Demeter dress, the palate cleaner turned binge

Last summer: I had just gotten back from a trip and was going to travel for work.  I really wanted a few extra items with me, so I made this while visiting my best sewing friend Tessa. The fabric is rayon from Otara in Auckland, from The Fabric Shop, and they still had it in stock when I went back the first time but I didn't take seriously a remake of this dress, and unsurprisingly now it's sold out.

I started out with size 4 and I shortened the waist by 1cm.  I didn't want to overdo modifications!  The fabric is really so exquisite, I love the pattern.  It is not a challenging make at all, very standard dress, easily done in my one day (I also made some underwear.) 

The dress is very wearable, rayon is a pretty decent match for it, but I think the pattern can handle more substantial fabrics. That is what inspired....a full on many-month (endless and painful) sewing binge while I failed to balance my new work and travel schedule with any free time for sewing.

Though it's quite similar to the Hinterland in theory, the high low shape of the bodice is subtly very different and rather more sophisticated. I love it whereas it took me awhile to like the Hinterland at all and I struggled to find the right size for me. 

However: the wearing ease on this is huge.  So much that it felt like it was falling off me side to side off my neck. And then I gave it away to a friend before I got proper pictures, so this is what I have left from my Instagram post: 

I moved on to a size 2.

I was able to cut down the pattern, just two little edges on the middle neckband and sides of the front bodice had to be creatively reimagined but I didn't have to reprint it.

I also cut off another 2" of the hem, as it just seemed too long to me.  I know it looks fine on, but I felt like I was swimming in it. This second version was absolutely a muslin that I was going to give away.

The striped second version has a lot more body to it.  I guess it's the combination of the shorter length and the fabric itself, which is tencel jacquard, rather than the super lightweight rayon.  I feel a bit silly with a dress that puffs out so much around me - I might undo the 1" bodice shortening!  I do think this length is more proportional. The fit in the shoulders is a lot better, the dress no longer slides side to side on my chest.  In the photos, this looks like it fits properly but I see that it hangs straight down from the bust, which the rayon didn't do as much.

Then I made that tactical error of buying quilting cotton. Ugh!!  I thought I had actually cut off the hem of the pattern, but I didn't. This version is thus size 2, full length, with a full length bodice as I undid the shortening on it. It is horrific as an adult dress, but useful anyway to test out the size.  However I was pretty over the dress at that moment!  It was surprising to see it looks good in the pictures since it feels really silly on me.  In the front, I like it, but in the back, the waistline does seem too low.  I also prefer the shorter length of the previous version.  

 

Made the tank top. It is theoretically very quick but the bias binding is a pain and I was so very tired of making these at this point...

And then the tank dress, no modifications, as I thought this could go to a friend who is longer in the waist than I am, and after the mushrooms version I wondered if a slightly lower gather line in the front would be better.  I made the tactical error of rushing into this right after the tank top without trying the tank on - but I wasn't really planning to keep the dress anyway. 

The tank style is too tight on me in the usual ways: the back is too narrow, my bias binding gapes no matter what I do, and the armholes are too high.  These all have easy fixes (except the bias tape issue).  The tank top is also very short.  The dress is too long for my taste but quite nice and floaty since it's silk - though in the photos it is floofier than it feels and I find the top to skirt ratio to be really offputting.  

Having finally made what feels like an endless list of this dress I am going to sit on it for awhile.  I liked the rayon first version a lot, though I felt like I was swimming in it I also adored wearing it.  I don't feel currently inspired to pull out any deep stash for this as most of my deep stash is Liberty Tana Lawn or lengths of silk.  I do think the blue jacquard is probably the best fit though I could do with the full length bodice on it.  Alternately it might be fun to do a serious redraw of the tank top dress with quite deep armholes and of course a cropped skirt.  My original feeling that a lot of body would work has not really proven to be true, I think the really floppy rayon created the best silhouette.

The Greenstyle Lumia hoodie, well hello Greenstyle patterns!

I have been hoarding medium weight leftovers since making the Linnea pullover hoodie and realising I am totally claustrophobic in pullover hoodies, plus I hated the way I had pieced it.  When I saw this egregiously obvious Lululemon copy it was clearly gonna be the winner for these scraps, with some nice piecing potential for the birds, though let's not pretend it will replace my carefully curated Lulu hoodie collection.  I reviewed all the blogs and got some useful size info, from which I chose size 3. It's not necessarily what the size chart would have gotten me - I would have done C at the chest but graded up to E at the hips.  I don't think that was necessary and the reviews pointed me in the right direction, commenting that it is pretty roomy. 

I shortened the pattern by 2" at the shorten lines, everything dovetailed up perfectly.
My vision had been to use black fabric for the sides and lower back, but I realised I couldn't do that and use it anywhere in the hood and I thought it might be jarring with blue sleeves.  I also had blue ribbing, not black.  So I ended up using this double faced, quilted blue knit as the main supplement to the birds (I think it's by Mind the Maker) and only lined the hood in black.  

I enjoyed the instructions, and everything came together neatly without any issues.  The pockets are great, as they create inside pockets as well as outside ones.  Since I used rib on the cuffs and hem, I should have shortened it, but I didn't and they are too loose. 

As you can see I remembered that my fancy sunglasses make all my photos look better (at least to me) so I have added them back into my photoshoot.  

When I connected the first piece of blue and birds, I immediately knew I hated the combination.  I've gotten lots of feedback that other people think it's rad but I was totally turned off.  Welp, now I know!  I had two people vying for this but my housemate won the coin toss. 

This is a pretty roomy hoodie and I actually recommend using a heavier weight sweatshirting for it.  My fabric, which is french terry and the double knit, in my opinion, is borderline too thin.  I also see that to up the quality of the finish, a twill tape edge on the zip side is really needed. I keep putting off learning how to do that.  The instructions for this pattern have included that, so it was my laziness this time around.

I don't know if I have made any Greenstyle patterns before, though my friend Tessa swears by them, I keep saying to myself that I have enough activewear and don't need to make any. This is totally a fallacy.  I need to always make the things I like wearing so that the ones I make will take over my wardrobe!  I do have future plans to make some running tights and summer activewear, and I've had some activewear fabric stashed so hopefully that will all come out in the next few months. This has been a pretty exciting boost for me to try more of this company's offerings.

The itty bitty furry Arlo track jacket

Friday Pattern Co, stop two. 

This Arlo track jacket has been planned for a year, when I bought this fluffy Marc Jacobs fabric from The Fabric Store because I love it so very much, it has the best feel even on the inside.  The amount of fluff means it would be pretty annoying on a pattern with a lot of small fiddly spots, but for this it worked out nicely. 

The Arlo jacket has even been at the *top* of my sewing to-do list, but so little sewing happened so the list wasn't really moving.  I wear zip front hoodie type things all the time, so I really should put more work into making my own and getting the quality of them up to my standards!  

So the Ilford jacket felt small, even though it fit, and felt kind of useless, because that style is not really my thing.  

The Arlo has a lot of size options.  You can cut things at a short, medium or long length in the bodice and sleeves.  By the size chart I'm an XS chest, S waist, and M hip.  So I cut from XS chest to M at the bottom of the bodice piece, and then cut all the pocket level pieces as M.  I used the short length for the body, and the middle length for the sleeves.  I cut extra long pieces for the hem and the sleeve cuffs so I could use self fabric that doesn't really stretch much.  

Other than green fluff getting everywhere, this was an easy sew.  Oh, and except for how the fur got in the way and I couldn't actually see whether I was sewing the seam allowance.  That meant I sometimes had to sew things twice, but it didn't impact the final garment - if anything my seam allowances were scant and the jacket should be slightly larger than expected.  I didn't topstitch because the stitch lines would not have been visible and I didn't see the point. 

The pockets are quite neat and it's easy to get a good finish on them. Everything came together really nicely.  

 

However I had some deja vu once I tried this on.  Again, it just...feels small.  And that's before I mention the sleeves.  Everyone who reviews this mentions the sleeves and I really should have taken that seriously!  They are about 4" too short.  like, the sleeves end at my wristbones.  In the photos they somehow seem longer but I promise they aren't.  And I used length "M" sleeves.  

I have not decided whether to cut the sleeve cuffs off, add another sleeve piece, and put on new cuffs.  

Another unexpected oddity - the pockets go all the way to the side seam, of course, which makes the jacket feel kind of wide in that spot.  It doesn't bother me, but it's a thing I particularly noticed - maybe because this fabric is so bulky. 

It's getting into spring and the tight coziness of this jacket isn't as desirable as it was in the depths of freezing winter.  I just can't decide if it's actually too small.  Maybe I should make all unisex patterns by the Friday Pattern Co in size M across the board...

It leaves me with a pretty lukewarm feeling about these patterns, though at least I have no issue with the instructions, which are clear and have nice diagrams. 

Also, the A0 was quite rude, the sleeve occupied its own A0 page...that's a LOT of empty paper for one little tiny (and too short) sleeve.