Blue and Pink Patterned Sandpiper Swimsuit

I’m here with an almost seasonally appropriate make (especially after the hot weather we had last week in the UK) but I made this back in October, lol. In my defense it was for my trip to Thailand, I’m not so out of sync with the seasons that I would sew swimwear in October in the UK!

This is, of course, the Helen’s Closet Sandpiper Swimsuit. I made 2 versions before (1 and 2) and I had to make significant fit changes to them. The first one primarily because I cut out the wrong size, though the second one still needed some fit adjustments. I’ve discovered that the quality, recovery and stretch of the swimwear fabric can massively affect the fit of a pattern you’ve made even a bunch of times. Spoiler alert, I made 2 others and had to fit them all individually according to the fabric. Speaking of the fabric, it was from Hey Sew Sister, though she doesn’t still have it in stock.

I made the hem band on the top and the waist band on the pants half width, as I did with my second version – as I did want a bit of a gap between the 2 pieces, which was non-existent on the first version. I also took off an extra 1.5cm off the shoulder seams and 1cm at the top of the side seams, grading out to the normal seam allowance in the middle, then back out to an extra 1cm off the bottom of the top side seams. I also had to take an extra cm off the side seams of the pants, grading out to the normal seam allowance 10cm down from the top.

I really like the fabric. I used lining fabric from fabric godmother, which is a really nice quality. The flowery fabric doesn’t have the most stretch, but it’s got more than the cheap wearable toile fabric I bought for the first 2 versions. But it also has really good recovery, so doesn’t look saggy anywhere, especially when wet. I did try to pattern match the bands, which worked better on the top than on the bottoms, but I’m not a total perfectionist when it comes to sewing, weirdly, even though I am a bit more of one in other areas of my life (though I try not to be – done is better than perfect, as the saying goes).

Even though I’ve made 5 sandpipers, I’m looking at these photos and thinking I want to make another one or two! Insane! But they’re relatively quick, aside from the fitting finagling, and the pieces are small (for me), so you don’t need much fabric. And I have loads of the lining still left – not sure about the elastic, though, I would need to order more I think. Anyhoos, here is a swimsuit. In May. Enjoy!

Chartreuse Monday Sweater

I knitted a jumper! And it only took a year, lol!

After my flurry of knitting during the locksdowns early in the pandemic (when I was furloughed), I allowed myself to buy some new yarn – I had said I needed to knit a significant portion of my stash before I was ‘allowed’ to buy any new yarn, as my knitting is very intermittent. I do a bunch at once, then nothing for years!

The yarn is the Sirdar Country Classic in colour 0866, chartreuse. This is a less mustardy shade of yellow than I normally go for, but I still like it – especially because it’s a pretty bright, happy colour!

The pattern is the Monday Sweater by Petite Knit. The yarn was not quite the ideal for the pattern, but I thought a regular DK weight would be an okay substitution – she uses really expensive yarns in her patterns! I made the size S, with some changes to the sleeves – they ended up massively too long and too wide (possibly because of the inexact yarn substitution) so I had to frog a few rows and do load of decreases to get them down to the correct number of stitches – this gives them a slight balloon vibe, which isn’t necessarily what I was going for, but it’s good enough and to be honest I just wanted it finished by that point!

Speaking of which, I pretty much knitted this jumper twice. Sigh. I knitted a lot of it during my Christmas break of 2022, and stupidly didn’t try it on at all until I had started the first sleeve. This was a mistake I definitely won’t be repeating in a hurry! I had apparently been doing the raglan increased in the wrong places as the body of the jumper ended up really tight, and the sleeves were massive – because they had half the body increases in them! It was pretty sad when I had to frog the whole thing – I knew I couldn’t leave it as it was. Then I (unsurprisingly) slightly lost interest in it, so it took me to the following December (2023) to finally finish it! Still not my record slowest knit though!

I do enjoy knitting, especially because it’s more portable, so I can do it in front of the tele in the evenings, or take it with me on trips (where I have the luggage space!) but I am very slow to finish things. I’m in a ‘I want to sew all the things’ mood at the moment, so my 2 current knitting projects have taken a bit of a backseat, so I’ll probably be even slower! Oh well, as long as I enjoy the process, I guess it doesn’t matter how long it takes!

Navy Corduroy Dawn ‘Jeans’

I’m not sure why I didn’t blog this pair of corduroy dawns with the black pair, so here we are – with another, basically identical pair of trousers!

The fabric was also from Fabric Godmother, and I also made them over a year ago, last Jan/Feb kind of time.

I always make the size 4 in the dawns, and have to take a couple of extra cm off the back seam at the waist as I have a sway back. I also always make them with zips, instead of the button fly as I just prefer it. I do slightly wish I’d hemmed them a bit longer – at the time I was thinking slight shorter would look cool, but now I think a longer wide-legged trouser would be more my vibe (more on this later!). I’ll check how much of a hem I took up and maybe let them down a bit.

Since I made these, I have actually tried a new jeans pattern, and I’ve sewn some more smart trousers for work – though judging by my track record, you won’t get to see them for a year, lol!

I feel a little out of touch with the indie sewing pattern world at the moment, because I have the basics covered with patterns I like and have made a lot! The only designer I usually check out new releases for is Helen’s Closet. Have I missed any really great patterns recently? Or new pattern designers?

Gold Spotty Jackson

This is the last of the 4 Jacksons I made at the same time a year ago. I do have more planned, though, so I hope you’re not sick of this pattern yet!

I don’t know if I have much more to say about this pattern to be honest. It’s the same as all of the other versions, size 10 with no cuffs and hem bands, with a straightened hem.

The fabric was from Fabric Godmother and is reversible. I decided to go for the spotty side, because I didn’t want to make 2 striped tops at the same time (alongside the first Jackson I made), but I’m not sure this was the right choice now, looking back. I obviously won’t unpick the whole thing and sew it the other way around, though!

I really do like the fit of these Jacksons. I’ve got some jerseys I’m going to use for some short and long sleeved versions, and I’m going to make them all the same as these ones (and of course the short sleeved version I also made last year).

As I’ve mentioned a lot on here, my love for Helen’s Closet’s patterns is still going strong! This is defo going to become my go to knit top pattern I think. Do you have a go to tee pattern?

Mustard Window Jackson Sweatshirt

Another day, another Jackson sweatshirt. I’m playing mega catch-up with my sewing from pretty much the last year – I want to get better at posting consistently. Though I do it for a while, then ghost my blog for like 4 months at a time usually!

Anyway, onto my latest make to make it to the blog (which I made ages ago!).

This is another Helen’s Closet Jackson sweatshirt, made to the same size and with the same adjustments as my first version, and my whale version. Namely I made the size 10, straightened the hem and added some (unnecessary) length to the sleeves because I didn’t want the hem bands or cuffs.

I managed to mostly match the horizontal stripes on the side seams – they’re not totally straight so I couldn’t match both directions.

The fabric is some fleece-backed sweatshirting from Hey Sew Sister, if memory serves. As soon as I saw it, I had to buy it – it’s the perfect shade of mustard imho.

The Jackson has definitely become my go-to jersey top pattern. I like the oversized vibe I’ve got by going up 3 sizes from my measurements. I’ve got one more to share that I made last year, and a bunch more planned. Sorry not sorry. I’m sure if you’ve read my blog for a while, when I find a pattern I like, I stick to it (*coughs* Archer, Kalle, Dawn).