dress Archives - Page 20 of 34 - Handmade by Carolyn

she’s the boss

27/04/2013 11:00 pm \ 47 Comments \ Carolyn

So, you might be thinking that this is not my usual style of outfit. And you would be right! I did make my dress, but it was chosen by another.
But, how is this so?

Have you heard of the Sew Bossy initiative? This is a fun game dreamt up by Heather of Closet Case Files and Oona of oonaballoona. Heather paired up Reana Louise and me as one of her fantasy picks! So after e-introducing ourselves to each other, Reana Louise and I mutually agreed to choose for each other something from the Stylish Dress Book, by Yoshiko Tsukiori; since we both had the book already. Exactly which something, and what fabric was left up to the other. I sent my package off, and then waited with bated breath.
Very soon, I received this in the mail.

This is dress “T”, from the Stylish Dress Book. Reana Louise chose for me a soft lightweight ivory cotton meadow sprinkled with delicate blue flowers, and with a solid blue cotton for the contrasting neckband and cuffs.

So OK. Floral, and puffy sleeves. Hmmm. I am being fair dinkum catapulted right out of my comfort zone here! But Reana Louise has exemplary taste and always looks quite lovely on her blog, in her handmade creations. I had to trust her guidance.

I did make a few teeny minor changes (forgive me, Reana Louise!) I thought a wide block of the blue for a neckband might be a bit strong against the delicacy of the sprigged floral, so I dug out some lightweight Japanese cotton in my stash, originally bought from Potters Textiles. This is pure white, with an irregular pattern of tiny white paisley motifs as well as little fluffy white spots scattered over. I used this for the neckband and for the sleeve cuffs, and just used a narrow, folded bias cut strip of the blue cotton sent by Reana Louise as a demarcation line between the floral and the white.

Similarly, I broke apart the hemline with bias cut strips of each white and blue together as well. I really like the look of these borderlines in the design, a subtle geometric statement against the pretty floral.

I also shortened my dress slightly to hit just above the knee.

Oh, and I added pockets. Well that’s a no-brainer. When it comes to pockets; if you can, then you do: no internal debate entered into!

How do you feel about letting go of control in what you wear…. would you dare to submit your style to another?

Details:

Dress; dress “T” from the Stylish Dress book, by Yoshiko Tsukiori, blue sprigged cotton, with blue and white accents

Hat; Vogue 8844, ivory corduroy refashioned from an old pair of jeans, details and my review of this pattern here

Sandals; Pedro Miralles, from Soletta shoes

Posted in: Uncategorized \ Tagged: daily outfit, dress, Stylish Dress Book

Knots

11/03/2013 7:30 am \ 67 Comments \ Carolyn

I’ve made a dress, utilising the design on p52 of Pattern Magic, by Tomoko Nakamichi.
This appears to be a fairly plain dress on a casual glance. But it is not. It has a “feature”: a feature that like many Pattern Magic features, seems to the casual, non-sewing observer to be a superficially simple thing, like “so? what could possibly be difficult about that??” but in actuality, getting to the nitty gritty of it, is a fair dinkum epic saga to put together seamlessly and successfully. In this case, the feature is that the bodice explodes out into an incorporated posy of entwined knots that looks sorta like a statement neckpiece, or maybe a 3D sculptural bib. Prof Nakamichi describes it as “By bringing together several knots that resemble tiny bells I have created a unique garment that evokes the sounds of bells ringing”
This is achieved by the front being six pieces… four of these end in a long strip; which is later tied into knots which you weave together as artistically as you can. Counting from a shoulder; sections 1 and 6; and sections 3 and 8; are each one piece; comprising two sections joined by a bridge, so these joining bridges have to be knotted before you can sew the top sections to the rest of the front.

I made my dress using a light stone coloured, linen/silk mix, bought from Fabulous Fabrics about four years ago. Yes! a long time ago! This was another length of fabric previously Too Good To Actually Use.
Due to the nature of the design; some of the strips are cut on the bias and some on the half bias. To save fabric and add stability I cut all the facing strips on the grain. I faced and turned out each strip separately, and then later sewed on the bodice facings. When it came to facing that front neckline, I sewed each section at a time and checked each obsessively for a smooth finish before proceeding to the next one; shoulders first and finishing at the centre front.

front bodice facing

The back is four pieces; interestingly in a princess seamed arrangement. The dress closure is by invisible zip in the centre back seam, and the back neckline is a modest V-line. I added deep, inseam side pockets, and attached a self skinny belt in the side seams to tie at the back. This adds a bit of shape to it, and provides some visual interest at the back, which is otherwise rather plain. The ends of the belt are tied in little knots, a tiny design echo of those knots at the neckline at the front.

This is probably one of the top ten most difficult makes I’ve ever attempted. Vogue Advanced/Plus Difficile?? pfff, Pattern Magic farts in your general direction!*
However I am, in inverse proportion to the degree of difficulty involved; stupidly pleased with it. I think maybe I am a sewing room masochist, deriving a perverse enjoyment from the torture of difficult dressmaking challenges. What a weirdo, huh? But I’m thinking of something easy next.

* Monty Python of course!

Details:
Dress; adapted from the design on p53 of Pattern Magic 2 by Tomoko Nakamichi, light brown silk/linen
Shoes; new! for autumn!! c/o Misano

Posted in: Uncategorized \ Tagged: daily outfit, dress, Pattern Magic 2, shoes

Pisces

21/02/2013 5:00 am \ 79 Comments \ Carolyn

… the fish. Look at my little silver tiddler!

So, a few years ago, at the annual Fabulous Fabrics
Christmas sale, I was moved by some mad irrational impulse to purchase 2m of silver sequined
stretchy fabric. Exactly why is mystery to me now… since silver sequins are completely unsuited to my colouring and just about everything in my wardrobe. Must have had a brief
“ooh, pretty shiny!!” moment,
compounding the alluring thrill of 50% off euphoria. But anywho I succumbed, and it has since been sitting in my
stash taking up shelf space for too too long. February’s stashbusting theme is to make something for
someone you love. So I made
something for my daughter.

Fortunately she looks utterly fabulous in silver. I must have unselfishly and subliminally planned it 😉

Now, I know it seems like I am making a lot for
Cassie lately, and not much for any of the boys in my life… well, I tried. I offered the sparkly silver fabric to
each of my boys, really I did.
Inexplicably they did not respond to its sparkly gorgeousness with much enthusiasm. I only
wish I could capture and show here the expression on Sam’s face, when I showed
him the fabric and straight-faced said I was planning to make him a silver sequinned hoodie …
priceless!!! You’ll just have to
imagine it for yourselves…. still giggling about it….

Anyhow; the only person in my family who leapt upon
it with cries of joy was Cassie.
So (shrug) it couldn’t be helped. I’ll have to make it up to the boys somehow 🙂

My lucky daughter has the ideal year ahead for her
to make good use of a sparkly silver cocktail dress. She has masses of 21st’s on the horizon. Word; she goes out a lot anyway, lucky little social butterfly that she is.

I adapted a pattern that is one of my oft-repeated standbys …
Burda 8511. This is a plain and
simple sheath dress pattern, with two bust darts in the front and two long
shaped vertical darts in the back.
I’ve found this an excellent style to adapt to individual shapes, just
by subtle alteration of the darts and side seams.

For Cassie’s dress; I sewed up the side seams and
left off any zip closure… the fabric is stretchy and doesn’t really need a
closure. The dress pulls over her
head quite easily, like a fitted Tshirt dress. It looks tight but it’s actually not at all, she really is quite tiny!

At her request, I custom fit the dress to skim her
figure closely, and fully lined it with a sewn-in lining. I redrafted the pattern pieces to eliminate all darts in the lining, and used a soft, stretchy, grey marled
jersey knit, leftover from this drape drape dress that I made for myself. Note how the lining looks completely
skewiff??? That marle/stripe in the
fabric really is printed on that random slant.
The lining is cut perfectly on grain, I assure you!

The neckline, armscyes and the lower hem are turned
under and hemmed by hand.

Actually, a word on that. Remember my sparkly gold cardigan, that I stitched entirely by hand?? The thought of doing more of the same was inducing a slightly depressive status, so I consulted with a lady in Fabulous Fabrics who I recalled had made herself a skirt of similar stuff. She reckoned a denim needle worked fine. So I tried it out… and hehe, of course it was. (blushes) Not that I regret stitching that cardigan by hand …… much. No, really; I guess it does me good to slow down and spend loads of ~~unnecessary~~ meditative time on a project every now and again. Teaches one humility, yo.

Repeating that like a mantra to retain some shred of self respect.

So, stashbusting, yeah!! (air fist punch) Actually, the dress did not take up the entire 2m of the silver fabric… so there might be some more silver sparkliness to appear here, anon.

‘Til next time, lovelies!

Details:

Dress; Burda 8511 modified, silver sequinned stretch fabric

Sandals; Betts

Posted in: Uncategorized \ Tagged: Burda 8511, Cassie, dress, evening wear

Aquarius

31/01/2013 10:00 am \ 76 Comments \ Carolyn

… the water bearer!
So this dress incorporates the design from page 56 of Pattern Magic 2, by
Tomoko Nakamichi. It is described as “a flip turn draped design tie appears from the
slit in the front bodice for a complex and beautiful effect.”
When I was playing with ideas for the Aquarius theme I had in my head; I imagined that front panel as a swimmer shooting out of the watery waves that are embroidered around the hem of the dress, up the front of the dress, and diving back into the water at the neckline. Yeah, I do occasionally have an overactive imagination…. 🙂

To represent the Aquarian waves I embroidered a running stitch sine wave around the lower hem of the dress, and on the full-length front panel. I originally had lazy-daisy water droplets going down the side of that front panel too… but the family veto-ed that one, thought they were naff. Hmf! 😀

I do like the visually peaceful hypnosis of sine waves. Design-wise I’ve used them before.

And Aquarius is sometimes represented with a waves vaguely reminiscent of sine waves too.

The deep blue fabric is slightly rough and slightly crinkly cotton from Fabulous Fabrics. I absolutely love this stuff. It feels like it’s going to be so comfy and easy to live it. When I found it in the store I bought some in each of the four colours! This blue is the first piece to go under the ~~knife~~ scissors 🙂

I really like this longer length too. I’ve already got a few short dresses and I wanted to go with something different this time. I think it’s quite elegant, and the proportion of skirt to bodice lend the dress a more graceful and refined silhouette.

Details:
Dress; partly self-drafted, based on the flip turn design from page 56 of Pattern Magic 2, by Tomoko Nakamichi, blue cotton
Sandals; la soffitada Gilde, from Zomp shoes

Construction blah blah blah…
I drafted the dress a little differently from that suggested in the book… in this case I gave the dress a long darted true A-line skirt with satisfyingly deep deep inseam pockets. To fit the back skirt to my slight swayback, I sewed modified darts in the skirt, and folded pleats in the bodice at the same position. This allows the bodice to blouse out nicely from out of a fitted waistline. The front skirt and bodice have the same dart/pleat thing happening. This is a waist-slimming trick 😉

It is photographed here on Bessie who is bigger than I am, so it does blouse out more blousily on me. The back of the dress is quite plain…

The dress is put on and taken off with a long invisible zip in the left side seam, and that long front panel is invisibly stitched down to the dress at the waistline.

The front neckline has to accommodate the flip turn tie, so I finished it with a narrow hem. The back neckline and armscyes have interfaced facings. The bodice slit has been finished like a letterbox opening, with a hemmed rectangle of facing fabric. Like a welt-less and pocket-less welt pocket, if that makes any sense. After wearing the dress for a few hours the pokey-out end ceased diving obediently into the water, and instead kept slipping sneakily back inside the dress, so I anchored it firmly in position on the inside along the sides of the letterbox opening. It’s not going anywhere now!

Posted in: Uncategorized \ Tagged: daily outfit, dress, embroidery, own design, Pattern Magic 2

Broderie anglaise

26/01/2013 4:00 am \ 35 Comments \ Carolyn

Fulfilling a filial request…. Cassie wanted a pretty little sundress for some upcoming parties. Actually she was totally planning to make this herself, honest. Well, that’s her story and she’s sticking to it! but her new career has left her with not as much free time as she thought she would have.

Ahh, the disquieting little thought-readjustments that come with one’s first full-time job.

Fortunately she has a Mum, willing (sorta) and able to step in.

The pattern is from Burdastyle magazine 05/2010, dress 114; a pattern I have used before to make this sundress for myself, and Cassie has used the same pattern for herself once before also. It is an utterly fantastica design for very hot weather; cool, practical, comfortable and pretty, and we have each independently and joyfully discovered that our dresses never fail to draw compliments. Subsequently, Cassie wanted another. Well, when you’re on to a good thing…. 😉

I made the same modification to the back bodice that I did to my own dress to give complete lingerie coverage.

The lower tier is sewn to a separate, slightly shaped lining piece, which is sewn to the bodice lining and which lies underneath the top tier. So in this latest version of the pattern the two tiers are completely separate from each other.

Cassie chose the fabric, two different types of broderie anglaise cotton voile from Fabulous Fabrics, and I used a little of my precious horde of plain white cotton voile too.

The buttons and butonholes on the bodice whilst functional, are essentially decorative; since the dress is put on and taken off with a long invisible zip set into the side seam.

Above; note the ubiquitous hair-lacky bracelet. I frequently wear one of those myself, too.

Voila, we have party dress. Ees time to part-ay.

Details:

Dress; Burdastyle magazine 05/2010, dress 114, slightly modified; of white broderie anglaise, my review of this pattern here

Posted in: Uncategorized \ Tagged: Burdastyle magazine 05-2010-114, Cassie, dress

As blue as; Cassie’s Christmas dress

28/12/2012 11:00 pm \ 35 Comments \ Carolyn

Last up: Cassie! and I made a dress for Cassie for Christmas this year; this is the loose drape tank-top from drape drape by Hisako Sato. I used a thin cotton jersey, printed in an interesting fractured pixels design of ocean blue upon powder blue. I bought the fabric from the Fabric Store in Melbourne during our trip there in September.
I think the tank-top is designed to just be a summer cover-up, the only explanation for its skimpiness and bra-revealing nature; so I also made a matching little tank top; that is, the regular kind of tank top! to go under it, just in case Cassie decided she wanted to wear it anywhere other than the beach. I based the shape of the tank top on a well-fitting Tshirt that she owns already.

For the drape drape tank-top; I edged the neckline and both of those big big armholes with a cross-cut strip of the jersey, attached right-side to wrong side on the inside, and then flipped out to the right side of the dress and stitched down on the outside; so the raw edge rolls up on itself and over the stitching. I can go into more details of this finish with a pictorial tute, if anyone is interested… ? Looks quite nice and kinda cute, and is appropriate for a casual little summery thing, I think.
The regular tank-top neckline and armhole edges are just finished by turning under a narrow hem twice and top-stitching on the inside face.

The lower edge of both pieces are finished with a hem, turned under twice and top-stitched.

Posted in: Uncategorized \ Tagged: Cassie, drape drape, dress, top

A fluttery cloudy thing

04/12/2012 11:00 pm \ 32 Comments \ Carolyn

This wasn’t actually supposed to be a real dress. I was playing about. I have to confess to a few struggles
with my fabric… that had a mind of its own and a recalcitrant disposition. If fabrics can be anthropomorphised;
this fabric would be a will o’ the wisp, absent-minded girl with a head full of
poems and fairy tales and dreams, given to wandering barefoot on sunkissed
white beaches and forgetting that her library books were due back.

But it has been coaxed into a coolly flitter-y
flutter-y dress, which I think it wanted to be all along in its heart of hearts.

This is the Loose Flare Drape Dress; pattern no.11 from the
Japanese pattern book Drape Drape by Hisako Sato.

The fabric is a very lightweight, very soft, pale grey
marle jersey knit, part of a massive quantity I bought from the Morrison
remnants sale. A fabric I picked
up because I liked the soft cloudy-grey colour and the slightly fuzzy texture,
but was actually extraordinarily flimsy and difficult to work with. It clings and flutters and slips all at
the same time, it is very drape-y and almost sheer. It likes to curl up tightly on itself, and the sketchy “stripe”
in the fabric is whimsically slanted at a slight diagonal.

But happily ever after et cetera; the thin floatiness
of the fabric is a near perfect match for this pattern… I’m thinking of
rustling up a halter-neck bra to wear with it, but in the meantime it’s being stoushed
in the beach-bag to do duty as a cover up.

It may even stay there if I don’t get around to the
halter bra, since it is just the right shape and style to go over my
bathers. And it is so ethereally summery; a
flattering and exceptionally easy-to-wear dress, edgily short and cute-ly
flippy.

The dress is an A-line halter neck dress with a wide
and swing-y skirt; and a full length, full skirted lining for which I used the
same fabric. The loose flare piece
referred to in its title is a separate piece attached in with the halter neck
at the left side and sewn into the armhole, to flow free and loose across the
front of the dress.

This piece is what makes the whole dress, of
course. The extra piece is a very
simple idea, and it swishes and flutters so prettily against the dress.

The only adjustment I made to the pattern was to
leave off the zip and just to sew up the side seam. Well, it’s stretch fabric. I’m currently of the opinion that zips in a stretch garment
are a complete waste of money, time and effort.

Naturally I reserve the right to change that opinion
any time it suits me.

The fabric isn’t the only one here subject to
whimsy.

Details:

Dress; the loose flare drape dress, pattern no.11 from
Drape Drape by Hisako Sato, made of lightweight grey marle jersey knit

Posted in: Uncategorized \ Tagged: daily outfit, drape drape, dress, Sienna

A petticoat and an ISTJ

30/10/2012 11:00 pm \ 24 Comments \ Carolyn

OK, so I have posted about this new… er, thing before; and in a comment janesewandtell expressed surprise that a petticoat should have a zip … the answer of course is that even though I did describe it as a “petticoat” of course it really was only masquerading as a petticoat. Actually it is a bonafide dress, and can very well be worn as one!

So I thought it really deserves its very own post to show what it looks like on! Since it has a fitted bodice it does need a zip so that I can actually get it on and off. I supposed I described it as a petticoat since it is made of a lusciously soft silk that is kinda flimsy. Meaning it can be worn underneath a loose lightweight thing like my tunic top and function quite well as a slip. But the fact is that as the weather warms up this is the kind of light and airy sundress I will love to pop on and wear on its own too!

So here ’tis!

And sorry to mess with your heads, but I’ve accordingly copied the petticoat/dress’s info from the original post it shared with the tunic top to here 🙂

I used Burda 8071, a terrific basic pattern I have used ten times before; for ten different dresses and petticoats. This is the eleventh! To see a gallery of my previous versions of this pattern, go here 🙂 The bodice is lined with ivory silk charmeuse, leftover fabric from this top.

All the seams are French seams and all other raw edges are finished with HongKong seaming, in a lightweight ice-blue cotton leftover from this shirt.

Details:

Dress/petticoat; Burda 8071, powder blue silk

Sorry, you can’t see them very well in the picture above but I am wearing these sandals; a gift from Misano.

I loved reading about sewbusylizzy’s Myers-Briggs personality! and no one is going to be surprised to find out that I am a ISTJ; the Examiner, or the Duty Fulfiller. The type of person who sees out to the bitter end what she has started even if she is hating it. This explains why I am dutifully continuing with the year of self-auditing my sewing habit, which I am heartily wishing I had not started… is everyone bored stiff with my meticulously accurate but excruciatingly dull accounting?? That’s OK. I wouldn’t blame you one little bit 🙂

OK, the Organisational Odds n’ sods for October…

Cut me a little black skirt

Fabric;
a re-fashioned ball gown

Patterns;
Vogue 1170, used previously

Zip; recycled from the same dress

Hook
& eye; from stash

Total
cost: free

Stellar lingerie set

Fabric;
leftovers

Pattern;
used previously

Dye; (first time used, bought at a 30%off everything sale at Spotlight) $7.77

Bra cups; $12.95