Lisette 2209- Passport dress

During my online shopping spree, one good friend of mine accepted my offer to make her a dress.  She picked the Passport dress out of my Lisette offerings.  So I got fabric to make two of them.  I made them at the same time.

Most of this construction was straightforward.  I cut a size 10 this time going by the finished dress size, and as before I gave myself a little extra room by hemming the side seams together very narrowly.  For my friend Sarah I didn't have to do this as she is slightly smaller than I am.  I used the dress for me as a muslin preparing the skills, and then copied them on her dress.

The pleats at the waist gave me pause because I think I might have done them the wrong way.  Is that possible?  The waist seems to billow out a bit.  Other than that, the dress is cute.  Unfortunately here I think my choice of fabric was terrible...after we had chosen fabric I searched online and found that this dress has more popularity than some of the others I've done, but no one else used the two-fabric scheme.  Before we bought fabric, I didn't know to hunt for the dress online and see what other sewers were doing.  However, Sarah's dress turned out well and I'm pleased with it. I did something funny at the armhole seams because it was the first time I made my own bias tape. It looks ok, just odd since there's no matching tape around the neck.  Another great thing about this dress is that the facings are held in place by the armholes so although they are still present, they don't flop.

 Sorry about that one being sideways...

I did realise that I have no idea how to do invisible zippers.  My zippers were terrible, especially where they cross the midline, since I couldn't quite get my seams to match up.  This seems to be a skill I need to practice!  

Yet again, my dress is a bit of a fail - not something I'm too keen to wear to work so it's being passed on.  I might consider doing this dress again in a single fabric but not any time soon.  It's quite comfortable...the lesson on this one is the subtle one about picking the right stuff to match the design, I guess. 

Lisette 2059 - Continental dress

I was excited about the dress in Lisette 2059, even though the shirt was a disappointment.  After my initial successes I went on an online spending spree at www.stitchbird.co.nz, as one of the only online fabric stores in New Zealand.  For this dress I had some interesting green linen-cotton stuff.  I was figuring that it would be super comfortable.

The dress has a super easy construction once the gathers at the neck are done.  I had a lot of trouble getting my stitching to hide on those gathers, but I guess you are supposed to remove the gather stitches once the gathers are held in place, and I didn't do that.

I also really like using the self fabric as a bias tape.  It created a nice neckline - I so far totally hate facing!  It flaps around!  Argh!  I haven't quite figured out what to do about that and I am hoping soon I will only make lined dresses and never have floppy facing again.

The belt took me about 3 hours though because it would absolutely not slide through itself. Three hours with a pair of pliers!

Once I had stitched this dress together I lost a lot of enthusiasm.  It was so baggy...truly the neckline coming together improved this, but I had already gotten over it in my mind and offered this dress to a cousin who has a more generous figure than I do.  This dress would have been more appealing if I had some more shape at the waist (not to mention boobs to speak of!), but the belt is the only defining element.

I also noticed my habit so far - that each pattern seems to teach me some skills but I am so far not confident about the results.  I am still asking friends if they want dresses so that I don't keep a closet of the ones I'm not satisfied with.  My excitement about each new project has spurred me on, but I definitely don't have the drive to work on each project until I like it and would wear it.  I am not sure if this comes with time! 

Lisette 2059 -Continental blouse.

My second sewing attempt was in the wake of my excitement about project #1s success.  I was really thrilled with this blue spotted fabric from Global Fabrics in Wellington.  On this one I cut a size 12, assuming that I wanted more ease compared to the Lisette dress I had done, and also going by my measurements on the envelope.  This was a mistake!  The first shirt was big and even when I pulled in the side seams it was still floating all over me.  So I gave it to a friend and made a second one.  (I didn't take pictures of the first one before giving it away, but the spots were big at the bottom and graduated to small at the top.)

This seems to be possible because I hadn't learned about fabric width - most often in New Zealand it seems to be 150 cm. So I had huge amounts of leftover fabric for my two projects.  Enough, in fact, to squeeze two shirts out of the spots.  I had to move the spots around of course.

I cut a size 8 this time, as I had with the Passport dress.  It became increasingly evident that I may not ever need to make a bust adjustment but the Lisette patterns are not cut to accommodate my wide shoulders.  In the final version of the shirt I feel it pulling across my upper chest and if it had less overall ease it would be uncomfortable to pull my arms up.

In the end the shirt came out looking ok, but I don't think I would try to improve on this pattern in the future.  Trying it on again for our impromptu indoor photo session actually made me more fond of it!  Maybe I'll like it more in the summer since it's a very lightweight cotton fabric. 

Dress #1, Lisette 1878 - the Diplomat dress

I repeat, I didn't know muslin wasn't considered proper dress material!  So dress #1 was made out of muslin with lime green edging and a lime green sort-of invisible zipper.  In the whole excitement of having the equipment, the tools, the fabric and time, I had not really thought about the results - actually having a wearable item of clothing.

Cutting was first thing in the morning, and I followed the directions up til I had to use interfacing.  I watched some online videos about interfacing and got that done, and to my shock by midafternoon the only thing to do was install the zip.  I wasn't sure that I could do it so I took a break and had tea and watched another video.

End result: it's wearable!  I wore it to work the next day and got some compliments.  Not perfect by a long shot - I didn't finish any seams and the zip is not quite stitched straight.  The facing on the v-front somehow got stuck and I thought it looks quite nice so I left it that way and didn't do the vertical decorative stitching.

We did a little outdoor photo shoot to celebrate.

In terms of size I had no idea what to expect.  I'm about 34-27-38 and I went by the final bust measure and cut a size 8.  I could have sized up one.  I sewed the side seams with a 1/4" hem instead of 5/8" and that made it fit.  Other than that, the shoulders are tight but since the sleeves are short I can still move around ok.

This dress is actually pretty great to wear all winter since I layer under and over it.  Probably it won't withstand the test of time in my wardrobe but my enthusiasm at making something I can actually wear is enough to tide me over for the time being. 

Starting to sew: the shapeless to shapely tshirt

As he was musing over those aspects of life where we could do more ourselves, my boyfriend brought up sewing.  He has been going through a minimalist phase. He figured I could sew my own clothing, and maybe find a way to engage my love of fashion while escaping the shopping addiction that seems to go hand in hand with it. He, of course, could get free shirts and underwear.  (A great idea on his part, free clothing without work...)

I liked the idea, and having just moved to New Zealand I was in pursuit of a hobby for the year.  I looked up used sewing machines online and discovered how affordable they are.  I had thought of sewing machines as unreachable, expensive technology owned by real seamstresses.  I've borrowed them occasionally but never considered having one since I am, of course, a barely competent dress maker.  -- And I mean dress maker because that's the only thing I can make!

So after weeks of obsessing online I bought a sewing machine, a Janome My Style 20.  My boyfriend read the manual and got excited, while I nervously thought about actually sewing. Of course nothing went right.  We took the machine into the local shop where a simple tutorial on threading the machine fixed everything.  

First trial: a basic tshirt adjustment.  I don't count this as real sewing, of course.  I started shrinking tshirts about 3 years ago after a friend gave me a shirt she had done that she didn't want.  It was my favourite tshirt!  Perfect fit!  So I started to collect a pile of those big shapeless man shirts that are given out everywhere....and when the stack was high enough I borrowed a sewing machine, picked out a shirt from my closet to use as a pattern, and started shrinking.  Therefore, this is also the only thing I can do confidently without an actual pattern.

The shrinking was done in one evening. 

I ordered a pile of Lisette dress patterns by mail and waited for them to arrive.  A trip to Wellington was the excuse to buy fabric in the big city - muslin, and blue and white spotted cotton.  This was before I knew that muslin wasn't dress fabric.  The patterns came just in time for big sewing weekend number one...

It took a few dresses and a lot of online searches before I realised that there is a sewing community of young people (not just stodgy middle aged ladies...) who know loads about sewing that I have yet to learn.  Since I started with the Lisette patterns I discovered how searching for a project ahead of time can garner me lots of advice before I start sewing.  I also noticed that the things I planned to sew often didn't produce results when I looked for them online.  So...here I am adding my voice to the many already making incredible clothing!  It will take a few posts (and about two months of dresses) to get to my current project but this is my sewing challenge, from the very start.