Stylish Dress Book Archives - Page 2 of 2

red gingham

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

… 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

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

Tear drops top

11/01/2014 2:05 am \ 43 Comments \ Carolyn

White tops, and particularly if lace or broderie anglaise or any wildly impractical snowy stitch-festival are part of the equation, have always been a weakness of mine. Not just during summer but any season. One of my earliest pins as a freshly minted Pinterest-er was this Isabel Marant top. It was immediate love at first sight. The perfect summer top; feminine and chic, cool and blowsy, romantically pretty and casually easy-breezy. I wanted one, and began plotting…
At first I thought to re-create the style using plain white cotton and finding some sort of broderie border to attach to the lower edges. Then during my long weekend away in Melbourne with Mum and Cassie I chanced upon this fabric in Tessuti; white cotton voile with beautifully intricate broderie anglaise borders already in situ. One selvedge had very wide embroidered borders, and the opposite had a narrower border in the same design. Utter perfection! I used the deeper edge for the body of the blouse and the narrower edge for the sleeves.

The pattern I used is top X, from the Stylish Dress Book by Yoshiko Tsukiori. A big oversized loose T-shirt/peasant blouse thing, slightly gathered into a narrow neckband with a faced front split.

A plain and simple top with very little shaping, designed to showcase to best effect a gorgeously bordered fabric. I only very slightly altered the side edges of my pattern pieces so the motifs and the scalloped edge would match up seamlessly.

The shoulder seams are French seams but for all the seams within the embroidered borders; I just overlocked the edges, stitched the seams then pressed them open; that broderie is just too thick with stitches to attempt any fancy seam finishes!

So; a nice easy project but I still had to steel myself to take the scissors to my fabric. That awful first snip! Of course, ruining beautiful fabrics is terrible and the fear of that can spiral you into major second-guessing, but maybe it’s worse to hold back forever and never allow yourself take the chance on making something beautiful with it. Give yourself permission to try… that is why you bought it, remember?
I have to repeat that to myself, like a mantra, every time I’m faced with special fabric that I totally and utterly adore. And I’m so relieved that I didn’t ruin this lovely fabric!

Details:
Top; top X from the Stylish Dress Book by Yoshiko Tsukiori, broderie anglaise cotton voile
Skirt; Vogue 7303, lime print cotton
Sandals; Misano

Posted in: Uncategorized \ Tagged: daily outfit, Sienna, Stylish Dress Book, SWAP, top

Red

28/11/2013 6:20 am \ 47 Comments \ Carolyn

So; red dress.

I pinned this dress a while ago because I really loved the little shawl collar and the shape of the bodice and wanted to reproduce it for myself. I used a particularly nice, crisp and slightly slubby cotton from Fabulous Fabrics and the pattern is based on dress M from the Stylish Dress Book, modified as outlined below. I am pretty pleased with how my self-drafted collar turned out 🙂

It’s always nice to have a couple of fresh, new, cool and breezy little dresses ready for summer and so this one needs no other reason for being, really… but I confess a major reason for making it was also to have something to wear to the Wildcats games. We got season tickets this year and had barely even entered the car park to attend the first game when I couldn’t help but notice that 99.99999% of the spectators were wearing brilliant cherry red. AAAgh! Wardrobe alert! When we were first married a gazillion years ago we used to go to all the Wildcats games but back then no one dressed in the team colours. You just went along wearing whatever and cheered on your team. Nowadays the crowd is a sea of red, red and more red. If you’re not in red you stick out like a sore thumb. Appropriately hued spectator attire was required, toute de suite.

Actually I do already have one bright red dress but basketball fans generally do not turn up wearing slinky cocktail dresses, ahem. That would have looked even more weird. This dress fits in nicely while still being a bit “different” from the mob. My wardrobe ethos in a nutshell, really!

Additionally the dress has Christmas possibilities. Festive, yet please note the capacity for accommodating a large lunch and the ease with which it can be lightly tossed on over bathers. If Christmas Day is 40C like it has been for the past few years then yes.

Details:

Dress; modified dress M from the Stylish Dress Book by Yoshiko Tsukiori, red cotton

Sandals; c/o Misano

Some technical notes: I modified the pattern by adding a gradual Mt Fuji shaped curve to the top of the front skirt and cutting away a slightly less sharp curve away from the lower edge of the front bodice. To make the shawl collar I spliced together the back and front bodice pieces at the shoulder and traced around the neckline, adding a tiny wedge at the centre back for turn of cloth. The dress has no closure because it is loose enough to just slip over my head.

I added slanted patch pockets for a change, just because inseam side pockets are taking over my wardrobe and I felt the need for some variety. I like the invisibility of inseam pockets, but it is nice to have pockets as a visual feature on an otherwise plain
dress too. These are sewn on at a slant for easy hand access and have a purely decorative folded flap at the top.
I also removed width from the sleeves, so they fit into the armscye with very little gathering.

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

Beachy polka dots dress

13/09/2013 12:30 pm \ 78 Comments \ Carolyn

So, we had some purr-fectly dee-lightful weather last Monday, allowing me to wear, and take some piccies of, my dress. The product of my giant beachy polka dots fabric, screen-printed by moi. Um, I’m completely satisfied with how it turned out. And I can think of nothing further to add. Not like me, I know 😉

OK, just a few things.
I used the pattern for dress F from the Stylish Dress Book by Yushiko Tsukiori, chosen because I wanted an almost featureless tunic dress, with no darts and minimal shaping to interfere with my print, but still had a certain je ne sais quoi. This design, with a short neckline split and two piece open sleeves with a discreet but pretty little ribbon to tie them closed, was exactly what I wanted. I cut out all the pieces before printing and sized my print to fit the pieces.

A stylistically simple design, like my stylistically simple print. I added the obligatory-to-me pockets, ahem; deep inseam ones. These are cut from the same sand-coloured cotton/linen fabric as the dress, but unprinted obviously. The same goes for the bias-cut sleeve ties, and bias neckline finish and the neck facing. There are advantages to printing your own; you can leave it off all the “invisible” bits of your dress, and that is a vast improvement… nothing to show through!

It’s been a thoroughly satisfying project in that the result truly matches my vision. I’m going to really enjoy wearing it.

The creativity demon inside has been sated… for now 🙂

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

Autumn leaves sundress

07/09/2013 3:26 pm \ 46 Comments \ Carolyn

I made a sundress using my autumn leaves fabric, screen-printed by me here. Those who like wonky weird imperfect prints are going to like this, if you don’t, then avert your eyes!

The pattern is an adaption of dress T, from the Stylish Dress Book, the design Reana chose for me to make my sew bossy dress here, which now looks like this. That one is such a great dress to wear; so comfy and easy to throw on it has quickly become one of my favourites 🙂

For this new dress I didn’t have enough fabric to make up the pattern as is. I left off the sleeves, and removed about 15cm in width from the centre fold of both the skirt front and back, so there is no gathering into the bodice … that’s a whole foot taken out of the skirt’s circumference overall! and there was still plenty of room in the skirt for me to have inseam pockets. I cut these from a much nicer, lightweight white swiss dot cotton.

The front neckline of the bodice has been scooped out a bit deeper than the pattern, and I split the front bodice and made a little placket, with buttons and buttonholes. Just because, I dunno (shrug), something to focus on other than those weird and wonky leaves. The front and back bodice each have a full facing, cut from a lightweight plain white cotton.

Hehe… would you believe I’ve only just noticed, when I uploaded this picture? that one of the leaves on the front of the bodice is missing its stem?? Only just noticed! LOL! And while drawing them in I checked and checked… I’ve fixed this up now, but didn’t bother to take another picture.

I’m a bit meh about this dress, partly because my print is … funny; and partly because the fabric itself is a pretty poor quality. It is a bit stiff and almost calico-like in texture. Now I’m kinda kicking myself I didn’t take the risk and buy a finer quality cotton in the first place, problem was, I had no confidence in myself and started out with the assumption I was going to stuff it up. I will wear the dress, because it’s airy and cool and will be great to have in the wardrobe in the hottest days of summer when I just want to grab something casual, and I’m hoping it will soften up over time with wear and washing. The thing is, I usually judge my self-mades by posing the question; would I buy this if I saw it in a store? And realistically I would probably pass this over, laughing at its hideousness. Oh well.

A thought… I can always use it as an apron, for future screen-printing sessions?! Ha!

I did learn something pretty important in printing and making this dress… Cut out the pattern pieces before printing!

This approach is hugely superior to printing a length of fabric and then deciding what to make with it, like I did here. Several reasons…

There is less wastage of fabric ink and your own effort, since you are not printing fabric that you won’t use.

You can make sure that the print is properly covering the pattern piece as you are going along.

You can if desired place the print just exactly how you want it to appear on the piece.

It’s guaranteed that you will have enough fabric printed to make what you want, there’ll be no laying down the pattern pieces and being disappointed that you underestimated just how much you would need.

Another consideration… there will be no angst when cutting into your precious print since it is already cut out and ready to go!

And, learning from my own mistakes… yes, I have already sewn together my giant polka dot pieces too, and I’m pretty happy with that one….. Stay tuned! 🙂

Details:

Dress; based upon dress T from the Stylish Dress book by Yoshiko Tsukiori, screen-printed ivory cotton

Hat; Vogue 8844, ivory corduroy, details and my review of this pattern here

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

Browning a couple of things

10/06/2013 4:30 pm \ 53 Comments \ Carolyn

Remember my Sew Bossy dress, below? It was very… sweet, wasn’t it?
I mean, I wish I could wear really pretty things like that, but I think I cannot! But
I thought it had promise, it just needed de-twee-ing.

before

I lopped off
the sleeves, so now they are plain little cap sleeves; and then dyed the whole thing
brown, using iDye, colour Brown.
So, I didn’t do very much, but it’s definitely made a ginormous
difference to my resolve to actually wear it! I kinda love its new look, still with an old-fashioned charm, but in a less cute and more prosaic way, reminiscent of peeling sepia-d wallpaper in a decaying old farmhouse, or something.

Since I had used ivory
coloured polyester thread to sew the entire dress, after dyeing the hem
stitching really stood out and looked awful. I unpicked all the visible ivory top-stitching and re-stitched
using coffee coloured thread.

The little quirk of
dyeing is that you cannot always predict exactly what your results are going to
be. I found it interesting that
the ivory based print has come out a slightly purple-y shade of brown, while the
white cotton I used for the neckband and hemline piping has come out more of a
yellow-y, coffee colour. Aaah, the lucky
dip that is dyeing!

And while I had the dye pot and
dye out I also re-ombred the top of my red velveteen skirt, which had lost a bit of its intensity
since I first dyed it a year ago.

I’m a big believer in the transformative powers of brown dye. Such wonderful stuff.

Details:

Dress; dress “T’ from the
Stylish dress book by Yoshiko Tsukiori, original post here; with short sleeves, blue sprigged cotton dyed brown. My tutorial for basic one colour dyeing is here.

Tights; self-drafted, of
denim look jersey knit, details and my tutorial for making your own custom fit tights here

Shoes; Francesco
Morichetti, from Zomp shoes

Skirt; Vogue 1247, red
cotton velveteen dip-dyed with iDye in Brown, details here. My tutorial for dip-dyeing is here.

Posted in: Uncategorized \ Tagged: daily outfit, dress, dyeing, Sienna, Stylish Dress Book, Wardrobe Refashion

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.