My knit dress TNT

Originally I sort of copied a RTW knit dress for this pattern and it has evolved over time. The dress in question was too small, had darts, was backless and various other things I wasn't after, so it was a combination of a basic shape and being reworked to fit my measurements and shape without the features I didn't want and with the features I did want. I thought about using Winfed Aldrich's book but as my other attempt at using her book had yielded an incredibly baggy 'close-fitting' block that had to be altered to within an inch of it's life, I decided this was the better way to go.

This was the first one, made a couple of days before I went to Sydney for a weekend. It was my first attempt at knit bindings which got better as they went along. Unfortunately, the dress was a bit too short and too 'fitted' for me and tended to ride up with wear - not good unless you're keen on constantly pulling your dress down and/or showing the world your taste in underwear. The big problem with this fabric? Those lines of squares were printed wonky - not even a slight diagonal but an arc! Grrrrr! I have another length of this fabric in a different colourway. It's some kind of synthetic, very thin knit. I think it was about $2 a metre. This  is the only pic and that trip is probably the only time I'll ever wear it unless I lose weight which, with my work out regimen (apparently, it's not enough to just have the gym membership, you actually need to attend) is unlikely.

Second iteration - I've made it long enough to forego the tights and given it sleeves and a funnel neck. Another very thin synthetic knit that tigerboy thinks feels slinky - I think it feels a bit plasticky. What was I thinking making a sleeved dress in a thin, plasticky fabric? There aren't too many days of the year I'm willing to wear this one, just thinking about it makes me feel like I'm sweating. Of course I also made it bigger, naturally, it was too big this time and the hip curve wasn't right so, on, off, on, off, on, off, trying to mark where it should be. Well, lesson learned there - I hadn't overlocked the neck and all of that on and off, squeezing it over my head every time resulted in runs in the fabric from the neck down. I was still determined to have a slight funnel neck so I had to make a new neck/chest to insert - the pattern is so busy you can't tell but it's there - kind of shaped like a small bib. I drafted the sleeves and they don't really have the traditional sleeve shape but hey, I think they work just fine (wouldn't attempt that in a woven though) - to be honest, drafted is severely overstating it, I just traced the armhole for the top part of the sleeve, extended the sides down to the length and brought them in to the width I wanted at the bottom, nope, not the traditional sleeve shape at all. I also had a sway back issue to deal with - a slightly curved (down) horizontal tuck graduating to nothing at the side took care of that. The front neckline could do with a little more room - I always forget that my neck (and presumably everyone else's) goes forward - you need to allow for that. In the side view it looks like it's kicking out at the back - that would be because I'm doing my trademark twist to see if the camera has taken the pic yet.

Third iteration. I threw this one together one day to go out to dinner that night. You'd think that I would have marked the hip curve on the pattern wouldn't you? Especially after wrecking the neck on the previous one but oh no, no I didn't. This one was intended to be for winter, it's a ribbed knit with maybe some cotton in it but it still feels very synthetic. I didn't bother with the sway back tuck for this one because I planned to wear it with a belt.I lightened the first pic so that you could see the ribs - check out those glowing legs! I used the blind hem stitch on my machine for this dress - first time I've ever used it - and it worked perfectly on this fabric, awesome! I think I should have slightly pegged the skirt, oh well, it's not likely to get worn much in Queensland anyway. I do normally wear black shoes with it but as you may have guessed, I don't really go all out for these photoshoots.

 
The fourth iteration (and, I think the only one to be made this year). Wouldn't you know it, this was the night before we had to get up at 4am to fly to Sydney. "Easy, peasy" I think to myself, "I'll just get the pattern out, and knock it up before I go to bed". Well, that might have been true had I been able to find the pattern - after a long time of frantically searching for it I realised that I'd have to start from square one ........ again.  So, a search through my clothes to find the previous dresses, copy one of those and ok, now I can kind of relax and knock it up. Yet another very thin synthetic knit, although this one is really soft (read, difficult for my SM to handle) and not plasticky. I have a lot of this fabric. Years ago I made a black skirt for travelling from it (actually I made two - wasn't happy with the first one), a couple of hours before the cab to take us to the airport was about to arrive - tigerboy was practically hyperventilating, at least it took his mind off his fear of flying ;-)

Quite a bit of last-minute sewing happens in tiger world, tigerboy is slowly learning not to let it drive him nuts (he's the kind that starts packing for a trip a month before hand, with the aid of his regularly checked and updated excel spreadsheet - I kid you not! Thankfully, my spontanaeity sends him so bonkers that he's usually speechless until it's all over and then I can talk him back down.) He's trying to be proactive, a couple of months ago he told me that I needed to plan my sewing for a trip to South Korea, Iceland, England and Spain ha ha ha, it's not happening for months, of course I'm not starting now. Good try tigerboy!

And wouldn't you know it? I've now found the lost pattern, complete with sleeves and bib neck for the next neck I stuff up - any wonder I couldn't find it, I'd put it where it was meant to go with all of my other patterns, as if I would have looked there!

This pattern I made is exactly the same for front and back - I just put the sway back tuck in after the fact and rely on the stretch factor to compensate for the boobs. I think I'll branch out into one with a shaped centre back seam or at least some front darts ........ still thinking on it.


EDIT: I forgot, the slinky dress was also made with this pattern.

Refashion - Maxi to day dress (The Palm Dress)

I love the look of maxi dresses and I own quite a few but I've found that they just aren't all that practical for me. So often they don't have much covering on the shoulders and/or back which means that unless it's hot, I'll get chilled ('cos that's where I notice it first - which would be why I am known for always carrying a pashmina with me, I have them in a billion colours, solids and prints). Of course when it's hot enough for me to be wearing something that only minimally covers the top of me, all that fabric (particularly if it's synthetic) makes my legs hot. So that means that if I'm at home, I'm walking around with my dress skirt scrunched up to let my legs breathe or worse yet, tucked up into the legs of my underwear! Thankfully I haven't inadvertently done this whilst I've been out of the house but it's probably only a matter of time before I forget myself and assault the general public with that charming image - not elegant!!  So, anyhoo, last year I decided that it was time to make my maxis more wearable, ie. a length that doesn't have me fighting to tuck it up into my underwear and possibly commit a grave faux pas. So far I've converted three of them, there's still a few to go though.

After - the hem looks droopy in the side pic but it's not in real life. Actually, those vertical seams look a bit crooked too but I think that's because I just threw it on for the pic and didn't even check the mirror. Oh, I usually wear shoes with it too - talk about lazy!

This particular dress I actually bought at a charity shop with the intention of shortening it - even if I'd wanted to, there was no way I could have worn it with a bra, just look at that bust, a strapless bra would show right through that hole in the middle and I don't do braless. I loved the print and the fabric is a very thin, very stretchy, very slinky knit - feels gorgeous but I was soon to find out that it is a nightmare to sew with my machines. I don't know what this fabric is called but I have quite a few maxis made out of it and quite a bit of it in my stash (which would be a good thing apart from the aforementioned 'nightmare to sew' bit).

Before

I started this dress about this time last year (yes, last year), I finished it in Oct/Nov. Why the delay? The hem - as I've mentioned, that's where so many of my projects sit languishing for months until I get fed up with seeing them sitting around. In the end I used a double needle to do the hem - it's not a great job, there are some skipped stitches but, meh, it's done and it's been worn quite a bit over the summer. I've had a lot of compliments on it too. 

To make it, I basically cut off the extra length all around the bottom, cut that in half and used it to make the top. I very carefully unpicked the top and skirt because I was happy with the way the dress fitted from under the bust and wanted to keep that shape. The new shoulder seams were originally the side seams of the skirt, the original hem is now the neckline (trying to minimise any sewing on this fabric that I can). I sewed the (now) CF together up for  afew inches and overlapped where the two top pieces joined the back skirt a smidge. As I'd cut so much length off, I had to cut down the new bodice pieces so that they matched the skirt but I angled the cut out to the (now) sleeves. The sleeves came a long way down my arms and looked a bit stupid but I still wanted more coverage up there, so I sewed in a stretched piece of elastic with zigzag along the new shoulder seams to gather up the shoulders. Of course it didn't gather as much as I'd wanted because elastic never shrinks back to anywhere near it's original size after I've sewn through it but it was enough. I've since read that apparently there is specific elastic to buy for sewing through in order to have it recover, I wonder if it's easily available in Australia. After all that it was just a matter of hemming the new sleeves and skirt which apparently is a 7 month project for me.

As I said, I wore this quite a bit over the summer and I've found that I really should have made the two bodice pieces a bit shorter, sometimes if I'm not sitting up nice and erect (like I should be), the shoulders start to slip off. I had thought I might just do another round on the overlocker where the bodice and skirt meet but I don't really want to go messing with the length. I plan to make  spaghetti strap out of the left over fabric and sew it across the back neckline - that should take care of that and I'll be able to slouch all that I want.

Vogue 8555 - The Hibiscus Dress

I made this dress last year out of a small piece of very cheap cotton I'd bought about 6/7 years ago (I think the plan was to make a tote). Anyway, I was not confident of getting a good fit 'out of the packet' and before I wasted my animal print sateen on it, I thought I'd make it out of something I didn't love. (When tigerboy saw the animal print his eyes bugged out "Isn't it a bit cougarish?" "Well, I'm over 40 and with a younger man, I'd say if the print fits, wear it." "Okaaaaaay." Doesn't take much to shock Mr. Conservative.)

I had just enough to make the dress - I've only got a few centimetres left. With my limited amount of fabric I did at least try to get the stripes of dark and light purple to kind of match and I think I did the best I could with what I had.

To start with, I'll just get this right out there in the open for anyone that has spent ages poring over pattern reviews trying to work out if the person in the picture is their size and if so, which size they ended up cutting (I did that, boy did I do that). I'm 168cm tall and my measurements are 94cm (37"),  72.5cm (28.5") with the widest part of my thighs being 99.5cm (~39"). According to those measurements, for this dress Vogue says I'm between a size 14 and 16, actually, nearly exactly smack bang in the middle. Additionally, I have an upper bust measurement of 89cm (35"), so if I went by that, I'd be choosing a pattern between a sz 12 and a 14. To confuse things even further - I'm a D or DD cup, have been ever since I was in high school. Nearly everything I've read says that with only a 2" difference between upper bust and bust, I shouldn't even be a D cup. The thing is, my underbust is the same as my waist, so does this mean I have a narrow back? Gah, all I know is that I always have to make patterns smaller.

I had to make quite a few adjustments. I cut a sz 12 for the armscye and neck, a size 14 for the shoulder (length), sz 14 for bodice sides and skirt.  And this was what I got from that. Baggy bodice and baggy skirt.

 The bodice alterations:

• Change midriff side seam to between a sz 14 and a sz 12 just under the arm, grading to a sz 12 for the waist.
• Sewed bodice to midriff with a 5mm (under bust)-1cm (sides) seam allowance because I was concerned about the bust pulling the back forward and the midriff not sitting properly under the bust.
• Sway back adjustment in the back midriff (a horizontal tuck of 3cm in total in the centre, graduating to zero at the side seam).

I could have taken the bodice in a bit more, as you can see from the last pic, there was still plenty of ease in the waist. Next time I'll reduce the sides even further. Unfortunately, these alterations happened after I'd lined the bodice - I hate unpicking but there was just no way I'd wear it the way it was (even so, I'll only go so far). So that left me with a baggy, baggy skirt.

 

The skirt alterations:

• Lengthen darts on skirt considerably and change hip curve (my biggest part is lower than Vogue thinks it will be).
• Change skirt to size 12.
• Add a vent to the back centre seam of skirt.

 In the future, I'll just cut a size 12 of course. I also think it is a tad too long in the shoulders, cutting the size 12 for shoulder length would have fixed that.

I used a very old interfacing that I had, it's stiff like cardboard. I remember that years ago when I used it it ended up bubbling, so I didn't actually fuse it to the fashion fabric, I just sewed it in with the fuse side to the lining. The dress would look better if the midriff was fused to interfacing.

For the lining I used an old piece of plisse that came from my Mum's stash - it was only a tiny piece, just enough to line the bodice. Plisse is like a tiny seersucker. Turns out that although I cut the lining 5mm smaller, plisse is not a great lining fabric, due to the weave it has a bit of stretch.

Plisse lining

Plisse lining

As I'd spent so long fitting this skirt, I actually used it to convert to an A-line when I made the cling wrap bodice dress.

I do plan on making another version, I think I'll incorporate less ease when I make it with the sateen - I'm still planning to go all cougar ;)

Blue slinky knit dress - self drafted.

This dress was a nightmare. I started this dress ................. at least 8 months ago, maybe (probably) more and finished it in December. Each step along the way gave me headaches, even the cutting out. I had JUST enough fabric except there were two little holes in it - I had to darn them and thankfully because of the smooshiness of the slinky, you can't even tell. This fabric is probably nearly 15 years old, so who knows if the holes were there when I bought it (quite possible, I think it was a remnant) or whether they developed with age and it's just the beginning of the end.

I've only sewn with slinky knit once before (which would have been around the time I bought this fabric) and it was a very simple two-piece above the knee dress that I made - side seams and shoulder seams only. That was smart!

I could not get my overlocker to play nicely with this and neither of my sewing machines were much better.  I couldn't find a stitch on either of my sewing machines that would deal with it. In frustration I pulled out a dress I'd made 15 years ago to see what I used in it which turned out to be the overlock stitch on the old sewing machine. Excellent!! Yeah, would have been except that this particular slinky wasn't having it. In desperation I finally used the stitch that has 2/3 straight stitches with a zigzag - that was going to be the best I could manage but the long seams ended up puckered. You can actually see that at the front - it's still noticeable near the hem - after this sitting around for months I just couldn't be bothered 'fixing' it any more. Of course, when I was making the pattern I hadn't taken into account how much slinky knit stretches lengthwise because of the stretch and weight. I ended up having to cut about 4 inches off the top of the dress. I ended up pinning it together at the shoulders to get the 'right' seam line. I tried various treatments to finish off the armholes but all resulted in a lettuce edge look - not what I was going for, until I bought some wonder tape online and viola! Finally I could neatly finish off the armscyes with a straight stitch (still couldn't get the double needle to play ball I think - either that or I just couldn't be bothered stuffing around with it ........... probably option two).

Then of course I had to deal with the hem (which is where a lot of my creations stall). After at least another month of the little blue scrumpled heap being moved from place to place, I hit upon the idea to use hemming web and iron the sucker in place. By this point I wasn't even going to try sewing it as well - I was well and truly over it. I've used hemming web in the past on jeans and wasn't sure if it would hold up on slinky but I've just washed the dress and it's still holding fast, yippee!

Seems I was twisting in the last pic (probably trying to work out whether the camera had taken the pic or not) which has given it some wrinkles that aren't normally there. I can see it needs a press too - even slinky gets wrinkly after being scruched up on floors and in mending boxes for months on end I suppose.

After the experience of this dress it will be a long, long time before I deal with slinky again (I'm fairly sure there's some in my stash but I'm ignoring it and pretending it's not there!)

Basically, to make this dress I used my self drafted TNT knit dress pattern that I've made several dresses with. Obviously I cut up the pattern to give me the seam lines I wanted and extended the shoulders to give me the caps.

Vintage lawn + cling wrap bodice block + hacked up Vogue pattern = new dress

Something I'd been wanting to try ever since I heard of it is the cling wrap (saran wrap) block. Apparently Glad Press N Seal is great for this however we don't have that here in Aus (it is on my list for next time I'm in the US though, yep, I really do have one of those lists).

So basically, you wrap yourself in cling wrap, cut it off you and viola! a bodice block just for you. Let me tell you that without the Press N Seal, it sounds much easier than it is. I tried to do it myself but in the end had to wait for tigerboy to come home. That little incident just provided him with more proof of my eccentricity. "You want me to wrap you in this stuff and then cut it off? Honey, is this really necessary?" Yes, it is.

As I wasn't sure how this would turn out I used some fabric that I wasn't very keen on, this is from the stash I got from Mum. Now that it's made up I actually like it and as this dress is as light as air it gets worn a lot. I think it's lawn, it's very light weight.

There's a step-by-step of making the bodice block here (it's not by me). I found that adding to the side seams didn't work the way I wanted it - I just ended up with too much fabric at the sides - so I ended up giving my bodice block an FBA to get it how I wanted it. If I remember correctly, in that tutorial, she advised not to make both sides the same and to basically trust that the differences are your shape. Of course I didn't - who's ever heard of one breast further from the centre than the other? Obviously a marking error. Well, turns out that I do actually have that - how can I possibly not have noticed until now? I can only put it down to wearing clothes that are not as form fitting as this one. In fact, I've probably overfitted this dress - ah well, it's not tight and fits me like a glove (just wouldn't want to put on much weight).

When Mum came to stay with us after Christmas, I wore this dress to pick her up. Her first words to me were "It was worth the 35 year wait to see that fabric made up."

For the skirt I used  the straight skirt of Vogue 8555 (which I made last year) and closed the darts to make it an A-line. I used a hot pink bias binding for the armscyes and neckline (more from Mum's stash).

I decided to try a side zipper for this dress (I've only ever done centre back zippers). Unfortunately, the one I literally spent 60 sec on throwing in while I was making sure that the fit was ok was perfect, no so when I took it out and tried to put the final zipper in the 'proper' way. In the end I just thought I'd live with it - the chances that anyone is inspecting under my arm is small, I'd say. Again, the zipper was a vintage zipper from Mum's donation to my stash.

I have to say that although I do like not having to contort myself to open and close a zipper, I do miss being able to just step into a dress.

The only thing I'd change is add just a smidge of room at the front bottom of the armscyes, but just a smidge. All in all, this dress is a winner and I will be making more.

2011 - the quickie review

Oh yes, it's been a while right? Between work and travel I did get some sewing done though - I also got my own dedicated sewing room.

All of the rain at the end of 2010 meant that our house was in imminent danger of actually breaking in half (yep, just like a Kit Kat), so we had to have some extensive work done that wasn't actually going to add resale value to it (mind you, it sure would stave off the plummet in value if it broke in half). Anyway, I figured that for just a bit extra we could actually add two rooms to the house which would at least add value - viola! a new sewing room for me!! (I wouldn't actually recommend this course of action as a way to get your own dedicated sewing room but if all else fails......... I'm just sayin').

So this year there were a couple of trips to Sydney (lots of fabric buying!), a trip to Oman and the UAE (yep, more fabric buying but I was really restrained) and a trip to Heron Island, nope no fabric buying there, lots of snorkelling with sharks, rays and turtles and eating fantastic food that was cooked for me though.

So, here's a quick breakdown of what I did get a chance to make in 2011:

Made from patterns

• Vogue 8555 - Hibiscus dress
• Pink Lekala dress
• Vogue blue knit dress
• Get Creative Retro dress

Self drafted

• Blue paisley sheath with sleeves
• Pink & black sleeveless mod dress
• Black funnel neck winter dress
• Black sleeveless mod dress
• Blue stripe slinky knit dress
• Navy vintage dress
• New dress for Mum (Jan 2012)
• PJ's for Mum (Jan 2012)
• Quilt cover sheath dress

Refashions (minor & major)

• White/Green palm maxi
• Blue/Green maxi
• Blouses from Abu Dhabi (Jan 2012)
• Blue cotton top (Jan 2012)
• Green & Grey silky dress
• 3 different dresses for Mum (Jan 2012)
  

Miscellaneous

• Christmas apron for the parents in law
• Emery pin cushions
• Ecuadorian cushion covers

What's been started: Vogue shirtdress, Wrap refashion, Palin bag for tigerboy. 

I have a feeling that I've left some things out - I'll add them as I think of them. When I look at the list it's not actually too bad - I thought I'd done a lot less. Quite a bit of this list was finished off in the last few months, I just had to reduce the UFO's.

This is the only pic I've got of the pink & black sleeveless mod dress - I made it before one of our Sydney trips but it turned out just a bit too tight and short for me to feel comfortable (it had a tendency to want to ride up and I do not want clothes I have to fuss with, as far as I'm concerned, once it's on, that should be the end of the story until I need to take it off).

As for everything else in the list? I'll just have to get around to putting them up here and on pattern review.