April 2020 - Handmade by Carolyn

pink Axis

29/04/2020 11:50 am \ 11 Comments \ Carolyn

I absolutely love this, my new dress!! for several reasons, upon which I shall now proceed to wax lyrical…

The pattern is the Axis dress by Papercut patterns… I’ve loved this pattern company for several years… for one thing their packaging is absolutely the most beautiful of all. I know that seems like a shallow sort of a reason to buy a pattern but hey, it’s ok to be shallow when you want to be. I think we’ve all deserved that right! The patterns are printed on nice crisp brown paper, and the instructions are printed on the same paper as the pattern pieces. You cut them off and accordion-fold and glue them together to make up your little instruction book. This is a pretty fun crafty little thing to do before you make up your pattern!

Secondly, Papercut patterns are a New Zealand company, and I have a soft spot for the land of the long white cloud. Also I love to support fellow antipodeans.

Additionally, Papercut Patterns have always had this indefinable aura of the cool-girl about them, and who doesn’t want to be a cool girl, hmmm? to be honest I’ve sometimes thought some of the designs are a little … basic, but at the same time that wonderful packaging makes it worth paying for those of the designs that are more individual, if that makes sense. By the way, absolutely nothing wrong with basic patterns! and from what I’ve observed in the sewing world it’s often the most ordinary of patterns that seem to be the biggest and most popular sellers. So there you go.

In any case, I love the Axis pattern, I happen to think it’s pretty unique, and it appealed to me immediately. I also have their Sapporo pattern, and hope I can get around to it finally this year!

My fabric is a really gorgeous, slubby cotton from Fabulous Fabrics, a Christmas gift from Cassie last year. Actually we’d been shopping there together and I almost bought it for myself before Cassie stopped me, and reminded me that she needed to have a Christmas gift for me! She knows me so well!

This fabric is the same stuff from which I’ve made: this set, this dress, this dress, and this dress too; each of them just in a different colour way. You can see how much I love this fabric! I have bought some of practically every colour way it’s ever come out in, and all of these things have got worn a LOT in their time.

I made my dress to have the A-line skirt version, but I also added in the front walking slit too, which is really supposed to just be put into the straight version of the skirt, so you can walk normally of course. I take very big strides while I walk, so I did the walking slit AND the A-line cut. Rebellious!! I cut my top as a size 3 and the skirt graded out from the size 3 waist to a size 4 at hip level. This is why I make my own clothes!!

The Pocket is something I will often try to bung in to a pocketless new thing somehow, if possible… in this case I decided the best sort of pocket for this sleek, body skimming style could be a patch pocket. Craig thought they might turn out to be a mistake, spoil the line, but I stuck some on anyway, figuring I could take them off if they looked awful. But I really like them! both how they look and obviously they’ll be practical even if you can only fit slimline things like a phone, credit card and maybe a key in there… I kinda pictured them standing out from the body at the top edge rather than laying flat on the body, and fine-tuned the exact amount of “stand-out-iness” and placement in pinning trials. They are simply top-stitched in place; my slubby cotton is quite “sponge-y” and so the stitches sink into it quite beautifully.

I had not quite enough fabric to cut out the dress completely… those back bodice pieces are HUGE and you need to cut out FOUR of them! but I had nearly enough that I managed to make it all work. There is just the tiniest amount of pink voile pieced in at the top of the front facing shoulder strap.

With the front slit, you’re just supposed to turn under the seam allowance in a single layer and top-stitch it down but I finished mine with a little facing. I think this adds a small but nice amount of weight to the hem, and balances it out against the heavily faced bodice area. The facing is stitched on, trimmed, graded, turned under and under stitched, and hand slip-stitched in place at the same time I did the hem.

Look at that perfect zip!!

hmmm, so why has Carolyn just posted two sets of near identical pictures of the zip?? so maybe you can just barely detect that the zip in the second set does look a little bit pink? compared to the first? Yes, there is a little disaster story there… I originally put in that cream coloured zip above, patting myself on the back that I had a mostly suitable zip in my stash already and didn’t need to pop out and buy a new one. I even took all my pictures here with that zip in. Then I was re-pressing this brand new dress and putting it away, and what should happen but to my horror the zip just casually split open underneath the pull. Aaaagh!! I simply could NOT believe it! My brand new, perfect dress!! I tried and tried to tease the teeth back together, resurrect the zip, but it was truly stuffed and there was nothing for it; I just had to unpick the wrecked zip, and head into Spotlight to buy a new one… since I sadly did not have a second suitable zip in my stash. I made my trip worthwhile though, by picking up a little range of new threads and some more zips that I knew I’d need in the future. I tried to nobly restrain myself from buying more fabric too, but failed in such endeavours. Well, I needed to cheer myself up! You just do sometimes, you know?! Especially when one suddenly needs to replace a BRAND NEW ZIP in a BRAND NEW DRESS 🙂

I think the problem was too much bulk in the back waistband/skirt junction, since I had stupidly tread quite light while trimming the seam allowances in there… The waistband is a single piece foldover one, interfaced fully, so you end up with triple thickness of interfaced waistband, interfaced seam allowance and interfaced self-facing, add in a skirt seam allowance too, and that’s a fair amount of bulk at that junction. The zip “looked” perfectly fine, but the bulk of fabric hard up against the zip pull did make it difficult to pull up and down past that point and I’m not quite sure how it happened but it all proved too much for the mechanism. When I inserted the second new zip I aggressively trimmed away a lot of that bulk inside before stitching in the invisible zip, and this helped a lot, I think.

Anyway; zip drama notwithstanding; I still really really love this new dress! we’re still getting warm enough days every now and again that I can wear it now! and even in slightly cooler weather it’ll be still be nice with a little white tee worn underneath too.

This is my fourth thing from my #makenine but actually twelve, that I challenged myself to make for this year.

Details:

Dress; Papercut Patterns Axis dress with pockets; textured pink cotton
Sandals; ariel, from an op shop years and years ago

Posted in: sewing \ Tagged: axis, axis dress, daily outfit, dress, papercut patterns, pattern review

blue Blair jacket

22/04/2020 6:25 pm \ 10 Comments \ Carolyn

Hello! I made a new thing. It’s sort of a jacket, sort of a coat. What’s the difference between those two things anyway, I wonder? I always thought a jacket was short, like maybe no longer than hip length max, and a coat is longer, like anything past the hip. This pattern is marketed as a jacket, but also as potentially a shirt-dress, and the two variations are called duster and blazer respectively; so I guess you can take your pick! A multi-faceted design, to be sure!Whichever, it’s unlined so a very simple and quick thing to make as far as jackets go, and the boxy unfitted shape makes for an undemanding fitting process too. Oh, maybe I should mention the name of the pattern; this is the new Blair jacket pattern by Homer and Howell, and I made the duster length.

I really enjoyed making this! you normally think of jackets/coats/dusters as being quite involved but this was really easy. Even considering that I chose to bind all the raw edges inside with HongKong binding, which is a process that when you’re about to embark on it you think; oh this is going to take FOREVER… But since I figured the seam allowances were going to show every single time the coat blew open I wanted everything to look neat and tidy inside. And whenever I do get going with HongKong seaming I invariably love it, end up thinking, oh this is FAB!! and why don’t I do this for ALL the things I make, hmmm??

My fabric is a wool-blend suiting that I’ve had in my stash for years and years; so long I cannot even remember who gave it to me. Because, yes; it was donated to me from someone else’s stash once upon a time. I think maybe my grandmother’s? It’s beautiful quality, but I’d always shied away from using it because I thought the colour was absolutely terrible for me.

However right now I’m trying to be more resourceful and use le stash, stay in my house and avoid shopping as much as possible. You know, isolation and all that … so decided what the heck. That’s why dyes were invented, right? I knew the fabric wasn’t 100%wool, but it was worth a try. Sploonch! it went, straight into a navy blue dye-bath.

This actually worked out pretty well… it’s now a lovely shade of … bruise?? ok maybe I’d describe it as smokey blue, or even light teal.. anyway it’s a richly smudge-y sort of a colour that I really like and a big improvement on the original light sky-blue. For the HongKong seaming I used an olive green poplin from my stash too.

Buttons! well obviously I had nothing that matched in size or colour AT ALL and normally I’d pop off to the shops to search for something. But see I’d made up my mind to work from my stash, and giving in on the buttons would be such a fail… so fresh on the heels of making my tea-cup for the bridal shower hat, I thought I’d try to make some from modelling clay. I think they worked out really well!

I don’t think I’ll be tossing the coat in the washing machine any time soon, just in case, although I’m sure they would probably survive fine. Maybe just a gentle hand-wash. But look at them! I LOVE them! I especially love how slightly wonky they are. Of course any and all wonkiness was completely intentional 😉

I’m just going to briefly mention the changes I made to the pattern:

I switched the orientation of the box pleat in the back to be an “innie” rather than an “outie”

I added a hanging loop inside the collar/yoke seam

I put in BIG inseam pockets into the side seams. Yes, there are now pockets in the Blair pattern, but I was a tester for this pattern and they weren’t in the original design. I NEED pockets in a coat! so I actually went in with the seam ripper and added some in after I’d finished the coat completely.

Here’s a little video on the making of this coat, now up on my YouTube channel… I’d like to say that the quality of my videos is improving, but I still haven’t worked out how to even add music. I feel like such a youtube failure! but it’s such a lot to even get this out. I’m trying to improve!

Anyway, blogging/vlogging fails aside; the final verdict is that I’m going to love wearing this… coats are not an awfully common sight here in Perth, we’re so ridiculously casual here, to a fault! But I really love coats, both the making and the wearing of them; and I really love looking at pictures of Northern hemisphere bloggers wearing coats regularly that I’m going to just do it anyway. This is one of those things that is kinda un-Perth, even though I’m deeply Perth in just about every way. This is weird, but it’s just the way it is 🙂

Details:

Coat; the blair jacket pattern byHomer and Howells, in a wool mix suiting
Dress; the Cissy dress pattern by Homer and Howells in a rust coloured lace, underlined with pink/rust dyed cotton, details here
Tights; my own design, black stretch stuff, details here
Black shoes; my own design and made by me, details here
Floral dress; based upon Simplicity 8658, floral cotton gauze, details here
White shoes; designed and made by me, details here

Posted in: sewing, Uncategorized \ Tagged: blair, coat, daily outfit, dyeing, handcrafts, handicrafts, homer and howells, jacket, pattern review

I sewed selflessly

21/04/2020 9:07 pm \ 4 Comments \ Carolyn

So, I sewed some stuff!

Item A; a dress for Mum to wear to Cassie’s wedding…

I started out with Burda style 09/2019; 109 because I thought the sleeve cuff really lovely; however I ran up a muslin – actually 2 – and we decided the cut-on sleeve just wasn’t that nice and that a set-in sleeve would be much better. So I ended up re-tracing and -fitting the Esme pattern from Lotta Jansdotter’s Everyday Style book again since Mum had really like the one I made for her previously. I just adapted the sleeve to have the Burda cuff on the sleeve end.

The fabric is a really beautiful, green polka-dotted ivory crepe from Fabulous Fabrics; Mum and I went in together and chose it one morning. Fun! I didn’t use the neckline facing pieces, opting in stead to fully line the dress with an ivory lining that I already had in my stash, the lining negated any need for a facing… Mum kindly hemmed the dress herself since I was seriously running out of time by the end of it! The dress shell has french seams throughout, though I used the overlocker for the lining.

At the same time that we bought the fabric, Mum bought a length of emerald green chiffon and finished it with a hand-rolled hem to make herself a lovely matching scarf.

I thought she looked absolutely lovely!

Item B; a shirt for part of Cassie’s birthday pressie…

For her birthday, we went out together and bought a few lengths of fabric which I was to make into some simple work outfits for her. Of course now she’s working from home but that’s ok; at least she’s still working!

This is pattern 02/2015; 113, adapted to be much slimmer in the body due to the fact that I didn’t buy enough fabric, ahem… that’s fine since the style is so super wide I think Cassie would have requested it be slimmed down anyway! This thing is BOXY!! I also had to leave off the sleeve cuffs, but Cassie absolutely loves it just as it is :)..

The gorgeous polka-dot fabric is a linen from Fabulous Fabrics. The buttons are leftovers from Kelly’s wedding dress!

I did manage to snap one photo of her wearing the top! kinda a miracle given how crazy busy we were before the wedding, and then I’ve barely been able to see her after the wedding during these virus social-isolation times… this is her on the eve of her wedding, when she was preparing to practice her father/daughter dance with Craig… yes, she’s wearing her wedding shoes of course 🙂

I actually made a little video on the making of this blouse, which was fun. I’m hoping to make more of these for my YouTube channel 🙂

Item C; some shorts for Cassie’s birthday. For these I started with the Closet Case patterns Pietra shorts and did the same elastic-waist elimination that I did for my own shorts… shown here.

The fabric is a cotton twill from Spotlight, in Cassie’s favourite duck-egg/mint green colour.

Item D; another little top for Cassie… this is the Closet Case patterns Cielo top, lengthened slightly. This is a lovely little pattern and I will definitely be using this one again! No other adjustments.

The pretty rose-print is a linen from Fabulous Fabrics. I should say, that while these pieces are all a gift from me to Cassie, she did choose the fabrics herself. We had a lovely fun morning checking out fabrics and chatting about work-wardrobe possibilities!

Items E & F; I made two different masks for myself. I haven’t used them very much but am really trying to get more used to the idea! When we’ve visited Japan I’ve seen lots of people wearing masks all the time of course, and while I think they’re a great idea, especially in our current virus-centric lives, we’re just completely unaccustomed to wearing them here in Australia and it’s really hard to get used to it. I find them very claustrophobic and a little difficult to breath in them!

The first one, above; I used this pattern/tutorial on the Makers Habitat YouTube channel, it has a lining with an opening so you can insert a filter inside. It’s a nice straightforward pattern, very quick and easy to make. I added a skinny channel to the top, and cut a short length of wrapped florist’s wire to insert in there for a nose support; this can be removed for washing.

This second one I used the Trend patterns free mask pattern, here. This is also a nice pattern, very “designed” and I really like it, but I did find I had to fold a quite wide dart in the under-chin piece to get a good fit. Also it is a more complex and involved thing to make than the previous pattern, For both masks I used a leftover piece of cotton from my stash, the most tightly woven and with the densest thread count I could find! They are both lined with cotton voile. The ties are just thin strips of cotton jersey, cut with my rotary cutter, left unhemmed, threaded through the side channels and simply knotted.

Posted in: sewing, Uncategorized \ Tagged: blouse, Burda 02/2015;113, Burda 09/2019;109, Cassie, cielo, Closet Case files, dress, esme, lotta jansdotter, mask, Mum, pietra, shorts, top

paper-bag waist

15/04/2020 3:35 pm \ 9 Comments \ Carolyn

I’ve just made these ridiculously comfy trousers! perfect for lounging around while you do your work-from-home thing in these newly strange and scary times. I adore them unreservedly. Well, it’s the paper-bag waist, have had a soft spot for them since the 80’s… incidentally, you know how they say that if you remember a trend the first time around then you should scrupulously avoid it the second time around? Well, what a load of tosh! There’d be no trends left for us if we followed that crazy advice!

Because yes indeedy, this is actually a familiar little style that pops its head up pretty frequently to the joy of us who do love for our trousers to be comfortable but at the same time have an abiding aversion to an elastic waist. Personally, I reckon the paper-bag waist isn’t so much of a “trend” any more but can rightfully claim the classic tag.

I made them using this really gorgeous, quite thin, bottle green cotton corduroy from Minerva Crafts… it’s absolutely beautiful stuff. Then again I’ve always been a huge corduroy fan, it’s one of my favourite fabrics of all time actually, for winter things I mean. It’s like velvet, but better; easier to sew and wear, and to care for too. I ordered quite a lot of this colour way and I have enough leftover for a simple little dress or a tunic or something. Hmmm. brain clogs a whirling!!

The pattern is the Jasmin trousers, by Fibremood. Fibremood releases a great little range of patterns each season for women and children, I really look forward to their releases and love checking them out. Each issue caters to a range of sewing levels, usually featuring some easy-wearing basics and styles that are both chic and comfortable, and a nice scattering of surprises with every issue. I thought this style was one of the surprises, but I just found myself homing in on it straight away! 🙂

These ones have very up-to-the-minute, turned-up cuffs on cropped legs, a good amount of room in the seat without being excessively baggy – remember these? although I ended up adoring those too, once I’d taken them in a bit!! The Jasmin trousers are easy and straightforward to make and I thought the fly front very well explained. I often find it helpful to draw and cut out a stitching guide for the topstitching of the fly front curve if a pattern does not provide it, and this one doesn’t; however it’s a simple matter to draw one up.

The pockets are nice and and roomy enough. I hand stitched the top edge of mine to the waistband facing edge.

I love how the paper bag waist is cinched in with a big wide self-belt to define the waist. Acting on instinct I cut my belt out for the biggest size with a plan to shorten it later if it proved too long. It may or may not be ok, partly because I don’t have the required D-rings of the right width to finish it, and I didn’t really want to head out to Spotlight during these isolation times, just for D-rings; so I’ve had to resort to just tying the belt in a knot. I might shorten it still but just going to see how it goes for a little while.

I happened to have a perfectly matching zip in my stash! which is super lucky because I meant I didn’t need to go out for that either. 🙂 This is one I inherited from Mum yonks ago, and it had a real vintage tag. Sometimes I worry about truly vintage zips, that they’re going to break straight away, from being rusty, or brittle. It seems fine so far, and it doesn’t have to take any strain so I’ve got my fingers crossed!

wow… I can assure you that all that random fluff is actually quite invisible to the naked eye!

I just couldn’t resist the Paper Bag Shot! It’s a pretty rare thing where I have ever had to stand or walk with a covering over my head like this and actually I found it quite difficult to keep my balance! Was very disorienting, and made me wonder about learning to balance without the visual cues of your surroundings…

Anyway; I LOVE my new trousers, and they’re wonderful for comfortable working from home on the couch. My own work has dropped off a little lately, but I have taken up learning a language to fill in some of my extra time. I’m using the Duolingo app on my phone, a free one; it’s a great little system, sending me daily reminders so I have to keep up the pace. What language, do I hear you ask… I’ll give you one guess…

🇯🇵

Well, of course, Japanese! It’s super difficult. I think the only thing I’m going to learn to say with any real competency is “Professor Maria can speak Japanese and English” This should stand me in good stead for the future, a future in which I hope I can go over there for fabric shopping again! Let’s think positively!

Details:

Trousers; the Jasmin trousers by Fibremood, in green corduroy from Minerva Crafts
White top; the nettie, but Closet Case patterns, details here
Beige shoes; designed and made by me! details here
old favourite mustard top; the Sudley blouse, by Megan Nielsen patterns, in a silk crepe from Tessuti, details here
Sandals; from an oppy, many yonks ago

Note; was even harder to paper-bag balance in heels!

out in ze wilde….

Posted in: sewing \ Tagged: daily outfit, fibre mood, jasmin, pants, pattern review, trousers

Cassie’s wedding dress

06/04/2020 6:24 pm \ 39 Comments \ Carolyn

Oh hey! I made a dress for my daughter! it’s a rather special one actually… 😉

So where to begin…well of course I’m teasing; my darling girl recently married her man D and this is her wedding dress, that I might have mentioned before once… or maybe twice, tops.

I’ve already written about making the petticoats, three of them, in fact. Cassie loves to dance and was determined to do lots of it at her wedding, so wanted a beautifully twirly skirt. She also decided she wanted a shorter skirt, hitting above the ground, and wanted it to stand out full and stiff in a 50s sort of a way, which meant plenty of oomph underneath was required.

I made a very full tulle petticoat, and two simple full circle cotton voile petticoats; one to go underneath the tulle petticoat, close to her skin, for comfort; and the other one to go over the tulle petticoat to smooth out any lumps and bumps that the tulle might form underneath the silk skirt.

Full details of making these can be found here

I’ll just quickly slot some shoe talk in here; when she decided upon a shorter skirt, the shoes became an important consideration… we searched and searched, trying on multiple pairs of lovely wedding shoes but then Cassie decided she wanted green shoes; and not just any green. She had the exact shade of green she wanted in mind, and anything else was just not going to cut it. What do you do in this circumstance? well you dye your own shoes, of course! We found a pair of pale bone/beige coloured suede sandals at Hobbs, with a nice low heel and straps to make them perfect for dancing, Cassie bought some Kelly green Rit dye from Spotlight, and over several painting sessions and rinsing in between, finally achieved the perfect shade of minty green. Aren’t they gorgeous?!

Now back to the dress … maybe I should start with the fabrics? All were purchased at Fabulous Fabrics, and shortly after her engagement Cassie and I spent a highly enjoyable morning there playing with lots of beautiful laces and silks. And she chose the most beautiful of them all!! which we proceeded to cut up, overlay each other and generally re-arrange to become something totally and completely and utterly different from how they started. Sigh. That seems to be the story my wedding dress-making life, so far!

The bodice itself underneath all that lace is made of beige silk charmeuse, and the skirt itself is heavy duchess silk satin, just about the most divinely heavy and lustrous fabric I could imagine. So beautiful!!!

For a pattern, we started with Vogue 8470, and almost totally altered it of course. Just as I did with Kelly’s dress, Cassie had a firm vision about how she wanted her dress to be, and so we hunted for a pattern that had the right bones and started hacking. The bodice fronts of the pattern come down in a gentle V and are gathered underneath the bust into the middle bodice, and we gently re-shaped this into the shape Cassie wanted – she wanted more low-cut, for a start; and tailored to fit her which entailed a small bust adjustment, and made the gathers into a smooth dart instead. The middle part of the bodice is different too, a little shallower and with a flatter curve, to fit with the lace placement that she had designed. The bodice back of the pattern is a quite low-cut scoop, which we transformed to a full coverage back with a much higher neckline, right up to the nape of her neck.

I love the slight bustle effect of the lace peplum at the back! My favourite part of the back view 🙂

The skirt of this pattern is simple enough; a full circle, and I added large pockets. Pockets! in a wedding dress! just about every girl’s dream, right?! I’m not sure if she actually put anything into them, maybe just her hands I think! but at least they were there.

With the placement of lace on the bodice; this is 100% Cassie’s artistic vision and mostly her work too! Cassie wanted heavy coverage of well-defined “structural”-looking large scale lace over a gridded background; and I think she did an absolutely magnificent job! I had very little to do with this bit, just some technical advice and I did occasionally pick up the dress and do a little bit of hand stitching of lace when she wasn’t around; but the artistic placement and nearly all the stitching is totally her effort. My clever daughter!!

I did do that “grid” bit in the middle of the bodice… we had some pre-beaded grid from one of our purchased laces, which we used here and there as a background in other parts of the bodice, but it was in small bits and pieces and the size of the remaining pieces weren’t enough to cover this part of the bodice. So I re-created the same look with hand-embroidery and -beading over beige netting for this bit. Those bias strips of duchess satin were pinned down before attaching the lace, then hand-stitched on afterwards.

I had a tiny headache with the zip; Cassie wanted the bodice to be quite tight-fitting so I’d stupidly made the bodice quite tight-fitting; and didn’t take into account that fully hand-appliqueing something has a tendency to shrink it in a little bit. Halfway through all that hand-work one day, she tried it on and we could barely get the zip up … it was awful, I was terrified it was going to split! Fortunately, even though I’d been too dumb to think about the shrinkage thing, I had been smart enough at least to leave a nice wide seam allowance for the zip… so I could unpick the zip and re-insert it, letting it out a bit. Disaster averted! and when you’re hand appliquéing a random lace design like this it’s a simple matter to take off, re-arrange and add more lace motifs to cover up an alteration in an invisible way!

pre-appliqué…

Just like I did for Kelly’s dress, I added a grosgrain belt to the bodice/skirt seam allowance inside, with a sturdy skirt hook/eye to carry the weight of that skirt. It’s hidden underneath the bodice lining for the most part, and emerges just either side of the zip in two little buttonholes in the lining, so the girls could hook it up at the back before doing up the zip of the dress. I didn’t take any pictures of this bit unfortunately, but you can see what I mean in the post on Kelly’s dress here.

I was smart this time, and didn’t stitch on the hook and eye until AFTER I’d pushed the grosgrain ends through the button holes. I don’t think I mentioned this for Kelly’s, but when I made hers I stitched on the hook and eye very firmly and ultra-securely before trying to push them through those buttonholes in the lining. It took aaaaaages to carefully tease the metal hook and eye through those slightly-too-small holes! but I was determined and eventually got them through. It was like giving birth though; a tight squeeze! This time I did it right, though!

I don’t know what else to say… oh maybe only hemming the dress? This took a surprisingly loooooong time… like I think it was a whole full weekend, from memory; and by that I mean two full seven-eight hour days. I made a long cotton voile bias strip and stitched this to the raw skirt edge first, bound the edge, and then handstitched a lovely deep hem. The skirt is just the teensiest bit shorter than the tulle skirt, because we both love the look of just a hint of tulle peeping out underneath. Of course, on the day I realised that when you’re standing up and looking down at the skirt from a normal head-height like every single person at a wedding, you can’t even see that tiny hint of tulle! it’s visible only when you’re lying down with your head on the floor dressmaker-style carefully measuring a hem! Haha!!

But I’m not even the slightest bit unhappy about that of course, my only thought when looking at these pictures of Cassie is that she is the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen, and that making her dress was both a lifelong dream come true and the greatest and happiest sewing creation of my life. Oh dear, and now I’m NOT going to cry! Here, have a massive overdose of pictures instead!

this completely spontaneous snap is my favourite picture of Cassie and her cousins… yes I made their dresses too! all details of their dresses here

These earrings; this was her something old and something borrowed… Mum had some pearl earrings, and she also had some pearl earrings she had inherited from her own Mum; my grandmother and of course Cassie’s great-grandmother. Mum had great-Granny’s earring re-made from a clip-on to a pierced backing, so Cassie could wear one earring from her grandmother and one from her great-grandmother at her wedding. This is so so special, it makes me well up a bit just to even think about this…

I actually made this polka-dot blouse for Cassie quite recently, I just haven’t blogged about it yet. Also; that Stormtrooper toiletries bag? I actually made that for Daniel a few years ago! the pattern is part of the Portside set by Grainline patterns

Wearing the earrings… also; Cassie’s hair…

Something blue; I embroidered a commemmorative patch to go inside Cassie’s dress, just like I did with Kelly’s… want to hear something crazy? I stitched, unpicked, and re-stitched this SIX times…

the three pieces of my heart…

I can’t wait to see all these precious peeps again…

Sam and his lady L… L kindly acted as one of our models for the Perth dress

I regret that Mum isn’t in this picture mostly because that would have been so lovely, and also because I made her dress too…

Posted in: sewing, Uncategorized \ Tagged: applique, beading, Cassie, dress, dyeing, embroidery, own design, vogue 8470, wedding, wedding dress

bridesmaids

04/04/2020 5:27 pm \ 15 Comments \ Carolyn

Cassie wanted her three cousins, my brother’s three daughters, to be her bridesmaids; and look how beautiful they are! It was so much fun and a totally lovely and enjoyable experience for me to make these dresses for my gorgeous nieces. I’d occasionally made little things for them when they were tiny, but truthfully it’s been a while. It made me very happy to create lovely things for them, and for Cassie’s special day too 🙂

We had lots of discussions about the dresses; initially we were thinking of the traditional identical dresses, but thinking on it further, the idea of different dresses seemed a lot more practical. Three sisters, who can and often do! borrow each other’s clothes, would find a lot more use for three different dresses, than three identical dresses. And everyone wants for the bridesmaids to get further use from the dresses!

We did however, make the dresses the “same” in the sense that I used the same pattern for each dress. Namely; view B of Simplicity 1195. This is actually just the “slip” designed to be worn underneath the “proper” lace overdresses of the pattern, but it gave us the perfect, spaghetti-strapped, princess seamed bodice with a nice twirl-irific A-line skirt that we were hunting for. Side note; it’s amazing how a lovely simple basic pattern like this is actually quite rare; we searched ALL the pattern books and this was basically the only one that fit the bill! Amazing!!

Even then, it still needed a few tweaks… the pattern is actually a little drop-waisted and the girls wanted a true waist seam. Luckily, a very easy adjustment. Also I made each dress to be fully lined, obviously. And the pattern runs quite large; I traced out the correct size for each girl and it was really quite baggy; I had pin in all the seams quite aggressively to get the bodice to fit.

I wanted the three dresses to look the same on each girl, so I made muslins for each one to perfect the fit. My Mum early on said; it’s going to be so easy to make their dresses because they’re all the same size!! And I was immediately like; No Mum, they are NOT the same size! Mum; But they wear each other’s clothes all the time! Yes, they can wear each clothes reasonably easily; which is great! because I love the thought that they are going to be able to swap and wear each other’s dresses in the future. But that does not mean they have the same bodies, because they are actually very different, sharing none of the same measurements.

So I made three muslins too. I hardly ever make muslins, only for the most important of important-est of items. So this is a stupendous honour, just so you know 😉

Fabrics! All the dress fabrics were bought at Fabulous Fabrics. We had a great fun morning searching for the perfect colours … well; I actually left the four girls to play with fabrics and make their choices while I happily browsed fabrics and pattern books by myself. And just handed over the credit card at the appropriate time. And successfully managed to not buy anything for myself at the same time! A very good day! Cassie had made a mood board for her wedding, and chose the three colours from those on her board.

Also, it’s funny; but finding the matching lining fabric for each colour was almost as as much of a hunt as anything else! We found the perfect yellow lining fabric at Fabulous Fabrics at the same time as we bought the dress fabrics, but not any of the other colours … I eventually found a good sage green match at Spotlight, and the pink dress is actually lined with ivory lining fabric, that I had already in my stash. All three matching invisible zips I found at Spotlight.

T’s dress, in sage green; and J’s dress, in golden yellow are made in the same crepe-back satin as each other, and the pink fabric for C’s dress is a much lighter weight, slightly crinkly crepe. Cassie was quite worried that the pink was a different fabric but it was exactly the right colour so I assured her we could make it work. And it worked out absolutely fine, of course! Because it is a much more lightweight fabric with a tiny amount of crinkle-based stretch to it, I did need to make a few changes to the construction technique of this one… for example; to stabilise the bodice of the pink dress, I constructed it so the lining plays a far more structural role with the dress/lining sewn firmly together at the waist seam as well as at the top edge.

Also, the pink spaghetti straps had a slightly elastic quality, and I did NOT want for them to stretch out over wear obviously!, so I threaded a length of cotton crewel thread through the straps, and stitched it to the straps themselves very firmly at the bodice junction; so this behaves like an ersatz “backbone” that provides hidden support and stops the straps from stretching. Just a little secret tip/trick that no one would ever know!

I also took the step of hand-basting the seam allowances of the pink bodice down after grading. I can’t explain exactly why I chose to take this extra step, just call it a hunch about a difficult fabric.

The green and yellow satin-backed crepe is a far more stable fabric, so these dresses have the more traditional lined dress construction, with dress and lining free from each other from top edge down.

I attached ribbon hanging loops to the waistband of each dress; this was leftover ribbon from my stash.

It was a lot of work making the three dresses, but I thoroughly enjoyed it! the fact that they were three different colours made it so much more enjoyable than if they had been the same, I think. I machine-stitched the lining hems, and I want to give a big shout-out to Cassie who then hand-hemmed the dresses themselves for me. This is always a much huge-er job than you originally anticipate, so I’m so grateful that she stepped in and took over this important, and arguably rather fiddly part of the process. Thanks, darling!

These are the bouquets for the wedding, constructed by Daisy Hill Flowers… aren’t they the most stunning?!! I was blown away when they were delivered! And I love how the colours of the girls are selected in the bouquets too.

Daisy Hill Flowers also decorated the wedding cake. The wedding cake was a doughnut cake! made by Krispy Kreme! this was what D, Cassie’s new husband wanted. His one request, as it were… 😉 I think it turned out absolutely gorgeous, and the doughnuts were delicious too!

Cassie made the cake stand herself … she searched and searched for a nice stand online and in stores but nothing was just right. So, she made it herself, as you do. Or should I say, as we do?! She’s such a product of her family…!! Sam took her to the Men’s Shed one day; he does a lot of woodworking projects there, and she cut out the rounds. She brought them around to our place, where she painted them all white, and then got the perspex rod cut into the appropriate length, and drilled and screwed them together. Bam! I’m so proud of my resourceful and clever daughter…