Mad Men Dress Challenge - The Reveal

And here it is!  I posted a sneak peak (OK crappy camera phone pic) on Twitter but here's some better and clearer pics.

My dress:

Peggy's dress:

Peggy wore this dress in Season 4 episiode 11 (thanks Google!) when she won a big pitch - maybe it'll be a lucky dress!

I posted about my inspiration here and my bodice fitting tribulations here.  I've got another post coming with construction and pattern details and the insides (I love to see the insides of makes - I'm so nosy!).

Inspiring the next generation of crafters

I was partly inspired to write this post after seeing the following tweet this morning:

I've actually been really excited hearing on Twitter about all of the children that have been watching the Great British Sewing Bee and seeing pictures on their efforts.

The very lovely and helpful Maris has been blogging about the children she teaches to sew.

A local shop to me, Make & Do, runs after school and Saturday morning classes for kids and they are always full.  They also do drop in activities for any age of child.

My daughter (who is 4) absolutely loves anything arty - she's a bit young for full on knitting or sewing yet, but she constantly makes cards and jewellery ("Yes, I'll definitely wear the pasta bracelet to work darling"), drawing, stamping, printing on fabric.  She reminds me a lot of myself when I was younger - I had a toy sewing machine, did lace making, macrame (how 1970s!), quilling, making stockings out of felt, clothes for dools, peg dolls, as well as knitting from the age of 7.

I love the fact that kids are getting more involved in crafts!  Using their creativity can only be a good thing!

So I was excited to see a copy of RubyLoves magazine in a newsagent yesterday and snapped it up for N.

It's probably a bit old for my 4 year old but great value for any craft loving little girl (I know boys can craft but it is very girly!).  For £4.99 there are 6 things to make with most of the stuff needed included in the pack (other than paper, card, scissors and glue).  There was:
a canvas tote bag to decorate with fabric and buttons to make yoyos (N spent an hour with my button box and ribbons designing this!)
cookie lollipops (cutter and sticks included)
a felt kitten keyring (everything included)
cards to make (stamp and inkpad plus patterned paper to cut out of mag)
a ring with a clear stone to customise (all included apart from the nail polish it suggests you decorate the stone with)
wooden pegs to decorate (all included except card)

I found it in WH Smith or you can subscribe online here.

Tira two!

I did say that my first Tiramisu dress definitely wouldn't be my last, and here is number 2!

It's been finished for a while and worn on several occasions.  I also get really lovely compliments when I wear a Tira!  This was made from a ponte Roma jersey from Fabricland, which I loved the colour of.

However the stretch of this fabric has meant that it really doesn't fit as well as the first - It's not as stretchy and it pulls at the front wrap slightly.  I did take a bit off the bodice section and add quite a bit to the midriff as before, but I think next time I would cut as per the pattern and do the fit check as I did with the first one.  Another step on the learning curve - I haven't sewn with jersey enough to predict how the different amounts of stretch will affect the final fit.

It's still a much better fit than RTW though and I love the swirly skirt! 

More Pavlova

One of the things I really like about the Pavlova top pattern is how you can get different looks depending on how tightly you tie it.



This navy long sleeved version is tied at the back quite loosely and even lie this there is no gape at all at the front - nice drafting Steph!  It's a nice casual look that I think goes well with jeans (although they need to be relatively high waisted even with my 4" extra length - and I remembered to do front and back this time!)

I wonder if leaving a gap in the seam at the waist and threading the wrap part through would allow it to be pulled down longer?  I think I have seen this in RTW wrap tops.

Still no builder's bum due to the fab muffin cover flap at the back.

I've also got some red denim to make another pavlova skirt for my holiday but it's gone on the back burner due to deadline for the Mad Men Challenge!

Another slice of Cake!

It's been well documented on here how much I liked the Tiramisu pattern, so here's the follow up - Pavlova (OK, hungry now!).

It's a woven circle skirt (although there is a jersey option).  I made this first one in denim that I got from a charity shop.  I previously made a dress for N from it which shrank, so I prewashed this several times before starting.  I love the seashell pocket - so pretty! I cut the 30" waist and the 40" length which works well for me with this style.

I also made the top in a red jersey from World Fabrics.  Their site isn't great but good prices and quick delivery, so would use them again.  I do find it hard to get nice knits in the UK - may have to order from one of the US sites like Girl Charlee. 

The pattern piece is HUGE!  I lengthened it by 4" at the front, and totally forgot about the back (doh!), but added on at the back and the ties cover the seam.  As usual, Steph's instructions were great.  I was worried about the lapped neck seam, but I trusted in the instructions and it went together perfectly! 

Steph had the fab idea of sorting us into houses to compete for the most number of completed items over a 10 day period.  My Strawberry house didn't win but it was close and everyone was incredibly supportive as usual!

It's been a bit of a Cake month - I have another Pavlova and a second Tira to show and then it's head down for the Mad Men Dress!

Sorry - claming my blog on bloglovin'

<a href="http://www.bloglovin.com/blog/3686201/?claim=9ap8ga85xpb">Follow my blog with Bloglovin</a>

Thought I had already done this but apparently not!  No idea why that doesn't come out at the link it is clearly supposed to be!

Further adventures in fitting (with help from the #sewcialists)

This week I have enlisted the help of the fabulous #sewcialists on Twitter (why did I resist Twitter for so long?  I am addicted!) to help with some fitting issues I have been having.

I am working on the bodice for my Mad Men Challenge dress, using NL 6000 as a base.  I started with a tissue fit to determine length adjustment (always! In this case 2" which is less than usual - I have heard this bodice runs long) and correct dart placement (fine).  No point on making a muslin that definitely won't fit, is there?

I also decreased the seam allowances to give myself an extra 1" at the waist, and here is the first result:

Pretty bad, right?  I thought the wrinkles above the bust were to do with my square shoulders and so I added those strange flaps of blue fabric you can see in the first pic to test the theory of changing the shoulder, but to no avail.  To say nothing of the gaping armscye and wibbly neckline.  So I turned to the ladies of Twitter for advice, and as ever they delivered!

I was shocked to find out (as I have always considered myself to be amongst the small-of-bust) that I needed a small (1/2") FBA!

Here's the results for round 2:

A massive improvement I think!  Those annoying wrinkles are gone and neckline is lying flat (in real life at least - holding up the camera makes it look off in the top pic). 

It's not perfect though - there's still a lot of gaping in the armscye which needs to be addressed.  I thought about increasing the FBA but think it would have been too loose around the bust.  I might try a slightly larger FBA another time.

Following more Twitter advice from the lovely Rachel at House of Pinheiro (that girl is great trying to explain the process to me in 140 characters from her holiday in Brazil to see her family!) I pinned a dart at the armhole, transferred to the pattern and rotated the excess into the bust dart.

Minimal gapeage! (it actually does lie flatter than it looks when I am holding up the camera!)

I even tried a square shoulder adjustment on this to see if it made a difference:

I don't think it changed much in this case although I will bear it in mind for future!

But what a difference some great advice and a few muslins made to the fit.  From this:

to this:

Thanks to all the #sewcialists who helped, especially Laura at A Make-it-Yourself Mom's Diary, Rachel, Maris at Sew Maris and Brooke at Custom Style!  You guys...

I'm ready to start drafting the skirt now!