Making an A-line skirt pattern from a straight skirt pattern

This is the pattern I used for the skirt in the cling wrap bodice dress and both of the Vogue 8728 dresses. I started out with the skirt pattern from my Vogue 8555 Hibiscus dress. I'd spent ages mucking around to get the darts right and lowering the waist for my sway back, so I knew it fitted (as well as I could get it to, anyway). I remembered seeing this tip somewhere and from what I could remember it made sense that it would work, so I had a search through some of my books. There it was in Enid Gilchrist's 70's Styles.

Basically, you just slash from the hem up to the bottom of each dart, close the darts and viola! Perfectly fitting A-line.

I didn't add the suggested extensions to the sides, which means that mine are kind of slim fitting through the hips but that was what I wanted.

Travel shorts & bla bla

I made these little black shorts years ago, specifically for travelling overseas (where no one I know will see me). I copied the pattern of some pyjama shorts, modified it heavily so that they weren't actually gathered at the waist and the inside legs were perpendicular to the ground (I've discovered that that curve on the inside leg generally doesn't work for me - it needs some serious readjustment). I even lengthened them but not really enough - there's no way I'd be wearing these anywhere except places where the odds of me running into someone I know are slim (Panama, Cuba, Ecuador etc.).

Tigerboy was suitably scandalised that I was going to wear something so revealing out in public (suck it up baby, my entire reason for living is to have you fear for what I'll wear next ~rolling my eyes~). The waist band is actually just a piece of the knit doubled over and serged to the body of the shorts - no elastic, no rope. I had my doubts that this waistband arrangement would stand the test of time but it's still fine. They're great for travel, comfy, crease proof and can scrumple up to fit in my two hands (bras take up a lot more room).

I don't have any good pics that feature them but you can actually see them in these pics (two of them, anyway).

Heron Island - ha, see the shorts? Oh, you can't even see me?

Ecuador - I would have to say that I am accomplished in the art of falconry (cough, cough, cough) - just ignore that concerned look on the assistant's face.

Hawaii - just look at that glowing skin lol

In other news:

• The Palin bag is finally finished - that thing is like the cockroaches, it'll survive a nuclear disaster (it had better after all of the blood, sweat and tears)
• Butterick 5672 - many people have made it and it looks awesome on them. I had a feeling that it wouldn't go so well for me, I could see those pleats drooping but really, how can so many people (all with different body shapes) get such great results and not me? Well, I've managed to sucessfully go against the crowd - droopy mess. I'm undecided as to whether I'll put MORE frustration into it or not.
• Burda scoop neck dress - late last night I realised that I'd cut it out without the s.a.'s - what can I say? I have had some serious brain malfunctions lately, B5672 actually had me concerned for my sanity at one point.
• The size 22 dress refashion is done, it's also been worn - I imagine that in a couple of months there will even be pics.
• Of course there's also been the (seemingly) endless but incredibly exciting (no, not so much) mending and fixing jobs eg. 

"Hon, these pyjama pants keep coming undone and falling down."
"Tie the waist tighter." (Yes, I am very sympathetic to these situations.)
"I tried, they keep coming undone, is there anything you can do?"
"There's a lot of things I can do - water ski, shoot, cook - I don't think any of that will help though." (Ok, I didn't actually say that, I took the path of least resistance and offered the elastic solution - I'm a saint.)

Another 'fix' for a sway back on a one-piece dress pattern.

This is not a fix I've tried. My usual MO is to take a horizontal wedge out of the back - approx. 1" high in the centre, tapering to zero at the side seam - which means I have oddly shaped back pieces.

This is from McCall's STEP-BY-STEP SEWING BOOK - click on it to view it at full size.

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.

Reverse Applique Pyjamas - Menswear Contest

Done!!

Ok, so I said I was going to do birds because Tigerboy is crazy about birds, parrots in particular. No, I don't actually think that these are birds. I just decided that I wanted to do something other than birds - he always gets bird things. I thought that as this is a replacement (in part) for the dive he was meant to do I'd do something to remind him of our holiday on Heron Island and the snorkelling. (The snorkelling is a big deal - a few years ago I was still trying to coax him to go out further than where the water was up to his knees when we were at the beach and now I've got him to the stage where he can be snorkelling in water where he can't touch, keeping his head under and sometimes not even close to land - we've come a long way.) So anyway, I thought of rays, we saw alot of them on Heron but I realised that I saw a lot more than him as I went snorkelling without him on the last day. So ....... turtles, we snorkelled with one in the Galapagos for quite a while, he saw one while we were snorkelling on Heron and he saw one just finishing up laying her eggs on Heron.

Galapagos - Green turtle

Galapagos - Green turtle

Heron Island - Green turtle covering eggs.

Heron Island - Green turtle returning to the sea.

Pattern Description:

Mens Summer PJ's - T-shirt top with 'raggedy' edge finish and reverse applique turtles. Long shorts with fly opening and elasticised waist. Contrast top stitching.

Pattern:

For the t-shirt I copied a RTW.
For the pants, I modified a Kwik Sew 2388 Mens Pyjamas pattern.

Were the instructions easy to follow?

I didn't actually use them this time - not much can go wrong with pyjama pants.

When I taught Tigerboy to sew (a few years ago), he used this pattern to make his father some winter PJ's. I seem to remember that I thought their instructions for finishing off the cuff of the pants weren't too good and left a raw edge exposed? I got him to do it a better way.

Fabric Used:
This is a mystery knit. It's quite light and there is a fine rib on one side with loops on the other, the rib side has a slight sheen - I used the loop side for the outside. I find it a little scratchy, kind of like wool but as I had thought, tigerboy doesn't seem to notice.

Pattern alterations or any design changes you made:
Pants: I lengthened the upper leg so that the 'shorts' hem would be at the knee because that's where tigerboy likes his shorts. Instead of using a drawstring, I added elastic and sewed the top of the fly together, securing the elastic from each side). Instead of a snap in the fly, I used a press stud. I also used hemming web in the fly where some people might use interfacing just so that it had a nice crisp line.

Shirt: I reverse appliqued four turtles using a t-shirt that ended up at our place when my sister was going through her closets one time (good way to use up scraps). With washing the edges of the outer fabric should curl a bit. I decided to carry that over on all of the edges (neck, sleeves, hems) bysewing an extra strip of the fabric along the edge. leaving all edges raw. It's actually a treatment one of my RTW pairs of pyjamas has and it's quite effective. On the shirt I used the selvedge as it was already curled however the pants will need some washing to get the fabric strips to curl.

Seams are serged (except for front crotch going up to fly).

Would you sew it again? Would you recommend it to others?
I recently picked up 5 metres of flannelette for $1 a metre so that Tigerboy can make his Dad another set of PJ's, so the pattern will be used again.
The next time he needs some summer pj's, I can give him the patterns I made for the t-shirt and shorts and he can do it himself (because I am a mean, mean girl!).

Conclusion:

This was a good way to get rid of some knit that I would never wear myself, decrease the stash, enter a competition, try a new finish and get brownie points from Tigerboy.
He loves them and tells me they'll be going to England with him when he visits his parents this year. He's not so struck on the (as he calls it) 'raggedy' edges but he'll live with it.

The raggedy trim:

The fly:

Turtles close up:

Now to get a pic of him wearing them .............

Action shot of pj's - this is what pj's are for in our house, after the shower and before bed.

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.

Self Drafted Sheath - Wearable Muslin

Update:

My self drafted sheath had one really buggy thing about it - there seemed to be a pouch under the tummy area. All I could think of was to lengthen the darts but really, contour darts nearly to the hem?? After consulting the fitting gurus at Pattern Review, the general consensus was that sometimes that's what you've got to do.


Well, I ended up making the darts about 3 inches longer and also taking them in (both front and back) which has given me more definition in the waist and removed that pouch under my tummy - excellent! (No pic yet)

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 

So, this dress started life as a single bed quilt cover. There it is on our lounge room floor, waiting to be cut up. 

The muslin was drafted over a period of several months, actually, it was drafted quickly ....... the fitting was a completely different story. I drafted it, made it up in calico and it was like a great big sack - ridiculous amounts of ease Winifred Aldrich! This is meant to be a 'close fitting' dress! So then began the long journey of fitting. I'd work on improving it for hours and hours, then give up and put it away for ages. A week/month later, out it would come again, it'd get some more improvements until frustration got the better of me (and it). At one point I found that I actually had a sheath dress pattern in my stash, I thought I'd give it a go ........... bad, bad move. It was worse than what I'd started with! I promptly tossed that and decided to stick with what I had.

Finally, this is what I've got. For some reason there's a diagonal drag line across the top chest in the photos - after seeing that, I checked the mirror, nope, not there - clearly I was standing strangely. There still seems to be too much room over the stomach area, maybe if I lengthen the darts it will improve it. One thing that didn't make sense to me was, as drafted, the front hip width was wider than the back hip width - this seems backwards to me, I know I stick out way more at the back! I think I ended up taking some width from the front but there's still a bit of pouching going on.

This was my first time using bias binding - I wanted to have at least 1cm of trim showing, so I used the wide binding. Unfortunately, I didn't think I'd be able to cajole that wide binding into a keyhole opening as I had planned. I thought about cutting it in half and reironing it so that the keyhole only had narrow binding but I thought that might look a bit stupid and to be honest, my patience was wearing thin, so bye bye keyhole, I'll see you in another piece of clothing.

Centre back zip (I've never done any other kind of zip - but I plan to), hook & eye closure (wouldn't you know it, I did two stitches and realised I had the hook on backwards!! It's still backwards :-\ )back vent, centre front & back darts, horizontal bust darts.

It's a very easy dress to wear, no problems sitting or running and, as this is cotton, it's really light and feels like you're wearing air - perfect for our summers. It's an 'around the house' dress at the moment.

So, there you go - what is the deal with that front part??

$10 quilt cover (still a lot left - machine covers?), $1.58 bias, hook & eye set
From the stash: zipper that had been pulled out of something else (probably from my Mother's stash and older than I am), thread

How to make a cape / capelet

This is from a book I just received - Successful Dressmaking The Complete Book of Dressmaking, fully illustrated with step by step instructions by Ellen & Marietta Resek