Floral Vampire Batwing Dress

I'm often a bit lazy with my sewing. I don't like changing my needle, so if I've put in a jersey needle I generally try and make a few things before changing the needle again. So when I made the side drape merino dress I went through my stash to look at other stretch fabrics I could sew up. One thing I pulled out was a heavy black and floral jersey. The pattern is another one from Drape Drape 2, the two-piece open batwing dress.

The fabric was from a Sydney Spoolettes fabric swap last year. I picked it up and put it down a few times, because I wasn't sure what I would do with it. It was a very large piece (1.5m by over 3m), a fairly thick jersey and quite a large print, so it needed a winter pattern that was big but wouldn't be overwhelming with the print.

Given I'd only just finished making something from Drape Drape 2, I'd already been looking through that book and it was fresh in my mind. It has two different batwing dress patterns, both of which I liked, but the other one looked like it needed a lighter weight jersey so I chose this one.

The pattern pieces for this dress are incredibly large and strangely shaped. Tracing them out was complicated, as there are multiple parts to join together, and it being a Japanese pattern there are many different patterns overlaid on each other on the page it can be hard to identify the correct lines. And the pieces couldn't even fit on a single piece of pattern paper, so there was lots of cutting odd bits off the side and attaching them on edges until I had what looked like a bat in flight.

Surprisingly, when I laid the pattern pieces out on the fabric, there was actually a fair bit of fabric left over. Yet the main piece, which makes up the front, sleeves, and upper back of the dress, was taller than me - not including the sleeves. The pattern pieces aren't only large, they have some strange angles which go in to making the gathered skirt, so it requires a lot of pins to cut out.

There are only a handful of steps to sew this pattern up and turn it into a mid-thigh length dress. The main thing to do is gather up the sides, which transforms a person-high piece of fabric into a skirt. The pleats on each side are sewn first, then the centre back seam, and the lower back piece is joined on. For the sleeves, the cuffs have pleats in them but were still a bit too loose and looked overwhelming with the large amount of fabric, so I added an extra pleat to make them slightly fitted at the cuffs.

I finished the dress a couple of weeks ago but haven't worn it yet. It's thick jersey, but the open sleeves mean it isn't really warm, and it sits somewhere between casual and dressy so I need to work out what it would suit. But I do like it and did enjoy making it.

Side Drape Merino Dress

Only 18 months ago I'd barely used merino and was daunted by the prospect; now I've sewn it a bunch of times and it's my favourite stretch fabric to use. It's soft and moves smoothly through the machine, and I've never had problems with it getting caught or skipping stitches. This dress and top are both in lovely merino from The Fabric Store.

The dress pattern is the one-piece side drape tank from Drape Drape 2. The pattern, as with many in the Drape Drape books, is a strange shape. This one is also very wide, and even though my piece of fabric was the size it called for it wasn't quite wide enough, so I had to fold it in slightly. This means the side drape is about an inch less than it should be, luckily not enough to make a noticeable difference to how the dress drapes.

Sewing the dress probably took less time than tracing and cutting out the pattern. The dress itself is all one piece, plus three strips to finish the neckline and armholes. It's sewn up very quickly, one shoulder seam, one full side seam, one half side seam, a hem and the finishings. The ease of sewing it matches its ease in wearing. The dress isn't fancy by any means, but it looks a step above casual. It sits in that secret pyjamas spot of being very easy and comfy but looking like you've put in more effort.

The skivvy was made back in February to take on holiday and was definitely useful in southern Patagonia. I didn'tuse a pattern for it,just traced out from some previous long sleeved tops I'd made. I thought about buying one because there are a few nice indie ones, especially from Papercut and Named Patterns, but I was making this fairly last minute and didn't feel I had the time to get either a paper pattern or print out and put together a PDF. It largely worked without a pattern, although the neck band is slightly tighter than ideal, but I can still get it over my head which is the main thing.

 The skivvyis actually black and charcoal stripe, but they're narrow stripes so it doesn't really show up in the photos. Both the dress and skivvy are very comfortable and versatile to wear, together or separately. The dress can probably get worn through most of the year given that it's sleeveless. The merino is warm when worn with a long sleeve top and tights, but it's also breathable so could be worn on its own.

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?

Summer Sleepwear

It is hot.
This summer in Sydney (and a lot of Australia) has been ridiculous. We've had a record-equalling nine days over 35C - that's 95F for Americans - so far this summer and there's still almost a month left to go. It's too hot to do much sewing, or to wear too much. So light sleepwear is a must.

These two items are some of the few things I've made over the summer. Most of my old sleepwear is very much old and starting to fall apart. I also didn't have a summer robe for lazing at home during the holidays or on weekends when I don't feel like getting dressed just yet. So here are my Asaka Kimono and loose drape tank top nightie.

First up is the Asaka Kimono from Named Clothing. Named are a Finnish indie pattern brand who I know a lot of sewists have tried, but this was my first make. I actually bought the pattern during their pre-Christmas sale in 2015 (I bought 2 other patterns then too) but I only recently got around to making it.

The pattern is pretty straightforward without too many pieces. It does require a lot of fabric - and it isn't one where you can just lay the pieces like a jigsaw to save room. But none of the pieces are strange shapes, nor are there any awkward joins that need to be made. This pattern would be suitable for even fairly beginner sewists.

Because the fabric frays and isn't the greatest quality (although the print was too perfect a match for the pattern not to buy) I again did French seams. Of course I couldn't do French seams for the sleeves due to the vent, so instead I sewed those with a wider seam allowance and then rolled that under and topstitched it down.

I do think the tie belt is possibly a bit too long, which is my only complaint. Mine almost reaches the floor when untied, and that's after I managed to burn holes in one end and had to cut it shorter. Turns out the cheap $2 a metre fabric I bought at Spotlight is not friends with the iron, so this gown is just going to have to remain creased.

The nightie is the No. 13 Loose Drape Tank Top from Drape Drape. This pattern I have changed when I made it. The first and obvious change is in the fabric I used. As with most in the book, the pattern is designed for a knit fabric. However I'd bought metres of this black and white Deco-esque rose satin a few years back planning to make sleepwear. Seeing as I already had the fabric, I decided I might as well use it as I'd planned to.

The second change I made was to the pattern itself. The original in the book is much more draped at the side, down to the waist in the pictures in the book. I didn't want it to be that deep, so when I traced the pattern out I overlapped the two pattern pieces to narrow and raise it. The sides are still deep, but not so much that the nightie is about to fall off.

I didn't make any other modifications to this pattern, and like my Punto Drape Dress the pattern was incredibly easy to follow. It is made all in one piece, cut out on the fold and sewn up at the back, so it is very quick. It definitely taes twice as long to trace and cut the pattern out as it does to make it. It's a great pattern, and works in a woven just as well as it would in a knt. Again, recommended for sewists of all skill levels.

We've had a bit of a cool change come through this evening and tomorrow is going to be wet and a cool(!) 25 degrees, but the weekend is hotting up again, possibly to 40 (104F) on Sunday. So these lightweight sleepwear and lounging gown are going to come in handy for a few more weeks yet.

Punto Drape Dress

I've finally got my sewing room set up, and two weeks off for the Christmas/New Year's break, so time to sit down at my machine and start stitching again. First up was this dress, made on Boxing Day.

The fabric is Blimm's World Punto from Tessuti Fabrics. It's one of a couple of Italian pontes that are so popular that they tend to sell out within a day or two at most, so it's lucky that I can get down to Tessuti at lunchtime. After they posted them on Instagram one morning I headed down at lunch and fortunately this one was still available.

The print is very busy (yes, that is a man falling out of a hot air balloon and a map of Asia with a black bear representing Russia), so I had to choose a pattern where the fabric didn't overwhelm but where I wouldn't lose any of the fun of it. I decided to go with the drop-waist gather dress from Drape Drape. It's a semi fitted pattern with a tulip skirt, and the fabric is cut all in one piece.

The pattern suggests putting a zipper in the back, but given it's a jersey fabric I decided that didn't seem necessary. The dress is fitted but not tight, so it is still easy to get on and off without a zip. I did the gathering for the shoulders and skirt both by hand so that they would be even and neat.

The piece of fabric was slightly shorter than the pattern needed, so the back of the skirt had to be cut differently. I couldn't curve the hem down, so had to cut it more like a typical gathered skirt. It also meant that the hem was initially higher at the back, so I had to trim it shorter until it was even. I was a bit worried about that I'd lose to much length, but fortunately it's still long enough.

This was my first make from Drape Drape, a book I'd seen a lot but was always a bit daunted by. I was surprised at how quick this was to make. All up, measuring, pattern placement and sewing took me only a matter of hours. Basically it's the best sort of pattern - one that looks much harder to make than it is!