A pair of warm jersey tops

Even if I've only seen the tiniest sprinkling of snow here in Bristol so far, it's still pretty chilly so the two projects that I have to show you today seem particularly appropriate for this weather because they're both made using lovely warm jersey from White Tree Fabrics. Pair that with the Bronte and Renfrew patterns, and I now have two great new tops to snuggle up and keep cosy in!

I started off with the Bronte top - I've made it twice before (here and here) and it's fast becoming a firm favourite pattern. It stitches up nice and quickly (I had this finished in an evening) and the neckline makes it a little bit different from a normal t-shirt without being any more complicated to make.

As with my previous versions, I made a size 14 with no alterations. Thankfully I managed to get through this incarnation of Bronte without nearly destroying it as I did last time, so the buttons are merely serving their purpose as intended in the pattern of holding down the shoulder overlap, instead of hiding a hole!

The buttons were actually the starting point of this project really. I love stars, so when I spotted these little pearly ones in my local haberdashery I knew I had to have some. I then dithered about what to use them for because I think the shape would make them annoying if they were functioning buttons that you needed to undo and do up all the time, but for this kind of fixed button, they're great. I wanted to use them on a plain fabric so they'd stand out, and the blue warm jersey seemed like a great match.

As well as the buttons, you can also see the fabric itself better here. The knits I've used in the past have been t-shirt type jerseys, but this is more like the kind of fabric that would be used for thin jumpers/sweaters. Unlike the other knits I've worked with, this fabric did shed a bit during cutting and sewing so I finished all of the seams with a zigzag stitch. Other than that, I treated it the same as other jerseys (prewashed on a normal 30 degree wash, seams using a narrow zigzag, and Bronte hems/topstitching with a twin needle) and that all seemed to work well and both of the tops have passed the initial wear test. The fabric definitely lives up to its name too - it's so nice and warm to wear.

So, with Bronte finished and looking pretty, I moved on to the Renfrew and some lovely wine coloured warm jersey. This is actually the first Renfrew I've sewn and I feel like I must be the last person in the sewing community to get around to making this pattern (I'm not am I? Please tell me there's someone else out there?)! I may be late to the party, but I'm glad I got there in the end and there'll be many more Renfrews in my future. After all with all the neckline and sleeve length options, you could make loads without even repeating the same combination.

As many people have said before me, it's a great pattern, the instructions are clear and easy to follow and I really like how the body and sleeve hems are finished with bands for a slightly different effect to the other patterns I've used and most RTW t-shirts. I can definitely see why Renfrew is a TNT pattern for so many people.

I love cowl neck tops (not least because you can hide in the cowl when you're not feeling very photogenic, which I definitely wasn't on this day!), so that was always going to be my first Renfrew neckline to try out, and pairing it with the long sleeves seemed like the obvious choice at this time of year.

I'm so pleased with how the top turned out it's definitely looser than the Bronte - my measurements are all pretty much exactly a 13 for the Renfrew (i.e. bang in the middle between a 12 and 14) so I erred on the side of caution and went for a 14. I possibly could have got away with a 12, but I like the looser fit, which combined with the fabric makes it feel more like a sweater than a t-shirt. Next time I make a Renfrew, I might go down to a 12 - or if I'm using a tighter-fitting fabric I might stick with a 14 and see how that goes.

All in all, I think these two tops are a very good start to my sewing for 2015 and I can see them both getting a lot of wear. I'm glad that I've finally got round to making a Renfrew so that, combined with Bronte, I've now got 2 t-shirt patterns I know I can trust. The fabric is lovely too, and I've just realised that it might make a really nice version of the Oslo cardigan from Seamwork, so I might have to treat myself to some more soon. I'm telling myself that it would be justified because I recently realised that moths had attacked one of my favourite cardis, so surely I need a replacement, don't I?!

Bronte & Delphine: saved by the buttons

Things have been a bit quiet around here recently - I've been busy making presents for family birthdays and then forgetting to get decent pictures of them, or being too distracted by reading other people's blog posts to actually get round to writing posts of my own. I'm putting that right today though and have a whole handmade outfit to share with you - a Jennifer Lauren Bronte top and a Love at First Stitch Delphine Skirt.

This may be a whole me-made outfit, but both Bronte and Delphine are fairly simple patterns so I finished both projects pretty quickly. I think they took me about one evening each, and I'm not a particularly speedy sewer.

I didn't necessarily intend for them to be worn as an outfit - Delphine was the answer to my yearning for a red skirt to wear with my first Bellini blouse, and I decided to sew the Bronte to boost up the numbers of long-sleeved tops in my wardrobe ready for the cooler weather - but they work well together and I figured that as they're both fairly simple projects I might not have too much to say about them so I might as well put them together in one post.

So, Bronte...I really like the short-sleeved Bronte that I made in the summer, so it was the obvious pattern to choose when I wanted to make a long-sleeved t-shirt. As I'd already made the pattern before, this time it was a nice and speedy project. I made a size 14, with no alterations at all. I mentioned in my post about my first Bronte that I might lower the neckline on future versions, but having worn the top more I actually like the neckline as it is so no changes needed.

The fabric is a cotton/spandex jersey from myfabrics. It's lovely and soft, and I'm definitely tempted to order more jersey from there - they have so many prints! It's the kind of jersey where the print is applied to a white base, so the colour does fade slightly if the material is overstretched but it really has to be stretched a LOT to do that, and it isn't a problem at all for me.

Confession time! I came very close to ruining this project. It was all nicely sewn up, and all I had left to do was stitch down the shoulder overlap. I was trimming the neckband seam allowance and somehow managed to cut a hole into the main fabric of the top - aaaargh! Usually this would send me into a fit of melodrama, but for some reason I was remarkably calm about the situation this time. The hole wasn't that big so I stitched it up, leaving it hardly visible but still far too visible for my liking. Inspiration for a solution suddenly came in the form of my button jar. I had been planning to leave the shoulders plain for this version instead of adding buttons, but I had these oversized buttons that were just the right colour and the perfect size to cover the sewn-up hole. Problem solved, disaster averted, happy Ruth!

Now, Delphine. As this point I should point out that this post could also have been entitled "Red is really difficult to photograph". No matter what I tried, the skirt came out looking almost like a luminous block, but I promise it's not like that in real life. It's actually a nice red corduroy from Calico Lane, and it's lovely to wear.

Delphine is one of the earlier projects in Love at First Stitch, and is a nice simple pattern aimed at beginners, so makes a speedy but very wearable project if you've got a bit of sewing experience. As I'll mainly be wearing this with tights I added a lining using the method in Tilly's tutorial, but even with the extra steps which that involved, this was still finished really quickly. It would have been even quicker if I hadn't, for some inexplicable reason, initially traced and cut the waistband two sizes smaller than I intended to!

As with the other projects I've made from Love at First Stitch, the instructions were all really clear and super easy to follow. I made a size 5 at the waist, grading to a 6 at the hips. Other than that, I made no changes to the pattern - there's no need to!

All in all, I'm pleased with how both of these turned out and they're both really great wearable basics. I've realised I've got some material in my stash that could make a fantastic second Delphine (you only need 1 metre if you've got wide fabric - always good!) so keep an eye out for that at some point this winter, and I'll be making more incarnations of Bronte in the future for sure - but hopefully without nearly destroying them next time. Have you averted any sewing disasters recently?

Jennifer Lauren Bronte Top - Repurpose, Reuse, Refashion

At the start of this year, the one sewing target that I set myself was to get to grip with knit fabrics. I started off quite well by making my Plantain top, but I hadn't done anything else about it since then. Not due to fear or anything, more just because I kept getting distracted by woven fabrics and patterns! Then Jennifer Lauren released the Bronte top, and it reminded me of an old favourite RTW t-shirt of mine so I knew I wanted to make one. It's taken me a couple of months since the release, but better late than never!

I was given the kick start to get sewing the Bronte when I saw that Amy of Sew Amy Sew was hosting Repurpose, Reuse, Refashion month this August. You see, a month or two ago I'd found this jersey maxi dress in one of my local charity shops for the princely sum of £1.75...

When I bought it, I knew I would never wear it as it was - I'm not a massive fan of strapless and Empire line isn't the most flattering shape on me. However, it was in good condition and didn't look like it had been worn much, I loved the colour, the jersey felt nice and soft and the advantage of the Empire line was that I knew the skirt pieces would be big enough for me to put the dress to good use somehow.

I was considering refashioning the dress by adding some straps and possibly extending the shirring round the bust down to waist level to make it more flattering for my shape, but the existing shirring went a bit saggy when I washed the dress so I decided just to cut that off and treat the skirt as a piece of material. There was just enough material for Bronte, so I took that as a sign that it was meant to be!

Anyway, back to Bronte! I really, really like this pattern. Like any knit top, it's obviously really comfy and easy to wear, but the 1940s-inspired shrug style shoulder detail makes it stand out from the crowd and be a little bit different. You might think this would make it more complicated to sew, but it's really not that difficult. The only difference from a normal knit top is that the front and back pieces are connected in a slightly different way, as the back wraps over the front, but although it is different I don't think it's any more complicated.

The neckline also gives you the opportunity to add a bit of extra interest by using a contrast binding or some pretty buttons to secure the shoulders. In my case, I had some star shaped buttons which I was planning to use, but when I tipped out the contents of my button jar this pack of bright buttons that I'd been given for my birthday fell out and I loved the way they looked with the blue so I changed my plans!

I made a straight size 14 with no adjustments. I was sort of treating this version as a (very!) wearable muslin, as given that the material cost me £1.75, I wasn't going to worry too much if it didn't turn out totally perfectly. As it is, I'm pretty happy with the fit so it's all good! I might consider trying to lower the neckline a little bit in a future version to make it even more like my old top, but I like it as it is.

If, like me, you're a bit of a newbie when it comes to sewing with knits, I'd definitely recommend giving the Bronte top a go. As I said above, it probably looks more complicated than it is, but it is actually fairly simple to sew. It's only the second time I've sewn with knits, and the only problem that I had was my twin needle deciding to break for no apparent reason! The instructions are nice and clear, and also include some really helpful tips on choosing your fabric, as well as hints about sewing with knits in general. Also, I don't have a serger/overlocker, so this is proof that you definitely can sew the Bronte using just a normal sewing machine.

As I mentioned in my last post about my Bellini, I do prefer paper patterns to PDFs (not least because my printer sometimes has a mind of its own and decides to print multiple copies of one page instead of printing the page range I'd asked it to, as it did in this case!), but this was another PDF that was no trouble to put together. I really like the fact that the individual pattern pieces are printed on separate groups of pages so you're dealing with manageable numbers of pages to stick together instead of covering the entire floor!

Sewing Bronte went really well and I'm definitely planning on doing more about my aim of sewing with knits now. There'll be more Brontes at some point in the future, and I've also got the Coco and Lady Skater ready to try - I just need to make my mind up about what fabric to use! Has anyone got any favourite sources of knits in the UK? It's always good to have recommendations!