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!

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?

Vintage Vogue for Frocktails

So the Sydney Spoolettes finally got around to holding a frocktails event last Saturday. Melbourne, Brisbane and Canberra sewists have been much better organised than us Sydney sewists and have each held a few big events before, but it had only been talked about in Sydney. But thanks to the excellent organisational skills of Caz from Useful Box, Sydney has joined the party.

Frocktails is where you wear something you've made, book out a nice venue and get together with a bunch of other sewists to have some drinks, chat, and feel each others' fabric. It's a lot of fun, as you get to see all the different styles people wear, see patterns you've heard about made up into a finished product and talk about fabrics and sewing techniques without boring people out of their minds.

It's also a good excuse to make a pattern that isn't an every day style. Or, in my case, finally finish one off. This dress is by far the longest make from when I bought the pattern and fabric to when I tied off the last thread. In fact, I'd be surprised if there were many people who had a finished make that had taken as long as this one did!

This pattern is the out-of-print Vintage Vogue V2787, originally from 1948. It's an absolutely stunning pattern, with curved and gathered bodice seams, gathered shoulders and a curved and half gathered front skirt piece. I bought the pattern and fabric from Tessuti back in 2005 when they still had a store on York St in Sydney. The fabric is a silk twill called falling leaves or falling ivy (it's been over a decade, I'm not certain of its name) and is wonderfully soft with a great hand. I got the pattern home, pinned it and cut it out, and then realised I'd had a bit of a delusion of talent and definitely didn't have the sewing experience to make something as complex as this. So I put it back in its Tessuti bag and put it away for a decade.

I pulled it back out two years ago during the sewphotohop daily photo challenge on Instagram. One of the prompts was 'secret corner of shame', and an unfinished ten year old pattern was an obvious choice. I got a few comments telling me to have a go at sewing it up, so I took it out of its bag. I hand gathered along the seams, hand basting before stitching it together. The fabric has about 4% elastane giving it a slight stretch, but it sews together completely smoothly.

The dress has a side zip and button back. The button I used is from a box of vintage buttons I inherited from my grandma. I did all the seams by machine, but decided that the zipper, hem and sleeve caps needed to be sewn by hand. However I didn't finish the dress off then, I pinned the zipper in and moved on to other projects that were quicker and that I had a reason to sew.

Fast forward another year and a half to the start of this year, and I was starting to think about what I should wear to frocktails. I looked through what other fabrics and patterns I had but nothing grabbed me, so I thought I might pull this one out again and finally finish it off. But there were a few other things I wanted to do first (see my last few posts) so I didn't actually sit down to start finishing it off until about a week before the event. And not only did I have a long week at work, I was close to out of the bone coloured thread I was using. Nothing like a deadline.

The hand sewing was straightforward, just tedious. I decided to hand sew the last elements so that the hem, side and sleeve caps would look smooth with no stitch lines. That meant it took time and close attention to make the stitches as invisible as possible. I finally tied off the ends of the hem threat at 6:05pm on Saturday, barely half an hour before leaving to head into the city for frocktails. I gave the dress a quick press - missing a crease on the front of the skirt - got ready, and headed off to see all the Sydney Spoolettes.

Sadly I didn't get many photos at frocktails as I only had my phone and the venue was relatively dim, but it was a fantastic night. There were 70 women all in amazing outfits they'd made, great drinks and lots of food. It's taken a long time, but it was great to finally get so much of Sydney's sewing community together into the one room. Here's hoping we'll have more frocktails events in the future!

The Little Mostly-Black Dress

I know the 'Little Black Dress' is meant to be a standard of a woman's wardrobe, but I must confess it's not something I've really owned before. I'm far too much of an all the colours all the time person. So it's actually taken me a good four years from planning to make this LBD to finally getting around to doing it. Partly because I'm not really a wearer of refined or grown-up clothes, and I don't tend to make anything formal-ish unless I have somewhere to wear it. But when I heard about Canberra Frocktails, I decided it was time to get this made. I had meant to take at least a couple of photos at frocktails but guess I was having too much fun because I didn't get around to pulling out my camera.

Frocktails is a brilliant idea dreamt up by some Canberran sewists to have a get together, dress up, have some drinks, stroke each others' outfits, and talk about sewing and stashes without having other people think we're weirdos or tell us that having overstuffed drawers full of fabric is a sign of a hoarding problem. I'm not sure about others, but I find sewing can be a bit of a solitary activity, so it's nice to meet with fellow sewists and be part of a group who share your obsessions. And the frocktails ladies were all lovely and cool - because sewing is an obsession of choice for lovely, cool, creative people!

So, the dress. Unfortunately I don't remember what the fabric is, other than it's not a natural fibre. It's got a satin backed finish, is a two way stretch, is mid-weight and fairly structured, and the brown floral vine is printed onto the fabric, not woven or dyed into it, but beyond that I have no idea. I am trying to be better at remembering exactly what type of fabrics I buy but there are still some in my stash like this one that I have no real idea about. 

As well as having owned the fabric for almost four years, I've had this pattern for about the same amount of time. It's a vintage A-line dress, Simplicity 5920. The pattern dates from 1965 and definitely has a 60s feel, but it's not a costumey vintage pattern, so it's a very wearable dress. This dress is also one of my makes for the 2015 vintage pledge challenge from A Stitching Odyssey, for which I've decided to make six vintage patterns. 

Sadly I couldn't get it to show up well in the photos, but the dress has an interesting front construction. There are three pieces to the front of the dress, a curved triangular central panel which starts just below the centre of the bust, and a seam joining the two front side pieces at the centre of the neck. The bust darts are basically french darts except they end about an inch before the side seam. 

The pattern is a size larger than I normally wear, so I had tried to cut it in a little slimmer to make a better fit. But this fabric, being a little heavier, was hard to cut right in narrow on the pattern so when I had it sewn up it was a bit loose from the waist up. Luckily it's pretty easy to adjust for the slight looseness - I'm pretty straight from underarm to waist so I've dealt with this issue pretty frequently. I extended the bust darts up so they end almost in line with the centre panel and sewed straight up from the waist to the armscye and the fit was much better. 

I ended up having to hand sew in the zipper and hand finish the facings because my machine and the black thread I have are currently not really on speaking terms. After having the fabric snap three times when I tried to put in the zip I admitted defeat and put it in by hand. Although it's slower and sometimes frustrating, I do like finishing facings by hand because it does give a cleaner look. Although it did mean I was up to the wee hours the night before heading down to Canberra so that I could get it finished off before leaving.

Overall, I'm quite happy with this dress. It's fairly simple and classic, and I've finally done my duty as a grown woman of owning a LBD, even if the dress is also covered in brown floral vines (I can't be expected to have a normal LBD, now can I?). But even more I'm so glad to have gone along to frocktails and met all the amazing other sewists.