Camí Dress

Well here's something you might not expect from me: a retro shirt dress with a full gathered skirt! I was chosen to pattern test Pauline Alice's first sewing pattern, the Camí Dress. It's not something I would make for myself, but I had lots of fun making it and it was so good to strengthen my skills that come with such a dress. And you know what? I kind of really like how it looks on me!



There are two versions to sew: Version A has short sleeves, Version B has 3/4 cuffed sleeves. At first I thought I'd take the easier short sleeve route, but then I saw that the cuffs had no placket but a slit. I love that Pauline kept the cuff simple. If a project has too many advanced details it tends to slow me down. Now you can focus on getting the collar and buttonholes perfect, and still have a relatively quick project. I used a lightweight cotton with shiny embroidered dots. The pattern does not require a lining. And it has pockets!



The instructions are clear and straightforward. No room for chitchat, just what you need to know. There are lots of illustrations to accompany the steps. I did read every word though, as I have only made a collar twice (I think?) and a button down shirt once. What I also like is that even with a narrow waist and broad hips, it doesn't make you look big. My waist and hips are three size columns apart, so I was afraid the gathers would make my hips look gigantic. I comtemplated making a fitted skirt (which would be an awesome pattern hack anyway) but stuck to the gathers and I'm glad I did.




I did have some fit issues because I am tall (178cm/5 feet 10") and broadshouldered. If I close the top buttons the shoulders are pulled inwards, but I like it better open anyway. The adjustments I made were lowering the shoulders 1 cm, lowering the front darts 2 cm, and adding 5 cm to the hemline. It's still just a bit above my natural waist. Lowering the shoulders gave me more room in the armholes as well, but it has distorted the fit of the sleeves a bit ofcourse. I made these adjustments after cutting the pieces so this was all I could do. That's why you should always make a muslin, or at least compare your measurements to the pattern's. Because I never sew fitted shirts I didn't know what my fit issues would be.



I am not at all surprised a retro shirtdress is Paulines first pattern, she's such a classy girl! Just look at the Dior coat or the Scartlett O'Hara dress that she drafted herself, astonishing!

If you'd like to make the Camí dress yourself, go get it here!

PPM #5 Playing with Facings

This is the first project of the second book. It was hard to choose one, there are so many interesting patterns in this book. But I decided to start with something simple and wearable. There's a series for patterns that show how to alter the neckline by altering the facing. Marianna already showed one of them on a dress. An interesting concept, changing the outside by shaping from within.

Drafting and cutting
Drafting was easy, this is a quick one. The pic above shows all there is to it. I used my own slopers. I took the opportunity to draft a low V back as well, I've been wanting to do this for a while. Cutting was a bit tricky, I discovered my fabric was only 110 cm wide (43"). I had two metres and the book recommends that you cut the bodice on the bias. And I wanted a half circle skirt. With some puzzling it worked out, I even managed to get a facing for the back out of it as well.





Fabric
The book does not always mention what kind of fabric to use. To me it looked like the fabric should have some weight to get a nice fold. I had found this beautiful quilting cotton at the shop the week before, but at 21,95 per metre it was way over my budget. Fortunately there was a one day 50% off sale going on. Lucky me!



Sewing
The sewing process went nice and smooth for most of the day. I took my time even though I had to finish the dress the same day. I staystitched all the bias cut edges of the bodice, necklines and skirt right after cutting. I payed attention to the pattern an finishing the seams. I didn't have to get my seam ripper out until the very end, when I messed up the blind zip. It was funny, because it happenend right when I thought 'hey, I haven't messed up one stitch yet' and also 'I don't understand why people don't use blind zips all the time, they're not hard to put in at all'. HAH. Well now I know not to think these things until after I'm finished. Usually I would have stopped sewing before that point, but I wanted to finish it today.



The Magic
Although I'm happy with the dress, it's obvious that this magic is done by an apprentice. It's just a bit messy, the fold is there but there's some more bulgeing going on on the other side. I don't know where that excess fabric comes from, I thought I'd followed the diagram. So I thought this would be an easy one, and for drafting and sewing it was. It's just that the magic is not accomplished as easily. I should have stopped and taken a step back to really look at what was going on at the neckline, instead of thinking it would sort itself out. Ah well. I learned and tried some new things, like the V back and using a bias cut bodice. And I practiced the Ann approach, which is still working very well. Right now I'm very tired of all this work in one day, so my opinion of this dress is no quite clear and might change. Is there some magic or is it just a messy cowl? I'd love to know what you think!

How to Tie a Bow

Today I'll show you how to tie a nice bow on the Musubu dress (or any other dress with a bow). Tying a bow when you're looking at it from above can take some attempts to get it right. Follow the steps below and you''ll get it right the first time!

This is what the ties look like hanging loose. 

Tie a knot, in a way that the left tie ends up on top. 

Form the first bow with the bottom tie.

Wrap the upper tie around the bow, moving it behind the bow and to the front from left to right.

Pull the tie through the hole at the back of the bow, forming the second (left) bow. 

Straighten it out and pull it tight. Tadaa! 

PPM #4 Knot Dress (Musubu)

The results of the poll were very clear: 68% of you wanted to see the Musubu as my next project. 25% chose Dekoboko, and only 6% chose Otoshiana. So I guess you still have a preferance for pretty dresses with big bows, huh? It was funny to see the result, I thought as a pattern the Musubu was the least interesting and not something I'd wear even though it looks the most wearable. Turns out I was wrong! I had so much fun making this. And as a bonus it turned out to be very wearable even for me, so you chose well. Thanks for participating! I included some sewing instructions, because I have a feeling you'll want to make one too. I'll do a special post on how to tie a nice bow later this week. I hope it fulfills your expectations!



Drafting and cutting
Drafting this pattern is not very difficult. Ofcourse I know by now how the slash, spread and redraft method works, but still I think there is enough explanation in the book. Other people also noted that this is no a hard pattern to draft. I used the sloper that comes with the book, and then compared it to my own sloper. The terms sloper and block are used interchangeably in the book, but normally a block has ease, and a sloper doesn't. Since every magic pattern adds ease first, I guess they are slopers. Anyway, I found out my waistline is more than an inch lower than that of the sloper, but only after drafting. I guess I had noticed before but forgot. I didn't draft a new one, but if you make it and you have your measurements, check your waistline against the Bunka sloper. I won't go into drafting too deeply here, if you do draft this you can always ask me if something is unclear. Another thing I did differently is move the zipper from the CB to the side seam. This way I could cut the back on the fold and have a more clean look. Widen the neckline if you do this too, or you'll not be able to pull it over your head. I also think my bow sits a bit higher than others, maybe I could have lowered it a bit.




Fabric
I didn't expect this to turn out wearable so I didn't want to use an expensive fabric. Since this was a project you chose I didn't want to use muslin. I was curious what the pattern would do with stripes (and the other way around), and thought these irregular stripes were pretty. It's always hard to estimate the amount of fabric you need for these patterns, it's never specified. I got 2 yards but at 120 cm (47") it was not enough to get the full length. I could have left it that way but got the idea of colorblocking. The black fabric is a heavy bi-stretch from my stash. Stretch is not needed, but it's what I had and it worked fine. The stripes created a nice circle effect at the top of the dress, so it worked out very well.



Sewing
I stared long and hard at some other knot dress projects I found on Burdastyle to confirm what I thought was the right sewing order (my favourites here, here, here and here). The sewing instructions on this pattern consist of ONE sentence. I started with sewing the separate front pieces, matching points C and A on each piece and sewing between these letters. You'll have to make a bit of a weird turn there, but it'll be fine. Then you can join the fronts at the CF and follow the one sentence: sew the bow section into a tubular shape up to C. Prepare the back by sewing the pleats and shoulder darts. I made my pleats a good inch deeper to get some more shape, and lowered them by more than an inch to get them to sit just above my waist.

  

Finishing
I channeled Ann from GBSB through the making of this dress, and I was very pleased with the outcome. Every time I wanted to rush, I stopped myself and took my time to try and get it right the first time. It worked very well, I hardly unpicked any stitches. The blind zip went in like a dream. I used a combination of french seams and the turnover edge trick to finish the raw seams. I used bias tape to finish the hem, armholes and neckline, and the tubular sections of the bow. Quite a lot of work all in all, I sewed for about 11 hours in two days. But I'm very pleased with the result, I've never made armholes this nicely with bias tape.




Result
Now onto wearability. For a lot of people this dress is probably very wearable. For me, I like the way it looks but you know that big bow doesn't really suit me. But lo and behold, when you lengthen the straps, this dress has some serious possibilities! What about tying the straps behind your back? Or tying a knot and just letting the straps hang down? These options make it much more likely for me to wear this dress. I love that you can dress it up or down by just tying the straps in a different way. I'm curious what you think, and how you'd wear it. If you like the result, I'd recommend this one as your first Pattern Magic Project!



Next date will be May 29th, the first pattern of Book 2. I'll try to be on time :) As always, if you have pattern magic projects to share, please do! Previous projects in these series can be found here.

PPM #2: Bamboo Shoot Dress

The idea
Most of the patterns and their instructions in the first Pattern Magic book are only designed to show what can be done with fabric manipulation. As Carolyn states, they're not so much finished garments as design concepts. It's up to the maker how to apply these concepts. This requires some creativity on the part of the maker, but also some experience with basic sewing and drafting techniques. For this month I chose the bamboo shoot bodice. It didn't seem very hard (I can be overconfident like that! Sometimes it helps, sometimes it comes around to bite me in the butt) and I thought I might be able to make it wearable. This design is feminine and delicate, so my thoughts turned towards a simple dress.





Fabric
I had to go to IKEA anyway (yes had to, I swear, it was work-related!) so I checked out their fabrics (no luck) which are next to the bedsheets. And that's where I found my fabric! It's 100% lyocell, which is similar to rayon but the production process is more environmental friendly. It's really soft and almost silky in drape and touch, but heavier. I mean, who wouldn't want to wear soft bedsheets like that all day? The only disadvantage is that is wrinkles like crazy. Which is good if you want folds that stay put on themselves, but not if you want to move and sit down in it.



It's entirely possible that I love the back even more than the front! I'm so happy this pattern placement turned out well. I used my own bodice blocks to draft the pattern. If the pattern was going to be fitted, I'd rather have them drawn on my measurements. Literally every seam is different from the sloper that comes with the book. Only when you start drawing your patterns based on your actual measurements you realize that not only the bust or waist can be different, but also waist length, armscye depth, bust height and what not. The skirt is a half circle skirt.



Cutting and sewing
But let's take a look at the bamboo shoot. The book says to draw the bamboo shoot pattern, but does not share details on measurements. So I eyeballed it and decided to go with shoots 6 cm wide. The angle is a bit off, the top V should be at the center but it's half a cm to the left. If you want to know more about the process of making the shoot, Marianna from Sew2Pro has a better post on how to draw this. I should have read that first :). I muslined the bodice to practice the folding. I just drew the outlines on the fabric with a pencil, which made it easier to get neat folds. On the final piece I hand sewed the folds just inside the seam so it wouln't show. The book says just to sew the intersections, but that won't hold if you'll actually wear it. I also trimmed the seam allowances to reduce bulk. The whole dress is lined with the same fabric, the underside of the sheet.



Cutting this out was even harder than making the bamboo shoot. I tried to line things up but had limited space because I bought the one-person sheet. And I made the mistake of not checking the skirt pattern: it turned out I used one drafted for a friend with completely different measurements. Oops... It was shorter than I had intended, and too narrow at the waist. I had to add an extra strip of fabric at the sideseam. Not so nice. The dress closes with a blind zip at the side seam. Confession: It's not finished yet. I have to re-do a seam because it puckers, hand stitch the lining to the zip, and hem it. I'm scared to though, I'm not sure I could hem it without stretching the seams. Any suggestions for hemming rayon?

Wearability
It was very nice to sew some frosting again! I'm checking out that bedsheet section more often, that's for sure. The bamboo shoot was interesting to make, but I think the dress would have been pretty without it too. I'm planning on wearing this dress to a wedding next week, so it will get worn at least once :). No clue what to wear with it though, in terms of colour and style. How would you style it?

Marianna's february project demonstrates another way of how to incorporate some magic into your designs by altering the just the facing of the bodice. And like she says, if you'd like to join us, remember no project is too small (nor big!) and you have months to prepare. Just blog about it on the last Wednesday of any month or, if you’re blogless, send either of us an email with your pics and we’ll host a post for you. The date for next month is March 27th!

Ultimate Batwings

At the end of the last 15:60 day I was tired, hungry and thirsty, but... very content! I really wasn't sure if I'd make it after spending 5 hours on the Chevron top. It was 3 PM and I still had to do the cutting, go to the store because I didn't have enough fabric and on top of that the pattern instructions were written in Japanese... But I didn't cave, my last project had to be this dress. Keep calm and sew on. In the end I finished it at 8 PM, spending only 4 hours working on it including cutting.



It's Dress no. 7 from Drape Drape 2. The one that was the inspiration for my folded miniskirt, after spotting it on Karin. The ever generous Tj sent me the pattern after making her fantastic version. I was so excited to finally have this pattern! I had this knit fabric, a remnant which said 200x155 cm, the exact amount needed for the pattern. Except that it was 2 meters wide instead of long. Argh! More reason to dislike that fabric store. So that meant I had to go out to get more fabric, and I had to cut the front piece in two. The sewing was pretty straightforward, and I was impressed with my serger being able to handle four layers of this medium weight knit.



It's still a bit too warm to wear this dress but I already know it'll be one of my favourites. I love wearing mini skirts in winter. And it's totally my style, a bit quirky but not just plain weird. I have to agree with Tj, it's a bit of a waste of fabric. But look at those batwings! They might even be big enough to fly. And if that doesn't work out, at least your skirt won't get pulled up if you reach for something.

And so this challenge has come to an end! It was fun to completely focus on sewing for two months. I was finally able to get most of the ideas floating in my head out there in reality, and reduce my stash at the same time. I'm also glad it's over though, it has left my sewing mojo at a very low level after this marathon. Plus I'm afraid I have become a bit of a hermit spending all my free time sewing and blogging. I may even have lost my mind a little...

(15:60 #15!)

End of Summer Dress

It was hardly worth it: we were about to have 5 days of very nice/hot weather (around 30C/86F) and on the first day, I realized I really wanted to have a light, fluttery dress that would come closest to wearing nothing without revealing everything. And I knew what fabric I wanted to use. I had thought of saving it for next year, but I really wanted to use it now. I tossed the longsleeve I was making aside, and started drafting. Ideas for garments don't come suddenly, they sort of simmer in my head for a while until the picture is complete. This was the basis for the picture of this dress.



It's the same fabric I used for my first loopscarf, I'm guessing a light cotton. I had heard about the stretching of fabric at the place where it's cut on the bias, and as you can see now have first hand experience with this phenomenon. Cutting on the bias is unavoidable with circle skirts, and this fabric is one that you should let hang for a day before you hem, apparently. Or should you always hang circle skirts before hemming? Anyway, the uneven (but symmetrical) hem is not something that bothers me a great deal, but the idea of redoing it is not off the table yet.



I was afraid I'd have to line it, but fortunately it's not that transparent. To keep it as light and airy as possible I used my pinking shears as a seam finish. I didn't think of using my serger until after finishing! I made a muslin of the bodice to see if my pattern would work. Then I read some things about darts and tried to figure out how to incorporate them into the pattern. I wanted it to be sort of fitted from the bust down so it would smoothly continue into the half circle skirt. I figured I needed two vertical darts to get a nice fit. I didn't seem to need bust or armhole darts at that point. Maybe because the unbleached cotton I used is everything but fluttery and I didn't make a complete bodice muslin.



I was a bit surprised at my own math skills when it turned out the bodice and skirt lined up perfectly! It shouldn't be that complicated, but when you don't have a tutorial there's always the chance you're overlooking something. When I had sewn up the complete dress, it turned out I did need armhole darts. So now there's four darts in the bodice, and it fits really well around the armholes and bust. The only thing is that the waistline should have been, well, at my waist. When I had just sewn it, it was half an inch below and I decided I could live with that. Partly because I didn't want to redo the blind zipper :). But now it has stretched to an inch. Maybe I could make some beltloops and use a belt to keep it at my waist. Those are the cons of fluttery fabric, I guess! What do you think, would you shorten the bodice and redo zipper?



This is the bodice pattern I ended up with, including armhole darts and a shortened waist for next time. I am quite happy with the dress, despite the shortcomings. It served it's purpose as a fluttery summer dress for what were probably the last two days of real summer. But I've already spied a dark green knit fabric to make a cardigan that goes with it so I can keep wearing it!

(15:60 #10 - 5 projects, 10 days to go!)

Summer Dress for Next Year #2

As predicted, I never got to wear the first summer dress I made last year. Even worse, I wore it only once this year. Nevertheless, I like the pattern and wanted to give it another go. Sadly, this summer is as bad as last years. I have worn the second version once in France but with my fleece jacket over it. Which kind of takes all the summer out of the dress... Anyway, unlike the summer, this dress is a better version of the last one!

The fabric is a kind of rayon I guess. I got it from the clearance section, and these pieces are never labeled. Pff, half of the fabric on the racks isn't even labeled. Another reason to dislike the local fabric store. Anyway, I used the patterns from last year. They were quite horrible! I didn't transfer the adjustments I made in the dress to the patterns, but I could remember some of them fortunately. I did not use the slippery stretch fabric, but a soft white cotton as a lining. I gathered the bust again but moved the gathers a bit inwards, and used a dart in the lining because it might become to bulky if you gather both. I also added some length to the dress.

This dress is easy to finish because of the way it is put together. You start at the bust pieces and work your way down (or up when going towards the back), so all your seams allowances will automatically fall between your fabrics. I made this in France too, so I had the lots of time to be precise and not take shortcuts. It took me about 5 days from cutting to finishing. It's nice to see that I was proud of the way I finished it last year, while I've done a much better job this year. You can't but learn a lot in a year! I only hope I don't have to wait another year before I can wear it...

(15:30 #5)