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Drafting a Skirt Pattern: Spanish Style Skirt

July 11, 2020 · Leave a Comment

This post about drafting a skirt pattern contains affiliate links.

So the Great British Sewing Bee is over for another year, and while there are things they made on the programme that I probably wouldn’t make, I feel inspired to make a Spanish style skirt like the dress that Nicole made.

It’s not the kind of thing I would normally wear. I like my circle skirts! But this dress was so pretty and I loved the ruffles at the hem.

Wearing a full on Spanish dress to do normal life things might be a bit too much, even for me! And the colours and prints probably aren’t the kind of things I would choose either. But as I began thinking about it, I realised that I could probably make a skirt version out of fabric I had already.

I’m trying to resist the urge to buy more fabric, mostly because I have a pile of bits left over from other projects.

So taking into account that I don’t usually wear bright colours, it’s going to be a Spanish style skirt in vintage florals. I’ve only got as far as drafting the skirt pattern, but I can tell you that in my head it looks amazing!

The skirt section on Nicole’s looked like a fairly simple fitted skirt. I could have used a pattern, but I decided to draft one myself.

Drafting a skirt pattern can be intimidating if you haven’t tried it before, but it’s easier than you’d think! Here are the instructions if you’d like to try it!

How To Draft a Skirt Pattern

You Will Need

Pattern paper. I recently bought a roll of this from Amazon. It has cm squares on it which makes pattern drafting much easier.

Tape measure. Plastic ones are considered to be better than fabric ones because they don’t stretch, but it’s fine as long as you use the same tape measure for measuring yourself and for measuring out your pattern.

A pencil or pen. I drew the pattern with a Sharpie and I would not recommend it! The pen bled through the paper and onto the table, and had to be removed with rubbing alcohol. I’d use a pencil or a water based pen.

Somewhere to jot down your measurements. I find this most definitely necessary as I forget them otherwise!

A long straight edge. A 30 cm ruler is fine, especially if you use the pattern paper with a grid.

A French curve is nice to have, as is a friend or a helpful husband to assist with taking measurements. I have this French curve. Unfortunately Amazon don’t supply helpful husbands!

Taking Your Measurements

For drafting a skirt pattern you only need to take 4 measurements: your waist, your hips at the widest point, the distance from your waist to your hips (where you took the measurement), and from your waist to just below your knee.

My advice here is to write your measurements down (I forget them if I don’t!), and don’t pull the tape measure too tight! Lots of us have gained weight during lockdown, and yes, it’s depressing, but you’ll forget about that when you have a lovely skirt to wear. If it’s too tight, you’ll remember and you’ll be uncomfortable and you won’t want to wear it. So keep the tape measure loose!

When measuring around your hips, make sure that the tape measure is level all the way round. This is where having a friend or a helpful husband comes in handy.

There’s a post here about taking measurements if you’d like more advice.

When you’ve taken your measurements, divide your waist measurement by 4 and add 4 cm.

You’ll also need to divide your hip measurement by 4 and add 2 cm for ease of wearing.

Drafting the Skirt Front

On a piece of pattern paper, draw a line the same length as your waist to hem measurement. This will be the centre front of the skirt.

From the top end of the line, draw another line outwards the same length as your waist measurement divided by 4 plus 4 cm.

On the original line and measuring from the top, measure down the same distance as from your waist to your hips. Draw another line outwards the same length as your hip measurement divided by 4 plus 2 cm.

At the bottom of the original line, draw a third line outwards the same length as the hip measurement.

Now join them up.

The next step in drafting a skirt pattern is to make some little changes to this to allow for the fact that women are not cuboid and bits of us bulge at least a little bit.

Drawing the Curve of the Hips

This is where having a French curve will come in handy. If you don’t have one, you could try a dinner plate or just draw it freehand.

There’s 4 things to do here.

Firstly, find the waist measurement line where it joins with the side of the skirt. Measure up 1.5 cm from here and add it to the line. This photo shows where the dot is. I forgot to take a picture after I’d joined the line to the dot!

Secondly, find the line you drew from your waist line to your hip line. Mark the halfway point. This is the other dot in the picture above.

Thirdly, extend the line you drew for your waist, then extend the hip to hem line upwards so that they meet. You should now have a big rectangle. This is to help you to draw the curve.

Lastly, take your French curve and draw a curved line from where you added the 1.5 cm to the halfway point between your waist and your hip. The vertical line that you added should meet it about here. If not, you might need to make the curve a bit longer.

Sorting Out the Waist

You’ve already marked an extra 1.5 cm on one side. Now on the centre front side, make another mark 0.5 cm above the waist line.

Find the halfway point on the waist line. Join this point to the mark you made on the centre front side of the skirt.

Now grab your French curve again, and join the halfway point to the outside edge with a curved line.

Drawing the Dart

The finished skirt will have 4 darts in total, 2 at the front and 2 in the back. I’ve made skirts before from patterns I’ve drafted myself and, apart from circle skirts, if you don’t bother with darts you’ll end up with something that doesn’t fit very well!

They’re not tricky to do and they’ll make all the difference.

Find the halfway point on the waist line again and mark 2 cm either side.

Now draw an 8 cm line downwards from the original point. Join the end of this to the points on either side to make a triangle.

Adding the Seam Allowance

Add a 2 cm (3/4 inch) seam allowance along the waist, side and the hem. You’ll be cutting this section on the fold, so there’s no need for a seam allowance along the centre front.

Drafting the Skirt Back

The good news is you’ve already done most of the work!

Instead of redrawing the whole thing, you can trace the skirt front onto another sheet of pattern paper.

You will need to make some changes as we’re not the same round the back as we are at the front! Also you’re going to need to be able to get in and out of it.

There are going to be 3 changes to make. The first is to the waist line.

Find the original waist line on the skirt front. Do you remember that you made it 1/2 cm higher at the centre front end? For the skirt back, you need to make this point 1 cm lower than the original line.

Using your French curve, join this to the original line at the middle point.

The next change is to the dart. Extend the original line by 2 cm, then join it up to the points on either side. This means that the darts on the back of the skirt will be 4 cm wide like the ones on the front, but a couple of cm longer.

The last thing to do is to add a seam allowance to the centre back. You’ll be putting a zip in here.

Your self drafted skirt pattern is ready! In the next post, I’ll talk about modifiying it a bit and then using to make a Spanish style skirt.

If you’re interested in finding out more about making clothes from patterns you’ve drafted yourself, I encourage you to have a look at my ebooks and other downloads, as this is something I’ve written about quite a lot!

Embroidered Pincushion Tutorial

June 27, 2020 · Leave a Comment

It could be possible to become addicted to pincushions. Like having an collection of pretty teacups, pincushions can be as different as you want them to be and pretty as you like. There are so many different ways to make them and, because they are little things, you can use scraps that are too big to throw away but too small to use for a larger project.

This embroidered pincushion is part of a kit that I’ve been developing. I wanted to call it the Safe At Home kit, but as the extra time people kept telling me I was going to have never appeared, it’s taking me a while to finish it!

The other projects in the kit are this bunting, and this needle case.

UPDATE: The kits have finally been completed and you can find them here!

Anyway, the last project is now finished and here it is, an embroidered pincushion!

It can be sewn entirely by hand, or you could speed things up a bit and use the sewing machine to sew the pincushion together.

The embroidery design is free to download, but I do ask for an email address. You can find out more about why I do this here. The form is at the bottom of the post.

Making the Embroidered Pincushion

You Will Need

Scraps of felt in pretty colours
Embroidery thread
Polyester filling, sawdust or emery sand to fill your pincushion
2 buttons
Pattern pieces and the embroidery design. You can either download mine (the form’s at the bottom), or you could make your own.

Cutting Out

You will need 2 circles the same size, and one circle a little bit smaller.

Embroidering the Design

I used lazy daisies, fern stitch, woven wheels and French knots. It’s worth remembering that odd numbers of things usually look better, but you can do what you like! Just remember to leave a space in the middle for the button.

Sewing the Pincushion Together

Attach the embroidered section to one of the larger circles. You could hand sew it or use your sewing machine.

Place the other larger circle on top of the embroidery. Sew around the edge, leaving a gap.

Trim the seam if you need to. Turn the pincushion the right way out. Fill it with your chosen material. It will need to be firm to make it easiest for pushing the pins in.

Take a plain button (this one will be at the bottom) and tie the end of length of thread to it. You might want to use a stronger thread for this, or you could use ordinary sewing thread doubled.

Now push the needle through the centre of the pincushion from bottom to top.

Thread a pretty button onto the needle. Pass the thread through, then back into the pincushion and through the button at the bottom.

Do this a few times and pull it tight. Cut the thread and tie it off.

If you wanted to turn this into a wrist pincushion, you could attach it to a piece of elastic, or make a strap for it like this one.

If you like pincushions, I have a whole Pinterest board devoted to them here!

How To Alter a T Shirt

June 18, 2020 · Leave a Comment

One of the things we were going to do in Japan, as well as admire the cherry blossom, look at Mount Fuji from several different angles and visit the snow monkeys at the hot springs, was to go clothes shopping for souvenirs.

I’m not one for shopping very much generally, and the idea of going clothes shopping with a herd of boys in tow brings me out in a cold sweat!

But it was hubby’s idea to bring back souvenirs that were actually useful and that people could wear. My boys already have quite a nice collection of t shirts from places we’ve been and they’re a lovely reminder of all the places we’ve visited and the things we’ve done.

As the trip had to be postponed, hubby decided to raid Uniqlo online instead as the next best thing. He got the boys Pokemon t shirts and he bought me this.

Unfortunately the t shirt was way too big! I have put on weight since we’ve been in lockdown, but I’m not wider than I am tall!

I decided to do something about it, mainly because I like the t shirt, but also because I don’t like to have things taking up space in my small wardrobe that I don’t wear.

The other thing is that I’m only just starting to realise the impact clothes and textiles are having on the environment and it’s shocking, even something as small as a t shirt. There’s more about it here. Also Patrick Grant on the Sewing Bee said that there are currently enough clothes knocking about to last 6 generations! So I’m going to think twice before throwing something away.

Fortunately, it’s easy to alter a t shirt that’s too big, and it doesn’t take more than an hour or two. Here are the instructions in case you want to alter a t shirt yourself!

Instructions For Altering a T Shirt

You Will Need

The t shirt that doesn’t fit
A t shirt that does fit
Tailors’ chalk, a pen or a pencil
Usual sewing supplies

Instructions

Take your t shirt and smooth out any creases. Then fold it in half.

Now take the t shirt that fits properly, smooth out the creases and fold it in half.

Pop the t shirt that fits on top of the one that doesn’t. Line up folded edges, the neck and the shoulders.

Draw round the t shirt that fits, leaving a seam allowance. This will probably involve cutting further up than the existing armpit area. We’ll sort the sleeves out in a minute!

You can decide at this point whether the t shirt is also too long, or whether you want to leave the length as it is. If you want to shorten it, draw the new hemline on the t shirt.

The sleeves are likely to be too wide as well, so draw underneath the sleeves of the smaller t shirt.

Cut the t shirt along the lines you have drawn.

On my t shirt, the shoulders were halfway down my arm! So the next job is to move the armhole. On the t shirt that fits, find where the sleeve meets the shoulder, and make a mark on the t shirt that’s too big.

Redraw the armhole on the big t shirt by joining up the new armpit with the mark you made at the top of the shoulder. The armhole should curve a little bit. If you’re not sure how much it should curve, have a look at the t shirt that fits and draw a line that’s similar.

Cut along the new armhole.

Now take the sleeve sections that are now no longer attached to the t shirt, and cut them away along the seam.

Check that the sleeve pieces are the same size. Find the centre of the seam edge. Match the centre to the shoulder seam and pin the sleeve to the open armhole. Sew the sleeve to the armhole. Do the same with the other sleeve.

Now pin the side seams and the under arm seams. Usually I would start at the armpit and sew the side seam, then go back to the armpit and sew the underarm seam.

You could start at the armpit, but if you are leaving sleeve length and hem length as they are, you might want to start at the hems instead to be sure of them matching.

Try the t shirt on and check the length of the t shirt and the sleeves. If they are still too long, decide how much you need to remove, cut it off and hem it.

And that’s it! Being stretchy, it will look fine even if you haven’t done a perfect job, providing that the obvious things like hems and sleeves match.

Tips

Your sewing machine probably has a stitch for sewing stretch knits. If it does, I’d use it. Otherwise use a zig zag.

Try to resist the urge to pull the fabric through the machine while it’s sewing! If the feed dogs appear to be struggling, you might need to take the bobbin section of your machine apart to clean the fluff out.

If you haven’t changed the needle for a while, it might be an idea to as a blunt needle will snag the fabric.

Jersey knits have a tendency to curl. My t shirt wasn’t as bad as I thought it might be, but it did still curl a bit. I don’t really have any tips for this, just to check before you start sewing, or you’ll end up with bumpy seams.

If you like this post showing how to alter a t shirt, and upcycling and refashioning are your thing, you might like these posts.

This one shows how I refashioned a tea dress from something that was ghastly and didn’t fit at all into something wearable.

This post is about a top that I turned into a dress.

This post shows how to make a pair of toddler trousers from a man’s shirt.

Embroidered Needle Case Tutorial

May 31, 2020 · 3 Comments

Needle cases might be seen as a little bit old fashioned, but I like them.

I’m the worst person in the world for losing needles, so having somewhere pretty to put them might stop me from losing so many!

This DIY embroidered needle case will eventually end up being part of a new craft kit I’m working on. I actually started it early on in lockdown, and I was going to call it the safe at home felt craft kit or something like that.

However, all the extra free time people kept saying I was going to have didn’t materialise, plus there’s been a dangerous virus to worry about, so I’ve only just got round to the second project (the kit will probably have 3-5 projects. The first one will be this mini bunting).

Whatever is going on, it’s always nice to have something to work on and craft kits make good gifts for crafty people. So I’m carrying on with it and I’ll just call it something else! Once the kit is ready (hopefully not too long!) it will be in my Etsy shop, and there’ll be a treat for the people on my email list as well.

UPDATE: The kits have finally be completed and you can find them here!

This needle case is made from felt, bits of ribbon and lace trim and embroidery.

If you have a die cutting machine that can handle felt, you could decorate it with felt flowers. I don’t have one, and anyway I’m a little bit addicted to sewing woven wheels!

I’ve decided to keep it simple and not too fussy, but needle cases are the kind of thing that are easy to personalise. So you could use this as a starting point for your own ideas!

For more inspiration I have a Pinterest board dedicated to needle cases here.

Instructions For Making a DIY Embroidered Needle Case

You Will Need

Small pieces of felt in complimentary colours.

Bits of ribbon, lace or other trim. I used cotton lace, grosgrain ribbon and some pink decorative bias binding.

Embroidery thread. I used pink, 2 shades of green, off white and pale grey.

Cutting Out

The pattern pieces for the embroidered needle case are free to download in exchange for an email address. Information about why I ask for an email can be found here. The form is at the bottom of the post.

I used green, pink and white felt for my embroidered needle case, but you can swap those for whatever colours you like!

Cut a piece of green felt and one of white felt 7.5 cm x 12.5 cm.

You’ll also need a smaller pink piece 7 cm x 12 cm. The larger pieces will be the cover and the other will be the inside of the cover. The smaller one will make the 2 pages in the centre.

Cut a larger circle and a smaller circle both from the pink felt and from the white.

For the inside of of the cover, you’ll need a pink rectangle 4 cm x 4.5 cm, and a white rectangle 2.5 cm x 3.5 cm.

For the safety pin tag, you’ll need a rectangle of white felt 4.5 cm x 3 cm and a 4.5 cm length of pink trim.

Cut a 4.5 cm piece of lace trim cm long, plus a piece of white felt the same size.

Cut a piece of grosgrain ribbon 5 cm long, and two more pieces 13 cm long.

Embroidery Stitches

The stitches used in the embroidered needle case are:
Chain stitch
Running stitch
Back stitch
Lazy daisies
Woven wheels

I’ve included links to some of these if you’re not sure of them.

Embroidering the Cover

The cover will be folded in half, so you might like to mark the half way point with pins first.

Position one of the larger circles onto the cover. Place a smaller circle on top of the larger one. Position the other circles on the cover and pin them in place.

Sew backstitch across the circles to divide them firstly in half, then into quarters, then into eights.

Sew stems in chain stitch.

Embroider lazy daisies for the leaves.

In each corner, sew a woven wheel for a flower. Then sew 2 lazy daisies on either side of the flower for leaves.

Making the Insides of the Needle Case

The white piece will be sewn to the wrong side of the cover to conceal the sewing, and the pink piece will be sewn to the centre, then folded in half and sewn together.

So for the moment, you can treat each rectangle as a whole.

Embroider woven wheels and lazy daisies in each corner on both pieces.

Take the white piece of felt first. On one half, attach the rectangles using running stitch.

On the other half, fold the ends of the shorter length of ribbon under, then attach the ribbon to the felt by embroidering woven wheels and lazy daisies at either end.

Take the pink piece of felt and pin the lace trim with the little bit of white underneath it. Using the holes in the lace, sew the trim and the white felt to the pink felt.

On the other half of the pink felt, pin the pink trim to the rectangle, then to the piece of pink felt. Sew woven wheels near the top edge to attach them.

Making Up the Embroidered Needle Case

With the wrong sides together, pin the white felt inside to the green lining. Using running stitch, sew the 2 pieces together. You could use a sewing machine for this if you prefer, or you might like to sew blanket stitch instead of running stitch.

Now pin the pink centre piece to the white and green pieces. Mark the centre with pins. Sew down the centre of the pink piece.

The sewing won’t be visible on the pink felt, but it will be on the cover, so think about what colour you would like the stitches to be! I did mine in pale grey. You could use the sewing machine for this too if you wanted to.

Fold the pink bit of felt in half and pin. Sew it together using a running stitch.

Attaching the Ties

Take one of the longer lengths of ribbon. Fold the end under, then sew a woven wheel and a couple of lazy daisies to attach it to the front of the cover.

Do the same with the other piece of ribbon and the back of the cover.

Now your embroidered needle case is finished! You have somewhere to keep needles, pins, safety pins and a needle threader.

I actually can’t remember making anything quite this pretty before. There is a bit of a mistake though! Did you spot it? The white section was supposed to be the other way up, so the ribbon was nearer the top, not the bottom. This is what happens if you’re watching the Great British Sewing Bee at the same time!

Fusion Quilt Part 1: Making The Squares

May 15, 2020 · 6 Comments

One of the things that I’ve had on a Pinterest board for a long time is this.

It’s a fusion quilt, which basically means that you make quilt squares then crochet them together, so it fuses sewing with crochet.

Every time this quilt pops up again, or when I see it there on my Pinterest board, I’m reminded of how pretty it is and how much I like it!

I’m not one for making quilts. I’ve only ever made one pram sized quilt when my eldest was a baby, although I’ve started a few!

A fusion quilt is different. Because you make the squares, then crochet them together, I think there’s enough variety to prevent boredom from setting in. Also the crochet part is the sort of thing that can be worked on for a few minutes at a time.

So this week, still having a desire to make pretty things, I started making my own fusion quilt!

I should say that the original on Pinterest doesn’t have a tutorial with it, and I’m not trying to copy it but make my own version.

Another raid on the fabric pile behind the bedroom door turned up some pretty fabric in colours I wanted to use, and some fleece fabric for the back of the squares. I also found some yarn for crocheting the squares together.

Obviously I couldn’t crochet straight into the fabric squares, and sewing fabric with yarn was going to cause some problems, so I used embroidery thread to edge the squares in blanket stitch. I was then able to crochet into the embroidered stitches.

Making The Squares

You Will Need

Cotton fabric. This is a good project for using up bits left over from other things. If you don’t have enough to make a whole square, you could make quarter squares and sew them together.

Something to back the squares with. I used fleece fabric. Quilt batting would also work, but you would probably need to make extra cotton squares for the back too.

Embroidery thread. Something like cotton perle is better that the stranded sort.

Yarn and a crochet hook. A neutral colour is probably best, but you can use what you like! I used a beige colour in DK with a 4 mm hook. A lighter yarn would probably achieve a lacier look.

Cutting Out The Squares

One of the advantages of this kind of quilt is that you can make the squares quite large if you want to. It’s great if you tend to get bored with longer projects as you’ll be able to finish your fusion quilt more quickly!

I cut my squares 12 cm x 12 cm (4 3/4″ x 4 3/4″).

If you wanted to make some quarter squares to make larger squares of this size, you would need to cut them 7 cm x 7 cm (2 3/4″ x 2 3/4″).

The backing needs to be the same size.

How many squares is up to you, but bear in mind that they will need to make a rectangle. 24 is a good number to start with. You can always add more later.

Sewing The Squares

Take one cotton square and one backing square.

With the right sides together, sew round the edge leaving a gap for turning out.

Trim the seams and cut off the corners.

Turn out and pin the opening.

Using a long stitch on your sewing machine, top stitch around the edge of the square.

I forgot to take photos of this stage, but I made the squares in the same way as these reusable cloths. There are some step photos in this post if you need them.

Blanket Stitching The Edges

The blanket stitches allow you to have something to work the crochet stitches into.

To sew blanket stitch, sew a loop so that the loop is on the front of the square.

Then pass the needle through the loop from the back to the front. Pull it taut. The top of the stitch should sit on the edge of the square.

Now make another loop by passing the needle through from the front of the square to the back.

Take the needle through this loop, from back to front and pull it taut. Keep doing this until you get to a corner.

I used the top stitches as a guide to get them all about the same size. This also means that if you are finding it difficult to get the needle through the fabric, you can reuse the holes made already by your sewing machine.

Corners

This might not be the proper way of doing corners, but it’s the way I did them!

When you get near a corner, make the next loop directly underneath the corner.

Pass the needle through and pull it so that the end of the stitch is at the corner.

Now make the next loop by passing the needle front to back in the same place.

Pull the thread through again so that the end of this stitch is on the next side of the square and about the same length as the previous stitch.

Then continue until you get to the next corner.

Keep going until you’ve got all the way round. When you get to the last stitch, thread the needle through the loop of the first one and tie the ends.

If you are particular about things being very neat and accurate, you’ll want to make sure that you have the same number of stitches on each side of the square.

I haven’t done that. I’m not too worried about the joins at the corners looking messy because I have a plan for those!

Crocheting Round The Edges Of The Square

Please note that being English, I use English crochet terms!

Round 1

Into one of the blanket stitches, join the yarn and make 3 ch.

Tr into the next stitch, and subsequent stitches until you get to the corner.

Into the 1st of the 2 corner stitches, tr twice.

Then 1 ch, and 2 tr into the next stitch.

1 tr into each of the following stitches until you get the next corner. Crochet round each of the corners in the same way.

When you get back to where you started, join it with a ss.

Round 2

3 ch, then tr into each stitch until you get the the corner.

When you get to the first of the 2 trebles crocheted into one stitch, crochet 2 trebles into the space between them. Then 2 tr into the ch sp, then 2 tr into the next 2 tr.

Continue with 1 tr into each stitch until you get to the next corner. Work each of the corners in the same way as the first one.

When you get back to the start, join with a ss and tie off the ends.

So far I’ve completed 3 squares, with another 2 ready to crochet.

As I have the attention span of a gerbil, it is possible that I won’t finish my fusion quilt! But I feel good about this and I’m hoping to get it done over the next 2-3 weeks, and , so watch this space!

How To Draft a Skirt Pattern

You Will Need

Taking Your Measurements

Drafting the Skirt Front

Drawing the Curve of the Hips

Sorting Out the Waist

Drawing the Dart

Adding the Seam Allowance

Drafting the Skirt Back

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Making the Embroidered Pincushion

You Will Need

Cutting Out

Embroidering the Design

Sewing the Pincushion Together

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Instructions For Altering a T Shirt

You Will Need

Instructions

Tips

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Instructions For Making a DIY Embroidered Needle Case

You Will Need

Cutting Out

Embroidery Stitches

Embroidering the Cover

Making the Insides of the Needle Case

Making Up the Embroidered Needle Case

Attaching the Ties

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Making The Squares

You Will Need

Cutting Out The Squares

Sewing The Squares

Blanket Stitching The Edges

Corners

Crocheting Round The Edges Of The Square

Round 1

Round 2

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