Satin Summer Bomber

I promise, this is the last post for my 2013 makes!  This jacket has been a real journey, and for no real reason.  It started back in May 2013 during the Burda sew-along when I was checking out the patterns available on Burda Style.  It look me a couple-a months to print and tape together, at the same time I went fabric shopping (yay).  But it was September before I cut into the fabric.  Once cut it sat simmering away for a few more months before it made it to my sewing table - by this time Papercut Patterns had release their new range which included a bomber jacket.  Gee my subconscious must have been telling me something!

This is the Blouson Jacket 02/2013 #125 downloadable from Burda Style and available in sizes 34-42.  Designed to sit on the waist with 3/4-sleeves.  I stuck to the fabric recommendation and purchased a stretch satin from Global Fabrics (now The Fabric Store) - the touch is soft and dreamy, and falls beautifully.  I think I may have been put off by how hard I thought it would be to sew, but it was actually quite stable and went under the machine like a dream.

I couldn't find a blue rib knit that I liked so went with a black for all the bands.  I love it because it goes together without actually matching.  I lined it with the same fabric, so the jacket can actually be worn either way - the only give away that it is inside-out is the zip.  I used a black chunky open ended zipper.

Unfortunately not many fabulous photos of this, as I didn't make it for me, but daughter was refusing to allow me to take photos, preferring to be behind the camera with the same attitude!  I'm pleased with the result after months of waiting to make its debut.   Daughter is also stoked and wears it all the time.

I would recommend this pattern.  It is really easy to sew together with just three pattern pieces plus the ribbing.  Putting the zip into the ribbing at the bottom front was the trickiest, because the ribbing wanted to squish under the sewing foot while I was being careful not to sew too close to the zipper teeth.  Slowly but surely and it all worked out.

More (not so flash) photos on my Flickr -->

Lace & Peter Pan

Well there is never any Punch without Judy in my house.  So after the Lace Dress for daughter #1, here is the requested Lace Top for daughter #2.  We both totted off to Fabric Warehouse and she selected the underlining and the lace, to create her vision.

This is my second project for the Burda Style May Sew Along (quietly pleased that I managed to get two projects completed).  I used the same pattern as I did for the Lace Dress - the featured sheath dress in the 09/2012 magazine.

My daughters are different sizes, so for the this top I had to trace off the pattern again - so no shortcuts for the second project!

The number one request was for a Peter Pan collar, for which I followed Gertie's tutorial to draft a collar specifically for this pattern.  It didn't look anything like Gertie's draft, but it sits perfectly.

This was nice and easy with great results.

I inserted a lap zip in the back - not that you can really tell, because the lace hides this quite well.

I really loved sewing this pattern because there were features of the dress that I hadn't seen before.  First was the side darts which run from the breast to the high hip - hopefully you can see this in the picture below?  This dart provided bust and waist shape all in one - easy and effective.

The second was the shoulder seam, which has a dart in the top of the sleeve, but the dart isn't sewn prior to inserting the sleeve.

The side seams of the sleeve are sewn together then the sleeve is inserted and finally the shoulder seam and dart are sewn in a single line.  I've never inserted such an easy sleeve.

I really enjoyed sewing this pattern and I'm now thinking about making one for myself!

Daughter #2 is in love with her top and hasn't really taken it off since I finished it last Thursday :-)

Finally, THE Lace Dress

Wow, talk about take forever to finish this one.  But finally, after my stretch lace dilemma,  the dress is finished!  And looking damn fine, if I do say so myself. 

The dress was made for my daughter (that's her and our mochi "Jayjay" in the photo), in an effort to build her wardrobe of stylish black clothes (also see the Peephole top made for her).  Why black?  Because this year she is studying make-up artistry and the dress code is black.  But black doesn't have to = boring, right!  Lace is all in, so a lace dress it was at the top of the list.

Early in the year I has purchased (on impulse) the 09/2012 edition of Burda Style magazine and it so happens that the front cover is a lace dress - perfect starting point I thought.

I hadn't actually traced a Burda pattern from their magazine before.  Even though I had sewn other Burda patterns I thought it would be good to start with an 'easy' pattern while I get acclimatised to the magazine instructions, which by the way I read more than a few times to really understand what it was saying.

I was all set to whip this up in a day, easy pattern, lace would be underlined with a cotton and sewn as one, couple of darts and a zip.  So straight forward I didn't even bother to make a muslin.

Well ... then the customisation requests began. "Can the underlining stop above my boobs; can there only be lace across my chest; it must have sleeves (dress code) - but lace only sleeves; can it hug my body, I don't want it to just hang".

No problem -  I put two darts in the back to give it a fitting silhouette and ran the side seams in a little.  I traced the sweetheart neckline from the Cambie bodice and shaped the underlining, tacking the lace to the underlining around the top of the sweetheart neckline.  At this stage I thought I was doing great.  We were up to the next fitting so I could see everything was sitting in place before I tackled the top of the dress.  Yep, construction didn't go according to the instructions because usually you would sew the shoulder seams first, but I had to leave the shoulder seams until now.

It does fit better - but she insisted on holding the dog!

Here is where I hit my conundrum - for the the shoulder and sleeve seams I had lace on lace, and stretch lace at that.  What to do, what to do?  Oh I know, procrastinate!

It's quite hard to photograph this lace!

After some great suggestions from the blogisphere and some more thinking I finally finished the dress ... I inserted some stay tape into the shoulder seams, so they wouldn't stretch over time.  I then eased the sleeves in by hand basting so I could get another fitting and decide whether it needed any additional support.  What would you know, it looked and felt fine, so I proceeded to overlock the seam edges, providing support that moved and then a row of zigzag over top of my hand basted stitches. To provide some support for the lace top I also inserted some shoulder straps made with the underlining fabric - this will prevent the lace across the chest being stretched out of shape because of the weight from the dress.

I may have started this project back at the beginning of April but because I finished it in May, I wonder if that counts towards the Burda Style Sew Along May 2013?  I hope so :-)  Although there is another that I want to make.

Stretch Lace Dilemma

I'm a little bit stuck on how I might go about attaching sleeves to this stretch lace dress, so I'm hoping my sewing blog friends might be able to lend me a helping hand (pretty please).

Doesn't look much just on the hanger!

The story so far:  using a pattern from a Burda Magazine, some beautiful stretch lace underlined with a cotton/lycra that stops at the sweetheart neckline but the lace carries on to cover the chest and shoulder blades - I've achieved the desired look for the dress, however .....

a clearer picture of the sweetheart neckline

My daughter wants the dress to have sleeves - lace sleeves!  The lace is easy to sew when attached to the cotton/lycra underlining but on it's own it's a different story ...  it's probably more like a stretch mesh to sew.

I'm going to finish the neckline with some clear elastic, just enough so the neckline sits against the body and I'm sure this will be easy enough because the elastic will provide a bit of stability for the lace.   To provide some strength over the shoulders I've got some thin straps attached to the underlining which will remove any pull on the lace over the upper body (good plan I think!)

But I am stuck on how to get the sleeves in place.  I've thought about using the stretch clear elastic, but I think that would just feel funny to wear.  Next, maybe using some 1/4" stay tape, apply to the sleeve edge of the dress then fit the sleeve into place.  I am a bit worried that this will be too stiff for the stretch lace and will make the sleeve seam look rigid when the dress is worn.

This has been sitting on my sewing desk for a month, while I ponder.   I'm now getting pressure from the daughter who wants to wear it.  Soooooo I would really appreciate any recommendations that you might have on my sleeve dilemma. 

Thanks in advance :-)

Smart Casual Mila

Yesterday I finished sewing the hooks & eyes, as the finishing touch, to my Mila dress.  After a wash 'n dry I was able to wear it to work today.  What do you think?

(excuse the no shoes - I couldn't wait to get them off my feet after a day at the office!)

You can most certainly tell I've been in the office today - the crinkles in the front, noticeable in the lighter solid colour, are a definite give away.

As mentioned in my earlier Mila post, this was the first time I had downloaded a pattern from www.burdastyle.com for printing at home.  It felt quite strange working from a heavier photocopier paper rather than the usual pattern tissue.  I almost felt like I was damaging my pins.

It was a bit of a funny pattern really.  Usually I just choose a pattern size according to my bust measurement and make an adjustment for my hips and I am good to go.  So I did the same with this pattern, but after the first fitting I had to remove at least 4 inches evenly from the two side seams and back seam (as I had already constructed the front panel).   I also removed about 1 inch from the should seams.  

The front has a inner layer, which you can't see in my pictures, but this inner layer was really, really low - so much so that you could see my bra in my first fitting.  I wasn't able to change this too much but I did manage to raise it so it is a little bit more respectable for the office.  The pattern concept was a good one, but it didn't really pull it off.

I went back to the pattern website to revisit the pictures of the sample dress, and I now see that the front bust area on the this dress (below) are the same as mine - see how her black bra is peeking out the top of the dress.  Luckily I have managed to close the outer layer of my dress more than the picture below so as not to have too much cleavage showing.

After much wiggling and fitting I have a fit that I am happy with.  If I got to do the front all over again I would reconsider the placement of the darts and perhaps separate the front bust pattern piece from the placket so I didn't have to sew a 90 degree angle into the dress, didn't enjoy that part at all.

After wearing the dress for a day I am feeling better about it than when I first tried it on.  I can definitely see this dress being worn over and over and over this summer.

Open source sewing: The Mila Dress

For my next project I have chosen an independent pattern from Mila Fashion on the Burda website.  This is the first time I have downloaded a pattern from the website, printed and assembled it.  I was pleasantly surprised how easy this exercise was; something I would definitely do again.

It is meant to be mid summer, despite that I am sitting here writing this with a blanket wrapped around my legs and a sweatshirt on.  So in preparation for the return of those long summer days I'm going fabric shopping tomorrow, specifically looking for a fun summer cotton.  I'm not sure yet whether I'll go for a contrast in colours (as per the pattern images) or a variation of the same tone - it will come to me when I get to the fabric shop I am sure.

I've already decided that I won't be putting the pockets into the side of the dress - I think this makes my hips look bigger than they need to.  I quite like the hook'n'eye detail down the front of the dress but instead of sewing each individually I'm going to look for a strip of pre-sewn hooks and eyes ... I know this might be slightly cheating but I'm okay with that.  As with all slim fitting dresses I will need to adjust the pattern to allow for my hips, which usually works just fine when I make that adjustment directly to the pattern before cutting.

I think for this dress I won't make a muslin, but I'll allow for a rather large seam allowance and baste the dress together for a fitting before I machine sew it.  This way I can make any fitting adjustments directly onto the dress without too much hassle, and hopefully save a bit of time. 

I always want to wear the garment before I've even cut it out!  My aim for 2013 is to take a bit more time with my projects to improve my fitting skills, which will hopefully give an overall more professional finish to my garments.  Here goes .....