Blue Lizards

Sometimes it takes a bit of perseverance to get a garment to behave. This top started life as an unattractive shade of khaki and although I liked the fact that the cotton jersey was fairly hefty, the colour got me down. I had also been a bit lazy when carving the lizard stamp and hadn’t carved all the little lizard toesies quite nice and round enough. So the print was scrappy as well.

Then my first attempt to improve the colour was a disaster. I had overdyed in a turquoise, hoping for a nice sea green. As if! There was far too much yellow in the original khaki and it ended up a hideous shade of sickly light green. Oops.

The only way to fix it after that was to get the big guns out, meaning to overdye with a much stronger colour. So I mixed 2/3 of mid blue with 1/3 of blue black, off again into the dye pot, and here we are: much better! From flop to favourite, even the scrappy print does not show because of the reduced contrast. Happy days!

The pattern is my usual TNT tunic pattern, based on the Burda Lydia t-shirt. I paid for mine years ago, but it has now become a free download. The details of how to adapt this pattern to make a tunic are here.

 

 

Getting Ready for Winter

I really love cosy quilted knits like the one I have used for this tunic. Precisely because we barely get a frost on the sunny coast of NSW, nobody bothers much with proper heating, and sitting for hours on a computer in a chillly office has given me an appreciation for warm gear.

The design is a nod to the StyleArc Toni Designer Dress, without the CF and CB seams and the collar, shortened to tunic length. For an actual pattern I once again used my TNT t-shirt, the free Burdastyle Lydia, cut one size larger to accommodate the thicker, less stretchy fabric. The pointy bits are 20cm below the bottom of the armscyes, vertically measured, and the tunic is around 110cm wide there, then comes in again slightly towards the hem.

I usually just fold the neck edge inwards and coverstitch, but this time I cut the neck larger and added a wide band. I would have preferred a cowl, but cowls are fabric hungry and the 2m I had was not quite enough. It rather surprised me how much I ended up liking the look of a traditional plain round neck with a shirt collar peeking out.

 

 

The points are pushed inwards when worn, forming a sort of pouch, and although there is no actual pocket you can put your hands in these if you want to keep them warm. If you like pockets, you could easily insert a pocket bag into the seam just above the point and maybe even a zipper to make the pocket secure.

TNT Dress With Variation

TNT stands for Tried ‘n True, a pattern that you have used over and over and know that it works for you. Not merely from a fitting point of view, but also because it looks good on you, and you like wearing that kind of garment because you feel comfortable in it, and it suits your way of life. As a bonus, using mostly TNT patterns, the colours that look good on you and the sort of prints you like, will result in a strong personal style. So what’s not to like?

I rely heavily on TNT patterns and rarely sew with anything else. This makes it possible for me to sew as fast, if not faster, than I could buy RTW. Not always of course, a special occasion dress or a jacket or coat will take longer. But my steady diet of separates and the occasional simple dress can be made in a few hours, no longer than it would take me to drive to a shopping centre, cruise the shops, try on a heap of garments, despair about the quality, feel bad about my figure and end up with an expensive compromise. And make no mistake, any garment, other than perhaps a tee-shirt, that is not made entirely of polyester WILL be expensive.

Much more rewarding to pull out a TNT pattern, shop my stash of cottons, linens wools and silks, spend a couple of enjoyable hours at my sewing machine and end up with something that will fit and look good, at least to my way of thinking. My non-mainstream style is not everybody’s cup of tea, but then it doesn’t have to be. As long as I feel good in what I have made, my mission is accomplished!

Any TNT pattern is of course open to all sorts of variations to keep things interesting and adapt to the seasons. Here is the latest iteration of the dress pattern I discussed in my last post, a little bit more cold weather friendly with warmer fabric and a cowl instead of the V-neck. This time I also left off the CF and CB seams. But again it is based on my favourite tee-shirt pattern, with the front and back pattern pieces lengthened to a midi length dress. I kept the side splits, so this has to be worn over an under-dress, or a pair of pants, or possibly over a skirt. I haven’t tried this yet, but I will.

The sewing nitty-gritty is as usual on Pattern Review.

The fabric is a heavy cotton velour knit bought at Clear-It in Melbourne maybe 10 years ago. I bought a lot of it because it was only $1/m and have made other garments using it which I have worn and worn. It is a lovely quality, very comfortable, washes up like a dream and is warm as well. Who says you can’t save money sewing? The dress would have taken a bit under 2m of the velour (less than $2) and 3 hours of a rainy Sunday afternoon to sew. As a bonus it goes really well with my me-made jade and silver necklace.

 

A New TNT Dress Pattern for Winter

I think I have mentioned before that I don’t sew based on patterns. What I mean by that is that I don’t browse the offerings of pattern companies, pick one that appeals to me and sew it up. I find that way of building a wardrobe ends up being deeply unsatisfying.

Why? Because what I want is a stylish new outfit, not a pattern. And because I am not a genius it is much easier to find a look online that I really love and try to recreate it, than to invent something from scratch based on a pattern. Especially since most pattern companies are rather pedestrian as designers and fixated on making patterns ‘interesting’, so as many people as possible will buy them, not on creating exciting fashion.

So when I browse Pinterest and other online sources and come across an outfit I love, I have a close look at how I can recreate it. Sometimes I will conclude that it is too difficult, but often I can figure out how to find a pattern or adapt one I already have to do the job. I keep a board of these inspiration pieces and the vast majority of them never get made, but it helps me calibrate my personal style, and browsing my board usually motivates me when my sewing mojo is a bit blah.

Ironically, my latest attempt is of an outfit created by a pattern company, on the front page of Tina Given’s new pattern magazine. But then Tina Givens is a fashion designer turned pattern company, not the other way around. Her patterns are pedestrian but her outfits always look great.

This time I would have been very happy to go buy the pattern, a rare luxury to be able to do that when I see an outfit I want, but after scouring Tina Given’s website I found the mag is no longer available, or at least I could not figure out how to get my hands on it. So after a good look I decided that this dress is just a long sleeve t-shirt with a seam at CF and CB, and extended to maxi length with slits from about the hip down. My trusty TNT t-shirt pattern would easily be up for it. So below, allowing for the much less glamorous model and the lack of stylist and fashion photographer to create the perfect photo, is a good look at my first version.

 

There is some room for improvement with the V-neck not being quite as low as it should be. I am not used to making them, preferring round necks as a whole, and I was too conservative when cutting out. 5cm lower would have been better. Other than that I am pretty happy. Fabric restrictions meant that the dress is shorter in length than the original, so I left the four sections at different length according to what the available fabric would allow. I rather like the result.

The cupro viscose I used is not as beefy as the knit of the Tina Givens original, but it has been in my stash for yonks, and I am glad I found a good use for it. This style of dress would look good too in a heavier knit, or a Ponte or even a merino, so watch this space for more. It makes for a very comfy outfit, like going to work in your nighty, and is easily varied with different scarves and jackets or cardis. I think this will be my new TNT pattern for winter, with and without the CF and CB seams, and with and without a cowl. Seems I am transitioning to a slimmer version of Lagenlook to go with my slimmer body. For more detailed sewing instructions have a look at my write-up on PatternReview.

The under-dress is a Tessuti Lily dress, with long sleeves and lengthened to a maxi, which has been an orphan in my wardrobe for at least 5 years. It is too plain to be worn on its own, but I always knew it would come in handy one day.  🙂