started again. Dedication I say.

I fully lined it using a viscose lining from my stash as the fabric is very sheer - the lining makes the skirt more full and very swishy, which I love. Who doesn't love a good twirl?

The best part of the skirt to me though is the pom-pom trim along the hem (completely copied from Georgia). It is from Tessuti, and is extremely cute (Little M thinks so too - she tried to rip it off - I think she's brilliant for using her pincer grip, but would prefer her not to practice on my skirt :-). I used just under 4m.

I feel very feminine in this skirt, and hope to wear it more this summer - I might wear it to lunch with a dear friend of mine today. I don't know what to start on next - got the Colette Patterns Handbook for Christmas from Michael - should I make the Meringue skirt? Any other suggestions?

Lisette Portfolio Tunic and More Clovers

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year! We had a lovely holiday period here, did you? It was great to have Michael at home, and Little M loved Christmas and all the wonderful gifts she received from everybody. And she gave us a wonderful Christmas present - she started to crawl on Boxing Day! Prior to that she had been commando-crawling, but on Boxing Day she really took off. I'm run off my feet keeping up now though!


With Michael being at home I had some time to sew. As I mentioned in my last post, I was hankering for a black pair of the Clover trousers. So they got made - the only change I made was to decrease the front crotch length by 1cm - I think I'm happier with the new crotch length, but haven't worn the pants for any length of time yet to tell.

I also really need a few more 'nice' shirts - I wear t-shirts most of the time, and am sick of them. I don't really have too many shirt patterns in my collection, so at the Clegs Boxing Day Sale, when all patterns are $5, I picked up Simplicity 2245, the Lisette Portfolio tunic.

I made view C, the shirt. It is a very easy make - the only quandary I faced was that my bust size is a size 14 (!!) and the rest of my body equates to a 10. So I went the middle ground and cut a 12, and took in the side seams from the bust point down. Probably not the 'proper' way to do it, but I wanted something that was easy to make. 

I made this out of my lovely Singapore cotton, with some scraps of linen from Tessuti in my stash. I love this blouse - love the collar, and the cute button detail at the back.

I really recommend this pattern - it is a simple project with enough cute details to play around with. I think I'm going to make the longer dress-length tunic - but have so many projects on my mind at the moment!

Bonjourno! And Fabric Purchases

Bonjourno!

We are currently on the last few days of our Italy trip… so sad. We’ve just finished a magical 8 days in Rome, and are now ending our trip with 3 days in Venice. I can’t believe a month has gone so quickly.

I had planned to do an outfit post while away… I had my Jasmine blouse and Clover trousers all ready, but the invisible zip busted on the Clovers - I think because I have made them in denim, the zip is not strong enough - have you any thoughts on this? I took them to a tailor in Rome, who inserted the worst looking zip I have ever seen in my life, for the princely sum of 13 euros. So no outfit post.

But… I have done some significant fabric shopping! I couldn’t come to Italy and not buy fabric. Without further ado…

In Rome, I visited Fratelli Bassetti Tessuti (the Fratelli Brothers’ Fabric).

The Assorted Notions blogger has visited there, which was how I initially learnt of this store. It is amazing. There are hundreds and hundreds of fabric rolls. It was kinda hard to sift through due to the sheer volume of fabric. It is organised according to fabric type. I was wandering through it, and came across a wall of silk. Beautiful, luscious silk.  A salesman came over to me (all the sales-people are men), and started to pull out the ones I had touched. I asked how much and he took out a little notebook and wrote 60 euros per metre for each fabric on the wall. I was horrified. That is a lot of money, especially when converted into Aussie dollars! After a short pause, he then crossed out the 60 with flourish and wrote down 25 euros. I smiled. A lot more affordable (though still not that cheap). So I bought two types:

The grey, black and cream is a silk wool. The red and white is a silk twill. Simply divine.

Earlier in our trip, I visited Trieste, which is close to Bassovizza, where Michael’s work was. One day in Trieste I happened across a fabric store (how fortunate!). They were having a summer-weight wool sale (again, how fortunate!). All summer-weight wool was 5 euros a yard. Woo-hoo! So I bought these three:

Sorry for the bad pictures - the grey is a medium-ish weight, and I plan to use it for a tailored jacket. I don’t know if you can see it in the pictures, but there is a light-weight black with a fine but large-scale bright blue check – I think wide-leg trousers - what do you think? There is also a relatively light black with a self-stripe that will be great for a skirt.

Finally, I also went fabric shopping in Singapore. We had one night there. I went to Arab Street, which is an entire street of fabric. I was like a kid in a candy store - we just don't have that in Australia. I bought two Japanese cottons for $12 a metre (which is one of my most favourite fabric types, and much cheaper than I usually pay).

So there you have it! So much fabric to remember our trip by. I'm in a small amount of trouble for adding so much weight to our luggage!

It has been wonderful so far. Little M has been an angel, and is much beloved everywhere we go. I think she’ll think she’s starved for attention when we go home. She’s quite the social butterfly. I don't particularly want to go home, but am looking forward to seeing my friends and family - and sewing of course! And I'm really not looking forward to the flight home - Little M was perfect on the way here, but I'm dreading the way back - wish me luck!