The sea of turquoise

It's not a secret that I love all shades of blue although I don't often wear turquoise. And then I saw this beautiful jacquard fabric and I could not help myself. I actually have this fabric in royal blue as well.

The dress is actually a mash up of Sew Many Dresses off the shoulder bodice and Simplicity 1880. I really wanted to make something using one of the sewing books I own. Somehow I never remember about them when I want to make new clothes! It would be a pity to have these books just sitting on my shelf! I picked up "Sew Many Dresses" mainly because the patterns were attached in a paper form. There are quite a few gorgeous options in there. I like the whole "mix&match" thing. The books also shows the basic dart and pattern manipulations to get the desired look. 

I did have issues and I'm not really happy with the fit of this dress. I chose size 8 in the waist and graded up to size 9 in the bust. The off the shoulder part caused me a lot of headache! Firstly the shoulder seam angle was (and still is) wrong. Secondly it was way too loose across and it was gaping terribly. I've tried taking it in at the seams but it was not helping much. As I finished the edge off with bias binding, I have also tried easing the bodice in with little improvement. Finally I decided to add couple of darts at the neckline. Not happy with the solution but it kind of worked. The instructions are not too very great when it comes to finishing the dress - I opted for bias binding but was not sure on how to finish the armholes. After trial and error I have sewn the bottom of the armhole as I would normally do. The top edge was machine stitched to the dress and then stitched by hand so it's not visible one the outside. 

I should have lined the dress. It would look much nicer and hopefully that would be enough to fix the back wrinkle issues. This dress surprisingly gets tons of compliments and I always feel a bit weird hearing them! I mean it's ok when people like things I made well but to me this one is just not good enough. I probably won't be wearing it often. But I think I learnt a few things so there's that!

The armhole finish (my overlocker had tension issues but I've only noticed it after it was all done!)

Teal merino cardie

While the northern hemisphere is experiencing heat waves we are suffering from polar vortex. I know that 5-10 C during the day is not really that cold especially compared to polish winters when temperatures are sometimes as low as -30. On the other hand the buildings here are often very lightweight - no insulation, no double glazing, no central heating which also means that inside is not much warmer then the outside.

I wanted to be prepared for the winter so I bought two pieces of merino in May - one really nice purple-pink patterned one and then some cheaper mix of merino and nylon to make a wearable muslin. I decided to make McCall's 6844 - lovely basic pattern that comes in four variations. I made shorter peplum one.

Sewing the cardigan was really easy. No issues there other than my fabric being quite resistant to pressing! My seams look wonky and just not right no matter how long I pressed and steamed. I should have used my walking foot too. The fabric was a bad choice for one more reason - the threads are really prone to pulling.

The cardigan is also not easy to photograph well. I tool so many photos wearing it and only very few look reasonably ok. Sigh... I didn't really make any changes to the pattern but next time I will. I'm going to choose smaller size, do a FBA, shorten the sleeves and shoulder seam. And make a belt with the same fabric. I think this pattern can be really awesome once I get fitting issues sorted. I also want to make it again (in both peplum and straight short versions) in plain fabric and use my nice patterned piece for a top. It might not happen this winter though - my sewing time is limited to weekends right now and my sewing queue is huge!

Blue stripes

Ok, it's time to show the dress I made in September (I think... it was long time ago!) I still have some clothes from 2014 to show so I better get organized! Not that I have much to show this month - I made a simple dress that I managed to mess up and need to refashion, I made a jacket/blazer that I'm not fully happy about but I still need to deal with loose threads before I can take photos. I also made an atrocious parka jacket muslin... Not a good start for the new year!

Anyway, about the dress. Its mostly number 124 from Burda 4/2013. Original  dress has long sleeves but that didn't look that great with my fabric. It was too overwhelming. So I used sleeves from another Burda dress - 114 from 5/2014. I really like this pattern and I think I'll try it with different fabric - maybe in solid colour?

Unfortunately I paired up a good pattern with bad fabric. I really liked this mysterious jersey with blue and white stripes. I got it during The Fabric Warehouse sale for $2/meter. The problem is that the quality is quite bad and after wearing it handful of  times my handbag side has pilled and looks ugly. I'm not sure about the fibre content but I suspect it is mostly synthetic - I tent to wear it on colder days. I think it will soon have to be put out of its misery... Such a pity!

I tried to find a good spot around my house to take some photos so they are all over the place ;) Also the dress sits a bit lower than on the photos. I usually wear it with a belt so waist is more pronounced.

Feeling blue

Blue is one of my favourite colors. I like most of its shades but royal blue is undoubtedly the winner! I snapped 2 meters of this cotton fabric at the Fabric Warehouse sale for $3/m with no plans for it - I simply liked the color. Then I got invited to friends' wedding and "had" to make myself a new dress. This model (109 Burda 5/2014) caught my attention straight away. I was a bit afraid that huge cleavage could be risky with my built but if I don't try I'll never know, right?

The dress itself was easy to make (and I skipped the pockets which definitely helped). It wouldn't take much time if I hadn't make some stupid mistake and had to spend some time finding a solution to my problem. I didn't want to line my dress as the wedding was taking place in November in Australia which meant it would be hot or very hot. I was also to lazy to make facings. I used bias tape to finish the neckline but it was a bad choice - it wasn't stretchy enough and it was too thick for curved lines and looked terrible. It didn't stop me from trimming my seam allowances... stupid, stupid, stupid! I had to trim and clip that bias tape and then find a way to cover my mess. I came across ric-rac and hand-stitched it to finish the edge. Not the most beautiful solution but I made the best out of a bad mistake.

I made no changes to the construction. I have two issues with my dress - the neckline is quite wide and it slips off my shoulders sometimes. I'm planning on attaching a ribbon on the back to hold it in place. The other issue is the side look... I'm not sure if that's only my shape that makes it look bad or there is something I can do to make it look better. 

Contrary to my plans I didn't actually wear it for that wedding. I made another dress that I decided was more suitable for the occasion and the weather. I will blog it soon :) 

I really like this dress. I like the cleavage that let me show off my assets without being vulgar. The tulip bottom nicely balances the top and I like it's shape. I will most likely use the top and bottom parts again in different projects. I think the top part with circle bottom would look great! 

The dress is all wrinkled but I was too lazy to iron it just for 5 minutes of taking photos... Also who the hell irons things on holiday, right?

I think that lining the dress would fix the problem in the back but would add another layer of fabric that I wanted to avoid. If it's not lack-of-lining problem then I guess it's a bit too small across the back and needs extra 1-2 cm. On the other hand I only noticed it on the photos so it might be less obvious in real life.

I'm not pregnant!!!