Uncategorized Archives - Page 12 of 177

Cassie’s wedding dress

06/04/2020 6:24 pm \ 39 Comments \ Carolyn

Oh hey! I made a dress for my daughter! it’s a rather special one actually… 😉

So where to begin…well of course I’m teasing; my darling girl recently married her man D and this is her wedding dress, that I might have mentioned before once… or maybe twice, tops.

I’ve already written about making the petticoats, three of them, in fact. Cassie loves to dance and was determined to do lots of it at her wedding, so wanted a beautifully twirly skirt. She also decided she wanted a shorter skirt, hitting above the ground, and wanted it to stand out full and stiff in a 50s sort of a way, which meant plenty of oomph underneath was required.

I made a very full tulle petticoat, and two simple full circle cotton voile petticoats; one to go underneath the tulle petticoat, close to her skin, for comfort; and the other one to go over the tulle petticoat to smooth out any lumps and bumps that the tulle might form underneath the silk skirt.

Full details of making these can be found here

I’ll just quickly slot some shoe talk in here; when she decided upon a shorter skirt, the shoes became an important consideration… we searched and searched, trying on multiple pairs of lovely wedding shoes but then Cassie decided she wanted green shoes; and not just any green. She had the exact shade of green she wanted in mind, and anything else was just not going to cut it. What do you do in this circumstance? well you dye your own shoes, of course! We found a pair of pale bone/beige coloured suede sandals at Hobbs, with a nice low heel and straps to make them perfect for dancing, Cassie bought some Kelly green Rit dye from Spotlight, and over several painting sessions and rinsing in between, finally achieved the perfect shade of minty green. Aren’t they gorgeous?!

Now back to the dress … maybe I should start with the fabrics? All were purchased at Fabulous Fabrics, and shortly after her engagement Cassie and I spent a highly enjoyable morning there playing with lots of beautiful laces and silks. And she chose the most beautiful of them all!! which we proceeded to cut up, overlay each other and generally re-arrange to become something totally and completely and utterly different from how they started. Sigh. That seems to be the story my wedding dress-making life, so far!

The bodice itself underneath all that lace is made of beige silk charmeuse, and the skirt itself is heavy duchess silk satin, just about the most divinely heavy and lustrous fabric I could imagine. So beautiful!!!

For a pattern, we started with Vogue 8470, and almost totally altered it of course. Just as I did with Kelly’s dress, Cassie had a firm vision about how she wanted her dress to be, and so we hunted for a pattern that had the right bones and started hacking. The bodice fronts of the pattern come down in a gentle V and are gathered underneath the bust into the middle bodice, and we gently re-shaped this into the shape Cassie wanted – she wanted more low-cut, for a start; and tailored to fit her which entailed a small bust adjustment, and made the gathers into a smooth dart instead. The middle part of the bodice is different too, a little shallower and with a flatter curve, to fit with the lace placement that she had designed. The bodice back of the pattern is a quite low-cut scoop, which we transformed to a full coverage back with a much higher neckline, right up to the nape of her neck.

I love the slight bustle effect of the lace peplum at the back! My favourite part of the back view 🙂

The skirt of this pattern is simple enough; a full circle, and I added large pockets. Pockets! in a wedding dress! just about every girl’s dream, right?! I’m not sure if she actually put anything into them, maybe just her hands I think! but at least they were there.

With the placement of lace on the bodice; this is 100% Cassie’s artistic vision and mostly her work too! Cassie wanted heavy coverage of well-defined “structural”-looking large scale lace over a gridded background; and I think she did an absolutely magnificent job! I had very little to do with this bit, just some technical advice and I did occasionally pick up the dress and do a little bit of hand stitching of lace when she wasn’t around; but the artistic placement and nearly all the stitching is totally her effort. My clever daughter!!

I did do that “grid” bit in the middle of the bodice… we had some pre-beaded grid from one of our purchased laces, which we used here and there as a background in other parts of the bodice, but it was in small bits and pieces and the size of the remaining pieces weren’t enough to cover this part of the bodice. So I re-created the same look with hand-embroidery and -beading over beige netting for this bit. Those bias strips of duchess satin were pinned down before attaching the lace, then hand-stitched on afterwards.

I had a tiny headache with the zip; Cassie wanted the bodice to be quite tight-fitting so I’d stupidly made the bodice quite tight-fitting; and didn’t take into account that fully hand-appliqueing something has a tendency to shrink it in a little bit. Halfway through all that hand-work one day, she tried it on and we could barely get the zip up … it was awful, I was terrified it was going to split! Fortunately, even though I’d been too dumb to think about the shrinkage thing, I had been smart enough at least to leave a nice wide seam allowance for the zip… so I could unpick the zip and re-insert it, letting it out a bit. Disaster averted! and when you’re hand appliquéing a random lace design like this it’s a simple matter to take off, re-arrange and add more lace motifs to cover up an alteration in an invisible way!

pre-appliqué…

Just like I did for Kelly’s dress, I added a grosgrain belt to the bodice/skirt seam allowance inside, with a sturdy skirt hook/eye to carry the weight of that skirt. It’s hidden underneath the bodice lining for the most part, and emerges just either side of the zip in two little buttonholes in the lining, so the girls could hook it up at the back before doing up the zip of the dress. I didn’t take any pictures of this bit unfortunately, but you can see what I mean in the post on Kelly’s dress here.

I was smart this time, and didn’t stitch on the hook and eye until AFTER I’d pushed the grosgrain ends through the button holes. I don’t think I mentioned this for Kelly’s, but when I made hers I stitched on the hook and eye very firmly and ultra-securely before trying to push them through those buttonholes in the lining. It took aaaaaages to carefully tease the metal hook and eye through those slightly-too-small holes! but I was determined and eventually got them through. It was like giving birth though; a tight squeeze! This time I did it right, though!

I don’t know what else to say… oh maybe only hemming the dress? This took a surprisingly loooooong time… like I think it was a whole full weekend, from memory; and by that I mean two full seven-eight hour days. I made a long cotton voile bias strip and stitched this to the raw skirt edge first, bound the edge, and then handstitched a lovely deep hem. The skirt is just the teensiest bit shorter than the tulle skirt, because we both love the look of just a hint of tulle peeping out underneath. Of course, on the day I realised that when you’re standing up and looking down at the skirt from a normal head-height like every single person at a wedding, you can’t even see that tiny hint of tulle! it’s visible only when you’re lying down with your head on the floor dressmaker-style carefully measuring a hem! Haha!!

But I’m not even the slightest bit unhappy about that of course, my only thought when looking at these pictures of Cassie is that she is the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen, and that making her dress was both a lifelong dream come true and the greatest and happiest sewing creation of my life. Oh dear, and now I’m NOT going to cry! Here, have a massive overdose of pictures instead!

this completely spontaneous snap is my favourite picture of Cassie and her cousins… yes I made their dresses too! all details of their dresses here

These earrings; this was her something old and something borrowed… Mum had some pearl earrings, and she also had some pearl earrings she had inherited from her own Mum; my grandmother and of course Cassie’s great-grandmother. Mum had great-Granny’s earring re-made from a clip-on to a pierced backing, so Cassie could wear one earring from her grandmother and one from her great-grandmother at her wedding. This is so so special, it makes me well up a bit just to even think about this…

I actually made this polka-dot blouse for Cassie quite recently, I just haven’t blogged about it yet. Also; that Stormtrooper toiletries bag? I actually made that for Daniel a few years ago! the pattern is part of the Portside set by Grainline patterns

Wearing the earrings… also; Cassie’s hair…

Something blue; I embroidered a commemmorative patch to go inside Cassie’s dress, just like I did with Kelly’s… want to hear something crazy? I stitched, unpicked, and re-stitched this SIX times…

the three pieces of my heart…

I can’t wait to see all these precious peeps again…

Sam and his lady L… L kindly acted as one of our models for the Perth dress

I regret that Mum isn’t in this picture mostly because that would have been so lovely, and also because I made her dress too…

Posted in: sewing, Uncategorized \ Tagged: applique, beading, Cassie, dress, dyeing, embroidery, own design, vogue 8470, wedding, wedding dress

bridesmaids

04/04/2020 5:27 pm \ 15 Comments \ Carolyn

Cassie wanted her three cousins, my brother’s three daughters, to be her bridesmaids; and look how beautiful they are! It was so much fun and a totally lovely and enjoyable experience for me to make these dresses for my gorgeous nieces. I’d occasionally made little things for them when they were tiny, but truthfully it’s been a while. It made me very happy to create lovely things for them, and for Cassie’s special day too 🙂

We had lots of discussions about the dresses; initially we were thinking of the traditional identical dresses, but thinking on it further, the idea of different dresses seemed a lot more practical. Three sisters, who can and often do! borrow each other’s clothes, would find a lot more use for three different dresses, than three identical dresses. And everyone wants for the bridesmaids to get further use from the dresses!

We did however, make the dresses the “same” in the sense that I used the same pattern for each dress. Namely; view B of Simplicity 1195. This is actually just the “slip” designed to be worn underneath the “proper” lace overdresses of the pattern, but it gave us the perfect, spaghetti-strapped, princess seamed bodice with a nice twirl-irific A-line skirt that we were hunting for. Side note; it’s amazing how a lovely simple basic pattern like this is actually quite rare; we searched ALL the pattern books and this was basically the only one that fit the bill! Amazing!!

Even then, it still needed a few tweaks… the pattern is actually a little drop-waisted and the girls wanted a true waist seam. Luckily, a very easy adjustment. Also I made each dress to be fully lined, obviously. And the pattern runs quite large; I traced out the correct size for each girl and it was really quite baggy; I had pin in all the seams quite aggressively to get the bodice to fit.

I wanted the three dresses to look the same on each girl, so I made muslins for each one to perfect the fit. My Mum early on said; it’s going to be so easy to make their dresses because they’re all the same size!! And I was immediately like; No Mum, they are NOT the same size! Mum; But they wear each other’s clothes all the time! Yes, they can wear each clothes reasonably easily; which is great! because I love the thought that they are going to be able to swap and wear each other’s dresses in the future. But that does not mean they have the same bodies, because they are actually very different, sharing none of the same measurements.

So I made three muslins too. I hardly ever make muslins, only for the most important of important-est of items. So this is a stupendous honour, just so you know 😉

Fabrics! All the dress fabrics were bought at Fabulous Fabrics. We had a great fun morning searching for the perfect colours … well; I actually left the four girls to play with fabrics and make their choices while I happily browsed fabrics and pattern books by myself. And just handed over the credit card at the appropriate time. And successfully managed to not buy anything for myself at the same time! A very good day! Cassie had made a mood board for her wedding, and chose the three colours from those on her board.

Also, it’s funny; but finding the matching lining fabric for each colour was almost as as much of a hunt as anything else! We found the perfect yellow lining fabric at Fabulous Fabrics at the same time as we bought the dress fabrics, but not any of the other colours … I eventually found a good sage green match at Spotlight, and the pink dress is actually lined with ivory lining fabric, that I had already in my stash. All three matching invisible zips I found at Spotlight.

T’s dress, in sage green; and J’s dress, in golden yellow are made in the same crepe-back satin as each other, and the pink fabric for C’s dress is a much lighter weight, slightly crinkly crepe. Cassie was quite worried that the pink was a different fabric but it was exactly the right colour so I assured her we could make it work. And it worked out absolutely fine, of course! Because it is a much more lightweight fabric with a tiny amount of crinkle-based stretch to it, I did need to make a few changes to the construction technique of this one… for example; to stabilise the bodice of the pink dress, I constructed it so the lining plays a far more structural role with the dress/lining sewn firmly together at the waist seam as well as at the top edge.

Also, the pink spaghetti straps had a slightly elastic quality, and I did NOT want for them to stretch out over wear obviously!, so I threaded a length of cotton crewel thread through the straps, and stitched it to the straps themselves very firmly at the bodice junction; so this behaves like an ersatz “backbone” that provides hidden support and stops the straps from stretching. Just a little secret tip/trick that no one would ever know!

I also took the step of hand-basting the seam allowances of the pink bodice down after grading. I can’t explain exactly why I chose to take this extra step, just call it a hunch about a difficult fabric.

The green and yellow satin-backed crepe is a far more stable fabric, so these dresses have the more traditional lined dress construction, with dress and lining free from each other from top edge down.

I attached ribbon hanging loops to the waistband of each dress; this was leftover ribbon from my stash.

It was a lot of work making the three dresses, but I thoroughly enjoyed it! the fact that they were three different colours made it so much more enjoyable than if they had been the same, I think. I machine-stitched the lining hems, and I want to give a big shout-out to Cassie who then hand-hemmed the dresses themselves for me. This is always a much huge-er job than you originally anticipate, so I’m so grateful that she stepped in and took over this important, and arguably rather fiddly part of the process. Thanks, darling!

These are the bouquets for the wedding, constructed by Daisy Hill Flowers… aren’t they the most stunning?!! I was blown away when they were delivered! And I love how the colours of the girls are selected in the bouquets too.

Daisy Hill Flowers also decorated the wedding cake. The wedding cake was a doughnut cake! made by Krispy Kreme! this was what D, Cassie’s new husband wanted. His one request, as it were… 😉 I think it turned out absolutely gorgeous, and the doughnuts were delicious too!

Cassie made the cake stand herself … she searched and searched for a nice stand online and in stores but nothing was just right. So, she made it herself, as you do. Or should I say, as we do?! She’s such a product of her family…!! Sam took her to the Men’s Shed one day; he does a lot of woodworking projects there, and she cut out the rounds. She brought them around to our place, where she painted them all white, and then got the perspex rod cut into the appropriate length, and drilled and screwed them together. Bam! I’m so proud of my resourceful and clever daughter…

BTW; if you haven’t read it already, my previous post addresses the covid-19 situation with regards to this event…

Posted in: sewing, Uncategorized \ Tagged: bridesmaids, dress, simplicity 1195, wedding, wedding dress

mother of the bride

31/03/2020 4:03 pm \ 27 Comments \ Carolyn

So, I made this beautiful (I think) dress for Cassie’s wedding.

I had early settled upon the beautiful bohemian Carole dress by Fibre Mood … for several reasons. Firstly; I already have the pattern printed out AND had made it up previously too and so knew I didn’t need to do any more special fittings of the pattern to myself. Time-saver! And secondly, I thought it was a gorgeous style too, of course!

I found the beautiful floral print in Fabulous Fabrics. It is a silk/cotton and the most divinely luxurious stuff to sew and to wear. It is also just about completely see-through, so my dress is underlined fully with soft ivory lining fabric.

I basted underlining and outer shell pieces together along the seamlines first, then overlocked the raw edges together before stitching the seams

The underlining is cut 4cm shorter than the dress with a machine-finished hem, but the outer shell hem is stitched in a narrow hem with tiny fell-stitches. I hand basted the facings to the underlining with tiny invisible stitches at both the front fold and the overlocked edge to the inside too.

My label!

Side view… I absolutely adore the gentle high-low nature of this beautifully twirly hem!

So I actually made this dress back in January, when I had a bit of spare time in between bridesmaids and bridesmaid fittings, and I’m so glad I did. The last little bit leading into the wedding was SUPER stressful…

this counts as my make-nine-but-actually-twelve thing for March…

and OH! I almost forgot! just like I did for Tim’s wedding outfit, I quickly whipped up a matching bra and undies for this outfit too…

Well… it sorta? matches?! I think it’s close enough, anyway. It was actually damn difficult to find fabric even vaguely matching in either colour or design!

I used my favourite pattern the Watson by cloth habit, and cotton jersey from Spotlight. The red ribbons were saved from an old, also me-made, lingerie set, and I made my usual two pairs of matching knickers…

Details:

Dress; the Carole pattern by FibreMood, silk/cotton from Fabulous Fabrics
Lingerie; the Cloth Habit Watson
Shoes; Zomp, from the Zomp boutique

I took these pictures back in mid-January, so this is the happy face of a woman who has not even heard of the novel corona virus… so hard to remember those innocent times now!

I’m a bit torn here; I’ve either finished saying everything I need to say about the dress, OR I can address the obvious elephant in the room.

As mentioned, I actually made the dress way back in January, when I hadn’t fully got revved up with the more … maybe important? shall we say? wedding sewing, and decided to just run mine up in a quiet week, in between bride and bridesmaids’ fittings, and before things got more hectic. And, oh my gosh, but did they get more hectic. I was making Cassies’, very involved, wedding dress, and her three bridesmaids’ dresses, this dress here, and I also ended up making my Mum’s dress too, when she was getting overwhelmed at the thought of it. It’s been … a lot… emotionally as well as workload-wise. As well of course as we all know; approaching like an invisible tsunami from the other side of the globe was Covid-19; and none of us had any concept just how much the world was going to change in the following few months. I really really appreciate that we are so extremely lucky here in Perth to be so isolated, that the situation here is far far less severe than in other countries, and that our government is right on top of things and has shut down the country in, hopefully, good time.

So yes, Cassie’s wedding did indeed go ahead; with good fortune the date was set for the very last weekend before restrictions started to really ramp up here in Perth, Western Australia. When I say ramped up, well the number of people allowed at a gathering have been reduced, and reduced and reduced! specifically, first it was 500, which went quite rapidly down to 100, then to 10, then 5, then 2! At the time of the wedding, the number was 100. Let me say; I’m not complaining, and I am most definitely very pro-lockdown to control the spread of the virus, but at the same time I have to admit to being so very retrospectively glad that the timing of our wedding meant we were able to go ahead as planned. We were worrying right up until the night before, when we got the legal go ahead with very few adjustments needed. We were fortunate that our numbers were already small, we had no guests that were coming in from out of the country or even the state, our venues were big enough to comply with the (at the time) 4 square metres per person rule, and we had already made preparations to protect our elderly relatives, like face masks and hand sanitiser – purchased at great expense! was available at each venue. We also pro-actively made a no contact rule; absolutely no hand-shaking, hugging or kissing. It is so so strange to lay out these guidelines for a wedding, but these are very strange and scary times and such rules helped put everyone’s mind at peace. Everything went off as planned, and a couple of weeks later everyone is still healthy and well, for which we are so enormously relieved that I can hardly find the words for it.

It’s almost impossible for me to reconcile this time when we were fully allowed to gather together to celebrate our darling daughter’s wedding as a family; with now, a few weeks later, when we are not seeing anyone in our family AT ALL.

Anyway, that’s the story. Small things to worry about really, at a terrible and terrifying time like this. I sincerely hope everyone who reads this is safe and healthy, and continues to be so, and that you and your loved ones are able to access good health care if you should need it.

Posted in: Uncategorized \ Tagged: Carole, Cassie, daily outfit, dress, fibre mood

delicious Delice

29/03/2020 10:52 pm \ 5 Comments \ Carolyn

Hello! I know I said wedding sewing would be the next thing I posted here but I’m not quite ready to write about that yet. However yes, we had the wedding, it was wonderful and all is well. In the meantime I’m just quickly jumping in with a new little something, a fun number I finished probably two to three weeks ago now but haven’t really worn it much because the weather has simply been too hot for it.

And now it’s not; et voila…

This pattern is the Delice dress/blouse pattern by Super Bison cousou main; a new-to-me pattern company, and can I just say right now, even apart from anything else like some really nice patterns the name of the company is practically irresistible! Super Bison! So cute! I’m just getting this mental image of a bison with a cape zooming superman-like from out off the prairie grasses and into the sky and it’s giving me a much needed laugh… 🙂

no capes!

My fabric is beautiful, a purpley-chocolate/burnt-orange/raspberry-red/blue brushed cotton plaid… I LOVE the colours here. I bought this fabric from the Fabric Store in Melbourne on a trip over there with Mum and Cassie, several years ago.

The pattern has three sleeve variations, and I did want to make the long sleeved version but in what is probably the story of my sewing life, I did not have enough fabric… doh! I made the sleeves as long as I possible could, and then I even managed to cut another strip to add onto the bottom to make it look like the sleeves have a sort of faux cuff extension too. It’s a bit of a random feature but I really love it!

Ah plaids; of course I absolutely adore plaids but they come with their own plaid-specific issues and let’s just say it; there is very little plaid matching accomplished here, just the barest of essential areas like the side seams. I simply didn’t have enough fabric for such extravagance. It’s funny actually kinda serendipitous; when I’d cut out the front bodice, to get all the pieces cut out the front plaid had to be off-centre. I thought this would bother me but in the end I’m glad actually. I think it turned out a better look than if everything was perfectly centred and lined up.

I absolutely love this little dress, it’s cosy and comfortable, quite fun to wear, and I think it looks pretty cute as well. The colours are quite autumnally scrumptious! and in winter I’m going to try it with a long sleeved wooled T-shirt underneath too.

The one little downer sort of a thing is, it must be said, the sad absence of pockets. I did attempt to put inseam pockets in the side seams but they just did not work actually, and I had to take them out and repair the side seams. It’s ok, I haven’t quite given up all hope yet though… I still have the pocket bags and just enough fabric to fashion some welts for welt pockets. I’m going to give it a crack pretty soon, but just wanted to write this blog post anyway; while the spirit was willing, so to speak.

I’m so glad to get this long-petted fabric out from the fabric room and into … um, well into a different room in the house?! The wardrobe! 😀

Later edit; I added the pockets! so much better now 🙂

wearing it here with my me-made tights, raincoat, scarf and cardigan, and rtw boots

I’m really only including this next picture because of The Eye.

Details:

Dress; the Delice pattern by Super Bison cousin main, brushed cotton plaid from the Fabric Store in Melbourne
white shoes; designed and made by me, details here

Posted in: sewing, Uncategorized \ Tagged: Clara, daily outfit, delice, dress, super bison

pouches

14/01/2020 11:12 pm \ 14 Comments \ Carolyn

This is not the post which I would ever have wanted to start the new year, let alone the new decade but sadly this is how it just is… Australia saw the end of last year and the beginning of this one with the most devastating fires in our recorded history, they’ve been burning out of control for months and the tragic loss of wildlife has been particularly heartbreaking… earlier this month saw a callout for some of these animal pouches for wildlife rescue centres so I hopped to and made some.

I got the recipe off the internet here, and used leftover bits and bobs from my stash, and some old T-shirts too. There are 10 fleece pouches of various sizes for various sized joeys and other animals, and two cotton jersey liners per pouch. All the seams are French seams, as requested by carers, and with seams and hems on the outside of the pouches.

The fleece I’d bought ages ago for sweat pants and tops, and just never made it up because really, I don’t even like sweat pants or tops, so I’m just really glad it’s going to a place where it will be much more appreciated.

I actually finished these and sent them off back in early January but was just too sad to blog about them… but anyway, here they are. I hope a little joey or two enjoys snuggling down into them.

Posted in: Uncategorized \ Tagged: animal pouches

och aye

27/12/2019 8:27 pm \ 12 Comments \ Carolyn

My final creation for the year! and a couple of other things too, since of course I found/have recently finished more unblogged items which I am including although technically I didn’t “make” them. But first things first… I shall start with my new tartan dress. I did make this!

I think I’ve had a bit of a thing for a voluminous skirt lately, and this one is also on the flooffy side! I used a pattern I’ve had on my “want-to-make” list for years; Burda 10/2009;119, but altered it somewhat:

A) mine is longer and at the same time, more voluminous, more of a midi length than the knee-length in the magazine,

B) I added in extra seaming, to showcase both a bias and an on-grain tartan layout, and making it more user-friendly to put together, and

C) I changed the width of the skirt panels so I could pattern match the tartan across the skirt pleats and still get the correct width panel into the waist.

(A) needs no further explanation, so I’ll move straight on to B …. The pattern has you cutting a full-dress length centre panel that is pleated from neckline to waistline… rather than have a whole lot of, possibly unnecessarily bulky pleats in my bodice, AND having to pattern match the darn things… I cut the centre panel of the bodice separate from the skirt, and as a finished width, with no pleats.

I also cut the back bodice in three pieces similarly to the front; with a centre back centre bodice on the fold, and two bodice side pieces; and put an invisible zip in the left side seam of the dress. Not only does a side seam zip make it easier to put on and take off the dress, but obviously … no pattern matching of plaids along either side of an invisible zip!! Since I was cutting the back bodice in this way, I took the opportunity to rotate out the waist-shaping darts, incorporating the shaping into the seams.

I’m doing the Burda styling thing here…

The back skirt pieces were cut similarly to the front skirt pieces; so as to have two side pieces and a generously pleated centre panel. Maximum skirt volume!!! Oh, I also cut all pieces so the bodice seamlines would match up vertically with the skirt seamlines… it just looks a lot neater. OH! and also my skirt side pieces are just a touch more flared all round, not by much, just a few inches at hem level each side, but multiplied over the four gores and it adds up nicely!

As for point C; I carefully folded and basted the plaids together so as to pattern match the tartan perfectly across them, and then cut the centre front and back skirt panels at the finished width as indicated in the pattern. Because of the width of my plaids, the skirt centre panels ended up a lot wider than those in the pattern, which is fine with me #maximumflooff

Originally I kept the pleats stitched together vertically for a little bit at the top of the skirt, but in the end decided it looked nicer for them to flare out immediately out of the waistline.

The skirt side pieces, as with the bodice side pieces, are cut on the bias.

can I just point out… ^^ those little Sophie-ears!! ^^

The last modification, which almost goes with saying because I’m a well-documented pocket freak, was… well I guess it just got said! I used my most used pattern piece for this, which is one I drew up to fit my own inelegantly large hands. I cut it from an old Vogue magazine cover, which is a nice thick glossy card; and it lives permanently stashed in a handy place adjacent to my sewing machine.

My fabric! is a really nice, poly-viscose suiting from Minerva. I realise poly-viscose might not sound very nice, but it really has an extraordinarily realistic wool-like feeling to it and is lovely and soft against the skin!

One of the things I really like about this dress is that while it definitely has a winter-y vibe to it, it’s sleeveless and not body-hugging either, so I think it’s going to be ok to wear it in spring and autumn, and even cooler summer days too. In winter it would definitely need a long sleeved skivvy or tee underneath, and tights, and I’m looking forward to wearing it like that too!

The next thing! I didn’t make this dress but I did devote an entire day to making it fit for Kelly to wear so I’m totally OK with documenting my creative input here… I remember now it was presented to me basically a few days before I flew out the the US for my holiday with Yoshimi, which is why it slipped my mind to document it here before! 🙂

Tim and Kelly were groomsman and bridesmaid respectively for their friends T and G; who were likewise their groomsman and bridesmaid respectively! and together Kelly and G had ordered the below dress off the internet … and btw, can I take this opportunity to say? never ever ever order a dress off the internet at the last minute! Kelly had specified “for maternity” and sent in her measurements and it was “supposed” to be made to measure – inverted commas there because of course when it turned up it was instantly apparent that it was not at all suitable for maternity and also, nowhere near made to measure. For a start, there was an insurmountable gap of five inches between the two sides of the invisible zip, and obviously poor Kelly with her pregnant belly was going to do even more baby-growing in the two weeks before the wedding!

She brought it around for some urgent adjustments…

When I opened it up, I could NOT BELIEVE the innards of this dress… it looks so soft and floaty and comfortable in the modelled picture, doesn’t it? well far from it; the insides were built like a Sherman tank…

The bodice lining AND the underlining were interfaced with firm and inflexible horsehair stiffening that had been securely fused to the fabric. The princess seams were boned, believe it or not, with the boning going directly over the bustline. SO uncomfortable! The skirt looks softly gathered into the waistline with a little self-fabric belt, and you might think it had an elastic waistband? well NO, of course the skirt was gathered into a securely stitched and totally inflexible waistline. The neckline/off-the-shoulder ruffle was very not-Kelly too, she’s just not a ruffle person at all. So the first thing was to cut it off, as neatly as possible close to the neckline edge, leaving a chic little spaghetti strap.

I actually needed to harvest fabric from somewhere to put some wedges into the side seams of the inner skirts anyway, so was glad to be able to get some so easily from the ruffle!

I opened up the side seams of the two inner layers: the underlining and the lining; and inserted wedges to add in the needed 5″ of extra width, so the zip could close at the back. I had a bit of pretty-good matching linen, which I used for the bodice; these wedges needed to be strong because these were the layers that had been stiffened with iron-on interfacing, I also ended up using the linen in the skirt underlining for opacity, and the chiffon from the ruffle in the lining, so it looked nice on the inside. I know it didn’t really need to “look nice” on the inside because this was emergency butchery at best, but you know; old habits die hard! After all this, the ribbon hanging loops needed unpicking and repositioning too.

just to clarify; this is the INSIDE of the dress!! I needed to say this because yes indeed I’m aware it all looks a wee bit scrappy… 😉

For the shell; I unpicked and opened up most of the waistline seam and let out the gathers for the required 5-6 inches of needed extra width, then restitched it up. And re-inserted the belt loops.

Finally, it’s hard to see from the before picture, but the bodice had too much vertical height, and horizontal folds of chiffon ballooned out quite unattractively over the bust and waist seam… so I turned up as much of the extra volume as I could into a sort of horizontal “cuff” just underneath the top neckline edge. Cassie kindly hand-stitched this down invisibly for me 🙂

It was all a bit rough and ready really, but at least Kelly was comfortable, and carried it off beautifully, plus I think she looked lovely! And look at my handsome boy!!

The last thing, that I worked on yesterday actually! was binding this baby quilt… When we went down to visit Craig’s parents for Christmas, his Mum took it out and asked me if I could please bind it for her as she was not going to get the time or the opportunity to finish it herself. Of course I obliged!

She had appliquéd and embroidered all these cute little motifs on squares of calico, and patched the quilt top together, and quilted it with decorative stitching, stitched around the edge where the binding was to go.

She couldn’t find any more of the blue fabric that she had wanted to use for the actual binding, but I assured her I could probably find something that matched.

It took a bit of searching because I didn’t actually have a nicely matching plain blue cotton after all, but I dug out this old shirt of Tim’s? Sam’s? I’d thought it was one of Craig’s old shirts but he assures me it wasn’t his. I’m not sure now which of the boys it belonged too, but I thought it was a lovely colour match for the quilt! checks in soft green and yellow, and blue too. I cut strips on the bias and bound the quilt by machine on the top edge, and by hand underneath. It was quite interesting to me that the sleeves were plenty for the job! I’ve always marvelled at how men’s sleeves take up a TONNE of fabric, and here’s more proof!

btw, I could not find a good tutorial online for a nicely mitred corners for a quilt; all the ones that popped up had you encasing the edges in the folded-up bias strip and just machine stitching the lot, catching the underneath edge along with the top edge all in one go. Maybe I’m a snob, OK I probably am! but that just isn’t nearly neat enough for me and you run the risk of the machine stitching underneath looking all wonky, and maybe even not catching the underneath edge at all, since you can’t see what’s going on under there. In my opinion. So I worked out my own way which I think turned out quite neat, and think I’ll write a tutorial on here sometime, when I get time. If I get time. Next year, no doubt!

SO CUTE! I think Tim and Kelly are going to love it!

Posted in: sewing, Uncategorized \ Tagged: babywear, burda 10/2009;119, daily outfit, dress, Kelly, maternity, own design, quilt, Tim

jumbo checks

19/12/2019 2:33 pm \ 19 Comments \ Carolyn

Oh hey! I made a new dress! And I have writer’s block!

Obviously the second thing is not the least bit interesting to anyone who just wants to read – or in my case; write! about sewing… however the silliest thing about it is that it is not only hindering my efforts to document the things I’m making; the very purpose of this blog in the first place! but even sillier, it is preventing me from wearing it! Since I have this crazy self-imposed rule that when I wear something I really should have blogged it first.

So I bit the bull by the horns, or whatever I even mean by that accidental mangling of metaphors which I just decided to leave there after tapping it out without thinking… oh man… and decided the only thing to do was to wear it.. TODAY. Thus forcing myself to sit down and attempt a blog post, and hopefully loosening up that pesky little brain block… and letting it soften and dissolve and become ethereal enough so it floats up and away and out of my head, like a puffy little cloud. Bye bye writer’s block!!

What am I even writing about?? OH! My dress! Of course!

yes, it’s a bit windy today… 😉

So, a few months ago, I was contacted by Sarah, of Super Cheap Fabrics, who offered me a length of fabric.. I chose this lovely, light-coffee coloured, jumbo plaid-ed linen. It’s absolutely divine, really. I’d been inspired by a dress I’d seen irl on a lady; a very chic friend of a friend. It was too long, too wide, the check too large; and I became completely inspired by the overall oversized-ness of the scale of this dress! Like a child wearing her sister’s hand-me-downs with the thought she was going to grow into it, eventually. I subsequently found out she’d had her dress custom-made up on a holiday in south-east Asia.

I used Vogue 1312; a Lynn Mizono pattern that I’d bought years ago… it has a “tablecloth” skirt, very similar to the one Shams posted on her blog, many moons ago.

could not resist the inevitable twirl!!!

I went to some effort to incorporate a few things – well, ONE thing – I really really wanted for my dress; namely, pockets. I know, I know, we seamsters are so weird about pockets… the difficulty about pockets with this particular design was the invisible zip in the left side seam. While of course it’s easy to put an inseam pocket into a regular side seam, it’s actually extraordinarly difficult to finagle a pocket in a side seam that has a zip in it…

in the end I settled upon the aforementioned in-seam pocket in the right side seam, and on the left side, I put in a single welt pocket, about an inch away from the seam with the invisible zip. Sounds simple, yes? NO!!! Because the pocket is only on one side not both, and I’m a pattern-matching lunatic, I wanted both the pocket and the invisible zip insertion to be as seamless and invisible as possible. I know. I don’t know why I do these things to myself…. anyway, careful pinning and even more careful and slow sewing, and I think I did it…

Here is the front, all zipped and pocket closed and (hopefully) reeeeasonably, sorta, invisible.

and now, the unzipped, showing-the-pocket shot.

I think I’ve shown this next feature before, but I often find the bottom inside end of an invisible zip has a slightly scratchy area, pretty much invisible to the naked eye but it makes itself felt after you’ve been happily wearing your garment for a few hours. You can feel it if you rub your finger over it a few times. So I generally wrap the lower end of the zip in a bit of fabric, like so; and stitch it down to the seam allowances.

So, as soon as I finished the dress, I was so happy I immediately flung it on and took a few pictures, shoeless. I love how it feels! the oversized ness is exactly what I wanted. Large, flooffy dresses feel so incredibly feminine to me; which is kind of funny when you consider the well-established “modern” feminine perception tends to be for tight fitting and short.

I rushed out for a location shots too, but when I got back home I felt a little cool – it’s 24C today, but funny thing, 24C feels, dare I say it? cold? compared to over a week of 35C++ !! haha… so I put on a T-shirt underneath; and I think I REALLY love it with the little sleeves underneath. I love it like this so much I might even just add little sleeves to it permanently? Hmmm, food for thought!!

Sophie very often comes up for little cuddle while I’m taking pictures in this spot… it’s near “her spot” in the house. Hehe, this picture of her little head sneaking into the shot above as she crept over to me gave me a laugh. hello, my darling little snooky snookums!!

Details:

Dress; Vogue 1312
T-shirt; the Closet Case patterns
Nettie in white jersey, details here
Shoes; Zomp, from Zomp boutique

I have just two more things to share here before the end of the year… hurrah!

Posted in: sewing, Uncategorized \ Tagged: daily outfit, dress, Vogue 1312

box of socks; the December edition

15/12/2019 3:31 pm \ 11 Comments \ Carolyn

Finally! This is my 12th pair of socks for the year and my box of socks is finished!! I decided to end up on a festive Christmas note with some celebratory scarlet socks… they are quite plain, but… LOOK AT THAT COLOUR!! YUMMM!!

I bought this magnificently coloured yarn in Purl Soho in New York City during my recent holiday over there…it is a Koigu KPM 100% merino, hand painted sock yarn, dye lot 2227, but just says “solid red” on the label.

Actually, the thing I’m most proud of with these socks is that I finally managed to work out something I’ve been thinking of for some time… and that is to reverse engineer my sock pattern to be a toe-up design. So happy with this! I did it because the Koigu skein was a smaller one, and I knew I wouldn’t be able to knit two full-length socks, and wanted to make the best use of my yarn. I divided the skein into as close to half as I could gauge (haha, knitting pun), and knitted each until I ran out of yarn. You can’t do this with a cuff down design! As I got close to doing the rib section at the top end, I unrolled the remainder of each ball and measured and was really pleased to see I’d managed to get the two balls within 3m of each other! I cut the difference and joined it to the smaller ball to finish both socks off with an equal amount.

Even with all my careful and clever planning (ha!) … look at this!! I couldn’t believe I ran out right near the very very end of one of the socks like that! In case the picture isn’t clear, that’s about 8 stitches short! DOH!!

It’s funny; I finished these in the middle of a massive heatwave, the worst we’ve had in years! Literally a whole week of temperatures of 39C or 40C. It’s been almost unbearable… Anyway, posing for these photos with the socks on was not comfortable. One of the most common questions I used to get about the things I made was “but is it comfortable?” And in this case, for once I have to admit the answer was a hard NO!

Later on I was sitting in the pool and took the following photo, and had to laugh… now THIS is comfortable! basically the only kind of “sock” I can bear right now!!

And so finally… finally! here is my completed, and very squished up, box of socks… full to brim and spilling over just a little with woolly lusciousness… whooppeeee!