“Whoops I forgot to name this before I posted it”. A striped Moneta

July 2, 2015 | Sophie-Lee

Happy birthday to me! I’m 27 today, and am celebrating by heading into town to have lunch with my mother, then having my parents over for dinner tonight (Indian curry, which is one of our specialties).

It’s been a busy two months or so, as Mr. Guy and I bought our first home and set about moving in and making it our own – he built a fence (so it’s almost completely dog-proof) and I planted some fruit trees. Hence my absence from the blog, and from sewing in general – I haven’t sewn in about 6 weeks and only unpacked my sewing room yesterday. Luckily I have a bit of a back log of projects I need to post!

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Suit yourself: A sleeveless Granville and Beignet

April 6, 2015 | Sophie-Lee

Happy Easter everyone, whatever the day means to you (for me it just means a sweet four-day weekend). As a special treat I have TWO garments to post about today. My Easter Sunday treat was a migraine that sent me to bed at 7pm.

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Raspberry V Moneta

February 2, 2015 | Sophie-Lee

Dear Diary: today, I made a dress.

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A strawberry dahlia

October 22, 2014 | Sophie-Lee

Has everyone seen the new pattern release by Colette Patterns yet? I admit, when I got the “sneak peek” yesterday, I thought about it for all of 30 seconds before I bought the PDF. Using the thin excuse of “I need to buy buttons for this other dress”, I drove to work to print out the pattern, then promptly cut, taped and traced off the pattern.

I was initially tossing up which version to make, when I spotted these two fabrics lying together in my stash, and inspiration struck: I present, my Strawberry Dahlia.

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Chambray, you stay. Sashay, away.

October 15, 2014 | Sophie-Lee

My second Hawthorn dress is something I’m surprisingly UN-excited to blog about. Usually I make something and get photos the next day, blog within the week. In fact, this got finished… two months ago? Before I dyed my hair: I have photos in it with my brown hair as proof. On two separate occasions. But, I’m just not that thrilled with it, and so I may end up asking it to…

I thought I had the fit down pretty well with my first version, and used the exact same pieces, but something just doesn’t quite look right. In the bewbs.

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Every rose has it’s Hawthorn

August 7, 2014 | Sophie-Lee

I’m not sure why Mayer Hawthorne wasn’t playing in my head when I was making this dress, as he’s one of my favourite artists (EXCELLENT to listen to while doing housework). Instead, my brain forced me to listen to an anti-chafe cream jingle over and over.

Anyway, NON-SEQUITUR, this is my Colette Hawthorn dress.

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Linen Laurel

July 30, 2014 | Sophie-Lee

I’ve always been torn with the Colette Laurel dress. It’s a very plain shift dress, with bust darts in the front and fish-eye darts in the back. On the one hand, it apparently uses very little fabric and is easy to embellish, on the other hand it’s a loose fit and there seems to be very few curvier versions out there for me to base an educated opinion on, and shift dresses have the potential to look terrible when you’ve got lots of curves to go around – without seams to help in fitting, they can look very sack-like.

I do know, however, that Mary of Idle Fancy’s versions look lovely on her hourglass figure (see here and here), and this one is gorgeous. So, I’ve been torn. Then, two weeks ago I suddenly got the random urge to make a shift dress (does anyone else get these?) and so I grabbed the pattern. Here is the result:

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Another Moneta

July 14, 2014 | Sophie-Lee

I hope you’re not getting sick of this pattern, because I made another Moneta dress. And, erm, I have another one I haven’t photographed yet! This is my fourth version, and my favourite so far.

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Tried and Truin’ it up

July 8, 2014 | Sophie-Lee

Another total winner: I am loving the Moneta dress by Colette patterns! You can find my first two versions here.

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Plaid Flannel Negroni

May 2, 2014 | Sophie-Lee

Hooray for Indie Patterns Month! Although actually this year there will be a two-month celebration, given that the annual Indie Pattern Month being run by The Monthly Stitch is in June, and the month organised by Mari from Seamster patterns is in May. It’s a busy month with Me-Made-May as well and this week is Selfish Sewing Week on Kollabora.

I kind of missed out on the selfish sewing week because (other than the bra) I only sewed for Mr. Guy this week.

I’m quite a fan of checked flannel shirts, and have wanted to make him one for a while, inspired by “The New Zealand Legend”, the Swanndri. After I had such success with his first shirt, I decided to finally get around to making him one. I can call this one a success as well, he’s worn it almost every day since I made it!

I used Lladybird’s tutorial when cutting out the fabric to ensure all the stripes matched. I thought I had made sure the sleeves matched as well but I’m thinking that the flatness of the sleevehead means you can’t match? I don’t know, it didn’t work anyway. But everywhere else – that is some MATCHING, ladies and gentlemen! I would like to point out the matching stripes at

The front
Both side seams
Each pocket and pocket flap! That one required re-cutting
The sleeve placket and cuffs
The collar!
Even the damned facings match even though there’s no way you’d be able to see that.

Once I get a hand sewing needle and stitch the pocket buttons on, it’ll sit flat and the stripes will line up PERFECTLY

I’m surprised I got it all so lined up, I used every last bit of fabric I had – which was only 104cm wide! Luckily I bought 3 yards*. I’ll admit the collar matching the shirt body was accidental, but it is a beautiful sight. I initially cut the yoke to match the body of the shirt but Mr. Guy thought it would be better cut on the bias, and he’s right – even if the lines matched in the middle they wouldn’t have on either side once the pleats get in the way.

* srsly I’ve decided to pretty much stop buying fabric from online – they only cut the exact measurement (and it’s usually in yards rather than metres), unlike our fabulours local sewing ships, and it’s often really narrow. Plus all the other obvious stuff like, supporting local, travel miles, not being able to feel the fabric.

I made no changes to the fit since it fit perfectly in the first place, although there was something weird going on in the front (too much fabric at the center front so I chopped it off). The facing of the last version can swing open sometimes and you see the little seam there, so this time I did my trick of sewing the facing and interfacing right sides together, then turning and pressing so the seam is nice and pretty. I also, y’know, used black interfacing (unlike the white interfacing in the navy linen shirt) which helps.

I also drafted a collar stand and proper collar – when I asked, Mr. Guy said he would much prefer that to the camp-style collar, and even Zara from Off-Grid Chic said only Hawaiian shirts are allowed to not have a collar stand. For lack of a better option and following the suggestions on the Male Pattern Boldness – Men’s Shirt Sewalong, I traced off a pattern piece from an existing shirt. This worked well except I must not have had a right-angle at the “cut on fold” side. It looked a bit weird but luckily I was able to save it. Next time I might try and add a button placket rather than having a facing.

The only thing I don’t like is how the pocket flaps attach – the edge isn’t finished and because the back of the fabric is white, it looks bit odd, but not many people will see that. I guess it’s a sign of me growing up as a sewer that I care how so much about how the insides look.

I love how this shirt turned out, and am quite jealous of Mr Guy – I tried it on and it’s soooo comfortable, so I’m just waiting on some muslin before I can plan my own flannel Archer shirt.