New favourite!

Philippa dress by Muse Patterns is definitely my new favourite dress to wear. If it was acceptable I'd wear it every single day! It's not a secret that I am a huge fan of Muse patterns. Kat is a brilliant designer and there is always something interesting and different about her patterns. I was a tester for Philippa and it definitely boosted my sewjo - having the deadline really made me push myself. 

Muse patterns always come with multiple options. My Philippa is collared with cut-away shoulders and pockets - because pockets are awesome. I also cut mini length. If you look closely enough you will see that my dress has a shoulder "design feature". Do you want a sewing tip? When using oddly-shaped leftover fabric from a different project make sure that you lay your pattern pieces over two layers of fabric! I only realized that one of my shoulders is missing after assembling side panels and stitching side seams. I needed a creative fix so I used black fabric to create mini-yokes to cover my mistake. But no one will know by by just looking :D

Since the sizing has changed for Muse patterns I spent a moment figuring out my size. My measurements put me between size 36 and 38. Since the dress is supposed to be fitted I decided to make size 38 with a D-cup option. I did end up taking the dress in around my waist - I deepened the front seams by 4-5 cm. That was pretty much the only adjustment I made*. Next time I will lower the bust point by 1-1,5 cm. And yes, there will be next time, probably many next times! 

* I lied, sorry! I completely forgot that the first change I did was shortening the bodice by 3,5 cm just above the waistline! I'm only 160 cm and Muse patterns are drafted for taller ladies :)

I used an abstract print cotton sateen bought at the fabric sale last year for my main fabric. I paired it up with some black polyester that has very similar qualities - slightly stretchy and with nice sheen to it. The design is perfect for contrasting fabrics! What I absolutely love is the collar. They usually make me look very top-heavy but not this one! I guess it is because the neckline is a bit lower that normally in the collared tops or dresses.

Anyway, if you can't already tell - I absolutely love this dress! And every single time I wore it I got compliments, including a completely random person on the street telling me that my dress was awesome! Not a bad outcome, right?

Floral Simplicity

Simplicity 1880 is one of those "magic" patterns - I've seen it around on so many blogs (just check out this beautiful goldfish shirtdress by Gemma!) and there are none or very few complaints about it. It seems to fit people of all sizes and shapes. It seems to look pretty good on everyone too! So when there was a pattern sale on Pattern Postie I had to buy it! Spoiler alert: It was worth it!

There are two bodice variations - shirt dress or faux wrap bodice and three sleeve variations. In between the you can make several different dresses! There is nothing tricky in the construction of this dress and it was easy to put it all together. I cut size that corresponded with my measurements although deep down I knew I should have done full bust adjustment. I guess I was a bit lazy. Of course after trying my half-finished dress I had to add darts because there was lots of gaping in the armhole. When I make this dress again I will go down 1-2 sizes and just do a proper FBA. There is a tiny bit of gaping  along the wrap edges but not enough to make me worry about showing more than I want to. 

Surprisingly it still took me 4 weekends to finish it! But it has nothing to do with the dress but with my lack of time. With the bodice and skirt in place the only thing I had to do was to hem it and attach sleeves. I wasn't sure which sleeve variation I wanted so I asked for opinions on Instagram. People mostly voted for black cap sleeves. Next weekend my boyfriend had his birthday party and I only had 30 min to do sewing - just enough for hemming sleeves I thought... I messed up my rolled hem so I spent most of my half an hour unpicking stitches. Next chance I had to work on the dress I managed to hem my dress nicely and set one of the sleeves in with no problems. But the second sleeve was a naughty one. There was puckering everywhere! I tried all the tricks I knew and some I didn't but nothing worked. So I gave up. Finally last weekend I sewn the sleeve in and made a belt. I also took some photos even though the weather certainly wasn't suitable to be outside in this dress ;) 

The floral fabric is cotton sateen from Spotlight and it's one of the first fabrics I bought! It was clearance fabric and it didn't cost more that $5 a meter. I used black cotton sateen for back and front yokes - it was a leftover piece from a dress that sits in my one-day-I'll-finish-it pile. I think it worked well. 

Now I just need to wait for spring - it's just 2 months away! Or make some black warm cardigans so I can enjoy my dress right away ;)

PS. I forgot to mention that I used a piece of ribbon to make a label to add extra interest.

Let's make pants and meet Antonia!!!

Hello there :)

I'm back and I have a new baby to take photos for the blog. I'm so happy about my new camera but it will take me a while to learn how to use it properly I guess. I hope that the photos for the blog will  be nicer from now on but I can't really promise. Anyway let's catch up with my sewing now.

One of my sewing goals for this year was to venture into pants making. Really scary, right? It's not even that making them is scary because technically it's not that hard to make them. The hard part is fitting them! Having that in mind my first pants are made using Antoinette pants pattern from Style Arc. It's my first and quite possible the last pattern from that company. I bought a PDF pattern on Etsy and they come in 3 sizes. I'm actually between 14 and 16 so I had to decide between sizes 10-12-14 and 16-18-20 pack... I chose to go for size 16. Patterns are not nested which means you can only print which means it's really hard to grade if needed! The seam allowances included are 1 cm and I prefer 1,5 cm so I added extra 5 mm along the edges. Instructions are not really that great but still better than Burda ones ;)

I decided to use beautiful houndstooth cotton sateen bought at the Fabric Warehouse sale last year. Funny thing is that in Polish houndstooth is called 'hen's feet'! The fabric was very pleasant to work with. I started with the pockets and I must say they are awesome - very big and they hold my phone and keys and a lipstick or two or ten... Seriously, one doesn't need a handbag wearing those pants!*

I skipped sewing the darts in the back as one of first steps as I suspected I'd need to change the depth of them to make the pants fit. After sewing in the zip and basting stitches together I tried them on and I was swimming in them! I basted the back darts, skimmed 1-1,5 cm from side and front seams... still to big. I made the darts bigger, skimmed a little bit more from the front seam, unpicked the zip, got rid of extra cm there, put the sip in again... It was much better. In total I got rid of about 10-12 cm (it could be more, I got lost in my calculations!) I had to change the waistband facings to fit. I finished them off with bias tape just for fun. I also under-stitched the facings and to keep them in place even more I hand-stitched them to the pants themselves under the big pleats and to the side seam allowances. Fitting the crotch area was another struggle and I'm not fully happy with the results but it's much better than it was originally. The pattern calls for soft falling fabric such as rayon or silk and I used stiffer fabric. I suspect using softer fabric would solve some of my fitting issues. One more note - those pants are SHORT! I'm 1,60m with rather short legs so I always have to shorten RTW clothes and chop off some length off. I didn't have to alter anything here!

I learnt a few things making those pants:

• My bum is flat and my belly full causing the waistline to rise up in the back and not quite hit the natural waistline in the front
• Sewing with bigger seam allowance in the crotch area makes pants bigger ;)
• After spending an hour looking at my backside I couldn't tell any more what the right fit was! I had to ask my boyfriend too look at my butt and tell me what he thought.

As you can see they are still big - too much fabric pretty much everywhere! It's not going to stop me wearing them in public though! I decided that it's time to be a bit braver with my clothes. Those pants are kind of ok with slim-fitting black tops as I don't really think other colours are going to look good with them. Anyway I wore them around a few times and no one was pointing at me. which I took as a good sign. I'm also not giving up on the pattern. I made some changes and already cut the fabric for pair number two and I'll try to make them soon. We will see how it goes!

* provided you don't carry a lot in your handbag ;)