Building Eloisa and Adrienne

Three new makes for the price (blog post) of one. This skirt and two tops were made in the last few weeks, and bring my Whole 30 fabric usage to 7.5 metres. 

This skirt is one I've been meaning to make. I've had both the fabric and the pattern for at least a couple of years. The fabric was bought at Pitt Trading when they still had a physical store, and is a wool twill.

The skirt is fairly simple in design. It's a 1933 skirt from the McCall's Archive Collection. What makes it stand out are the overlapping triangular yoke pieces and lowered box pleats, both accentuated with topstitching. It also has a raised waistband which sits just above the natural waist. The wool twill has a good body to it, so it holds the shape of the pleats very well.

I raised the hem by about an inch to make it a bit  more modern and wearable. It's still very much a 1930's skirt but in a way that feels vintage without becoming costumey. The topstitching at the corners and top of the pleats isn't quite perfectly aligned, but the lines in a grey just slightly darker look great.

The first top is an adaptation of the Eloisa pattern from Named Clothing's new Building the Pattern book. The book's six basic patterns each have multiple variations to play around with. For this top I used the upper front, back and lower front 1 each extended approximately 10cm, the puff sleeve and the neckband. The top was still slightly too short so I added a hem band which I don't entirely like the look of, but if I wear it tucked in like with this skirt it won't be seen. The batwing shape of the top looks nice tucked into a waistband.

The fabric is a charcoal merino jersey from The Fabric Store. It's lightweight with tiny textural pindot perforations, but the pindots do not make it seethrough. This top was sewn up entirely with my overlocker with the exception of the channels for inserting the elastic at the cuffs. The Fabric Store's merino is always lovely to work with and this was no exception. It moved through the machine smoothly, and the curved front yoke seam presses into shape easily giving a nice curved line. 

The second top is the Friday Pattern Company Adrienne Blouse. The fabric is a leopard print rayon jersey from Spotlight. As with the first I sewed it up almost entirely using my overlocker. However unlike the merino this fabric was not the most cooperative. It is a very soft and almost slinky fabric which makes it lovely to wear but also very slippy to work with. It was not always easy to get it to move neatly through the machine as it would slip to the left away from the blades. I had to hold the fabric at an angle to compensate for its movement.

The pattern is a very quick and easy make, and probably would be quicker and easier with a slightly more structured fabric. The hem is a bit wonky because it wouldn't go neatly through the overlocker and didn't even out even with pressing so the twin stitched hem isn't quite straight to compensate. If I make it again I'll probably slightly shorten the front neckband so that it sits flatter against the body. But the top itself, with its elasticated cuffs and shoulders, is a beautiful shape.

Overall, I'm very happy with all three of these garments. They each have little imperfections but they've turned out really well.

Winter's Rust Dress

 

It's cold in locked down Sydney, and my flat is very chilly. So I've been making warm clothes to have something comfortable to wear and also have something to do while stuck inside. This turtleneck dress in merino from The Fabric Store is a great addition to my winter wardrobe.

 A few weeks ago I came across the #whole30fabricchallenge, a challenge to try and use 30 yards (27.4 metres) before buying any new fabric. I have a lot in my stash, and given we are in lockdown due to Covid I have a lot of time to fill, so I'm going to try and give it a go. I'm not sure I'll get all the way through, and I don't think I'll do the rule of starting again if I buy new fabric, but I will get as far as I can. At least until my fabric stash is able to fit in the drawers it's meant to be stored in. With this dress I'm two metres into the challenge.

The pattern is a vintage Simplicity from 1974, Simplicity 5965 and is described as "designer fashion" although it doesn't say which designer. The pattern can be knee length or floor length for a fancier look. I don't tend to wear floor length gowns, so made the knee length version. My version is actually slightly shorter than the pattern's short version because I only had two metres of fabric and the pattern needed 2.15 metres. Where a lot of newer patterns have a lot of empty space on the cutting layout and can be squeezed into smaller pieces of fabric, this one did not have much spare space so I had to shorten the dress front and back pieces by about 5cm. But the pattern gives a generous 2 1/2 inches for the hem and I kept mine to 1.5cm so the finished length is about the same as the original pattern.

The fabric is a double faced merino from The Fabric Store in a deep rust. It is slightly more brown than I thought it was in the store, due to the lights in the back end of the store being slightly warmer than the clearer daylight closer to the windows at the front of the store. However this is a 1970s pattern, so the rust colour matches the era well. The fabric is double faced, so either side could have been the "right" side, but mostly it's thicker, warmer and has more stability. I chose to use the plainer side, as the other side had a very faint stripe which would have been hard to match well on this pattern, especially given fabric amount constraints. It likely wouldn't have been very noticeable, but I wanted to keep this dress looking simple to just have focus on the design lines.

The construction of the dress was quite simple as there are only five pattern pieces: two each for the front and back, two piece sleeves, and the collar. The collar is just slightly loose, so it stays high but doesn't cling. I'm not a fan of tight turtlenecks and skivvies so was a bit worried about how this one would feel, but this is very comfortable. The dress front is gathered slightly along the shoulder seams which gives a small bit of detail and interest while still keeping the simplicity of the dress. There is also a pattern piece for stays to stabilise the gathers on the front where the raglan sleeves join, for which I used bias binding. This was a bit of a deviation from the pattern as it meant I didn't press the seams open, but it keeps everything neat and there is no visible stitching of joining the stays to the sleeves. 

The pattern is a size 8, 31 1/2 inch bust and 24 inch waist and sits comfortably, with a neat fit but not clingy. The pattern has a centre front seam, which I often don't like but works well for this dress. Given it is a knit dress and relatively fitted to the waist, the centre front seam allows for some subtle shaping that wouldn't be possible if it was one piece cut on the fold. The dress would still work either way, but the centre front seam just makes it sit better and look that little bit fancier.

The dress closes with a zipper down the back and buttons for the collar. I was unsure exactly what buttons I wanted for this dress, whether I wanted something to closely match the fabric or have a contrast. I also needed to have at least three buttons for the neck to sit right (the pattern actually recommends 5 buttons) so I went through my button tins and pulled out a whole lot of different options and laid them on the dress to see which I liked best. I chose these vintage pearl buttons out of a tin I inherited from my grandma. They are simple buttons, but the cream colour both complements and stands out from the fabric in a way that works really well. The pattern suggested creating fabric loops for the buttons but the small size of these buttons made that difficult, so instead I've used black hat elastic.

The only thing I'm not entirely happy with is the zipper. I have a large collection of zippers, but didn't have any in shades of brown, deep red or dark tan which would have blended in to the fabric. Given Sydney is currently in a hard lockdown I can't go to a fabric or quilting shop to find a better zipper, and it's not worth ordering a single zipper as shipping would cost at least three times the price of a zipper. I looked through what I had to see which zipper might work and decided on this beige as it's neutral, but it isn't the best zipper installation so it shows more than I would like. I might try and see if I can press the fabric better to lie flatter against the zipper, or if it still annoys me when I'm able to go looking again I might replace the zipper with one in a better matching colour.

I'm very happy with how this dress turned out. It's comfortable, warm and has just a little bit of elegance. I'm certain it will get a lot of wear.

Yoyo Zebra Dress

This dress is the Yoyo Zebra Dress, along with a boatneck merino top. It's a winter-to-trans-seasonal pinafore style dress, but not a childish style. The fabric for both the top and dress are from The Fabric Store. The dress is a relatively stiff printed cotton drill, and the top is a heavy merino in a rich aqua. 

The pattern is the out-of-print Yoyo Dress from Papercut Patterns. I like Papercut, their patterns are all clearly written and easy to follow, and this one is no different. It's unfortunate this pattern is out of print, given pinafore styles seem to be popular again and the zip front, v neck and angled hem of the Yoyo Dress make it stand out from many other patterns on the market. I like the fit of this dress, with the front pleats and back darts giving some shape, and really work well wtih the heavier weight of the fabric. I also think Papercut's process for attaching all in one facings is amazing, and gives a very clean finish on the outside of the garment.

I made the pattern with no adjustments, so it's a little shorter than it should be. Most Papercut patterns work pretty well for me, but some of their early dress patterns I find a bit short-waisted. With the zip front and triangular hem it ends a bit higher on the thighs than I expected, and the waist seam is about 2cm above my waist. If I had measured it properly before cutting the pattern pieces out I would have lengthened the bodice about 1cm at the shoulder seam and 1cm at the waist seam so it sat better and was a better length.

The top is the Epaulette Top from the Japanese pattern book She has a Mannish Style (translated into English as She Wears the Pants) with added flounce cuffs. As with all The Fabric Store's merinos it was lovely to work with. Being thicker it doesn't slip out of place at all and is very stable. The Epaulette Top is a pattern I've used as a base for making tops many times, because it is an easy to adjust basic shape. This version is designed to be one that can be both casual and work-appropriate and very wearable.

I like both of these pieces. So far I've definitely worn them together a few times, but both are versatile and can work with many other items in my wardrobe.

The Out-Of-Office Work Dress

This dress was meant to be a new office-appropriate winter dress for resuming normal work. But we're still working from home for the foreseeable future, so instead it's office-appropriate dressing for my desk in my lounge room at home.

The lovely fabric is from The Fabric Store, and was a remnant I picked up last winter. The fabric is double sided orange and ruby, so it obviously needed a pattern that would show both. The orange side is merino, the ruby is nylon. It's a stable knit, so it's very easy to work with and maintains its shape very well.

I had initially been thinking of making a 1960s mod-style dress with contrasting bands at the neckline, waist, sleeve bands and hem, but I couldn't find a pattern that matched the image in my head. As the fabric is a remnant piece I had a limited amount of fabric, so I was a bit unsure about coming up with a dress without a pattern. So I decided to do some image searching for two tone dresses for inspiration, and found a few wrap dresses that looked really great.

After looking through different patterns, I found one that I thought would work well in two colours. The pattern is a Nancy Zieman wrap dress for McCalls, M7893. This is version A with an asymmetrical hem but with the longer sleeves of version B. The two sides of the asymmetrical hem are designed to reach a neat point, but as soon as you stop standing perfectly still they do move out of place.

While the dress is two toned, the pattern isn't. The back piece in the pattern is cut on the fold, rather than as two pieces. Cutting the back as two pieces was easy enough, but making sure I laid out the left and right fronts and each sleeve correctly so all the left side would be orange and the right side red took a bit more care. I also used matching threads for each side, changing over when I reached the centre back.

 It's unfortunate this dress isn't quite getting the wears I intended for it this year because I really like it. I'm still wearing it a bit, but it's not really an at home dress. Luckily the fabric is lovely and great quality, so even if the weather is starting to warm up now, there will be many other winters for it to be worn.

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.

Teal Merino Jumper

Another jumper to round out the winter wear. This jumper was also in my last post with my pais-liberty skirt, but here it is on its own. This is a very simple jumper in a pattern I've used many times for various tops because it's a simple and versatile shape that works as everything from a t-shirt to a jumper.

The merino is from The Fabric Store. It's a teal colour with a darker greenish blue pattern that looks a bit like it belongs on tiles. It's a heavier merino at 240gsm, and is more of a Hacci knit than a jersey. It's very soft and light but still warm. And fortunately it isn't itchy, which wool can often be.

The pattern is the epaullette sleeve top from Japanese sewing book She Has A Mannish Style, but I've narrowed the sleeves and narrowed and lengthened the body. Because I have the Japanese version of the book rather than the English translation I have to follow the pictures as my only instructions. As is typical with Japanese patterns the seam allowances aren't included. Given I wanted to narrow and lengthen the pattern that mostly didn't matter, except that I forgot to add seam allowance at the neckline so it's a littly wider than ideal.

I used the selvedge of the fabric for the sleeve cuffs so I could leave them unfinished. Both the hem and neckline are hand finished in order to keep the jumper looking neat. I always prefer this look, and it was especially good on the hem here because I had cut it slightly unevenly, which would have been highlighted by visible stitching.

The jumper is photographed here on a week away down the south coast and featuring the roots and base of the trunk of the largest Moreton Bay Fig I've ever seen. This jumper is one that can be casual with jeans like I'm wearing here or worn to work with a more professional skirt or pants.

I had plans for more a little more cool weather clothes after this jumper, but Sydney seems to have flicked the switch straight from winter to summer so I'm not sure how much need I'll have for long sleeves now. I will wear it when I can though, because it's very comfortable and soft.

Merino Jersey Dress

The pattern is from the burdastyle magazine of June last year. It is pattern 101 C, jersey mini dress. Being a northern hemisphere magazine the dress is meant to be a summer dress, but it's winter down here so my version is a cool weather version.

The fabric is a midweight merino from The Fabric Store. The fabric store has an amazing range of New Zealand merino, but I've been quite daunted about using merino because it's high quality and pretty expensive so I didn't want to ruin it. But the colours of this fabric were just too much to resist. The various blues are very vibrant and stood out from the rest in the store, so it came home with me.

In the end, the merino was extremely easy to sew with. It was very easy to cut and glided through my machine. There are only four pieces to it, two of the bodice/sleeves and two of the skirt/body. I lengthened both the sleeves and the skirt to make it a bit more cold weather appropriate. I also cut the front neckline just slightly more scooped so that I can identify the front from the back. I didn't want to make it too long because that might be too heavy and frumpy, but I think the length I chose works about right.

The dress is very comfortable to wear. It's a bit secret pyjamas, feeling much lazier and cosier than it looks. It's very easy to just throw on and wear at home, but a nice enough fabric and good enough cut that it's more than appropriate to wear out and about.

 I'm very happy with this dress. And I don't think I'll be so scared of using merino again, it really was a pleasure to use and it's such a nice fabric to wear.