Dreamy starry Helene and a Blomma hack

 So how about an epic win?

After my first pair of Helene jeans, I wore them around, and reflected on the vision I had for this fabric.  It's been stashed for awhile, being a special designer fabric and etc etc, but I felt pretty confident that I could match my inspiration.  I sized up to a 6, used the straight leg pattern, removed 2" from the rise, and the 30" inseam (interestingly - this was LONGER than the 32" inseam of the other pair.)  My vision was of a pair of fitting to slightly oversized jeans with a straight leg and about an ankle length which I planned to not hem.  I had considered different lengths for the front and back hem - a nice addition I've seen on some RTW, but it would have required planning ahead and cutting the different lengths and felt like too much at the time, so I skipped it. 

The denim is probably 10 oz and has no stretch.  I made sure to use a zipper that wasn't too short this time, and I was really surprised that these jeans came together in one day with no hitches at all, in fact, they felt very meditative.  Have I finally got the handle on denim??  I used gutermann topstitching thread and it didn't thread nest on the back.  

And then I went to put in the button...

And for the first time in my life, the button ripped almost through the fabric.  It was literally the final step, as I had already done the rivets.  I was in horrified shock.  This immediately led me to try to find solutions which were, at this moment, unnecessary - because the button hasn't pulled all the way through I'll have to wear the jeans as they are until it does, and then orchestrate a fix.  But anyway I sewed on a scrap of leather behind the button, and clearly that will be my fix - I'll put little pieces of leather front and back of the hole after interfacing them, and then apply a new button. I might topstitch that area of the WB in a spiral to strengthen it for all this. 

Aside from that catastrophic denouement, the jeans are perfect.  I did, however, stop there and I did not put on a little leather patch on the back.  Maybe I'll do that when I replace the button...

 

I'm wearing them here with my new Blomma top.  I realised at the beginning of summer that I needed a cropped linen tank top.  I got 2m of linen knit from The Fabric Box, used the Blomma, widened the back by an inch or so, cropped it, and used the armhole binding technique from the Briar tee.  It has been the perfect addition to my summer wardrobe as waistbands creep up!  

La Maison Victor Lize tshirt dress (3/2019) in Pucci

Gah!  Where has the time gone?  I have been sewing a tiny bit but somehow not enough to finish a blog post?  For 6 months?  That's never happened before unless I was literally unable to get to a sewing machine. 

Anyway, I borrowed a few different editions of LMV a long time ago and traced a few patterns.  Here is this one.  Unfortunately the only way to access it is by finding a copy of that magazine. I was kind enough to my future self to add the seam allowances too, so basically the traced patterns were ready to go.  I've already made the Charlene sweatshirt which I thought was quite cool, though I sort of hate voluminous sleeves in real life.

This is a long tshirt dress with no remarkable features.  I had traced size 34, which I presume is my size, and I could see by the lines on the pattern pieces that I'd given myself a good 1 cm seam allowance.  I cropped the pattern as long as the length of my blue fabric.

I had schemed to use an amazing little tiny metre of Pucci fabric...so first I followed the pattern and made this nice swan dress for a friend.  I was too lazy to add pockets.  The swan fabric is rayon and it's from one of my European binge shops about 18 months ago, I don't love it, so I was happy to offload it onto someone else.  I liked the fit of the dress, but it's SO A-line.  Too much for a tshirt dress. If you made it full length that would be a lot of fabric.  Maybe nice to swish around, but anyway.  Because of the higher neckline it does not Show All, unlike the Closet Core Ebony dress, but I would say it's only a bit less voluminous.  I didn't choose that pattern because I thought it would be harder to balance the pattern across the raglan shoulders, and because the wide shape is the point of the pattern so removing all that volume seemed like a bad idea. 

 

So I retraced the pattern flat instead of on the fold. I laid out my tiny metre of fabric on the floor (my kitchen floor isn't a great cutting space but unfortunately the carpets aren't crappy enough to rip up yet) and laid out my new pattern pieces onto it.  Then I proceeded to basically crop off the A line until it fit the fabric.  I cropped off a lot!  EEEK!  I played around with the fabric layout as much as I could but had to give in and use the geometric border, which I would have liked to avoid. 

I was overjoyed by the results.  I again didn't add pockets, this time because I didn't want to mess up the line of the dress.  I have stashed this insanely cool fabric for about 18 months and it's been on my mind the whole time.  I don't think another garment would have suited the heavy rayon drape and stretch as well as a tshirt dress, and it's obviously the best canvas for a print of this nature.  I also managed to keep things like mountain tips off my nipples, which is a grand success.  The geometric bits are all on the same side, and the other side matches up harmoniously.  Overall, a win for a special stash fabric.