Tag Archives: Dress

golden Collins

13/12/2019 5:39 pm \ 4 Comments \

I’m now desperately trying to blog everything I’ve made this year, within this year… so fair warning: brace yourself for an onslaught of making-spam…

First of all; this little dress!

I actually made this back in September! but cold weather and general lack of… shall we say? love? for the dress prevented me from wearing it for a while, or obviously blogging about it before.  However all is now well, because the dress has easily reached its 30 wears, and is probably going to go on to at least 300 wears before I say sayonara to it… how is this so? you may ask… since devoted followers (ha!) of my daily ootd blog will have no doubt noticed it has made not one single appearance over there.  I shall now explain… yes, I had not much love for it once I’d finished making it, which is strange because it actually ticked a number of very good boxes; it feels very nice to wear, very comfortable, and it is well made if I say so myself.  I think it was the colour; yellow should suit my Autumnal self; but I decided this particular yellow was too close to my skin tone to really look good on me.  I thought I might dye it, sometime.  But before that happened, the weather warmed up a bit, I took out my old summer nightie to wear to bed and was saddened to see that a hole, that I had fixed up twice before, quickly reappeared in such a ghastly, final manner I had no choice but to ditch it.  Yes, very sad, and I was too busy to make another nightie straight away … what to wear?  then I noticed this dress perched on top of a pile of summer dresses, waiting to be noticed.  I was like, well that will do for now, as a stop-gap.  But you know what?  I’m really enjoying wearing it!

Fabric; a pale yellow quilting cotton from Minerva, printed with gold snowflakes.   I think it’s part of their Christmas range.  My previous nightie was made of quilting cotton too, and so I’m accustomed to the feel of it.  It’s very comfortable! soft and lovely against the skin.  I’ve discovered that quilting cotton makes GREAT nighties!  Since I’d intended it to be a proper dress, I have to admit it did turn out a leetle bit over-engineered for a nightie; it’s got facings, pockets, inset strips to define the seams.  A bias bound hemline, for heaven’s sake.

Some deets:

Pattern; I used the Collins top pattern by In The Folds; I’ve previously made this once before, to make this palm leaf lace top here.  This time, I lengthened the appropriate pieces to make it dress-length.  In doing so, I extended the front and back diagonal lines right down to meet at the hemline in a nice neat V.  I decided to highlight this feature, by insering an inset strip into the seamlines, just like I did with this dress.  The bias cut contrast strip is mustard silk crepe; same stuff I used for my Fibre Mood Faye dress.

I’m rather thrilled with the sharpness of that point!

Cutting my “outer” pieces had used basically every last scrap of the snowflake fabric, so I unearthed a short length of soft yellow silk dupion from my stash; a remnant in merited from my grandmother.

From this; I cut my neckline/armscye facings, the voluminous pockets, and the bias cut strip I used to hem the dress,

For the button at the back of the neck; well I didn’t even really need to make an opening, since I’ve always found I can slip this dress on and off without un-doing the button! but I’d made provision for it, so needed to finish it off…

I took out one of the leftover buttons I’d covered in ivory crepe for Kelly’s wedding dress (self-covering button kit purchased here) and painted it with some gold paint.  This itself is leftover from when I made my Queen Rutela costume; I used it to paint my “jewellery” and my “hair”

So that’s it!  I have a wonderful nightie and have enjoyed wearing it a lot, since it’s basically like a proper dress.  Actually, it’s kinda half nightie, half dress… I think of it as loungewear.  I can take out the bin without worrying what the neighbours might think, haha.  Maybe I’ll even eventually dye it like I originally planned, and wear it out one day!

Details:

Dress/nightie; the Collins top by In The Folds, in printed quilting cotton
Lilac shoes; made by me at a Shoe Camraderie workshop, details here

pinterestmail
Posted in: sewing \ Tagged: , , , ,

scribble-y sundress

06/12/2019 1:07 pm \ 9 Comments \

I’ve made a new dress, and how gorgeous is this splashy, scribbly, fireworks-y print!  And the way this divine rayon challis ripples breezily against my legs was actually quite quite delicious… it was extremely hot when I took these pictures, like 39C, so soft whisper-y cool, featherlight stuff felt like exactly the right thing to wear.

While we were in San Francisco, Shams took us to Britex.  According to basically everyone who knows; Britex is a “must-visit” for the fabric enthusiast… like, every single, San Francisco shopping recommendation to me included in some form or another ” …and Britex, of course”

And I most heartily concur.  This place is insanely fabulous and I could’ve happily spent all day there..  The walls are stacked floor to ceiling with, well it felt like thousands of bolts of strong solid colours, arranged by colour to make a rainbow mural of fabric itself.  What a sight to behold!  I was crossing the rainbow bridge!  Is this heaven?!!!

I die…

can you even…??  #sigh  And this was only ONE floor, there was another one too!

Shams introduced us to the lovely owner, Sharman Spector; who was so kind and welcoming to us foreigners.  I learned that Britex is a Legacy Business, which means it is one of a “longstanding community-serving business that is recognised as valuable cultural asset to San Francisco by the Office of Small Business. Preserving Legacy Businesses is critical to maintaining what makes San Francisco a unique and special place.”  … and thank you, Professor Google for that succinct explanation…

Obviously, this is a wonderful idea, one that I wish we would adopt over here.  Imagine a world populated by lots of small businesses offering unique and special services?! This, and many other utopian customs are just part of the enormous appeal of San Francisco, and I should add, New York City too.  I think they are very innovative and future-thinking over there, while still keeping firmly in mind what is important to the happiness of human beings.

Anyway… my dress!

Sharman kindly gave me a length of this lovely “scribbled flowers” rayon challis; it’s delightfully whisper thin and feels coolly divine against the skin.  So I envisioned a floaty, nothing-y little wisp of a dress.  The print is quite oversized, so I could’ve got away with a longer dress, I think, but I’m very happy with this length; I think it’s both cute and chic, and the higher neckline balances nicely with the higher hemline.

Pattern; is my own design.  It’s very simple because I really wanted this lovely eye-catching print to shine…   so I’d made a similar dress for my friend L at the beginning of the year, a clone of a favourite dress of hers, and I couldn’t get the design out of my head.  Mine has a few key differences which I wanted to implement; namely it’s quite a lot more A-line… MORE float!! … and has pockets.  I altered the width of the top bits too, and the armscye.  Actually, the armscye turned out to be a bit of a boo-boo…  once it was hemmed it was just a leeetle bit low-cut.

You could definitely see bra-action… and I decided that if the bra was going to be seen, at least it could be a bra designed to be seen, and that went beautifully with the dress, complementing it.  I toyed briefly with the idea of a hot pink thing, – sawww tempting!! – but in the end decided the perfect bra to match this was in fact a plain black, strapless bra.  Strapless, well obviously, and plain black in order to not fight with the amaaaaaazing print, and to offset the black fabric I used for the tie.

For the bra; I used my old faithful McCalls 2772 swimsuit pattern pieces for a strapless bandeau bra; the only mods I made were to make boning channels using the side seam allowances, and inserting a short strip of boning.  This keeps the bra structured and upright and not fold in on itself while I’m wearing it.

I also gathered the centre front onto a 7cm length of black elastic, just because I think it looks nice! and I also shortened the back straps by several inches, to make it nice and tight.  Strapless bras have a tendency to migrate south, if they are not quite tight!  I like my underwear to be in sets, so I also whipped up a matching pair of undies, using the bikini bottom pieces from the same pattern.

Oh, the dress neck-tie, I cut from a black satin remnant, leftovers I think from this black Forsythe dress I made for Cassie, three years ago.

The front and back of the dress are actually different from each other, even if they LOOK identical! so in order to identify the back I used this little Kylie and the Machine label I got in the Perth Frocktails goodie bag.  It’s pretty cute, isn’t it? even if I kinda had a fleeting wish it was one of the “the is the back” labels; well I can swap that out if I ever buy a set.

But for now; it’s finished, and ready to keep me chic-ly cool in this extreme heatwave!

Details:

Dress; my own design, in this beautiful printed rayon challis from Britex 
Bra and knickers; McCalls 2772, black poly
Shoes; Zomp, from Zomp boutique

pinterestmail
Posted in: sewing, Uncategorized \ Tagged: , , , ,

a cute little floral frock

27/11/2019 6:55 pm \ 3 Comments \

Oh hey.  I made a dress. Wot a surprise!  No seriously, how cute is this dress?  Like, I think it’s rather cute, eh.

did I make my shoes too? why yes I did!  thanks for noticing!

 But of course what am I here for? but to provide the exact deets on how you can procure such hacked cuteness for yourself too.  AND; be happy about how you not only made it yourself but that if you do so, you’re also raising funds towards an excellent good cause too… and did I mention there is a competition? with prizes?!  No? well you could be in the running for a sewing machine, or an overlocker machine!  Check out all the deets here!!

So, a few months ago I was contacted by Rachel of the Foldline re taking part in this thing, the third annual sewing blogger “hacker” tour with Simplicity/McCalls.  Hacker?  yes, I can tell you’re immediately interested, since all of us who sew also LOVE to hack; butcher; ham-fistedly riff upon  add our own little “something” to a design, yeah? well, the tour is an initiative where proceeds raised from the sale of a small range of Eminently Hackable (TM) patterns nominated in the tour will go towards the Eve appeal charity… In all seriousness the Eve Appeal is a truly excellent resource to raise awareness of gynaecological cancers, and to provide a port of call for those wishing to seek information about the condition and the community.  The site helps people with where to go and what to do, who to call for medical and non-medical cancer advice and support, should that situation arise in their lives.  Like everyone else, I have very close friends and relatives who have gone through this dreadful experience, so I know sites like these can be a very soothing thing to turn to, when your closest loved ones just don’t know what it’s like or what to do…

I’m like, well GOOD ON Simplicity for being a part of this!   here is the list of Simplicity sewing patterns that are part of the hackathon for the appeal…

S8378 XXS-XXL
S8658 XXS-XXL
S8700 XS-XL
S8701 H5 (6-14) U5(16-24)
S8888 XXSl-XXL
S8929 XXS-XXL
S8930 XXS-XXL
S8991 XXS-XXL 
S8992 XXS-XXL

btw, the patterns I’ve listed above are all directly linked to the Simplicity website, but are NOT affiliate links,  I would always disclose an affiliate link and in any case have so far had a super impressive, grand total of ONE affiliate link in all my decade of blogging – my goodness, how time flies! – but anyway,  rest assured I am not making a single cent out of this!  it’s all going to the Eve appeal!

Anyway, I chose Simplicity 8658… which is a pretty nice, loose, basic raglan sleeved tunic top, with some optional ruffle action going on… and I made a dress.  Of course, one doesn’t have to “hack” the pattern, if you just want to make it up just as it, that’s fine!  However, I couldn’t resist a few tweaks, here and there, just because not only do I love a good hack-attack but also I do love a cute little summer frock and could see how this pattern could so easily become the CUTEST summer frock imaginable! and I think it turned out ok too!  … and I have thusly, and dutifully, documented any and all such tweaks in excruciating detail, right here because well, I am a blogger after all…  Bloggers, must blog.  It’s what we do  (shrug)

I used  this beautiful navy blue floral, cotton and linen single gauze from Minerva    to make my dress.  I’ve always waxed lyrical about how much I love navy blue and pink as a colour combo, so no need to bang on further,  it’s just… CUTE, that’s all.  Navy blue, and pink; am I right?  And the texture of this stuff is just as lovely as it sounds; almost exactly like nani Iro double gauze, except it’s a single gauze, so not quite as “cosy” which is a very good thing in our very hot summers! and still with the same, super soft and exceptionally lovely light-as-a-feather touch to it.  I love this fabric so much!

When I opened the pattern I was pleasantly surprised to find included a large sheet of grid paper, printed with 1″ x 1″ squares all over.  Obviously to make your pattern-hacking plans just that much easier!

After some thought, I decided to make the following hacks:

  • cut the back on the fold, as one piece
  • cut the front as two separate pieces, with an overlapping V-neck opening.  This would have little self-fabric loops and self-covered buttons to “close”.  Inverted commas around that “close”, because actually the V-neckline is wide enough that I can just pop it on over my head, no need to undo any buttons at all  #cleverNON?!
  • use the lower ruffle but lengthen it considerably so it actually transformed the tunic into a full-blown dress  #DOUBLEclever…NON?!!
  • put in pockets.  Because, obviously, pockets.

So above are my cut-out pieces.  Additional pieces to the pattern are the two front facings, which have exactly the same profiles as the front opening edges, at 5.5cm wide not including seam allowances.  I added a 1cm seam allowance to both the front opening edges, and the facing front opening edges too.  I applied lightweight iron-on interfacing to the facing pieces.  And, the pocket; which is basically self-drafted, though I can barely even write that with a straight face.  I laid my hand down and drew around it for heaven’s sakes.  It’s pretty big, because I have big ungainly hands.  This is seriously my most used pattern piece, of all time.  I use it in every single thing that I possibly can!

First step: stitch together the sleeve pieces, as directed.  I opted to overlock all seam allowances to finish, using my overlocker and navy blue thread.

Stitch the back sleeve pieces to the back piece.

Belatedly stay-stitch the back neckline (woops!)

Interface the front facing pieces and finish the raw edge on the overlocker (or HongKong seam, or bind, or turn under and hem, whatever)

Make a skinny rouleau or “spaghetti strip” for the button loops; by cutting a 3cm (1 1/4″) wide strip on the bias, folding right sides together and stitching to give a 6mm (1/4″) tube, turn right sides out  (a more detailed description on how to make rouleau strips here)

Cut into 5cm (2″) lengths for the button loops, and spacing them evenly; stitch them into place along the opening edge of the right front.

Lay facing pieces over the bodice front opening edges, and stitch.

Trim, and clip into the point.  Press open, under stitch.

Cut a 2.5cm (1″) bias strip, and apply to the entire back neckline to finish, including both sleeves as well as the back piece  (this technique described in more detail in this post here).

Pin the front bodice pieces to the front sleeve armscye, abutting the neckline edge of the sleeve hard up against the front/front facing seamline.  Fold the front facing back over the front, right sides together, and enclosing the front sleeve between the two.  Pin, and stitch.  (apologies for the photobombing camera strap)

Trim corners, grade seam allowances, and turn out.

Attach buttons to the left front bodice piece, corresponding with the button loops.  I used self-covering buttons, purchased at this etsy store here; and covered them with the same floral fabric as I used for the dress.

Measure where you prefer your pocket pieces to lie – this is a personal preference determined by your own arm length – and attach the pocket pieces to both  ruffle/skirt pieces, front and back.  Stitch side seams of ruffles, going around pockets  (inseam pocket insertion described more fully in this post)

Apply gathering stitch to top edge of ruffle/skirt, draw it up to fit the measurement of the bodice.  Stitch, over gathering stitches.  Hem sleeves and ruffle, and yay! it’s finished!!

I’m so happy with this dress! and really enjoyed brainstorming how I could transform the basic pattern to get the look I wanted.  Let’s be honest; hacking IS fun, and is always something to consider as part of the creative process for those of us who make our own clothes.  I would absolutely love if my dress here inspired anyone reading this post to perhaps join in with the hack-along… it’s open to everyone throughout the world! and what’s more runs all the way through January so there’s still plenty of time to get involved.  You can share your creation on social media and use the hashtags #hackalongday #hackalongparty #hackalongvintage in order to be in the running to win one of the pretty generous prize pool  … see all the deets here.

Please let me know if you do join in!

Here’s some more inspiration from the other bloggers taking part, using other patterns from the list, please do visit and check out the very creative and interesting hacks from these very creative and interesting ladies!

1. Thursday 26th September
Juliet, from Sew So Natural
https://sewsonatural.com

2. Thursday 3rd October
Abi, from Crafty Pinup
https://www.whatabimakes.co.uk

3. Thursday 10th October
Rachel, from The Fold Line
https://thefoldline.com/blog/

4. Thursday 17th October
Susan, from Susan Young Sewing
https://susanyoungsewing.wordpress.com

5. Thursday 24th October
Brittany, from Brittany Jones
https://www.brittanyjjones.com

6. Thursday 31st October
Bianca, from Sleepless in Bavaria
https://sleeplessinbavaria.com

7. Thursday 7th November
Amy, from Almond Rock
http://almondrock.co.uk

8. Thursday 14th November
Victoria, from Victoria Lucille Anne
https://www.victorialucilleanne.com

9. Thursday 21st November
Sara, from The Sara Project
https://thesaraproject.com

10. Thursday 28th November
ooo, that would be ME! haha

11. Thursday 5th December
Rumana, from The Little Pomegranate
http://www.thelittlepomegranate.co.uk/

12. Thursday 12th December
Emily, from Self Assembly Required
http://selfassemblyrequired.co.uk/

13. Thursday 9th January
Marie, from A Stitching Odyssey
http://www.astitchingodyssey.com

14. Thursday 16th January
Portia, from Makery
https://makery.co.uk

15. Thursday 23rd January
Barbara, Lisa and Louise, from The Pattern Pals
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UChdhdeKB7n39vstdMNGgX3w

16. Thursday 30th January
Jen, from The Gingerthread Girl
https://gingerthreadgirl.co.uk

 

Details:

Dress; Simplicity 8658 modified, single cotton/linen gauze
Shoes, my own design and made by me, details here

 

pinterestmail
Posted in: sewing, Uncategorized \ Tagged: , , ,

Carole in blue velvet

20/11/2019 4:49 pm \ 8 Comments \

Should that be “Carolyn” in blue velvet??  well I think it should!  Because this thing is so very very me!  LOOOOOOVE!

Actually, this is the Carole pattern, from the new issue of Fibre Mood magazine, available for purchase here.

The fabric is a totally GORGEOUS deep blue velvet that I bought at the Morrison fabric sale from.. ooh, maybe a few years ago?  I forget.  This also happens to be the only piece of fabric I had big enough for this pattern.  Lol!  Same as for the Faye dress, this pattern is a HUGE fabric hog!  It doesn’t show up too much, but there is a centre back seam on every back piece; the bodice, the middle piece, and the skirt piece.  This is not ideal, but was completely unavoidable.  The skirt piece alone is ginormous!  Even trickier; the pattern is designed for fabric 150cm wide, which my fabric was NOT ahem; it’s important to comply with this simply because the skirt piece is too big to cut out with fabric any narrower.  I only managed it by flipping the skirt pattern piece by 90 degrees and having a centre back seam.

Even one of the front middle pieces is also pieced down the centre, but I sneakily arranged for it to be the left front, the one that is covered up once the dress is all wrapped up closed.  You could never tell! except that I’ve now told the whole internet, right here, woops…

Technical deets:  I omitted applying iron on interfacing to the skirt opening edges.  Well, I did actually apply it, but thought it looked too stiff and did not allow the skirt to flow and undulate elegantly in the way I desired it too… so I peeled it off.  I think the skirt turned out so much better without it!

I had precisely zero velvet left after cutting out the main dress pieces, so cut the bodice and neckline facing from an old pair of Sam’s work trousers, which was the perfect shade of inky navy blue.  I’ve previously used these same trousers for the piping and buttons on this dress here.  Waste not want not!

For the ribbon tie closure, I bought a length of navy blue cotton twill tape, and zig-zagged the raw ends so it won’t fray.  The hem is hand-slip-stitched in place.

I absolutely LOVE this dress!  I almost, almost wish the weather was colder, so I could start wearing it in earnest… but well, I could never truly wish for colder weather, really.  Not with a straight face.  However, I shall very much look forward to wearing it next year.  Truthfully, I actually finished making this quite a while ago… like a few weeks ago #oops but have been completely unable to take a picture of it.  Partly that’s me being lazy.  It’s been so hot!  unseasonably so, and I just didn’t want to put it on.  I did try to take pictures indoors, at my now usual photo spot; but they were terrible.  I LOVE velvet but obviously it’s like a black hole when you photograph it, soaking up all light and basically looks just dark and completely featureless.  This is an example of what I’m talking about…

hehe, only including the picture because it’s got my beautiful Sophie in it, really…

Another thing is .. well, you guessed.  The wedding dress.  As well as the wedding consults and planning.  We helped a lot with advice and as a sounding board for Tim and Kelly when they were planning theirs; and now of course, Cassie being our daughter, and the lion’s share of planning a wedding generally falling to the girl; fair or not that’s just how it is! well of course we’re fully into the details of this one too.  I’m just getting more and more behind on everything! and my sewing/blogging schedule is all over the shop.  I’m not complaining, far from it! but just explaining I suppose.  Life is currently quite FULL, for us.

Hmmm, got carried away and off the subject just a little bit there…  I should just delete all that, but I’m currently in the mood for stream of consciousness blogging, so I guess it should stay.  Ha!  That’ll teach me!

Details:

Dress; the Fibre Mood Carole dress, in deep blue velvet
Tights; made by me, details here
Boots; Sempre di, from Zomp boutique

Also, I’m part of a link party… check out the other creations people have made from the magazine!

pinterestmail
Posted in: sewing, Uncategorized \ Tagged: , , ,

I made a cool white dress

17/11/2019 5:25 pm \ 11 Comments \

O haiiiiii!!  As per the title of this post I have indeed made a cool white dress.  Noice, huh?

IN other news, in an attempt to be more time efficient I am now aiming to write this blog post in the swiftest time possible, and with minimal to-ing and fro-ing and correcting and proof-reading.  Since normally I’m about as slow as a wet week.  Let’s see how I go… it is now 16:17…

So this is Burda 08/2017; 119; also known as the “miscellaneous dress” on the Burda style website.  I was idly browsing on the website and spotted it, and instantly fell in love.  I almost almost clicked buy now for the pdf, when I thought to do a last minute check on the Burda magazines I have in my collection.  Bingo.  Of course I already have it.  WIN!!

I had a length of white cotton sateen sent to me by Minerva; it’s very thin and a little crisp, and perfect for a highly detailed little summer dress like this design, I think, with some twists and folds and pleats and things that are perfectly highlighted in a plain colour.  Or,should I say, non colour?  with black and white, I never know whether it’s technically correct to call them colours actually, but my personal feeling is that both ARE colours and should be awarded that title.  Why should the most commonly used shades in apparel not be considered official colours anyway?  Weird.  But I digress.  I’m never going to write a nice swift blog post at this rate!

So, my dress.

I love designs with a twist and/or something unusual/asymmetric/weird about them, which is the reason I chose this design since; it’s chocka with stuff like that; obviously it has that belt/cummerbund thingy at the waist, and there is also an apparently full length asymmetric fold running all the way from the left shoulder right down to the hemline.  it’s not really a full length fold, that’s just an optical illusion since it’s chopped off and restarts in the waistline, but I love how it does look like it runs all the way through.

This Burda pattern is quite a challenge actually, and I scratched my head several times as to what I was supposed to be doing.   My advice is to mark the seam NUMBERS carefully and accurately; yes, those corners on a Burda pattern where there is a 1, 2 etc; those are the seam numbers which are often used in the instructions.  In my view, having them marked in this pattern is imperative to success.  Attaching the front bodice and skirt to the ride side middle piece and the right front middle piece, and the tab piece is pretty darn tricky to get your head around.  I’m not even sure if I got it exactly right in the end, but it “looks” pretty good and that’s all that matters really.

And truthfully I love a challenge though, something you can really get your teeth into  🙂

Clara asks; does my bum look big in this?

I also have a little feeling I should have done some sort of small bust adjustment, but am probably just splitting hairs here; I’m actually very happy with the final result and am positive I’m going to wear it a lot.  You know one of those dresses that it’s almost impossible to take a bad picture of it?  It felt a bit like this when I was reviewing the pictures of this one.

The fabric had just a little bit of stretch, just enough that I risked sewing  up most of the centre back seam, and only put in a short, 15cm zip at the top end near the neckline, enough that I could fit my head through it.  This worked out great, I can pull the dress over my head and it stretches just enough that I can wriggle into it just fine!

The back is really pretty plain; kinda blah with nothing special going on at all.  I think in a perfect world I would have chosen for this design to have something equally visually interesting at the back too, but well, you can’t have everything.

The first day I wore it, I paired it with my handmade slides/sandal things that I made at my first shoe camaraderie workshop… I love how they look together!

So that’s it!  It is now 16:45; not too terrible… oh but I haven’ t counted the time it took to take and upload pictures. Damm!

I am actually in this picture here, posing like a boss somewhere back there.  There just happens to be a subtle, unobtrusive bit of photobombing going on at the same time…

Details:

Dress; Burda 08/2017;119, in slightly stretchy, thin white cotton sateen
Shoes: white slides made by me! details here 

pinterestmail
Posted in: sewing \ Tagged: , , , ,

deep golden Faye dress

02/11/2019 3:24 pm \ 14 Comments \

I’ve just finished making this dress… it’s rather gorgeous, isn’t it?

Just before going away, I was contacted by the lovely Sophie, who asked me if I’d like to make something from the autumn issue of the Fibre Mood magazine… would I?!!  Fibre Mood is a newish Belgian sewing magazine, with a nice variety of designs suitable for different sewing skills, some quite simple, and some more funky and cool with interesting details.  I chose the Faye dress – I have to admit partially influenced by the totally divine sample! printed it out before going away, but got no further until the day I got home again …

and literally as soon as I got home, like the very same day… I got onto it and finished it.  Again, maybe influenced by the sample; I dug out from my stash this silk crepe in just about exactly the same colour.  Copycat?  Moi?  Well, I may have also been influenced by the fact that it was literally the only piece in my stash large enough for the pattern layout too!  I’d originally bought it from Tessuti’s in Melbourne, during one of my girls’ weekends over there with my Mum and Cassie.

It’s so autumnal!!  I’m incredibly into autumnal tones right now, I think probably influenced by all the beautiful fall foliage images we’re getting from the northern hemisphere right now, but also of course because I am an “autumn” myself.  I do think these tones suit me pretty well  🙂

“pockets!!”…  in a hoarse drug-dealer-on-the-street-corner voice…

The design is slightly 80’s, in a really good way in my opinion! reminding me of the comfortably loose-fitting midi shirt-dresses with gorgeous wide and swishy pleated skirts from ralph lauren 80’s collections…  the Faye design IS a true shirt dress too actually; with a long concealed button band, and with both the bodice and skirt pleated into the waistline.  And, of course, and at the risk of sounding fanatical; HUGE pockets in the side seams, above  🙂

The bodice has what look like pocket flaps on the front, but which are actually faux flaps, and are more of a design feature.  The back bodice has a matching horizontal seam, and a rather cute hanging loop as a purely visual feature.  I love small interesting details like this!

well, hello gorgeous!  Sophie likes the dress too…  🙂

I didn’t have matching golden buttons in my stash, and am trying to use my stash rather than always buying new – holiday souvenir shopping notwithstanding!! – so I dug out some black buttons from my stash.  It may sound counterproductive to stitch very visible buttons underneath a button band constructed specifically to conceal them! however I actually like this look of them peeping out a a lot.

The sleeves are stitched with a very wide hem, which is then turned up to for a self-cuff.  I really love the almost “safari” shirt vibes of the bodice.  This photo also shows the nice pleats in the bodice and skirt fronts.

The only part of the design I found a little too scantily explained was the hemline… there were basically no instructions as to how to finish the hemline with that concealed button band as well as the button band itself either.  I know from past experience this is something you do have to address a lot earlier than the very last step! this sort of thing requires stitching the corners right sides together and turning out, and at least a little bit of hand-stitching things down.  The instructions for Faye pretty much leave all of that entirely up to you.  I also decided to hand stitch the concealed button band pieces together at the lower edge too, to make it all look a bit neater and seamlessly finished off.

 

Also, in my  opinion, the nature of the button/buttonhole band construction makes for a very thick area at the front of the waistline… because the button band and concealed buttonhole band are cut-on with the bodice and skirt, and then seamed together at the waistline… when you create all those multiples folds that are inherent in a button band, not to mention that of the concealed buttonhole band, well let’s just say there’s a heck of a lot of layers in there.  If I was going to make this again, I would probably cut the button/buttonhole bands separately and in one long piece, no waistline seam, and attach them to the centre front edges of bodice and skirt after they’re joined together.  The way it’s done in Faye is not actually terribly terrible, because this is the kind of dress you wear a belt with it, and a belt hides the waistline anyway; however I think this approach would make for a less bulky and cleaner waistline.

The hem, I made as a super skinny rolled hem, finished with tiny fell-stitches.  My crepe is the kind of fabric that when you press your very narrow finished hem, thus flattening it out from 3D to 2D, it morphs out to a much wider hem, seemingly by magic.

Summary; I love my autumnal new dress! and may even dare to wear it as a spring-time dress… I think it will work equally well!

Details:

dress; Fibre Mood “Faye” dress in a golden silk crepe from Tessuti’s in Melbourne
Tights; self-drafted using my own custom fit pattern and black polyester stretch from Spotlight
Belt; super old one from Country Road
Boots;  Officine Creative from Zomp boutique, a birthday gift from Craig

the swish is amaaaazing!  I’m so into the swish right now!

pinterestmail
Posted in: sewing, Uncategorized \ Tagged: , , , ,

box of socks; the September edition

27/09/2019 10:19 pm \ 18 Comments \

So I’m really trying to keep on top of the box of socks situbar, because I’m worried that I’m just not going to get made the twelve I promised myself I’d make.  I’ve just been so… oh dear, I find it very tiresome when people whine about how busy they’ve been lately, but well, I have! during the last month Cassie announced her engagement to her long-term boyf Daniel, and then fulfilled my dream ever since basically the day I gave birth to her by asking me to make her wedding dress.  I’m so very thrilled for this!  Of course the whole family is over the moon and excited for another family wedding so soon!  Our days are becoming very very full.  And this will be my second wedding dress within a year!

I’ve even got started on the dress already… Cassie and I went shopping together at Fabulous Fabrics for a pattern and fabric, and bought a gorgeous pile of laces and the most beautiful heavy silk taffeta.  I’m so excited to cut into it!  And this is muslin number one.  It’s ok, however the fit is not quite right and there will definitely be a second before cutting into the precious taffeta.

Vogue 8470…

Aaaad anyway, just quickly getting back to just about the biggest anticlimax possible, my new pair of socks.  Pretty, huh?  I bought the ball of yarn in Japan.  Of course.  Everything in Japan is cool.

This is Opal yarn, colour KFS 128 “Ice cream”.  I absolutely love the soft pretty pinks and the frozen iceberg blues, however there was a short section in there of a sort of dirty white, with purple and green splotches; which I did not like.  So I removed these parts of the yarn while knitting, and I think the colour way is just so much the better for it.

The box of socks is looking pretty stuffed but mahty fahn all the same!

pinterestmail
Posted in: knitting \ Tagged: , , ,

black Clementine

12/08/2019 10:52 pm \ 12 Comments \

Oh my gosh, I am so behind!  I’ve made this new dress … and have worn it and why have I not blogged it?  I used to have quite a strict rule about not wearing something until I have written a blog post for it, but things have been so hectic and complicated lately.

So I received a length of beautifully soft, perforated black suedette fabric from Minerva, and also the Clementine dress pattern, the inaugural pattern from a new pattern company, Forget-Me-not patterns and the marriage of these two items bore the most satisfactory fruit; this delightfully witchy-chic and I think rather elegant little number…  I only had 2m of the suedette fabric which was technically not enough to make the dress I wanted to, but somehow I made it work! with some sneaky patching together here and there.  Specifically, the side front and side back panels have a waist seam, and the back panel has a centre back seam.  Not that you’d ever know that wasn’t completely intentional if I hadn’t pointed it out, right?!

The Clementine is a terrifically versatile pattern, a fit and flare style with princess seams, designed for a stretch knit, and includes a top and dress variations, with either a scoop neck or a cowl neck option.  Also three different sleeve lengths marked too.

I went, very predictably I’m afraid, for the dress option, with the cowl neck, and the three quarter sleeve length…

My suedette, being perforated, is actually a little bit “peekaboo” close-up, so I chose to underline my dress completely with some very thin, beige/greyish-ivory knits I had in my stash already.  Two slightly different fabrics, of an annoying length each of which wasn’t really enough on their own to be useful enough for anything much so I was mighty pleased with myself when it occurred to me I had “just enough” of each combined to cut out my underlining!  I clean cut the suedette and the beige knits using my rotary cutter and left them unhemmed, since the fabrics are all non-frayable and quite stable; however I did opt to hem the sleeve hems since these areas are subject to a bit more stretch and strain.  Each of the underlining pieces was cut to be 5cm shorter than its corresponding outer shell piece.  I stitched each seam, before overlocking the raw edges in a second pass.  The pattern is reeeeally economically designed for minimum fabric wastage, with a 6mm seam allowance.  Highly approve of such thriftiness! although it doesn’t leave any wriggle room, should one wish to indulge in a bit of post-cutting size-fudging/alteration, ahem!  fortunately I went with my recommended size and feel like the sizing is just right.

I am completely in love with that s0ftly draping cowl neckline!  It’s my favourite feature of the dress!

At the back neckline I overlocked the raw edge of the suedette shell self-facing, turned it down over the underlining, and simply topstitched it in place…

I was quite pleased with myself when the front facing/underlining turned out quite clean and neatly done; I cut the front underlining the right length so as to stitch to the lower edge of the front self-facing, right sides together, and then when I stitched the shoulder seam I sandwiched the back shoulder edges in-between the front and its self-facing, so all raw edges are neatly hidden inside.

I liked the idea of the dress being middy length, so lengthened all pieces by 15cm at the lower edges… this is the very maximum I could get out of my metre-age!  I was actually kicking myself I had not ordered more fabric, but was rather chuffed I managed to make it work, yay!

And that swish factor!  I love a dress with a bit of swish!

I have to say; Clara was being so sweet the day I took these pictures!  I was down south alone with her on this particular week, and setting up to take photos of my new dress and she just snuck over and plopped herself down loyally at my feet, without even being asked… I was so touched!  although the little nose touching my hand in the first picture make me suspect she thought a treat might be in the offing; poor girl, it was not!

I am wearing the dress here with my self-made tights – think I might need to make a new batch of these before winter ends!; and the boots Craig gave me for my last birthday.  It’s funny, I didn’t actually think these would get a tonne of wear since I have several pairs of black booties/boots; but I’ve enjoyed wearing them so much this winter.  Maybe even my most worn pair of boots for the year?… maybe?!

pinterestmail
Posted in: sewing \ Tagged: , , ,
Switch to mobile version
↓