Liebster Blog Award and 2013 Essential Top Sew-a-Long

Sometime last year two of my sewing blog pals, Faye (of Faye's Sewing Adventure) and Deborah (of the now inactive blog The Tropical Sewist), presented me with the Liebster Blog Award. Thank you so much!! I am a follower of Faye's blog since I gave birth to the Bean (before blog) and got to know Deb via Burdastyle (also before blog). I think both of them must have been my very first back and forth with sewing bloggers (I usually just read rather than comment before...). They have always been very kind and encouraging to me. :) 

Back then I was not familiar with blog awards and then my family moved from the midwest to WA, with moving stress, apartment hunting and so on, naturally I forgot to send back the award out to other "new" bloggers.

Fast forward to 2013, it has been almost (but not quite) a year since the awards from Faye and about a year from the Starting at the Top (Spring) Challenge sew-a-long that she organized. Alas, the challenge blog is no longer there, but I think we (the participants) all were quite productive during Faye's 2012 Top challenge. I know I was! I made 4 tops during the 2 weeks sew-a-long:

• #1: Spring Gingham Peplum Blouse (refashion project from a men's shirt)
• #2: Draped front neckline top (from pattern Vogue 1282, Donna Karan Collection)
• #3: My 3rd take of V1179 (My TNT, i converted this dress pattern into a top with long slim sleeves)
• #4: A franken-top, with contrast piping. Initially was supposed to be an anniversary dress, but the print of the fabric screamed murder at me, so I saved it by chopping it off and layering it with contrast red fabric. ;) Since then, the red fabric bleeds into the main fabric in the wash.... Hah.

Needless to say tops must be what I sew most, and love to sew most. I wear them with my thrifted pants/jeans/skirts. Since I have not mastered (and my last attempt to make some skirts during Faye's Carnival of Skirts came out short) le bottoms last year, I need more of these nice, pretty tops/blouses to be the highlight of my outfit come spring and summer (when I can no longer hide under my black down jacket...). Again, our kind and dear enabler (or fearsome leader?), indulged her own needs and mine (and yours?) when she announced her latest sew-a-long:

Faye's amazing new button!

Do I want and need color and excitement in my wardrobe? YESSS!

Do I feel that tops are mostly easy to make? YESSS! More so than bottoms, most definitely!

Do I think that sewing tops going to wake me up from sleepy sewing motivation? Judging by the pile of UFOs that recently piling up (and just mentioned in passing) of non-tops, OHHHH YESSSS!!!

If you feel the same way as I do, and want to join us in Faye's 2013 Essential Top Sew-A-Long that's starting this weekend, just click on the picture above (or the button I am adding to my side bar after this post) and it will take you to Faye's page and explanation. :)

Oh yeah, and back to the Liebster Blog award... I was googling the award and stumbled upon this post discussing its origin. It seems like there are many different ways that people do with the award, but I am just going to do as Faye and Deborah asked: 

Nominating 5 blogs that has less than 200 followers :) 

unknown source to credit...

So the following are the blogs I nominate for this Liebster Blog Awards, in no particular order ;)

• Liz - Haphazard Musings and Creations (Liz is a fashionista who probably never wears the same outfit in a month, let alone a week! In her blog she shares with us her knack of combining outfits (thrifted, non-thrifted, self made, etc etc), her food (she cooks!) and currently her new 1920s home revamping projects. I look forward to see her sewing room!!!)
• Ellen - Button Lover (Ellen is a geologist who migrated to Australia. I wonder if she faced immigration blues like I did? Anyways, she sews, a lot, and even has a pin-up apron pattern that she shares for FREE on her blog!)
• Njeri - The Cute Kipepeo (Njeri is a very very busy working mother of 1 son, who makes time to cultivate her love for card making, sewing and cooking. She shared some of her self-made cards on her blog, and gosh they are sooooo pretty!)
• Agy - Green Issues (Agy is another fellow refashion enthusiast who writes about green issues (of course) and concerns about environment, features other bloggers who shares the same refashioning interest, and now also runs upcycling workshops in her adopted country Singapore!)
• Sarah Liz - SarahLizSewStyle (Sarah Liz's blog is the latest blog I follow. She just started her blog in January, but she's been blogging diligently ever since! She documents her sewing experiments and shares with us her steps, and I can learn a lot just by following along her journey. She also shares with us her reading - currently sharing this 1928 styling guidelines book, which indeed drew a few LOLs from me, hehe)

There you go, 5 nominations from me. Maybe you ladies already received this award before, but that is not an impediment to accept this one. And on the same token, by no means that you have to accept even if you never received one. :) But if you do, I'd ask that you also nominate up to 5 new blogs (by "new" I am taking it to mean blogs that have not more than 200 followers. It will be a great opportunity for us to discover new blogs to read and find inspiration from, eh??? :)

Mucho love,

Far

A Caftan Top

The Vogue 1181 misses' caftan that I converted into a top is completed. Working with silk charmeuse has been super tricky and the thing unraveled on me on quite a few occasion (the bottom part before it finally got hemmed). 

This was a slow project for me because of that (and the fact that the 20 mth-old Bean likes to climb on my chair while I work, or pull things off the table), despite it being an okay  to follow pattern. I think it probably took me a week at least, eversince the conclusion of Faye's Starting at the Top Challenge 2012.

As the pattern sleeve describes, this top have overarm dart, front opening and shaped middle section. I left out sewing hook and eye for the opening closure, hence the gaping at the neck. I am going to test wearing it this way with a tank top underneath of course and see if I am going to need a closure or leave it as it is. Either way is good of course, but with such a print, it is going to closely resembles my Malay traditional dress too much and I want a more casual easy breezy type top in this project.

Front view:

The caftan looks like the pattern sleeve IMO, other than the fact I left out the bottom panel and adjusted the middle panel. It now falls around my upper hips I think.

Back view:

So... :) One more top to wear in May for the Me-Made-May'12 thankfully...
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added:
Verdict is that I will sew the hook and eye at the top of the opening as suggested by pattern. It's such a hassle without :)

Saved by the bell...

Sometimes you think you have a great idea in your head and yet the outcome is so horrendous that you wonder how could you even thought it's gonna be good in the first place.... That happened with me re my supposed to be anniversary dress...

What was I thinking???

The pattern is Butterick B4443, and a first attempt. I planned to make View E and I made a muslin, decided to amp it up with red piping at the princess seams front and back. And a play on the fabric prints (main bodice horizontal, side bodice of princess seams were cut on bias and the waves are facing towards the middle, and the skirt part the waves are placed vertically.)


Then when I try it on (before sewing in the lining) the noon of what supposed to be our anniversary dinner day, I really hated it. Like super HATE. It's so ugly. The print of fabric. Sooo loud. and a whole dress with the print, OMG. My only explanation is that I have been having flu and stuff that I'm not thinking straight....

Of course there's other issues (with fit), but that print ugliness dwarfed all the other headaches... And I was so sad that I can't even finish a dress for our dinner.... But, I ended up wearing my buttery yellow sweater dress and we (the 3 of us) had a lovely dinner at Red Lobster...

So what is a girl to do with the mess of a dress? I was really close to chopping it up and use the fabric at my machine quilting class I'm attending (first class was really nice... i like the teacher a lot, she's very laid back in terms of her approach to quilting, and that gives me hope haha...)

Since the Starting at the Top 2012 challenge is ending (today), I decided to save this project by converting the ugly dress to a cute-sy top. Let me tell you, if the challenge wasn't ending this soon, I would've moved on to other top projects and ditch this one in a second!

I addressed the fit issue: shortened torso and back, added design element of shorter front with longer back (hi-lo?) and added gathered lining that peeks out at the bottom. I also decided to add piping at the neckline.

So here's my 4th top for SATT 2012:

Back view:

So that's that. Truthfully, I still need to stitch down the lining to the inner zipper, but I can't be bothered right now. I wanna sew with my other fabrics. I'm not giving up on quilting cotton, but next time I will know better...

Fabric: Charcoal and white cotton from Amy Butler's Lark Collection
Lining: Cherry red cotton voile
Piping material: cord saved/harvested from bedding covered by same lining fabric
zippers: 18 in black poly zipper from stash

Starting at the top challenge 2012 - Top # 4

V1179: take 3

This is my 3rd top for the SATT-2012 challenge. I've made this pattern (Vogue 1179) twice before, and I think this is one of my favorite patterns so far. Maybe because I like the neckline and shape and it gave me the least trouble when adjusting pattern (because indeed the shape is roomy, hence forgiving...) Easy means you wanna make more, and the more you make the faster it comes together no? :)

For this version I just added long sleeves (like 2nd version), and shortened the length to upper part of the hip on me.

The fabric I got from FabricMart and I love it. It's still for sale on their website for cheap on clearance!

The features that I love about this pattern: cowl neck and pleated front:

The pattern instruction tells you to stitch in the ditch (the cowl neck), but I usually handstitch it down on the inside so that messiness will not show on the outside...
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This week is my wedding anniversary week. I will need to sew me a dress to celebrate, so I will have to take a pause on the challenge which ends on the 15th! But I reached my target of 3, so I'm happy with that, but I have a lotttt of tops I have in my mind that I want to make...

I haven't decided what to do yet... I know I am not going to use the brocade-y eggplant fabric I first earmarked for the anniversary dress - I think it is not season appropriate... So, do I make another V1179 dress in a silk jersey print fabric I've been holding on to, knowing that it will be faster to put together? Or do I make a summery cotton dress which means hassling with pattern adjustment and I might not finish in time for the day but probably get done by the weekend when we will go out for our family anniversary dinner (or not)?

We'll see...

Starting at the top challenge 2012 - Top #3

Draped front neckline top

I bought the above Donna Karan Collection pattern Vogue 1282 during the recent March BMV sale. I love the drapey-ness of the neckline so I figured I will give it a try for my Starting at the Top-2012 challenge top #2.

I got this purple jersey fabric as part of my mystery bundle from my FabricMart purchase. Don't you just love mystery bundles? Hehehe... I love them!

V1282 is not really a difficult pattern to follow since there's only 3 pattern pieces for the top, and of the 3, 2 must be taped together to make one large bodice piece, and the last pattern piece is for armhole facing.

This pattern i think is quite similar to the popular V1250 which I tried once using a wearable muslin but was not too successful (my blog post of V1250 here).

My mistake was that I wanted a deeper drape on the neckline so I added to it but it causes the folds over the tummy to be quite bad which is not an effect that I wanted of course.

I haven't gone back to make pattern adjustments and a redo of the dress as I planned, but I suspect I will one of these days :)

So here is a picture of the completed top:

What I like about this top as I said is the drapey-ness of the neckline. More so than V1250 :) I do have to sew up the neckline even higher than the pattern indicated (for me by 3.5 inches), I think I've read reviews by other sewists that also noted that they did this. I also found that the armhole is very very low (you can see hmmm the side boob? You can see it also on the model on the pattern sleeves picture on top of this post), which means for me that without a cover-up I might not wear this.... (Not that I wear sleeveless top comfortably without anything covering me no matter the temperature... ) But under a jacket or cardigan I think this top is fine.

Note for me: Also to take off 1" off both top of center back seams and taper down...

Starting at the top challenge 2012 - Top #2
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Working on top #3 now. :)

Spring Gingham Peplum-ed Blouse

I am participating in the Starting at the Top 2012 challenge and my brain is swarming with ideas and well..... the desire to make this and that top, lots and lots of them - in other words, I am finding it difficult to decide. :)

I also do not have a TNT (tried and true) pattern yet, other than the Sorbetto, so instead of cranking up sewing one after another, I had to also use the challenge time to make adjustments to my patterns of choice (starting today......).

My very first top for the challenge is a refashion project from a thrifted man's checked/gingham shirt to a blouse with what I intend to be peplum:



The blouse has a princess seam on the front, darts on the back, and short sleeves. I binded the neck and the sleeves with white fabric which is remnant from a previous project (also thrifted fabric). I used the button parts on the back (changed the original buttons to lovely thrifted pearl buttons) and left the pocket as it is instead of ripping it out so that I won't have tiny holes there.

This top is based on the pattern McCall's M6518 that I made previously for Valentine's.
I left out the midriff portion and fashioned the bottom part of the original shirt into a peplum for my new blouse. I shouldn't have left out the midriff band I think :) With the midriff band I think the blouse would've look more like the peplum blouse in my head.

I do love this new blouse though. I think it's cute, it's spring-summer appropriate, but I think I can still work on the design part to make it a better peplum blouse.... Maybe the next one will be in eyelet cotton fabric I thrifted, or fabric with prints. Or both? :)

For full disclosure let me tell you that I initially made this top too small (because I wanted to start on this top ASAP and forgot my notes on the adjustments I made to the red dress, so I just directly cut the pattern to a 14...).

Seems like my shoulder is smaller like a 12, my bust & back will be 16 and my waist is a whole another matter! Not that I know this as a fact, this is more of a guestimate. Hell, that's how I always end up needing to make adjustments :)

Starting at the top challenge 2012 - Top #1

Starting at the Top Challenge: Spring/Summer Creations

Faye of Faye's Sewing Adventure is hosting a Top Challenge from April 1s1 - 15th. I'm joining in as I don't have enough top to wear that's spring/summer friendly!

What I need to do for the challenge are:
• Choose my fabrics,
• Choose my top or blouse patterns,
- add a new twist to a TNT pattern,
- refashion,
- or maybe even self draft a new design

There are no quotas & no limits! And that's what I like best about it! I aim to make 3 but if I can only make 1 I won't beat myself up about that... (coz i am usually super slowww).

Tomorrow (March 31st) is the last day to sign up for the challenge. If you would like to join us or to see what kind of tops the participants come out with, visit Faye's page for instructions and link.

:)