Day: July 2, 2010

crafts · finished objects · Sewing

Tara in batik

stitchywitch12 Comments

Pattern: Tara from Burdastyle, lengthened into a dress

Fabric: rayon batik from Waechter’s, 2.5 yards

Notes: Well, I can’t exactly recommend the instructions, but I really like the finished result!  The Tara pattern is a top pattern, but I lengthened the bottom pieces by 10 inches in order to get a dress.  The length on me is right above the knee (I did a machined baby hem to maintain the flow of the rayon.)

The instructions were just silly – they made very little sense to me, especially the instructions for sewing the tops to the front and for the elastic casing.  Here is a tip for the casing – you should only have one line of sewing showing on the outside of the dress.  If you have two, something is wrong.  This is the first elastic casing I have made, and I made the elastic pretty tight, with the idea that it might help me to avoid any wardrobe malfunctions.  It does – I can bend over in this dress without any mishap, which I was not expecting.  The lowness of the neck doesn’t bother me, but I am small busted – I don’t have cleavage anyway!

I like the high back.   BTW, notice my mistake in this photo – one of the back straps is sewn to the wrong part of the back.  I fixed it, but I’m not retaking these photos!  Sewing on the sleeves was a bit hard to figure out – I sewed them on twice!  I recommend ditching the instructions once you have an outline of how the dress goes together, because I swear it made it worse!  The tutorials over on grosgrain were helpful to get an idea of how it was supposed to look!

The pattern called for bias strips around the arms, but due to a cutting tragedy I just turned them under and sewed.  It worked out fine, and honestly I might recommend doing that – it’s much easier than futzing with the bias.

The batik was lovely to work with, and it’s very cool and summery to wear.  I’m not generally a big fan of the prints, but I really like this one.  This is my July 4th outfit – we will be having a firework free day, as I just hate fireworks (loud noises make me extremely cranky… odd, I know!)

I think this pattern would also make a really nice nightgown, and I’m thinking of making one for that purpose.  This is probably my lone “summer only” dress this year – I like versatility, but sometimes it’s just hot!

crafts · Sewing

I love when things are easy

stitchywitch4 Comments

Simplicity seems to release less patterns at a time, more frequently than other companies.  “Early Fall” is out now (not on the homepage, but the patterns are in their various categories.)  There is one that both excites and amuses me!

I thought it looked familiar, so I went through my inspiration file.

It’s similar (though not identical) to this skirt, which I’m pretty sure I tried on at Anthropologie last year.  I like the ruffled pockets, but no doubt is was like $150 for a pencil skirt or something, so I didn’t buy it.  Now I can make my own (and yes, ok, it’s a skirt with ruffled pockets, and I could make my own from any pencil skirt pattern… but hey, I like to have things spelled out for me.  I’m not big on improvising.)  I have a black wool jacquard that might be cute for this, or I might get a tweed to make it more like the inspiration.

There are only 2 dresses in this group, so not too much for me.  The project runway dress has cute pleated sleeves, but I’m already planning to make vogue 8280, which has pleated sleeves and a better neckline for me.  I’m just happy to see a lack of asymmetrical hemline action (I know it was controversial when I took my stand against them, but I still don’t like the look!)

I’m excited for the fall Vogue patterns – I like Simplicity,  and I have had success with their patterns, but I think I’m a Vogue girl.

I got the straps sewn for my jumper muslin, but decided that I just cannot tell if it fits without making up the skirt as well.  Hopefully that will give me a better idea of what the weight of the skirt hanging will do to the top (the top may be a tiny bit large, and it may need some adjustments.  I think it fits in the waist, but since it doesn’t have sleeves I would like a close fit in the bust.

Ordinarily, at this point I would just go ahead and cut and fit from my real fabric, but you see I really like the polka dots… I looked for quite awhile for navy and white dots (suprisingly hard to find)  and I don’t want to waste them on a less than stellar result – it’s worth the pain of more testing!  I’ll probably have muslin photos tomorrow, depending on my level of frustration… I will definitely have finished photos of the Tara dress (which I just love!)