Summer playsuit

This summer has really got me motivated !!! I'm not sure wheather it's because I know in September I'll be starting my last year of education, or wheather been at my work placement is inspiring me to do more and keep up my creativeness and keep practising, or wheather I'm just actually ready to start my life and my career and I do secretly get a buzz when people comment on things that I have made :)

So the next little project that I set myself was to make a little play suit. As always picking my fabric was again so hard as very thing is so pretty and nice all of the different patterns, prints and motifs. (Iv just told myself I'll make it in every fabric ) so I chose a nice blue floral print.

Again I got this fabric from Dainty suppliers in Washington, 100% my new favourite shop by far!! It's so easy to get carried away whilst picking out one or two things in there. So with my fabric bought it was then onto making my pattern. From a previous project at Newcastle College I already had a full jumpsuit block pattern in my size so all I had to do was make the alterations to the pattern to become the style and silhouette that I was after.

When altering my pattern I started with the easiest thing, the length. I measured roughly on myself how long I wanted the shorts to be but added abit extra just to make sure, you can cut it off if it's too long but it gets complicated when it's too short and your trying to add extra on!! After that I went onto the top, I knew that I wanted the darts taken out and two seams down either side of the bust instead, I also alterted the neck line and the thickness of the straps. 

Whilst making my jumpsuit pattern I also had an unwanted helper!! My cat was very interested in what I was doing but made my job all that little but harder when he would want to lay across the whole of my pattern!! I'm sure the professionals in their fancy studios don't have these sorts of interruptions :p the jobs of been a student without a pattern cutting table!

So all my pieces had there seam allowances added to the appropriate places and where laid out to be cut out. This is something I find to be exciting because you know your making the move forward to see you design and pattern become 3D and real. After this it was on to assembling it.

After it was put together there were a few extra alterations that needed to be made, the first one was the leg length, I made it shorter and also added to extra darts in the side of the bust. But I came across a small issue when trying it on. Although I had a zip down the side I found it difficult to get into trying to force my head past the shoulder straps!

Although this became an issue I did enjoy the problem solving element of it and gave myself a day to brain storm and think of how I could over come this without changing my design or pattern to much. The idea that I came up with was to add buttons and a small strap to the shoulder seam so that it opened and closed with a small button, I then turned this into a feature and added buttons on the other side too for decoration. 

Luckily I had any amount of small white buttons which would match perfectly it would just be the issue of finding matching pairs and which ones I liked most and wanted to use.

To finish off the playsuit I added a wide navy blue ribbon above the waist. Overall I was happy with my playsuit and it was comfortable to wear and easy to move around in.

Now onto my next little project :) 

Summer panda top

Well that's another academic year done and finished with, and it's time to enjoy the summer. But aswell as enjoying the summer and all my free time I like to give myself little projects to keep practising my skills and make good use of my time.

From my last project at CCAD of course I had to buy fabric for it, this is when I discovered my new favourite shop - dainty suppliers in Washington (northeast England) it was like an aladins cave of everything fabric, and craft I was in heaven so like always when I go shopping for when thing I get distracted by everything else that I want to purchase and something that really caught my eye was a lovely panda printed Cotton!! 

I really love animals and especially pandas (not just because they are black and white :p) and I thought this fabric was great so I had to buy it and unfortunately it had to take a back seat and sit in the carrier bag until I had some free time to make something with it. So I decided to make a lose fitted vest top out of the fabric, something simple to get me started again obviously without any tutors help if I were to get stuck. But I must admit to make my pattern I did cheat abit, I already had a vest in the exactly silhouette that I wanted for my panda fabric so I simply drew around it but added a little bit of length to the bottom.

After that I neatened off my lines and had my front and back pattern pieces to make my top. Like I said this was an easy top to make but of course nothing runs smoothly at first when I soon realised I had not bought enough fabric for the style of top that I wanted to make as the pattern was wide at the bottom, (a designers and manufactures nightmare) but after trying out a few differnt ways to lay my pattern pieces to the fabric I found a solution to my problem. I decided to give my top a yoke, this meant that I would. It have to put a seam right down the back of the top which I certainly did not want to do!

After cutting my pieces out I begin to make up my top attaching all of the seams. I always made my own binding by cutting long strips of fabric along the biase pressing it where I wanted the fold and attached it to the arm holes and neck hole to neaten up the edges.  I made my own small hem along the bottom and used a decorative stitch to give it a little more detail. The only thing that I was slightly disappointed with was the fact that the inside seam edges where raw and this was down to the fact that I do not own an over locking maching, but it's something I'm now looking into purchasing :p

Overall I am absolutely thrilled with my top and the way that it has turned out it has defiantly giving me the inspiration and boost to want to make more of my own clothes. It has also sparked off a lot of potential business and career ideas which I need to start thinking about as my final year of been a student looms. I thoroughly enjoyed making this top and can't wait to get back on my machine and start to make something else.... Any ideas?