My wonderful Easter break

Wow, 2 posts in one week, so here goes.

This year for once we didn't go away and DH had to work for two days as well, so I took advantage of 4 days of sewing, yippee.

Now over on Pattern Review they are currently holding a Mini Wardrobe Competition and one of my goals this year was to complete at least 1 competition, so I am going to give it a go. Needless to say this has been going since 16 March and finishes on 15 April, however after last weekend I am halfway there so fingers crossed.

This contest is to complete a 4-piece wardrobe in 4 weeks.

There are quite a few combinations for this and I first of all started to think along the lines of a dress, jacket, top and skirt.

I started with Simplicity 3775 which I had already traced off a size 4 at the shoulders and graded out to a 6 from the under arms and had done the following adjustments:

• Round shoulder
• Neck Gaposis
• High round back
• Sway back

when I cut the rather wild knit fabric out on Friday morning the pieces looked rather small so I used my Croverpro to Chainstitch the bodice together and I am so glad I did as it was a bit too tight with the 1.5cm seam allowances.

I ended up using 6mm seam allowances on the entire dress and this moved the front bands closer to the centre and the rest worked out perfectly.



Then I was thinking of using the Simplicity Cardi as the Jacket but after discussing this with Alison I decided this wouldn't work with the dress. So back to 2 tops and 2 bottoms.

On Saturday, Alison and I headed off to the ASG group at Alexandria and I cut out BWOF 04-2009-101 Skirt in a salt and pepper mini corduroy fabric that I purchased at an Industry Day at Martin & Savage quite a few years ago. The smallest size for this skirt is a 36 and I am a 34, however I didn't grade it down (still have to learn to do this) but thought with all the seams it should be okay. The only adjustment I did to start with was a swayback adjustment of 1.5cm.

Once I stitched the front yokes using Deb Thompson's great tutorial I basted the remaining seams together then had some great help from Alison in fitting this. Essentially I made the side seams and back panel seams 2cm and left the front ones alone.

Sunday started with adding the side and back yokes to the skirt and getting it ready for DH to level the hem that night.

I then cut out BWOF 02-2009-108 in the cream Mercury Jersey that DM and I purchased from Lincraft back in February.

I had already traced this pattern out and had done the following adjustments:

• Added 1cm to the neck edge
• Round shoulder 1.5cm
• High round back 1cm
• Gaposis on front 1cm
• Reduced the sleeve cap by 2cm and redraw sleeve cap
• Sway back adjustment of 1.5cm

This went together really well finishing it on Monday.

Here are both pieces being worn to work today.



I have now traced off the Jalie Scraf-Collar Top and have started to trace off BWOF 04-2010-120 Jeans. I'm not sure about the Jeans as I haven't made Burda pants/trousers before, so I may end up making a pair of casual pants instead, need to think about this one a bit more as the time frame will be a major consideration if I want to complete this competition.