A travel wardrobe

We have just arrived home from a fantastic whirlwind trip to Dublin and the United Kingdom and I thought I would share my travel wardrobe.

Time away:
11 days

Where to:
Dublin and the United Kingdom

Season:
One month into Spring and looking at the weather forecasts it was still going to be cool with temperature ranges from 1c to 18c being the warmest during the day.  The weather really turned it on for us, sunshine every day and only 1 day of rain and then I wouldn't call it that much rain, grey and overcast with some drizzle and this was on our last day.  York even managed to turn the heat on reaching 22c but the mornings and evenings were still quite cool.

Expected Activities:
This trip was to visit my mother-in-law who is not in the best of health and do some sightseeing whilst we were there, so the wardrobe needed to be comfortable to do a lot of walking on cobblestone streets and sightseeing as well as being comfortable sitting about with family.

Colour scheme:
brown, navy, cream, burgundy, grey and a little bit of chartreuse.

What I packed:
(each garment is linked to its original construction post -top to bottom, left to right)

Navy Jeans

Brown Jeans

Taupe flats

Brown cord skirt

Cream boat neck top

Blue/brown cowl neck top

Red/coffee cowl neck top

Coffee/grey cowl neck top

Blue/Green boat neck top

Brown boots

Burgundy coat McCall's 8522 made prior to blogging

Brown merino cardi

Burgundy track pants Simplicity 3640 made for the trip, to be blogged.

Verdict:
This wardrobe worked very well, I didn't feel as if I was in the same outfit as all the tops went will all the bottoms so at no time did I wear the same combination.  We managed to do laundry half way thorough the trip and a couple of tops got washed whilst we were on the road sightseeing.

I took two outer layers, my brown merino cardi that worked with all outfits and my burgundy coat went well with the jeans and this was worn early morning or during the evening when we were wondering about.   I also had a collection of jewellery that changed the look of the tops.  I'm sorry I didn't take a second pair of winter shoes, the boots worked fine but my feet got a bit sick of them and the taupe flats didn't work with the tights I took and were only worn on the flights.

My mother-in-law is in northern Wales and I had worked out that Linton Tweed was a 3 hour trip from her home so my darling husband made sure it was included in our sightseeing itinerary.  Of course two pieces of fabric followed me home:

2 metres for a jacket

2 skirt lengths of 1 metre each.

Then on our last day we visited Abakhan fabrics and I purchased 2 pieces of linen by the pound totalling 5 metres for AUS$18, which I thought was a very good price.

This colour is in the top tweed.

This trip managed to put a stop to the completion of my  2014 SWAP entry, I still had 3 pieces to sew before today, however work and jet lag has not been conducive to getting these completed.  No matter I have 8 new garments in my wardrobe and I love all of them!

Yellow Blouse - April Garment a Month - completed

Back in January Alison and I joined the ladies at the ASG Frocks Group at Bateau Bay to attend a Confident Coverstitch - Techniques and Attachments Workshop run by Baby Lock.

The workshop book is based on the Baby Lock Coverstitch models, however there were quite a few of us with the Janome Coverstitch and our teacher, Michelle was very knowledgeable about both brands of machines.

I love my Coverstitch and do use it for all my knit hems but I wanted to learn how to use it better as well as getting to understand the knit and woven binders I had purchased previously from Sharp Sewing Supplies.

As you all know I love my TNT top pattern and had purchased the 3/4" woven binder (finished width) particularly for this blouse.

It did take me a little while to get it working and I was very lucky that Alison had taken her Coverstitch to our ASG Group at The Remnant Warehouse the other Saturday and I was able to play with the binder with some scraps of fabric on her binder whilst I was sewing the blouse together.

Once I got back home, I settled down with my machine to finish the construction of the blouse as follows:

-  Sew the darts and press.

-  Sew the right shoulder seam and press (leaving the left shoulder seam open).

-  Edge stitched the blouse neckline.

-  Cut a 4cm bias strip which I then pressed in half as my binder is a A binder (raw edge) and I didn't want that sort of finish for this fabric.

-  Attached my Janome extension table.

-  Tightened the foot pressure knob to a height of 1cm.

-  Threaded the Coverstitch for a chain stitch e.g. single needle.

-  Set up my binder and fed the bias strip through and under the needle and did a few stitches.

I still had the 2 needles in at this stage.

-  Then I set up my fabric so that it fed half way up the binder, this worked best for me.

-  Sew the left shoulder seam and pressed, and then hand stitched the binding edges down at the shoulder seam as the binding ended up quite thick.

-  Put in the invisible zip in the left side seam, sewed the right side seam, put in the sleeves and did the hems.

Debbie Cook has some fantastic information about Coverstitch machines on her blog.

I have also managed to sew something that fits with the Stashbusting theme this month, COLOUR!

Note: I have managed to get a photo of the neck binding for those interested.

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2014 Stash Out: 7.6 m
2014 Stash In: 31.75 m

Make a Garment a Month - April plans

With the weather getting cooler, my wardrobe dictated that I need more tops, particularly those with sleeves, so this month I will make a lemon blouse using my TNT top pattern, Vogue 8572 (OOP).

I am also going to try using my Coverstitch Machine to do a binding on the neckline, wish me luck

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 2014 Stash Out: 6.8 m
 2014 Stash In: 31.75 m