Rosealare's Toile...

I wouldn't normally show you the toiles that I make when I'm doing a dress for someone who I can't have fittings with in person. They're just plain, and not finished, so they don't look like anything much. They're an absolutely vital stage in the dressmaking process though, so I thought I'd show one to you for a change.

(Please excuse the photos. The viewfinder screen and the flash seem to be playing up now. Grr.)

The pattern is Butterick 5028, and the finished article is going to be made with Rosealare's knitting fabric!. It's Liberty cotton lawn, and it's gorgeously soft.

Rosealare has sent her measurements to me, and I've made the toile in the closest pattern size, with a few minor alterations such as raising the V at the back so that her bra strap doesn't show. The dark stitching around the neck, hem and armholes is to show where the finished edges of the garments will be. This gives a better feel for the fit of the shoulders and the neckline.

The next stage is for me to post the toile to Rosealare, and then she can try it on and tell me all the different ways that it doesn't fit! This is the scary part, as the customer needs to believe that the finished garment really will fit perfectly, and that the whole point of the toile is to make the necessary changes so that can happen. It's very easy to be demoralised when you try on a toile which doesn't fit, and panic that everything's going to be horrible. This is why I don't enjoy doing postal fittings very much - it's difficult to reassure someone when you're a long distance apart, and can't just pop in a pin and show them the difference in a mirror straight away.

Usually the toile needs to go back and forth between us a couple of times, until the fit is absolutely spot on. At that point I will take my scissors to the final fabric, and be sure that the finished article will fit properly.

There's a postal strike on at the moment, so I'm not sure how long it'll take for Rosealare and I to go back and forth with the postal stages of the project. I can't wait to get the fiddly fitting bits done though, and show you the finished knitting dress!

Camouflaged Elephants and Summer Goth

I was very sad when I put the elephant dress on Ebay. I keep making these lovely dresses, imagining I am the sort of person who can waft about in them, but I work in a bookshop and at a sewing machine, and enormous dresses just get in the way. Also, I am not very ladylike, and I am forever fiddling with hems and petticoats, and dresses generally make me feel very uncomfortable.

I liked the idea of the elephants hiding behind the camouflage, and I really like the split front design of that dress, so I decided to use the leftover fabric to make a variant on my elasticated skirt pattern.

When there's someone slightly more rounded than my mannequin inside the skirt, the split front hangs straight and you can see the elephants in the middle. The two layers are joined at the side seams.

(I really need a new camera. I've put new batteries in this one, and it still keeps refusing to focus properly and switching itself off at random. Grrr.)

Can there be such a thing as casual summer goth?

Rainbowskye asked me to make her another long black crushed velvet skirt, but I didn't have any crushed velvet hiding away in the stash. What I did find though was enough black velour to make yet another simple elasticated skirt.



I have a little black velvet strappy top which will go perfectly with this for the summer, and the lace makes it almost smart enough to wear to parties. :)

More Space...

Remember the space bolero?

Now it has a matching skirt.

The waistband is bomber-jacket elastic, simply zig-zagged to the top of the skirt. The hem is bound, partly because I wanted it to match the bolero and partly because I couldn't find any other form of navy trimming which was actually nice.

I like elasticated waistbands, because my waist size varies by up to four inches depending on my health (long story), and this way I know that I'll be able to wear it whenever I like.

The Turtle Dress is Finished!

Yes, the turtle dress is done, and even after a trip through the wash, my hands are still blue from working with it all morning. This one's going to have to be washed on its own for a while I think - this is quite common with over dyed batik fabrics.

The dress is pinned in quite a lot on my dress form, but you can see the lovely shape of the princess seams, and the fullness of the skirt.

You can also see the octopus buttons - aren't they cute?

This dress is going for a trip to Canada, and I have been promised photographs of the turtles enjoying the mountain views!

Oh no, not another one!

This is my fifth completed version of Butterick B4790.

The fabric is Katie Jump Rope, bought from Cia's Palette.
I live in the UK, and I've found it surprisingly easy to buy fabric from the US. It costs $11 shipping for 6 yards of fabric in a flat rate envelope, which by a fabulous coincidence is just enough to make one of these dresses with a little bit left over. :)

Here's the finished article...

...and here's the work in progess.

1) 2)


1) The recipient of this dress has diabetes, and she wears an insulin pump. For her convenience, I've added a little pocket to the inside of the dress, for the pump to sit in.
(Yes, this photo was taken before I'd ironed the dress!)

2) These pretty floral buttons came from John lewis.
The button on the back of the dress is a four-hole white one, which came from the depths of my inherited button tins.

Space is big. Very big.

My jacket says so.

This is a little bolero jacket that I put together this afternoon, following a sudden flash of inspiration yesterday evening.

Believe it or not, it's made from a kids' pillowcase!

It's a different style from the red silk bolero - shorter in the arms and the back - and I think I like this one better. It'll be more comfortable to wear to work, as my arms are more free to move around.

I do have tons of this fabric left (I bought a duvet cover as well as a pillowcase!), so if anybody wants one of these, please yell!

Prices start from £30, depending on fabric.
(Obviously, a silk bolero is going to cost more than one made from a recycled pillowcase!)
It's fully lined, and the sleeve edges are bound. I can bind all of the edges if you prefer, or none at all.

These little jackets look fabulous over corsets, by the way... ;)

A slight shortage...

Here's the second work-in-progress of the week - and the second dress for Nannyo! this one's going to be worn to a wedding in about a month's time.

As you can see, I appear to be having a slight binding shortage...

I bought the same amount of binding that I used for the elephant dress. However, I didn't bind the back (inside) edges of the elephant dress, I just hemmed them. I've bound all the edges on this one, thereby leaving myself about a mere and a half short. Oops!

Never mind, I can run down to Fabric Land tomorrow and pick up some more. I also need to find three lovely buttons for the front fastening. Between all my inherited button tins, I couldn't find a single thing! Actually that's not true - the lovely red flower-shaped buttons that I did find were just a bit too big.

1) 2) 3)

1) My cutting table is about six inches too short for this dress!

2) Looks a bit nothingy before the binding, doesn't it? It's much nicer with the cream edges.

3) A close-up of the fabric - "Katie Jump Rope" by Denyse Schmidt. Bought from Cia's Palette.

Inconsistent sizing strikes again.

It might be tempting to think that inconsistent sizing of women's clothes is something that happens only in the high street shops, and that by making your own clothes, you would render yourself immune to it.

Not so.

This afternoon, I bought this dress pattern. I bought the size range 10-14, as I'm different sizes top and bottom, but a 14 is usually okay in the bust, I can alter the waist, and this dress is very full, so the hip measurement wasn't a worry.

According to the body measurements given on the pattern envelope (and shown in the link above), I have a size 12 bust, a size 20 waist and size 18 hips.

According to the finished garment measurements (also given at the link above - scroll down a bit), I would need to make a size 8, in order to avoid being drowned in fabric.

The waist size is not given in the final garment measurements, which is ridiculous given that the dress is fairly fitted at the waist but flared at the hips.

Obviously every garment has a certain amount of design ease built in - a size 12 baggy jumper will be several inches larger than a size 12 fitted t-shirt, for example. But this doesn't strike me as a particularly roomy style of dress, so why on earth are the finished measurements allowing up to 4½" of ease above the given body measurements? It's not even consistent there either - the ease is 4½" for the size 8, and 3½" for all the other sizes.

Honestly.

No wonder it's so difficult to find (or even make!) clothes that fit.

Heroes in a half shell...

Here is something which Nannyo has been waiting a long time to see - photos of her turtle dress!

It's still a work in progress, but it's started, and it looks like a dress. I'm secretly madly in love with it, and if it was my size I'd be running off with it and keeping it for myself. The fabric is lovely to work with, it drapes really nicely, and I think it'll be really comfortable to wear.

Unfortunately my hands are now BRIGHT BLUE, so I think I'd better give this a run through the washing machine with some salt before I pass it on to Nannyo!

1) 2)

1) This is Nannyo's old sundress, which has met with a sad demise. (There are holes in the fabric at the front.) It's navy viscose, with cream seashells printed all over it. It buttons to the waist at the front, and has narrow straps.

2) This pattern was the starting point for the replacement - Simplicity 5561. I made a new pattern, partly from this one, and partly from tracing the panels of the existing dress. I had to take out the back zip (I took out the centre back seam completely), and added facings at the front to create the new button fastening. I also increased the proportions of the bust, as the pattern is a B cup, and Nannyo isn't!


3) 4)

3) Okay, so it still needs some important elements - like facings, straps and buttons - but you get the general idea!

4) This is a close-up of the fabric - it's a cotton batik with a turtle design! The turtles are about 4" long.