Bettine wearable toile: AKA the Robin Hood dress

Sorry to start with such a posey photo but its quiet flattering so I'm rolling with it! This is my first version of Tilly and the Buttons Bettine Dress which I made as a wearable toile (something you are getting used to seeing me doing here!). Its actually a pretty good version and my god this dress is easy to wear! Its made from some green viscose that again I just bought off eBay.

I have been wanting to make a green dress for ages as green really suits my colouring but is not a colour I would normally be drawn to when clothes shopping. I really like this shade of green, its a sort of emerald colour and it goes really well with the pink (that pink belt is an awesome pairing though I'm not sure everyone would agree). However the first time I tried this on after making it Mr Fox turned round to me and said 'Oh hello Robin Hood, you look like your getting ready to star in a panto'! I don't really think that was a compliment but do you know what I know exactly what he means, it pretty much summed up what I was thinking as without the belt it does look a bit like that.

But anyway lets not let that deter from this actually being a dress I really quiet like. This is an amazing pattern, really simple, easy to follow (as always from Tilly) and really quick to make. I made it much harder by using french seams rather than the overlocker (something I probably wont bother with next time) but it still came together really fast. Tilly has said on a number of occasions this is the most comfortable dress you can wear and she is not joking! You just slip it over your head and head out the door. The top is drapey giving lots of room for movement, the elastic belt helps flatter your waist and the fitted skirt makes a lovely shape around your bottom half. I sewed a straight size 3 because there is lots of room in the top for me to not need a FBA.The sleeves are perhaps a little tighter than they should be and its a little snug in the seat but I don't think I will bother making any adjustments for the next version. Its summer after all I'll just finally try and get round to loosing that 3lb i've been meaning to get off for the last 2 months (as much as you can 'mean' to loose weight whilst eating chocolate!).

As mentioned above the fabric is a lovely drapey viscose. I chose viscose as the fabric I have for my proper version is a polyester crepe so I needed something which had a lovely drape and viscose does that. It does however have a tendency to fray so I used lovely french seams throughout. The other issue with viscose is it has a tendency to stretch when you sew it. I didn't use interfacing on the facing piece as suggested because I wanted to keep the bouncy nature of the fabric so I self faced it with another piece of viscose. This did mean my inside facing is not as neat as I would have liked but it was a lesson for making up my crepe version.

The other odd thing I thought about this dress as soon as I put it on was 'do you know what this dress really needs? Pockets'. I can totally see why the pattern comes with a pocket variation I would love to just sink my hands into a lovely deep pair of pockets on the front so I definitely need to plan making one of these vertions. I have some lovely Atelier Brunette fabric which I think would suit this pattern very well. I think this dress is something which definitely benefits from a print fabric.

So on that final note I am giving some serious thought into adding some kind of embellishment to this dress, its something I don't normally do (hand sewing urgh!) but I am not really sure what or where to start? So if you have any ideas of how I could embellish this dress to make it a bit less plain then PLEASE leave me a comment. I am possibly thinking of a sort of black floral trim around the neck with maybe some pink sequins/beads hand sewn on?

Neon Skulls Kim Dress

There seems to be a bit of a neon theme going on here at the minute but this dress is a lot less gawdy than the tutu outfit I posted last week! I totally wasn't sure about this fabric when I bought it but I actually really like it now its turned into a dress. Also, before we carry on can I just address the fact that I bloody love my shiny Dr Marten Mary Janes, they literally go with everything.

This was a mock up test version of By Hand London's Kim Dress. It's the first time I've made this dress but I was looking for something with princess seems so it fit the bill. 

A couple of things to say about this dress before I go into a bit more detail. I really like the sweetheart neckline and the full skirt, especially in this viscose, the skirt is lovely to wear but my god it's a bit boobalicious! You cant really tell from these pictures but when I am sat and look down they are all I can see! I had the same thing with my last by hand London dress so they obviously like a low neckline but I'm struggling to wear this in the daytime! I think It's going to have to be an out to the pub dress rather than a chilling at home on a summers day dress.

The fabric was some viscose which I got from ebay. There is lots of it on there so you should be able to find it, I also think its one of those lovely cheap fabrics you are likely to find on your local market stall so certainly very inexpensive. I have started to really love viscose. Its so easy to wear and really cheap to buy. The only issue is it can stretch out of shape quiet easily when sewing and also it frays A LOT. but if you can get over that you can make some lovely summer outfits out of it. The reason I used this to make a mock up is because it was so cheap. You can see in the photo below there is a bit of excess fabric in the front bodice and this is due to it changing shape and ending up bigger than the cotton fabric I used to line it but its totally fine to wear.

I re-took my measurements before I made this dress and matched them up against the pattern and I fit the size 12 exactly (35, 28, 36). I sat there and I thought how can I have the exact measurements of the pattern but know even before I begin that if I sew this straight from the pattern pieces its not going to fit me? What I realised was that my back is proportionally smaller than my front and that what I need to do is cut out the size 12 but take a % out of the front and equate that into the same in the front as a full bust adjustment. I made a 3/4 inch adjustment to both front and back but actually I think that maybe should have been a whole 1 inch but again its a better fit than it would have been.

I started off making this dress really fast and rushing through it because I have another version planned which is the one I really want to make. I have spoken before about how when you take your time over something you are much more likely to enjoy the result but I was totally ignoring my own advice here. Thankfully Karen over at Did You Make That made a very well timed post about learning sewing patience. I really needed this. I think I sometimes try and make things really quickly to have something to blog about but what she made me realise was that actually you can have some very useful things to say as a blogger without always having to blog about something you made. So I thank Karen for the great outcome of this dress for making me slow down, take my time and enjoy the process. And do you know what, it really worked. I do love this dress (I've had it on for 2 days) and I think its totally down to the fact I took some care over it.

 So that's it from me for this week, I hope you like my new dress :) I am going to have to sign off because I can hear master Fox has woken up. But as a closing thought have you ever read any non sewing posts which totally inspired you in other aspects?

Houndstooth Lilou Dress

This is the last pattern from the Love at First Stitch book and the one which I was really keen to make as its the pattern in the book which I think most matches my personal clothing style. I opted for the pleased skirt version over the gathered one as I think that pleats flatter my shape a little better, at least in a more structured fabric. This dress is made with all my style points ticked: Cute little sleeveless dress with a fitted bodice, monochrome (everything has to be monochrome at the minute!) and a punky hounds tooth print. There is a massive error in this dress though. I'll talk about it later but I wonder if you can spot it in the meantime. The dress as a whole does make me very happy though.

The fabric is a gorgeous large hounds tooth print viscose which again I bought from Croft Mill. I realise it looks monochrome but its actually a very slight off white and dark purple weave but you might as well call it black and white, its about as damn near. You are probably wondering if I ever buy any fabric from anywhere else but here or eBay but the truth is Croft Mill just have this brilliant knack of finding fabrics which suit my taste. They have a nice mix of different types of dress fabric, so there is usually something for every occasion, they manage to find lots of interesting prints which you don't see the same in every fabric shop, and finally their prices aren't crazy. (You just made me go check out their newly stocked section and I'm already coveting a load more fabric from them and Ive got at least 4 in my sewing pile already!)

For the lining I used some cotton fabric from Makower with a cute scissor print on. Now this is a total copy from the book as Tilly's version also has a red version of this fabric as a lining, but the truth is I've had half a meter of this in my stash for forever and never had a project for such a small piece so it was fate really. The cotton does react differently to the viscose but it has helped the give the bodice a bit of structure which is better, whilst the skirt still flows beautifully because of the drape of the viscose.

I made a lot of alterations to this dress, and its still far from fitting well. I cut a size 3, did a 1.5 inch bust adjust and then added a small back adjust. The small back adjust made a huge difference to the fit there and I'm really glad I tried it. It will definitely be doing that again. However once it was sewn there was a lot of room in the waist still and there is far too much fabric in the back so I ended up re-sewing the side seams. So now I am thinking that for one bodice piece I really need to make all the following adjustments: full bust, small back, small waist and sway back! It's probably time I took my sister up on her very kind offer to help me and my mum make a body block.

There are a lot of things I really tried to do right with this dress, especially given the print, that just didn't work out. I made a muslin which seemed ok, but turned out not to be so great. I was so particular to cut with the print and pattern matching in mind, especially where the dress and bodice meet, but I made a glaring obvious mistake and sewed the pleats on the wrong side of the fabric. The front skirt is actually wrong side out (thank god for viscose!) but it means the print is reversed and that there was no way I could pattern match down the front. I actually don't think its that obvious to spot but its really annoyed me. On the plus side at least the print runs in a straight line so that I am very grateful for.

That being said I really like it and I figured that if I had bought this dress in a shop the fit wouldn't be great, the pattern wouldn't match and given how much I paid for the fabric its a bargain. I really do need to get this pattern matching thing sorted out though. The bottom line is that I really like the dress pattern so I will definitely be making it again, I just need to work a bit harder on getting it to fit perfectly. I am doing really well at getting closer to my pre-preg weight though so I think I will give it another month and then work on really getting this pattern to fit, as I can see me having a few versions of it as a wardrobe staple.

Did you manage to spot the mistake?

Valentines Clemence Skirt

Ok so I'm 5 days late posting about Valentines but you'll forgive me right? Hopefully the day went alright for you and you were treated, whether it was a treat for yourself or from someone else. Sometimes the treats for yourself are the best kind, at least you are getting something you really want ;)

Anyway, on to the point. Here is my lovely little version of the Clemence skirt from Love at First Stitch in a very well timed cute tiny heart print viscose. I wore this little number whilst out on a date with Mr Fox at the weekend, I think we are probably two of the last people in the world to go see Star Wars at the cinema!!. It's a very comfy, easy to wear little skirt with lots of swoosh, as I found out today when I stepped out in the wind! Whoops!

The pattern is the 5th in the book and calls for you to draft your own pattern. Honestly, its so easy, you just have to draw 3 rectangles using your own measurements. I did get the measurements spot on, but it must have been an off day as honestly I could not transfer them to paper for love nor money! I got there in the end though. Its a very simply concept of 3 skirt pieces sewn together, gathered across the top (its a lot of gathering!) in to waistband and then inserting a zip. I did half the height of the waistband after my problems with Delpine and this made a massive difference. The skirt sits much better on my hips now. This is something I will definitely keep an eye on when making any skirts up in the future.  This pattern also had us learning french seems, again not a first for me, but it does make a lovely finish for this inside of this skirt.

I chose to use a viscose for this project (sorry, another Ebay purchase) because I have made a gathered skirt before, Tilly's picnic blanket skirt, out of cotton poplin and I wasn't a massive fan of how poofy the cotton made the gathers under the waistband look when sat on my hips. I think this is because all my chunk sits just here and it just exaggerates it a bit too much. I had hoped that a nice drapey fabric might stop this happening so much but the truth is it didn't really. Never mind, its not so bad that I won't wear it, I'm actually quiet a fan of this skirt, I think its because its so full at the bottom, its really nice to wear.

So that's my Valentines skirt, next up is a blouse. I am in two minds about this. I love the fabric I have chosen for it, but the pattern (and the fabric) frightens me a little bit. I can see the urge to procrastinate on this one so fingers crossed that isn't the case.