Badger and Earl Sewathon

This was me exactly a week ago - sewing, sewing, sewing all day long with Rachel from House of Pinheiro, Alex from Sewrendipity and Elisalex from By Hand London. Ah I love my life! We were the guests of Badger and Earl - my fave West London sewing and craft cafe - and were taking part in their first ever Sewathon! Each of us was asked to choose fabric and a pattern from the shop then given the challenge of sewing it up in a day. Challenge accepted!

Ready for the off - must remember not to stand next to Rachel in future!

What a fab day we had! We were given as much tea and cake as we wanted, then left to sew dresses and indulge in sewing talk all day, bliss! It was also a really nice change to be sewing somewhere new and to be with doing it with other stitchers. I sometimes forget that the actual art of sewing is a very solitary activity! 

I'm not very good at sewing against the clock (which is why you'll never see me on the Sewing Bee) so I chose a pattern I knew well - the Mortmain dress by Gather. I've made it twice before (here and here) and have also taught it as a class at Badger and Earl, so I knew exactly what I was doing! I just finished it by the end of the day. If I'd been on my own it would have only taken me a couple of hours, but I was in a room with some world famous chatterboxes so I didn't stand a chance!

Sewing the hem...

Almost there, just the armholes to finish

And here's the dress once I got it home and gave it a press. The neckline is finished with a facing but I finished the armholes with contrast navy bias binding (that was Rachel's idea!)

I also pleated the skirt from the right side for a softer look.

Yes, it's totally inappropriate for winter but I think it will be a perfect dress for the warmer months. I like how it looks like a separate top and skirt as well as a dress! As my flesh is currently a fetching shade of winter blue, I thought I'd spare you a shot of me wearing it. But here we are with our finished dresses, all looking mighty pleased with ourselves. 

Rachel made a Deer and Doe Bruyere Shirt, lengthened into a dress with some beautiful printed canvas. Alex made a very cool Tilly and the Buttons Bettine dress with some blue linen. She used the scraps from my polka dot skirt for her pockets and sleeve cuffs! Elisalex had to leave early, so sadly wasn't there for the final dress parade. They'll be blogging about their own particular Sewathon makes soon though, so keep an eye out.

Thank you so much to Charlotte and Sophie of Badger and Earl for hosting. And to my sewing partners in crime Rachel, Alex and Elisalex for making it such a fun day. Let's hope it's the first of many more Sewathons to come! x 

The Anna 6696 dress

There's something about blue linen as a colour/fabric combination that I just can't seem to resist. This particular pairing works perfectly for summer: it's classic, it's chic and, more importantly, it's cool. I succumbed twice last year with my Anna dress in a linen/rayon mix, closely followed by my Simplicity sundress in linen look cotton…. and I've just succumbed again! 

The fabric I used this time was a linen-cotton blend (55% linen, 45% cotton) from Backstitch. It's one of their new summer dressmaking fabrics and was kindly sent to me by Alice to review. I'd originally planned to use the fabric for a different pattern, but there were too many fit issues involved, and with the school holidays fast approaching, I was rapidly running out of time to fix them. I needed a blue linen dress I could wear in the sunshine. NOW!  As is often the case with me, I saw the perfect dress on Pinterest - a lovely casual, chambray dress with pockets. 

The dress originally featured on this post on lifestyle blog A Cup of Jo and on further investigation I discovered it was the model's own and a few years old to boot. Ah well, I'd just have to make my own version!

I did this by marrying the bodice of the By Hand London Anna dress with the skirt of McCall's 6696 shirt dress. The Anna dress has tucks under the bust rather than a gathered bodice waistline, which I felt would be more flattering to my shape. The skirt and waistband of McCall's 6696 is exactly the right shape, but the pattern is for a shirt dress with buttons up the centre front, so I had to fiddle with the pattern pieces a bit. I cut the front piece on the fold and added a tiny amount of width. I then did the reverse for the back pieces (cutting two pieces instead of one) to allow for a zip. 

The Anna bodice is much more fitted than the McCall's bodice however, and this, coupled with my dreadful maths, meant things didn't quite line up the first time round. A few unorthodox gathers had to be added to the skirt section, but because they're below the waistband, they're actually quite flattering and make the dress really comfortable to wear.  

The only change I made to the bodice from last time was a back neckline adjustment, (thank you Sonja at Ginger Makes for the splendid tutorial!) I also took an identical wedge out of the front bodice. I redrafted the facings, which are cut from some scraps of amazing Liberty fabric that reader Nathalie sent me as part of a bag of offcuts. There were some great pieces in the bag (the facings from my sailor shorts were one), but the real gem was a remnant of Cranford, a fabric designed for Liberty by Grayson Perry a few years ago. 

I LOVE IT and the background just happens to be the exact shade of blue as the linen-cotton. I also used some of the Grayson Perry fabric for the insides of the pockets (but forgot to take photos - soz).

Grayson Perry facings - look at those little faces!

The linen-cotton fabric is excellent quality, but like all linens, it's a bit of a pain to work with as it sheds so many fibres. It's medium weight, which I naively thought would make it less transparent. Not so - I could probably get away with it on holiday, but need to wear a slip with it when walking around London. With hindsight, I should probably have lined or underlined the dress, it's no big tragedy though. I love the finished look of the dress and how close the colour (Moonlight if you're interested) is to the original inspiration photo.

Talking of which, I don't have a flower market nearby to replicate the original image, but I do have the next best thing - an allotment! Unfortunately, I looked hideous in most of the photos we took there, but I'll leave you with a couple of outtakes with my gorgeous Charlie. Despite my best efforts, he flatly refused to pose for a photo!  x

Glamour amongst the cannellini beans

Gotcha!

Fabric was given to me free of charge for review. All views my own.

Georgia on my Mind

The gorgeous, gorgeous Georgia Dress was released last November and as usual, I'm a little late to the party. On the plus side, making a dress after the initial pattern hysteria has died down means you can pick up everybody else's construction tips! I used Sally from Charity Shop Chic's zip insertion technique for the curved seam and got some helpful hemming advice from Nissa. Plus the sew along posts on the By Hand London blog are great.  The pattern instructions are perfectly clear, but it's always good to see things visually and every step is photographed. Luckily I didn't have to make many changes to the pattern. I made a UK size 10 in the knee length version with skinny straps. I shortened the skirt pieces by two inches and the straps by one inch. I also made a one inch FBA (full bust adjustment) to the bodice pieces (documented here).

Once I'd got the bodice sorted out, the whole thing sewed together really easily. There are a lot of curved seams on this dress, so I made sure I clipped and notched them all as instructed. I also found pressing them open using a tailor's ham really helped keep the curves intact. My only mishap was a tragedy involving the zip…. I'd just inserted a perfect concealed side zip, (yep, concealed side zip - my sewing nemesis). I closed the zip and it broke. Big sigh. Let's just say I strongly regretted being a non-smoker at that moment! Happily, the new zip went in perfectly second time around, well it didn't really have a choice as I'd threatened to chop it to ribbons if it didn't behave itself.

Not quite sure what to do with my arms...

I think a fabric with a bit of stretch to it is essential for this dress - I can't really see how a woven fabric can cling to your curves in the same way. And boy, does this fabric cling to your curves! I used a navy stretch pique from the Goldhawk Road at £7 a metre and I only needed two metres, which included two bodice muslins.  Perhaps I should have bought more fabric so that I could have done a better job of the pattern matching, which as it stands is shockingly bad (ahem) The only reason I can wear it out in public is because the flower print is so busy and random. But you know what? I don't really care, the dress absolutely rocks and that's good enough for me.

If I was to make it again, the only thing I'd do differently would be to make the straps a bit wider to try and hide my fat underarm bits, but apart from that I love the way it turned out. In terms of style and flesh coverage, it's quite far out of my comfort zone. but sometimes you've just got to sew something that captures your heart regardless, and this is one of those occasions.  Happy weekend! x

Georgia dress FBA

When it was released last year, the By Hand London girls very kindly sent me a copy of the Georgia dress to try out. Although I LOVED the bombshell look of the dress, my initial reaction was one of panic. It was so fitted, so party girl, so slinky - when would I ever have an occasion to wear a dress like this? I soon talked myself into making it though, how could I not when it has such a lovely va-va voom shape?! The very fitted bodice meant that I'd have to do quite a bit of fiddling to get it to fit. So a practice muslin AND a full bust adjustment were both essential - no fudging this one.

Following discussions with my almost-size-twin, Roisin (sadly for me she's lost weight recently, which means I can't just automatically copy the pattern size she uses!) I cut a UK size 10. This is one size down from my measurements because of the stretchiness of the fabric I chose. The fabric is a lovely navy floral pique, from the same family of fabrics as my grey rose fabric used here. It does have quite a bit more stretch to it than woven calico, so I made sure I bought enough fabric to make the bodice muslin in my actual shell fabric.

After scrutinising the Georgia sew along posts, it turned out that I needed a one inch FBA. This was super simple to do as you're only actually adjusting two pattern pieces - the bodice side front and the  bodice centre front. Here are the original pattern pieces…

All I did was make a hinge in each one.

The red pen shows the adjustments made

My first muslin fitted perfectly in the cups and across the back, but rode up too high at the centre of the bust. I remedied this by adding a ⅝" wedge starting at the bottom of the bodice centre front piece and tapering out to the cup seam, so that the fit of the cup wasn't compromised. You can see this adjustment at the bottom of pattern piece A above.

It worked!! I did take photos of me actually wearing the bodice muslin but believe me, so much white/blue flesh on display was NOT a pretty sight… You'll have to make do with Angie who's padded out to resemble me.

That's the only major adjustment I made to the pattern and it really wasn't as bad as I thought. I'm curious to know if a FBA on a plain darted bodice will be just as straight forward? I guess there's only one way to find out! Next up: the finished dress. x

2014: the Year of More Dresses

Every year I seem to get more and more enamoured with dresses. For my New Year post last year, I had just one main resolution - to sew more dresses. I think I only actually managed to sew one more dress than the previous year, but the quantity doesn't interest me. The important thing is that I loved making them and loved wearing them throughout the year. So much so that I'm going to keep exactly the same resolution for 2014.  Is that boring? Yes. Do I care? No! I already have no fewer than four new dress patterns to tantalise me for the time being, one for every occasion...

The girly dress

After the success of my last Peony dress I'm hoping the Emery dress by Christine Haynes will produce a similar shape.  Ooh look, a bow! And a collar!!

The knit dress

The Penny Pinafore is a fab looking princess seamed knit dress and the second pattern release from Kitschy Coo. I've been living in knit dresses over Christmas so this will be a perfect new addition, maybe in a brightly coloured double knit?

The slinky party dress

There's hardly any occasion (actually change that to no occasion) where I would be required to wear a slinky party dress, but how can I not make the Georgia dress from By Hand London?!

The denim dress

I have a cunning plan to make a dress version of a pair of jeans, which for me would be a denim shirt dress. I can't believe I haven't made one already actually as I love shirt dresses and I love denim skirts. The combination of the two almost has me passing out with glee! McCall's 6696 is my pattern of choice.

So they're my first four dresses of the year, with many more to come I'm sure. As far as improving my dressmaking skills go, I have just the one thing on my list - master the full bust adjustment. Or to be more accurate, actually do a FBA, the only reason I haven't done one before now is pure laziness so there's no excuse really!

Sewing my own clothes really does keep me sane, so as long as I continue to sew clothes, enjoy making them and actually wear them, I'll be happy. If I manage to get to a few meet-ups with fellow stitchers in 2014, I'll be even happier!  Here's to a happy, healthy and successful sewing year to you all, wherever you are. Happy New Year! xx

Victoria Blazer: Jane style

I'm a bit late to the By Hand London Victoria Blazer party I'm afraid. So late in fact, that everybody's gone home and there are just a couple of passed out drunks left in the front room. Never mind eh?! I had planned to make it earlier, honest Injun, but the freakishly hot weather we've been enjoying in the UK this summer made it impossible to even think about sewing a blazer. So down the queue it went, but not too far down, as I knew it would make a fab autumn project. 

It's now autumn, the days are rapidly cooling down and my jacket is finished, never say I don't stick to my plan! Shamefully, I showed absolutely no imagination with this make and just went for a blatant copying of Roisin's lovely red version. As soon as I saw hers, I knew I wanted a red one too, only in double knit (I got my double knit from Calico Laine. Mine has even got the same lining as Roisin's! After I enthusiastically admired her lining fabric, Roisin, angel that she is, promptly sent it to me! I love that girl. No honestly, I really, truly do!

Striped floral lining fabric, courtesy of Roisin

Anyway, I may have blatantly copied the colour red and the exact same lining but I did do a few things differently: 

• As wonderful as all the cropped versions are, I just knew a cropped jacket wasn't for me, so I went for the longer length - version A. Except on my midget frame it was a bit too long (god, make your mind up Jane) so I shortened it by two inches.

• Lengthened the sleeves to wrist length. I do actually like the cropped sleeves but sadly, my arms are T-Rex length and cropped sleeves can often make my arms look shorter than they are (if that's even possible?!) 

Perfect length sleeves 

• Changed the shape of my lapels from square to angled at the bottom, using this easy tutorial by The Quirky Peach. 

• Tapered the side seams in quite dramatically (more on this later).

• Omitted the pockets. The jacket started life with pockets but they pulled down in a strange way, maybe the double knit was the wrong weight? So off they came.

Size-wise I made a UK size 8 - this is smaller than my measurements but I wanted to allow for the extra stretch of the double knit. As the whole sewing world has already declared, this pattern is a delight to sew. Really easy and straight forward and a perfect pattern to try if you're tackling your first jacket. And the sleeves!! Oh the sleeves were a dream to set in, they went in FIRST TIME, without a word of complaint. Lovely, lovely sleeves. I also understitched the lapel and collar seams to help them lay flat (a tip from Marie at A Stitching Odyssey) and sewed the shell and lining armholes together to prevent the lining from peeking out underneath the blazer shell (a tip from Sally at A Quirky Peach). I sewed the main seams with my overlocker and everything else on my sewing machine with a jersey needle, which worked a treat.

The original boxy shoulders and roomy fit were a BIG departure for me style-wise and once the jacket was sewn up, I had to admit, the style just didn't work for me. I absolutely LOVE this style on other bloggers, just not on me. Let's face it, if a boxy jacket didn't work for me as a teenager in the 1980's when I was in my prime, it wasn't going to do me any favours 30 years later. I wouldn't admit defeat though - no way! - a quick tapering in of the waist and the whole look of the blazer was quite a bit more fitted and 100% more me.

I love the result and I'm hoping that the addition of this jacket to my wardrobe will be a good first step towards weaning myself off my hard core cardigan habit. Actually, with the fitted sides, the jacket is now far more cardigan than jacket, as it only has enough room for one layer underneath. The finished product might not have the uber-cool edge of the original pattern but it works for me and that's what matters.  x

Finished: Anna dress

I'd originally intended the Victoria blazer to be my first introduction to By Hand London patterns. My plan was to join in their sewalong, but I'd chosen to make my version in double knit and try as I might, I just couldn't summon up the energy to sew a knit blazer in the current UK heat wave. It's a perfect early autumn project for me to get my teeth into though, so stay tuned.  Sooo, I turned my attention to the Anna dress instead.... 

Ah, the Anna dress - I bought this pattern the second it was released and it was love at first sight.  The kimono sleeves, the panelled A-line shape, the slash neck and the super flattering front bodice tucks - gorgeous! And just look at that packaging!  I'm a sucker for stylish packaging and By Hand London patterns are by far the most beautiful I've come across to date.

I went for the midi version as I'm really not a maxi dress kind of girl. But, never say never eh? That thigh high split is quite tempting and I haven't totally butchered the skirt pieces, maybe one day.... So, what do I like about this dress? Pretty much everything! My favourite detail is the tucks at the waist instead of darts - this is a detail I've seen a lot in vintage patterns. I love the way the clever placement of the tucks adds shape to the bust, so pretty.  It's also a nice change not to have to set in sleeves - hoorah for kimono sleeves! One final thing I like about this pattern is the neckline. I'll admit, I was a bit wary of the slash neck at first but I needn't have worried. Miraculously it manages to cover my bra straps without me having to pull them right down. It's cut a little lower than a boat neck so has a slight curve, which as well as being flattering doesn't sit right across your wind pipe.

For fabric I chose Brussels Washer in yarn dyed chambray, which must surely win the prize for most ridiculous fabric name of all time. One of the fabric suggestions for this pattern is rayon and this is a linen/rayon mix.

It's a lovely cool fabric, but very drapey and I did think at first that it might look a bit sack-like when sewn up. With this pattern, the fitted bodice comes to the rescue, giving the dress a loosely structured modern look I really like. The dress isn't lined or underlined, it's just me and 2.5 metres of Brussels Washer, wonderfully cool for my hols and so, so comfortable.

It is a very plain look, but that gives me the perfect excuse to tart it up with red accessories!

This dress was amazingly quick to make, it can hardly have taken me more than a couple of hours - a perfect dress for a beginner to try their hand at. I made a UK size 12 and the fit was more or less spot on. Apart from a complete and utter brain freeze when it came to inserting the invisible zip (don't ask, I had to unpick it in the end and insert a plain old centred one instead), this was an easy make and a joy to sew. The only adjustment I made was to take two inches off the length, making it just knee length on me.

If the pattern had been released a few weeks earlier, I'm in no doubt that I'd have made at least two more versions of this dress. As it is, my kids have now finished school for the summer, so sewing more or less grinds to a halt for six weeks. But...there WILL be more in the pipeline, never fear! Especially given the response I've had so far - I wore it to go supermarket shopping yesterday (I know, rock and roll!) and received not one, but TWO compliments from complete strangers!!! One woman's actual words were: "I really admire the cut of your dress"!!! I've never been so flattered and delighted in all my life! In summary, I absolutely LOVE this dress, it fits like a glove straight from the packet, it's insanely easy to sew and I feel fabulous in it. What more could you ask for?!

Happy Thursday everybody! x

PS. Don't forget my Polished Button giveaway which runs until Sunday 28th July.