Sewing Inspiration - Boden

OK, hands up who looks at fashion spreads in magazines and starts trying to work out what patterns/ fabric they could hack to make it themselves? 

I recently got sent the latest Boden catalogue, and in addition to a coupon which will allow me to replace a couple of seen-better-days fine knit cardigans (if you know me in real life or follow my Me Made May daily pics, you'll see I wear these just about every day!) there are some excellent knock-off-able looks which I am considering for summer sewing.

I have been somewhat scathing about Boden in the past, totally putting them into the Yummy Mummy box, but their last few seasons collections have been great!

The Lovely Linen dress could easily be made with a Colette Pastille dress bodice with a bit of piping and a gathered skirt (like an Emery if you needed a pattern rather than just using a big rectangle!)

Source: Boden, Colette Patterns (from the Sewing Handbook), Christine Haynes

I would use a lovely blue graphic floral rather than the yellow pictured here.


The 60s Ponte Dress is a dead ringer for a sleeveless funnel necked Coco:

Source: Boden, Tilly & the Buttons

With a little bit of tweaking (stitching down the pleats a bit and adding grosgrain ribbon to the waist), Maria Denmark's Paula pleat skirt could be just the ticket to make a version of the Poppy skirt:

Source: Boden, Maria Denmark

I think with a bit of tweaking of the wrap bodice pieces and addition of some braid (perhaps in a more tasteful colour than Boden's neon orange!), Cake Patterns Tiramisu could make a fab version of the Rosie dress:

Sourc: Boden, Cake Patterns

You could use Sinbad and Sailor's new Hepworth pattern with a little bit of neckline reshaping to make your own version of the Nancy dress (what is with all the yellow Boden?):

Source: Boden, Sinbad & Sailor

Do you like the new Boden looks?  Any you are planning to recreate?  What other fashion brands are inspitring your sewing this summer (or winter if you are in the southern hemisphere!)

Fella, this is a line i ain't biting. That's a bona fide offer. Well, with a little moonlight and roses...

So you know what this post is going to be about! Unless you have been living under a rock (or at least not keeping up with your sewing blog reading) you'll have heard about Sew Dolly Clackett organised by the fabulous Sarah from Rhinestones and Telephones. Sarah  had the great idea to celebrate the upcoming nuptials of the very lovely Roisin and Nic by making dresses in the style of Roisin herself. And let me tell you, that girl not only has great style and a presumably immense wardrobe/shoe storage area, she always gets a perfect fit and finish on her dresses. I've never seen her in one that looked less than perfect!

Anyway, enough gushing. What's the craic with this dress?

This is my second attempt at Christine Haynes Emery dress.  The first one was a total fitting fail that I blogged about here. So for this I went back to the drawing board, retraced the bodice and made another toile. I got some really helpful comments on my post before which helped improve this one. I lengthened the bodice by 2" and moved the darts down by 1". I did my usual 1/2" FBA.  One area that was a big problem in the previous version was the shoulder width. Based on measuring the previous one, I did a broad shoulder adjustment of 1" and a 5/8" square shoulder adjustment (which I often do).

I'm pleased with the fit. An extra 1" in bodice length wouldn't go amiss but it's pretty good as is!

I used the skirt (extra 2" length) and sleeve (widened by 1" to take account of shoulder adjustment and because it was a touch tight) that I had used before.

I am quite annoyed with the pics though - they were taken in a hurry before work this morning and the dress looks seriously wrinkly which it doesn't in real life.  Damn.

Now for the fabric. This was the hardest choice! How can you narrow down all the possibilities? Roisin says this is why she makes so many dresses! I wanted to reflect her style but also make something wearable for me, and much as I love her pin up girl dresses, they just aren't me! An idea had been brewing in my brain since I remembered asking roisin on twitter to recommend some fabric for a dress. She picked one of the prints from the Michael Miller Ahoy Matey collection for me, I think this one. So the nautical idea was there and a sale on nautical prints at fabric.com sealed the deal!

This is another Michael Miller fabric called My Favourite Ship from the Out To Sea collection.  N absolutely loves it. Of course my dress needs a name, so I asked her and she has called it the Neverland Pirates dress (from the cartoon series Jake and the Neverland Pirates).

I finished this dress with moments to spare due to a nasty 24 hour bug I had over the Easter weekend (that's prime sewing time dammit!). The hem was done at 10pm the night before and I did consider machining down the lining by stitching in the ditch at the waistline.  But then I thought WWRD (What Would Roisin Do?), stuck on an episode of Elementary and hand sewed it down.

Roisin and Nic are such a lovely couple and I'm proud to count them as friends. Wishing them all the best in their future married life together! And I can't wait to see the wedding dress roisin is making!

The not-quite- right Emery

I wasn't sure whether to write this post but after much prompting on Twitter, here it is!

I don't have a lot of sewing fails really. I'm quite methodical and usually make a muslin but the end result here isn't good and I'm not quite sure why!

The pattern is Christine Haynes Emery dress. I love it so much and every other blogger has raved about it and the perfect fit (Roisin amd Tasha's versions are gorgeous). I bought some lovely but relatively pricy John Kaldor fabric in the Sew Essential sale in January and Emery seemed like the perfect pattern for it. I love a boat neck, could easily change up the skirt and there are collar options.

Luckily I decided to make a muslin using some cheap poly crepe I picked up. I had an idea in my head for a lace overlay on the collar and I used a silvery grey lace for this. 

OK so ignore my weird face - this is the only side pic

 

As the bodice is lined I used a navy cotton - the cheap poly against the skin would not be pleasant! I love lined bodices as in addition to looking and feeling nice, you can use them as the muslin.  I tissue fitted to work out length issues - I added 1" above the bust dart and 2" below and did my usual 1/2" FBA. I think this is where I went wrong however. I think I made the FBA too big (more like 1" - I really shouldn't eyeball. My eyeballs don't have a clue - or a tape measure) which accounts for some of the problems.  I suspect adding length above the bust was less correct than moving the dart down?  In the muslin the main issue appeared to be bagginess under the bust. I get this quite a lot and got some good advice to curve the bust darts to remove some bagginess. I think I made it too curved - probably due to excess at bust so it didn't press well. I did a square shoulder adjustment and added a little to the sleeve to match (and as I felt the sleeve might be a bit narrow anyway). I didn't muslin the skirt but added 3" in length after measuring.

The collar didn't attach easily either. I was easing the bodice into it a lot which gave some weird wrinkles - I asked about this on Twitter and no one else seems to have had this problem. I wonder if the crepe was stretching but the interfaced collar wasn't - the crepe stretching could account for a lot of the other problems!

I also didn't attach the  collar correctly - the centre front seam isn't in the right place when I look at other collared versions - Lauren and Kathy's and it doesn't press or sit very flat. I think this caused problems when I hand sewed the lining at the waistband. Also the shell seemed to need to be eased to the lining which suggests the shell stretched.

There were a few good things about it - the fabric has great drape and eased nicely into the waistband with even gathers. The sleeves went in perfectly first time. The invisible zip is perfect. 

The end result? A wrinkly pile of meh.

Just to be clear these are not issues with the pattern. It seems well drafted and the instructions are clear. I'm totally not giving up on it as I reckon I can fix the issues.

But I don't think this version is fixable and I suspect this is partly my too big FBA, partly the fabric and partly carelessness in attaching the collar and bodice.

What do you think? Could I /should I try and salvage it? Or start again with the right FBA? I'm not super attached to the fabric. It was and feels cheap and is tough to sew with and pin into. But I love the idea of the lace collar!

Can you give some fitting tips? Maybe a broad shoulder adjustment needed given the pulling at the shoulder? One observation is that the people who have blogged about getting a great fit were narrow across the shoulders which i am definitely not!  Or is it just not a good style for me and I should give it up?