Faded Mosaic Top and Classic Grey Skirt

Two new makes today, a top and skirt to wear to work. Both are simple makes in classic styles, making them very wearable.

The top is the Betty Blouse which was in Simply Sewing magazine last July. I rarely buy sewing magazines, but I'd been looking for a non-button up short sleeved blouse pattern with no closures or complications. This pattern was pretty much exactly what I wanted. It's a simple woven blouse with just a front and back piece and pintucks.

The fabric is a viscose from Tessuti called Running Out Of Blue. The print is mosaic style and changes from peacock blue through to rust about every two feet. I hadn't realised the print changed colour when I picked the bolt up - I'd just liked the peacock blue - but when it was being rolled out to be cut I saw the rust colour emerge. This meant I had to decide how I was going to use the shifting colours in the blouse, basically which colour I wanted at the neckline and which at the hem. After holding it up against myself each way I decided the blue at the neckline was the way to go.

The fabric is beautiful with a lovely hand, but being a lightweight viscose it was a bit slippery to pin and cut out. Fortunately the print gave me handy lines to cut along to even out the hem and shoulders! The print was also very helpful for making sure my pintucks were nice and even - I could fold in the middle of the squares and stitch along the second outline and know that each pintuck would be exactly the same.

The skirt is an adjusted version of the straight skirt pattern in the Blouse Skirt and Pants Style Book. The fabric is a lightweight grey wool check from The Fabric Store, lined with some grey stretch woven cotton I'd bought for another project but found was the wrong weight. The zipper was stitched in by hand to try and keep it looking as neat as possible.

I used my French curve to slightly widen out from the waist to a more A-line shape. It was mostly an easy make, except that the two different fabrics do handle differently. I had measured them the same, but when I went to sew it up the shell was wider at the hem than the lining. To fix this I stitched in the side seams on the shell, It was still a little too wide when I sewed the hem, so I had to slightly fold it at the seams, but hopefully it isn't visible!

Because it's such a straightforward pattern and I'd used it once before I didn't look at the instructions, and so forgot that the pattern doesn't include seam or hem allowance. It didn't matter for the seam allowance given I'd already widened the skirt, but it did mean the hem was shorter than I initially planned. I had some fabric left and was going to put a flounce on for extra length, so I measured a curve, cut it out, and then realised I'd measured the outside rather than inside length of the curve, so the flounce was too narrow. So I folded the hems of the lining and shell in towards each other as narrowly as I could and stitched close to the edge. The length is actually fine, it's just not quite what I'd planned, but I'll get used to it.

Friday's Frock

Just to be different from my last few posts that have gone on about how hot Sydney has been and how I've had to make something new that's cool enought to wear this summer, so this time...
I have a dress I made because it was so hot and I needed something new that was still appropriate to wear to work.

This dress is a vintage McCall's pattern from 1968, number 9438. I picked it up at a Sydney Spoolettes fabric swap in November (thanks whoever's pattern it was!). It's a very simple dress, with a semi fitted bodice and lightly gathered skirt to just above the knee. The style is classic and unfussy and the pattern was my size, so I brought it home with me.

The fabric is a Japanese cotton from Tessuti in Surry Hills. It has a texture that's a bit like linen, and is beautifully soft. It's a denim blue with a slight grey tone and a linear geometric pattern in black that looks a bit like stars, a bit like flowers, and a bit like tiles. It's neither casual nor formal, so is very versatile to wear, and the print has hints of a late 60s feel without being costumey. I cut the skirt on the warp and the bodice on the weft, just them look a bit different to each other.

I made a few minor adjustments to the pattern. The bodice originally had two sets of bust darts, both side and waist seam. I don't need both sets of darts, and also tend to find my ribcage is narrower than many bodices, so I folded the side dart in, which straightened the sides and brought the bodice in. The second change was one I made fairly late - lowering the neckline. The round neckline was originally very high, which was both a little tight and too warm for hot weather. I lowered it by half a centimetre all the way around. It's still high enough to keep with the original style of the pattern, but not so high that it feels uncomfortable.

I've worn this dress a few times, but took the photos last Friday, when it was almost 40 degrees. Normally we have casual Fridays, But last Friday there was a workshop I was involved with so I had to be dressed appropriately for a meeting with  external people, but that would be comfortable in the heat and running back and forth to make the workshop happen. This dress fit the bill perfectly.

Just a quick mention of my shoes too. They're Rollies, a Melbourne brand that I've seen around every now and then for a few years. A new shop just opened up around the corner from me and stocks them, so I finally decided I  could afford them. This pair are side-cut derby punch in rose gold, and they are wonderfully light and comfortable, even in very hot weather.  

The one drawback of this dress is that the fabric does fray a lot. So I'm going to have to do a bit of fixing to cover the seams, and especially along the zipper. But apart from that, this dress is great. And sure to get lots more wear.

The Marchioness Rose

This dress has taken about six weeks from start to blogging. There's quite a few pieces to the pattern, I had to add a lining despite the pattern not originally being lined, and I've both been busy at work and moved house, so there was a lot to do both with the sewing and with the rest of life.

The pattern is a 1950s Australian Home Journal pattern, number 5210. It's a shirt dress with shawl collar and pockets. The envelope describes this as a house frock, which makes it sound like something Betty Draper would wear. The big bright pink roses also look very Betty, so I thought I should accessorise the photos to match the dress. And my armchair really matches the era pretty well, too!

The fabric is one I picked up at a Sydney Spoolettes fabric swap earlier in the year. The fabric is Australian, the selvedge says it is from Marchioness Fabrics. It's very thin voile, almost gauze-like. This meant there was no way I could use the fabric without lining it. But I didn't want to lose the soft drape that it has. I also didn't want to lose the colours, so I had to find something to be a lining that wouldn't show through or dilute the vibrant pinks of the roses.

I found a baby pink cotton voile at The Fabric Store that fit the bill. Of course, two layers of voile still isn't particularly thick. For the bodice it was fine, and I decided to leave the sleeves unlined, but the skirt would need more than two layers of voile. To fix this, I decided to double line the skirt. I cut one set of the baby pink voile to be the lining, and another set which I stitched straight on to the main fabric, treating it all as one single piece.

I started work on the bodice first, putting in the front and back darts. There are also front insets at the yoke. They were a little daunting to insert because of the right angle at the bottom edge, but in the end they went in fairly easily. And the print is, well, a bit overwhelming so the insets aren't really noticeable - you can just see the line of them on the above photo if you look closely. On the pattern envelope the insets are edged with lace so they stand out, but that wasn't needed with this fabric.

The skirt was trickier to do because of the third layer of fabric. Although I stitched the second layer of pink voile onto my main fabric so I could treat it as one, it was still a bit slippy. I left the bottom hem until I'd attached the bodice and skirt together, and then left it to hang for a weekend so the hem would settle. It seems to have ended up even, but I will keep an eye on it in case the lining and skirt get out of alignment.

Being a shirt dress I needed to make sure to stabilise the front. But I wanted to make sure I chose an interfacing that would work with how light the fabric is - both in terms of the weight and the gauziness of it. In the end I chose a black net-like sew-in interfacing. It did mean I had to first stitch the interfacing to the facing, but it sits and flows better than an iron on interfacing would.

The original pattern had short sleeves, but I didn't think they were quite right for this fabric. I looked through my other patterns from around the same era, and decided I'd add the sleeves from my DuBarry 5265 coat dress pattern. The sleeves are meant to have cuffs, but I tried the dress on before adding the cuffs and decided they'd be a bit too overwhelming, and the sleeves would work fine it I simply hemmed them.

I actually had all the sewing done more than a week before I moved, as I needed to be able to pack up my machine and fabric. All that was left to do was rip open the buttonholes, add the buttons, and hid all the loose threads. Still, I had to get set up before I could even start on those last elements, and there are sixteen buttons on this shirt dress. The interfacing is also relatively solid but the fabric is light, so I wanted to be very careful when ripping the buttonholes open.

The buttons were probably the hardest choice in making this dress, because I didn't know what would suit this fabric. It obviously needed a large number of buttons (sixteen in the end!), but what would complement the flowers? I have a large collection of buttons, but I didn't have anything that worked, or that had enough buttons. I wasn't going to find something that faded in to the background on this fabric, so I chose the gold as I thought they would stand out but not clash.

I'm really proud of this dress. To be honest it feels a little fancier than I normally am, like it needs a very put-together person. Not simply something that is pulled out of the wardrobe on a whim. But the fabric is just so stunning, and so perfectly suited to the pattern, so I'm sure I will find reasons to wear it. Although probably without the heels.

Tessuti Cut Out Lace LBD

First post in a month! And this dress almost didn't even make it.
This dress was made as an entry for Tessuti's cut out lace competition. Even though I'd bought the fabric a day or two after the competition was announced (perks/dangers of working a less than ten minute walk from Tessuti's Surry Hills store) there were quite a few things that almost got in the way of the dress being made.

The first thing that delayed this dress was a holiday, and some holiday sewing of shorts and cargo pants to wear while bushwalking in Western Australian national parks. Because of this, I didn't have time to start on my competition entry until I got back from holiday a week and a half into September. But the bigger problem was that I just couldn't seem to get my make to look how I wanted it to look.

I'd decided as soon as I saw the lace in store that I wanted to do as little as possible to it, and just let the fabric speak for itself. I decided to buy a single panel so I wouldn't be tempted to do anything too fussy. I also wanted to use the half flower piece at the centre top of the panel as my neckline, so I thought a simple fitted sheath dress would be the go, and started pinning and draping on my mannequin.

It didn't quite go according to plan. First, I needed to do the centre pack seam and insert the zipper. I had been going to use an open ended zip, but when I got the black open ended zipper I had out, it wasn't long enough. Given this was last weekend and entries closed yesterday, I decided I didn't have time to go searching for a long enough open ended zip and instead searched through for other options. 

Initially I went for a normal black zip about 45 centimetres long. I pinned it in, folding the fabric in further as it got down to the waist. I stitched the zipper in, and then for the lower half of the seam eased the seam back out from the waist to the hip and then straight down to the bottom. I then folded in some double pointed darts to fit the bust and waist, putting in two long darts and four short darts - two near the centre front, two close to the sides. I made sure they fit my mannequin, sewed them up, trimmed out the neckline, stitched the shoulders together, and cut out some of the lace for armholes.

Then I tried it on and it looked terrible.

The darts sat too low, leaving a weird billowy gaping at the bust, and the zipper at the back didn't sit flat either. The neckline was the only thing I was fairly happy with. Even the lace at the armholes was droopy at the back. That was going to be an easy fix, it would just need the extra pieces cut out once everything else was done, but the rest required going right back to the start. 

The first change I made was to rip the zipper out and redo it. I decided that I'd just put the zip in straight, rather than playing around trying to get it to fit in to the waist. I also decided to change over to an invisible zip, although I'm not entirely sure why as it's a shorter zipper. So I unpicked all my darts from the front, put small shoulder pleats in at the back to make sure the neckline was even, and draped it back over my mannequin.

My thought then was maybe I could make the dress so it was fitted at the front but hung loose at the back. So I did a first run of pinning the front in again, and tried it on. Unsurprisingly, it didn't really work. I had pinned the front darts in higher so it was better fitted, but there wasn't enough fabric for it to give the loose effect I wanted at the back. And honestly, I'm not sure this idea could have worked, because trying to keep one half loose while the other half is tight is just too complicated. I'd contemplated using ribbon ties from the underarm to the back, but I really don't think it would have sat evenly at all.

I hadn't sewn anything for that second arrangement, so there wasn't any more unpicking to do, but by this stage it was Thursday night and I was a bit at a loss of what to do. My next thought was to make separates, with a cropped top and high waisted skirt. The lace at the bodice would be long enough to work as a cropped top, but I decided against this idea because I really don't think I'd wear the top. And given the neckline was the first decision I'd made when I saw the fabric and was the one element I was happy with, I didn't want to lose that on a garment I wouldn't wear. So I discarded that idea.

Then I finally worked out what to do.

It's an obvious realisation, but if your mannequin doesn't have the exact same measurements as you then pinning and draping a fitted dress completely on the mannequin isn't going to end up fitting properly. The answer, of course, was to pin the dress directly onto myself. So I put it on and folded in two darts for the front and two for the back and pinned them in place. I stitched them down, leaving them open at the bottom so they have a soft pleated effect. And after all of that messing around, mid-morning yesterday I finally had the dress I'd pictured in my head.

Then it was just a case of taking some pictures and sending them in as my entry. 

And so that's the saga of my lace LBD. With persistence, sometimes you can manage to pull of the image in your head. Now I just need a reason to wear it!

Flower Power Midi

Floral prints seem to be in at the moment. At least I've seen a lot on sewing blogs, in fabric stores, and in the windows of clothes shops. But I haven't seen so many giantly oversized florals like this 1950s-feel midi skirt. So I guess this skirt is both on-trend and individual.

The fabric is an old doona (quilt/duvet) cover I picked up at an op shop a few years back. Op shops can be great places for fabrics, and very cheap too. When I picked it up I didn't realise it was double sided - this skirt is only one quarter of the fabric. As soon as I saw the doona cover in the op shop I thought the giant flowers would look great as a skirt, but when I realised there were a total of twelve flowers, I thought I should come up with something that used more, if not all of it. But I didn't have any ideas, and so I put it away, buried in my overflowing fabric drawers.

From memory there was no label on the doona cover when I bought it, but the print seems to me to be a bit Skandinavian. Whether it is Ikea fabric or just trying to look like Ikea and Marimekko prints, it has that sort of style. Each flower has a different coloured centre: yellow for the centre front flower, red for the left, blue for the right.

 The skirt itself isn't really that exciting. It's self-designed, and without any measuring at all. I simply sewed up the back seam leaving room for inserting the zipper, and then went to work pinning it on my dressmaker's dummy Ilse-Jane. I eyeball measured to try and keep things even, although the side pleats are narrower than the front and back pleats. But the large-scale print means that these slight differences don't really matter - the flowers still stand out anyway. I hand-stitched the waistband down so that I only stitched through the insides of the pleats, allowing the pleats to stand out and so that there was no visible stitching line through the tops of the petals.

I have to admit that generally, the midi length isn't really my favourite. I think it can look a bit odd, either like a child playing dress ups in their mum's clothes, or  a kid wearing clothes they've outgrown. But with this print I really had no choice. There was no other way to show off those giant flowers. I do like how the length looks, I really do think it suits the print, but the length still isn't something I normally wear, so it is going to take some getting used to.

Although I'd had this fabric for ages and had known exactly what I'd wanted to make when I saw it, it took somewhere around 4-5 years to get around to making it. I do still have three quarters of it left (anyone want it?), but I have been thinking about the need to sew my stash, rather than just buying more fabric. And especially making something like this, which was not only something I'd already completely decided on but was also extremely quick to make.

Hot Day Work Outfit

First post for 2016! It's taken two weeks, so it's a two-for one post this time. I did get some sewing done over the Christmas-New Year's break but hadn't gotten around to taking any photos until before work this morning. It's lucky I took these photos first thing this morning, because after reaching 40° around lunchtime Sydney had some big thunderstormsthrough the afternoon, and I got soaked to the bone crossing the road from the train station to the bus stop on my way home.

As with my silk Kate Top, this outfit is specifically things I made that I can wear to work. Both of these patterns are from Japanese pattern books. The top, which I'll call the tie shell, is pattern I from les couleurs francaises. The skirt is the first variation of the straight skirt pattern in the blouse, skirt and pants style book. Neither are English translations of the books, although there are a few diagrams and illustrations. Still, it's best to have some reasonable sewing knowledge before tackling a pattern you can't read.

The top is made with a poly crepe from fabrics by Gertie, bought at Spotlight. Unfortunately, given that it was a remnant-sized piece I was pretty limited in what I could do. I chose the tie shell because it didn't use too much fabric. I had to compromise slightly. though. Japanese patterns don't have seam allowances included, but my fabric was not quite wide enough to add seam allowances for the back piece. It still fits and the back looks fine, but there should be a little extra length in the front upper bodice. But you do what you can with the fabric you have.

Other than that little issue the top was a very easy make. I did French seams, the narrowest folded hem possible to keep as much length as possible, and finished the neckline and armholes in off-white satin bias binding. As the shoulder straps are fairly narrow, the binding overlaps itself. I decided to sew the neckline first, and then only sew the armhole binding up to the neckline stitching, rather than having overlapping stitch lines. That way it has a cleaner, even line, and looks more professional.

The skirt is made with a heavy cotton from Tessuti Fabrics. I bought it at the same time as the silk for my Kate Top. I wanted something light in colour that was simple but not completely plain. This cotton is textured but not printed, so it fight the bill well. As it has a fair amount of body it needed to be a skirt with a more solid shape, and this six gored A-line skirt seemed just right.

This pattern was trickier to use than the top. The pattern book has a handful of basic patterns and then gives options for how to vary it to make other styles. This was a relatively easy variation, except that I decided to make some extra changes. The diagonal pieces on the side fronts of the original pattern are fake pockets, but I decided I wanted real ones. Measuring out the extra pattern pieces I needed was okay, although I did manage to sew a pocket bag on inside out. Putting the zipper in was a bit more of a problem. Because the fabric is a little heavier, once you put together the lower skirt front, the pocket bag, and the pocket top, it starts to get pretty thick. My machine wasn't too happy about that, and so the stitch line is a bit wonky and the zipper is unaligned by about 5mm at the top. I thought about redoing the zipper, but decided it's not obvious so I couldn't be bothered.

So apart from getting rained on coming home, I'm happy with both top and skirt. The top is light and breathable, and the skirt's shape and neutral tone will make it a really flexible item. Plus, pockets! It's been a while since I've used a Japanese pattern and they're always a bit daunting, but I've always had good results with them. Both books have a number of other great patterns, so I've no doubt I'll make a few more of them in the future.