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. 

Camouflage Jersey Top

This is one of these projects where you make some pants to go with everything and then you have to make something to go with them, if you know what I mean. 

I love these pants, they are comfortable, becoming and have big pockets. I can wear them with bands T-shirts to go to concerts, but I needed something to wear to school. 

So I got this camouflage jersey from tiendatelas and after some moths in my SMALL stash, it was its turn.

I decided to use my Universal T-Shirt pattern, classic style.. that is to say, raglan sleaves, small roundish/v-shapedish neck and very small ease all around. 

That pattern and this fabric were obviously calling for some colour blocking, so I used some small black elastic jersey remnant. 

I have made this one hundred times. It is still the best t-shirt pattern ever. I have even upped my neck banding skills after the previous project!

And it looks great with my pants.

100% awesome, f+ck modesty! 

I am going to my 3rd concert after the end of the pandemic and I am utterly happy here. 

Mint Agnes Top & Black Interlock Pants

Two successful makes in a row: happy happy happpy!

The mint green jersey is organic cotton with 5% elastane, bought in Ribes i Casals online shop. The organic thick interlock is the same I used from my previous black dress, and it is gorgeous for pants!

For the top I used Tilly and the Buttons' Agnes Top and this time I decided to give it a full go and make the ruched sleeve heads as well and the front. It is a lovely pattern, I love it, specially with these sleeves. 

I did not modify anything, it is perfect on me as it is. 

The process of creation of the pants was more complicated. I got inspired by Saint & Sofia trousers. They use a lot of thick cotton interlock for their pants, and they seem comfortable, wearable and becoming. I had the perfect fabric, I only needed the perfect pattern. 

I looked through Burda's pants patterns and I found the perfect one. I found the magazine they were published and asked for it to my library-bus, which brought it to me. There, free pattern. Great. 

I went down a size, and they were still very big on my first fitting, so I took two more sizes off, ending up in a 36!! I do not understand BurdaStyle sizing with pants, really. I am not a size 36. My measures are size 42 in Burda's own charts. 

Whatever, It was easy to size down. I had cut really big seam allowances, as I always do with new patterns. 

I kept the pockets, adding a plastic tape sewn to the inside of the upper rim, but I made the lining in a thinner single jersey.

I skipped the zip, though. The fabric has a lot of give, and did not want all the bulk for nothing. I only left 1 cm in the centre front seam and closed the waist piece with buttons. I have to be careful putting them up and down not to break the sewing of the waist piece, but I still prefer that to a zipper in bulky jersey fabric. 

I also added 10 cm to the bottom. 

The pants are perfect. One of those pieces I cannot imagine living without until now. A pillar in my wardrobe. Very happy with them. 

Knit and Sewn Outfit

 

Well, we have a goody today!

A project I am really proud I made and I know it is going to have a lot of wear. Let me explain the creative process.

The main inspiration for the top is Kim Hargreaves book, Heartfelt: The Dark House Collection. I bought the book online for a project a friend found for me, and this is the 2nd project I made (see the 1st one) from it, and it is not going to be the last. Designs are gorgeous and totally my cup of tea, and patterns are perfect and really fun to make. 

The yarn recommended is some outstocked bamboo, but I decided to adapt it to this beautiful organic cotton by Katia. I had made another project with it, and it had the perfect feel, thickness and colour. This shade of beige can be tricky, and I wanted it to be natural and antique... it's perfect. 

It took quite a while for me to knit it, I started in June and finished at the end of the year, when it was too cold to wear it (typical). 

After some trials with different needles, I adjusted the pattern to my gauge and started knitting. When I got 20 cm from the bottom up, I realized it was too narrow, and I had to undo it and start over, but it was completely worth it, as it always is, because now it is just perfect. See the project at Raverly. 

I had this skirt in mind for quite a long time now. The inspiration is the Gabriola pattern. I love to be able to copy commercial patterns by adapting my own. In this case, I used the long A skirt pattern. I took the upper part and draw some lines with a ruler in the pattern paper, creating these three top pieces (front and back), and the remaining long bottom piece. The final result is quite good, but I had to make lots of undoing and redoing because there were some weird wrinkles over my bottom, which I finally took rid of. They were probably caused by imprecision, aka, I had not marked the fabric, as I always do, with tailor tucks. Seam allowances were so sparse, no sense in doing so.  Another problem was fabric scarcity. I cut the pieces too tight and that gave me no room to manoeuvrer, so I ended up with a tight skirt. Anyway, it does not flatter my protrudent tummy area, so I am wearing it covered. But now I have the doubt of how it would be if it were looser. I will experiment more with those Gabriola pieces, cutting them a couple of cms wider at the sides. 

Well, the final outfit is gorgeous, don't you think?

Organic Thick Interlock Dress

Wonderful new interlock I've found at Ecological Textiles. 

Touch, hang, low wrinkling, shade of black, the matte finish, stability, everything is perfect with this fabric. 

I plan several pieces in it, so great!

I though this BurdaStyle magazine pattern (January/21) would be nice in it, and I am really glad about the result. This is a dress I will wear and wear. Comfortable, classy and sporty at the same time, warm and breathable... well, it has all the right ticks.

 

The construction had some thrill in the neck area. The instructions of the pattern (we all know Burda for their meagerness) suggest that I left row seam allowances around it. I wanted to encase it all in itself and after some jig jawing, I managed a neat result I am very proud of. 

As always, sleeves are almost perfect with Burda patterns. I had only to sew them 2 cm inwards the upper armscye seam. 

I am also proud of by wooden buttons. I bought them in a big box, two sizes, and they are awesome, I use them all the time. And they read MADE WITH LOVE, engraved in the wood, which is lovely. 

It is a pitty how bad black fabric gets on camera, the details of the neck are perfect. A perfect pattern for a perfect fabric.