More Laurel!

Well, hello there!

I'm back to share more photos of my recent Laurel shift dresses. I had so much fun making these, and adding on little embellishments and details. When I added them to the Colette Patterns flickr group, though, I was BLOWN AWAY at all of the other amazing, awe-inspiring versions posted there. Really, go check 'em out.

My grey linen version was my first go at the Laurel pattern, and I was instantly hooked. It's such a simple pattern to sew up and the fit was pretty great -  it just needed some taking in along the side seams for me, and then, voila! Cute, wearable, comfy dresses that are fun to make and wear.

For my second version, I opted to use a cute, busy floral print I'd had hanging out in my stash for a little while. It's a fun quilting cotton that Tom's mom passed on to me after she'd gone through her (amazing) craft room.  That's another great thing about this pattern - it works as well with plain fabrics as it does with busy prints!

I omitted the sleeves (obviously) for this version, and went to town with the kelly green bias tape (also from my stash). I had just enough to add tiny bows to the pockets after binding everything, which is now probably my favorite feature. I just love the summery 1960s feel of this dress. I made sure to make this version slightly longer than my linen one, so that it's still well above the knee, but is a little more... modest & work-friendly.

In adding the pockets on this second go-around, I will share one (very tiny) little tip I learned. When the directions suggest that you create a cardboard cut-out to use in turning under and pressing the outer edge of the pocket, before attaching it to the dress, I was like "heck no." I just ended up stitching 3/8" from the edge all round the pocket and then using that line of stitching to help me guide the fold of the fabric when pressing. It worked pretty well and I didn't need to dig up any cardboard. I did cheat a little and use my Dritz Ezy-hem to aid in pressing, but it wasn't actually necessary.

So, what do you all think? Are you as hooked on the Laurel pattern as I am?

Have you entered the Colette Laurel Sewing Contest? There's still a tiny bit of time left if you haven't posted yours yet!

Laurel details

What I didn't tell you in my last post, in which I sneak peeked my in-progress Colette Laurel dress, is that it was already finished when I posted that! Oh, and that I was also already feverishly stitching up a second version.

I'm obsessed with trying out every possible version and variation of this dress that I can think up.

Version 1 - the linen mini with flappy pockets - (better photos of me wearing it to come in a future post)

I decided to use a grey linen I'd had in my fabric stash for a long time. I'd bought it back when I worked in an officey-office requiring business casual attire, and had planned to make a jacket out of it...but never did. I'm super hyped about that because I love this fabric for this dress. It's light and crisp and bouncy and soft and nice, all at the same time!

Disregard the lame, cluttered background.

The bias tape and pink loopy trim were both from my stash as well. I had just enough of the pink trim to use along the neckline, so that was nice! Overall, I really loved making this dress. Applying bias binding is super satisfying to me, and as I just mentioned, I'm in love with the linen fabric I used, too. I was even able to omit the back zipper, which literally made me giddy. The dress just slips on over my head easily - YES!

The aspect of making this dress that I did end up throwing a tiny temper tantrum about? The sleeves. I really just hate setting in sleeves. I was all pumped up to try this method I read about on KestrelMakes. When I actually attempted it, though, the gathering just wasn't happening. I un-picked and tried again with literally the same result. Ugh. I didn't want to lose my momentum and become discouraged, so I just went for my little cheat-pleats I've used on set-in sleeves before. Am I the only person out there who just can't bring herself to use gathering stitches and go the traditional route to set-in a regular sleeve?

The mediocre sleeve result is all balanced out by my fantastic pockets with bias bound flaps. They are in no way perfect, but they were so fun to make and I think they turned out pretty cute! I'm ready to add them to any and every project from now on - I'm hooked!

Wonky stitches but I don't even care! I'm in love with pockets.

In finishing up the dress, I chopped off quite a bit of the overall length, and have now ended up making it just slightly too mini to wear to work without tights. I think the shorter length is ok because the longer sleeve length helps balance out the look. I'll make sure my next version as at least a tiny bit longer than this one, though. :)

And, you heard (err... read) right: I'm already working on my second version of the Laurel dress. It's great for stash-busting and it works well with plain or busy fabrics. My next version will definitely be a bit more...vibrant. Here's a peek:

Coming soon!

...my new, mini, linen laurel.

Mad Men Dress Challenge - Round 2

You guys, it's here! Time to reveal my 2013 Mad Men dress. This year I was inspired by a cute dress worn by a character who is not one of the show's famous leading ladies. Her name is Gigi, and apparently she made a brief appearance in Season 4: Episode 4 wearing this green bow dress.

MM S4:E4, Gigi

Yes, another green dress! To create my version, I used vintage (c. 1968) Simplicity 7980 and added the bow detail from modern Simplicity 2154.

Simplicity 2154 + Simplicity 7980

And here you have my finished product:

And here I am, making my best Gigi-serious-face, which required hair twirling (my nervous habit).

You'll notice my dress is a slightly darker shade of green, whereas Gigi's is more of a...teal or "jungle" green. I've also added a keyhole to the front because, much as I'd wish it were from time to time, this is not the 1960s and that high, round neckline can't always work in daily life.

My dirty secrets about making this dress?

1) It was squeezed out of a yard and a half of thick, lush (read: oddly spongy), thrifted-at-the-last-minute polyester.

2) There are no seam finishes inside - even the hem was only just turned and stitched! The thick polyester is not prone to fraying and I just honestly couldn't be bothered to fuss with it.

3) I effed-up the armhole and neck-keyhole facings (oops, no close-ups available!) because I forced bias tape in there instead of cutting actual facings out of another fabric when I ran out of my thifted polyester. The drape and thickness of the dress fabric made it surprisingly difficult to attach the bias tape facings and caused a lot of puckering and weird dimply spots.

4) Upon completing the dress, I was feeling pretty OVER IT. Then I wore it to work a few days later, it was super comfortable, and I fell back in love with it.

Certainly a different tune than I sang to you all when I shared my dress for last year's challenge. Not much unnecessary struggling with lining or setting in sleeves this time around, and honestly, though it was simpler to sew and is less polished & fussed over than last year's, this is a more wearable dress for me. Hopefully it'll be making another appearance or two during Me-Made-May '13. :)

And on that note, I'll BOW OUT (ha-ha-ha! - get it?). Time to get stitchin' on my next project!

Oh! and a big THANK YOU to Julia for hosting this fun challenge again. Be sure to check out all of this year's other entries over on JuliaBobbin's blog in the next few days. I know I'm super excited to see them!

Updates!

Hello friends!  I hope everyone had a great week. I've got some updates from my sewing room to share with you.

• Up first, I've finished my Mad Men dress! It's not the most beautiful thing I've ever sewn, but it was fun to sew along with the Mad Men theme. I'll have a full post and more photos very soon!

• I've also picked up an early 1960s dress and some vintage zippers in my recent antique store and thrifting adventures. Please excuse the horribly lit, tiny photos.

new vintage dress

cute floral print on dress fabric

vintage zippers picked up at Goodwill

• Also? I've signed up to participate in Me-Made-May 2013.

 

I, Sue of Sewinsteady.blogspot.com, sign up as a participant of Me-Made-May '13. I endeavour to wear one me-made, refashioned, or (if I'm really stuck) vintage garment each day for the duration of May 2013.

This is my first time participating in the challenge, so to kind of ease into it, I gave myself the option to wear something vintage if I've run out of pieces I've sewn or refashioned myself. I'm also not restricting myself to "no repeats." Baby steps. :)

• So, my last post was all bout finding the perfect floral fabric of my dreams. 

You guys gave me some really great suggestions and links to beautiful fabrics to help me along. In the end, I gave up on having the exact fabric content I wanted, and compromised my nice, rayon hopes and dreams for a very pretty floral cotton fabric. Is it quilting cotton weight? Basically. Do I care? Not really - I'm over it now. I searched high and low for something more drapey or flowy, and couldn't find any non-cotton fabric I liked anywhere near as much as the original dress fabric. So it goes, I suppose.

Here's what I pulled the trigger on:

Lamda~Mu recommended it to me in the comments section, and linked to it here.  I found it for sale on Etsy and bought a couple yards so I can try my hand at making my own floral dress, inspired by the one I loved at Modcloth.

Okay, those are all of the updates I've got for today! Stay tuned for more details on my Mad Men dress in the next few days.

Floral Fabric Mission

As some of you may recall, last spring and summer I was sewing and then wearing dresses for the weddings I was attending. This spring, mid June to be more specific, I've got Tom's brother's wedding to attend and I hadn't originally planned to make or buy anything, but use a dress already in my closet - I already had two great candidates!

Then I saw this dress on Modcloth and fell in love with the fabric (and the dress was even made in the USA, yay!). I bought it right away, in two sizes - just in case! However, neither size fit, much to my dismay, and was not worth altering or adjusting myself.

Modcloth.com - Come to My Window Box Dress

Here's a close-up picture I took of the dress fabric before packing it up to send back to Modcloth. :(

Pretty floral rayon

It's 100% rayon, and is lightweight - probably rayon challis. The dressmaker brand is Everly. And... that's all of the information I've got.

Tom suggested, "why don't you just buy fabric like that and make your own?" To which I replied, "yeah, it's not that easy!"  And then promptly began searching the interwebs for similar teal/coral floral print rayon.

The closest match I came across was this cute '40s-vibe rayon from fashionfabricsclub.com. It's very cute, but not quite right...

Aqua Green Floral Challis

I even searched on Spoonflower to see if anyone else had created something at least similar, but I had no luck. So here's my question:

Where do designers get their cute fabric, and where can I get some?

It's a question I asked more frequently in my very early days of garment sewing, after trying to make what should have been a flowy blouse out of cute, but stiff, quilting cotton. After a while I was finding enough suitable fabrics I did like, and that felt clothing-worthy to me, that I kind of forgot about it. But now I'm really wondering where all of this secret, special, pretty dress and blouse fabric I see used to make so many adorable pieces of clothing for sale is hiding!

Do any of you feel this way too?

Have you happened upon any pretty, teal, flowery rayon I can buy to make the dress of my dreams?

On the sewing table

Today I went to my favorite antique store with an old friend and scooped up the far left and far right patterns shown below. The center pattern is a recent purchase from Etsy that was just too cute to pass up. Not sure just when I'll be sewing these up (though they'd all be great for spring & summer!), but thought I'd go ahead and share them anyway. Who here doesn't like to peek at vintage patterns??

The big green bow (a bit lighter/brighter in real life) was also just done today and will soon be part of my Mad Men dress I've been working on. Hopefully I'll be finishing up the dress in the next week, so I can take a few photos and have time to officially submit it to Julia Bobbin before the April 19 deadline. Yikes - back to work!