April Rhodes Date Night Dress (aka muumuu)

I planned to ease myself back into sewing when I returned from Arizona.  I thought this dress would be the way to do it.  It's listed as easy, for beginners, and only has three pieces (front, back, sleeve) and no darts.  Initially I bought the pattern together with this amazing 1970's flowered rayon at Pacific Fabrics, intending to use the fabric to make the slip that comes with the pattern.  I had eyed the dress online, and read through some of the reviews. 

When I realised the slip is extremely basic, I changed my mind and thought I'd just make the dress itself.  I didn't recall anything particular from the reviews, although if I had I might have shortened the dress a bit - most people rave about it! 

The rayon is a wonderful, no-stretch woven with a great drape, and was actually a bit difficult to cut - my floor is sometimes quite slippery and it makes cutting slippery fabrics twice as hard as it would be on a table.  (And yes, I am cutting everything on the floor these days...love the impromptu setup...not...but at least I get loads of natural light that way.)  Since I had planned to make the slip, I had just barely enough fabric for the dress, which obviously uses quite a lot more with its huge, long shapeless skirt.  I cut a S based on my bust measurement and should have cut an XS. I had measured the length and double checked the pattern, which says finished length is 27", but I didn't realise that was a front measure instead of a back measure.  I could have saved some fabric if I had noticed that as the pattern piece itself was really long, and in fact the finished dress came halfway down my calves prior to hemming. 

The pattern was hard to get used to.  As a "super-beginner" pattern, it has color pictures denoting what to do and walks you through every step of a french seam...on each seam.  And that didn't help me at all, too much information?  I still did one sleeve inside out, and the side seams inside out, and didn't notice!  I will blame being sick - recovered from a feverish laryngitis and clearly still pretty dizzy, which is why it took nearly a week to get this baby put together. 

So seams notwithstanding, when I finally tried it on I realised my worry about the pattern (it seemed huge) was spot on - it was a huge shapeless muumuu.  I don't wear belts so I had zero interest in belting it.  I love the fabric and didn't want to waste all those french seams...I knew I had seen a shirt version somewhere - here it is: Jenna's shirt version, and I knew right away that was the way to salvage this.  So I went ahead and redid my entire sleeve the right way, and then experimented with narrowing the sleeves, but that didn't work and I took it out.  I ended up cutting the dress to make a shirt, just guessing about where I wanted it, and then I took a pie shaped piece out of each side seam (total 2" out at the bottom, I'd guess.)

I know everyone has liked this pattern.  Most people also seem to agree that it truly is beginner friendly.  My issues, other than the drawn-out detail on french seams, was that every hem is rolled.  The sleeves have a rolled hem.  The hem itself should be rolled.  And the technique for doing this is one that has consistently failed me - to fold at 1/2" and iron, then fold that in again and iron the smaller fold, then tuck them together, before you pin and sew.  I might just be bad at rolling hems of all types, but it seemed like a crappy technique to call "beginner."

This dress is a bit out of my comfort range, because of the flowy sleeves and the generally flowy dress.  I can see on other people that it is not inherently totally shapeless like it was on me, but my first try with it doesn't convince me to make it again.  I do, however, quite like the top that I ended up with.

Papercut Anima lounge pants

I made it about 4 weeks in Arizona without sewing.  I planned endlessly.  But I did not sew.  Then I caved in, of course.  I wanted something that would reliably arrive on time and so I settled on the Anima pants since they were a pdf and I knew any knit would work.  I was curious about them.  And Mood even ships to the middle of nowhere in about 48 hours (amazing!  But the hospital hid my package from me for a further four days...)  However when I was buying supplies in Flagstaff I was "not in the mood" to buy the elastic.  I can't harp too much on how stupid of a decision this was.  Everything would have gone smoothly if I had taken the extra 15 seconds to walk that box of elastic over to the checkout counter...

My fabric from Mood is a boring-appearing double faced cotton jersey.  One side is almost terry cloth like (I put that on the outside) and the other layer is ultra soft cotton.  The ultra soft side is prettier but I was going for ultimate lounge-potential.  (As you can see in my pictures, I will not win any style awards if I walk around in public in these.)

I cut a size XS, which is my usual in Papercut.  In this pattern your waist measurement can be modified when you cut the elastic, and I cut it a bit longer than the recommended 27.5 inches because it was so stiff.  I remembered what Sonja had written in her review and I shortened these by about 3 inches (the height of one of those advertising postcards in magazines...I didn't have a measuring tape.)  I am 5'4" and the fabric was too thick for me to desire a bunch of folds at the ankles.  In fact I think an XXS would have been reasonable because they are pretty roomy, and the extra fabric created by the pockets adds a lot of bulk in my thicker fabric.

I sewed these up on a friend's Kenmore sewing machine.  It was amazing.  The machine looked similar to my Janome but with lots more options.  If I had time to read the manual I might have been tempted to try some of the faux-overlocking stitches.  I cut these pants out at lunchtime, and I sewed them before dinner.  Total time was about 2.5 hours.  That was up to the point of installing the elastic, of course.  I was very sad not to get to finish them (I wanted to take exotic pictures on the mesa...) but I had to wait til I got back to Seattle and got some elastic.

I'm not sure if it's the only kind of 2" elastic but the stuff I have always found is disgusting.  It's very rough, hard to stretch, and I would never want it against my skin.  It is better in the Minoru but not very pleasant in a pair of lounge pants.  I have seen softer elastic in other sizes.  Is elastic best sourced online?

Anyway so I finally settled in to do the waistband and it seemed very very wrong to me that the elastic is supposed to be sewn to the edge of the band - when it's flipped that will be a rough edge on the bottom inside of the waistband.  I distrustfully left a 1cm band of fabric at the edge.  When I flipped the elastic over I thought I could tuck that underneath.  I was quickly disabused of this notion.  The work of pulling that monster elastic straight, while keeping my poor 20$ Necchi sewing, was itself too much.  Not to mention that it was no longer topstitching or stitching in the ditch at all.   I left the extra fabric loose and followed the instructions.  (Maybe I should have done this from the beginning?)  Now my waistband was a little narrower and I was topstitching straight on the elastic.  I added the two decorative layers as well.  The instructions say to make sure you dont stitch on the elastic in this step, but for me it didn't matter since I did not want the drawstring or the buttonholes and had skipped them.

In fact, these are rather high waisted on me.  So when I flip over the waistband it is very comfortable and has this nice frill...

These are so ugly on me that I'm not immediately convinced to make more, but in a slightly lighter weight fabric, and with an XXS they might be less bulky and unflattering.  Also that waistband really doesn't match the fabric - it's almost painfully stiff, and the fabric is sooo soft.  It would be a lot of work to take out, but I may consider doing that anyway and putting in a 1.5 inch soft elastic instead, which would also lower the waistband a bit (it's too high for lounge pants.)   Despite the gripes, they are comfortable.  

Papercut La Sylphide Dress in raw silk

This is one of the projects that came all the way from New Zealand.  I cut out the XS before I left, with no changes to the pattern.  Since returning from Switzerland I've been on a sewing bender.  I have to say that I miss the peace of sewing the Georgia and taking a month to do it.  On one hand I really want to get all these languishing projects completed, but on the other hand, I don't have a burning desire to own all these dresses...I am starting to appreciate taking more time with each project, instead of rushing through them, as well as actually picking projects that I really want to wear for a specific purpose.  That has definitely been my goal and my mindset for this year.

Unfortunately, a lot of projects from New Zealand have come with me and they predate my new mindset.  So I still want to get them done, preferably now now now!  (Not known for having patience.)  It seems best to finish them and learn from them before I move on to some more difficult, and slower, challenges. 

I liked the fit of the La Sylphide shirt, but I hated the bow.  So I cut it off.  I wasn't sure how that would work for a neckline.  The raw silk that I got is from a seller on etsy and is hand-dyed with organic materials.  This does mean that there is some colour variation and that ironing it can leach the colour a bit.  It is amazing to work with - it irons easily, behaves exactly as you want, and has a lovely drape.  In fact as I came around to that neckline...I thought that bow might have been less annoying in this fabric.  Oops. 

I paid extra care to the little space between the top of the placket and the neckpiece, and manage to get everything topstitched without a gap - I had a lot of trouble with that gap in the first version and I know other people did too and just camoflaged it with the bow.  This time around I also finished all my seams by zig-zagging the seam allowance together.  For some reason I hadn't thought to do that in the past except on knits, and it created a great finish.  I french seamed the skirt and the shoulders, but the silk is really too thick for that to work anywhere else. The buttonholes were a bit of stress as the last time I tried to buttonhole on the Necchi it created a thread-birdsnest. I practiced a bit first and they actually went really smoothly.  Unfortunately I ignored the button placement instructions and I think that mine don't look well placed- I left irregular spaces and I think I'll put a tiny snap at the widest part of the bust to make sure it stays together.  I'm not too concerned about that though, I'm happy with how this came out. 

I knew the fit was spot on from making the shirt, and in the end this has turned out a really fabulous dress! 

Vogue 1351, in wool

I saw Lizzy's version of this and coveted it instantly.  I saw it in person shortly afterwards and this dress jumped to the top of my list.  I oh-so-cleverly went for some plaid directional wool that I found at Tessuti in Melbourne...thinking that it would be edgy and cool.  Rather regretted that- Lizzy's version in crepe is much better suited to the pattern.

I have always cut a size 10 in Vogue patterns and they are always too big.  So I cut a size 8 this time, forgetting that some of the designer lines for Vogue have less ease.  I lined the dress with bemberg in purple (which as you can see I had not hemmed in the pictures.)

Construction is rather confusing because you sew the lining to the inside part of the cowl, and then sew the lining in the rest of the way.  Lizzy's post on this shows the lining.  I had to lay it on the floor and move stuff around quite a bit until I got it right, but I was waiting for my invisible zipper foot and didn't have the zipper in, which made it more confusing as you are supposed to do that first.  It was not too difficult to figure out but a bit time consuming.  My only real gripe was at the end when I couldn't completely figure out how to shut the shoulder seams.  Vogue seems to have a tendency this way - to expect you to finish something perfectly by separating the lining and the fabric, and sewing them separately even though you haven't got room to do it, when I by then only have little straggling ends that won't meet up properly.  I tried to do it the Vogue way on one side and on the other side I just folded the mess together and sewed it as one (it leaves the ends hanging out at your shoulders), and actually the Vogue side looks much better even though I thought I was doing it terribly.

Anyway it got to that point and I finally tried it on...and the top half is too small.  So I guess I should have made a size 10, or maybe a 10 on top and an 8 on the bottom, after all.  I was quite disappointed which is why I just had my lovely friend Dana snap the photos before I bothered with the hemming.  Luckily I found the dress a new and enthusiastic owner so all has worked out well.  Next time (there will probably be one eventually as I still like the style and it does end up with a great finish if you take more care with the seam allowance on the shoulders ahead of time...as the pattern suggests) I would use a finer, drapier material and I would obviously avoid the diagonal directional print - although with a belt this won't look so jarring, I don't actually own any belts and am not keen to acquire them.

Papercut Peter and the Wolf Pants, salvage operation

I was sewing these at the eleventh hour before I left New Zealand.  Literally - I sewed until the minute I had to pack up the sewing machine and take it away.  I got all the way to the waistband and at that point there was nowhere to go, they were so huge.  I had really expected a lot out of these pants, and while I knew I am not advanced enough to manage the amazing fit of Lauren's spotted pair, I had even made a muslin!

It was time to take a long break, so I did.   A looong break.  And finally I felt ready to just do whatever had to be done to make them fit and get rid of the butt wrinkles from hell.

-Removed about 3 inches from the front crotch, tapering out at the sides.  This wasn't done quite evenly and one leg is a tiny looser than the other.  But whatever.
-Removed about 1 cm from the upper sideseams, tapering to nothing above the pockets since I didn't want to change them at all.

Those two changes made these pants fit.  Then I put on the waistband and I stretched it out a lot as I sewed.  The fabric has a lot of stretch, and this way the waistband ended up nice and snug - I had removed the zip for the fitting process and just basted the sides, and I called it a success when I had to put the zipper back in!

I still don't consider these the ultimate Peter & the Wolf pants.  They are particularly unflattering due to the pockets visually widening the hips - I think this might be minimised in a finer fabric.  Not to mention the butt, I'm not even sure how to conquer the butt-fitting problems.  But they are wearable and cozy, so I will not be sending them to the secondhand heap quite yet.

Final summary:

Papercut Patterns Peter & the Wolf pants
Fabric: Marc Jacobs Herringbone wool from Mood
Size: XS
me: always an XS in Papercut
Changes: lengthened the legs slightly so they would be full length pants. 

Drape Drape 2, no 4 in stripey rayon

I bought a bunch of lovely fabrics to make into these tops - I was really surprised to find a variety of interesting rayon blends at Joann Fabrics, and they were all cheap.  But I thought I could eke out 1 meter of fabric...for a one piece pattern that calls for 1.4 m?  Oops.  That didn't work.  So this is the only fabric I had enough of.  It's a nice drapey rayon, with quite a bit less stretch than the cotton that I used for the first version.  It's a bit heavier as well.

I was going to raise the front neckline, but totally forgot.  Also, I had the fabric face down on the floor, meaning that the drape moved to the other side.  I forgot that a non-symmetrical pattern can't be flipped over at will...luckily I didn't care about the drape side.

I was going to do a nice Renfrew style neck binding...but I again forgot my sides and I sewed it to the inside.  Sigh.  I folded it over and sewed the edge down just to have a clean binding but it still looks rather nicer on the inside than the outside.  On this version I made an effort to clean up all my seams, because my first version feels very flimsy.  I still didn't sew the bottom at all since it is snug.

It ended up a bit tighter.  I might loosen the opening for the drape side armhole next time so that it doesn't cling to my arm.  It's still amazing! 

The best undercover hood ever - in double face Italian wool

Me Made May was a brilliant idea for about 4 days while it was warm and sunny out...but then Seattle got all rainy.  It does that sometimes.  So in order to stave off the cold I was inspecting my me-made wardrobe for gaps.  That's what me-made-May is for, right?  Makes one reflect a bit on what things we ought to be making, instead of, say, dresses....

As I noted in my plans for the year, I need to make more cardigans.  I also have a weird jacket fetish, and probably I should make some jackets too, not because I need them per se but because it will distract me from buying them.  But anyway right this minute, the solution was a warm, fuzzy Undercover Hood by Papercut.  I've done it so many times that I couldn't go wrong, and now I know to use a heavier weight knit.  So I went off to Nancy's Sewing Basket, in the rain, to see what they had.  Naturally, what they had was exquisitely expensive double faced Italian wool, and after sucking in a breath and going for it, I rushed home to roll myself up in it for a day or so.  The outside is grey/heathered navy with a normal knit face, and the inside face is fleecy/almost felted soft navy.  I stuck a tiny square in the wash but I didn't like how it took away some of the fleeciness, so I washed this in the machine on 'ultra-delicate' and that seemed to do ok.  I air-dried it.

I made my usual alterations to the Undercover hood.  I cut an XS, 2" removed from the sleeve length, 1" from the middle front, and shortened the front pocket about 1" accordingly.  I cut two pockets, so that I could sew them together for a clean edge, but I kept the fleecy side facing in on the inside layer.  Same thing on the hood- I sewed them together so that I would have the woven outside and fleecy inside even though it's two layers.  

I was terrified to iron this, although ironing made it just shiny enough that I got worried, it flattened it out quite a bit and that might have made it easier to sew at times.  Overall the fabric was very well behaved.  It cut easily, shed only some bits of fluff everywhere, and it flattened as I sewed so even though I was sewing 4 layers, it didn't mess up the Necchi.  (We're on better terms now, since I stole him from my parent's house and took him home.)

What I didn't anticipate is how the thick wool makes this sweatshirt a lot smaller than in the stretchy past versions.  It fits me perfectly but if I start to warm up at all it gets really hot.  In this fabric I could have left it a bit larger just so it would air more.  I am already starting to dream of a version with a zip up the front...