I’ve made this new dress #surprise! This beautiful poppy printed silk chiffon was a birthday present from my lovely thoughtful Mum… we were browsing together in Fabulous Fabrics and oohing and aahing over it, and she suddenly announced “I’d like to get that for you for your birthday!” And she even chose the pattern I was to use, which is of course Vogue 1351, anyone who has read this blog for even a short amount of time will know how much I LOVE this Donna Karan pattern since I’ve used it a few times. Actually four times before, to be exact; here, here, here and here. To my mind its silhouette has a perfect simplicity, or should that be that it is simply perfect? Either or!
The poppy chiffon is very delicate and sheer. The background is actually pure white, however I chose to line my dress with a off-white polyacetate lining fabric. I chose the off-white over pure white, because it was noticeable softer, the overall effect of the pure white was surprisingly harsh. I’m not really at my best in pure, pure white, even though I love it; a softer ivory-white is a lot better for me.
invisible zip in left side seam; this is always my preferred zip placement!
I’ve worn it several times already, the first time on Remembrance Day, when Mum, Dad, Craig and I went to visit the RSL poppy tribute at Kings Park. I chose to wear it a) because of Remembrance Day, of course! and b) because Mum and Dad were staying with us and I wanted to show them the lovely birthday present they had given to me!
Wait, the poppy tribute? Well, this year, 61,513 hand-knitted and crocheted poppies were made and “planted” by RSL volunteers, one poppy for each Australian lost at WW1. Seeing them and walking through the exhibit; the sheer number of them, was such a very sobering, very humbling and very moving experience. Speaking, um “craft-ily”, as it were; so much care and love and thought had obviously gone in to each and every poppy too, some had buttons, that we read were often included for their significance to the family in some way, like from a uniform or something. The exhibit was only on for four days, so we felt very fortunate we thought about it and went, and I was also very pleased to hear that the exhibit will be returning again in future years.
I did think about getting a picture of my dress at the exhibit, but once we got there I felt that would be disrespectful. I mean, while the poppies themselves were beautiful and spectacular and a visual treat to behold, of course I realised how very wrong it would be to treat them like a photo backdrop to my dress. Though a few ladies passing by did comment that my dress was “perfect for the day” which was very nice.
I did take a picture of Mum and Dad though…
I next wore the dress just recently, we had a gorgeously warm, but windy! weekend and we went for a lovely long afternoon walk at the beach, and I grabbed the opportunity to take some pictures… does Clara look incredibly wet and sandy in this picture? Well, that’s because she is!! I was wondering if she was going to jump up on me, or shake sopping sand all over me with one of those doggy full-body shakes.
Actually caught her partway through one said full-body shake below… and thank goodness she’s waaaaaaaay way over there! Normally she’ll come right up to you before letting loose, and I’m telling you, this is one ultra-fluffy hairy doggy, and she can carry a heckuvva lot of water and sand in that there gorgeous coat of hers!
plus bonus random bird! hey birdie!
Aaaaand there’s my husband, being very polite and keeping well out of the way while I take my pictures, ahem. Well, that’s what he’s supposed to be doing!! Man!
Fun fact; in this picture he’s wearing this blue jumper, that I made for him last Christmas. You have to scroll riiiiiiiiiight to the end of the post to find it though, I just checked and it’s a MONSTER post with about a million items in it. Well, that’s what it felt like, when I was making them I mean. Ha!
Details:
Dress; Vogue 1351, poppy print silk hiffon
Red cardi, in beach pics; my own design variation on the Nettie bodysuit, but Closet Case patterns, details here
Sandals; Zomp, from Zomp boutique
So, I’d bought 4m of the skylines fabric from tessuti’s… remember I mentioned my early plans were graaaaand? anyway my dress only took up about half, even with all the fabric-hogging pattern matching, so I had a nice chunk leftover. Just enough for a shirt for Craig!
For Kelly’s top, I’d chosen the asymmetrical cowl top from Pattern Magic 2; the shape of the cowl is dictated by the shape of the facing. It’s always a bit of a challenge to draft your own patterns, but well I love a challenge! and I knew the shape of this top would be super flattering for Kelly and suit her beautifully… I cut the pieces on the bias and inserted a maroon invisible zip in the left side seam, so it zips down undone… however Kelly says she can squeeze into it without having to undo the zip which is cool. I think the bias-cut is what gives it that little bit of stretch.
Next up! a pullover/sweatshirt for Craig! truth now… I was running out of time, and steam! and this fair near killed me!
With the bias binding facing up, and following the previous stitching as a stitching guide, topstitch the pressed edge of the bias binding down. Since you’re using the previous stitching as a guide, the width of your double-topstitching will be nice and even from the outside.
And, last but not least! I also made a few more little hardback notebooks… just fun little things, however I do know that the recipients do actually use notebooks regularly so I know they will be useful too! I used mostly a mixture of leftover and old papers; from old scrapbooks, some with the children’s scribbles still on them! I’m sentimental that way 😉 , various papers, musical paper, some pale coloured wrapping paper, writing stationery; just lots of different stuff.
All fabrics and buttons are from Spotlight, both a crisp cotton print. Funny thing, while I was making each shirt, I kept each guy’s shirt super secret from that particular guy, but was less careful when that guy wasn’t around. So every now and again they would catch sight of the other one’s shirt. And even though I was careful to say to them, “btw, this is NOT for you!” they each privately thought the other’s shirts WERE for them, and were looking forward to wearing them! I’m sorry! but yes, I was telling the truth 😉
I altered things very slightly on each shirt… the pockets are different on each one. They both have two breast pockets; but Craig’s has arrow-pointed bottoms, and I did a little bar tack on the top edge of the topstitching, in lieu of the usual triangle. I don’t know why, just a whim. For Sam’s, the pockets have a rounded bottom, and the regular triangle at the top edges. I chose shiny black button for his shirt, to pick out the black feather borders, and unobtrusive, white, matte buttons for Craig’s shirt, to allow the floral to truly shine, hehe.
Hello! I’ve been sewing a new shirt for Craig… and feel quite bad actually because we
Also above; I decided upon welt pockets rather than patch pockets. No, they can hardly be seen in amongst that busy print. I’ve made my peace with that, at last, though that was the motivating factor behind my decision to topstitch throughout with black thread, to make all the details of the shirt stand out a little more.
Over the years since I first drew the pattern out I’ve had to slightly alter it and custom fit to each of my boys each time I’ve made it. They keep doing annoying things like working out and growing taller with longer arms and gaining a bit here, losing a bit there as time goes on. So it’s always a bit more of an exercise than just whipping out a pattern and zooming it up with the greatest of ease…. NOT!
The air force blue looked pretty cool and right up his alley and it’s a very nice weight, I loved it upon first sight. However, after washing it and hanging it out to dry, then laying it out for cutting, I discovered to my amazement that the “stripe” actually was more of a gentle, slight “wave” of stripes across the fabric looking like this ” ~ “, NOT a straight horizontal stripe. AAAAUGH!! and being “slight” of course, means it really comes across like a bit of a boo-boo, rather than look like an intentional wave, which I could work into the design somehow. Nope, this just looked OFF.
Oh, the hoodie strings… in each case I made a self-fabric drawstring for the hoodies, bar Tim’s, as explained. To make a drawstring in the jersey, I cut a 1-2cm strip of fabric across the grain. Most jerseys have a natural tendency to roll or curl up across the grain, and you can use this to full advantage while making your drawstring.
