Chloe meet Roxanne, sew it up week 2 challenge

Whoohoo! I made it through week 1 in the Sew it up challenge! Thanks guys for voting for me!

For the second Sew it up challenge we had to make a shiftdress.. Hmm what was I going to do? I usually love my dresses form-fitting or at least fitted at the waist. Until I remembered the one pattern that made me change my mind. The Chloe dress from Victory Patterns. It’s a semi fitted, mid length A-line dress, so perfect for this challenge!

I found some gorgeous Atelier Brunette cotton at Mondaysmilk and thought of a plan to add the pleated collar from the Roxanne top to my dress. This meant changing the pattern a bit, by raising the neckline and elongating the bust seam. But I really wanted to give this dress a little bit of extra edge and for me adding the collar did just that. I love this pleated collar and would add it to everything if I could..

This challenge was all about the techniques and finishing touches. That’s why I used my favourite technique ever, french seams. They just give the whole dress a super clean finish. I even finished the welt pockets with french seams, which was quite a puzzle, but it worked out in the end! (I used this tutorial.) It just feels weird putting the pieces wrong sides together and when there’s a welt flap in between it’s even more of a mindf*ck.

French seams everywhere

The sleeves are finished with bias tape, which I made from the same fabric. I also inserted the sleeves with french seams, using this tutorial from Jen at Grainline Studio. I have to be honest though, I did use my serger to finish the back seam with the invisible zipper. I just didn’t know how to finish this one with a french seam (and Google didn’t know it either).

More french seams!

I think this might just be my new favourite summer dress and I hope you’ll like it too! Clean and simple, but with a little bit of edge. Just how I like it!

I'm already super excited for the next challenge (as I've almost finished it and already love it), so if you've got a minute, please vote for me!

Bijschrift toevoegen

Ready for work, my Lola sweater

I've been wanting to make a Lola sweater for a while now, since I needed a nice and warm sweater (with short sleeves) to wear under my white coat at work.  I had major procrastination issues going on,  but when I saw the Lola on Mad Mims blog I knew I had to get started so I could wear mine asap. 

The fabric I used is a very soft-non-stretch fleece, which gave me some issues when I attached the neck ribbing (using self fabric) since there is nooo stretch at all. It stood up straight, which I liked as a 'design' feature, but it wasn't strong/stable enough to look good.

My strange stand up 'design' feature

I wanted to remove the whole piece and replace it with some other ribbing, but since I had stitched, overlocked and then stitched it down I really didn't want to take out all those stitches.. In the end I just folded the neck part over and stitched it down, which makes it smaller and nice and sturdy, but still cool enough as a design feature.

Nicely folded over

I measured my back length to determine how long I wanted it to be and then measured the pattern pieces and folded them where they should end. For the pockets I traced the side piece and then just cut the top part off.

At first I serged everything together, but the seams were a bit too loose, so you could see the stitches. So I stitched just a couple of mm inside from the overlock seams and even though I couldn't press the seams nice and open I'm still happy with the result.

 I'm really happy with my sweater, not my best work ever, but super wearable and really comfy under my white coat. No more need to roll up my sleeves when things get dirty! (which they always do, every day..)

 The weather has been super rainy and gloomy here, we are really hoping for some snow, Shane would love to play in the snow and she really hates rain...

Waiting for snow..

2013 hits and misses

Wow, 2013 went by so quickly!

It's certainly been an interesting year, my 6 weeks in New York (which I loved!), my first long term-full time vet job and most relevant to this all.. I started my blog! I had been thinking about it for a while, but after meeting all the wonderful seamstresses at Lladybirds meet-up I knew I had to start blogging too! 

Some of my favorite posts to read are the Top 5 posts, so I'm going to join Gillian and post my Top 5 lists before this year is over.. I've been sick for the last 4 days (really nasty flu bug, thanks dad!) and I've been making lists in my head of hits and misses.. I've already noticed that the lists seem to change from day to day depending on my mood.. Hmm.. Fickle me..

Let's start with the misses.. Or actually they are the lesser-worn-items. (pfeeww that sounds much better!) I only have three of those from this year, which I think is quite a good achievement! 

(oh and one coat that never got finished, because at first it was just looking to goth instead of chic and then I chopped of the bottom part and then it became way too short. Now that I remember, I already made the most gorgeous silk lining for it, maybe I should dig it up and see if I can save it somehow, to be continued!)

1. Victory Patterns Simone top

 I think my face says it all.. When I look at the pictures I feel a slight pang of disappointment because I really like the fabrics together. I've only worn it once however, apart from taking the pictures. I think it's  two things adding up, one was the fact that I had so many issues while making this top. Which resulted in using my seam ripper a crazy amount of times for one simple top. The second is my interfacing/fabric weight choices. It just doesn't work. Shame..

2. Sew Bossy Bleuet

This is the dress I made for the Sew Bossy challenge. And I actually love the dress and the fabric, but it is just too tight across my bust and arms :( For the pictures I tried to choose the ones that don't really show the gaping, but trust me, it's there. I'm really sad that this didn't work out the way I planned, but I'm hoping to make a slightly bigger version next summer!

3. Drape Drape dress

Argh I hate that this dress didn't work out. It was a lot of work to get all the pleats right etc, but it is just way to big :(

 I wore this to a wedding recently and at first I thought I was very smart and that this dress could be saved with some boob-sticking-tape. Just like you think they do in Hollywood. Well.. Let me tell you, that does NOT work. When we arrived at the wedding I looked down and noticed that the tape had come loose from the dress and was just sticking to my chest out in the open. Looking really weird and wrinkly.. After a quick trip to the bathroom to remove the tape I ended up with red stripes on my chest and had to be super careful the rest of the evening to avoid any nipple-gate scenes.. 

Allright! Now the fun stuff, the hits!

1. Waterproof Minoru

I practically live in this coat. I even took it with me to Italy, despite the fact that isn't really warm enough for snowy weather. Can't wait for my next woolen-spring-Minoru!

2. Deer and Doe Belladone

This dress is the perfect combination of cute fabric and an awesome pattern! It fits like a glove (due to the slight stretch of the fabric, that is missing in my bleuet dress) and it even has pockets! Yay!

3. Sewaholic's silk Saltspring maxi

Made out of my favourite type of silk (crepe) and in a solid colour, this is one of my favorite makes so far! Can't wait to make more versions this summer (and then I will eliminate the back zipper opening :))

4. My second wiggle dress

The two things that make me really look forward to winter are: 

1. being able to wear my Watson jacket

2. wearing my wool wiggle dress again :)

5. Victory Patterns Roxanne

I love this fabric so much! I still wear this top a lot during winter, but now under my favourite oversized wool sweater :) 

Well, that was hard! Choosing just 5 favorites, but I guess thats what makes it an awesome sewing year :) 

I've got three other projects which I really really like, so I'm going to post them too, hah!

The portside travel set

These bags are just awesome! They've been to Singapore, Indonesia, Germany and Italy so far and every time I pack them I've been really happy. Even if I pack my duffel for an overnight shift at the clinic, I'm just happy :) 

Ohhh Lulu bikini

I made my own bikini! And it stays on even while diving, enough said I think :)

The knitted Pterodactylus

This little dinosaur is the reason I picked up my knitting needles again. I had been making scarves before this, but nothing with increases/decreases etc. Now I've almost finished my 3rd sweater (but the first one with shaping etc) and knitting is quickly becoming my second favorite hobby! Sometimes to the dislike of my bf, who jokingly pulled at one of my needles recently, only to discover that he made me drop 8 stitches on my first cabling project, which made me feel really nauseous! Luckily I was able to recover the stitches and my bf was really perplexed about it, he promised not to joke like that anymore :)

I also took an Itajime class while I was in New York this year and that was also one of my creative highlights of this year, can't wait to dye more silk this year!

I absolutely love this shirt.. 

Well, all in all it's been an amazing year and I can't wait to see what 2014 will bring! Hope all of you guys have a great new years eve and a very happy new year!

Sweet and simple, Victory Patterns Chloe dress

This dress is quite different from the shapes that I usually wear. I’ve got an hourglass figure and I tend to gravitate towards dresses that will accentuate my waist. But when I saw the Chloe dress from Victory Patterns I really liked its simplicity. Then when I was at Purl Soho and saw the polka dotted Japanese bias tape I knew I had to make the Chloe dress with it!

Much better fit

I bought linnen at the fabric market in Amsterdam and Chloe was born! It was a very easy make and everything came together nicely. For the bust I cut a size 6 and it fits much better then the size 4, yay!  

At first I was going to use the bias tape around the neckline but then a friend suggested to use it as a sleeve binding instead. Great idea! I think the bias tape as a sleeve binding really accentuates the form of the dress.

The zipper isn’t really invisible, but I made this dress before I got my new invisible zipper foot.. Ahh well, what can you do..

I might still add some buttons in the middle of the pockets, now they have a tendency to open when I’m sitting.  I also accidentally serged a bit of one side to the seam allowance as you can see in this picture, but I’m getting my seamripper out tonight! Problem solved!

Oops..

Overall I’m really happy with this dress, even though I still have to get used to wearing a loose-fitted dress. After asking my boyfriend he said it looked really good and that the shape of the dress looks good on me. When we were on holiday and I asked him what to wear one evening, he even suggested this dress, I’ll believe him then!

A final seaside dinner drinks picture, since I'm already longing for another holiday! Which won't be until November probably..

With my dad and my boyfriend, the colours are real, no Photoshop!

Victory Patterns Simone, a lot of torn out stitches..

I've been working on the Simone pattern from Victory Patterns for a while now.

When I was in New York I bought some of this cotton at Purl Soho, they had it in two colours and I thought it would make a wonderful Simone shirt. But after cutting out all the pieces and sewing the front part (with the pleats) to the placket it looked horrible! The cotton is way too stiff for this kind of shirt, which needs some drape. Off course I forgot to take pictures, as I was rushing to get my seam ripper and took it apart again.

Finally!

Then I found some drapey silk in my stash which I was saving for the lining of Vogue 1207 after seeing Julia Bobbin's wonderful version. Then I messed up the pleating on the front, since I coudn't really figure out how it was supposed to be folded. I only noticed this after sewing the front piece to the placket  (again!). The bust darts were also very different in position, one ending 3 cm higher than the other..

First I tried to solve the bust dart issue by lengthening it, off course this didn't work and it looked quite sad. So after some deliberation (asking my boyfriend and sister for their opinion) I decided to cut out another front piece and eliminate the pleats all together.

No pleats!

I just retraced the front piece so that it fitted around the placket and then sewed it together. Much better!

I inserted an invisible zipper and used the wrong side of the silk so that it is less shiny.

But now I had another little issue, since the cotton is quite stiff and since I also interfaced it (like the instructions tell you to) I don't like the way the placket falls. If it moves outwards you get this weird looking effect. I hope it won't be too obvious when I'm wearing it (though my grandma did notice it, but she has the professional-seamstress eye)

The tab has the tendency to stick outwards..

The bust is a bit tight and I can't get the neck to close like it's supposed too, so for my next Victory Patterns make (which I've already started working on) I cut out a size 6 instead of a 4. Let's see what happens then!

Some weird gaping

Overall this is not a super succesful make, but it did teach me some things about drape and stiffness of fabric. I hope that I have enough left over cotton to make a fitted dress, which I think will work much better drape-wise.

I think I prefer to wear it tucked into something,
what do you think? 

Stashbusting count: 1.5/15 (just 0.5 for the silk)

Roxanne will you be my bff?

For my birthday my sister (thank you again!) gave me all of the Victory Patterns, definitely an awesome present! First on my list to make was the Roxanne pattern, and I knew exactly which fabric I wanted to use.

These pictures were taken at the awesome old farmhouse  (built around 1700) where my grandparents live

The patterns are designed very well and the instructions are awesome! The only thing that baffled me at first was the sizing square, which was a different size than the description said.. I decided to follow the sizing on the printed pages, which is the right way I think. There are some tucks at the back, which I pressed nicely, only to discover that I had folded them the to the wrong side, so I redid those, luckily I found out before sewing them!