back from the wedding - the PINK reveal

The dress was done and I was very tempted to post it here when I finished it, but, on the off chance that my sister remembers this blog, I couldn't post the final pictures as it was meant as a surprise for her. Although the dress is not perfect by any means, I do consider it my masterpiece in sewing so far.

I was all set to chose the turquoise sash, had it cut and everything and then my husband said 'You know my Giggles, if you can't wear a pink sash with pink ribbons and rhinestones when you are 5, when can you wear it' ... and he was right ... she loves pink and everything that glitters and sparkles ... she chose the fabric and the embellishments ... her face lit up when she saw the sash being worked on ... needless to say we used the pink sash and it was her 'favouritest dress ever'.

 

I ended up taking 3 inches of the length of the bodice and love the end result. Yes, the sides seems don't really line up anymore, but they are covered by the sash so no one will know.

I finished it off with a layered hem that shows the lining as well giving it a bit of contrast. The petticoat goes well with it I though, but it is not necessary. On the day there was some comparison with the other flower girl and although butterflies (on the dress of the other flower girl) are a favourite in our house as well, the pink dress won hands down.

I wore the Dragonfly Dress and I was glad I made it larger, because I spend the 3 weeks before the wedding in Germany eating my weight in cake and ice cream without having to worry whether the dress will fit :-)

As we come to the end of the pink journey and can't help feeling a little sad. The fabric was a joy to sew with. I think all this pink just made me happy. Perhaps I should be looking into making something pink for myself. Whilst it is not my colour (much like yellow perhaps) it would cheer me up every time I wear it and I think every woman needs a few clothes like that :-)

the pink odyssey continues

I finished the bodice and the skirt section ... decided to line both instead of the facings ... chose to gather the skirt section rather then pleating it ... had the girl try it on ... and ... found a problem ... sigh

The bodice is too long, substantially too long, like 2 or 2.5 inches too long, too long to ignore too long. It looks too much like a dirndl and since the wedding is in Germany, I really want to avoid that comparison. I can't unpick it, because I have already trimmed the seam and with the gathering I would have to redo the lot, so I think I will just it in and sew it to the skirt section. It does look that long on the pattern envelope actually, but somehow it didn't look that long in the muslin, but that was without the skirt section weighing it down. Never mind, once the lining is sewn in place nobody will know :-)

Also I did the sash. My daughter picked the trims and I am now having second thoughts about the sash. It's over the top, she loves it, but I am thinking that aside from the 'overthetopness' it is not wide enough. I think it should be double the width. I could add a couple of layers of the pink lawn behind it and widen it that way, but that might be too much bulk.

Also I am questioning the colour choice. Maybe instead of the pale pink I should go for more contrast, like this turquoise linen remnant in my stash.

Maybe instead of attaching a sash permanently I should just hand stitch it on at the very end ... hmm, lots of food for thought.

pink, glorious pink - Part 1

In order to placate my daughter for god-only-knows-what about 3 weeks ago I took her to Spotlight and said she could pick out some fabrics for a dress to wear to my sisters wedding. She went straight to the costume section and brought back some fairy-tale princess dress in white polyester with the words 'Look Mummy, isn't this pretty? And you don't have to sew a thing'  .... hmm, not the idea that I was going for, but we eventually had a look at patterns for princess dresses and some fabric. She 'settled' for this Lisette sateen.

We hadn't found a pattern yet, so I bought 1.5 meters in the hope that it would be enough. A week later we finally agreed on Burda 9696.

Now, having never worked with actual paper Burda patterns, I didn't know what to expect. I was frustrated to no end at the store that the envelope back did not have a clarification for the sizes, neither did the instruction sheet inside. It said sizes 2-7 on the envelope, but no measurements. Later I found the sizes printed on the onion paper - by the time you unfold the onion paper you should already know which size you are going for.. Since my daughter is 5, but small for her age, I thought it would be safe to go with it. Well, turns out she is actually a 7-8 for Burda patterns. Also this pattern has very little in terms of ease. It was doubly annoying, because the pattern she really liked started from a size 8 and I thought it would be miles to big. It also meant that my fabric was going to stretched to the max, because a size 7 requires more then a size 5, not a lot, but some.

I also picked up some plain pink cotton lawn as contrast and for the petticoat some tulle. All in all I had 4.5 meters of fabric, it seemed plenty. However, once I started cutting things, I had to go back and get a further 2 meters of the pink lawn and I used some half a meter of cotton broadcloth I had in my stash. So all together this dress consumed 7 meters of fabric and only half a meter came from my stash ... sigh ... and it's not finished yet.

On the plus side I have 'graduated' from 'really easy' and 'easy' patterns to 'middle/average'. Yeay me ...

I started with the petticoat  and she loves it ...

There are French seams and the tulle gathering is completely enclosed by fabric as to not irritate her sensitive little legs ... please take note that she can put up with all sort of itches and scratches from the aforementioned polyester costumes (even though we didn't buy that one, we do own a great many of them), but other clothes irritate her to no end. I blame her father, he never liked wearing clothes - or shoes, in fact, he didn't wear shoes really until he went to high school (can only happen in North Queensland, everywhere else in the world you'd suffer from frostbite) - and we only just managed to get her to the point that she will wear at least undies when interacting with other people :-)

Onwards with the dress now ...

the girl with the dragonfly dress

Not the most original blog title, but it was either that or 'how I made this dress yet again'

This started out as a potential Easter dress and an experiment. I wanted to see whether I could make a dress in a week. Well ... as I am posting it now when I believe we are in fact fast approaching Pentecost ... it can safely be said that whilst I might be able to make a dress in a week, I was unable to make this dress in a week.

I hadn't set myself up to fail as I made this dress twice before in exactly this kind of fabric (cotton poplin), yet somehow I had little stumbling blocks with the bodice and then there was a fabric fault in one of the skirt panels, which I obviously only found after I sewed the skirt section, so that needed to be recut and refrenchseamed. Also, what was I thinking of trying this the week before Easter with both children on school holidays, not really, not exactly sewjo inducing atmosphere.

As this is the third version of this dress, I should probably look and expand my horizon, but I think I have 1 more version of this dress in me. Perhaps I should go a size down next time as I fitted this one when I was 8 kilos heavier and it is a tad roomy now. I actually thought about this before I made this one, but as I intend to wear it to my sisters wedding (unless she tells me it is not fancy enough) I thought having a bit of room to eat an extra piece of cake might not be a bad thing ... not that I am greedy ... just sayin' :-)

PS.: the more that I look at the pictures (especially the ones I didn't post), the more I am becoming convinced I should try and take it in a little after the wedding, but we will see. Reality is that I am not a fan of a lot of ease, but some people have complimented me on the other 2 versions of this dress and said how well the fitted me, so I was left wondering whether I always fitted things too tightly and that a little extra ease would actually look better on me. However, looking at the pictures for the back, there are now fabric folds indicating extra fabric whereas previously it fitted just right. It could also be that these pictures were taking with my phone in a hurry (because my camera has no batteries and I finished this dress 2 weeks ago) and that they are simply not the best pictures and there is nothing wrong with the dress as it is fitted ... sigh

a birthday dress for the birthday girl

Happy Birthday little one :-)

We love you lots, my little one, in fact, your mummy loves you so much that she stayed up half the night to draft a quick little jersey dress for this piece of cotton interlock with owls that has been sitting in my stash for a while.

The fabric had a big 12in stripe running along one side, so I used that as the binding for the arms and neck. It's got kimono sleeves and a simple A-line shape, just right for dancing in it.

Hope you keep that joy, ickle one :-)

UFO #1 the 'break the hiatus' dress

This was originally supposed to be a wearable muslin for my birthday dress. I started in August and then September rolled around and it changed it's name to the birthday dress. And then October came and it changed it's name to the 'tax return' dress. And now ... sigh ... it is November and I used it spurn myself on and break this unintentional hiatus from sewing.

It is New Look 6935, but I added little cap sleeves to make it more wearable in the harsh Queensland sun and to protect my shoulders a little.

I did a 12 throughout and it fits very comfortable with plenty of ease. The only alteration was adjusting the back (same as last time really).

It's a little shorter then my usual, mainly due to my husband pointing out that I am not over the hill yet and I thought why not. I wear flats most of the time and I am short, so I don't really need to finish everything at the knee.

I feel really pleased with this dress ... actually I am beyond pleased, I wore it today and 2 people wanted to know where I bought it ... hehe ... and I feel like making at least 2 more right now, but alas, there are more UFOs ... many more :-)

a nighty or is it nightie ???

As the pyjama party sew-a-long is in full swing over at Karen's I felt inspired to make something for sleeping in as well. Sadly I don't wear pyjama pants and believe me, by the amount of enthusiasm for the sew-a-long I really wished I was, but my legs just get too hot whereas my upper half is covered in icicles. I felt I need to give Audrey C another twirl.

It's made from organic french terry ... so so soft, but not very stretchy. I added a whole 2 inches to the front piece and another inch to the back piece to accommodate the lack of stretchiness. I changed the back darts to a back centre seam and it worked fine, but the lovely Carolyn suggested to take it out of the side seams, so that'll be my next try. To reign in the neckline I made a little pleat out of the 2 inches that I added and I salvaged one of the previously discarded neckbands from the Audrey C in Raspberry.

That'll teach me to do something like a neckband right after I had problems with the darts. I was probably all huffy and puffy from the darts and the poor neckbands never stood a chance ... sigh. I lengthen the arms - I like half of my hands covered as well, but shortened the overall length. To finish it off, I appliquéd 2 little hearts a la Alabama Chanin onto it. I had her books out various times from the library and just love them.

I will spare you all the picture of me in the nighty as it is a bit shorter then I am comfy to post on the internet for all and sundry to see :-)

Audrey C in Raspberry

Finally back to Stashbustin'. It's been a longer break then I intended.

This dress had been waiting to be hemmed for some time. I am still unsure of whether I should shorten it a bit more. If I would wear it mostly with tights then yes, but in reality I am most likely to wear it without, it being Queensland and all, and then I probably don't want to shorten it, cause those little dimples on my thighs don't need to be shared liberally with the world at large.

This is the Audrey C Dress from Maria Denmark. I used a bamboo knit with 4% lycra from the Bamboo Fabric Store. I was under the impression I ordered the colour red, but after I washed it it looked definitely hot pink.

I have mixed feelings about this dress ... sigh.

It promised to be such an easy dress, essentially a long t-shirt. The printout of the pattern went together very well, although I had to trace my size with a colour pen as it printed out in light grey. The neckband didn't print out correctly and no matter what I did, it refused ... the joys of technology

However, the fabric was a 4 way stretch not a 2 way as the pattern asked for. I graded out for my larger hips, but it's still a bit tight around my hip/bottom. I made the skirt more A-line and I shortened the arms a little.

This is a rather unflattering picture of my back, but it probably illustrates all my problems with the dress.

It came out a little small. Either I got the sizes wrong (always a possibility) or the fabric stretched whilst I cut is or even a combination of both. Either way, combined with my least favourite bra and a pair of tights that digs in a little, it is not particularly flattering look on me. However I have a wide belt that I could wear with the dress and thus eliminate at least one of the rolls on the back.

You can't really tell from the picture, but the patterns has 2 back darts and there my fabric choice came back to bite me. I did the darts in a straight stitch, but because it is a 4 way stretch it didn't really work. I had to shorted them and resew them in a small zigzag stitch and then I struggled getting them to lay flat.

I don't know whether I like darts in knit fabric, but since this is the first time I came across them, I am keeping an open mind. My personal preference leans towards adding a back seam and omitting the darts if I make this pattern again.

Finally, after the issue with the darts, which only became apparent once I tried the dress on, I started on the neckband ... ohhh the neckband. I screwed up the neck band REPEATEDLY, no really, this is version 4 and it's staying, I don't care that it is not laying flat.

All of the issues are issues that arose with my lack of experience, so overall I think it is a wonderful pattern. I do like the idea of knit jersey dresses, but I mostly wear separates, so I've got to see how much I'll actually end up wearing the dress and see whether I should make anymore :-)

the Crepe Dress Muslin

this is the step that I was most afraid of: THE FITTING

muslin #1 - the front

according the the size chart my bust was a size 4 and my waist a size 6, so I cut a 4 on top and then graded it up to a size 6 after the bust darts. It actually fitted quite well once I took in the side seams under the bust dart (to a size 2 ?!?). I wasn't all that impressed with the neckline, so it is now v-shaped instead.

The back was very baggy and had lots of fabric folds everywhere. I was feeling quite defeated, because no matter how much I took out it didn't really work. Gridlock is a substantial fabric, add to that the lining, I almost gave up until I looked at the pattern pieces.

There is a lot ease in the shoulder section and I seem to have a small back (judging by previous dress and shirt endeavours), so I copied the arm/ shoulder section from the front to the back. Below is a picture of the modified back laid atop the original back.

muslin #2 - the back

It now has the modified side seams, the changed back and I took another 1/4 inch out of the shoulder seams. This picture still shows a fold in the front under the girls, but after trying it with a variety of bras, I decided to stop messing with it.

I added the waist tie to get a better idea of the fit. I think the back is much better.

I wore it around the house for a few hours to get an idea whether I cut out too much ease, but it seemed fine. Now that I cut out the bodice and the lining though, I wonder whether I left enough ease to compensate for the fact the the gridlock fabric and lining will be much thicker then the ex-table cloth that I used a s a muslin ... sigh, well, we'll see.

I am surrounded by muslins or the journey to match fabric with pattern

After I had finished all the frantic birthday sewing I felt my sewing mojo ebbing away a little and I felt utterly utterly uninspired by my stash. Enter Tessuti and their gridlock fabric.

I thought it might be a nice break from the Stash only sewing that was slowly zapping all the fun out of my sewing adventure. I was truly excited when the package arrived not 2 days later and looksie how beautifully they wrapped it :-)

In the meantime the fabric has popped up on several blogs around the world. Karen from Did You Make That made a jacket out of it  and I think Sew Brunswick is making a dress. There is a competition attached to the fabric, but to be honest, my sewing skills are not up to this sort of playing, so I picked it mainly to check out Tessuti without paying 30 odd dollars per meter.

I want to make a dress out of it, but because it has quite a bit of polyester in it (at least I assume that poly is short for polyester, showing my general ignorance here), it needs to be fully lined. I made a bodice muslin for both New Look 6935 View A and Butterick B5181 View A.

I like the New Look one (pictured above), but as I was about to begin the second muslin I realised that the fabric is too heavy even without lining for those patterns. It's got to be a dress with short sleeves that I can wear in the Queensland winter with some tights and boots. The hunt through my pattern stash is on for a pattern that would be suitable for a winter dress ...

the Lorax and some Mermaids

I have finished the birthday sewing ... yeay.

First we have another pair of boxers for Mr. Giggles. Now I have to say that in our house we are great fans of the Lorax. My husband speaks for the trees frequently (and the birds and flowers whisper his name) and we have the movie poster gracing our bedroom - it's great Feng Shui we've found, so take that Interior Design Monthly. So a year ago, he saw some organic quilting cotton that he decided would do just nicely for a pair of boxer shorts and it had been sitting there since.
Happy Birthday honey ...

I made the same changes as before - namely added 1/2 an inch to the waistband height and 2 inches to the leg length. This time I made it without a fly, so no high-fiving on that account, but look at the pocket ... it's super matchy and totally high-fivable :-)

I have also made another Ice Cream Social Dress for her birthday and I think this might be my favourite version.

It's got mermaids all over it. She loves it. This time I made quite a few alterations. The original pattern is a bit sack-like tbh, so I added some flare and that improved it greatly. Also instead of gathers in the front I made one large pleat that lined up with the v of the collar. I cut out the gathers in the back completely and added a centre back seam.

She loves it and I am super pleased with it, so there will be more in future. Happy Birthday baby girl. We all love you very much :-)

the pink ice cream dress

Before I had kids I was determined to beat the pink tide that seems to sweep every girl. Indeed, whilst I was expecting my girl I refused to purchase any clothes with pink in it. The only pink she got were hand-me-downs from friends and that was alright, because her main source of clothing was her older brother and that was mainly blues and greens.

However, when I started sewing I tried to let the kids choose their fabrics, because I was really worried that they wouldn't want to wear the clothes that I laboured over and then I would get all sad. Wanna guess the first fabrics she picked?  ... well, at least she was good in matching them ...

Those 2 fabrics have lingered in my stash for over a year, but I really thought I needed to get a move on before she grew to the point that there wasn't enough fabric for a dress. I used the Ice Cream Social Dress pattern from Oliver & S I had used before, but lengthen it a bit in order to use the maximum of the fabric I had. Also instead on the band of contrast fabric, I made ruffles.

It is rather long on her, but she grows rather quickly and I don't have any young nieces, so if she doesn't wear it out, nobody will. I have another dress planned for her (this time with mermaids), so hopefully that'll be done before March 1st :-)

UFO #1 - the homespun dress

Somehow gingham always reminds me of school uniforms and farms. However, when I first do a pattern for the kids I don't use the really crappy fabric that I use to make my muslins, but I use a fabric that I don't have any great attachment to ... like this pink cotton gingham. Remnant from Spotlight, easy to work with, you know, okay, just not something I would choose deliberately.

The pattern itself was okay, it is one of those little girls dresses that is really quite common. It became a UFO when I didn't have the patience to figure things out right then and there, and after a while it just laid there and I did other things. I forgot to take before pictures, but essentially I still needed to set in the sleeves, finish of the neck line and the hem.

Well, ta da ... Butterick B4176 in Pink Gingham (it is classed as very easy and it still took me ages)

I am actually very happy with it. I change the neckline (made it wider), but only because when I got to it, I couldn't for the life of me locate the instructions so I arbitrarily decided it was going to be an inch wide, so I cut a 4 in strip of the fabric on the bias and went from there. I realised when taking this picture that I had sewn the button on too high and maybe, in a few month, I find I can't live with that level of imperfection anymore, but until then I am just glad I finished the dress. I later found the instructions right beside my iron :-)

I did set some eyelet lace under the hem, because I have seen something similar in RTW dresses for little girls and I thought the dress suits it.

Overall I am really glad I finished the dress. It looks very homespun, yet my daughter loves it and whilst it is slightly on the large side, she does grow, so all is well. I'll see about making her another one after Christmas with some voile I have laying about. Onwards to the next project ... only seven more to go :-)

one ice cream (dress) to go please

After feeling a little discouraged with the amount of time and effort to took to decipher the robe pattern, I reconsidered the amount of money I am willing to spend on paper patterns (very little) and took myself to Peppermint Stitches, the delightful quilting store down the road from me. It's a feel-good store, where I usually spend a lot of time browsing and dreaming. More importantly they sell Oliver + S patterns and I seem to remember other people writing on their blogs (really spell check, you take offence to that word on a blog ?!? would blogi be better ? anyway) about just how lovely their instructions were. So, in short, I paid the 24.95 (even ordering it in the US and having it shipped to Australia wouldn't have made it much cheaper) for the Ice Cream Social dress and carried it proudly home. After spending that much on the pattern, I had to search my remnant pile right away and came up with 2 kinda matching cotton prints from my favourite Spotlight line 'Spots and Stripes'.

It took my 2 days (some 30 odd days less then the robe) and a lot less worrying and stressing and here we have it: the ICE CREAM SOCIAL DRESS. It fits and all (I shortened it a little).

My V's at the collar and on top of the pockets are not as neat as they could be, but in all fairness I might avoid them in the next dress all together. They do add a nice touch, but it was a bit of an effort to get them okay looking (also I used every single scrap of the pink stripey fabric, so I had no do overs).

I also have a little mistake on this side where the pink stripes didn't quite meet seamlessly on the bottom panel, but again, it is very small and hardly noticeable. The instructions were brilliant. I have read the some people found them too wordy, but because everything was spelled out I could work on it in the evening when the kids were asleep without worrying that I was going to miss something really important :-)

First UFO

It's not a big thing, it is really more of a muslin, because the fabric contains like 70% of polyester and I don't really like the feel of it. Having said that, the colour is stunning.

I started this on Mother's Day and had all but the hemming left to do. Then I thought I might just take it in a little, because it was very bulky on the back and I had been very lazy and just used the existing tube shape (apparently, my behind is not as large as I thought it was ... who knew).

Anyway, then things got busy and it was just sitting there and now it is bloody freezing here and I honestly cannot get myself to change into what is essentially a summer dress even for just a few minutes. Note to self: when husband suggests to move to hot country, do check that the houses do actually have heating for the colder months, because 12C inside a house still feels really cold (even if it is 15C outside in what would be the middle of December)

So I have packed it away and hopefully in September I'll take it out again and finish the hemming and the seams around the arm. It is putting me into a bit of a conundrum as to what to do next though. I had intended to try StephC's T-Shirt, but I think I'd rather make some flannel PJ pants for my son so he gets a good amount of wear out of them before the heat returns.

Although not quite as triumphant an ending to the M-M-M-with-a-difference as it could have been, nonetheless, this month taught me quite a bit. For example I can't really sew for the future at the moment, I can only motivate myself to sew for the here and now. Also, a month is a bit long for me to just concentrate on myself or any one person really, maybe I should start with 2 weeks next time and work my way up :-)