Gathered Traffic Blouse

It's Me Made May once again, so with lots of sewists around the world I'm aiming to wear me-made clothes every day this month. Hopefully it will also prompt me to post my unblogged makes here as I wear them. Like this blouse started late last year and finished last month.

The pattern is the Gather Blouse from Japanese pattern book She Has A Mannish Style (English-language version now called She Wears The Pants). The oversized shape gives it a more masculine line which is softened by the gathered back, curved hem and close-fitted round collar. The fabric is a Liberty tana lawn from The Fabric Store. The print is Hunter Truck C which The Fabric Store don't seem to have in tana lawn anymore but the corduroy is still on their website. I thought the more stereotypically masculine car print in feminine pinks made it a perfect match for the pattern.

The piece of fabric was not quite large enough to fit all the pieces on it. So I had a look through my stash to see what else I had that would work with the print and match the weight of tana lawn. I'm not sure when or where I bought this basic black cotton, but it was exactly the right fabric to complement the cars. I decided to cut the front yoke, placket, sleeve cuffs and collar stand out of the black fabric so that it would be enough contrast but not become the focus. I think using the black for contrast helps the blouse not be so overwhelming with its print and also highlights the design lines of the pattern.

I made most of this blouse last year, except for the collar, buttonholes and buttons. I really wanted to make this blouse look as polished as I could, and collars and buttonholes have tripped me up a bit before so I put them off initially. The collar includes a collar stand, not just a basic top and undercollar piece, and my copy of the pattern book is entirely in Japanese with just illustrations to guide me, so I was a bit daunted. I did it very slowly over a number of days, doing one step or part step at a time, then taking a step back to look at it and check it looked right. Sewing the front and back collar stand down evenly was difficult and I had to redo it because my first attempt was uneven and didn't catch both layers. The curved edge at the front doesn't look fantastic, but it's not really visible so I'm happy enough with it.

I then still needed to do the buttons and buttonholes. At first I delayed because I hadn't decided what buttons to use, then had to go and buy some black buttons to match the placket. But I'm really not a fan of doing buttonholes, and had just finished making a skirt (not blogged yet) with a button front that my machine had some real issues with, so I wasn't in the mood to do another set of buttonholes. In the end when I pulled this back out last month the buttonholes were very quick and easy. The placket is interfaced and the black fabric has a slight stiffness to it which meant it was stable and smooth through my machine, so the buttonholes were all done in about half an hour. It took at least twice as long to sew the buttons on!

I used a twin needle to do black topstitching along the around the pockets, on the front and back yokes and along the hem. Because the pattern is quite busy the topstitching is not particularly visible - with the possible exception of around the pockets - but it gives a much neater and more professional finish, especially in keeping the seams flat along the yoke.

It took a long time but I'm incredibly happy with how this blouse turned out. I think the fabric and pattern complement each other perfectly. The style is also good for the current social distancing work from home situation - it's not a formal workwear blouse, but it is dressed and a few steps above pyjamas. It's a relaxed style but with professional touches, and I'm sure it will get lots of wear for many years.

Wagtail Dress

It's been a while since I last blogged, but it's not because I haven't sewn. I made this dress back in August and have worn it a dozen or more times since. It was even photographed in December, just waiting for me to get around to writing about it on here.

The fabric is a Jocelyn Proust design from Spotlight, with a Willy Wagtail print. Jocelyn Proust makes great fabrics, mostly with Australian flora and fauna prints. The pattern is Vogue 9199. It's a Very Easy Vogue pattern, and I don't think I've made one before. I was looking for a simple knit dress pattern and this was what I could find. I almost dismissed it because the illustration on the front isn't great, but I was wanting a pattern to make a dress to take on holiday so had to go with what was available.

Because the print is directional it turned out I didn't have enough fabric to make the dress exactly as it is in the packet - the pieces were slightly too wide and the fabric slightly too narrow, and the print wouldn't work with some upside down birds. So I decided to cut the bodice half using the pattern and then use the leftover fabric to do a simple rectangle skirt. It wasn't enough to be able to do even gathers around the entire waistline, so I just did gathers at the four princess seams - two at the front and two at the back.

The fabric is lovely to sew with. It's a relatively thick jersey with moderate stretch that retains its shape well but isn't too hot to wear. It goes through the machine smoothly, and has kept its colour and stretch through multiple washes (the benefit of not writing a post until six months after finishing a make is I can review how it holds up in real life). 

 The pattern is a slightly looser fit than I had originally planned, but I do still like it. I think it works better with the rectangle skirt than it would with the full length princess seams as it gives it that slight bit more shape. But I really like the neckline and the sleeve shape and length. A good cap sleeve that is fitted but still allows movement is often hard to find in sewing patterns - too many are restrictively tight or far too long but these are just right.

Given I've worn this dress many times I'm obviously happy with the outcome. It's a comfortable, easy to wear dress, and the print is fantastic. I'm not sure if I'll make the pattern itself again, but might use it as the basis for making t-shirts, removing the princess seams. At the very least I will use the sleeve pieces in the future.

Pop Art Patti Dress

My blogging hasn't been happening much this year. I have quite a few things I've made over the last six months - some even photographed - that I haven't posted yet. So this dress is my first start in changing that around.

The skirt is the Patti Pocket Skirt from Amy Nicole Patterns. It has front and back pleats and large pockets - the white whale of dresses and skirts. These pockets are cut so that they're slightly wider than side skirt piece, making them pretty roomy and much more functional than pockets often are. I also like that the placement of the pockets is in the front rather than in the side seams as it makes them much more practical.

The fabric is a light cotton sateen from Pitt Trading with diagonal stretch and a good sheen. I love the print, it's a check but nothing like other checks. It's very pop art, or like almost cartoon-like with the roughly drawn think black lines and deep and vibrant greens and blues. It's lightweight but has just enough body to hold a bit of shape and keep the pleats sharp. I decided early on the skirt half I wanted for this fabric and had an image in my head for the bodice, so looked through my patterns to find what matched the picture in my head.

The bodice is from everyone's favourite pattern in 2010-11, Simplicity 2444, sadly now out of print. It has been a while since I made this pattern, so I'd forgotten that the sleeves have very little ease meaning I can't entirely raise my arms in this dress. I'm hoping that after a few washes the fabric will soften and I'll get a little more movement.

I've made both the skirt and pattern I used for the bodice before, so it was straightforward to combine the two. The only major change I made was moving the skirt zipper from the side to the back so that it matched the bodice. I don't think I added in quite as much extra fabric at the centre back for the zipper and seam as I as meant to, so the back pleats are a little close together and I had to be careful not to catch the pleat as I stitched the zipper. Other than that this was a quick and easy make.

I made this dress to be able to wear to work or casually, and to wear all year round - with tights in winter and bare-legged in summer. It's a versatile dress and I'm really happy with how it turned out.

The Geometry Dress

Last night was Sydney Frocktails 2019, where the sewing ladies of Sydney (and beyond) get together in our fancy handmade makes to have some drinks, some fun and feel each others' clothes without it being weird. This dress, the Geometry Dress - named for both the construction and the print - was started last weekend and finished at 4pm yesterday. In total there's probably around 20 hours of work in this dress.

The fabric is one I bought from Tessuti somewhere around 5 years ago, I think. It's a cotton sateen with a very high sheen. In fact, quite a few people at frocktails were surprised when I told them it was a cotton, thinking it was a satin or even an African wax print. It's surprisingly lightweight despite the look, and is wonderfully soft and smooth with a small amount of stretch.

I decided I wanted to use a fabric I already had for my frocktails dress, given I have a very large stash. I've had this fabric for a while and always thought it would make a great cocktail dress of some sort. Having two panels of the print, I figured I'd use one for the skirt and one for the bodice, but didn't have any ideas of how I'd actually do it. I looked through all the patterns I own but nothing grabbed me, so went to Spotlight to look through the pattern books. I still had no idea at all of what shape or style I wanted so came away empty handed. Then I saw a sundress pattern that was too casual but had a nice minimal bodice which inspired me to find something with some form of cut outs. So I went to Lincraft in my lunch hour a week and a half ago with a half-formed thought, searching for the pattern to complete the thought.

The pattern is a Vogue designer pattern by Rebecca Vallance, number V1545. I changed the pattern to a plain pleated skirt to show off the fabric print. I really should not have chosen to make something so difficult a week out from the event, but I never pay attention to the difficulty rating on patterns. My thoughts were simply the pieced bodice could work with the almost patchwork nature of the print, but without really considering how exactly that would work out.

Working out the pattern placement took about four hours to get right. The print is a panel, and I had two panels so figured I'd use one for the skirt and one for the bodice, using the different designs in the panel for the different pieces of the bodice. The print on the fabric isn't actually symmetrical, so I couldn't just fold it in half and cut the pieces together. Instead, I cut one of each bodice piece out with the fabric print side up, then laid it print side down on the fabric matching the lines as well as possible and cut out the opposite side. It was a laborious process, but the final result made it worthwhile.

The pattern is relatively difficult, but the biggest issue was how time-consuming it was. Obviously the four hours of pattern placement was the biggest single amount of time. The blue and red triangles and stripe on the edge of the panels were an obvious choice for the front overlay and the waistband. Then I kept changing my mind about whether to have the geometric shapes for the front or the back. In the end the back and side back pieces fitted better on the floral, and the finished diamond shape on the back is better than I could have planned. I also tried to get the skirt to pattern match, which worked pretty well at the top with the invisible zipper, but got slightly out of alignment near the hem. But the teal stripes match up, so the bit of unevenness in between doesn't really matter.

The bodice is fully lined and all seams bar the armscyes are understitched. I do love how understitching keeps the lining from peeking out, but it does significantly increase the amount of time it takes to sew. The lining, which is just a heavy cotton, gives the bodice much more structure than the cotton sateen alone, but the different weights of the fabric definitely benefited from the understitching.

All the finishings are done by hand, apart from the hem. But hand stitching a neckline, waist, and 15 inch metal zipper takes a long time. And zipper tape for a heavy metal zipper is not good on needles or fingers - my left pointer finger has a callus and also a bit of a hole where the needle pushed back into the skin when it didn't want to go through the tape and fabric. The waistband, in comparison, was a very easy sew. Although the hem ended up being sewn by machine, I luckily had a forest green that perfectly matched the narrow stripe between the teal and mint stripes so the stitch line is only visible when looked at closely.

As well as changing the skirt from the original pattern I reduced the front opening of the dress. In the original pattern the front is open all the way down to the waistband, but that's really not practical to wear, so I hand stitched in the back to keep them together. I also added a quick stitch where the overlay crossed the front bodice pieces to keep them from gaping apart. These were quick minor edits, but meant I could be comfortable and confident wearing the dress knowing it was going to stay where it was meant to.

One of the best things about frocktails is seeing the great variety of styles people wear. Getting to make something that's just fun to dress up, rather than making practical clothes for work or everyday wear. Seeing women in velvet, sequins, brocades, circle skirts with petticoats and all sorts of colours and prints was great, and a great reminder that sewing is not only a practical skill, it can reflect each person's individuality. And it's a wonderful community to be part of. Ready to do it all again in September!

Rainbow Brite Inari Dress

My second make for 2019 is the Inari Tee Dress by Named Patterns. I'm a few years late on making the Inari compared to much of the sewing community, but bought the pattern when Named had a pattern sale mid last year. It was winter here when I bought it, but now that it's summer I decided it was time to make it.

The fabric, from The Fabric Store, is a beautiful velvety plush jersey. It's a Marc Jacobs fabric, rainbow stripes on a warm grey background. There's also a very fine silver stripe on either side of the grey stripe, but it doesn't show up as clearly in pictures. The fabric reminded me of 80s kids character Rainbow Brite, hence the name of the dress.

The fabric is wonderfully soft and sewed up quite easily, apart from the huge amounts of fluff. Especially when overlocking the seams. There aren't all that many seams to this dress but I still needed to clean my overlocker twice to get rid of all the fluff around the knives and needles. Even with the fluff, the fabric did not catch or slip on either my normal machine or my overlocker.

I did my best to pattern match at the side seams, but jerseys never quite cut out perfectly evenly so the stripes are a tiny bit off under the arms. The good thing with a knit fabric is that it's easy to slightly stretch one side so that it gets back in line with the other, so I made sure the bottom of each side seam matched and adjusted up the the underarm seam, so the more visible parts of the side seam have pretty much matched stripes and the parts that aren't seen unless I raise my arms are maybe a few millimetres off.

The Inari has a bit of an unusual shape - it's quite quite fitted at the neckline, sleeves and bust, almost tent-like through the waist and more fitted again at the hips and legs. The split side seams and shorter front hemline accentuate the more fitted bottom of the dress. This gives it a feel of being casual but not lazy, effortless rather than couldn't be bothered. I wasn't completely sure of the sleeves when I first finished the dress because the underarm is longer than the outer cap, but I'm starting to like it more now.

Because the jersey is effectively a velvet it is relatively warm. Even with the loose fit of the Inari, this summer of record-breaking temperatures has often been too hot for the dress. But on days where the temperature is in the mid-20s rather than the high-30s this dress is great.

Lorenzo Jungle Dress

This is the Lorenzo Jungle Dress, a casual winter/trans-seasonal dress.  The fabric is a Liberty Lantana called Lorenzo from The Fabric Store. It's 80% cotton and 20% wool, so it's a similar weight to a flannelette but nicer feel and quality.

My initial thought for this fabric was to make a pinafore. But the fabric is very colourful and the print pretty kitschy so I was concerned it might be a bit too childish made into a pinafore. I flicked through my patterns to see what else I had that might work for the fabric and saw the dress on the cover of Stylish Dress Book (pattern E in the book) and thought it could work. I couldn't decide between the two so posted both options on Instagram asking for opinions, and the stylish dress book pattern narrowly won out.

I have made this before in a wool a number of years ago and retired it from my wardrobe earlier this year. So I knew it was something I could make easily, and knew the changes I'd want to make sewing it up a second time. Given how loose and full the dress is I decided to lengthen the hem and also narrow the pieces. The front is pleated and the lower back of the dress is gathered, so it was easy to reduce the bulk by placing the pieces over the fold line so that they were smaller. I also cut the pieces straight up the sides as the weight of this material didn't need anything extra.

This dress is an incredibly easy make. There are very few pieces, one for the front, two for the back, sleeves and patch pockets. The sleeves are cut a little narrow and do not have much in the way of fullness and the sleeve cap. Combined with the loose trapeze shape this can mean that the dress rises up when lifting up your arms, another reason why I lengthened the hem. For the hem I added around 10cm so that I would have enough extra fabric there to do some trial and error on deciding the right length.

In the end I think this dress struck a good balance in using the kitschy fabric but not turning out too childish. It's a fun print, and while it's probably designed with childrenswear in mind, I love a great print and don't think there's any problem with adults wearing something bright. This definitely isn't work wear, but I think it will find a good place in my wardrobe.

The Frocktails Flare Dress

Last Saturday was Sydney's Frocktails for 2018, where we sewists get together to have some fun, meet the person behind the Instagram handle, talk about fabrics, and have an excuse to make something fun and fancy to wear. This dress is the Loose Flare Drape Dress, pattern 11 in Drape Drape. Although a modern pattern, the tent dress shape gives it more of a 1960s feel.

For Frocktails this year I wasn't sure at all what I wanted to make, so I put it in the hands of the Instagram sewing community. I grabbed a pile of fabric options out of the drawers and draped them over my dressmaker's dummy, took pictures, and asked for advice. There wasn't a clear winner, and every option got at least one vote, but this fabric got the most early support. I really had no idea what to make with it and honestly didn't think I'd find anything, but thought I'd look through my patterns anyway. I saw the loose flare pattern in Drape Drape and thought it might work, so posted a picture of it. Everyone told me to go for it, and I din't have any other ideas. So basically this dress wasn't so much a planned outfit as a "well maybe this will work" creation. I think it worked.

This is a wonderful pattern, if slightly lacking in instructions. There's succinct and then there's cryptic, and the instructions for this dress slip towards the latter. There's little detail in some of the steps, and even with the pictures it wasn't always completely clear what to do - particularly with how to make sure the flare piece doesn't get caught between the lining. I also cut it out mirror imaged, because for some reason the pattern was meant to be cut out on the right side of the fabric instead of the reverse as is the norm with most patterns, but wasn't labeled. However this doesn't make any real difference to the final product.

The measurements on Japanese patterns are often a bit tricky. For this book I'm the height of the extra large, but the rest of my measurements match the small. To deal with this I used extended the small size pieces to the length of the extra large when tracing them out. Because of the large size of the pattern pieces the fabric was a tiny bit smaller than it should have been to fit all pieces on in line with the grain. Had it been 10cm wider or longer it would all have fit correctly, but as it was I had to slightly angle the front drape piece to be able to fit the back on. And in the end my pattern plancement matched the flare exactly to the front piece. Got to love those inadvertent perfect placements!

I had a few people at Frocktails ask if the fabric was a silk. In fact, the fabric is a polyester crepe bought in Cabramatta for $7 a metre. Despite being so cheap and being polyester it's actually a fantastic fabric. It has excellent drape, feels lovely and soft and the colours of the digital print are wonderfully bright. The lining was from an op shop, and cost about $1 for several metres, so this dress is very cheap but doesn't look it.

I also made the ridiculous decision at 3pm on the day of Frocktails to make a clutch purse. I'd been planning to take a black clutch I own, but could not find it and didn't think any of my other bags suited my dress. I knew I had some (cheap and crappy) faux leather, so I did a quick Google to look for a simple and fast bag pattern. I found this one which involves no sewing, just glue. Although I did add a line of stitching in part to ensure the fabric and faux leather didn't come apart. I also had enough scrap fabric left to use to line the bag, and added a vintage button from my collection inherited from my grandma. I don't think the glue was completely dry when I left home, but the bag turned out as well as could be for making it at such short notice.

 I'm really happy with how both the dress and bag turned out, and it's always nice to catch up with the sewing community. Sitting at a sewing machine is very solitary, so catching up with other sewists is always good. And who doesn't love a good excuse to wear something fun?