A wrap dress for me

 This week at school/work, I have two papers due and one test and frankly, I was tired of studying.  I am really missing my family living across the continent and the paper writing was starting to annoy me.  So how did I cope?  I put my computer aside and sewed a dress I had been thinking about for a while.  What? is that not how you cope with negative emotions?

Back in January, Justine from Sew Country Chic wrote a post about the timeless style of Diane Von Furstenberg's wrap dress.  You can see Justine's finished version HERE.  Like Justine, I have always loved that dress and her post reminded me that I have a wrap dress pattern from Burdastyle that I have been meaning to sew for the last two years.

Then, I discovered that Project Sewn's theme this week is the Fashion Icon Challenge.  Well, how many excuses did I need to get working on that wrap dress that had been waiting for me???

The burdastyle pattern I have is called the 70s Wrap Dress 10/2011 #122.  The model is wearing a version made of organza.  But, there is also a very similar version called the Long Metallic Wrap Dress 10/2011 #123B that appears virtually identical except the length and the sleeve style.  The sleeves in #123B are fitted and have zippers at the wrist.  My #122 comes with two sleeve options: one that is full and one with a dart and zipper at the wrist.  I can only assume that the zipper sleeves are the ones that go with #123B.

 


For my fabric, I chose a cotton sateen with a slight stretch so I thought the fitted sleeve would be a much better option.  But the instructions for #123B did not include the zipper sleeve so I had to wing it.  I am satisfied with the way they turned out, but I am not sure if I did it correct.  I first inserted the invisible zipper, and then sewed up the dart.  Do any of you know which was supposed to be sewn first?

The dress is a true wrap dress, so it has ties on each side and a slit under my right arm.  You simply need to insert a tie into that slit and wrap the ties around into a belt.  I believe it is designed for the left side to be inserted into the right slit and then the right tie wrapped around your back.  However, I did not notice a flaw in the fabric until it was too late; so I have to have my left side on top.

 
Strangely enough there was another flaw in this fabric too that I managed to keep to the facing.  It was missing some dots!

The main body of the dress is also lined with a self-fabric facing.  You simply base the facing to the lining and then insert them together.  The last step I did to finish the dress was to hand sew the lining over the arm hole seam allowance.

The pattern was relatively straight forward to sew and given that it is such a classic dress, I am sure I can find many different fabrics to use for a variety of looks.  This may become my go-to dress pattern.  I simply love the fit and I had to do very little to modify it to my shape.

In addition to the sleeve variation, the pattern comes with various flounce pieces that you could add to make the dress fancier.  I may try the neckline flounce for a version done in silk organza.

And guess what?  If you are reading this on February 7th, 8th, or 9th and you love my dress as much as I do, you can vote for it during the Project Sewn sew-along challenge.

If you are interested in hearing more from us, there are a couple ways for you to keep in touch!

torquoise cardi for the fall

I picked up some great knit fabric at a garage sale.  There was enough for me to make something for Eli and me.  I already posted my project for Eli HERE.  And here is what I made for me.

I forgot to take my name tag off.

I actually have a bit more left over that I am sure I can do some color blocking on yet another project.

I used my grandmother's pattern Stretch and Sew # 300 again.  I had used it previously for an orange pullover and a striped cardi.

This time I made it a bit larger for a more relaxed fit.

And I used some gold vintage buttons my mom (M) had picked up for me a while back.  I think it provides a great contrast.

I used some of the knit to make a binding/facing.  And I added a band at the bottom.

I wore it with my maxi dress to the wedding and several times since.  I wore it school clothes shopping for my daughter and the clerk admired it.  I said thank you and thought to myself that it is funny that she works with 'fashion' all day and she likes my home-made cardi.  It was definitely worth the $5 I payed for the fabric.

And guess what?  This week I have started a new adventure with Sally from Daisy Chain Creations!  We are setting up a blog that is dedicated to sharing ideas and pattern reviews on pre-teen patterns.  It is called Sew Cool for the Tween Scene.  I would love it if you would come check us out!

If you are interested in hearing more from us, there are a couple ways for you to keep in touch!

Cardi and a life lesson

The sweater I am sharing today is from Stretch & Sew pattern #300.  It’s the same pattern I (Major Moma) used for this sweater.  I love the orange pullover and wear it all the time but I wanted to try it out as a cardigan.  I know for many of you that it is now spring and warm, but where I live, spring can still be chilly and a cardi is perfect for its versatility.

I bought this great stripe, light weight sweater knit from fabric.com (I know, I am a frequent shopper with them.).  It sewed up great.  I used some spare black knit for a facing at the neck and down the front. And the buttons were from a collection of giant Ziploc bags that my mother(our co-blogger, M) sent me.

source 

I loved the results.  I tried it on and showed the husband.

Me, as I give a silly pose in my just finished cardi:  “Look at me”

Husband, dutifully looking replies: “It is too tight, the buttons are pulling”

I was mad.  How could he say that?  How dare he tell me  … the truth.  After I stomped away angry, I looked in the mirror and saw the buttons were pulling; right at the bust line.  I hate it when shirts do that.

But the sweater turned out perfect.  It was just how I envisioned it.  Except it did not fit me.   Do you ever keep something around because it meets your ‘wants’ but not your ‘need’?  How silly it is for me to do that because I end up not using it anyway.  Or I am frustrated when it does not do what I need it to do.

I laid the sweater aside for a couple of days.



If you look closely, you can see I did not button a button.  ugh.

I then went and hugged my husband.  I told him I was really upset that he criticized the sweater.  He explained that he thought he was helping me out because he knows how much I hate pulling buttons.  And if I knew about it, I could fix it.

I should have been thankful for his honesty and confidence in me.  But I was still a bit upset that he told me something I did not want to know.

I went back to the sweater and cut it along the side seem from the bottom hem to the wrist cuff.  I cut the cuffs off.  I then found some gunmetal grey rib knit fabric.  I cut long strips about 3 inches wide. Then, I sewed them to the side seems.  I then added new cuffs to the sleeves in the same rib knit.

Now my cardi has racing stripes!

I also like how I have the hem ribbing stripe going the opposite direction.

I even like it better than the original.  And it fits.  I learned something through this sweater.  Sometimes I am too sensitive to helpful feedback.  And sometimes I am not flexible enough to welcome life’s bumps in the roads that may send me down a more interesting path.

How about you?  Do you blindly charge forward even when you are going somewhere you don’t want to be?  Or do you stop, re-assess and are willing to go down a new path … even if that means backtracking?

Finished Shirtwaist dress

I (Major Moma) posted earlier (HERE) about sewing a dress for my friend.  And I wanted to give an update and a full out pattern review of the Shirtwaist Dress from Gertie's Book for Better Sewing.

 This is the finished practice dress; a.k.a. the wearable muslin.  I warned my friend that in order to make sure it fits right, I will need to make a practice version.  And I gave her a choice.  She could buy cheep unbleached cotton and I can practice on that and then that practice version is basically only good for scraps.  OR she could buy an inexpensive fabric and if the practice version turned out well, she gets a bonus dress.  Either way, she gets the peace of mind that I would not screw up the dress she will wear in the wedding. 

She obviously chose to buy an inexpensive fabric.  It is Premier Prints Oxygen Dots French Blue/ Brown from Fabric.com  It is a cotton duck fabric with printed polka dots.  I would never have thought of cotton duck for this dress but it worked out beautifully.  The fabric is a little more heavy weight than your normal dress fabric but its stiffness actually gave it great body and she says it is very comfortable.   The only issue I had with this fabric is that it really takes its toll on your fingers when your are hand sewing.  A thimble is a must when making the bound buttons!


The dress in the book.  (Source)

Here is what the dress looks like in the book.  I think mine compares nicely.

The dress is not lined and has a simple facing down the center and through the shoulders.  I hand stitched the shoulder facing down on the inside to hide the seems in the back. 

There were a few fun elements to this pattern.  First it has pockets!  When I was constructing the dress the pockets were a bit confusing.  I did not find the mark on the pattern on where to place them.  So, I stuck them where I thought they belonged.  And they worked out great.  They actually don't show at all until you put your hand in them as they are in the seem and the fullness of the dress hides any bulk.

The pattern has bound button holes and they were fun to learn how to do.  Gertie has in-depth instructions in her tricks and tips portion of the book.  They were both harder and easier than I thought they would be.  But that is more a statement about my hand sewing skills than the instructions.  I do recommend that you make very careful measurements when you are marking your button holes.  I had a couple bound buttons that were a little smaller than the rest and it was very hard to get the buttons through.  But, good news, because of the shirring in the back of the waist, You can slip this dress over your head!



The waist back is shirred with elastic thread.

The front waist has pretty little pleats that line up perfectly with the dart on the bodice.  It really creates a nice swing to the dress without a lot of bulk at the tummy.  The sleeves have a band at the hem, which is a nice touch.  The pattern calls for a rolled hem on the skirt, but due to the weight of the fabric and the way I wanted it to be, I gave it a one inch hem.

This is a great pattern.  The instructions are great and all except for the pockets, everything is abundantly clear and sews up well.  And if you are not attached to the idea of bound buttons, this dress would sew up very quickly. 

I think she looks great in the dress and she is very happy with it. 

Spring Fling Remix

Well, Project Run and Play ended a couple of weeks ago but they are starting up again next week for a special addition, "All Stars".  And in order to get us all ready, they had a special sew-along pattern remix competition.  Oh, I (Major Moma) could not resist.  Especially when I saw the pattern we were to remix.

Spring Fling by Jessica at Sew Me Crazy

Sooo cute!

But, there was a lot of chatter about the girliness of this and all other remixes.  What about the boys??

Challenge accepted.

But, I also loved this pattern for girls so I made a boy and girl look.

Warning!!!

Given the time constraints and the work that each of these looks entailed, I made no pants.  When these guys are worn on Easter morning, there will be matching bottoms.  But you will have to wait to see those.

 For the boy look, I went for a western feel.  First for the most obvious part of the remix -- the vest.   I drafted the vest using my wild ginger pattern drafting software.  After a major hiccup along the way, I came up with a sharp looking vest pattern with darts in the front and 3 darts in the back.  The front is lined and the back is left unlined but has finished seems. The key elements from the original pattern that I kept were

• the cut-out/insert yoke
• covered buttons
• layers

I moved the insert to the front of the vest.  And then I used two colors of piping to replace the ruffle.  The fabric I used was a double sided shantung.  Which means that the fabric has two right sides; a shiny side and a dull side with texture.  So, I used the dull side for the bottom of the vest but the shiny side for the insert and a row of piping. 

I love covered buttons, so I kept that element and I covered them according to the side of fabric on which they sat.  shiny vis a vis textured.

Finally, I used a candlelight colored satin piping to add a layered element to the vest.  I did this through the double layer of of piping at the insert (brown and candlelight) and I added the piping at the hem of the vest.

  The original dress also had high contrast fabrics.  In order to keep a bit of that styling, I decided to make a light blue dress shirt to go under the vest.  This is no simple shirt with a collar. This is my first dress shirt with a collar band and let me tell you, it was not easy.  What made it more difficult is that I drafted this shirt also using my wild ginger software.  Normally, when I am going to do something new, I first use a commercial pattern so I can see how it is supposed to be done.

But, here I had to figure it out myself.  It is not perfect, but I am still thrilled with the results.  Beyond the collar band, the shirt has a shoulder yoke and pleats in the back.  And on the front, I have a little pocket.  The sleeves have a simple placket and button cuffs.

Because  a five year old will not be wearing a fancy vest that often, I added this very bad ass embroidery on the back.  It is from Urban Threads and cost me $5.  This was the most expensive part of both outfits.  The brown fabric was left over from a dress I am working on for a friend, the blue was a friend's uniform shirt, and the trims I got from a clearance basket.  So, until I bought this embroidery, both outfits would have cost under $5, so it doubled my expense.  But it was WORTH it!  Look how cool and western it makes this shirt.

So, pictures of clothes on hangers are boring.

But sometimes that is all I get done because by the time I get home from work, dinner is on the table. Then it is time to pick up the house and get those kiddos to bed. There simply is no time for a photo shoot during the week. But, I needed to get these photos up and posted before 8 March in order to participate in PRP's remix competition. My solution, before our Wednesday night Bible study, I would quickly put the outfits on, take a couple of shots and be done.

Eli was a great sport.

Isa, not so much.  I got her dress on and then she grabbed her tights and boots and took of running!

And these were the photos I was getting of her ... a blur of bare legs!  So I switched the setting of my little point-and-shoot camera to "Children" and manage to get a couple of shots that were not so blurry.  But they really don't do the dress justice.

   I kept much of the bodice the same as the original dress.  (The original pattern is actually quite cute and her instructions are pretty good.  I think the construction of the arms could be more clear though.)  The bodice changes I made were limited to the insert.  I exchanged the ruffle for some cotton lace and add a double layer of piping.  I also added a placket for the buttons to have traditional button holes instead of loops.  I also added piping to the arm holes and flutter sleeve.

The big difference is that I changed out the skirt.  Instead of a layered ruffle skirt, I made a mini circle skirt.  I think this will be really cute with a pair of fancy bloomers.  But, like I said, there are no bottoms completed.

Won't those leapard print boots be cute with this!

I really like how simple and elegant it looks in the front.  And the lace and covered buttons sure are pretty in the back too.

Gertie's Shirtwaist dress

I (Major Moma) sew for fun.  It is not my job, it is my hobby.  I cannot tell you how many people see some thing I have made and then say "you should sell that".  NO.  I don't want this to be my job.  First, then it would be work and not play.  Second, what would people be willing to pay me?  In this day of mass produced cheap fashion, people have gotten used to paying small sums of money for clothes.  Even though my clothes would be custom, there just is not a huge market for handmade.  (Yet... I think there is a great movement going on and a lot of people are realizing buying local and buying custom is worth the extra expense.)

Therefore, I sew for me, my kids, and sometimes for gifts.  But recently I received a special request.  My coworker and friend is going to be in a wedding.  And it is a 'theme' wedding where all the clothes will be late 1930's style.  She is the matron of honor and she could not seem to find a brown (the bride's chosen color) dress that fit the theme. 

Knowing that I sew, she asked me to make her something.  I really like this gal and I decided I will say yes, but only if she agreed to certain conditions.  I thought my conditions were pretty unusual and strict and was pretty sure she would go back to searching for a dress on the Internet as soon as she heard them.

My 5 rules:

1. FUN:  The dress has to be something I want to sew and will make me smile during the process.  I will not let this be 'work'; it still has to be play.  I have been sewing through Gertie's New Book for Better Sewing and she has a lovely dress that is late 30's, early 40s style.  We picked that one; the Shirtwaist Dress.
2. TWO dresses:  This is not some ordinary dress.  She will wear this dress in one of her friend's most important moments.  I am not willing to let something go wrong.  So I explained what a muslin is (a practice version of the garment) and that she had a choice.  She could buy plain unbleached cotton and let me practice on that to get the fitting right.  OR sh could buy inexpensive dress fabric and I will practice on a casual version of the dress.  But I warned her, the first dress may not turn out because it is practice.  Then, I will make the real dress that will fit her and I will have the right skills to have it turn out nice.
3. SHE BUYS all materials:  Sometimes people don't realize how much retail prices are for fabric and notions and thread.  So, I gave her my favorite web sight for fabric purchasing (fabric.com) and a shopping list.  She bought all the materials, washed and pressed them, and then I got to work.
4. I get PAID (not a lot) $: This was the hardest part.  I had to figure out what to charge her.  Because she is a friend and I am not a professional seamstress, I did not want to ask for too much.  But, sewing two dresses takes quite a bit of time and I should be compensated.  We decided on $40 for each dress.  If I was a professional, this would be WAY too little.  But I am not, so we thought it was fair.
5. I get to BLOG about it:  Yea!  I get to tell everyone about this very neat dress.

Practice version

 For the practice, she choose a heavy weight twill in a light blue with brown polka dots.  It was much stiffer than we expected, but really provided excellent body to the dress.

The main skill I had to learn during the practice version was bound buttons.  I have made bound buttons once before, but Gertie's were a bit different.  She calls for a lot of hand sewing in order to increase control and accuracy.  There were actually several instances where hand sewing was called for in the making of the dress.  So, I would pack the partially finished dress around completing the hand sewing in the car, at friend's houses, etc. Let me tell you, that hand sewing paid off.  My bound button holes look pretty good.

The next tricky part was the shirring on the waist back.  I have used elastic thread for shirring before and had quite a bit of success.  However, I read a review on Patternreview.com that said she had some issues with the shirring pulling too much.  Keeping that in mind, I spaced out my rows of shirring to 1/4 an inch instead of 1/8 an inch.  I also was careful to keep the fabric flat and taught as I sewed each row.  That seemed to do the trick!

front

back

Here it is sleeveless and without facings.  When I got to this point I was a bit worried that the waist was a bit long.  However, when I had my friend try it on, the waist was perfect!

In fact, that is where I did the most altering of the paper pattern from her measurements and I was incredibly pleased that it fit her so well.

 She tried it on without clothes, but for the sake of pictures, she put it on like this too.  The dress is almost done now after another fitting and marking the hem.  And I have started the next version since I am confident about the fit.

 How about you all; do you sew for profit?  Or just for fun?  Or something in between like this project?