Finished Project: Wool and Leather skirt

I first saw the inspiration for this project on Bee Made's blog here
Actually, this wasn't so much an inspiration as me flat-out copying this garment (which was also a knock-off from a RTW pattern). But I felt it was ok to be a copy-cat as she actually provides a tutorial to put this skirt together :)

I'd never sewn with leather, so I was quite excited to get started, I had already visited Lonsdale Leather, a gold mine for leather, and I was itching to have an excuse to come out of there with something. So this was a great opportunity.

I purchased a full lamb hide of light weight black leather, about 9 square feet. 

For the pattern, I used skirt 115 from BWOF 09-2012. The base is the same as this skirt, (without the pleat) for which I'd already figured out the fit, so it seemed like a good option.

I didn't actually follow the tutorial - by the time I got around to making the skirt, I actually forgot it was even there, so I just made up my own pattern piece for the wrap portion. I didn't want a real wrap skirt, so I added the asymetrical panel on top of the rest of the normal skirt. In hindsight that might not have been the best thing, because it adds quite a bit of bulk to the side seam and I couldn't get a nice smooth side seam.

Anyways, I made a muslin to figure out the dimensions and orientation of the asymetrical panel, then I cut my leather and fabric.  Working with leather wasn't so bad. I used paper clips to keep the leather pieces together (instead of pins). I also used leather tape, after seeing this tutorial, to finish the hem, and it worked perfectly!

I'm a little on the fence about the result. I love the idea of this skirt, and I've been wearing it a lot, but I only wish the side seams laid a little flatter and smoother. No matter how much pressing I did, it doesn't look quite right. Oh well, I'm still happy with it and the opportunity to work with leather, and now I'm dreaming of a little pouch to use my left-over leather.

Finished Project: My Breton Dress

This was a totally improvised project, that I decided to make on a whim for a company party. It ended up being a summer favorite.

The company I work for organised an evening cruise to celebrate the end of a project. They rented a boat for 4 hours to have dinner and sail around the bay. When I heard "boat party", I immediately thought "nautical" and summer dress. I didn't have much time to make anything complicated, and since it was going to be a rather casual affair, I decided on a simple maxi dress.

I found the perfect striped fabric in clearance at Dressew - it's a knit, probably mostly polyesther but it's actually not bad quality, and for $3 a meter I wasn't going to complain. I got 3 meters of it.

I traced a RTW tank top of mine for the neckline and armholes/shoulders and used BOWF pattern 109 from June 2013 for the rest of the dress, connecting the two just below the armholes.

 

The fabric is actually a bit heavy, so I finished the armholes and neckline with twill tape, to prevent them from stretching in the long run. I eye-balled the hem length and let the edge raw, as it doesn't fray. I left it long enough that I could wear with heels or belted and bunched up if I'm wearing flats or want it slightly shorter.

The dress came together super fast and it's exactly what I had in mind. I had wanted a maxi dress for a while but never liked the ones I saw in the shops. This one is perfect and I will for sure be making more of this pattern. The only alteration I might need to make is to add a tad more ease at the bust, depending on the fabric I use. The tank top I traced has slightly more stretch than my fabric so the dress came out a little tighter in the top part, but it's still very comfortable.

The setting for the photo shoot became obvious as soon as I finished the dress. I knew I was going to France on vacation and the first few days would be spent in St Malo, Brittany. That's basically where Breton shirts come from (there were at least three stores selling them just on the way to the beach).

The beach is Bon Secours, at the foot of the medieval wall that surrounds the oldest part of the city ("intra muros"). I hadn't been back to France in over four years, and it felt so strange to hear everybody around me speak French, I almost felt like I was in a foreign country....

WIP: Dress variations

I'm working on the famous BWOF 101 from february 2011. This pattern has been super popular with sewists around the blogosphere and I definitely wanted to give it a try.

I'm not a big fan of the gathered skirt though, I think it adds bulk at the waist which isn't the most flattering... So I've been thinking of alternatives and a little photoshopping helped me visualize other options:

Version 1:

This is the skirt part from the Sewaholic's Lonsdale Dress. It's an A-line skirt with pocket.

Version 2:

The pleated version. Here I've attached skirt 124 from BWOF December 2011. I could probably recreate this just by making pleats instead of gathers with the rectangle of fabric, but this is helpful to visualize the result. Check out this similar version in black.

  

Version3:

This is the skirt part from Pattern Runway's Sundress pattern. 

This is actually my favorite version. It's gathered but not too "pooffy",  it has pockets, a waistband and the shape works well with the bodice. I have visions of piping and maybe buttons but I haven't decided yet.

In all cases I included a waistband because I find it more flattering and it makes it easier to wear any size belt. I could have tried many other options but these three were the ones I was considering in the first place.

In the meantime, I have finally reached a satisying muslin for the bodice (only the 4th one!!!). Fingers crossed that when I cut the actual fabric it still works out - you never know...

In other sewing progress news, my shirt is still sitting on my dress form, waiting only for it's buttonholes, and I just received this pattern, which I am sooo excited about because it is pretty much exactly what I was looking for to make my copy of this blouse in a flowery fabric...

So many projects, and now the sun is finally out and we have family visiting from now until the end of August...

Future project: the skirt i woke up thinking of...

This morning I woke up thinking about a very specific burda skirt from a few years ago.

This winter I've been wearing a lot more skirts than the years before - or at least a lot more frequently, as I tend to wear the same 2 over and over again. I've come to the conclusion that the style I'm comfortable in is a rather hip-fitting skirt which stays on the casual side with details that keeps it from looking too "corporate pencil skirt" if you see what I mean...

*update* this is skirt 109 from Burda magasine January 2009, sorry I forgot to mention it before

Now I've gotta be a tiny bit obsessed if I wake up thinking about clothes but oh well, I won't over-anaylse it. In any case, this skirt definitely fits the bill, with its "jeans-like" front zip and it's unusual seam lines and in-seam pockets. So It's now officially on my "spring sewing" log.

Actually as I'm writing this, another pattern comes to mind, that I would also see myself wearing: :

BOWF 109 August 2010.

But back to the skirt I woke up to, I just so happened to go to Gala Fabrics this afternoon, and found a very nice chocolate brown strech cotton with very fine ribbing and a bit of shine. I thought it would be perfect for it. It was on the sale's rack (which is the only place I ever look for fabric in the store - they have tons of gorgeous stuff, but most of it is pretty expensive, over $15 a meter and way higher...). This 1,40m piece was marked $12 but it was an additionnal 50% off. Sold !

So... I wake up thinking about this very specific skirt and end up finding the right fabric for it on that very same day. Does this mean this skirt is meant to be or what ?

Sneak Peek: Blouse BWOF 08-2009-118

Here's a sneak peak of my latest project.
It's blouse 118 from BWOF August 2009. Version 117, longer and sleeveless, has been quite popular around the blogosphere, and I was definitely considering it. I however decided to do the version with sleeves, as this is meant to be a fall/winter garment.

The suggested fabric is silk, which allows for a light, flowy ruffle. I didn't find any silk that I liked, and instead I bought a woven cotton with a bit of stretch. I liked the color and the little bit of shine to it (the pictures really don't do it justice). The fabric is stiffer though, which at first made the ruffle lay kind of flat, and not flow down as nicely as I wished. In fact, it looked a lot like a napkin stuck in the collar (yuk !).... I considered changing the shape of the ruffle, but it seemed like a lot of potential trial and error, so I ended up adding an extra pleat at the top to give it more shape, and I think it worked well.

The other tricky part with the ruffle was the hem. I had to iron a thin double hem before I stitched it in place with a zig-zag stitch. In the end I'm happy with how it turned out.
The bodice and sleeves were a no-brainer, I did french seams on the shoulder seams, and also on the sleeves and side seams which I did in one step.

I finished the other seams with brown satin double folded bias tape. I really like the result on the inside.

The only other tricky part was the button tab at the bottom hem, mostly because the instructions were impossible to understand. It took me a few readings and leaving the project away for a while before I figured out how to do it. It's also a good thing I had experience making a button-down shirt as it helped me figure it out.
At first I thought I made mistake in that I finished the upper tab right at the middle seam. It probably should overlap a bit on the other side, so that the buttonhole be centered and not to the side of the center seam. Looking at the drawing though, it seems that this is way it's meant to be...Oh well, I think I can live with it.

The last thing I need to do now is add the button. I have two options, one of which might not require an actual buttonhole so I might cheat it that way.

The first one is metal ( and not as shiny as the picture shows it). I like that it more or less matches the closure at the top, which I was inspired to add after seeing this version

The other one is a perfect match the the fabric color, so it blends a bit more.

Both of them come from Button Button, a fantastic store in Vancouver that I discovered through Tasia's post. So I have yet to make a design decision on that. Anybody out there care to give their opinion ?

Sneak Peak: the New Job Dress (BWOF 2008-04-118)

My "New Job Dress" is finished !!!

I plan on having a proper photo shoot of the worn garment over the week-end but for now I thought I'd post a little sneak peak and a closer look at the details.

It didn't actually take me that long at the sewing table, but I just had NO TIME in August to do any sewing. Between 12-hour days at my new job and a crazy busy summer week-end schedule with relatives visiting from France, the pieces of the dress sat sadly on my form for weeks...

But now it's finished and I am SOOOO Happy.
This was definitely the most detailed garment I've made so far, with a lot of construction and other details: one exposed zipper, one invisible, a standing collar and armbands with facing, pocket constructed both of a hip yoke and a welt type opening, pleats in the front.... and lots of "opposite curves" sewing on the bodice part which made me so glad I got to practice on my flowery tunic first and on the muslin.

But here it is and I have to say I am psyched about the result. The fit is really nice and I love the way the fabric feels. It's a 97% Cotton/3% Elasthane and a bit on the heavier side which gives it a nice body and makes the whole thing very smooth looking.

I went with a white invisible zipper because the dress is mostly white.
I'll have to find a way to make the pull-tab black though...

I omitted the decorative topstitching as I used a fabric with a print. Instead I just used the basic "stitch in the ditch" method to attach the inside facings.
I was hesitant at first because the collar and arm bands looked very nice and crisp and I considered hand-stitching all the facings with an invisible stitch. But finally I went with the faster way, and it still looks pretty good (thankfully black is forgiving and you can barely see the few stitches showing where I failed to guide the needle/fabric properly).

On a side note, I was researching on presser feet recently and read about a special "stitch in the ditch" foot that I guess is helpful to guide the fabric and keep the needle in the ditch. Has anyone been using it and do you think it is a useful tool for a neat result, or do you think it's more of a "gadget" accessory that doesn't really work that well anyway? I guess when you're an experienced sewer you don't really need that kind of accessory...

I did my first ever french seam (which by the way in french is actually called an english seam - "couture anglaise" !) on the right side of the dress, and I love how neat it looks.
I bias-binded the pockets seam allowances, also an oportunity to try my hand at mitered corners for the first time, as well as the left side seam which includes the invisible zipper.
The pattern didn't include a waistband facing but I added one for a neater finish on the inside.

I bought some pink double-folded bias tape that matches the pink squares. I could have gone with black since it's the color of the inside facing but I thought this would be more fun...and it doesn't show at all from the outside.

Burda instructions have you press the seam allowance of the collar and armband pieces inside the bodice as opposed to inside the facing. I guess this makes sense if you do the decorative topstitching on the bodice and attach the facing at the same time, but because I omitted those, I pressed all allowances inside the facing as you would normally do (for a clean result anyway).

I'm really happy that I took the time to make this one right and it definitely payed !

Finished Project: BWOF White Flowery Tunic

This is Tunic 108 from July 2008 of Burda Magazine.

I decided on this top after finding this white flowery fabric at Dressew. It's cotton and not linen as they suggest, but the flowery print reminded me of the one from the magazine, in a lighter version.

It took me a ridiculous amount of time to make this top, considering the simple design.
But first of all, sewing curvy pieces together turned out to quite tricky. Talk about crazy puckering and folded bits of fabric getting caught in the seam when they're not supposed to. Of course it's only after I finished sewing it that I received my copy of Fit for Real People and happened to open the book on the page with their tips on sewing pieces with opposite curves together. By then I'd already unsewn and resewn the pieces about 3 times to finally have something close to perfect.

So FYI (although I'm sure everybody already knows that), the secret to sewing opposite curves together is to do a staystich along the seamline of the inside curve, then clip the seam allowance of that piece. The two pieces will then be easy to align and sew in place....

Aside from that, the rest of the making was in fact really easy. I decided not to include the pockets. For one thing, they felt kind of awkward, positioned at the side seam, and plus my fabric being somewhat sheer, I didn't want them to be visible from the outside. So out with the pockets.

I downgraded the pattern to a size 36 when I traced it as the smallest one was a 38, then took a little in at the waist and hips as I usually do on Burda patterns.

I finished the side seam allowance as well as the sleeve hemlines with bias tape (see my detailed post here). I also sewed bias tape to the back seam allowance, since it included the zipper. By the way, Burda suggests a 60cm invisible zipper, which in my opinion is way too long. The design is both for a top and a dress, so 60 cm might make sense for the dress, but for the top, 45-50cm zipper is enough.

I am quite pleased with the result, although there are some puckering here and there, but I can live with that. I am happy I was actually able to adjust the fit well enough without losing some of the ease and making the garment uncomfortable to wear, as the fabric doesn't have any stretch.



However I am not sure about the fabric choice in terms of color. It is a bit sheer, which means the seam allowances are visible from the outside (also a reason why I wanted them neat and clean lines). Also It's not an overly exciting fabric, even with the subtle flowery detail.

After taking the photos, it looked even more dull to me, especially so white in the bright sunlight, but I think with a necklace and this denim vest that I had it makes it a bit less boring...
If I were to use this pattern again, I would probably go for the whole dress length and maybe would use the collar yoke to do some color blocking and make it more interesting. But overall, it is a light and breezy top, comfortable for summer.