Birthday dress – just a peek!

Happy birthday to me! I’m 34 today, and to celebrate, I’ve been making myself a special sheath dress designed by none other than Matthew Williamson from the September 2012 issue of Burda magazine!

If you’ve been following along, then you know I’ve been super busy for the past few weeks and it was a bit touch & go whether I’d finish this dress in time to wear to my special Mystery Birthday Dinner tonight. I’m proud to say that I did finish it in time, thanks in no small part to the snow cancelling our Saturday afternoon plans and giving me time to huddle down and sew! (It did not cancel my run though – we still ran 19 miles in the snow & fierce winds)!

Unfortunately I didn’t finish in enough time to take daylight photos last night (plus it was snowing sideways & not exactly ideal photoshoot weather!), so I can only offer you some dressform photos right now, but hopefully we’ll be able to get a few shots of me dressed up before dinner tonight.

But — while everything’s fresh in my mind, I thought I’d tell you about the construction of the dress, and how I handled some of the trickier aspects of it.

I decided I didn’t want to fiddle about with a muslin for this dress, so I did the next best thing and sewed up the lining first, just to double check that my sole alteration of raising the waist 1”/2cm was right, and everything was okay.

After that I cut out the shell and facings from the purple duchesse satin, and the next hurdle was to attach the curved facings to the curved neckline and sleeves of the lining. The neckline wasn’t too bad, but the sleeves were a total bear! For this reason (and a bit that became apparant later, too), I’d recommend sewing the side seams dead last, after the lining and shell are joined at the neckline and sleeve edges, and then sewing the side seams. This means you can attach the facings flat, for starters…

The ombre denim Gimlet birthday dress

Happy (slightly belated) 38th birthday to meeeeeeeee!

My birthday was on Saturday and, after the stinker that was last year, I had a blast! I have a tradition where I like to sew myself something special to celebrate the occasion, and this year I decided to make myself a cocktail dress – rather fitting since I invited my friends out for cocktails on Friday to our favourite little whisky bar.

I’ve been utterly enchanted with the Gimlet dress pattern from the moment Capital Chic released it. Granted, Sally is a friend and I respect her work and design aesthetic so much, but this dress in particular was just too “me” not to make! I mean – sheath dress (tick), asymmetric (tick). And that’s pretty much all I need to add it to my To Sew list, ha!

My Matthew Williamson birthday dress

Thank you all so much for your patience! I finished sewing this dress in time for my 34th birthday on Monday (and I proved it by showing you dressform photos and talking in depth about the construction process!) but such a rich, dark colour really requires daylight to shoot properly, and today was the first opportunity we’ve had.

Another reason I wanted some great photos of this is because it’s an incredible pattern with some seriously striking design lines and beautiful details, and frankly, it deserves to be seen properly! In fact, it’s a true designer pattern, and from Matthew Williamson, no less! It was printed in the September 2012 issue of Burda magazine, but you can still purchase it as a pdf download if you missed it and want to make your own!

I made mine in some lusciously soft and supple “Ravissant Duchess Satin Plum” that’s been in my stash for three years just waiting for the perfect use, and paired it with a floral lining fabric gifted to me from Veronica when I was in Paris last Spring. Personally, I think these two make the most perfect pairing, even if it’s only me who sees the inside!

As I said on Monday, this pattern is a step up from the usual Burda patterns – more like a Vogue Designer pattern in all its wonderful details, but with the usual precise Burda drafting. I really wanted to do this dress justice, so I did quite a few things the long way, like the fell-stitched sleeves, walking vent, and all the matching seam intersections!

Tropical cats Duathlon Shorts and Tenacity Leggings

Even though I sewed these at the end of November, they’re my final makes of the year. Despite having a week of feeling “kinda okay” (able to take 15min walks outside) around the end of November, I’ve felt truly appalling for the rest of December and am yet again spending 23hrs a day stuck in bed with post-Covid fatigue. It’s now over 100 days since I got Covid and I still can’t sit up or stand for very long, let along have a normal life.

But now that it’s crunch time at the end of the year, I want to share these before I forget the details, even though I’m not able to share anything more than flat photos of both…

These both started with a photo of a maxi dress that was doing the rounds earlier this year (or last year? It all runs together) with big blue and purple flowers on a black background, with black cats peeking out of the shadows. I really wanted to recreate the fabric on my own, but didn’t quite get to do it. And then I saw a similar print on Creative Market so I purchased it instead, and changed the colours to suit my vision.

A galaxy print statement sweatshirt

As I mentioned last week, this past weekend was the first one in about a month where I wasn’t working, and I totally planned to fill it with as much Fun Sewing as possible!

First up was a “statement sweatshirt” using some luscious galaxy print ponte leftover from my birthday dress. I love that dress, but I loved the fabric so much that I wanted to be able to wear it with jeans and in casual settings where that va-va-voom sheath dress couldn’t really go.

I don’t usually sew from Big Four patterns as they’re so freaking expensive here, but in order to get the cheapest price on the Kwik Sew leggings pattern for my Like the Wind workshop, I had to become a Sew Today member, which came with my choice of two free patterns. After a bit of a think, I selected McCalls 6992 and McCalls 7026, which I actually frankpatterned together here!


Seen here paired with my Donna Karan denim-look leggings

It’s usually my experience that Big Four patterns have way too much ease, and this was no different. My measurements put me squarely as a Size 16, but after a peek at the finished garment measurements printed on the pattern, I saw that a 14 would be plenty big enough, and that’s what I cut. Really, a 16 would’ve just drowned me.

I decided to use some black scuba from Tia Knight for the contrast raglan sleeves and neck band, and I bought enough to make a skirt from the same yardage, which you’ll see later this week!


I somehow managed to not get any back view photos – sorry about that! The back looks pretty identical to the front, however!

Sewing book review: Drape Drape – now in English!

The first book in the popular Japanese sewing series has just been published in English! It’s been out in Japanese for a few years now, but, like the Pattern Magic books, I bided my time until they were released in English before I added them to my collection. I can muddle my way through Portuguese, Italian, French, and Dutch patterns, but I’d be totally lost in kanji, with no means to type it into a translator!

A word about the sizing of these patterns, though – their “XL” size is still 10cm smaller (and 4cm shorter!) than me at the point of least difference.


(Note for the Americans – that XL size is 5’6”, B35 W27 H38 in inches.)

So going by their sizing, that’d make me a… 4XL. omg. Nothing like tiny Japanese sizing to make you feel enormous! Good thing most of the designs are really large and flowing, so hopefully I can get away with the largest size and not have it matter too much. Fingers crossed.

This is my favourite design in the book – it’s a dress with a gathered, dropped waist, and the only vertical seam is in the centre back. The construction of this is really cool – this dress is cut out in all one piece of fabric!

Not so cool is that Kristin made this a few years ago and it did NOT work for her, so I shall be muslinning and treading very carefully here. But this one’s the top of my list in this book, in any case.

This Grecian, V-neck dress is just beautiful! But keeping in mind the size chart, I’d probably need to grade up their bodice and waist band since they appear to be close-fitting.

Me-Made March

Me-Made March has been in full swing for a month now, and as I stated in February, I’ve been playing along at home, but taking photos of what I wear every day is just completely infeasible for me, so I’ve just kept a record of what I’ve worn instead.

I did something similar a few years ago and it was really helpful in observing what I tended to wear throughout the week and which items I turned to most often. I can’t actually remember the last time I wore an outfit that didn’t contain at least one “me-made” item (not counting weekends, where I live in grotty, boat-DIY clothes), so this challenge isn’t really that challenging for me! It’s what I tend to wear anyway!

March

  1. Tues. Navy blue riding trousers & purple cashmere turtleneck (RTW)
  2. Wed. Taupe corduroy skirt & turquoise mohair sweater (layered over a RTW white long sleeved top) (so yes, I am wearing the exact same outfit as shown in my citizenship post, right down to the same tights and boots!)

  3. Thur. First Jalie jeans & plum and green lace Patrones top
  4. Fri. Foldover wool trousers (so warm!) & RTW black long sleeved top
  5. Sat. Two 40th birthday parties! Burda September cover dress

Black Beignet skirt and a bias cowl top

It feels like I’ve been talking about sewing the Colette Patterns Beignet skirt for ages now, but it’s mostly because I’ve just been so busy with life (running, socialising, wedding planning, the boat, and my garden, mostly) right now that I’ve been sewing in tiny increments here and there! But it’s finally complete, and I even managed to sew up the bias cowl top from Patrones 292 (#19) to wear with it!

Even though these go so well together, I’ve actually got no shortage of other things in my wardrobe to wear with either, so there’s no “orphan coordinates” here! And I managed to sneak some mustard and navy into my wardrobe a bit earlier than I’d planned, too!

Vintage flowered Alexander blouse

Before I jumped in with both feet in my quest to turn BurdaStyle’s “Alexander” blouse into a dress, I thought it wise to first make the pattern as intended – a cute blouse with flowy, gathered sleeves, front and back buttons, and a vintage-inspired peplum.

I had some vintage flower-print lightweight cotton in my stash that had been in my Granny’s stash for some time and she’d given it to me last time I was over in the States. As it turns out, she’s ill at the moment and in need of some cheering up, so I thought it fitting to send this blouse back to her since she liked the print so much and we’re roughly the same size!

Unfortunately this is one of those patterns that look SO much better on a real person than a dress form, but you’ll see that when we get to the dress!

Here’s a view of the collar , which I altered using Gertie’s “drafting a convertible collar” tutorial. This was a super easy way of lowering the quite high collar and adding a little something extra to the neckline: