The (Late) Great Gatsby

Back in April I found out about Miss Crayola Creepy‘s Great Gatsby sewing challenge and jumped at the idea. Mainly because the book is one of my all-time favourites; I can’t even tell you how many times I’ve read it.

I’m a little late getting it done just because of having so much on during May, and other things to make at the same time; but better late than never, eh?

I love a lot of the styles to come out of the 20s, although sadly a lot of them don’t really suit my shape (especially my tummy at the moment) and my initial thoughts were around doing something beaded because I do love a bit of beading.

However, in my stash I had a bunch of fabric I wanted to use and hadn’t – including a bright, turquoise viscose which I really wanted to make something of before getting anything else. I also had some patterned sections from a fabric I bought an age ago; it had been cut out for something else which ended up being a bit of a botched job. So I tried to salvage parts.

I thought something with a drop waist and a skirt make of different layers would give enough of a 20s nod, without looking to costumey or ornate to wear regularly.

I started by making an elongated top of a shift dress pattern I’ve used previously (I think it originally came from my mum and was given away free in Prima magazine many moons ago). After that I cut out a strip to attach the different petals to, at two different heights. For the petals I basically just cut out a series of flaps, flat at the top and rounded at the bottom, with three extra big ones just to make sure my lower half was adequately covered and then the rest small.

I gave it a little test by attaching these to the lining before I did any sewing, just to make sure they’d hang right.

The lining of course is a bit stiffer than the viscose which – I have to say – turned out to be a bit of a nightmare to sew with. It feels amazing, and it was a bargain from Mandors; but it’s pretty slippy and – most of all – annoyingly stretchy when you’re using it. So, for instance, there are some pretty wonky darts on the front.

I also had a bit of an issue at the back – it’s bunching just a little. The zip is nice and flat (in fact I’m really pleased with my invisible zip), it fits fine, but something about the fabric just makes it sit a little oddly on me, no matter the work I tried to do with the fit – taking bits in, taking bits out. Every time I tried to get a better fit and fiddle with it, something else happened. I’ve never had a fabric like it for being unhelpful. I’m also yet to put a little hook and eye at the very top.

Here’s me having a bit of a pose and pretending to Charleston in the living room (any dancers will know I have no idea how):

I’ve been enjoying the posts in the Flickr group – far more impressive than mine! – and glad to have a slightly wonky, but fun new dress to wear.

A little trip to Linton

So. Much. Tweed…

So a couple of weeks ago when heading down to Manchester, I convinced the boy a little trip to Linton Tweeds in Carlisle would be a good detour on the way. After all, it’s just about the distance we usually travel before stopping for lunch.

In case you haven’t heard of it, Linton is a tweed maker with more than 100 years of history.

They made their name supplying to Chanel – those tweed suits. More recently, they supplied to my very own mum who made a trip down last year and made a gorgeous edge-to-edge jacket. Also, Ann from the Great British Sewing Bee made the jacket which helped her win a place in the final – and then of course she went on to win. So some quality stuff.

I went with the intention of getting some decent black tweed because I had a hankering for some smart black shorts. I’d had a look for some black wool or crepe but I hadn’t found anything I really liked, and thought I might give tweed a try.

The shop surely provided; the section of it dedicated to fabric is small, but perfectly formed. There’s piles of  tweed (as you can see above) stacked into the corner, and hung around the walls.

I got the black tweed – £18/m but I only needed one – for the shorts; as I didn’t have a shorts pattern I made a couple of adjustments to the trousers from my 1940s-style suit pattern, Simplicity 3688.

I wore them on the last day of Me Made May and I’m pretty pleased with them.

The real excitement wasn’t, however, in the neatly stacked shelves. It was the giant basket labeled Remnants: £5.

Wuuuuuuut?! I haven’t been this excited since I saw an Office sale shop. I almost dived in the bin and found two amazing pieces of fabric – each more than 1m long.

Here’s one:

How pretty is this colour?

I’m thinking I’ll probably use it for one of my 60s dress patterns – one I’ve already used to make a tartan dress – but a little shorter. Luckily at the moment, I’ve got the overlocker, so I don’t need to worry about fraying.

Before I made the shorts, though, I had to dive in to my other bargain find, another 1m+ strip I can only describe as Schiparelli pink.

I made my little pink skater-y skirt with the same suit pattern, but a good five inches shorter and wore it during Me Made May (it doesn’t really fit Diana though). Excitingly I’ve still got just shy of a metre left so I think I might get a little cape or bolero out of it as well.

So… next time you’re in Carlisle…

Me Made May…. Looks like we made it to the end

Phew. That felt like a long month! But geez, it was a lot of fun.

Over the last week I’ve had a big issue in actually managing to update things which I thought I might. But in the final week I wore:

Today I wore my new black tweed shorts, which I made from fabric I bought from Linton Tweeds, which I’m going to blog about soon. I’m quite pleased with them, but I’m not sure I got the length quite correct.

My total winner outfit was my first, my black cowl neck jersey dress which I wore several times all through the month, including during a camping trip and a long car ride.

What surprised me most about the month was, the couple of things I could have mended, which I end up doing. That’s kind of shown me that I’ve moved on in the last couple of years in terms of what I’m making and wearing. At the same time, I wish I’d taken a little more time to fix or make new stuff as I still have a stash from the beginning of the month. I also completely failed to make my Gatsby challenge dress yet, which I was hoping to do over the month. The Scottish weather also played its own special part in the selection of outfits.

Over the month, I’ve seen a lot of amazing images so I wanted to take some time to go back through my favourites from the Flickr group and see what has inspired me. I now have a deep wish to make:

1. A patterned maxi dress. Luckily I have the fabric for this
2. A pair of brightly coloured trousers
3. More fit and flare dresses
4. More things with jersey in general

Total thanks to everyone who took part as I’ve so loved seeing your daily posts and reading your comments. And mega mega thanks to Zoe, star organiser! Til next year…

Me Made May, the story so far… and a short stripey number

Hello! Me Made May is going well so far. If you’re taking part, I hope you’re having fun!

Most of all, I’m having a brilliant time looking at everyone’s creations on Flickr and finding tons of new blogs through that.

So far, I’ve worn:

Day 1: Black jersey ‘Audrey Hepburn’ dress from Famous Frocks – plus tartan Zara blazer, jade tights and belt.

Day 2: Red vintage-pattern skirt – the same as this one - with cream shell top, striped H&M cardy and granny’s pearls.

Day 3: Leopard print dress, which is Kwik-Sew pattern K3521 with pink belt, tights and striped Zara blazer. And rain.

Day 4: May the Fourth party modified Star Wars tshirt, originally from H&M, and black jersey tube skirt which I didn’t use a pattern for but just sewed up a tube and made an elastic waistband for.

Day 5: Lazy day with heart glitter badge I made at a Tatty Devine workshop.

Day 6: Grey jersey dress loosely based on ‘Diana Ross’ from Famous Frocks, but much, much modified. It got absolutely drenched on the water rides in Blackpool and lived to tell the tale.

Here’s today’s outfit, of which we must discuss more:

I should say, I’m getting a bit vain with the selfies during MMM. This is my living room. I did try and set up the camera but the light (unexpected Scottish sunshine!) did not agree with the zoom when it was timed, and the boy is working late all week.

My mum, who’s a member of a sewing discount site, asked me a while ago if there were any patterns I had my eye on as she had a three-for-one offer. I’d been wanting Vogue V1237 for quite a while and had never gotten round to getting it so it seemed like a great opportunity.

Vogue V1237 Jacket and dress pattern

Given my love for black and white stripes, I’d been hankering after a cropped black and white jacket and this seemed like it would work well. The back is actually only split into two pieces so I had to cut an extra one aligned with the way the seams sit on the front. I also wasn’t sure about the buttons as it was already looking pretty busy, so instead I just closed the seams entirely and put on some poppers.

Both pieces of fabric are little leftovers so I’ve been able to use up some of my scraps.

The pattern was super easy to use; although in my infinite wisdom I managed to accidentally sew the lining in wrong-way-up (I don’t know.. I didn’t even notice until I turned it out). I’m hoping to make a matching suit if I can get some nice light tweed or wool suiting, as I think the style is perfect for work.

For MMM today, I wore it with a black flouncy skirt and plain black, long-sleeve t – but I’m also thinking it would be great with some black trousers.

Now to plan out next week’s outfits…

It’s Me Made May!

Hurrah, it’s May Day. Which means the start of Me Made May.

I’m not going to commit to blogging every day as I don’t think I’ll be able to, but I’m hoping to do a couple of updates a week.

Today I wore my black jersey Audrey Hepburn pattern dress which is fast becoming my favourite thing in my wardrobe. It’s so comfortable and easy to wear but at the same time looks classy.

As I’m probably going to wear this at least one more time during the challenge I wanted a pic of the rest of my outfit as well. It’s my favourite blazer, it’s from Zara and made of Black Watch tartan. I wore it with a teal belt and tights.

It was a long day today, but I wanted to pop a pic off just to kick things off. My favourite part of today has been having a peep at all of the pics being uploaded to the Flickr group and on Instagram. It’s exciting and I’m getting a look at some great patterns to try and some fab new blogs to follow.

 

This is my ‘dazed after a long day’ look.

Inspiration

I was about 14 when I got my first pair of Red or Dead trainers. I thought they were just about the coolest shoes ever. They were turquoisey-blue with a red ‘r’ on the side.

By that time, the brand would have already been sold off by Wayne and Gerardine Hemingway; I can’t remember the first time I really knew who the couple were, but for more than a decade now they’ve been a bit of an inspiration to me in terms of good design.

This week, in the Old Fruitmarket in Glasgow, I got to go and hear Wayne Hemingway speak. Although it’s not directly related to sewing, the way he spoke about design and their career together was something I really wanted to write about.

The pair met after they both moved to London and started up a market stall together in Camden. Customising old clothes and boots, finding vintage treasures through rag sorting warehouses, and with Gerardine designing their own stuff. Her clothes were spotted by a buyer from Macy’s, New York, and suddenly Red or Dead was born.

“We were going to aspire to be a brand who brought great design to the high street,” Wayne explained. They succeeded, with stores in cities across the UK, and their shoes and clothes appearing in Fashion Week. The brand was sold by the Hemingways in 1995, but that didn’t stop them.

Since, they’ve been involved in an dazzling array of projects, from breathing fresh life into heritage brands and seaside towns; to interior design; to founding a museum; to branching into affordable housing after being banned from Swindon for criticising a new housing complex as looking like a prison… and more.

The part which is bringing them to Glasgow is Vintage Festival, which they started a couple of years ago — and which is now coming to the city as part of the Merchant City Festival this July.

Underpinning each of their decisions in this incredible career was, Wayne explains, “a desire to make things better” through good design. Another factor is the fact that they’ve achieved this all together; their experience comes across as a love story as much as anything else.

The talk was great, and it’s made me all the more excited for the festival this summer – there will be gigs, markets, style sessions, workshops and much more. I don’t want to be a fashion designer, but I do want to strive to make the best of anything I create, whether it’s for myself or someone else. One last thing in this inspirational talk:

“As long as you’ve given your all at something, failure doesn’t matter.”

Hemingway Design

The Great Gatsby sewing challenge

As a rule, I’m not great at sewing challenges where you have to actually make something in a set time. If it’s something like Me Made May, when you can fit things around what you’re doing anyway, that’s one thing. Joining in something to a deadline isn’t always my favourite thing though, because I don’t always have time to actually do them (even if I might want to), or I find myself wanting to make something completely different, or I’ve just got another pattern, or etc etc. Also, as you might notice, I have problems keeping up with blogging anyway… So although I love seeing what people come up with given the same challenge or project to work on, I don’t often decide to join in such things.

However, last week I spotted a link over on Disaster in a Dress which read ‘Great Gatsby sewing challenge’…

 

 

If you didn’t already know, all of the details are on Miss Crayola Creepy and if you click the image above, you can find out all about it. The film is out on May 16 in the UK and I am pretty excited.

When I was in fifth year at school, I read the book for the first time thanks to my English teacher. Here is the incredibly well-thumbed copy I’ve had since:

 

The opening line has always been one of my favourites:

‘In my younger and more vulnerable years my father gave me some advice that I’ve been turning over in my mind ever since.‘ 

Since, I’ve read it over and over. As with any beloved book, I’m quite apprehensive about what the film would be like. The Robert Redford version is, to put it politely, a bit of a letdown. But I have some faith in Baz Lurhmann and Leonardo Di Caprio – if anyone can pull Gatsby off, it’s likely to be him. So, we’ll see. And another thing I’m not concerned about is how spectacular the costumes are going to be.

While I love twenties-style dresses, I’m going to have to go for something slightly inauthentic as dropped waists just will not work on me. A nod, rather than an aping of the style. I did some pinning to try and get some ideas in my head, and am hoping to pick up some fabric this week – along with some beads; as beading is probably my favourite element of this kind of style.

Here’s my dream kind of dress (which naturally I won’t be doing in anything like this kind of elaborate style):

A 1920′s fully beaded dress with jagged hemline, pic from http://www.mossgreen.com.au/

 What I’d like to go for is something with a waist at the normal level, but with a tiered skirt, bit of beading on the hem lines. Quite simple, and hopefully wearable as well. So – not to much to ask, eh?