Twinkle Smock

I do love a smock.  I recently borrowed the Woody Allen film "Annie Hall" from my library, partly because it is a supposedly iconic film that I have not seen, but mostly because somebody cited Diane Keaton's wide legged pants as one of their favourite movie fashion moments in a Vogue forum.  So I watched the movie to see the wide legged pants, but actually, I much preferred her outfit in an earlier scene where she is in a cinema queue wearing a purple smock dress over a black turtleneck and jeans.  So perfectly seventies.

This is my latest version of the smock dress.

The pattern:  "White Magic" from Twinkle Sews. This pattern has lots of little details which made for an interesting sewing project.  The centre front panel has knife pleats.  The neckline has a series of narrow pleats.  There are ginormous, slouchy pockets.  There are exposed seams on the sleeves.  The back has a shirred panel, extension thingys and ties across the upper back.  Instead of shirring, I did what my sewing machine manual calls "smocking".  I'm sure anybody who really smocks would be appalled, but I sewed rows of gathering stitches, pulled up the threads and then sewed over the top with a straight stitch.  I did this because shirring elastic does not last very long in my climate.

The fabric:  This is a Cornwall linen from Tessuti in the most gogeous shade of red.  I don't know much about how fabric is made, but some of the threads seem almost iridescent, which show up the dress details beautifully.  I have noticed that the on-line store is out of red but they still have this fabric in other shades.  The pocket lining and bias binding were made from remnants of liberty print.  They show a little, but I don't mind this.  It coordinates well with the selvedge that I left exposed on the front side panels. I did have some red bias binding but it seemed a shame to use a polycotton binding on such a lovely linen (btw have you seen Gwen's bias maker?  I hope I never come across this maker as I would not be able to resist buying it.  I do find making bias tape to be one of those strangely satisfying sewing tasks).

Today I am wearing this dress over leggings.  I ducked into a funky little dress shop with a friend and the store owner asked me where I got the dress, which is most flattering, but I do find it embarrassing to admit that I made something when I am in a shop...sort of exposes me as not being a real customer.

Yesterday I wore the dress over jeans to go and eat fish and chips down on the Strand.  The weather here is just glorious here at the moment and we just sat and watched all the people out boating.

I have tried wearing the dress without leggings or jeans but it is probably a smidge short at the back for such a wide dress.  I was wearing wedges and felt a passing resemblance to Big Bird. I think it is the pockets.  I wouldn't make this pattern up in yellow!

Liberty blouse

Do you want to hear a not-so-funny, well, maybe just-a-little-bit funny story.  Today my car broke down.  I had to wait for the RACQ to come and then they couldn't get it started.  The reason it wouldn't start was that I had dropped the keys in the toilet this morning and apparently the car could no longer recognise them.  So then I had to call Peter at work to bring me his key.  He works about 40 minutes away from where I was parked, so I spent quite a while sitting by the side of the road.  And as I was sitting there I was thinking "Well, at least I'm wearing a lovely blouse for the occasion, it keeps the sun off nicely."

I wore it today, even though it is not quite finished.  I still have to make a drawstring to go through the bottom casing.  Mostly it will be worn as a summer blouse with denim shorts, but I couldn't resist wearing it today just because it was new.

The fabric is a Liberty print.  At first glance you may think it is just another floral print, but take another look and you will see all the groovy mushrooms.

The pattern is Vogue 1177, an Anna Sui dress pattern.  I used it to make a blouse because I like the neckline and it has a lot of lovely tuck and pleat details.  Not that you can see them in this print, though they do contribute to the shape of the blouse.  There are tucks in the front yoke and pleats in the front panels, below the back yoke and around the biceps.  I'll pop some more pattern details in a pattern review.

Marfy Pattern Puzzle

HELP NEEDED!

I ordered Marfy pattern 1668, which features in their current catalogue.  You can see a picture of it at the Vogue website  Marfy 1668 (sorry, I can't work out how to put a picture here).

The model looks like she is putting her hand in a side pocket.

The pattern description is "These sporty, safari shorts have turned up cuffs, patch pockets with flaps and underlying welt pockets closed with zippers."

Given the pattern number, I am wondering if the pattern was first featured in the 2008 summer collection.

Anyway, here are some photos of the pattern pieces laid out.

The flap matches up at point P.  The patch pocket doesn't seem to fit accurately.  If I line it up with the line that looks like a pocket placement, the pocket is a smidge too wide and long to match up with the notches at H.  So, am I putting the pocket in the wrong place.  The horizontal lines halfway down the patch pocket say "fine stitchings".  I had assumed they meant top-stitching.  If I pleat there, the pocket is too short.  The only other thing I can think of is to put pin tucks there, but why would you?  And still, this doesn't solve the slightly too wide bit.  The bottom right vertical edge of the patch pocket says "zip".  I'm struggling to imagine where the welts / zip goes and what the underlying pocket is.  There are no underlying pocket pieces or welt pieces.  Maybe the "underlying pocket" is the bottom half of the patch pocket?

If anyone has any ideas or a picture from the 2008 catalogue, I would love to hear from you.

Butterick Wrap Dress

I'm feeling pretty happy with myself and my new dress...only I can't decide how to wear it...black side to front or white side to front.  What do you think? 

The fabric:  A nylon lycra print from EmmaOneSock.  Nylon lycra is not the best fabric for my climate, and it seems to snag very easily, but the print is just gorgeous, isn't it?  

The pattern:  I had every intention of using the renown Vogue 8379.  I had it sitting in front of my computer, as I was checking out all the 58 pattern reviews and was thinking that I would like to reduce the width of the skirt.  Then a friend came to borrow my computer and I haven't seen it since.  I don't know if I accidently packed it up in a book when I cleared space at the desk or if I took it away to study whilst she was at the computer.  I searched high and low for 3 days, then Butterick had a $3 pattern sale and I decided that I liked Butterick 5454.  I'm sure that the Vogue will turn up some day???

This one made up pretty quickly.  I got the pattern out yesterday, thinking that I would just work out what changes I needed to make.  That was easier than I thought, so I traced off the pattern, and lay it out on my fabric, seeing as there was a brief moment of clear space in our living room yesterday.  After school I started stitching it up and this morning there was only a bit of binding and the hem to go.  I thought I could get it done before making lunches, then someone reminded me that it was their turn to bring cakes to work.  A batch of cupcakes later and I had just 10 minutes  to spare.  Dress completed and on my way to school when I noticed that I had only hemmed one sleeve!  Not to mention all the mess in the kitchen that still awaits me.

I took a photo of my pattern layout, just in case it helps anyone else with a print that changes from selvedge to selvedge.  The only tricky bit was getting the back skirt side seams to match the front skirt side seams without putting a seam in the back skirt. 

I'm so chuffed with actually completing a garment so quickly that I would like to make the pattern up again before I put it away.

Denim + Lace

I have never before been inclined to wear a pencil skirt, not really being pencil-shaped, but I loved the Masculin et Feminin skirt in Twinkle Sews. 

I didn't use the actual Twinkle Sews pattern...why print off all those pages and sticky-tape them together when I can finally get some use from my personal skirt sloper?  It wasn't too much trouble to adapt my skirt sloper to make a skirt pattern with yoke.

The fabrics were all from stash.  The base is a lightweight black denim.  The shiny yoke is a synthetic something-or-other.  And the lace...oh, the lace...it almost broke my heart to cut the lace off a dress.  I bought the dress when I was 21, in my first job after graduating and unaccustomed to all the disposable cash I was earning after years as a skint student.  I was working in Perth and my Mum came to visit, so we went shopping.  I bought this blue, lace sheath dress with matching slip.  It is possibly the most expensive item of clothing that I have ever bought.  I loved it.  The shop had it made up into their postcards and I sent one of the postcards to my boyfriend with the message "Do you like my new dress?  It looks better on me!"  I wore it on New Years Eve and someone told me to be careful stepping out into the rain because my dress looked as if it would dissolve, bringing to mind images of spun sugar. 

But I am not 21 anymore and I am a wee bit bigger than I was then and somehow the dress seems indecently short these days!  The last few years I have only worn it as a tunic over pants and the lace is starting to rip in places, so I thought recycling it into this skirt was not such a bad outcome.

I think the Twinkle Sews pattern had a side zipper, but I used a CB zip.  I didn't want the lace to get caught in the zip, so I did not have the lace going all the way to the edges.  I cut around the motifs and then sewed some extra motifs in to fill in the gaps. (BTW  I have had a run of invisible zips break after not much wear lately.  Is anyone else having this problem?  I can only assume that the quality of zips at Spotlight has deteriorated??)

The skirt still needs a hook and eye but if I waited for hooks and eyes to sew my skirts, there would be an awful lot in my mending basket and a lot less hanging in the cupboard! 

Thank-you to eveyone who offered advice on fixing up the hem of the skirt in the previous post.  I haven't gone back to it yet, but I will make the hem not-so-deep and either re-blind-hem it or hand sew it.