Grey & yellow floral dress

This might be my last bit of sewing for the year, as I really need to get on with Christmas knitting.  I would have started sooner, but I cut one of my fingers last weekend - not badly, but enough to snag wool as I'm knitting whether or not I put a plaster on it - didn't affect sewing (or anything else) fortunately, but does mean I'm behind my own self imposed schedule...

Anyway... this dress.  I bought the fabric three years ago from Fabric Godmother and it's a viscose / linen mix, so has a lovely drape to it.  I think I was probably drawn to the faded-style colours, which is a departure for me as I'm usually drawn to either brighter, or more saturated colours, and it was another dress length which languished a bit while I hummed and ha-ed what to make with it.

I bought 2m, and, since it was 60" wide I was able to get a Betty bodice and New Look 6824 pleated skirt out of it, but it took every last inch of the length.  

There are some subtle blues and greens in there, along with the various shades of grey, so I have a few cardigans which will go with it, although I think this one looks best.

Nani Iro dress

Another dress from fabric I bought in 2014 - this time from Guthrie & Ghani at the first Sew Brum meet up (and I'm pleased to say I have now sewn up all the fabric I bought then).  I absolutely love this tealy - green colour, and I think one of the reasons I took so long to sew it up is because I didn't want to mess up.  Initially I thought I'd make an Emery dress from it, but I'm glad I didn't now, because I prefer longer length skirts (except perhaps in midsummer) and also low backs (easier to zip up).

I bought 2.5m of this and used all of it - I only just squeaked it with no length to spare because there was printing along one selvedge about an 1" in, which I had to avoid.  The bodice is a Sew Over It Betty, and the skirt is from New Look 6824, with pockets from Simplicity 2444.  I can get these styles of dress sewn up pretty quickly now because I don't need to make any fit adjustments - did all that last year - and don't need to follow written instructions.  Also, no princess seams or sleeves to ease in.  The cutting out can take a bit of time though if I have to pattern match, or haven't got much yardage to spare, like with this one.

The fabric is a cotton double gauze which feels lovely but wasn't great to sew - it moved about a bit and isn't as tightly woven and stable as quilting cotton, poplin or lawn, so I'm not sure I'd buy again.  I am glad I bought this though, because the colours in it are just fabulous - well I think so anyway!  And I know it'll get lots of wear.  I also have a cardigan which matches it perfectly.  I made it six and a half years ago, so it predates this blog, but has featured here, and here - that was quite a nostalgic trip down memory lane to find those posts, and to realise how many of those dresses I have now passed on to free up wardrobe space.

Olive Atomic dress

Yet another Sew over It Betty / Simplicity 3749 combo, and again, fabric from stash which I've had for at least five years.  I absolutely love this print and more recently bought it in its other colourway too.  That dress got made sooner than this one - I certainly don't sew fabric up in the order that I buy it!

When I came to cut it out I saw that there was some marking on part of the fabric, fortunately I had enough to cut round this.  Or at least I thought I had.  It was only when I had sewn the bodice and lining together and turned it right sides out to press that I noticed a dodgy bit near one of the shoulders.  I hummed and hah-ed for about 30 seconds whether to unpick, cut out another bodice front and resew and decided I couldn't be bothered.  It's not that noticeable and doesn't show at all if I wear a cardigan with it.  I am a bit miffed with myself that I missed it at the cutting out stage though...

When it goes in the wash I'll add a colour catcher sheet in the machine and hope for the best.  If that doesn't work I'll live with it.

Apart from that minor blip though, I'm very pleased with how this turned out.

Frida la Catrina dress

Here is another dress sewn from my fabric stash, I'm not sure how long ago I bought the fabric - maybe four years ago?  I now have one remaining dress length of Frida Kahlo fabric to make up, and it's been in my stash longer than this one!  Maybe that will get sewn next year...

I bought 3.2m and used all of it.  Apart from the time it took to cut out, this was a quick sew - a lined Sew Over It Betty bodice and a vintage Simplicity 3749 skirt with pockets from Simplicity 2444, a combination I've made several times now.

Maple seed dress

I'm really pleased to have finally sewn this fabric into a dress - it's been in my stash for at least five years and I'm only ever going to wear it in the autumn, because of the print.

It's a Sew Over It Betty bodice with the skirt from New Look 6824 (the same combination as the first dress here, and these two dresses) and it didn't take long to sew, especially when I found a bodice lining which I had already sewn together earlier in the year from my me-made May dressmaking session.

Not really anything more to say about this except that, because the seeds are seven different colours, I have several cardigans which I can wear with it!

Turquoise Atomic dress - me-made May dress no 5

I wanted to get this dress finished to wear today - I'm going to the 60s exhibition at the Fashion and Textile museum in London.

I bought the fabric at the first, and so far only, Great British Sewing Bee Live event in London a couple of years ago so it isn't from deep stash, but I love it and wanted to get it made into a dress, so it's leapfrogged older fabrics.  I also have a dress length of this in the olive colourway which I've had for much longer, so this year I'll get that sewn up too, ready for the autumn.

This is another Betty / Simplicity 3749 hybrid, the fifth in fact (the others are here, here and here), and the twelfth time I've used the Betty bodice.  The first, and in fact only, Betty I made straight from the pattern I've passed on, because the fit really wasn't great.  A shame, because I loved the fabric.  Subsequently I tweaked the bodice about four times I think, to get a fit that I'm happy with.

And now I must away and get ready to go!

Turquoise Roses dress - me-made May dress no 4

I bought the fabric for this dress from Barry's in Birmingham in August 2014... and it's been waiting for me to make it up ever since.  I absolutely love it and I think the reason I've delayed using it has been that I didn't want to make it up and then wish I'd chosen a different pattern.  I decided to use the same Sew Over It Betty bodice / Butterick vintage 2248 skirt combo as for my navy lemons dress (one of my favourites) which I knew would work - problem solved!  It's a lovely cotton by John Kaldor.

This came together quickly although I did have to adjust the pleats to fit the bodice waist, but that is not difficult to do.

Unfortunately I don't have any more fabric in my stash that I could use to make another - it needs 58"+ width for the skirt - so I might break my self-imposed buying ban if I see something suitable.

So, photos.

Firstly without a petticoat,

And secondly with.

I know I'm going to wear this a lot, despite the time it takes to iron!

Two bird print dresses

These two dresses are sharing a post as I made them in quick succession and they are both sewn using the same pattern combo - a Sew Over It Betty bodice, the skirt from vintage Simplicity 3749 and pockets from Simplicity 2444.  I've made this twice before (here and here) and it will be cropping up again during May I'm sure.

The first is this turquoise beauty.

I absolutely love this print (Michael Miller Wing Song), I already have two rtw dresses in it - a straight skirted one in this colourway and a flared skirted one in a pink colourway, which sadly I've never found as fabric, otherwise I'd buy that too!

And this is dress number 2 - I've had this fabric since 2014 and finally got it sewn up.

I had a couple of setbacks with this dress, the first being an ironing incident with the bodice which meant ditching it and cutting another one, and the second was having to put the zip in twice because of a thread tension issue - I've no idea what caused it so I didn't do anything differently and the second time it went in fine.

Now I'm going to get some fabric cut out in preparation for me-made May, and I also have a cardigan I was hoping to finish by the end of the month, although that will be pushing it now I think since I still have one and a half sleeves to knit.  By the end of next week should be doable though.

Yellow roses dress

Now the weather has warmed up my sewing mojo has returned and I've got my machines out from hibernation to start dressmaking again.  We have had a fabulous warm Easter weekend this year and  I hope there is plenty more sunshine and warmth to come in the next few months.

So, this is my first dress of the year!

According to my Instagram feed I bought this fabric in Fabrics Galore in November 2014 and it's been sitting patiently waiting in my stash ever since.  Well no more, it's time to shine has come!

I presume from the selvedge that it was originally produced for John Lewis

My go-to pattern combo is a sleeveless bodice with either a pleated or straight skirt.  This year I intend to make definite inroads into the  printed cottons which I bought with these two styles of dress in mind, I pretty much live in them in the spring and summer, and they're my favourite style both to make and to wear.

Last year I passed on all the dresses I'd made with gathered and circle skirts.  This year I'll be reviewing my knee-length dresses as I prefer this longer length now.  I'm not sure I'll be parting with all my shorter dresses yet though...

So,this dress.  The bodice is a modified Sew Over It Betty which I've lined - I prefer lined bodices on the whole, and a New Look 6824 pleated skirt.  I've made this combo twice before here (shorter skirt length) and here.

Expect a couple more dresses to be along soon, I have this week off work and intend to spend quite a bit of it sewing!

Summer Sunflowers dress

This dress is the last of the Bettys for this year, with a New Look 6824 pleated skirt.  When I first made up this pattern I cut about 4" off the skirt pattern pieces, and for this dress I reattached them.  Whilst I still like knee-length dresses, quite a few of the ones I've made recently have been this mid-calf length - possibly influenced by the vintage patterns I have, most of which have very long skirts (although also usually with a generous hem allowance).

The fabric is quilting cotton which I bought from The Cotton Patch in Birmingham four years ago en-route to the SewBrum meet up that year.  Not really much else to say about this other than I added Emery pockets, it took 2.5m of fabric, and I'm really pleased with it!

#OAL2018 dresses x 3

This year, in the two-month time frame for the #OAL2018 challenge (June & July), I made three dresses, all from fabric which I'd had in my stash for a while.

The first dress was made with 2m of floral cotton which I bought in Fabricland.  This was my second iteration of modifying the SewOverIt Betty bodice, this time I moved the bust darts down by 1" (in addition to the changes made on the Daisy dress).

The skirt is from NewLook 6824 which, despite it Betty Draper wannabe styling and the dresses looking too big for the model, is actually a pattern I've used quite a bit (well the skirts anyway).

 
Dress no 2 is the same bodice / skirt combo as for my Daisy dress (SOI Betty / vintage Simplicity 3749), although this time in addition to previous bodice modifications I lowered the waist darts and moved the bust darts up a bit and I'm now done with the alterations.  Since I had enough fabric for pockets, I nabbed the pocket pieces from Christine Haynes' Emery pattern.

Finally, dress no 3 is a Simplicity 1801 maxi.

I modified the bodice of this - I took the shoulders in by half an inch at the armhole edge and tapered them at the back.  I didn't alter the front pieces, just increased the gathering into the yoke.  I redrew the v-neck to be 2" higher, however, once it was sewn up it was a bit gapey, so I increased the centre seam allowance by half an inch at the top, and tapered it down for 2".  It was a bit of a faff doing all this as I recall, but worth it - I love this fabric, which I bought on Goldhawk Road several years ago.

And those are the three dresses which I made for this year's outfit-a-long challenge and all of them got worn quite a bit this summer.  Slowly making inroads into my blogging backlog!

Lemons dress

The next dress I made was for the #OAL2018 challenge, but I've decided that I'll write that one up with the two others I did for the challenge, so on to this one.

I first saw this fabric when it started popping up on my instagram feed last year - dressmakers I follow made some gorgeous dresses with it.  It didn't take me long to decide to buy some, but unfortunately by then the navy colourway had sold out and it was only available with a black background, which I didn't want.  And so I thought that was that.  Until this year when I decided to check the Etsy seller who had it last year, just to see..., and she had it back in stock so I snapped up 3m.

I used the SOI Betty bodice and the skirt from a vintage Butterick pattern, 2248, which I first used for this dress.

I traced and slightly changed the skirt pattern pieces so that they would fit on one width of the fabric (56" wide).  I still had to fiddle about with the pleats a bit to fit the bodice.  After I'd finished it and worn it a few times I decided to add side seam pockets as I didn't use all the fabric and I do prefer my dresses to have pockets!  This was much more of a faff than if I'd put them in when I was actually making it, but worth doing though - I'm glad they are there now.

Here is the dress with a petticoat underneath to pouf out the skirt.

I absolutely love this dress, I think navy, yellow and white is a great combination and the fabric is lovely.

Teal Daisy dress

Well, summer has well and truly gone now and it's high time I caught up on here!

We actually had a proper, hot, summer this year which was wonderful.  As I write this it's grey and raining outside, but given that it's late November I guess that's to be expected.  Doesn't make it any easier to bear though.  I hate grey, damp, dark days.  Anyway, I don't want to dwell on that now - I have too many posts to catch up on to go off on a rant at the moment.

Firstly, some sewing - this dress I finished in early June.

I decided to use the bodice of SewOverIt Betty.  However, the first time I made this pattern (here) I found the bodice wasn't a great fit, and that, combined with the fact that I've decided that circle skirts aren't really great for my lifestyle, means that dress has now gone to the charity shop, which is a shame, becaused I loved the fabric.

So for this one the alterations I made were to lower the armholes by half an inch and redraw the shoulder straps to bring them further in to the centre back, also by half an inch.  It now fits much better, but is still not quite right.

The skirt is from a vintage pattern, Simplicity 3749 - I had to adjust the centre back and side front skirt pleats to fit the bodice waistline, but this is not a difficult change to make.

I used all of the 2.2m I had of this fabric which I bought in Barry's in Birmingham during the 2015 SewBrum meet up and I'm really pleased with how it turned out - I love this colour.