Minerva Blogger Network - The Blackberry dress

For this month's Minerva make I decided to make a comfy knit dress. I have lived in knit dresses this autumn / winter as they are so cosy! When  I saw Rachel from House of Pinheiro in her Dakota and felt the lovely soft fabric for myself I know i had to use it.

The pattern is a really good one - the much made, loved and blogged about New Look 6000. You might recognise it as the pattern Winnie used for her polkadot frock fest. It's a great basic darted dress pattern with  cute collar and cuff variations and a version with side pleats. I've had the pattern a while and I used it as the basic bodice for my Mad Men dress.

 As I had already worked on the fit of this one, I didn't need to make a muslin. I just traced off the  bodice pieces and added the skirt.  All bodice fit alternations were written about in detail here if you are interested!  I decided to make the version with collar and cuffs.  I had originally intend to make the side pleated version, but it has no bust darts and I couldn't wrap my tiny brain around how to do an FBA on it.  Any advice/ links?  As I'd love to make that one - it looks so flattering.

The fabric is a ponte jersey in blackberry.  Its hard to describe and the picture on the site really doesn't do it justice.  It's a greyish, purplish marl.  The reverse is slightly darker and has a stripe to it so I decided to use it for the collar and cuffs (not that it's terribly obvious from the pictures!).  It is lovely and thick, easy to sew and handle and very soft.  There have been other lovely projects made from this jersey - Rachel's Dakota as mentioned above, and Jane's Lady Skater to name a few.

Vicki from Minerva helped me with my button choice as usual. She suggested these white buttons with a black rim around them.  I think the rim really helps the buttons stand out.

I really like this make, but I am thinking about shortening the sleeves. I'm not that happy with how I finished them and I tend to prefer either 3/4 length or short sleeves. I think short sleeves will work better under a cardigan.  But it's totally wearable and I'm going to wear it a few times and see how I feel about it!

The only changes I would make would be to leave out the zip (as I can get this on and off without it).  Typical since it is probably my best invisible zip insertion to date!  I think i would also interface the collar - you can see in the back view pic that it's a little bit floppy. The pattern calls for interfacing of the cuffs but not the collar.

If you want to make your own version, you can buy a kit from Minerva here.  It includes fabric, an invisible zip, 4 small buttons and 1 large one plus matching thread.

Minerva Blogger Network - The Blue Christmas dress (with extra construction pics)

For my make this month I wanted something festive and chose this beautiful Prada (eek!) crepe.   I chose the fabric first and set out to find a pattern that would work and make the most of the gorgeous drape.  Retro Butterick 5707 fit the bill, with its cowl neckline.

The fabric has a shiny satin side and a matt crepey side.  I had intended to use both sides in the dress with the shiny side for the cowl, but loved the matt teal side so much that I only used the shiny side for the belt!

As I was too scared to cut into such lovely fabric without one, I made a toile of the bodice.  I lengthened the bodice by 3” (which I think may have been too much) and graded out from a 14 bodice to a 16 for waist and skirt. I did my usual ½” FBA.  The skirt is super long in the pattern – I’m 5’9” and it came to mid calf.  I had intended to use the long skirt as per the pattern but it didn’t look right, so I ended up cutting 3” off to make it knee length.

I bound all the seams with rayon seam binding as I wanted to treat such special fabric well!   After discussion with the lovely Tania, I ordered some Hug Snug seam binding from Ebay in the US.  It finishes the seams beautifully but adds no bulk at all.  It's great stuff - somewhere in the UK must stock it so if anyone finds a UK retailer please let me know!  However my application of it leaves a bit to be desired (hence why there are no close up pics in this post!)

After a total fail on inserting the zip by machine, I did a hand-picked zip.  I also sewed the sleeve hems and skirt hem by hand to avoid having stitching showing on the right side.

I made a self fabric belt using the shiny side of the fabric and a silver buckle from Minerva.  I love the belt (although it needs a press stud to keep it closed due to the slippiness of the satin – I didn’t think that one through well!  But it looks good!)

I’m a bit disappointed that the neckline isn’t as drapey as I expected – I think it would have been perfect in this fabric. It definitely seems like a more modern shape rather than a proper cowl.  I was envisaging a Mad Men style cocktail dress, but the end result seems to have lost a lot of the vintage feel.  I think I left a bit too much ease in the bodice, but it will definitely be better for eating a nice big Christmas dinner! But I think the end result is much more wearable than the full-on vintage style in the pattern would have been.

I do love the dress.  It’s very comfortable and doesn’t cling to tights due to the satin inside, so no slip needed.  I would say I can’t wait for Christmas to come so I can wear it, but I have far too much to do before then!  Still at least I know what I’m wearing!

If you like my Blue Christmas dress, you can make your own with the Minerva kit, which contains the Butterick 5707 pattern, 2 metres of the teal crepe and the silver belt buckle I used.

And for extra points if you got this far, how about some awkward pics of the "pretend to put the baubles on the  Christmas tree" variety?

The Bowling dress

After I did my Simplicity giveaway earlier in the year, they kindly let me choose a pattern to keep for myself and I went for Simplicity 1882.  I've seen some great versions, especially Karen's, but the version I loved was Virginia's from A Sewing Life.

I had an idea for a diner waitress style dress in aqua with black trim, but was thwarted by non-availability of aqua cotton sateen.  By the time I got to this one, autumn was approaching, the time for wearing aqua was running out and I spotted this teal sateen in my local Fabricland.  I paired it with a black sateen from Ebay.

This was my first Amazing Fit pattern and I really liked the system!  It comes with bodice pieces in A-D cup sizes, as well as slim, average and curvy fit skirts. So the first step is to get busy with a tape measure to take the difference between your high bust and full and waist and hips to decide on the pattern pieces to use.  Of course if your fabric has a little stretch (as mine did) it's quite forgiving!

Normally I do a 1" FBA on big 4 patterns, so I went for the C cup bodice and the average fit skirt (based on measurements as above).

Rather than doing a muslin, the pattern has large seam allowances for fitting, so it has you baste all the pieces together wrong sides together and try it on so that you can adjust the seams.  I did find the unpicking of the basting slightly annoying as the sateen showed every pull and needle hole - probably didn't help that this pattern had a separate 3 panelled front midriff and princess seamed bodice so lots of unpicking!  But still, no muslin!

I added the optional homemade piping (if you haven't made piping and like the look you really must try it - I love the effect and it is very easy to do with no special equipment needed) between the upper bodice and midriff pieces and at the waist.  It frames the nicely shaped midriff panel so well!  I also went for the contrast collar and bow (I was debating not adding the bow but if you saw the finish on the centre front V you would know why I did - not my best work!)

I had no real issues with it - these patterns would be great for fitting newbies as the instructions for fitting are very good.  Also the different sized pattern pieces make it easier to get closer to the right fit from the beginning.

I did deviate from the instructions with the invisible zip.  As I have had issues inserting these over piped seams in the past, I went for a hand picked normal zip instead.  I think I'm going to do this a lot more often in future.  As hand sewing goes, a hand picked zip goes in so quickly and easily (certainly compred to unpicking and redoing several times!), looks great and gives you so much more control of the final outcome than a slippy zipper foot that persists in sewing over the teeth and jamming the zip!


I also hand catch-stitched the hem, just because I preferred the look of it on such smooth fabric.

I wore this bowling with the Spoolettes - you'll have seen pictures on Clare, Sally, Janene, Nicole, Kathryn and Emmie's blogs to name but a few!  I did wish I had made a name badge but I totally ran out of time.

Cold weather wardrobe planning and the Fall Essentials Sew Along

 

I'm a planner by nature and so I started a list of things to sew for winter about a month ago (Evernote, natch!).  It's quite a long list so hopefully it will help me work out the best order to tackle them in.

I'm not much of a fabric hoarder - I tend to buy specifically for patterns, but I do tend to give myself too many items to tackle, so I have a lot of the fabric for the patterns already bought and waiting to get sewn up.  I'm also being relatively sensible in that a few of these are patterns I have sewn up before, so the worst of tracing, muslining and adjustments have already been done, so some should be speedy makes!

And then Sarah from Rhinestones & Telephones announced the return of the Fall Essentials Sew Along (FESA for short).  I don't remember seeing this before but could well have been before I started sewing.  It's a simple format.  7 categories covering all garments, a Flickr group and no tight deadlines.  Just the sort of sewalong I like! And the beauty of it is, you can fit other new patterns and sewalongs into the mix.  Perfect!

Sarah asked if we were sewing to a colour palette.  I never really aim to do this, but I do tend to find I gravitate to similar colours in summer and winter.  Here's my usual winter palette:

I wear a lot of navy and charcoal grey as neutrals but I also have plans for a couple of black items too.  Colours to go with are teal, aubergine/ burgundy and airforce blue.


Looking at my plans, I think I'll be sticking to it again this year too!

Here's my plans organised under the FESA headings.

Fashionable Foundations for Frosty Weather (all bottom half garments)

Kelly Skirt in teal corduroy - I snapped up the fabric for this the other day.  Not sure on whether to cut the front on the fold and leave out the buttons but as usual I was struggling to choose buttons so I still need to find these.  I may also do a burgundy one.  I have sewn this before so should be a quick make.

Source: Steph C's lovely version on Sewing Cake

Hummingbird variation with the flounce.  I have made a couple of Hummingbirds but not made the flounce version yet.  I am using a remnant of blue boucle-ish fabric.

Juniper trousers.  I meant to make these last year and failed miserably at muslin stage.  But since seeing Maria Denmark's fab trouser fitting instructions I'm keen to give them another try!  Her tinfoil tip is amazing!  I muslined in an 8 which was nowhere near fitting so I think I'll need to retrace in a 10.  I have a lovely soft grey suiting for these.

I have had a Gertie pencil skirt in mind since I bought the book and a nice burgundy crepe ready to make it.  I even bought silk organza to underline it.  I love the idea of perfecting some slow sewing but I think it might mean I get through a few other items first!  I thrifted some lovely charcoal grey wool which I want to use for the a-line variation with the pintucks.  But that will depend on the fitting issues I find with the pattern.  If I struggle it might end up being another Hummingbird!


Chic Chemises for Cool Climates

I bought the Renfrew pattern after Me Made May but not made anything from it yet.  I have a black viscose knit and a blue marl, both earmarked for long sleeved Renfrews.

I'll get a knitting project on the go for those nights when it is too cold to sit in the dining room and sew. 


Fabulous Frocks

I am currently working on the first 2 of these!

A navy wool blend By Hand London Anna dress.  Everyone has made this one up and I have yet to see anyone who didn't look great in it!  Hopefully I will be no exception.  I'm working on the slash neck midi version at the moment for their sewalong.

Unusually for me, I have 2 sewing projects on the go at the moment.  I have traced Simplicity 1882 and am making the collared version in teal cotton sateen with black accents and piping.

I had a great charity shop score recently - 5 yards of (narrow) black wool delaine for £15.  Hopefully this will work well for long sleeved Hawthorn.  Might need some funky buttons to stop it looking too drab however.  Or a nice red belt/ shoe combo.

Source: Stolen from Three Dresses Project with Leila's permission!

I've been waiting for the new Cake Patterns Red Velvet dress and it's finally on sale!  Steph has been teasing us with pics of hers on Twitter and it looks amazing!  I was going to do this in teal ponte, but I'm realising writing this list I have a lot of blue things planned, so I may make this up in burgundy or charcoal grey instead.  Isn't Leila's version gorgeous?  (and such a gorgeous girl! - click here to see more pics and read her blog post.)

Underneath it all

I'm never made any underwear but I have stashed some t-shirts which are now too big and I'm planning to make some SoZo vests and knickers out of them.

I've also got plans to make a couple of underskirts for those cotton dresses which stick to my winter tights a bit too much!  Gertie and Tasia have great tutorials here and here.


Baby it's Cold Outside

Not only am I anxiously awaiting the Red Velvet dress, but Steph has designed a whole collection around it.  When I saw the Carmine jacket I was totally hooked!  I am planning this in either a striped navy and white knit or a plain navy or burgundy.  But we have to wait til October for the pattern - boo! (apologies for the quality of the image - I couldn't find a better one since the pattern's not out yet!)


Cosy Nights

I didn't have much of a plan to make nightwear but I am tempted to make some cosy PJs or lounge trousers.  Much as I love the Tofino pattern, I don't want to pay full indie pattern prices for PJs!  I may make Maria Denmark's Lara Lounge Pants or else the Simplicity free pyjama pattern.  This might well get left til later while I see how I am getting on with the rest of the queue!

Tender Tootsies

I'm not about to start knitting socks and I don't wear slippers, so I'll probably skip this category!


Wow, that's loads when I see it written down like that!   4 (possibly 5 skirts), 1 pair of trousers, 2 tops (plus a knitting project), 4 dresses, a jacket and a "maybe" plan of PJs and undies.  Pretty sure I will make the underskirts but the PJs, pants and vests may wait til later in the season!  2 months isn't realistic is it?  I guess that is my whole season sewing list and I'll see what I can get done within the 2 months of the sewalong!

Now can I stick to this or will my plans get derailed by some new sewalong or  pattern release?

Are you doing FESA?  Do you have a sewing plan each season or are you more a fly-by-the-seat-of-your-pants kind of sewist? Are you excited about the new Cake patterns too?

The last dress of summer

I love this fabric! I fell in love with it in Goldhawk Road at the Epic Blogger Meet up in April. Of course I have no idea of the name of the shop but it sells a lot of Liberty fabric, as well as precut packages of lawn in 3 metre cuts. The quality is lovely - the selvage confirms it is Freedom Fabrics.  I think it was £20 for 3 metres.

I was concerned I might need to line this as the fabric is so lightweight but it's really opaque. Perfect summer dress material! It's very smooth and silky - lovely to wear.

I finally used my Simplicity 2444 pattern which I got free in Sew magazine earlier this year. It took this long to get to the front of the sewing queue! And haven't other bloggers made some gorgeous versions of this pattern? Roisin has to be the 2444 queen - 7 versions (love her latest Passage over Piedmont version)! Rehanon used the bodice to great effect on her Simplex. Char from TRexes and Tiaras has made about 8! It's a popular pattern!

I love the double diagonal waist darts on this pattern. Would be great to make it in a less busy fabric so you can see them better. I was worried about doing an FBA with no bust dart but I rotated one dart up to the bust, made the adjustment and rotated it back again. Worked like  charm - thanks Twitter (as usual).

I did my usual length adjustments - 2.5" on the bodice and 2" on the skirt.  All the seams were finished on my overlocker, making it pretty speedy to put together. I was tempted to skip the facings in favour of bias tape, but Roisin advised against it. As she is the queen I went with her advice! The armhole facings are just strips of fabric anyway so probably easier to use those than to make bias!

Not sure why (and it's not hugely obvious in the pics) but I have a bit of gaping at the front neckline. Any ideas what might be causing it?  Looking at the pics I could probably stand to have a bit taken out at the waist too.

Pictures were taken in Henley - on - Thames after a full day of wear (hence the creases). But the backdrop is too pretty to pass up for want of an iron! And as it feels like summer is over now, this is definitely the last summer dress I'll be blogging for a while! 

I'm planning autumn sewing now and will be posting my plans shortly. Have you seen the Fall Essentials Sew Along that Sarah at Rhinestones and Telephones is hosting? It's a great idea so I am going to be working along with that. First stop -  wintery Anna dress! And the By Hand London ladies are hosting a sewalong too. I do love a good sewalong!

Simplicity Giveaway - the winners!

Thanks for all the entries to the Simplicity patterns giveaway!  I'm glad you all liked the ones I chose!

There were 12 entries for the lovely 1882:

...and the winner is:

Katja from GJeometry!

There were 7 entries for 1606:

and the winner is:

Debbie Brooker!

Congratulations ladies!  Can't wait to see your versions!  Can you drop me an email to the address in the sidebar above and I'll arrange to post your patterns?

Thanks very much to everyone that entered - I wish I had a prize for all of you.  And thanks to Simplicity for so generously giving away their patterns to us.



Simplicity giveaway - I made a mistake on the sizes!

I am a fool!

The Simplicity 1882:

 is actually a size 6-14.

The Simplicity 1606:

is a size 14-22.

Sorry!  If this changes the one you would like to win, please comment again on the original post!

Giveaway: Those lovely people at Simplicity...

I'm sure you will have seen on several blogs that you follow that the lovely Simplicity people are working with bloggers to give away some of their patterns.

Some people are blessed with the ability just to see the style lines of a pattern and see beyond sometimes dodgy envelope artwork/ fabric choice.  I am unfortunately not one of them!  I think this is why I sew a lot of indie patterns - I see lovely versions on bloggers with fabrics and styling I prefer.  So great initiative from Simplicity to get more involved with the community!

If you haven't done so already, tweet @SewSimplicity with your blog address to get involved with some of their plans!

Anyway, on to the giveaway!

We were asked to choose a pattern for ourselves and 2 to give away to our readers.

This was my pattern:

Source:  Pattern Review

The fabric choice on this is actually pretty cute!  I have loved this pattern since I saw Karen's gorgeous versions in teal and purple tulip print.  No idea which I like better - I can't decide!  I googled for some more pictures and came up with the wondrousness that is A Sewing Life's fabulous turquoise version. Great inspiration and a new blog to follow!  As the Spoolettes (Clare, Nicole, Sally, Roisin, Fiona, Alison and Rehanon) are planning a bowling trip to a gorgeous restored 1950s bowling alley, this version could have that perfect combo of bowling shirt/ diner waitress for me! Love the colour and the piping!

The other pattern was this:

Source:  Pattern Review

This was actually sent to me by mistake instead of 1609 (the shift dress Gertie has been obsessed with recently).  But it's a prime example of looking past the somewhat bridesmaidy fabric on the envelope to the line drawing:

Source:  Pattern Review

Leaving off the bow it's a cute princess seamed summer dress with the option to have a lace overlay - I'm seeing a fancy version of this similar to Zilredloh's fabulous Macaron.  Or a vintage style halter dress?

I have one copy of each pattern to give away - Simplicity 1882 in size 6-14 (edited to correct the sizes - see this post) and Simplicity 1608 in size 16-24 (Edited to correct the sizes as before).  Let me know in the comments below which one you'd like (and if you like, tell me what version and fabric).  It would be cool if you followed my blog, but you don't have to!  I'll choose a winner at random on 1st August.  Happy to post worldwide.

And hopefully the good hair/ good weather/ non-stroppy child stars will align so that I can get some pics of my lovely just-finished Simplicity 2444 to show you!

Mad Men Dress Challenge - construction details

The construction went pretty much as planned once I had the bodice fit down.

I used a thrifted navy fabric with a slight zigzag texture to it (no idea what you'd call it - jacquard?).  From a burn test, there's not a natural fibre to be seen, but it holds a crease pretty well which was important for the inverted box pleats in the skirt.  I bought 1/2m of red cotton, thread and a zip, which was the sum total of extra spends on this dress - it's a cheapie!

I used the bodice of NL 6000, as well as the short sleeve. 

I slashed the sleeve from the bottom and added a wedge to it to loosen it up - as my fabric was on the thicker side I felt the sleeve would be too tight otherwise.  I wasn't sure about the pleats in the sleeve head at first, as I have fairly wide shoulders and I thought they might not look great.  But I muslined and decided to go with them and I actually really like the result - the pleats kind of mirror the pleats in the skirt.

I debated lining it as I can be a bit sensitive to certain fabrics, but it's actually fine.  I ditched the facings and used bias tape instead and it was so much easier - I think I'm going to do this much more in future!

For the skirt, I started with Colette patterns Peony as a base.  It's an a-line shape with gathers instead of darts so I thought I could work with it (and I had already altered it for length).  2" wide pleats seemed about right to me so I went with that.  I traced another copy of the pattern and marked on the pattern where the waist darts (back and front) hit the skirt.  Slashing up this line, I added 1" on each side of the slash plus seam allowances.  I then drew out a contrast piece 2" wide (plus seam allowances) x the length of the skirt. 


I ended up with loads of skinny pieces to sew together so I used french seams as I thought it would look better.  Often the insides of skirts can be seen and with the contrast between the two colours, I wanted it to look neat.

I then marked the fold line on the navy fabric and pressed it like mad (pressing was a key feature of this make!).  I folded the navy fabric over and stitched the folds together and pinned and basted them flat, before attaching the skirt to the bodice. On the muslin, I had shaved a bit off at the waist to make it the same size as the bodice (taking out the width that the gathers would have in the original Peony pattern) but once it was stitched, I thought the skirt was a bit poofy so I took in the side seams by about 1/2" at the hips widening to about 3" at the hem.

I was cursing the french seams when I was hemming - that's a lot of fabric to stitch down flat!  But my little machine managed it fine.

As for the insides, I was undecided on seam finish as the fabric was too thick for my usual turn and stitch - it would have made the seams bulky and visible from the outside.  I was assured by the lovely #sewcialists on Twitter, that pinking was vintage rather than lazy, so I went with that!  French seams on the skirt panels, and I bound the waist seam (badly!) with the same red bias binding I used for the neck.  It's not my neatest zip insertion but I don't think the fabric would have held up to unpicking and restitching.

Finally I stitched on buttons at the top of the front pleats and made a belt which fastens on like the original dress: