Megan Nielsen Eucalypt dress in lemons

I have made this dress before, but it was so bad that it was just a muslin and I never blogged it.  I cut a size XS, I believe, and it was too tight over my hips.

Recently I pattern tested for another one of these slip-dress styles, and had lots of opportunities to see how sizing around the hips changed the fit of the dress.  It made me willing to be more flexible and size up in the hip area as a way of managing my swayback.

So when I decided to cut into some lovely, summery lemon fabric, I went from an XS at the bust to an S right around the waist.

The dress is very simple, lending itself to french seams.

I was, however, still not satisfied with the amount of fabric pooling in my back.  The solution would be to add fish darts to the back, if I were so inclined.  Another option would be to use drapey fabric like rayon that might make the swayback less obvious.

I gave this to my friend Regina who says she loves it, and who lives in a hot clime where she can wear it a lot! 

Orange Lingerie purple lace Marlborough bra

This bra is the story of thinking you know what you are doing and forgetting all the details.

I made this beautiful bra awhile ago.  Too bad that it seems 32 C really does not fit me these days.  So my solution was to cut a 30B, to decrease both the clearly too big cup size and the clearly loose band.  That was a bad move.  Next, I went on to cut my pattern out in lace using glue, that honestly isn't my fault is the absolute worst sewing glue on the entire planet. Pick your spray glue wisely!!  If I had taken a picture of the glue I'd post it but I didn't, sorry.  Madalynne recommends Odif's 505 (here) and I would go with that next time as I reckon she is the lingerie guru these days

Then buoyed up by all that tension and anger from dealing with the glue, I popped all these tiny pieces of lace into my sewing machine, where the feed dogs had a lot of fun.  This bra looked too small to me - the cups just seemed small.  And my drive to actually produce a nice bra hit zero really fast.  Which shows.

The cups are not even because I couldn't see my snip marks and didn't try very hard.  Other than that it looks ok.  It is too small, both in the cup and in the band.  I think a 32 B might have given me the best result.

The lace and notions are from Tailor Made Shop.   I generally like everything I get from there, but this was actually a kit to make a Madalynne bra, and as kits go I think it doesn't match very well - it looks good when the pieces are just lying out but as a bra it has too many jarring elements - why are the straps so dark?  Nude closure?  It would be better with a dark coloured underlining instead of the pale white.  I also didn't underline the top panel of the bra, and I think that would lead to it being very flimsy and falling apart faster. 

And I have finally been on the verge of a bramaking breakthrough: I do not wear lace bras.  Why do I keep trying to make them?  It may be time to get over my anxiety of foam and make a foam bra - ironically the very first bra I made was foam and then I reread a bunch of blogs and thought I should be not using foam, so I stopped and never tried it again.  However, the duck billed shape of the Marlborough is even more apparent in this smaller size, and so I think it is also time to start making different patterns - I have in mind the Harriet to try, plus one of Madalynne x Simplicity 8229,  but I believe that Anne from Clothing Engineer had a lot of advice that I might read up on prior to my next foray into bras.

Simplicity New Look 6429 and Japanese gardens

I cut this pattern out in size 10 mainly because my pattern didn't go smaller. Thank god I did!  It's true that big 4 size patterns aren't always true to the envelope, which puts me a size 12, but lately I'm in the habit of sizing way down because I've been making a lot of knits. That really doesn't turn out well with wovens. 

The fabric is from a little shop I found in Hilo, Hawaii.  I was in love with this shop, which had mainly Japanese prints, and I couldn't resist buying a few.  This dress was part of a dress project I started although I had to give up halfway down the list because I ran out of time before moving...(again.)

This pattern seems to have really good reviews. In order to test it to the max, I went with a version that had sleeves, view A.  It is so hard to fit my shoulders, and the idea of the dress project was to find some patterns that really had hope, that might need multiple muslins/attempts but that will end up being building blocks for the future.

The pattern is straightforward.  In this version, the yoke is interfaced, and the inside of the yoke seam allowance is ironed out of sight before topstitching.  It is easy to have a clean finish, and I could have done entirely french seams, although I didn't because I thought of it as a bit of a muslin.

 I hesitated after putting the yoke on the dress, thinking that the pattern placement was hideous, and overall I had to leave this dress as a UFO while I debated what to do.  At that point I could see that the fit was surprisingly good, and I thought maybe I needed a different fabric yoke.  However, it's hard to match quilting cotton with anything else, so eventually I gave up and decided the pattern placement, while not optimal, wasn't terrible.

My final estimation is that this dress fits me perfectly from the waist up.  And while inspecting it I realised that the bottom of the dress fits great too.  It's the middle 7 cm that I don't need.  So I realised that this in fact is a perfect dress for me to work on - by removing 7 cm from the middle, on a pattern that has no lengthen-shorten lines, and that has a french dart in the middle of the to-be-removed section.

I think this pattern would fit perfectly on someone who is long waisted.  And I am still pretty blown away at how well it fits me above the waist. I think the pictures don't quite show how much the middle is wrinked due to being totally extraneous.

I planned a second version right away and was really hoping to do it too!  But I had to box it up as it got close to moving time.  This pattern is one I'll return to. 

Onward with knits: trees and stars

Making one project often seems to beget other project ideas. Sometimes it's ways to use up the fabric scraps, other times it's to improve on the first version.  I think that it's a good idea to chase down these ideas because they are the things I get excited about even though they are kind of queue jumpers (and I am way too obsessed with crossing things off lists.)

That happened.

The Geneva tee was a way of using the end of the star fabric, which I love, and the original project was a fail. It was also a way of using my scraps of my totally amazing cashmere merino blend jersey.
Geneva: size 36.

I added cuffs to the sleeves, which helped to stabilise the super fine sleeve fabric.  My second thought on this very fine jersey is that in the future it might be nice to double it up.  I am scared that the leggings are fragile and will get easily worn out.

The Minttu was a way of quickly testing whether there was a way to salvage this pattern. I didn't want to commit too much to it, but I did think that whatever I made would be wearable.
Minttu: size 34, back to full length, no lining or bindings.
I used the end of this lovely star embossed fabric and some navy ribbing for the under arm portions.
I still think the shape is too billowy but at least it's not too short.  I would decrease the exaggerated width at the bottom on future versions.

The mission tank was actually an idea from my first op-shop trip in March. I fell in love with this fabric, even though the original item was a pretty tight dress and therefore not a lot of fabric to work with. I really wanted it to be a Renfrew but I could not make it happen. And as a Mission it has already had lots of wear!

Mission size 6.  Upcycled dress. 

i am Cassiopee dress in Orla Kiely stems

I'm in love with this fabric and for once found a great showcase for it.

The fabric is some Orla Kiely remnants, from the etsy shop Saved Fabrics, and the idea that I'm also saving this great fabric from the landfill is a nice perk.

The company i am patterns is new to me - I discovered them right before I left Arizona, and bought a bunch of their patterns to try.  I made the Cupidon (here) and found it to be very simple and consisent with what I expected.  They have a fun aesthetic and I'm excited to try more of their stuff too, eventually.  I really appreciate that they have English translations.

I cut a size 36.

I have a large length of stems and quite a bit of the yellow hatched fabric, which is slightly denser and with an almost water-resistant feel although I believe it's still 100% cotton.  For that reason I used it for the skirt, and also to keep the pattern less busy.

This was no. 1 of my dress project: goal is to find 2 dress patterns that I really like and want to keep mixing/matching/working on to finally attain a good fit. As you can imagine this pattern isn't in the running for that.  It is cute in this fabric but it's too simple to be really interesting and it's not a shape I'd like any more of.  However, it was so very fast to make and it's pretty foolproof for a variety of body shapes; as the pattern remarks you could also use any fabric - something thick and furry for winter might be nice, although I'd probably narrow the skirt so the gathers don't become overwhelming in a heavy fabric.

It's hard to have more to say.  I used french seams on the body, but didn't on the sleeves and I top stitched them down, and because of the gathers I didn't attempt french seams on the waist.  It was a super easy, fast sew and I know it's shapeless, but I think that the cool fabric makes up for that. Plus it's really nice for layering!

However I didn't shorten the skirt.  So if you are average height or above and you don't want a tunic dress, you might take that into consideration. I'm 5'4"!

Anima and Virginia pants: a scuba experiment.

I had a length of some scuba fabric from Spotlight and was planning to make a dress with it. But then after kayaking I got to thinking it would be nice to have some scuba kayaking pants.

So I decided to make both the Anima pants and some Virginia leggings and see how they would come out.  I suspected that the Virginia leggings would be too tight, because the scuba fabric tends to have a lot less give compared to other types of fabric. 

I was right. I used the same sizes I have been using lately: XXS in the Anima pants, and XS in the Virginia leggings, with the high waistband and the petite sizing.

Above: are all Anima pants.  Below: are all Virginia leggings.  The leggings honestly I can barely pull them on.  They were a direct to op-shop kind of sew.

But the Anima pants are great, and will definitely be my kayaking pants for the rest of this winter!

You can see the waist of this is loose on the hanger.

Virginia pants are very tight on the hanger!