Happy 2020! How has the new decade started for you? Have you already been sewing? I thought I’d dedicate my first post of the year for a 2019 Make Nine challenge -review and also talk about this year’s plans.
The idea of the Make Nine is simply to plan at the beginning of the year which 9 handmade projects you’d like to complete during the year. And of course then see how many you actually do finish at the end of the year.
This was the first time I participated and managed to finish 8 projects out of 9.
As you know, I had a little twist for the challenge: to draft all the patterns myself. The blog posts were more concentrated on the pattern than the actual sewing phase.
My starting point were inspiration-pictures I found on Pinterest. Here’s the original grid:
In the end I did some changes to the designs, based on the season I ended up making the garment, and the fabric I was going to use. But all in all, this is a perfect example why pattern making is such a fun skill! You can just have a picture of an existing garment, draft the pattern and sew one for yourself, making changes as you go (if needed).
Here’s the end-of-the-year -grid with my own makes. White and dark blue seem to have been my favorites.
Let’s see more in detail what was going on with each garment.
Colbacco Hat
This was the first piece I made. I had been curious about hat making for quite a while and wanted to include this project to the Challenge. I found instructions for the pattern in a book called Design & make fashion hats by Karen Henriksen. It was quite easy to draft. As a material I had this pink and grey long haired faux fur together with a black satin lining.
I found working with the faux fur a bit difficult when it comes to cutting, because the hairs were always in the way. Quite messy, too, with fluff flying around. In fact, later I made another one with shorter hair and it was much easier.
Next I want to try sewing a beanie hat and maybe inventing some pattern alterations to it, too!
Woolen Dress
It took me too much time to get to the following project, which was originally going to be a winter dress. So I decided to get a lighter weight wool to be able to wear it in the spring. This decision kind of changed the whole look of the dress!
The original dress was made in a heavy weight wool and it had beautiful, strong shapes. In fact, I think I might try to make this dress again in a more similar material if I have time this year.
Trench
This was probably the most time consuming project of the whole challenge. The very first me-made trench ever! I had decided to copy my existing trench coat that was all worn out, because it had just the kind of flared shape I wanted.
The coat was going to be ready for the spring – I even started the pattern in time – but in the end I finished it in June!
It took me a long time to find a fabric. I was going for a unique look, but then chickened out from strong colors and -patterns… The best I could do, was a checkered dark blue and white with a different dark blue fabric for the facing and details.
Matching of the stripes seemed to be the theme of the year for me and this fabric was particularly difficult to match bacause the stripes weren’t completely straight. The surface pattern didn’t look good with the storm flap, so I eliminated it.
I was only able to wear the trench in October, after finally finding the right kind of belt buckle. In the beginning I felt like wearing a tablecloth, but then got used to the look. Everybody seemed to love my coat, wherever I went, so this was definitely a success.
Who knows, I might feel braver this year and make the bright color -version for the spring…
Summer Dress
Next, there was a summer dress, which I put together in July. This time I went for a light weight floral fabric. The dress itself went through some changes. I shortened the sleeves, because I couldn’t even think about wearing almost ¾ sleeves in the summer heat. I also changed the neckline and turned the bodice panels into darts. What I did keep, was the high-low flared tulip skirt.
The dress ended up very flowy. I still need to find the perfect belt though.
White Shirt
Here’s the most ”similar to the original” -garment. Well, I don’t really know how the sleeves are in the original as they are rolled up in the picture. But I made the classic shirt-sleeve with placket and cuff. This was the perfect excuse to exercise sewing the plackets, too.
The sleeve placket always seems so daunting, but it isn’t really, once you get to sewing it.
I really like the neckline of this shirt. However I noticed it’s important to add some hand stitches to prevent the front of the shirt from opening! So here I am with the shirt (yes, I had a haircut!):
Can’t wait to wear it again in the spring! Now it’s still too cold.
Culottes in Denim
I’m a fan of the palazzo pants and culottes, so of course there needed to be a pair of culottes on the list. What made these different, was the material. I don’t own many jeans and usually I make pants in some other material, such as wool.
I also wanted to show you how to easily turn the basic skirt pattern into a culottes pattern.
The original culottes had a tied waistband thing going on, and pleats, but I made a more simple version. I kept the pockets and a fly front zipper.
Skirt
In the end I did get something in wool: this skirt! There were a couple of different ways to draft the pattern but I opted for the panel construction for change. Together with the culottes, these two garments offered the possibility to present two ways to construct a pocket. The culottes had a separate facing, whereas the skirt pocket was all in one piece.
I also wanted to sew some pockets, because I usually tend to avoid them.
Sweater
In January last year I told you I wanted to make a sweater because I hadn’t really made any before. Sweater is the kind of garment I rarely wear and nobody else had asked me to make one for them either. Also, I had never enjoyed working with knit fabrics. The only time I have ever had a needle-through-the-nail -incident with a sewing machine, was when I was making a jersey dress!
The funny thing is, that this year I actually Did have a hoodie-project! I was making some fan-hoodie samples for a punk rock band, so this gave me the opportunity to study sweaters and hoodies some more. And I found myself sewing knit fabrics quite a few times in general.
By the time I got to making my own sweater, the theme wasn’t new for me anymore. I was happy with the dropped shoulder experiment and the sleeves. What I did notice however was that I don’t actually have many garments that go with my new sweater! Maybe I could try wearing it with the culottes?
I’m still not excited about sewing light weight knits, but I noticed the sweater type, more heavy weight knits are actually quite nice. They work great with round sculptural shapes.
What’s Next?
I hope you’ve found these projects interesting and useful to read about.
As you can see, the winter coat is still missing from the list. No worries, I’m definitely going to make it this month. Better late than never, right? I’ve already been eyeing some lovely wools at the fabric store. The success of the previous coat (=trench) has convinced me that I really want to attempt making myself a winter coat, too.
This year I’m not going to participate in The Make Nine -challenge, because I will be busy with the Sew My Style 2020 instead, being a leader and all. 😀 This is another year-long sewing challenge. You can find info and the list of all the patterns here.
I have officially been signed the months of March and September. So stay tuned for those. Some pattern hacking coming up for sure! 😉
But I’ll be making a few other pieces as well during the year. Like for example this month, how could I say no to the Tania Culottes by Megan Nielsen? I’ll be posting pics of those on Instagram once they’re done!
What else is in store for 2020? I recently sent out a survey to find out what you’d love to read about and got quite a list of ideas! Thank you for that. Now I’m going to plan some new tutorials based on your requests. If you have a subject you’re curious about, just leave a comment below.
