Firence Viscose Princess-Seammed Dress

 This last summer we had a wonderful road trip around Tuscany. We spent some days in Florence and we celebrated my birthday there, going to a great fabric shop and then having a bistecca for lunch in the San Lorenzo quarter. I believe Italian food is overestimated, but not fabric. 

In Bacci Tesutti, I met this wonderful salesman, who showed to me all their fabulous natural fabrics and recommended some other under the counter ones. I had an almost mystical-consumist experience shoping there! I finally got this viscose, an English embroidered cotton, some silk and a wonderful black wool crepe. I hope to parade them all here, and this is the first I've made. 

I had in mind the Shelby Dress pattern, and I thought this would be the perfect viscose for it. I used the Saraste blouse pattern as a starting point, because it has a good easy fit and complete princess lines like the Shelby dress. 

As for modifications, I elongated the four panels, drawing and evasée skirt, simply making lines longer. I then changed the neck opening, using a self-drafted V-neck, which meets the shirt lapped opeing. I draw and made an interfaced double front placked, which included the back and front neck opening and all the front down to the bottom, with buttonholes and mother of pearl buttons. 

I like the hacked pattern better than the fabric, after all. I took the pictures after two very hot days of wear at my job, which were pretty intense... but it is wrinkled and... well, I've seen better quality viscoses... also, I realized three of the four fabrics were 10 cm shorter than I bought, and I then understood the 10% discount offered at paying.

Swimingpool Bag and Terrace Cushions in Cotton Canvas

 My old straw basket, that I used to put my swimingpool stuff in, broke after many years of use. I looked in several markets, and they were too expensive or small, so I decided to make my own bag. 

I used this pattern from the Named book Breaking the Pattern, and I bought the fabric, a beautiful cotton canvas with jungle plants and tigers from Ribes i Casals shop online. I also used some old whitish fabric I had as a lining for the back, and some upholstery foam remnant I had from my car bed project. 

I am totally happy with the result. Both the bag and cushions are perfect and after two summers I can say they are worn and used without complaint. 

Tie-Dye Double Gauze Long Summer Dress

A new fabric shop opened in the town I do my shopping, and I went to check their cargo, following a friend's advice. This is the only fabric I got, planing to make some long shirt with an old pair of jeans I had cut. 

The two blues did not go well (and that is the 2nd chance for the old piece of jeans), but I then had some inspiration! I decided to copy an old long summer dress I had trown away after years of service last year, and I had missed at the end of the school year, when it is very warm but you still want your legs covered. 

Well, all in all, I tried an old bodice pattern, but it did not meet my standards at the dress form, so I decided to drape the fabric on the form and that's it. The fabric is light and soft to the touch, but at the same time it has lots of body and retains shape, no drape almost when hanging. Perfect to drape it over the dress form. 

I failed at the 1st trial, because I took the princess lines as a good point to place the shoulder straps, but it was totally off. So, in the 2nd attempt, I placed them just next to the shoulder rim, where my real shoulder and arms are supposed to protrude from.

This fabric is gorgeous to the touch, and I had a great time sewing the neckline facings and shoulder straps.

I sewed this the three days previous to our trip to Liverpool, because suddenly it was the dress I absolutely needed to fly and to wear in England, to be worn with a summer jacket or raincoat. 

These pictures are after driving 2 hours, flying 3 hours and going by train 2 hours more! And look how gorgeous this cotton looks at the end of the day. Good fabric!

Green Cotton Midi Dress

I found this beautiful cotton fabric in a shop in Sitges dedicated to patchwork. One must visit these patchwork shops from time to time, because they can have beautiful cotton fabrics that can be used for dressmaking as well. 

This particularly is a Kaffe Fassett design and it got my eye at first sight. I bought 2 m (it is only 150 m wide) and I am glad I did, because when its turn arrived I had this midi dress fever, after seeing midi dresses everywhere. 

Having no tan at all, and also I had to wear this dress up the stage to give my graduated students their diplomas, a short skirt is not becoming when seen from bellow, so a midi dress was what I needed. 

The inspiration for the pattern came from Named Taika Blouse dress, but I wanted to use my old patterns and some hacking to get there. After the modifications I made for my previous midi dress, I just had to shorten the sleeves, draw a V-neck line and a centre front partition with the matching 2 cm button stand that continued up to frame the V-neck opening and the back of the neck. I also gave some give to the side seams (4 cm total), because the previous midi dress was quite tight and since this was buttoned at the front, I did not want it to gap between the buttons. 

I am really proud of this one, the result is perfect. I wore it the last  day of the course and I felt perfect for the walk we did in the morning and for the ceremony at the end of the morning. It is going to get quite a lot of wear, it ticks all the boxes, specially for spring and autumn.

 

Midi Dress

I am proud of this project for two reasons: I love wearing it -it is comfortable, becoming, versatile- and the serious pattern hankering I successfully manage to achieve. Sorry for the boasting, but it is important for me to state the level of satisfaction a project has entailed -not so high, too often- for the record.

Sew Over It Aida dress was the inspiration, combined with Named's Taika dress pattern, which I am making rigth now after some more pattern hackering. 

When I saw these, I though I could recreate them, altering a previous pattern which I love, the Diana dress.  This project was a mixture of two patterns. On the one  hand, the Diana dress, with bust darts in curved vertical seams, o semi-princess seams, as I call it. It is a very good idea to shape big tits like mine, adjust in the waist and hips, and give it as much evasée skirt as needed. I used the neck cut and armscyes of another of the dresses of that wonderful book. 

Well, I used this pattern as a base here. I drew a line under the bust all around the four long pieces, and redo the upper part, closing the dart under the arm and marking the gathering under the bust, which I simply adjusted to match the two bottom parts.

 

I followed the same procedure in the back as in the Taika dress. 

All this hackering went quite well, although I had to alter the under bust line, pushing it up (Luckily the bottom pieces could be easily modified to have higher waist lines).

I had to change the sleeves too. The ruffled, big sleeves were too much in this dark, solid viscose. so I used a good old sleeve I like to simply take 5 cm width off the underarm area. 

Some mishap happened in the making process that I have to duly note. The under bust area, in the bottom pieces, was somewhat stretched when I stitched the self encased seam. Next time I will apply some interfacing to prevent that to happen. Pieces cut on the bias or across grain easily stretch at the minimum excuse. 

I love to finish all my dressed with self enclosed seams, and this dress is also perfectly neat outside and inside. 

The invisible zip at the back is too visible for some reason, and I don't know whose fault is that. 

All those issues must be addressed in my next project, which is going to be the open-at-the-front version of this. 

I started the dress in spring and finished in summer, so i had to make 3/4 sleeves, which I love, and i only managed to wear it one day... but I tried it on with low boots and it looks lovely. 

So, all in all, a great make, although not perfect. And my first midi dress, I think! This is a new fashionable feature I've very happily incorporated.

Keep learning... 

Pink Ginger Jeans

 I immersed in this quest for the perfect jeans. I have made several attempts, some of them great, but not perfect. I like these, although I must wear them always with a belt and I lost the pattern. I also love these, but they are very low cut at the waist. These were all my own patterns and for a change, I wanted to try a commercial pattern. I follow Lladybird, and she inspired me towards the Ginger Jeans, which have a mid rise waist that seemed perfect. I thought they had much potential. 

I bought this fabric from Stoff&Still. The colour and thickness is perfect. It is too elastic for my taste, though. It could work for really skinny jeans, and I intend to use the black version of it for another pair of jeans for my partner, but this will be it. They feel too rubbery when I wear them, they have too much give, and they need a belt not to fall down, although they were really tight the first time I wore them, or at least the first hour, haha...

The pattern is nice. They are cut to reach just under the navel, and that is a sweet spot for me. I made size 12, and they are OK, although I had to take a couple of cms off at low hips and now that I think of it, I could easily go one size down. I'll try it out in my next pair. I have good denim fabric in my stash, and I intend to continue pursuing my quest for the perfect jeans. Not quite there yet.

Here I am also wearing my black cotton shirt. I used the same pattern as in my previous white one. I love this pattern, it is a perfect wear to work in warm weather, comfortable and becoming, and I wear them both -the white and the black one- often. 

Grey Organic Jersey Midi Dress

This is a project that did not meet its expectations. All cannot be success and glory, I am afraid!

It is wearable (at home, but that had always been its destiny), but more for comfort than beauty. My partner has said "well, I will get used to it" in a brave, proud of himself manner. 

The inspiration came from Sew Over It recent Nomi dress and similar designs at Saint & Sofia. I will never know if the fault is at the design, the fabric or my body type. 

I bought this fabric from Ribes i Casals online shop and had the idea of making a midi jersey dress to wear around at home, where I like to be comfortable in style. 

I used my Universal T-shirt pattern, and some gathered skirt from a Burda Style pattern, adding the bottom flounce, a rectangle. 

After finishing it and wearing it around, I removed the skirt, took a total of 32 cm off the waist, gathered it again and reattached it to the bodice for a not-so-full version, which I can tolerate.

The dress is perfectly fine if I do not look in a mirror.