Pink ZigZags!

Country Girl ;)

I actually planned to have more sewing time after all the wedding preparations were done. But no, we went straight into our next big adventure: house hunting! So that's how we spend most of our Saturdays - looking at other peoples houses. So far nothing has come along that both of us really like. That means more searching and less sewing.

But I've found some pictures that we took in August in which I wear the first dress I made after finishing my wedding dress. I wanted a quick no-fitting sewing project and thus made my third version of Simplicity 1803 (see versions one and two).

The fabric is a liberty copy print on cotton lawn. I bought it on Goldhawk Road and it is one of the first fabrics I ever bought. So it felt really good to finally use it. I tried to match the Zigzags as best as I could and am really happy with the result.

Sewing the dress was quick, but there was some fitting involved. I hadn't made the yoke version before and didn't anticipate any problems. But having pinned the yoke to the dress, the yoke was strangling me. So I had to take it apart (Does anybody enjoy to take out understitching on trimmed seams? No me neither) and then deepened the neckline curve by 1cm. I couldn't go deeper because then I wouldn't have been able to turn the yoke right side out. The fit is better now, but still not 100% comfortable.

Due to my square shoulders the yoke is not sitting smoothly. You can see the fabric bulging next to the armpit. I tried to handstitch the bulge down but couldn't get it to lay flat on the right side, buh.

Gathers at the front.

Other than that the dress came quickly together. I used my overlocker for the first time to gather a seam. Just amazing: so fast and even gathering. The good thing is that you don't need a special foot for it. So if you have an overlocker and haven't tried that feature yet, I can only recommend it!

Now the big question: Have I worn it? Yes I have, but not very often. The problem is that if I'm not standing straight and don't push my shoulders back, the yoke is bulging massively. See the evidence below. I've worn the dress with a pink boat-neck wool jumper. It is a really nice outfit but I don't like to wear wool on my skin. And also I'm in autumn mood which means I want to wear brown, orange or red colors.

I wonder how it would look like without the strap of the bag?! Probably worse.

It's still summer: Time for a second Simplicity 1803!

I made this Simplicity 1803 dress as part of Heather B's Summer Sundress Sew-a-long. Which is a great encouragement to make more summer dresses, especially because we have lovely warm summer weather in the UK. It means I can actually wear my summer dresses, yeah. I also wanted to have a second version of this dress with a patterned fabric, because with my white version I'm constantly worried about stains and dirt.

You might notice that I added cap sleeves this time. I intended to make a muslin with sleeves first, but couldn't wait and decided: when they fit -> sleeves, when they don't fit -> sleeveless. However, when assembling the dress I realised that I liked the sleeved version more. For this particular fabric, the sleeve version looks cuter :) 

But there was a small problem, the sleeves didn't fit. Because of my sloping shoulders, the pleat was sitting towards the back and it looked awful. I then moved the pleat forward towards my shoulder point, which looked much better. It took me two hours (and loads of ripping) to get the fit right, but it was so worth it.

This time I didn't line the bodice and skirt, because I wanted to sew a thin summer dress. As the fabric is not see through, this is fine. But the problem I have now is that the skirt is clinging to my panties! In most of the photos I took for this dress, it was actually clinging to my front and back. Awful. And I wasn't wearing a cotton pantie. So this means a) I go nude (not going to happen, haha), b) buy an anti static pantie (does it even exist?) or c) wear a slip (which will be hoooot in summer).

I have worn the dress with a slip already and it was fine. No clinging. However, the slip was a really cheap one from ebay and thus I'm thinking of making my own from silk. Maybe in black with a little lace trim.

 I didn't insert a lapped zipper this time, but went for the invisible one. I think I did a good job as you can hardly see the zipper and it was the first time that I put one in without using any instructions, yeah. *Me so proud* I'm always stabilising the zipper seam with fusible interfacing, which works like magic - no puckering!

You might notice that I didn't match the pattern. I tried at first and would have loved to place the four roses on each front panel. But because of the directionality of the print it didn't work. And then I got frustrated and couldn't be bothered to match anything. But I don't think you really notice, because the pattern is so busy.

I had some fabric leftovers and cut two stripes from it to make a long belt. I can wrap the belt twice around my waist and depending on my mood either tie it to a bow in the front or in the back.

Now I bet you really want to know what fabric I used? It was a liberty copy print that I got for half the price (because end of roll = 4£/m) from Goldhawk Road. I fell in love with it when I saw it and had to have it. That was 1.5 years ago. I couldn't decide what to make from it, but think it is a lovely pattern for a summer dress. I'm not sure you can see it on the photographs, but the leaves and flowers are outlined in gold. Love it!

I finished the hem with the rolled hem function of my Bernina (did I say that I love this function?!) and used black thread because it matches the fabric. So overall I'm super happy with this dress and think it will be great for autumn as well, as I can wear it with black tights. 

So how about you? Are you still sewing summer clothes? Or are you already preparing for the colder seasons?

Part I of the Outfit Along: The Dress

We have amazing 26 degree C in London today, so perfect time to take my Outfit-Along Dress out for a walk! I only finished the zipper and hem this morning - and yes my sewing machine is working again! Apparently, a broken needle caused the bobbin tension to go all crazy and the guy from the sewing shop had to adjust the little screw on the bobbin case. Now she is behaving again :)

Pattern: As most of you might know, I made this dress for the Outfit Along 2014 hosted by Lauren and Andy. I decided to make Simplicity 1803, which is the dress Lauren recommends to make. I could have made another pattern, but I couldn't resist this amazing dress pattern. Actually, when I was fitting the bodice last week with Thea, we realised it is super similar to the Cambie dress from Sewaholic (that's what I was fitting on Thea). So I can cross the Cambie from my to sew list.

Pleats and eyelets.

Fabric: I got this fabric from Leschas mum the last time we went to Kiev. It is an eyelet cotton that was very beautiful to sew with. Because of the eyelet I had to underline the whole dress. I used a off-white cotton lawn I had in my stash for ages. I had only 1.30 m of the eyelet and managed to squeeze the dress out of it, yeah! I had even less from the lawn and thus had to cut the skirt underlining 10 cm shorter.

Alterations: As always, nothing fits me out of the envelope and I had to make two (only!) muslins to get the fit right. The pattern has princess seams, which should be easy to fit. I say should, because that is not the case for me. To avoid tediously fitting the princess seams, I just took the already fitted princess seam pattern from my Simplicity 1882 dress. Luckily, both dresses are armhole princesses and it was easy to transfer the changes. I only had to tweak the princess seams in the first muslin and voila they fitted :)

I also did a sway back adjustment and took out 1" at the centre back seam, tapering to nothing at the side seams. My armholes were also gaping, which meant I had to do a round back adjustment of 3/4" to get that gape closed. Lastly, the side seam was angeling forwards and thus I graded the bodice front to size 12 and the bodice back to size 4 (!) at the waist. It is straight now, yeah! That meant I also cut the skirt back in size 4 and the skirt fronts in 12! This was a bit scary because I was worried the skirt would not fit over my bum. But I hoped that it would fit because the skirt is originally gathered.

Straight side seams and pleats

Construction: I first underlined the whole dress: bodice and skirt. For the skirt underlining, which was 10 cm shorter as the shell, I first finished the hem with my overlocker before stitching it to the shell pieces. I didn't attach the hem, because I wanted it to float freely and not to appear bulky.

I followed Laurens tutorials, which were amazing!!! The pictures are so detailed and great to follow! So if you are going to sew the dress, I can only highly recommend Laurens tutorial! I decided to pleat the skirt as suggested by Lauren. Because of the eyelet fabric the dress looks quite elegant and I think a pleated skirt looks much more elegant than a gathered one.

Then was the questions, what kind of zip should I use? I decided against an invisible zip because the fabric would have been bulky. Also I have read several stories about breaking invisible zips which makes me a bit more cautious. So a lapped zip it was - my first lapped zip, which didn't get in that easy at all. It took me some unpicking and handstitching before it looked ok and I am still not 100% happy about the overlap.

One of my shoulder is lower thus I shortened one of the straps when pin fitting the dress.

Do I like it? I love it. I think it is a nice little summer dress (although some people might argue it looks like a wedding dress - hi mum) that will get plenty of wear as long as it stays warm here. I imagine it will look great with my knitted cropped jumper. And I can tell you already it looks great with the knitted cardigan for the outfit along. You will see it soon :)

Will I make it again? For sure! I have a beige fabric with a button pattern in my stash that I think would look great. But then I would go for the version with the short sleeves. I haven't muslined the sleeves yet and from experience I know, that they will change the fit of the shoulders massively. So it will take some time...

How are you getting along with your outfit-along? Or have you ever sewn/ knitted two pieces that you knew would go perfectly together right from the start?

Simplicity 1882: The finished dress!

As promised in my fitting post, I am finally going to show you the DRESS!

Pattern: Simplicity 1882, which is an amazing fit pattern. This means this pattern comes with an 1" seam allowance at the side seams and contains some detailed instructions about fitting the dress. The only thing it did not have was a pattern for the lining. So I drafted that by myself after watching the Craftsy class "Underneath it all" by Linda Lee. The lining is by no means perfect as you will see soon, but wearable.

Fabric: I used a poly-cotton for the shell (it is my first flower dress, yeah) and some polyester and anti-static fabric for the lining. And I really had to sew a lining, because when fitting the dress it was clinging like crazy to my legs.

Construction: Was straight forward because I had assembled so may muslins and knew what to do :) There is not much that I can add to my fitting post, so this post will mainly show you some pictures! I planned to add a collar as well, but I needed to redraft it and just couldn't be bothered after all the troubles I had.

The dress features an invisible zipper, which I put in with the help of  Tanias tutorial. 

Zipper - what zipper?

To show off the design lines I added some piping, but unluckily the cotton I picked is a bit stiff and thick and thus I feel a bit like wearing a life belt. But at least, my "food baby" fits. In the next picture, you can see the stiff piping under the bust. I hope that after another wash (with loads of fabric conditioner), the piping will get a bit softer and does not show any more

.

Here I would just like to point out the nice fitting princess seams! I know there are some wrinkles under the arm, but I think these are because of my lining.

I also stitched in a little label that my sister gave me for my birthday. It felt great to put it in :)

The first time I tried to pull up the zipper it caught my lining! Lescha was trying to free the zipper teeth which proofed to be difficult as the dress was on my mannequin and I had tried several times to free the zipper (which made things worse, naturally). But the internet helped! I only used a pencil to "grease" the zipper teeth and was able to pull the zipper don again. I then decided it would be best to handstitch the lining to the zipper to avoid a similar situations whilst wearing the dress! How do you keep your lining out of the zippers reach? Ant tricks? Please let me know.

Another question: How would you stitch your lining to the sleeves seams? I didn't know what to do and also couldn't find any advice on the internet. But I remembered I had seen a dress whose armholes + lining had been finished with bias tape. I really like the clean finish, but have the feeling that it adds a lot of bulk to the armhole seams. So, if you have any advice, it would be great if you could share it.

Here is a pic from the whole lining. It actually is the dress pattern plus facing. For the facing I used the same stiff cotton as for the piping, because I wanted to have a crisp neckline. I only had problems at the bottom of the V, which was difficult to stitch. So next time, I would redraft this V maybe into a little curve to make sewing easier.

The front!

Here is the back - with the shifted lining. It is so annoying that I didn't manage to match these seams. That's why the bottom of this zipper is not smooth either. 

It was my first try making a lining, so it is a bit wonky.

So, I am off to Ukraine now for some well deserved holidays and family visit :) Hopefully the situation will stay calm... Speak to you soon :)

Fitting Simplicity 1882

I have submitted my thesis - after 7 month. My boyfriend jokingly said it was almost like giving birth to a baby. After being scared for four days (because I might have forgotten something), I have started to feel relieved. And I have spent loads of time sewing (more Ladyskater dresses to come!).

Naturally, I couldn't totally abandon my sewing machine when writing up and thus I spend 3 month to fit and sew Simplicity 1882. When putting this post together, I realised that I have too many photos and details to put into one post. So today, I am going to show you my fitting progress and problems that I encountered.

No this was not muslin No 1, probably No 4 or 5? I just included it so you have an idea how the whole dress might look like.

I planned to make this dress already in autumn from a fabric that I had bought in Brighton (fabric stash: one down, yeah). But I was scared by the princess seams. This uneasy feeling about princess seams turned out to be justified, as it took me SEVEN (!) muslins to fit the bodice of this dress.

Fitting: As you might have guessed after so many muslins - a nightmare! It took me 3 month (with breaks) to fit and another 2 weeks to sew the dress. The main problems were:

- my apex was 3 cm under the apex of the pattern: Can you see the red line on the photo below? That's were the apex is supposed to be, but because mine is so low there is far to much fabric (around 2"). I ended up fixing this problem with the help of the "Fit for real people" book - I shifted the apex 3 cm down and then actually had to do a full-bust adjustment. But it helped :) (it took me only 3 muslins to get it right)

I actually never realised that my bust is this low :( Are your apexes really are at the underarm seamline?

- apparently I have square shoulders: Can you see the massive wrinkle on my left side and also the puckering neckline in the photo below? Although you can't see it here, but there were also little "suns" (loads of wrinkles) radiating from my shoulder bones. This meant that I have square shoulders. I was really surprised, because I didn't know.

But after several attempts I was able to minimize this fabric pulling by adding a strip of fabric at the shoulder seam: the dots show the middle of my shoulder and as you can see I added a big strip of fabric. This in turn meant I had to make my sleeve cap bigger, which I did with the help of this tutorial from the Threads magazine. (If you ever need to make your sleeve cap smaller, I also tried and liked this one from Sallioh.)

- prominent shoulder blades were also in the mix: Can you see the little sun on my shoulder blades? I tried to fix this by adding a strip of fabric that started in the dart and finished at the shoulder seam.

- the sleeves were pulling: I fiddled a lot with the sleeves because I really wanted them to be perfect. I always have the problem that they are contorted because of my forward shoulder adjustment. I don't have a really good picture for that problem (although there are some diagonal wrinkles in the pictures below), but you can see it on my latest Ladyskater dress as well. Luckily I found this amazing tutorial by Heather and it helped to solve this problem.

I also realised that the bodice has to be fitted differently when wearing sleeves! Sleeveless, I would have been done much earlier, but the square shoulder problem only showed after setting in the sleeves. The fit is much better now, but my arm movement still feels a little bit restricted when I try to put the arms toward the front.

I actually only fitted the bodice and not the waist band or skirt. Although I had to make minor corrections to the top half of the waist band because of changes I made in the bodice. But luckily, I didn't need to make a muslin for that.

So I am just leaving you with this sneak peek preview and you have to be patient until you can see the whole dress (which will not be long)!