New York, New York - Vintage Butterick

Wandering through Textile Traders, this New York print fabric caught my eye. It was a bit polyestery, but I thought the print would make a cool dress, so I went for it. It is all black and white buildings with yellow taxis and red other things.

I chose this vintage pattern, Butterick 5208, that I have made once before in gold fabric. The two dresses turned out completely different, which is a good thing for wardrobe variety.

I omitted the pockets as I thought the fabric was a bit lightweight to hold them. Shame, I liked the pockets. I also left off the collar. I used the all-in-one facing that I had drafted last time. This finished off the neckline and armholes nicely. I had to take in the side seams a bit too.

I cut red knit fabric out for the side panels, sewed it together and then decided the red was a bit much. I recut the panels in black, inserted one and changed my mind again. Not being able to decide whether I preferred the black or the red panel, I left one of each.

I like the squared off armholes in this pattern.

And the front zip feels quite edgy, even though it's a vintage pattern.

I wore my wellies for the photos just for fun. It was warm enough today for sandals but I'm planning to wear this though the winter with tights and boots.

A bit of blurriness and you can almost believe I'm from the 70s!

Playing with shadows - Butterick 5454 wrap dress take 2

It's been a few weeks and I have sufficiently recovered from my Great British Sewing Bee challenge to attempt this wrap dress a second time.

Let's just pause and admire that print matching across and down the dress. The back and the side seams. Be still my fluttering heart!

How cool is that shadow?

Needless to say, I'm rather more pleased with this dress the second time around. The pattern is Butterick 5454 downloaded free (sans instructions) from here.

I kept my timer well and truly hidden away during this project and it was an easy and fun dress to sew, even without instructions. I don't know what it is about timing a project, but it just brings stress and all-round miserableness and I certainly won't be doing it again in a hurry!

The fabric is a thickish, stable stretch knit, a bit like ponte but with a smoother finish. I got it from Spotlight. I much prefer the thicker fabric for this dress as it covers lumps and bumps from underwear and other random bulginess.  The pleats at the shoulders and skirt don't sit quite as flat in this fabric, but I still think it's better than the lightweight knit.

 I took care with the cutting to keep the pattern where I wanted it. The front is cut on the bias and the back and skirt are on grain. I went back and forth over whether to bind the front edges or fold and stitch (which I think is what the pattern intends). In the end I folded and stitched, which means the fit is right, but there is a touch of gaping at the front, which could have been eliminated if I'd used binding. Oh well. I sewed on a little press stud and it's absolutely fine.

 I added some navy piping along the edge of the waist tie. It's a bit hard to see and probably didn't make much difference. It's adds a bit of interest on close inspection I guess.

 I like the back and the sleeve length and I'm pretty happy with the front, although the ties could have been longer. It could maybe have done with a tiny bit more length in the skirt, but otherwise I'm happy with the fit.

 Here are some pictures on the mannequin so you can soak up that pattern matching. You know you want to!

This is not the style or print that I usually wear, but I am very happy with this dress. It's super comfy. Also, while I was halfway through making it I came across this picture:

Source

Ok, hers is a real DVF, but I bet she didn't make it herself. Just shows what good taste I have. Ha!

Great British Sewing Bee Challenge

“Sewers, you have a week to make a garment inspired by the current series of The Great British Sewing Bee.”

So were the words of Marianna from Sew2Pro last Tuesday.

Source

I LOVE the GBSB. I watched every episode of the first series on You Tube with pure glee and bliss and excitement and roller coaster emotions. Reality TV at its best! Hang on - there's a second series??? And there have already been seven episodes??? Let's just say that several hours over the next three days were spent very happily ensconced in front of the BBC on my computer.  Tip: if you are outside the UK, you can watch the BBC by installing this add-on from Media hint which works on Chrome and Firefox. The episodes will be available until 15th April and the final is tonight!! Get watching people!

So, after emerging, bleary-eyed from watching the first seven episodes (I loved every minute), I started considering Marianna's challenge.

I decided to include several things in my challenge:

- a time limit;
- use fabric from my haberdashery stash;
- use as many techniques from the series as possible in my one garment.

After perusing my stash (that took some time in itself), I decided to use stretch fabric (episode 3) to make a wrap dress (episode 3) and do some pattern matching (episode 2). Marianna kindly provided the link to some of the patterns used in the series and I downloaded the wrap dress. Some detective work revealed that the pattern was actually Butterick 5454.

Butterick 5454

I decided to use some stretch fabric with diagonal stripes for my dress and to cut it in a clever way so that the stripes criss-crossed elegantly and flatteringly at the front and met in a very aesthetically pleasing diamond at the back. No worries mate.

So, with the pattern printed and glued together, I set myself three hours for the challenge.

I think I am a pretty fast sewer. There were no instructions and I knew the pattern matching would prolong the cutting out process, but I thought three hours was doable. Ha! Little did I know....

Dramatic TV moment 1: The pattern matching was a nightmare. 'Like a TOTAL nightmare' as my son would say. I cut each pattern piece from a single layer then flipped that piece to match the pattern and have the stripes going in the opposite direction. But where was the opposite direction? The diagonal stripes meant that each piece had to be flipped 90 degrees, not 180 as I first thought. Oh dear. Knowing that stretch fabric needs to have the greatest stretch going around the body, this was a bit of a spanner in the works. However, after a quick stretch test, I decided that this fabric was of similar stretch up and down as it was side to side, so I just went for it.

I had to cut each piece as I went, rather than being able to lay all the pieces out on the fabric first. I had quite a large piece of fabric ($2 from the op shop - score!) so I thought it would be fine, despite cutting a couple of pieces the wrong way round and having to recut them.

I was wrong.

Dramatic TV moment 2 (head in hands, horrorstruck): The above picture shows the back skirt piece not fitting on my remaining piece of fabric. OK. Recover. Not to worry, I'll just put in a stripe matching patch and no one will ever know...

It took over an hour to cut out all my pieces except the sleeves and the waist tie. I was careful to match the stripes and orient them in the desired direction. I thought I'd got that right.

I thought I had, but I hadn't.

I pressed on. Having that timer running was way more stressful that I expected. The pressure on the actual GBSB must have been so intense.

I started sewing the bodice first. The back was looking good. The front was looking bad. How did the stripes end up in the same freaking direction when I was so careful cutting the pieces?

Then, with little time left, I sewed the skirt. Again, the back was the only reasonable section.

Before I knew it, there was only one minute to go! Very dramatic TV moment.

One minute to go!!!!!

I forced myself to step away from the machine and put the dress on the mannequin.

The bodice and the skirt were still two separate pieces. The edges of the skirt were unfinished, the sleeves and waist tie were not even cut out.

I saw Patrick and May approaching and hid the offending pins.

Fortunately Patrick and May allowed me to go away and finish the dress before they did their final assessment.

I was ready to run fast and far in the opposite direction, tossing the wrap dress in the nearest bin on my way past.

I considered my options. Did I have time to go fabric shopping and start again? I pondered some more and then an amazing thing happened. Project Runway's Tim Gunn murmured in my ear: "Make it work".

Gathering my dregs of enthusiasm for this project I picked up my dress and my timer and forced myself to continue.

It took me another 2 hours and 43 minutes to finally finish.

"The first thing I notice" said May "is that the stripes are all running in the same direction at the front...

...but in four different directions at the back"

"Completely intentional" I lied.

"The pattern matching is not bad in places" said Patrick.

"I love you Patrick" said I.

"And the top-stitching with the twin needle is handled quite well" added May.

I breathed a sigh of relief. Things were looking quite good. Until...

"Oh dear" said May, "what is this seam here? Has a patch been added at the back of the skirt???

"Oh help!"

"Meggipeg, you are the weakest link. Goodbye."

Well, it's definitely not my finest piece of sewing, or my favourite piece of fabric, but I did challenge myself and, despite some stressful moments, I had a lot of fun with this sew.

Is it wearable? Let's see.

It fits.

The back is pretty cool (can you see the patch?).

It could be worse. Actually, I really like this pattern and I challenge myself to get some really lovely stretch fabric (NOT striped) and make it properly next time. In three hours.

Betcha I can.

PS. Thank you to Marianna for a really fun competition.

My handmade Christmas Prezzies 2013

I was very busy sewing this Christmas, mostly for my youngest niece who is 18 months old.

I made her a runway collection!

This consisted of:
Blue tank top, flowered and green pants/shorts and flowered cross-over top (flower fabric from Spotlight) - Butterick 3846, size L;
Pink dress - The Warhol dress, free pattern from MADE with an added ruffle at the hemline;
Flower print sun jacket - Kwik Sew 2596, View C, with added sleeves, no peplum and altered at the front so it is open and cool;
Ruched leggings - also Kwik Sew 2596 with a piece of elastic stretched and sewn at the lower outside seam to create the ruching.

Here she is in some of the pieces:

Kwik Sew 2596 (altered)

Kwik Sew 2596 (altered)

Butterick 3846

Butterick 3846

The Warhol dress- MADE

I also made owl cushions for both nieces. I looked at Google images and came up with my own design. I can't find the photo I took of the finished cushions, but here is Miss 18 months unwrapping hers (yes, she is always the centre of attention!):

and again later at home

For my older niece, I made this dress from light and airy, blue patterned cotton. I used Patrones magazine 30 (a recent edition full of children's patterns), dress No. 2. I had purchased the fabric for me, but thought it would be perfect for Miss 8, which it was. I raced back to Textile Traders for some more at the first opportunity!

The neckline and armholes are bound with a strip of lycra, folded in half, stitched to the inside of the dress first and then folded over the edge and stitched again, a variation on this method. The same turquoise lycra is used for the ruching.

I also made a skirt for my sister (not photographed) and these shoe bags for my (hard to buy for) brother-in-law.

Everyone seemed very happy with their meggipeg prezzies and the hard work was all made worthwhile (actually it made my year) when I received this letter from my niece with a picture of her wearing the blue dress and hi-top sneakers I also got for her.