Pattern Emporium Tiered maxiskirt in Liberty

 I first encountered this skirt when I saw my friend Tessa's version.  I've never been very into skirts.  Like, I own the same few and wear them occasionally but they aren't that comfortable and rarely have pockets so why bother?  The few I have are really great and that's sort of it, right?  

Hm.  Well, I realised a big problem was that my legs rub together.  So this summer I decided to solve the problem with long leg boyshorts with lace hems, so I could wear my skirts.  (More on those later).  And it made skirts suddenly seem like a more viable option (especially if they have pockets.)  

This does not have pockets, but that is easily fixed.  And after thinking for quite awhile I decided I was ready to cut into my number 2 longest stashed fabric: a Liberty Tana Lawn in my Favourite Print Ever Made.  In order to do that I had to do a practice version, because I have never shirred and I was not sure how the shirring would go.  

Spoiler alert: the shirring went Very. Poorly.  

Sorry it was very windy when I took these photos, plus midwinter so rather cold. 

I cut a size 10 and used some very fancy Liberty silk twill that has been sitting around - this is for my friend R and I knew she would love the colours and would not care too much about the shirring.  What is discovered is that although in one spot I read to NOT pull tension when you wind the shirring elastic onto the bobbin, actually you DO need to pull a moderate amount of tension.  All the shirring does not really suck together and just looks like weird loops on the inside of the skirt.  Luckily there's a piece of elastic in the waistband as well so this first version is wearable and the silk twill is delightfully swishy.  I was on a time crunch so I forgot to take notes on things I would change the second time around...

So after waiting far too long and not remembering anything I learned from the first version, I made my Liberty Special.  I think I wanted to shorten the middle tier 1" but I didn't do that.  I did add very large pockets. 

 

I obviously practiced shirring in the meantime and got better at it.  I didn't have any issues making this skirt, it's an easy make.  I like my huge pockets and I like the way it drapes.  

 

Friday Pattern Co Wilder dress review

 I have been planning to make this dress for years!  My enthusiasm ramped up when I saw pictures of it without the bottom tier - thinking this would have so much interesting potential.  I also was dreaming of see-through dresses with an underneath tank dress.  Last summer I even committed and bought some Liberty voile on sale, since of course I never buy 3m of fabric unless I am reminded to do so by a specific pattern.  

And finally it's the middle of summer again, and I had the time to put it together.  It was a fun and effortless sew.  I made XS, knowing that this pattern is very oversized. I hoped my shoulders wouldn't be too much for the smaller size but it has a lot of ease.  The fabric is well behaved and it came together without any problems.  I did want to add pockets, but I couldn't figure out exactly where they should go so I decided to save that for future renditions.  

 

It was fun to make and I think it's pretty hilarious, as oversized floppy muumuu type things go.  As anticipated I really hate the neck finish/long dangling ties.  I think on future versions I'll just stick elastic in the neck instead.  Definitely without the bottom tier, and definitely with great big pockets.  Also I have seen a sleeveless hack and I would be up for that - so this pretty much went as I expected.  I don't know how much I'll wear it in life - it go out a few times while I was in Fiji but overall I expect it to spend most of its time in my closet - but I want to do some experiments and see if I can get it to work for me. 

Summer fling dress by Sew This Pattern, take 2

When I made my first version of the pattern I left it short because I ran out of fabric.  I knew I wanted a second one both to try out the full length and to see if I could get the bodice to sit perfectly.  My changes were hard to track in terms of how long the straps should be, and the direction of force on them. 

I noticed that the bust darts were way (2") below my bust, and in fact if I pulled the entire bodice up by 2" it sat better under my arms too.

The armscye bias binding made a kind of 90 degree turn where it hit the top edge of the bodice front, going out over the shoulders. 

I could lower the back a tiny bit more.

The pockets are great but could be higher - I used the bardon dress pockets (Elbe Textiles) and they are MASSIVE - hah, almost as long as the first dress.

With these thoughts in mind and actually much deep reflection, I decided this needed to be the first dress this year because I had been thinking about it so long.  I bought the fabric last year, it's Liberty Poplin, and because I actually bought it for this project, I did buy enough.  I used the same bias for the front neck, over the shoulders, and the back.  I did shorter bias strips under the armscye.  That meant I had to keep a centre back seam.  I took about 1" off the width, raised the darts 1" and just removed a smidge more off the back while adding about 1" to the armpit coverage.  I decided not to shorten the straps to raise the front to where it probably should be, because the location of the front neckline suits me and I didn't want to change too much at once.  I used the Bardon pockets but put them higher.

 

 

 

The bodice seems long, but it should be standard length, maybe the weight of the dress pulls it longer.

 

 

This feels like a lot more dress compared to my first version, but that's always the problem with multiple versions of a thing.  They won't be the same, nor should they be!  Since spring is now flowering I will hopefully start to wear this and we will see if I love it as much as I loved my very short version 1. 

The Autumn tshirt binge sew

If there's one thing you can count on, it's that when I stop remembering my last tshirt binge sew, it's time for another one!  I don't know why I can't just stick to my TNT tshirt patterns, because I definitely have a few...there's a unicorn out there...

In this binge I sewed:
-The Lane Raglan
-The Woodstock swing tee, a free pattern by Hey June in teen sizes up to size 16
-The ebony, low neck version A since I had made the raglan sleeve top during my last binge
-plus the Instinc-Tee by Sasha from Secondo Piano, also a free tshirt. You can find it here.

This particular binge sew had me thinking about serial sewing - you know, when you sew one new pattern 3 times?  Everyone who blogs really well made things...they all do it.  And they kind of duck their heads in embarrassment and say, well, you know, I made one so then I had to make a few more!  I think that's actually a genius way of instinctively riding your enthusiasm for a new pattern until you get it to fit - because the truth is that no pattern is going to magically fit.  (I'll write about my Alabama Chanin experiments soon...)

Lane Raglan:
Size: S
Scrap of merino +?  silk?
Verdict: great fit at the shoulders, way too long, and the front and back are easy to confuse. 

Version 2, which is actually the tshirt I've been envisioning for the past 6 months and which was the cause of both of the last 2  tshirt binges.
Fabric: liberty jersey
side panels: merino blend jersey
I shortened by 4" and removed the curved hem.  I sewed this last thing at night, and you know, I did say something like the front and back are easy to mix up. Right? So my binding is on backwards.  I'm very grumpy about this, but I'm trying to convince myself it's a design feature.

Woodstock tee, size 16:
free pattern!
Free fabric!  (Thanks Tessa.)
I'll make the sleeves a bit longer next time, otherwise this is great!

Ebony, size 2:
fabric: silk blend, still lots left over
verdict: wtf this is short...
I also found the arms really really tight.  

 So I made another one!  I lengthened the pattern 2 inches, but I made sleeves out of the tiniest leftover bits so they were just as long as I had fabric for. This fabric is a difficult scrap - it's a rayon blend, which is almost cheeseclothy, and it hates the sewing machine, it hates being touched, but it kind of sticks to itself...anyway I tried not to touch it too much and I'm definitely not hemming it. One of the maps on the sleeve is upside down but all the body pieces are right side up!  Tetris score!

And here is the Instinc-Tee. It is size XS and I have shortened the pattern somewhat.

This counts as one of my TNT patterns.  I had enough flowers left over to do it! I've found it works really nicely under scrubs. 

As I was photographing this with my Dawn jeans I realised I've just hit the epitome of sewing:  I've mastered jeans and tshirts.  I basically never need to buy anything again. (Hah! As if.)

Until the next tshirt binge!