Make It Simple Safiya Dungarees Sewing Pattern Review

Hot on the heels of my first project from the book Make It Simple by Tilly Walnes, here's my second. These are the Safiya dungarees, and I'll give you a spoiler from the outset - I love them!

Safiya was the pattern that first tempted my to buy the book. The main version of the pattern in the book is for wide-legged slightly cropped trousers with an elasticated waistband, and there are variations of a fun wrap-front playsuit and these easy-fitting dungarees.

The dungarees have a relaxed fit with no fastenings, darts in the bodice section for a little shaping and a tie belt for as much or as little waist definition as you want.

When I ordered the book, I'd intended to get some light denim/chambray to make the dungarees so that they'd go with everything, but then I realised I had a much more interesting fabric option already sitting in my stash waiting to be used!

It's a cotton viscose twill from Seasalt (no longer in stock, but their other fabrics are here), and the combination of an excellent sale discount and a gift voucher that I'd been given for my birthday made it somewhat irresistible even though I wasn't sure what I'd do with it at the time. For a while now I've been trying not to buy fabric without a project in mind, but sometimes you have to bend the rules don't you?!

Anyway, it occurred to me that the weight of the fabric would be perfect for these dungarees. I had a feeling that the somewhat bold print might make them a bit of a love-it-or-hate-it kind of garment, but I was fairly confident that I'd end up loving it so I was willing to take the risk. Plus, spending lots of time at home due to being on coronavirus lock-down is a good time for sewing risk-taking I think!

The Safiya dungarees are slightly more time-consuming than some of the other projects in the book, but simply because there's more to sew rather than because they're complicated. If you've made a pair of pyjama trousers and can sew a dart, then there's nothing to be scared of about making the dungarees.

The instructions are very thorough and easy to follow. I did make a couple of small changes though - just for personal preference really. I've always found turning small tubes of fabric the right way out to be a bit of a hit and miss process (it either works perfectly or takes ages!), so when it came to making the straps I pressed the pieces in half WS together, pressed the seam allowances to the inside and then just topstitched them together. I also made fabric belt loops instead of the thread loops in the instructions, just because I prefer them on garments.

Sizing is a bit interesting for this pattern if, like me, your bust measurement puts you in a smaller size than your hips. As the dungarees are a pull-on style and have no fastenings, the bodice needs to be able to fit over your hips. Tilly recommends in the book that you don't grade between pattern sizes but I knew that if I did that then the top would end up being too big for my liking. My bust measurement is a size 5 and my hips are between a 5 and 6 so I thought it was worth trying grading between the sizes and making a toile. Thankfully it worked nicely - I can just get the dungarees on over my hips. If I couldn't, I'd probably rather make the pattern more complicated and put a zip in the side seam than make the top any bigger, as I think it would just look baggy on me.

Other than blending between sizes, I also lengthened the bodice by 1.5 inches and added 3 inches to the legs to make them full length. I really should have lengthened the legs a bit more though - they have a teeny tiny hem on them and are just about long enough. Next time I'd add at least an extra inch or maybe a bit more.

As I said at the beginning of the post, I love how these dungarees turned out! I wore them for the first time the other day and they're so comfy. My only slight problem as that I don't seem to have any short-sleeved t-shirts that go with them, but thankfully I found a piece of jersey in a charity shop a little while ago that I think will help to solve that problem! Isn't it good when that happens?!

Tilly & The Buttons Bertha Cardigan

During these times of social (sewcial?!) distancing, I'm finding that being creative in various ways is one of the things that's keeping me vaguely calm and I'm making sure that I've got a couple of projects on the go or lined up in my head so that I always have something to work on that fits my mood. One of the projects that I worked on last week is the Bertha cardigan by Tilly & The Buttons.

This is one of the patterns from Tilly's latest book Make It Simple, which I treated myself to the other week as part of my own version of panic buying (can't risk running out of projects!).

In Tilly's own words, "Bertha is a slouchy, open cardigan, cropped at the waist and with dramatic batwing sleeves. The deep cuffs and hem band add definition to the silhouette". I also added the optional pockets following the instructions in the book.

While it was initially the Safiya trousers/playsuit/dungarees that attracted me to the book, Bertha ended up being the first pattern that I made up because I wanted to use the leftover fabric from the Sheridan sweater that I made earlier this year, and this seemed like the perfect pattern to do that.

As with all of the patterns in Make It Simple, the Bertha cardigan is an easy project to sew. Even with adding the pockets, it was still a quick pattern to make and came together in just a few hours from start to finish over the course of a couple of evenings.

The instructions are very thorough, and help to make the sewing process quicker and easier by, for example, not telling you to press seams after each step but leaving pressing until you have a few things that you can press all at the same time. I found the instructions very easy to follow throughout, and the only thing I did slightly differently was to catch stitch the seam allowance of the neckband to the various other seam allowances around the neck edge. The instructions don't tell you to do that, but with my fabric (French terry) I felt like it would be a good idea to make the seam allowances sit nicely.

My measurements put me in a size 5 at the bust and between a 5 and 6 at the waist and hips. Being as Bertha has a relaxed fit and is designed to be worn open, I decided to make a straight size 5 and I'm happy with the fit that gives me.

As I already mentioned, the main floral fabric is French terry left over from my Sheridan sweater and came from Loubodu Fabrics (now sold out). I had just under a metre left, so far too much to let it go to waste but I knew whatever I used it for would need some colour-blocking and the Bertha cardigan seemed like a good project for that. I debated what colour to use as the contrast but in the end settled on a light pink, also from Loubodu Fabrics and also sold out, but they have other plain French terrys here. I'm happy with how the two fabrics look together, and thankfully they played nicely with each other while I was sewing.

All in all, I'm pretty pleased with my Bertha cardigan. The style is more slouchy than I usually go for so it might take me a while to work out exactly how to best pair it with other garments in my wardrobe, but it's super comfy and feels lovely to wear. Plus it's definitely good to have another way to wear this beautiful floral fabric - I wouldn't have wanted to leave that sitting in my stash would 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?

Two Lilou Dresses for the Price of One!

The glorious warm weather we were enjoying a couple of weeks ago may have been replaced with unpredictableness and dramatic rain showers lately, but today I'm going to try to tempt the sun to come back on a slightly more reliable basis by showing you another pretty sundress (you can't have too many of them, right?!). I mentioned in my post about my first Lilou dress that version 2 was already cut out, well now it's all sewn up and here it is!

Excuse the slightly wrinkled look here! I'd already been wearing it for most of a day at this point, but then came across a practically deserted little park which seemed like a good place to use as a background for some photos - I'm not the greatest person at posing for photos so the smaller the audience I have the better, but pretty places with not many people in them are few and far between.

I'm sticking by the glowing praise I gave this pattern, and Love At First Stitch in general, in my post on my first Lilou. It's a really lovely dress, and feels great to wear. While in this version it's the perfect dress for a summer day, it could work for lots of different occasions depending on what material you use and how you accessorise it. Without wanting to wish summer away, I have already been hatching plans for a version that I could wear on into the autumn and winter. 

For this version, I used the same adjustments as in my first one - size 6 at the bust, grading down to a 5 at the waist and back out to a 6 at the hips, and with 1.5 inches added to the length of the bodice and 2.5 inches added to the skirt. As I said before, I do have a little bit of extra space in the bodice, but it's only a teeny bit and I'm totally happy with the fit. Plus, you know, it's always good to have some space to breath!

The main fabric is a pretty berry print cotton poplin that I got from Abakhan. They have it listed in their craft section rather than dressmaking, but I think it works fine for the Lilou dress. It has less drape than the cotton sateen I used for my first version, which gives the skirt a little bit more body. I really like the colours in the print - I've always thought that yellow is such a happy colour but it just doesn't really suit my colouring (trust me, I tried it in my teenage technicolour phase!), but the small amounts of it in this print combined with blues, reds and pinks are perfect for the summer.

I'm a big fan of the contrast lining in my first version, so I thought I'd do the same for this dress. Plus, it's a great way to use up bits of the stash that aren't big enough for a whole garment. Or that are too see-through to be used on their own as is the case here! This one is a cute white and blue heart print, I suspect polycotton, that has been hanging around on my shelves for a while so I'm glad it's now been put to good use.

And here's the third Lilou that I've made! This one's for my Mum though. She really liked my first version so asked me to make her one as well. Thankfully we're pretty much the same size so I could just use the same pattern pieces as for my own version and didn't need to worry about fitting.

The cotton that I used here is from John Lewis (I think it's part of their 150 year anniversary collection). At £18 per metre, it's definitely on the pricey side for a cotton but it's great quality and was really nice to sew. I'm also assured that it's lovely to wear! I lined this one in some of the voile I had left over from lining my Cambie dress. 

It was really nice to do some unselfish sewing for a change, and I'm please with the final result - particularly the pattern matching that I managed to pull off down the centre front! My mum really likes it too, which is the main thing.

So yes, Lilou is a great dress - I'd definitely recommend it! 

According to my vague sewing plan, this was meant to be my last "summer" dress this year, but then at the weekend the new issue of Love Sewing magazine arrived, which comes with a pattern for a particularly pretty looking dress - I think it should be out in shops today so keep an eye out if you're a fan of fit and flare dresses! Surely leaving the pattern unloved on the shelf without trying it out would just be rude wouldn't it? So, in spite the questionable weather we've been "enjoying" this week, there will probably be another pretty summer dress on these pages in the not too distant future! And for now, I'll leave you with a twirling shot! See you soon!

Love At First Stitch Lilou Dress

Hello! How are you all today? I'm enjoying all the lovely sun we've been having here in the UK, and I'm excited to show you my latest creation - which is also particularly appropriate for this hot weather. Here's my second project from Love At First Stitch, the Lilou dress...

I mentioned when I posted about my Clémence skirt that I was particularly taken with this lovely dress, so it's no surprise that it was the next project that chose to sew. Having made the Lilou, I now feel like I'm even more qualified to recommend treating yourself to Tilly's lovely book as I've now used one of the patterns that's included with the book (the Clémence skirt has instructions for drafting your own pattern so I didn't use the pattern sheets for that). Yes, you have to trace the patterns because the pieces overlap, but these are the clearest pattern sheets that I've ever had to trace from so that's really not a problem. Everything came together beautifully and, as with Clémence, the instructions were completely clear and easy to follow.

The Lilou is the last project in the book, making it theoretically the most complicated, and it might be a bit challenging if you'd never sewn anything before, but even then it could still be achievable if you work through all the steps, and if you've got a bit of experience then it'd be no trouble. I'm a firm believer that if you've got good instructions, which you definitely have here, and you follow them at your own speed then most things can be done.  

Size-wise, I cut a 6 on the bust and hips, grading down to a 5 at the waist. I like this fact - it makes me feel like I have a small waist rather than abnormally large hips which is what lots of patterns often make me feel. Not that it bothers me, I know I'm pretty much the definition of pear shaped and I'm fine with that.

I wanted the dress to be comfortable for wearing every day, so added quite a bit of length because I like my summer dresses to hit at about knee length. I added an 1.5 inches to the bodice (fairly standard for me) and another 2.5 inches to the skirt, and this gave me just the length that I wanted.

If I wanted the dress to be super-fitted, I could probably afford to take a tiny bit of extra width out of the bodice, but I'm completely happy with how it is - it's nicely fitted whilst still having a bit of room to move, and I don't like clothes to be too closely fitting when it's hot. 

Also, I got over my temporary hatred of invisible zips - yay! They do give dresses a nice finish after all. I've definitely found that stabilising the seam allowances with strips of interfacing helps with inserting invisible zips, and didn't have any trouble at all when I was sewing this one. It's not completely totally and utterly invisible, but I'm happy with it so it's all good. 

Can we talk about the fabric now? I LOVE this material! Not only is it really pretty and full of most of my favourite colours, it feels gorgeous. It's a John Kaldor cotton sateen that I got from Fabric Rehab. It was lovely to sew with, and drapes really nicely whilst still having enough body to hold the pleats in the skirt (you can see the pleats quite well in the top photo - they're flattering and give the skirt a great shape) and allowing for a bit of twirl factor. Twirl factor is very important to me for dresses!

I decided to go with Tilly's suggestion of using a contrast fabric for the bodice lining - mainly because I've had this turquoise blue fabric in my stash for a while and wasn't sure what to use it for because it's quite sheer, and it was a perfect match for the bright blue flowers in the dress so surely it was meant to be. I got it as part of a bundle on ebay a while ago, so I have no idea what it is, I suspect it may be a polycotton of some variety, but its a good weight for the lining and feels nice so it seemed like a good choice. Tilly recommends that you trim off a tiny amount of the neckline of the lining to encourage it to lie nicely on the inside of the dress without poking out and I think that worked really well.

So, yes, in case it isn't already obvious, I'm pretty pleased with this dress - so pleased that version 2 has already been cut out (and my Mum's bought fabric for me to make one for her, thankfully we're pretty much the same size!). Plus, as an added bonus I think it's pretty perfect for joining in with the Summer Sun Dress Sew-Along - and who doesn't love a sew-along?!