Tag Archives: Dress

reversible infinity, or twist, dress

15/08/2015 7:55 am \ 86 Comments \

I love working out convoluted construction puzzles in the process of sewing something and this new dress ticked that box very nicely.
It looks kinda plain upon first glance, but it’s actually based upon a very unusual twisted design by Anita, of Studio Faro.  
And now I have to apologise right here because I’ve just searched forever for the design on Anita’s blog to link to it, and I find I did not even pin it… so I cannot. I’m sorry! but I’m pretty sure I saw the sketch for the pattern piece on either Anita’s blog, studio faro well-suited, or her Facebook page.


Later edit; thanks to Emily I found it, Anita’s original design is here.
Anyway.   In making it, I realised it was just like an infinity scarf, but in dress form.  Unique!

And, my dress is fully reversible! with all the seam allowances enclosed and tucked away neatly between the two layers of the dress.  The construction technique to make it reversible is one that I worked out myself and not something I’ve ever seen in any pattern or design before.  This was the part of it that kept me on my toes, brainstorming a way to make it happen.  I’m super chuffed that it did work out.  🙂
In my initial plans; it was not going to be a reversible design and I wanted to use double-sided fabric for my dress, but the only ones I could find were kinda expensive, and much as I craved the actualisation of that idea I just couldn’t justify the cost…  economy can often be the mother of invention, non?  Eventually I settled with a double layered dress using two lightweight fabrics, and then while I was fiddling about with the two layers I realised I could actually make it a completely reversible dress, meaning I could wear it inside out just as easily … and ta da!  this is the result!

Right way out; I wanted the white at the front and red at the back.  The way the infinity twist goes; the dress is actually mostly open at the right side seam, but the way it crosses over there is a restriction in the drape of the hemline so that it sits with the opening closed quite securely; and there is absolutely no danger of the drape falling open and exposing your knickers at all.  I tried to move and sit in it a few times to see if I could possibly get humiliated from any hint of exposure in the dress and am happy to say I could not make it happen.

The one single pattern piece looks like this, and you rotate the “upside-down” part around clockwise and up, to lie over on the “right-side up” part.  This naturally forms an infinity-twisted drape at the side, and the wrong side of the fabric against the right side, front and back.
   Any straight or sheath dress design could be used to get this pattern piece;  I used my old standby Burda 8511 as my sheath dress sloper.  It’s one I’ve made enough times over the years to have tweaked and fiddled with it enough to have fine-tuned the fit to my pear-shaped self just about perfectly. 
By the way; if you’re at all interested in creating your own pattern manipulations like this one, and this goes for just about all the Pattern Magic designs too; my recommendation is make a sturdy, fabric sloper.  It’s a good idea to have one for a sheath dress, a bodice and possibly a skirt too.  You could use a well-fitting, tried and true pattern like this one, if you have one; in any case get a basic pattern and make up a few samples to fine-tune your fit.  Once you’ve fiddled and diddled enough to discover the perfect adjustments for you; get some strong fabric that’s not going to rip or fray easily, like an old sheet… these often have the most fabulously high thread count making them super-tough!  Then cut out your perfectly-fitting pattern pieces.  Using a clear, easy-to-see marking pen of some sort, mark on the sloper pieces the waist line, hipline, bust points, back dart points, the straight grainline and the bias grainlines going both ways.  I used bright red marking pen.  This sloper can be kept rolled up with your patterns for whenever you have new ideas and want to play about with making new designs for yourself  🙂
Why fabric, not paper? well obviously so you can baste it together and put it on!  wearing a paper version of a thing is absolutely nothing like the real fabric thing, we all know that!  Paper has zero drape, plus it rips all too easily  😀

The middle, joining piece goes from the waist to the hemline.  I left off all shaping darts, so the “dress” portion is a kinda shapeless sack, a base-point which I think is a good criteria for a double layered reversible design.  I also cut it so that I can just slip the dress over my head, eliminating the need for a zip.  Obviously that feature is essential in a reversible dress too!
I used a lovely rayon crepe from Fabulous Fabrics, in red and white, and needed 1.8m of 150cm wide fabric in each colour.  Having the nice wide fabric meant I could cut my pieces on-grain and with no joining seams in the pieces.
The white is quite sheer, and just about all seam finishes except for French looked absolutely dreadful underneath it; so after a bit of experimenting I went with seam allowances done like this:

Firstly I stitched the seam allowances with a regular 1.5cm(5/8″) seam allowance.  Pressed to set it, pressed open to get the crease set, then pressed back closed again.  Secondly stitched a second pass of stitching just inside the seam allowance.  Lastly, trimmed the seam allowance to an even narrow width.  This should be pretty secure and stable with the double stitching.  And the “ghost” of this seam allowance as it appears showing on the white outside looks quite nice, almost like a French seam.  

By the way, I did consider trying to do actual French seams in this dress for about a hot minute, before I got sensible and realised in that way insanity lies and I would be tearing my hair out and frothing at the mouth in no time at all….  in any case, the reversibility of my construction technique means that all my seam allowances are enclosed with the two layers of the dress, so there’s no danger of any seam allowance coming out on view anyway.  The ultimate in neat-looking insides, yay!
There are only three bits of almost invisible hand-stitching closing the layers: the two inside shoulder seams, and a short length on the inside hanging drape; through which I pulled the entire dress in the very last step before closing it up.

The drape can be adjusted to sit in different ways; like pulled completely through to the front as in the top picture.  I also like it pull it back through on itself a little bit, and have it sitting more balanced.  It does look nice like this, but it does eventually tend to slip naturally back into its default position, probably because my fabric is quite slithery and slippery.  If it were made up in linen, which is more “grabby”, it would probably hold a different position better.

The dress does have a front and a back, the only way to tell them apart is by holding it up at the shoulders so you can see the lower scoop of the front neckline.  However I can wear it with a red front and a white back if I like by pulling it inside out and wearing it with the lining side out… hello, reversibility for the win!  Below is the dress worn in reverse; i.e., with the “lining” on the outside.  It doesn’t look that different to if the dress was worn back to front, just in small details.  Unless you looked closely at the shoulders and saw that they were hand-stitched closed, you probably couldn’t tell this was the inside of the dress!

Although I really like how the dress looks, I’m not completely happy with some of my construction in this one…  I found to my cost that one majorly important aspect is to make sure that the two outer, left side-seam edges are exactly, and I mean exactly the same length!!  This is the boo boo I made; mine were out by a mere 1cm, which was enough to put my side seam out by a touch, so it hangs a weeny bit too wibbly-wobbly for my taste.  So I’m thinking of this one as a kind of prototype or wearable muslin, and want to make another “proper” one for myself, although I will wear this one a lot too.
Maybe if I make it again I’ll do a proper tute on how it all goes together, reversibly.  
Maybe.

Details:
Dress; a variation on Burda 8511 and based upon a design idea of Anita from studio faro; in red and white rayon crepe
Sandals; Zomp, from Zomp shoes

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Mississippi Avenue

03/08/2015 10:00 pm \ 36 Comments \

I’ve made a little sundress for myself  🙂 in very fine, light handkerchief-grade linen from Fabulous Fabrics, deep browny/olive green.  I asked my husband how to describe the colour and he replied immediately “Sherman tank”, haha.  Hmmm!
I’ve been told a zillion million times that I should wear drab colours, but I struggled with them for years.  My teenage self desperately loved pretty feminine colours, hey it was the 80’s; and I thought muddy sombre colours like this were horrible and ugly, like the exact opposite of pretty.  *sigh*  Anyway.  I’ve learnt to embrace couleur de Sherman tank.
I added a little bit of pretty in the form of some cream lace-y motifs appliquéd around the lower hem edge.  I cut the motifs from a quite thickish, lace-y fabric and hand-stitched them on to look kinda random and rambling and lending some semblance of froth and frivolity… I think the lace was maybe from Spotlight originally, but honestly I’ve actually forgotten where it came from exactly.

I sewed all seams throughout as French seams

The pattern is the Mississippi Avenue top/dress by Sew House Seven, a pretty, easy-to-wear little number with a modest V-neckline and skinny ties gathering the shoulders up.  It’s a satisfyingly quick and simple project that goes together easily, and I think it’s all of sweet, cool, casual and flattering.  The very thorough and helpful instructions are aimed at the beginner. 
And it is included in the bundle of patterns to be sold as a set for Sew Indie Month.  
What is Sew Indie Month? do I hear you ask? well it is in September this year and has a charitable component, yes, we all joke about sewing selfishly and this is seamsters trying to give a little bit back!  The lowdown…

  • The idea behind Sew Indie Month is to create a global community sewing event, sort of like a big, online sewing workshop, if you like, while simultaneously supporting small women-owned businesses and raising money for charity.  During the month of September, pattern designers are collaborating on the Sew Independent site to put together blog posts and informative tutorials; and a terrific bonus is a sewalong contest with prizes!   Sew Indie Month is co-ordinated this year by Mari from Seamster Sewing Patterns
  • The pattern bundle is available to buy here, and the sale will run from Monday 3rd August to Wednesday 12th August.
  • 20% of bundle proceeds will be donated to the International Folk Art Alliance, which provides education and exhibition opportunities to folk artists from around the world. Just a few examples of what the International Folk Art Alliance has been able to accomplish by helping artists create stable, year-round livelihoods includes helping shelter women from domestic violence in Ecuador, building a school for children in Pakistan, empowering women in repressive cultures around the world, and feeding villages in Niger.
  • You can check out all the details and information on participating patterns and the pricing options, here; on the Sew Independent site

My fellow participating seamsters who will be making their own lovely and unique creations using one or more of the patterns are:

I also added slanted front pockets to my dress… because, well, pockets.  Where there’s a will there’s a way, mwahaha.  I did these same sort of pockets for my blocky sundress, and it’s an easy feature to add when the front is already in 3-panels like this.  For this reason, my method could also work in a princess seamed dress.  I took a few piccies this time to illustrate how I put them in…

Mark on the pattern piece a slanted line where you want the top of your pocket to sit, and another horizontal line to mark the bottom of the pocket edge.  Instead of cutting the side front as one piece, cut three pieces: 
1. piece at left, upper S (side) front, from the top edge of the pattern piece to the bottom edge of the marked pocket allowance, plus seam allowance,
2. middle piece, pocket; from the top edge of the slanted pocket line to the lower edge of the pocket allowance, plus seam allowances top and bottom.
3. piece at right; lower S front; from the slanted pocket line plus seam allowance, to the lower edge of the pattern piece.  It’s a good idea to add an extra, say, 4-5cm in length to the lower edge to allow for possible boo-boos in seaming, just in case.
Transfer all notches and new marks to all pieces.

Stay stitch the slanted edges, and then stitch the pocket piece to the lower S front piece, right sides together, along that top, slanted edge.  Press seam open, turn out, under stitch inside the pocket.

 Lay lower S front/pocket piece over upper S front piece, aligning notches, pin along side edges.  

Lift aside the lower S front piece and check how well the lower edge of the pocket aligns to the lower edge of the upper S front piece.  If they differ, trim them to match each other.

 Stitch lower edges of pocket and upper S front piece together in a French seam.

 Pin the three layers of upper S front, pocket, lower S front together at side edges, baste.

 Lay the original side front pattern piece over and trim any excess length off the lower edge.  From now on just keep on putting the dress together just as normal.

Voila! slanted front pockets!

btw; please know that, as always, there are no affiliate links on my blog and never will be.  I received the patterns free, for me to make an item to help spread the word, and I chose to use the Mississippi dress pattern 🙂

Details:
Dress; the Mississippi Avenue dress by Sew House Seven; in deep olive linen with cream lace appliqué
Hat; Vogue 8844, cream cotton corduroy, details and my review of this pattern here
Shoes; Bronx, from Zomp shoes

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fractal

21/04/2015 7:21 am \ 105 Comments \

I’ve made a weird patched dress using twelve old Tshirts of my boys’.  I know it’s bizarre and crazy and probably a little bit ugly but I totally love it!
I’m constantly pinning patchwork-y and randomly asymmetric things.  I’m actually very inspired by and crave to wear stuff like this A LOT in reality, even though I also make and wear a lot of plain things.  I think I have a very non-cohesive brain, wardrobe-wise.  It plods along all plain and quiet and unobtrusive for a while, “fitting in” with the norm *yawn* and then will suddenly have the urge to zoom off into arty, thrown-together-land.  Making something kinda weird and wild like this makes me feel quite exhilarated; sorta free and unconstrained and satisfied and happy.  I don’t think I act upon this often enough.  Clearly, I need a little more such craziness in my life!
Anyway, the new dress.  I was inspired by this dress credited to Jurgen Lehl.    
I used one of my oldies, Vogue 7795 with some adjustments; namely with the front bodice tucks and back bodice darts removed and the waterfall skirt drape transformed into an asymmetric box pleat.  Also I made the back bodice and back skirt as one piece each, with the CB seam removed from both.  In my memory this is a very drop waisted design, so I also shortened the bodice pieces by about 4cm.

I’ve made this pattern up a couple of times before; both many years ago, my first version in white swiss dotted voile is pictured here looking tres touristy with a gelato and at the Fontana di Trevi in Rome, and my second version was pink, although I can’t find any pictures of that one.

When you’re making a large scale, randomly patchworked design like this one, I’ve found it’s a good idea to draw out the adjusted pieces full scale and lay them out as a guide for the patchworking.  That way, you can see how the design is looking on the scale of the dress as the piecing progresses.

I selected twelve Tshirts, all old, some very old, cast-offs from my boys.  This is one of the things I love the most about it actually, in that I am so familiar with each and every one of these shirts, having watched my boys run around playing in them a zillion times, also of course I’ve washed them all, hung them on the line, folded them and tucked them away into their dressers about a zillion times each also.  
A sentimental dress then, in a way  🙂

There’s also one “new” fabric, harvested from a recent Absolute Fail… *sad face* IG’ed here.  
I cut all the fabric into varied width strips and then just got creative.  

In a super random design like this one it’s good to install some order to the thing somewhere, and in this case I stuck to the same order in the colour arrangement.   I finished the neckline and armscyes as simply as possible with strips of black Tshirt, stitched on right sides together, then folded to the inside and topstitched.

So, my dress is fulfilling several intentions; firstly to satisfy that creative urge, and my desire for a bit more crazy in my life as outlined above.  Tick!
Secondly, I made it as a kind of a muslin for another project that I’m planning right now.  Then I had the patching idea, was distracted and got  a bit carried away.  I may or may not go ahead with that original plan, but I’m very happy with this particular result! I’m pleased to say  🙂

And lastly, I recently received an email from Charlotte regarding the sew solidarity challenge run by the charity TRAID.  Essentially it’s this: to commemorate the Rana Plaza garment factory collapse you select an old, not new! mass-produced garment, possibly from Bangladesh although I didn’t restrict my options country-of-origin-wise, re-fashion it fit for a new life and then you’re supposed to wear it on 24th April.  Last year I joined in the same-aimed Fashion Revolution movement by wearing my self-made clothes inside out.  Theoretically this year I could do either of these commemorative activities… option 1, wear this dress as per the Sew Solidarity challenge; option 2, like last year wear something else I’ve made inside out as per the Fashion revolution challenge; OR option 3, combine the two challenges and wear this dress inside out.  The only problem with option 3 is that I’m pretty sure my insides might be kinda too ugly for me to get away with this in my very conservative suburb!  The insides are a gridlock of overlocked seams, and because I used some fabric pieces wrong side out, the prints are then on the inside of the dress; so it’s a bit of an unholy mess in there.  But I guess the option is there, should I choose to look irredeemably ridiculous.

Details:
Dress; modified Vogue 7795, made from old Tshirts
Shoes; Zomp, from Zomp shoe boutique

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watercolour silk dress

23/03/2015 8:47 am \ 52 Comments \

I’ve made a new dress  🙂
Every year, my friends give me a Fabulous Fabrics voucher for my birthday; aaaah! they know me so well…!  🙂
and last year I spent it on this gorgeous, water-colour-y silk charmeuse.  And have made it into dress 35 from Patrones 7; this magazine was itself a gift to me from Merche Martinez from a few years ago.  This is the second time I have used this same dress pattern, my first version is here.
So, I have worn it a scant handful of times so far; for dinners during our recent holiday, and I’m wearing it today as well to show it off to my gorgeous gal-pals who gave the voucher to me… and I have to say I’m quite besotted with my dress already.  Honestly, bias cut silk, there’s just nothing quite so lovely to wear.  It’s a beautiful gift from you to your skin.  Seriously, my skin is thanking me every single second I spend in this dress.  It’s pure and utter heaven.  *dreamy sigh*    
To go the whole nine yards silk-wise, I fully lined the dress with creamy-coloured silk habutai.  Pinky-purple lining seemed at first to be a better colour match; but upon checking how the fabrics looked when layered together I found any colour just very subtly dulled those large white-ish feathery-floral areas, whereas a lighter creamier-coloured backing really enhanced the colours of the charmeuse and gave them a beautiful inner glow that I preferred.   Something to bear in mind when choosing a lining for lightweight, patterned fabrics; hold lining underneath the fashion fabric to check how it affects the colours before making a final decision.  Sometimes an unexpected colour choice will look better.

The dress lines are quite simple and feminine, with a slight a-line curve, small cap sleeves and I lengthened the neck-tie to extend right around the length of and beyond the v-neckline, so it is both a tie and also a sort of “collar” that finishes the neckline.  The skirt is cut flatteringly on the bias and I gave careful thought to the colour placement over the body.  I wanted the darker, moodier colours to feature mostly and aimed for the splashes of those big abstract feathery flowers to appear over one shoulder and to bloom down the side and hem of the dress, front to back.  ie. not on my tummy or right boom on the derriere.  The dress closes with a burgundy invisible zip in the left bodice side seam, and I hand-rolled a narrow hem on the sleeves and lower hemline.  All seams in both dress and lining are French seamed.

I altered the bodice pattern piece substantially from my first version because ultimately I decided that that dress incorporated an excessive degree of blousiness for my particular shape, or lack thereof, ahem.  I pinned out about 3cm width from the lower edge and curved the lower edge up as marked in red, cutting out up to 5cm in height at CF, this removed a tonne of blousiness and so is only about a thousand times more flattering on me, rough estimate there.  In lieu of lightly gathering the bodice evenly along most of its width into the skirt, instead I folded the width into four little folds, evenly distributed just out from either side of CF, treating the lining as underlining and folding them together.  These folds can be seen more clearly from the inside of the dress.

I also added about 4cm in length to the skirt at the lower edge.  I’m slightly doubtful about this added length, I don’t hate it but also am not bowled over with love for the length right now either.  I may just live with it for a while but that extra 4cm may or may not just get lopped off at some point.  I’ll just have to see how I go; weighing up the pros, such as would it look more chic if it was a bit shorter? against the cons; the main one being that I would have to re-do that hand-rolled hem.  Hmmm…

Now, on another note: anyone who follows me on IG would know already about our recent, most utterly paradisiacal holiday ever!  yep, I took my pictures on the beach during our holiday in the Maldives.  And I thought I would show one example of my set-up for taking my own pictures when away, an activity at which I now consider myself an expert!  I’m a big fan of packing as light as possible and saving myself any packing and carrying around bulky camera equipment.  Just cannot be bothered with all that.  Yeah, lazy, I know 🙂 
When travelling, I just take my small travel camera and nothing else.  And I look out for and take full advantage of any flat surface that I may come across, although if nothing presents itself I can at a pinch just sit the camera on its own little soft case.  This is not completely ideal, but it’s doable if no other handy flat surface is around.   Good flat surfaces include, but are not limited to: park benches, curbs, low walls, a level spot on a rise in a path.  Rocks sometimes too, though rocks can be tricky and it’s imperative to check carefully that the camera is sitting perfectly stable and isn’t going to topple over and smash.  
In the case of our last holiday, our cabin was on the beach and I used a flat-bottomed cup from our room.  My camera sat up, safe and clean, up off the sand as pictured.

Anyway, whatever flat surface is at hand; I just set the timer function on my camera, pop the camera up on said flat surface, push the button and then race out in front.  Voila.  Does the job, and requires no big bulky camera equipment.  Win!

Details:
Dress; Patrones 35-7 modified slightly, silk charmeuse
Location: Valessaru, the Maldives

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Cassie’s terracotta dress

28/02/2015 9:31 am \ 62 Comments \

I made this belated birthday present for Cassie; we recently went on a girly shopping expedition together for her birthday present and spent hours browsing, looking at pretty things, chatting, having hot chocolate and enjoying ourselves! we had lots of fun but she couldn’t decide on anything that she liked.  Finally I suggested, hesitantly, would she like to go to Fabulous Fabrics to get some fabric of her choice and I could make her a dress of her choosing? and she delighted me by immediately agreeing.  She’s so sweet  🙂  I say “hesitantly”, because while I love to sew things for my family I absolutely do not want to force the products of my sewing on them.  And I often worry that my love of sewing is influencing them to ask for me to make something for them, just to make me happy; if you know what I mean.
Anyway, happily she says she loves the new dress, and plans to wear to work at her office with her black ballet flats as well as sometimes on the weekend with sandals.  The pinky-brick/terracotta viscose from Fabulous Fabrics is a fabric Cassie has loved for “ages” and she chose the dress style based upon one we had seen in Morrison, with some minor design alterations to make it what she wanted in her birthday dress.

The result is quite plain, with its main feature being a wide front tuck emanating from the neckline and disappearing into the body of the dress.  I started out with my standby, plain sheath dress pattern Burda 8511, and rotated out all darts, cut it with an 8cm tuck allowance in the front panel, i.e. an extra 16cm width at the neckline tapering off to nothing by the hemline.  I scooped out and widened the neckline, added inseam side pockets, rouleau belt loops and a long self-fabric sash.  

The side and pocket seams are French seamed, with a hand stitched, narrow hem.

I’m extremely happy with how chic Cassie looks in the new dress  🙂

Details:
Dress; own design, using Burda 8511 as a starting point, terracotta viscose
Shoes; from Hobbs shoe boutique

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Red dress; 6 different ways

19/02/2015 3:40 am \ 25 Comments \

It’s been a while since I did one of these!  I don’t really have deliberate dress-up sessions to test out my clothes’ versatility any more, but it’s still interesting for me to look back and get a general overview of just how well my self-made wardrobe mixes and matches and whether everything works together.  This red cotton dress has been an absolute beaut!  it’s been worn a tonne and proved itself to be quite a versatile year-rounder too.  I made it late 2013, using an adaption of dress pattern M from the Stylish Dress Book by Yoshiko Tsukiori.
I think its usefulness has lain in several factors: firstly the cheerful tomato-red colour is supposed to be one of “my” colours, as well as a shade equally at home in both hot and cold weather, and also the style of the dress is quite plain and simple, lending itself very well to mixing and matching with a bunch of other clothing pieces and stylistically not fighting with anything.
Some of the highlights in its life:
At left, its raison d’être was for me to have something for Wildcats games … I wore it to just about every single one and fitted in fine with everyone else!  At right, during a long hot summer it was fabulous to wear just all on its own, sans any adornment.

red1a

At left; the colour looked good with just about every colour cardigan and scarf that I own; and at right, I’m wearing it here inside out! for Fashion Revolution Day.  I chose it for that day mostly because it had patch pockets and not inseam bag pockets, making this the least weird-looking inside-out option in my wardrobe.   Hehe and yes, I was brought up that the insides of a piece should look presentable enough for them to be worn inside out without embarrassment, but not that I purposefully make things with the actual intention of wearing them that way very often!
Speaking of that; the mission statement of Fashion Revolution is a comfortable fit for those of us who sew… after all; the question is “Who made my clothes?”  If you can give an answer, and by that I don’t think they mean just “Brand x” then you are making a difference.  Albeit a small one, but still.  If your answer is “me”, then that can only be a very good thing!  I am planning to do the inside out challenge again this year on 24th April, please join me!

red2a

At left; on cooler days I liked wearing my red dress with my paprika tights because they were such a good colour match, note to self; having matching tights and dresses/skirts is actually an excellent wardrobe idea, I must plan for this more!  At right, I really liked this winter outfit a lot too.  I know summer dresses can be kind of a weird choice for winter, but if the style is loose enough to enable wearing with lots of layers under and over for warmth then I think it can be done very successfully.  I was perfectly warm in this wintery ensemble.  Wintery for Perth, that is.

red3a
Sadly, at its last wearing I decided that this red dress was now just a bit past its best *sob*.  It’s faded soooo much and has developed a noticeable seat in the bottom-al region so out it’s gone to the rag/”potential refashion” bag.  Leaving a giant red-dress-shaped hole in my wardrobe 🙁 but I’m hoping my recent red gingham dress is going to step in to fill that.
We shall see, we shall see….
Later edit; I just couldn’t do it! throw it out, I mean.   A stint in the refashioning bag, and when I next took it out for a look-see it didn’t look nearly as bad as I remembered.  I’ve re-instated it back into the wardrobe again…  🙂
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dress of plastic splattered linen

11/02/2015 4:46 am \ 45 Comments \

I’ve made a summery little dress for myself.
This is dress F from the Japanese pattern book Stylish Dress Book, by Yoshiko Tsukiori.   I’ve made this pattern up once before here, and that polka dot dress is still in my wardrobe and remains one of my perennial favourites.  I don’t know if this new one is going to topple its big sister from my favourites list, but anyway, it’ll still be a goodie and bound to get worn a lot in this long, loooong, very hot summer we’re having!
I made a couple of teeny changes, adding inseam side pockets and also leaving off the sleeve ties.  Instead the sleeve opening has a button sewn on to close.  Still looks quite cute and meant I didn’t have to try to sew and turn out those skinny-binny sleeve ties in this lovely but rather challenging fabric.
I know… it doesn’t look particularly challenging in my pictures; it appears from a distance to be a quite ordinary duck-egg blue, handkerchief linen.  Only closer inspection reveals random dots of what appears to be clear plastic, splattered all over it.  This has the happy side effect that in the sunlight it appears to sparkle like diamonds, *squeals, oooh pretty!* and the less than happy side effect that it was quite difficult to actually sew the splatters and they don’t fold well at all; also it, how shall I say this? presents an Ironing Challenge, to say the very least.

 See, obviously linen requires the hottest setting on your iron but the plastic splatters turn into soft and sticky, glue-y spots that stick to your iron and everything else when they’re subjected to heat.  I’ve pondered it for four years; four! since I bought this lovely stuff from the Fabric Store in Melbourne! wondering what I could make with it that would do it justice, finally hit upon this.  Also, reflected all over again upon how super silly it is to leave lovely fabric languishing in le stash when I bought it for the fun of making it up and wearing it, what the heck.
Happily, I think it did work out!  🙂

sleeves finished with buttons in lieu of the ties; and pockets
I finished the neckline with a bias-cut strip, but it was nearly impossible to attain neat looking top stitching over the splatters! so I ended up unpicking all attempts and just hand-stitched it down with invisible fell stitches along both fronts.  I kept the double row of machine stitching on the back neckline, where it miraculously turned out kinda neat-looking.

During construction I pressed either using my ironing cloth or on the wrong side of the fabric, and had to peel it off the cloth or the ironing board each time! and wondered if the splatter dot situation, while a cool concept and I visually I loved it! was in practice going to be a massive pain to iron.
Well I’ve washed and ironed it once now and fortunately I don’t think the dots are going to be a problem.  I ironed the dress inside out and even though it does stick together it’s no biggie to just peel the layers apart while turning it right side out again.  And the plastic does cool and dry hard again pretty quickly. Thank goodness.

The hem line has a tuck around the bottom.  This is actually a crafty fix of a cutting booboo.  You see, when I made my first dress F I had screenprinted my own fabric and I forgot to note that I had actually lengthened the pattern pieces to fit my print.  Actually I find it good practice to add by default like, at least 10cm in length to any dress from a Japanese pattern book.  Anyway, this time I carefreely cut out the pattern as is… result; scandalously short dress.  Darnit.
Fortunately I had enough fabric to cut extra lengthening bits and sewed them on to the bottom, hiding the joining seam up inside this tuck.  You can’t see the join on the inside because I turned up the hem long enough to enclose everything.  The hem is hand-stitched using invisible fell-stitching, and I caught the upper fold of the tuck in the same stitching to secure all the layers together.
Problem solved!
In fact, I have to say that this is a very simple dress which belies its unexpected difficulty-factors! but I am so pleased that it all came together quite happily and satisfactorily in the end.  🙂

Details:
Dress; dress F from the Stylish Dress book, by Yoshiko Tsukiori, plastic splattered linen
Hat; Vogue 8844, ivory corduroy, details and my review of this pattern here

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red gingham

26/01/2015 3:37 am \ 73 Comments \

… new dress!
I feel like I’ve been wearing the same little summer dresses over and over and over.  Not that there’s anything wrong with that! because I like them all   🙂  but a few of my standbys are getting on their last legs and the wardrobe needed new blood.  And there’s still a lot of summer to go.
I’ve been eyeing off dress E from the Stylish Dress book by Yoshiko Tsukiori ever since I got the book, in fact it was my Sew Bossy dress of choice for Reana Louise!  I loved hers and alway wanted to make one for myself too… one day.  The book is chokka with patterns for cute and practical little summer dresses that are absolutely perfect for our hot Australian summers, and this pattern is yet another goodie although I ended up making quite a few little changes.  Some due to my fabric;  a red/cream cotton gingham with a very slightly crinkly, seersucker-y texture, from Spotlight.
The front of dress F has five box pleats in the bodice and I was determined for the gingham pattern to match perfectly on the front.
Please excuse and/or feel free to skip the following; where I boast obnoxiously about my perfect pattern matching.  Yes, there are five box pleats up there *insert smug self back-patting*

There’s only one way to pattern match to that degree, and that’s to pin the flippin’ heck out of it.  I pinned at each and every check intersection, basted each pleat and inspected for flaws obsessively before the final sew.  I’m pretty pleased, even to my eyes I can’t see the joins at all.  And I’m pretty fussy  😛

Matching the pleats into the gingham weave like that necessitated cutting the front piece to a different width from the pattern piece.
It’s not hard to work out how to do this, the only criteria is that the front fits onto the front facing piece once pleated.  A little quality time with the tape measure and some mental calculations to exercise the ol’ brain cells a bit.  Each box pleat is 6 checks wide, with 4 checks in between each one and it turned out that the overall width of my front piece is slightly narrower than the pattern piece.

Other changes:  gathering looked terrible in this bouncily textured fabric, so I cut the back skirt straight, eliminating gathering into the bodice.  The sides were slimmed down considerably, tapering out to 10cm off each side at the hem, I added in-seam side pockets instead of patch pockets.  I did put the little cap sleeves in to start with but they just felt a bit too “busy” in gingham, so I unpicked them off and finished the armholes with a bias-cut strip inside instead.  The pattern is quite short so I lengthened my dress by 10cm, with a little tuck at the original hemline, just for fun  🙂

So yeah, I have nothing much more to say!
I’ve made a cool and breezy, simple and uncomplicated little summer dress.  I love it already  🙂

this one made me laugh… hmm; terrific maternity dress! 

Oh, and Gabrielle and I are twinsies today!  I had nearly finished this dress and was amazed when Gabrielle posted a picture of her red gingham dress on instagram!  great minds thinking alike, of course  🙂  check out Gabrielle’s gorgeous gingham dress here

Dress; dress E from the Stylish Dress book by Yoshiki Tsukiori, red cotton gingham
Thongs; Havaianas

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