Posted on 03/09/202403/09/2024 by mavenpatterns

How to Make a Waistband Narrower

Learn how to change the depth of a waistband pattern

The Bloom Skirt has a gorgeously wide statement waistband.

I’m not a big fan of mealy, mean little waistbands and so deliberately designed Bloom with 6cm deep waistband as I wanted her to feel glamorous and quite formal. Personally, I’m still fantasising about making one in an Emerald Green Silk Taffeta Bloom Skirt. I haven’t found the perfect fabric yet, but it’s a very enjoyable hunt!

But if you feel the waistband is too wide for you, or for your fabric don’t worry; the joy of sewing is that you can customise and personalise your sewing patterns until they look and fit how you want them.

Sometimes you might just fancy a little change just for the sake of change and something as simple as altering the depth of the waistband can give your skirt a whole different feel. The check skirt below definitely feels a little more casual with the narrower band.

I’m a very firm believer that sewing patterns can, and should, be just a starting point to sewing your own style. And I’m massively in favour of any changes to the pattern if it means you’ll use it and wear it more! Luckily, it’s the easiest thing in the world to change the width of a waistband, in fact this might be the easiest pattern alteration tutorial I have ever done.

I don’t recommend making your waistband wider than the 6cm finished width as you’ll need to start adding some shaping to the waistband but, a narrower waistband is a piece of cake.

You can of course just trace the original waistband, change the width and remember to add all the notches back on.

But this method is a non-destructive way to alter your sewing pattern, so you can always untape it and go back to the original width for a different cloth if you fancy.

A note for my fellow short people; you can use the same method to shorten the skirt pattern.

Learn how to adjust the depth of a waistband

Tools

Your waistband pattern
ruler
tape
Paper/pen/pencil

Decide how much narrower you’d like your waistband. The blue check skirt has a finished band width of 3.5cm, making it 2.5cm narrower than the original pattern. You can of course make it any width you fancy.
When I’m talking about finished measurements that’s the width of the completed waistband (or garment) when you’re wearing it and without any seam allowances. The thing to remember is the waistband pattern folds in half, for the outside and inside sections of a band. So you need to remove twice the amount (or the amount twice, depends how you look at it really). A very long way of saying; for the waistband to finish 2.5cm narrower you will need to remove 5cm in total from the width of the pattern.
With the waistband pattern facing upwards, draw 2 adjustment lines 5cm apart (or your chosen amount) centrally and parallel to the grainline. (The red lines in picture with the shaded area being the bit I’m getting rid off).
Fold one line to the other and tape to hold in place. We’ve literally folded a wedge out in the same way if you wanted to shorten a pattern.
Remark the grainline and the centre fold notch and you’re good to go.

If you are not sure about how wide you’d like your waistband to be, before you start changing your pattern make a quick waistband toile and try it on. Think how will you be wearing your skirt? Are you going to a wedding or an event so quite formal or will you be sitting down all day or going on holiday and looking for something more relaxed? Take a look at skirts you wear and ones in the shops and have a little measure of the waistbands you like when you try them on.

What feels right? There is no right and wrong when you make your own clothes, you can decide and change anything!

SHOP Sewing Patterns

Posted on 25/08/202425/08/2024 by mavenpatterns

I want to Paint It Blue – Fabric Painting

or How I hand painted this fabric.

Fabric painting – this post comes with a warning.

Fabric painting is hugely fun and addictive. Once you start painting your own fabric do not hold me responsible when you can’t stop!

What’s not to love about designing your own unique fabric? The paint was only £3 a pot and the brushes were about £5. If you work on stash fabrics or a pre-loved garment it’s potentially a very inexpensive way to update or create a really special garment.

Now, I’m just going to pre-face this post by saying I am not an expert at fabric painting or surface decoration. I got an idea into my head, thought about it quite a lot, bought the fabric paint and slapped it on some fabric.

Fabric Painting – Tools + Equipment

Fabric Paint in Royal Blue from Handprinted. I bought 3 pots, and used every single drop to paint the fabric for a full skirt.
Paint brushes from Søstrene Grene
Plastic sheets
Masking tape/brown paper tape
Frixon pens/fabric marker/ do a test for your fabric!

Protect The Area

No polite way of saying this – I am a messy worker. So protect the area and yourself. I covered or moved anything I didn’t want paint on and wore old clothes and an apron.

Protect your table as the paint will bleed through fabric. I taped old plastic wrappings that we had kept from fabric deliveries to the table.

Test Piece

I was a bit impatient to start painting and didn’t really have time to clear everything and paint-proof. So I did a quick test first on some scrap fabric to scratch the itch and to get a feeling for the brush stokes and how heavy/dense I wanted the strokes to look. I did a vague design by drawing with a Sharpie on pattern paper, which I could see through the fabric and gave me a guideline to follow. The ink did bleed through the fabric, rather obvious but reminded me of the need for plastic underneath the fabric. I’m not sure if the Sharpie plan was a good one, I have a niggling feeling the black sharpie ink could transfer to the fabric during fabric painting.

Fabric Painting Prep

I washed and ironed the fabric before laying it flat and wrinkle free on the table. Taped it down and made sure to keep it on grain. And, bonus points to me, I remembered to lint roller it. And remembered to put plastic sheets over the areas of fabric I wasn’t painting at the time to protect them from paint splatters. Because, as we have established, I’m messy. You could use a hairdryer to dry the paint a bit quicker but I didn’t have one with me.

I want to Paint It Black Blue

So my plan had always been to paint the fabric specifically for a Bloom Skirt, so I took quite a while to draw the skirt pattern pieces directly onto the fabric. I can recommend doing this if you are thinking of doing any kind of print placement. After which I marked a design/guidelines directly on the fabric with a Frixon pen so I could avoid crossing patterns over seams and having to pattern match at the zip and kind of line up the ‘stripes’. It was a bit vague and I didn’t follow it very precisely, and the pen did come off with the iron later.

I knew wanted a hand painted, painterly effect so you could see the brush marks, but sharp and graphic too. In the end I just starting painting and decided not to overthink it any further, not at all usual for me the queen of overthinking. That’s my best bit of advice, just start painting and don’t try to control the result too much. I played with different thickness of brushes and pressure for a variety of brushstrokes and just enjoyed the process.

And then patiently (again, highly unusual for me as I was a bit excited at this point) left it to dry overnight before I could move it to make room to paint the other bits of fabric. By this point, I was having such a jolly time I’m ready to paint anything and everything blue.

Fixing The Fabric Paint

Once dry, the fabric paint needs ironing to fix it.

So, I did a shout out on Insta as I wasn’t sure how long to iron for (it’s 2 weeks later at this point and I’d thrown away the pots) and there was lots of great advice given in the comments of the reel HERE.

There was a few suggestions to use a tumble dryer, but I don’t have one, but do have a menopausal shoulder so ironed it for as long as I could be bothered while listening to a podcast. Keep in mind this is a sample skirt for The Bloom Skirt pattern so I’m probably not going to wash and wear it as much as normal garment (if at all). I can’t confirm how it will wash at this stage but I’d suggest being a little more pedantic about fixing it correctly than I was!

My top tip would be to check your iron is actually still clean after not only pressing the fabric but after making said skirt because the ink transferred to the bottom of the iron and then onto some white linen. Totally my fault, I was very slapdash about using a pressing cloth and fixing the paint and checking the iron was still clean which is actually quite an obvious thing to check when pressing freshly painted bright blue fabric paint!

Overall, I’m delighted how the fabric turned out and looking forward to painting more at some point. Give it a try, it’s great fun!

*The Bloom Skirt is coming soon!

SHOP Sewing Patterns

Posted on 25/07/202202/08/2022 by mavenpatterns

How to lengthen The Portland Shorts

If you wanted to change the length of your Portland Shorts, don’t let the curved shape of the hem confuse you! It’s a really straight forward alteration. The trick is just to avoid cutting through the curved area, if you are making your shorts longer, so the shape doesn’t distort and the proportions of the curve stay the same.

But I’m also going to talk you through shortening The Portland Shorts and cutting straight through the hem detail, so the split doesn’t get too high on the thigh!

We have the adjustment lines already marked on The Portland Shorts. It’s a staggered line so you can decide which method works best for you. The same principal can be applied to any pattern where you have a detail you’d like to avoid changing; in this case a curve but it could be a placket or a side split that you want to keep the same length. If you don’t have an adjustment line on your pattern just draw one on, keeping it at a right angle to your grain line.

Learn how to lengthen or shorten a shorts pattern

Tools

Your pattern (or copy of your pattern if you don’t want to alter your original)
ruler
pencil
tape
Paper

Things to be aware of

If you are doing lots of alterations to your pattern, do any length adjustments first.
Keep the grainline or “place to fold line” IN A STRAIGHT LINE, do not allow them to stagger.
The Chain Effect: when altering one pattern piece, also alter the corresponding pattern piece in the same way and remember to check they still fit together after your alteration. In this case, the length of the side seams and in-seams will need to match.

ADD LENGTH TO THE PATTERN

First decide how much longer you would like your shorts. You can measure yourself or an old pair of favourite shorts.

Cut along the adjustment lines marked lengthen (highlighted in the picture) and separate the pattern piece. The line is staggered to avoid cutting through the curve of the hem.

LENGTHEN

Place a piece of paper behind your pattern and tape the top portion of your pattern to it.

Extend the grain line. Draw a line parallel to the your adjustment line the amount you need to lengthen the pattern by. Tape the lower portion of your pattern to the new line, matching up the grainline.

Join the pattern pieces back together by re-drawing the seam lines so that they are a smooth line. Then cut away any excess pattern paper.

SHORTEN

When shortening your pattern if you use the upper section of the adjustment line, the split will move upwards and potentially could sit quite high on your leg and possibly interfere with the pocket. To keep the upper most point of the split in the same place when shortening your shorts, use the lower section of the adjustment line.

First decide the amount you want to shorten your shorts by. You can measure yourself or an old pair of favourite shorts.

Cut along the adjustment lines marked shorten (highlighted in the picture) and separate the pattern pieces.

Place a piece of paper behind your pattern and tape the top portion of your shorts pattern to it.

On the pattern, draw a line parallel to the your adjustment line the amount you need to shorten the pattern by.

Overlap the pattern pieces to shorten, taping the lower portion of the pattern to the new line and matching up the grainlines.

Re-draw the in-seam and the hemline to make sure they are a nice smooth line. Then cut away any excess pattern paper.

REPEAT AND CHECK!

Make sure to do the same alteration to the front and back leg, and double check they are the same length before cutting out!

All done! Off you go and enjoy those shorts!

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Posted on 10/07/202210/07/2022 by mavenpatterns

How To Sew The Perfect V-neck

I made Eve this V-neck version of The Joy dress. The brief was a shorter Joy with a V-neck and in black. Mission accomplished! The centre back length of New Joy is 69cm (27”) and we used the Mr.M’s organic black cotton poplin, which gathers beautifully for a frill!

You may have met Eve at one of the shows, she’s our eldest daughter and head of the studio here. I actually made this last summer (you know me, never like to rush into anything, the Queen of procrasination), anyway I thought now would be a good time to share how I did it as the UK is having a heatwave and I’ve actually taken my cardi off!

This is a good little tutorial to have in your sewing kit and not just suitable for The Joy Dress as this is a good way of stitching any V-neckline finished with a facing.

I changed the front neckline but there’s no reason why you couldn’t add a sassy little V in the back too!

For the purposes of this tutorial I’ve just made a sample of the neckline to show the process of how to sew a v-neck, I haven’t made the bust darts so the neckline lays flat in a photo but you should follow the Joy Maker instructions and pop over here for the neckline sewing bit.

How To sew the perfect V-neckline.

The Pattern

First, you’ll need to alter the pattern. As always when altering a pattern trace off a copy so your original stays intact (if you have the PDF version you can always print another). You will only need to trace the front body and the front facing.

On the pattern draw in the SA (seam allowances) I’ve marked the original ones in red.

Decide how low you’d like your V to finish and mark on the pattern. I lowered Joy 4cm (marked on my pattern with the arrow).

Redraw your new neckline, my new lines are in green. I used part of the original neckline and used a slightly curved line to join to the lowered point.

You could draw a perfectly straight line if you wanted to but, and it is a personal choice, I always feel that a V-neck with a slight curve to it looks nicer and less harsh.

Add the 1cm SA( ⅜”) on and cut away the excess pattern.

Repeat for the facing. Just lay the facing and body pattern together, aligned at the top and Centre Front, and trace your new neck shape. You may know that facings should be a slightly different shape to the main body to allow for ‘turn of cloth’ but in this case, because of the straps, we are going to ignore that and keep them the exactly same neckline shape.

The Interfacing

Follow the Joy instructions (steps 1 and 2) and apply fusible stay tape to the wrong side the body at neckline and armhole. I haven’t added any to the facing but if you have a soft or drapey fabric that you would like to give a little more support to, apply interfacing tape to both the body and the facing.

Sew!

Follow the Joy instructions until you get to step 19.

At this stage you will have the straps in place. The body and facing are made and placed with right side together, and stitched together across the back and around armhole with just the neckline left to stitch.

Tips for sewing a V-neckline

Make life easier and mark in the SA with a suitable fabric marker – i.e. one that is not going to leave a permanent mark!

Nothing looks worse than an off centre V (that’s probably an exageration, but you know what I mean). I’ve marked the Centre Front line on the facing just so you can see it, you may want to mark yours.

Stitch with care so you don’t stretch the neckline.

Here’s the clever trick with stitching a ‘V’.

Using 1cm S/A( ⅜”), start at the strap and stitch towards the point. Start with your normal stitch length, and about 3cm (1½”) up from base of “V” change to a smaller stitch length.

At the ‘V’ base, rather than stitching to a point, pivot (by keeping your needle in the fabric) and stitch HORIZONTALLY across one stitch and then pivot again to continue stitching back up the other side of the neckline.

Stitch for about 3cm (1½”) with the smaller stitch length and then change back to a normal stitch length. Press the stitchline.

Snip very carefully into the SA at base of the ‘V’, right up to but not through the stitch line. It won’t turn cleanly to the right side if you don’t clip in far enough but it will fray if you cut too far!.

Trim the excess SA to 6mm (¼”) so it will turn to the right side cleanly. I rarely use the ‘clipping’ seam allowance method, trimming the SA down to 6mm gives a much smoother curve and is quicker!