Bird Dress

I think my hero worship of Gertie Hirsch is pretty well established at this point seeing as I've written about her at least four other times on this blog. I bought her newest book, Gertie's Ultimate Dress Book* the day it came out and spent a happy few days reading it cover to cover and picking out pattern pieces. I absolutely love that the skirts, bodices, and sleeves are interchangeable so you can mix and match to get way more than the 23 styles that she features. Although I don't love every dress in the book I do like most of them. When I bought the book I didn't know what dress I was going to make first, but I did know what fabric I was going to use.

Back in November, I bought a pretty quilters cotton with a surprisingly soft hand and good drape featuring a blue background and stylized birds. I originally thought I would use it to make a skirt, but then it came time to move and in the chaos, I never got around to using the cotton. Later I decided to make a dress instead, but I didn't want an all over pattern of the birds because the fabric had a distinct horizontal stripe and I didn't think it would look good in a bodice so I picked up a yard of plain light blue cotton and 5 yds of navy blue piping. Then the fabric sat for another month.

Finally, this week I made myself a dress.

I was going to make the Floral Surplice Dress, but the pleated skirt that it called for would have had my birds sitting sideways, which would have just looked wrong. So instead I used the Surplice Bodice and the All Around Pleated Skirt - basically more like the Floral Chiffon Dress, but I left off the cap sleeves. I added pockets because it's me and I will always add pockets. 

Yay pockets!

One of the big challenges of this dress was the piping that I used to outline each section of the dress. I love the finished look, but I had a heck of a time sewing it in place because it was smaller than my seam allowance so it was invisible once it was sandwiched between pattern pieces. I have no idea if there is a "right" way to sew in piping, but what I did was machine baste a line on each dress piece at 5/8" then I hand basted the piping to that line. Then when I sewed the pieces together I sewed over that line again so that my piping was exactly where it was supposed to be. 

This technique actually ended up helping me fit the bodice too. When I made a muslin of the bodice I noticed a couple of fit issues. Not surprising seeing as Gertie even warns that for those over a C cup an FBA will probably be required. I didn't have to make major modifications, but I did have some gaping at the neckline. I solved that by making small tucks along the neckline while I was hand basting the piping. 

From the front, the tucks are nearly invisible and now my bodice sits nice and snug to my chest. 

The other fit problem I corrected was the bottom edge of the midriff piece. The pattern nips in pretty sharply at the waist, but my actual waist is straighter than that so I drew a new line from the armpit of the back boatneck bodice and the front surplice bodices pieces down to the bottom of the front and back midriff pieces so I could smoothly add the extra 3/8" that I needed on the bottom edge of each piece. Because the skirt pieces are pleated I didn't add anything to them, I just adjusted the pleats until everything lined up correctly.

One thing I wish I had done was make the arms a bit bigger, they are a little snug under my armpit. I didn't notice on the muslin, but I do on the finished piece, which makes me wonder if it has something to do with the piping. It doesn't bother me enough to try and fix it on the dress, but I will keep it in mind when I make another dress out of this book (and yes, I am totally already thinking of the next couple of dresses I'm going to make). 

Another change that I made was to line the midriff. The Floral Surplice Dress uses a facing instead of lining the bodice. I am so used to lining the bodices of dresses that I forgot about finishing the seams (which was totally dumb on my part because Gertie talks about seam finishes and lining versus facing in earlier chapters of the book and reminds you to finish your seams in the instructions). I was super bothered by the unfinished seams and didn't want to try and pink them because of the piping caught in them, so I partially lined instead, and in the future, I will stick to fully lining my dress bodices. 

One last note: I did not bother trying to perfectly match the patterns for the skirt side seams, but I did line up the branches that the birds are sitting on. The first time I cut out the back skirt pieces I didn't think about the pattern until I laid it next to the front skirt piece and realized it was off. So I cut my pockets and front facing from the skirt back and recut the skirt. I am glad I took the time to do so because I would have just been driven batty if I had sewed them together and the pattern didn't flow.

All in all, I am really happy with this dress, and I cannot wait to make more dresses from Gertie's Ultimate Dress book. I think I am going to make the Blue Wool Work Dress next. 

*P.S. I am totally not getting paid to promote Gertie Hirsch, her book, her patterns, or her blog. I just think she is rad and I totally want to be like her when I grow up. :)

Green Dress

Have you ever found that once you learn the "right" way to make something you can't go back to doing it "wrong" even if the wrong way is faster and easier and you are in a hurry? That was totally the case for me on the green shirt dress that I posted about briefly last Monday. I wanted to wear it on a Saturday and I started it Friday night, but I still made sure that every seam was fully finished even though it doubled the amount of time it took to make.

It's McCall's 7084 view D. I'm really happy with how this dress turned out. I feel like it's professional enough that I could wear it to work meetings, but it's not too dressy to wear hanging out with my friends. Here is a shot showing the sleeves and collar a bit more.

And I added pockets!

The pattern included pockets for the version with a narrower skirt, but I wanted a full skirt and pockets, so I just went ahead and added them. I'm really glad that I did because pockets are awesome. 

If I were to make this dress again (and I might because I really like it) the only other change I would make would be to make the button band wider or to not add interfacing to it. I had some problems with the buttonholes/sewing on the buttons because of how thick the band ended up. You end up having to sew through 5 layers of fabric and two of interfacing with the narrow band. 

I used french seams for all the straight seams and clean seams for the curved seams, except the seams with the pockets, that one I zig-zagged because it was late at night and my brain just wasn't processing right and wrong sides for the seam finished. I used quilters cotton for the dress and the lack of right and wrong sides can make things both easier and harder. But I just couldn't resist the green. I'm not normally one for posting selfies, but look at the way the color makes my eyes pop!

Oh, I almost forgot, I did change the sleeves a bit. They are meant to be folded up and then buttoned in place. I was running out of time, so rather than do a button hole and sew on the button and make it so the sleeves could be rolled down I just sewed a narrow hem, folded up the sleeve and sewed the button on through all the layers. I would not do that next time, not that I would ever wear the sleeves unbuttoned, but I think it would be easier to iron if they could be unbuttoned.

This is totally my new favorite dress and I think I am going to wear it so much that Fiance is going to get sick of seeing it. It fits well though and makes me feel gorgeous, what more could I ask for in a frock?

Sailboats Galore Again!

Yesterday I posted about Fiance and his friends building a boat. Today I'm going to talk about what I wore while they built.

Their competition started on Friday, but I couldn't join them until Saturday because I had to work. So rather than sit at home and just pout that I wasn't with the boys I decided to make myself a new nautical themed dress.

Normally I avoid Simplicity patterns because I always end up swimming in them if I make the size indicated on the package, but they were on sale and I didn't want to spend a lot so I was leafing through the lookbook and I found Simplicity 1080 (I made view A). They called it a "Granny Chic" tunic. I don't really understand why. Maybe because they posed the model holding some yarn? (Let's all try not be offended at yet another implication that knitting/crocheting as a thing only old people do) It certainly doesn't look like anything my grandmother would wear.

So I was looking at the pattern and I spotted something I had never noticed before (probably because it's been so many years since I made a simplicity pattern and when last I looked at them I didn't really understand ease). At the bottom of the envelope was a list of finished garment measurements. And no wonder I always ended up swimming in my finished garments because they give, like, four inches of positive ease. I mean, it's a pull over in a woven fabric, so you need some ease, but four inches seemed truly excessive to me, so instead of making the large the pattern said I needed to accommodate my bust, I went with a medium, and low and behold the fit was perfect!


Here I am in Port Townsend wearing the dress. It was an absolutely beautiful sunny day with tons of adorable sailboats in the water behind me all day, but I couldn't pull Fiance away from his build long enough to take pictures then. So instead you get a gloomy twilight shot with my sweater on because it was cold and windy by that point. (Also, do you recognize the bag? It's the one I talked about in this post. I brought it with me because it was all I had big enough to carry two meals worth of food for four hungry men)

And here is a badly lit shot of the whole dress so you can actually see what it looked like. Isn't that nautical fabric adorable!

The pockets were a huge reason that I picked out this pattern. Normally I'm not a big one for patch pockets, but these were cute and big enough to actually be functional. And most importantly not right over my breasts. I don't understand why designers seem to insist of putting pockets on nipples like I need to be drawing any extra attention to my boobs. Anyway, I'm a sucker for a dress with functional pockets. 

The dress had some interesting construction details. The neck, shoulder, arms and hem were finished with single fold bias tape. I've never used it to finish a hem like this, but I rather liked it for the neck and arms. Next time I think I will skip it in favor of a narrow hem on the bottom because the dress is just wide enough that you need a second package of tape for the last four inches of hem. 

This is also the first pattern I've seen that includes instructions for finished seams. In this case, it called for french seams on the sides. Even if it hadn't I would have done them anyway because I like my clothes nice and neat and finished on the inside, but I liked seeing a pattern that agrees with me.

Another note of interest on the pattern, the pieces were not nested so you had to hunt out the size that you needed for each piece. It certainly made it easier to cut out, but it also makes for a very thick envelope when you are trying to put all the tissue away. 

And last but not least, this dress illustrated the importance of back-tacking. I was tired and in a hurry and I somehow completely forgot to back tack the tucks on the front of the dress, so by the end of the day they had pulled completely out. It's a good thing the back ties were attached first and then hidden by the tuck instead of doing it all in one seam or I would have lost the ties on the dress too. 

If you look closely in the picture you can see the needle holes where the tuck used to be.

I followed those holes to quickly fix the tucks before I washed the dress. It was a bit fiddly to do the second time since the back was attached to the dress now, but I got it and now it is fixed, and back-tacked so it won't be going anywhere a second time. 

Overall I am super pleased with this dress. It's comfy, it fits well and it was really easy to make. I think it only took a couple hours Friday night. Oh, and don't let the thought of turning those long skinny ties turn you off, they are folded lie bias tape and top-stitched, so no turning required! I am totally going to make this pattern again. Next time I think I'll do it in the tunic length. 

Party Dress!

Another Gertie Hirsch pattern coming at you, this time number 5882 I fell in love with the pattern when I saw it in the Butterick look-book but I did not think it would be flattering on my double Ds. However I was reading Gertie's Blog for Better Sewing and she had a post on how this shelf bust can actually be flattering on larger breasts because it cuts across the breast instead of underneath it and thus serves to visually minimize the bust. I was almost convinced with that post, but then she followed it up with a tutorial on how to do a full-bust alteration(FBA) and I was sold.

This dress was my first attempt at a FBA and it was easier than I thought it would be. I made a muslin, but of course I didn't take any pictures of it. I ended up with the right amount of fabric for the bust, but when I tried it on initially the side seams were sitting at an angle rather then nice and vertical. What I ended up having to do was add two inches to the front of the dress and take away those two inches in the back so that my seams all angled the right ways (or rather, didn't angle). I am totally kicking myself for not taking pictures of that process.

Here is the first picture I took, of the bodice almost full assembled.

Bodice boned, but not lined, and attached to the skirt, but I don't think the straps were attached yet and the skirt was not yet hemmed. 

And here it is, fully assembled and not so flattering looking on the hanger, but as I hope you can tell from the above picture it ended up fitting pretty well (especially with a strapless bra, unlike in the above photo were my strap is totally showing). I actually took this picture after the party, so the dress is kind of wrinkly. Oh well.

I really only got one good action shot of the dress at the party. Mom and I were both so busy having fun that we sort of forgot about that whole taking pictures thing. So, here I am with my grandfather and my "little" brother. I have to say, when I was making the dress and trying it on I did think it was very flattering from the front, but from the side it is not visually minimizing my bust line. 

One of the things that I do want to note is that the straps are cut on the bias, I think they have to be in order to curve around the bust detail like that, but that also meant that when I hung the dress to let the bias on the skirt hang out before hemming the straps also stretched and sort of twisted a little bit, which I wasn't very happy about. 

I love the hem of this dress though. I used horsehair braid (again following a tutorial from Gertie's Blog). I had never used it before and now I am totally in love with the stuff. It won't give you petticoat type volume, but it did make my skirt stand out just a bit and made it delightfully swishy. It almost made for a very clean, very pretty looking hem. I am totally in love and want to use it in all of the things now. 

And one last point of love with this pattern is that it is fully lined, so everything on the inside is nice and neat and clean looking. I used cotton batiste for the lining and plain old cotton for the dress. 

Utter Fail

I just want to take a few moments to make some pattern notes on McCall's 7117. I attempted to make this dress a couple months ago in plain teal cotton. I was aiming for view C in a size 16. It totally failed.

The dress is made in panels and I ended up with two panels too many to fit the bodice. I had the number of panels that the pattern said I should have so I think there is an error in the instructions. I removed two  side panels and that fixed the bodice lining up with the skirt, but the dress was still too big.

I don't mind a bit of positive ease but considering that one of the versions of the dress is strapless it seems like it should have been able to hold up on its own and it would not have done that.

In contrast to the too big body of the dress, the arm holes were way small. They pinched and were uncomfortable.

I didn't take a picture of the dress because I was so annoyed that in a fit of pique I threw it away. Now I'm kicking myself because I probably could have kept fiddling until I got a dress that fit. Oh well. I will probably try to make this dress again because I still think it's super cute, but it will have to be modified.

Craft Beer Fest Dress

Yesterday was a great day. I went to the Everett Craft Beer Festival with my mom, step-dad, and boyfriend. I wore a really cute dress.

The Pattern is McCall's 7188 view A. I had been planning on making the dress in a heavier fabric for winter wear over a long sleeve shirt, but I was at JoAnn's on Friday and saw the beer patterned fabric and I just couldn't say no. I wouldn't normally go for an outfit like that, it was a small step out of my comfort zone to wear something that whimsical. 

I think it's a step I will be taking more often.

The best part of the fabric is that one of the bottles says "catfish" which was my nickname in school and the theme for my first tattoo. It was the deciding factor in buying the fabric and making the dress.

The pattern was easy to make, I got it done in the afternoon after work on Friday. The bodice is completely lined, which I like. Next time I need to remember to clip the seams before turning it right side out though because there is some excess bulk around the arms and neckline. I also want to wait until everything else is done before understitching the neck and arms because it made the zipper installation a little fiddlier than it needed to be. 

All in all, I am pleased with the pattern and the dress. I got a ton of compliments at the beer fest. One woman even gave me two of her leftover tokens because I had "the cutest outfit in the whole festival."

Gosh That's nice, That Lingerie

I am currently a little bit obsessed with Gertie Hirsch. I have bought most of her Butterick patterns. Today I'm going to talk about pattern 6031. Gertie's blog has a wonderful series of tutorials on how to make the slip from the pattern. I've made this slip once already, which I talked about in this post. Incidentally, I think I now have a personal rule that posts about my underwear must be titled with ridiculous quotes/references. 

Today is really just about posting pictures of the rest of what I made from that pattern. I made three versions of the camisole. One in black

And two in white. All three are the longer version because I've got a long torso. I only took a picture of one of the white ones because they look the same. I didn't have enough black lace to edge the bottom of the black camisole, but I did do both of the white. They are made with knit fabrics so the finish wasn't strictly necessary, but I thought they looked sort of raw without the lace. 

I even went back and added it to the first nude slip. I had initially not wanted it because I thought it would make the slip not move as smoothly underneath a dress, but upon further consideration I've decided that I don't care because it looks so much prettier this way. 

I made two more of the slip too, again one in black.

And one in white. 

With the nude slip I used lingerie elastic (you know, the stuff with the picot edge on one side) to finish the top edge, but on the black and the white slips and the camisoles I just sewed lace all the way around. I initially was just going to leave it raw - I was feeling cheap and didn't want to pay for the lace or elastic - but the fabric started to sort of run on me. Not a lot, but enough to make me want to finish the edges. You can see the run in this photo.

All in all, they were inexpensive, fun to make, fit well, and are really comfy. The fabric is soft, although it doesn't breath super well (pretty sure it's 100% polyester, but I didn't look that closely at the label). They are too low cut to wear the camisoles as tanks, but they make great undershirts, which was really what I wanted them for. The white slip works really well underneath the stripped skirt I posted about last time. I think I'm done with the pattern for the moment, but I feel like I got some good use out of it. I'm sure as some point I'll make the panties, but not out of the same fabric. I like a higher cotton content for my underpants. 

In another couple of posts I'll talk about other Gertie patterns that I've been working on.

Linen Wrap Dress

Wow, it feels like it has been ages since I had time to write anything. I've been dealing with a crazy time-consuming project at work, which means I haven't been home during daylight hours for a while. I live in a basement so taking pictures is difficult at best and downright impossible if the sun has already gone down.

One of my recent projects was to make a white curtain in order to facilitate picture taking, but my boyfriend has not found the time to hang it for me yet, so I've been trying to make due.

Last Sunday I wore my wrap dress and had him take a few pictures of me while we hung around downtown waiting for my mom to get off the ferry.

I am so pleased with the way this dress turned out. The fabric was this linen/cotton mix from JoAnn's. With a coupon, it was a reasonable price. The fabric was kind of tricky to sew with because it was kind of "slippery" feeling. If you just touched the fabric you would never say slippery, if anything it has a kind of pleasantly rough textured, but when actually trying to sew with it the fabric just wanted to slip and slid all over the place. 

The fabric also wanted to fray pretty badly. Every seam is fully finished (flat fell on the top like I talked about in this post, french seams along the sides and waist, slip stitched neckline, rolled hem on the sleeves and a herringbone stitch hem). It was a great challenge to work with and I loved every second of it. I would totally work with this fabric again. 

(I'm giving some guys stink eye for trying to walk into my picture)

That being said, I don't think I will use this pattern again (Butterick 5030). Although it fits well enough, I am not completely happy with the neckline. I actually had to safety pin it shut because the line of the dress was such that I would have been flashing a lot of boob if I had let it fall where it wanted to. Maybe if I was smaller in the chest it would look better, but I'm not and it's only mediocre. I also would have liked a little more fullness in the skirt. My last issue was that I had to wear heels (and let me tell you, after a full day of walking around Seattle my feet were killing me, I was limping and whimpering a little bit trying to get back to my car) in order to get the line of the dress to fall correctly. I tried it on with ballet flats, but it just made my legs look short. If the dress was shorter so that it fell at or above my knees instead of below them I probably would have looked more balanced in flats.

All in all, I like the dress. I will totally wear it again. I like the forgiving nature of the wrap and I love the fabric. I just need to make a purse to go with it and I will call this a great outfit. Next couple of posts will be about the slip I made to go under the dress and the sweater. 

Oh, and I'm sure it goes without saying, but I am in no way associated with JoAnn's or with Butterick.

Flat Fell Seam Sleeve Cap

Last night, about 3am I was laying in bed, contemplating my ceiling and wishing that I was asleep when I had an amazing 'no sh*t Sherlock' moment. I finally realized that I don't have to put together patterns as dictated by the directions. I can color outside the lines y'all!

See, I'm working on Butterick 5030*, it's this really cute wrap dress that I'm making with a lovely teal and white floral linen. The problem is the linen is a really loose weave. I'm also going to make a slip to wear under the dress so being slightly sheer isn't a problem, but I needed to construct the wrap in such a way that it wouldn't just keep unraveling to nothingness on me. I was already Frankenstein-ing the pattern a bit, I'm using the bodice from D/E/F, but the collar from A/B/C, the belt from A/D and the sleeves from C/F. So I figured if I'm already changing everything else, why not change the construction methods too?

And here is the bodice to my newest dress. Obviously I haven't added the collar yet, and I haven't hemmed the sleeves

I decided to do a flat fell seam for the shoulder and sleeve cap. Even though it seems to be the way most commercial button-up shirts are made I hadn't tried doing a flat fell on a sleeve cap yet because the curve seemed to make is trickier. 

It's hard to even see the second line of stitching on the sleeve cap, which pleases me because I'm not into a lot of visible top-stitching. You can see if on the shoulder seem here though. 

And this is what it looks like on the inside. See all those nice finished edges? yummy! I love those.

Rather than sew the sleeve together at the underarm and the side seams of the bodice then attach the sleeve I decided to attach the sleeve immediately after sewing the shoulder seam. It's hard to tell in the picture, but that allowed me to sew the entire side seam with a nice smooth french seam. It seemed to me that it would be easier and less bulky that way, rather than having to do the flat fell seam in the round while manipulating french seams. 

I'm pleased with how the dress is turning out so far. The flat fell on the sleeve cap was far easier than I thought it would be and it's definitely how I am going to sew my sleeve caps in the future. Hurray for 3am realizations that I don't have to follow the directions step-for-step in order. 

*I am in no way associated with Butterick, although I would dearly love to work for them, I do not at the present. I've just been making a lot of their patterns lately because they fit me with little to no alterations needed, and, more importantly, they were on sale for $1.99 at Jo-Ann's recently. 

ArtChain Day Three

For the third day of my #artchain challenge, I'm posting pictures of a dress that I designed and made in December. As with most dresses, it looks better on me than on the hanger, but I just haven't had the energy for a proper photo shoot recently, so it's this or a really dark really grainy selfie taken the day of the wedding.

I know it's hard to tell in the photo, but the dress is made up of 23 panels. It's all french seams, so it's fully finished. The neck and armholes are finished with bias tape. I hemmed it by hand using a catch stitch. The fabric is an absolutly glorious silk/cotton blend, and it's just a bit more teal and less blue in real life than it is in these pictures.. It's got a light hand, and it's a satin weave. Even though it was a blend it behaved like silk as I was working with it.

Ever heard the phrase that cutting silk is like cutting water? Well, it totally is. I spent ages making sure that my pattern pieces were laid out on grain, but it still ended up off a bit, and even if you are only off by a tiny bit, when you have 23 panels the error compounds. I got really lucky and my dress ended up with about a 90-degree twist that I actually like the look of. It's very obvious when I wear it, and not so clear in pictures. I know this photo is a little silly looking, but I taped the dress to the wall so you could see the way it twisted more clearly. 

Silk also starts to unravel the moment that you cut it. I cut each panel as I needed it while sewing the dress so that it had less time to fray. That also meant that I put the whole thing together in about two days because my sewing room is the living room and the fabric took up the whole floor when it was laid out for cutting. I didn't want to just leave it there, but I also couldn't pick it up because of the aforementioned grain issue. 

Really the most time-consuming part of this dress was doing the math to draft it. Math in schools seems so boring because you are given really silly problems like measuring the height of a flagpole from its shadow, but I love geometry when applied to real life, like figuring out what size to make each piece for this dress. 

All in all it was a great project, and I'm pretty darn proud of how it turned out. One of these days, I'll take proper pictures of it, but in the meantime, here is the dark, grainy, selfie so you can at least kind of see what it looked like on me. 

You get bonus points if you recognized the shawl that I'm wearing as the shawl from yesterday's artchain post.