Vikisews Leora dress - my first vikisews encounter

I have actually moved on to making things that are more winter-appropriate.  But I bought two vikisews patterns and I wanted to at least sew one of them this year.  The Oona was planned, but I didn't have enough fabric.  So I moved on to sew the Leora.  

I would never have looked twice at this from the model photos.  It was an instagram picture from @maisewdelic that got me - cropping the dress, the sleeves, and putting the tie only through the channels rather than up and around your neck.  NOW I was sold.  

I dove into the weird world of Vikisews fit.  I got the size 36, height 162-165 cm. Because of that I made no additional pattern modifications, assuming that the petite fit would be allocated just as I need (hmmmm).  Cropped the sleeves randomly halfway down.  Removed 45 cm of the skirt. And cut the tie half as long as required.  

The instructions were really cool once I got over the question of what knit bias tape is.  I used strips of an old tshirt because it seemed more stable than the rayon of my main fabric and I had it handy.  I love the finish that provides, actually.  Creating the channel was very cool.  Overall this was a super fun one day project.  

Finally get to try it on. Hm, interesting. 

Now, this fabric is from Tessuti, it's another stash special fabric, and yet again there's me splashing out on an untried pattern.  The fit of this is good (does anyone like looking down at your own belly?  But I think it's not really something another person can see) except oddly the right shoulder. The left is a little bit better for some reason.  The right seems like the sleeve was put in wrong, though it wasn't.  I need to try to just overlock off the top curve of the shoulder - actually this is where a sloping shoulder adjustment would have saved me, enough that I might consider just doing it on everything in future. There's a huge amount, maybe 1" of dead space at the top of that shoulder, and this is quite a wide chested cut, so that's important to keep the top from falling off. I would have done it right away but I changed my overlocker thread and my overlocker is broken so changing thread is currently a bit dramatic.  Alternately, that fit is due to me also being short across the upper chest.  I've never shortened a pattern at that level, but the straps on tank tops are often too long, and I've often noticed taking a wedge out from the front horizontally above the bust would have helped things fit better - unfortunately this isn't a fix you can do once you have sewn a garment together, so I rarely consider it. 

Sorry about the particularly bad photos.  My usual outdoor location was blocked by a car and I got really frustrated with my camera's autofocus. 

Aside from the right shoulder, the fit is great.  It looks nothing like on the model.  Because I'm so short waisted (I presume that's why), the skirt comes up past my belly button and the ruching lies over it - no hole!  Very demure. I had the exact same fit on the Papercut Axis dress.  Possibly if I did do the tie over my head I could change where the ruching lay but I will never do that because I think it is hideous.  I'm fascinated by how consistent this is - I have a couple more front-hole dresses to try next year and I wonder if I will continue to find that they sit very differently on me due to my short waistedness (or some other reason?) 

This counts as a win. It's cute and wearable and actually very flattering.  (I got around to fixing that shoulder as planned, and it's better.)  I would love some Fasanella style analysis on why my fit is so different from the expected fit though! 

Sew House Seven Toaster 2, a review and pleasant surprise

The toaster sweaters went through a revamp a few years ago, and somehow I have lost the instructions for this version.  I looked everywhere. No instructions.  I used the size chart and SA from Toaster Sweater 1, and made size 2.  I was aided by 2 blogs, one of which showed the hem, and a tutorial by Sew House 7 with advice on keeping the neck down using wonder tape or hem tape.

The fabric is a very not stretchy italian nubbly stuff.  This pattern took very little of it which was too bad, because I was trying to use it up and give the top to a friend.  I came at this in a true spirit of entertained curiosity, and I was blown away by how fun it was to make, and how cool the results are.  I used iron on hem tape for the neck - I sandwiched it between the layers, positioned everything, and ironed it down, and now the neck is stuck in place!  Nothing flappy!  I have no idea if I did the hem properly but I am happy enough with the way things look.  I think I overlocked everything, sewed the corner mitres, then flipped it and topstitched with the coverstitch machine (which was a bit crazy at the corners).  I tried different clever things at the top of the split, but ended up just stitching across to strengthen that spot.  The fabric doesn't show stitch lines so that was an advantage.  

 

The fit of this is great on me. I'm short, it is pretty short, the arms are tight, but my friend is smaller than me.  I will decrease the SA on the arms for myself and use some more stretchy fabric, but I'm definitely making myself one of these. 

Since the pattern pieces were on the floor, I did that sooner rather than later. Unfortunately I had to use my last piece of the nice cashmere Mind the Maker fabric for my boyfriend's snowboarding midlayer, and I absolutely could not tetris two tops onto the fabric I had.  So spots it is: 

 

This is normal weight sweatshirting.  It's not quite as cozy as I thought, I went down to about 3/8 or sometimes 1/4" SA since I was overlocking anyway, and so it drapes straight down the front and lets a draft up.  Also, I used the double iron tape again, but I didn't get it at the absolute bottom of the neck band bit, and so my neck band is still trying to flip a bit.

Thus I could comment - this pattern is really great for not-very-stretchy knits.  I think the neck is suited to that type of fabric.  For a stretchy knit it's still ok but I do really hate any kind of facing that flips around and I'm worried this one might irritate me from the small bit of flipping it's doing.  Other people have commented on how the pull from the shoulders across the front of the neck creates a kind of wrinkle, which looks good in drapey fabric, but looks a bit funny in more structured ones.  I have noticed that more here than in the blue top.  The blue fabric had more body so it might have been less obvious.  This is cute but I do struggle with sweatshirts so it might end up going to a friend, we shall see! It will be kind of funny if I cave in and use the rest of the blue fabric to make myself another one like the original...but it might happen.

Waffle Dropje long sleeve (knit) hoodie

The Waffle Dropje and I have a history.  I was really obsessed with this vest pattern (see for instance here and here and here.)  When a sleeve addition came out I was very pleased.  In my LONG sewing list, and based on all my experiments leaning towards stretch wovens, I matched this pattern with a scuba fabric in my stash.  And when it came time to finally make it, of course I realised that one metre wasn't enough for a full hoodie, and I kind of forgot that this is a woven pattern, not a knit hoodie, and I pulled out this really stretchy double faced knit fabric.  It's from a destash by Lizzy in Port Macquarie.  I had it pink side out and kind of didn't like it, but as I was sewing I realised how much I loved the oatmeal face.  

It was, however, also very early in the sewing process that I realised this was massive on me. I had made the size 36, as in my many previous forays, 34 was too small (but in a woven!!) ... MASSIVE. I still went through with it.  I used a Riri zip.  I lined all my vests, so I had never followed the instructions before and done the facing.  I don't like it, and in a woven item I think it's better to just line it, but the instructions were clear enough (I like Waffle's instructions.) 

I have a new housemate and she's into slouchy, oversized things.  She has claimed this right away.  The fact that it was going to easily find a new home did get me through the more onerous finishing bits of the hoodie; it's not that fun to finish a project when you realise it is kind of a loss.  And interestingly enough I feel kind of done with this pattern now, like I've plumbed it's depths and gone as far as I want to go.  

I can't really speak to how well the arm fit is with the new sleeve addition since my knit was super roomy. 

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.