Yearly Archives: 2016

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a townhouse dress

08/01/2016 11:19 am \ 33 Comments \ Carolyn

This new dress is the latest step in my current project to add some architectural whimsy to Cassie’s work wardrobe …. and it was barely off the machine when she wanted to wear it to work straight away, like the next day, meaning today! I took these pictures before she popped off this morning, looking exactly like this…

I consider that the hugest compliment 🙂

That townhouse print though; it did cause me a wee bit of angst… how on earth to make it into something that was going to look cute and fun and funky and stylish? You know with some prints the subject material is absolutely perfect for a person, but the print itself is kinda messy and busy and so has the potential to be disastrous? It’s one of those prima donna prints, I felt it would look overpowering in a dress with a sleeve, also I knew it would not play nicely with many other colours/prints; likewise any design details like draping or … well anything at all, was OUT. At first I thought about making a very simple plain sleeveless shift, but still worried that it would look a little naf.

When the idea of a white raglan sleeve occurred to me was an instant kapowww! that this could work out quite cute after all. The white raglan sleeve lends it that little bit of a fun and sporty vibe and just takes the right amount of edge off the messy print. The sleeve fabric came from an old puffed hem dress *shudder* which Cassie tossed out. I’ve kept it because it has a mass of lovely soft ivory jersey fabric in it.

Once the raglan lightbulb had popped up it was all super easy from there… I used my own raglan sleeve Tshirtpattern, that I’d worked out years ago from laying down and drawing around an old Tshirt … in a time when patterns for raglan sleeve Tshirt were non-existent! Yes, it’s hard to believe now there are tonnes of patterns available everywhere, but for a long time and until quite recently some design features were very difficult to get hold of. We had to hunt for them, and be creative and innovative and sometimes very devious in order to get what we wanted. The elusive Raglan Sleeve tee was one such rare beastie. I think it was often assumed that patterns for basics were something you either had already, or could work it out yourself with no pattern by cutting up an old one.

Collar band, simple folded band done using this method; sleeve and lower edges overlocked, turned up once and stitched on the machine with a twin needle. All seams stitched and overlocked inside to finish.

Details:

Dress; elongated raglan sleeve tee, body custom fitted to Cassie. No pattern, townhouse print fabric from Fabulous Fabrics, ivory jersey harvested from an old dress
Shoes; Melissa

Posted in: sewing \ Tagged: Cassie, dress, own design

village dress, for Cassie

03/01/2016 9:46 pm \ 47 Comments \ Carolyn

It’s taken a while but I’ve finally taken pictures of Cassie wearing the dress I made for her for Christmas!

The fabric is a crepe printed with Cinqueterre-like, or Amalfi-coast-like villages, and we both loved it upon first sight. I knew at once it would be perfect for her, and make a fun little dress for her to wear to work. See, she works in an office, but it is a creative field, and apparently most of her female colleagues dress quite fun and funky, more arty than corporate. And previously she had mentioned in a slightly wistful tone that she was the most conservative dresser in her office.
My Christmas pressie radar immediately perked up.

O reaaaaaally!!!

Fortunately for her, she has a mother who will pick up on even the vaguest of vague-hints, well, when they’re sewing related that is, not so much other stuff that is.. um, less sewing-related ahem. Anyway, I’m launching the fun-and-funky-wardrobe goal right here and now. I sneakily snuck back to Fabulous Fabrics on my own and deviously bought some of the village print… mwahahaha.

btw, it’s faaaaaaar harder to hide Christmas sewing from Cassie than it is the boys! who pay precisely zero attention to whatever I’m mucking about with in the laundry… Cassie is a high probability to go snooping around the stash to periodically pet the fabrics and select stuff for herself. I had to be SUPER devious to get this made without her twigging as to what was going on… and she was completely surprised! Yay!!!

For a pattern, I chose Burdastyle magazine 02/2015, number 107, a little loose, raglan-sleeved, gathered into the neckline, tunic style of dress. It has inseam side pockets and an elasticised waist that sits up on the hips, allowing extra length above to loosely blouse out over it. The dress looks adorable when worn by a person, but unfortunately I think it comes across as kind of dumpy on a dummy and, dare I say it, positively heinous on the hanger… prime reason why I decided to wait until she could model it for me herself! In the meantime it has been a great success; having been washed and worn enthusiastically to work several times already. There is no greater compliment…!

The print was aligned crosswise and I laid down the pieces that way too, to have the houses “upright” in the dress. I found 2m of 150cm wide fabric to be sufficient. My fabric is quite see-through, so I lined it with ivory poly-crepe, the same fabric I used for my ivory Ruby slip… and I made the necktie in ivory as well. Actually I first made the necktie in the village-y print but it looked way too busy and a little overpowering so I made another one in ivory and it looks about a thousand times better. I suggested getting black fabric and making it in black instead but she likes the ivory.

I have some thoughts on the pattern construction too… skip this bit if you’re not making the pattern since it’s not going to make any sense otherwise…

Although it looks short on the model in the magazine, it didn’t look that short when made up so I removed about 9cm off the bottom to get the same look. Sleeves are about 2cm shorter.

The way they’re written; the instructions are a touch confusing since for much of it you’re bouncing back and forth between different construction notes, for style 105 and 106, and to complicate things the neckband of style 105 is very different from that of 107, since it has a collar whereas 107 is collar-less! and there’s zero mention of the collar-less version in the instructions… so you sort of have to work it out alone. I attached the folded neckband to the neckline in one pass, gathered it up inside the seam allowance a little, then overlocked the raw edges along the gathering inside. This helps pull the neckline in a little tighter, and the necktie does the rest of the work in gathering up that wide neckline.

With the pockets, the instructions have you stitch up the side seams, THEN insert the pockets… well I always do it the other way around, so it was kind of a whaaat? moment for me. Anyway, gave it a whirl. It works fine, of course… just thought I’d mention it because it was different… 🙂

I made a size 36, Cassie’s usual size, but in the course of making it I tried it on a few times, just to check various bits and pieces, and found it worked perfectly well on me too, a size 38. Something to keep in mind if you’re a larger size but only have enough fabric for a smaller size!

Anyway whatever; she loves it, I love it on her I think she looks adorable in it, so the final verdict; a great success!

Details:

Dress; Burdastyle magazine 02/2015-107 also available here, crepe
Sandals; Sportscraft, mine! I’ve had these for about 10 years or so

Posted in: sewing \ Tagged: Burdastyle 02/2015-107, Cassie, dress, pattern review

welt pocket in a shearling coat

01/01/2016 9:14 pm \ 20 Comments \ Carolyn

SO! I’m currently making a shearling jacket to take to our much anticipated trip to snowier climes, coming up v v soon… eeeeeeeeeeeeeee! I can’t wait!!

Anyway, I’ve put a couple of welt-like pockets in, and found it necessary to devise a method just a tiny bit different from the usual. So, I took a few pictures to show how I did it…

First, cut two pocket pieces in the shearling, two pocket pieces in a lining fabric, and two welts in shearling. Cut the pieces biggish, at least a little bigger than you think you will need, just in case. Remember the golden rule, you can always trim a little extra away, but you can never ever add it! For the pocket lining I used an ivory cotton denim from the leftovers of my favourite flared jeans.

Try on the coat and determine the position of the pockets, mark with pins. Lay the two fronts together to transfer markings to the other front piece, and measure several times to ensure the markings are symmetrical.

Cut pocket opening between the marks, no less than 3cm shorter than the welt piece. To give an idea of lengths; my welt is 20cm long and my pocket opening is 16.5cm… but my hands are pretty big and a small handed person may not need quite so big an opening 🙂

Lay the shearling pocket piece underneath the top edge of the pocket opening, pinning the pieces together with an overlap of 1cm (below L). Stitch from the top side, in a a double row of closely-spaced stitching. (below R)

Finish the raw top edge of the pocket lining with overlocking stitch, then lay over the shearling pocket piece, aligning all raw edges and pinning the pieces roughly together near the top (below L). From the outside of the coat, turn in the top edge of the pocket lining piece and pin to the pocket opening edge (below R). From the outside of the coat and keeping the shearling pocket piece free, topstitch in a double row of closely spaced stitching

Now stitch a few backward/forward passes of stitching along the two short edges of the pocket opening through all thicknesses.(below)

Unpin pocket pieces from each other, and lay shearling pocket piece away from the welt, pin it up well out of the way… likewise, pin the pocket lining piece in position to the coat (below L). Lay the welt piece, right sides together to the coat, underneath the pocket opening and pin; stitch together catching the pocket lining piece in underneath (below R) Note; it’s better to lay the welt closer to the pocket opening edge than pictured below right, as in with the welt raw edge hard up against the pocket opening… but I neglected to take a picture in the correct position, sorry!)

Turn up the welt, pin in position, and again keeping the shearling pocket piece free but the pocket lining piece pinned in position; topstitch 6mm outside the previous stitching (below L) Unpin the shearling pocket piece and lay it back against the pocket lining. Now is the time to determine the finished, desired size of the pocket… try the coat on, measure and trim pocket pieces as desired; finish the raw edge of the pocket lining with overlocking stitch, and stitch pocket and pocket lining pieces together, right sides together. (below R)

Pin the welt up into position. At this point, determine if it needs trimming or neatening up; I eyeballed mine and decided to trim 1cm off the long free edge; a purely aesthetic choice. Once you’re satisfied with its proportions, topstitch it in position along both short edges with two evenly spaced rows of topstitching.

And… pocket done! At this point, I actually decided the pocket itself was still a little too big, and trimmed and re-stitched the curved edges… no biggie, it’s pretty easy to do this, even at this late stage since it’s tucked away inside the coat. That’s a personal choice! Also, technically this is not a pure welt pocket but a sort of faux-welt pocket really… maybe you could call it a sort of patch cover over a welt-less pocket?! 😀

I hope this tutorial is useful to someone, please do leave me a comment to let me know if you have found it helpful. Like everyone, I do love comments!