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Going for a Test Drive: Sewaholic Cambie

By on May 6, 2012 in Dresses, Summer Style
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Last month I was on a top-secret sewing mission. Not as rigorously top-secret as Sidney Bristow going undercover in a Balkan mob but I can dream. (In college I harbored fantasies of working for the CIA… I think I read Harriet the Spy too many times as a kid.) It was a fun mission nonetheless–I had the pleasure of being a super spy tester for Sewaholic’s new pattern, the Cambie dress.

So far I’ve only made the Lonsdale dress, but it fit so well that I’ve really looked forward to trying other Sewaholic patterns, and I leapt at the chance to try this out.

My first impulse was to get all rocknroll on the dress, possibly contrast with all the femininity in some kind of animal print. Then Derek talked me into the hat. I HAD to design the dress around the hat.

It was the week before Easter, and I was reminiscing over all the wonderful Easter Sunday church clothes my mother made for us girls. And dreaming of sipping mint juleps on a lovely Sunday afternoon in the garden.

My friend Stephanie and I decided to make a day of playing dress-up and took off to the East Side to catch some light and street shots. “Everyone dresses pretty funky over there, no one will really think we’re out of place,” she assured me.

Hehe, we were not exactly invisible. There is something about girls in their summer clothes… That and the fact that we were running around with all this camera equipment. I think our waiter at the restaurant afterward thought we were doing a magazine editorial, because he asked for credit. (Thank you, Paul!) A lovely elderly gentleman stopped us while we were sitting on a bench and exclaimed, “You young ladies are so pretty. Y’all remind me of summers in Mississippi. Those dresses… those dresses are like the ones the ladies and my mama all wore on Sunday afternoons. Takes me back. Brings a smile to my face.” (Insert a big fat Texas drawl in there, and you will hear the essence of Southern graciousness.)

Just so Y’ALL can see what she was wearing.

It was so much fun to have a friend behind the camera because, gee, I’m actually laughing and dancing in most of them! She’d just seen a flamenco performance the night before so I was taking cues.

So, details, details. This dress is actually my second version! I made another out of a simple cotton jacquard so that I could give honest tester feedback by following the testing instructions, with one of the recommended fabrics. I put some photos up on Flickr so you can get an idea of what it looks like with the waistband and in a more structured fabric.

Fabric: Absolutely delicious, couldn’t-stop-stalking cotton/silk voile with a delicate watercolor floral. So soft to the touch. Despite this being a sheer fabric, the voile was actually a dream to sew. It unravelled like a beast, though, so I needed to work fast to finish the seams. The lining is a nude silk habotai.

(I should probably mention that Tasia didn’t recommend sheer fabrics for the a-line version… but I didn’t mind a bit of pocket show-through. It sorta blends.)

Pattern & Fit Changes: My muslin fit almost perfectly, but I wanted to take out some of the width around the hips. On both front and back pieces I took redrew the side seams about 1/2″ in from hem up to the hipline, and graded back out to 0 the waist. This took out 2 inches total from the hip and hem width. Some of you may notice that the pockets of the a-line skirt version and the waistband are almost identical to those on the Lonsdale. I almost took the waistband out of the Lonsdale and wanted to try doing so on this dress. This was actually a very simple modification. To keep the length and the waistline in the right spot, I lengthened both the bodice and skirt waistline by 1/2″, re-shaped the darts, and walked the pieces together to be sure the waist seams matched.

Anyone thinking of making this? I’m convinced this pattern will make a lot of happy dresses and makers, especially for those of you who like a bit of frou. I’m pretty happy because I think I’ve just found myself a good starting block, tnt, what have you… I’m already dreaming of a strapless version with a few bodice changes….

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Playing Catch-up and a Cote D’Azur Dress

By on April 19, 2012 in Dresses, Mise en Place Project
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This was a dress that started its life as part of my Mise En Place project over the fall.

Recently Amy of Sew Well asked me if I was back to working on one project at a time, or working on multiple garments at once. Coincidentally, I had just pulled out the remaining garments I cut for that project. My serger went on the fritz toward the end of a silk jersey dress, and I never got around to finishing the rest of the them so they’ve all been on my to-do list this spring!

One of the motivations behind the Mise En Place was to find an organizational system for myself. It seemed like every time I got down to actually sewing something I’d be missing something important–thread or notions, or forgetting to fuse part of the fabric and then having to salvage wadded up fusing. And it would just take so long to finish. I just wanted to sit down at the machine and sew when it was time to sew! This time I had a real pleasure out of having eight different projects all prepared to go, cut out, bundled up with their requisite notions, fused, etc. No more running out for something at the last minute. I liked pretending I was a small factory sewer for a moment.

I also really like working on the same type of project for extended periods of time. So all said and done it was a good experiment, allowing me to give all that attention to individual stages of the process. (And I got much faster at tracing patterns and refining seam allowances as a result.) Thinking eight projects ahead was fun, but I don’t know if I could do that all the time–no room for whimsy or the latest pattern a blogger made and I just have to have!

Speaking of which, I’ve been having a hard time coming up with a summer wardrobe sewing plan. There are just so many good ideas swirling around my head and my original list was about 10 or so garments. I’d love to join one of the palette challenges and I’m wondering if three is a better number. Leaving room for whimsy. I love the Me Made concept, too–but I think my personal challenges in the months ahead relate to fitting more than wardrobing. (I’m dreaming of a custom dress form. Just dreaming, at the moment.)

Anyways, that was a long answer to Amy’s question but I’m trying hard to put periods on some of my ellipses!

Now that you’ve made it this far: the dress!

Pattern: HP Cote D’azur Dress. Last summer I really wanted to try a Hotpatterns pattern. (And that sounds funny funny.) I have a few that I bought in some mad fabric.com discount. I figured a knit dress was a good way to start.

Fabric: This is a somewhat weightier rayon jersey (I think 14 oz?) and it was purchased for a draping project for a friend, as a birthing dress. I will have to share that story some day but it remains my second ever draping attempt and it was a blast. Anyway, I’d ordered far more than her dress needed just in case.

Details: This is basically a t-shirt dress with seams down the center back and front. Super simple, the whole thing is serged. The special part about it is the bias shaping down the center front seam that forces it to drape as it does. (Sort of like a cut-on godet?) It also has hem facings, which I like, because it allows a for the nice, curvy hem shaping.

I wasn’t sure how I felt about a design with a gathered seam going down the bust, but I decided to give it a shot and just use up my fabric. It’s pretty cute, I think. I like the fact that it’s a maxi (or midi?) and that it’s purple. I’m not very good at binding knits yet, and I had to rip out this binding THREE times to get that V right, but I’ll get there.

One word about fit: I didn’t measure or alter this pattern before cutting (a risk, I know). And there were no reviews of it on PR at the time–but I learned afterward how much bustage is in this pattern. If I did this again I’d take out some little darts in along the neckline and gathers. (This review is helpful in explaining that.) Guaranteed, if you are a B or below, you will have to do some bust adjustment for this pattern. It’s not an ideal fit for me, as you can see:

It doesn’t bother me too much because the overall dress is nice, and looks even better when I don’t have a belt on–it weighs downward. There is a t-shirt version of this, which I doubt I’ll make but if I did there’s no way I could get away without taking it in in this area. Yes, this is going to be the summer I learn about small bust adjustments. No more balloons of fabric!

Summer + maxi(midi) dresses + my iris garden = happiness. (Sadly the irises have all bloomed and left by now!)

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In Progress: The Good Times Dress

By on November 8, 2011 in Dresses, Mise en Place Project, Summer Style
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Finally, I have moved more than halfway through my ready-to-sew garments from the summer. The latest is a little bit of Studio 54.

This is Hotpatterns Good Times Dress, which is inspired by a DVF style, and in a totally glam silk jersey. I might be having a silk jersey crush. It’s so lovely and easy to sew, and skims the curves in a very flattering way.

I originally cut this dress for a friend who was performing in a 25-year reunion concert with her band. This was back in July and I didn’t really have time to complete it but I probably needed an excuse to cut it out. I’d always wanted to try Hotpatterns as I’ve accumulated a few. I’d bought the lovely hibiscus-colored jersey from Gorgeous Fabrics over a year ago, for a project for another friend and we ended up going with something else. In the end, I really wanted that fabric (and dress) for myself anyway!

As you might notice, the dress remains unhemmed (the sleeves and hem will be about four inches shorter). This is because I’ve decided to put the dress in time out for awhile so I don’t make any more holes or mistakes.

It took me a couple of days to figure out the yokes. The HP instructions have you roll up the bodice into its yoke “like a sausage” for a clean finish, much like the “burrito method” in shirtmaking. The problem with doing it this way is that the neckline is already closed, making it impossible to turn inside out. Ask me how I know–I had some kind of origami puzzle going on after sewing it according to the illustration.

To do this correctly, one must roll the entire garment (including the opposite yoke), into the yoke, sew and then turn out through the open armhole.

After figuring out the yokes, my serger started acting up. It needs a tune-up like last year. I kept ripping out a lot of serged stitches before I figured out that the problem was not with me or my needle but my machine. I wound up poking a big hole in the garment where the pocket goes, and had to sew over it.

I’m exaggerating by pulling on the dress but sometimes pockets in knits just don’t lay well. I love pockets but might just serge them out of the picture when I come back to the dress.

The whole pattern is basically a bunch of rectangles, which I think is pretty clever in its simplicity. The sleeves are sewn in at right angles to the straight line of the shoulder. I’d probably call them kimono-style, with a square armpit. But I can’t figure out how to sew that intersection of seams at the armpit without all the bunching and this is the point where I stopped before I ripped out yet another seam.

I love the proportions of the shapes in the dress. It has just a little bit of waist-shaping but otherwise relies on the drape of the fabric and ties for style.

I’m excited to see this done and will be back modeling this dress. It’s too much pretty to waste.

In the meantime, I’m going to have to set aside the rest of my project list since most of it requires a fixed serger (except the bra) and I’m ready to get on with some fall sewing!

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Lonsdale in Mocha

By on October 13, 2011 in Dresses, Mise en Place Project
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Gosh, I love this dress.

The minute I put it on, I knew it would become a regular rotation summer dress. Next summer.

Back when I first bought the Lonsdale pattern, I envisioned a Riviera-inspired garment and found a lovely linen-rayon blend in a perfect Mediterranean blue. It was even more gorgeous in person than it looked online, but alas, was much heavier than the described “shirt-weight”. I’m glad I changed direction.

I’ve been taken with all the head-to-toe neutral-palette dressing trends the last couple years. Skin-toned garments have a certain unexpected glamour. (Apparently, fashion is revisiting pantyhose as well, although as the more fetchingly named “nude-colored tights”. My memories of pantyhose in the 80s are not good, nail-polish-fixed runs and all.)

This was one of my favorite inspiration images from last winter.

I love how she put these all together and how the effect plays off her complexion. Yes, I get lost browsing Lookbook posts. And that cable-knit bustier totally rocks.

I thought the Lonsdale would be perfect interpreted this way, since it has such unique neckline and so much fabric going on. For me, too much print or bold color would turn it into a special occasion dress and I wanted a oh-I-just-threw-this-old-thing-on bit of surprise.

I was lucky to find some bargain cheap rayon challis in a milky coffee color. I will have to be very careful when washing, since the fabric seems to want to pill the minute I look at it. I like rayon/viscose challis as an alternative to drapey silks, but quality really does vary. But it’s so soft and comfy.

The back:

I didn’t want exposed seam allowances on the ravel-y rayon, so worked out how to sew the zipper within the lining. I have a RTW dress which is lined much like the Lonsdale and features a centered zipper so I knew it was do-able. The lining and inner waistband have to be cut a little bit differently, and the order of construction is changed a bit, but I found the process to be quite easy. (I also took some construction pictures along the way in case it might help someone else–a future post!)

I finished the skirt with French seams and tried out my blindstitch foot for the first time on the hem. After trying to hand-stitch for about ten inches, I realized I’d be at hemming all day (it’s a lot of skirt). I’ve been afraid of that machine foot for some reason, but it was much easier than I thought.

The pockets are such a cool little detail. I actually stuck my hands in them all day, making it feel like a really functional dress, too.

The fit was pretty perfect right out of the envelope–Sewaholic’s fit and sizing is more or less made for my shape so I really look forward to more of her patterns if the styles suit my aesthetic. I made a quick muslin out of rayon scrap to test out the bodice and only had to take in a little bit around the neckline to prevent gaping. I love its almost-maxi length, hitting above the ankles, which makes it perfect for flats or heels.

Overall, I think the Lonsdale pattern is a very lovely style and except for some acrobatic fidgeting in order to tie the bow in the back, it’s incredibly easy to wear. It’s also one of the better drafted patterns I’ve made this year, both in terms of technical draft and proportional balance.

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