Chantilly

Here it is, finally finished! It's been so long since I fitted it, that I can't remember what size I cut. I do remember cutting a smaller size for the neck pieces, and grading the bodice out so that I didn't have to do an FBA. It worked well and I'm really pleased with the fit.

I always feel awkward when Dom tells me to pose, so I pulled a silly pose instead! His directions included things like 'stand up straighter' 'put your shoulders back' and 'stick your bum out'!

I ended up shortening the skirt by about 4 inches or so. The longer length made me look short and dumpy! I really like the shorter length, it lets the skirt flare out really nicely. The shape of the skirt is one of my favourite things about this dress.

The back isn't perfect, fit-wise. But it's comfortable and doesn't look too bad. When I fitted it, I fitted it to be too tight with the intention that I would slim into it. I'm really pleased to say that it's now got a nice amount of ease! I'm getting close to a healthy weight (according to BMI), so this dress fitting nicely is like icing on the cake :)

This dress is my favourite thing that I've made so far :) The instructions for this pattern are perfect, and I took my time with it so I'm really pleased with the construction. 

Onto the next project! :)

The return of the mojo

You may have noticed there hasn't been much sewing going on lately ;) I worked on my Chantilly a few weeks ago, got to the hem and stalled. Hems are boring! However, I won KraftyKat's recent giveaway, and it arrived today! I was lucky enough to win the lovely pattern above. It's a very cute little dress with lots of variations. I went straight to my fabric stash (which consists of four pieces of usable fabric, and then lots of scraps!) and chose the cutesy flowery fabric. It'll need to be underlined, which I thankfully have fabric for. I've decided to go for the cape collar variation (the one on the left) and a simple gathered skirt, as I don't have enough for the pattern skirt. 

As for which size to go for, I'm not really sure. When we moved, I stress-ate and comfort-ate and gained back all the weight I'd lost going to the gym. What a waste of money! I'm still annoyed about that. I've now lost it again plus a bit more, by counting calories and changing how I eat (I now eat little but often during the day, and then a larger evening meal). I wish I'd done this before! This combined with a gym membership would have worked wonders. Ah well, live and learn I suppose. 

When I fitted my Chantilly (which I will finish today!!) I fitted it to be a bit too small. It now fits with a nice amount of ease. Woohoo! So I think I'll do the same thing with this dress, I'll fit it to be skin tight and by the time it's warm enough to wear it I should fit into it. Does this sound sensible? 

Right, a quick tidy up, then it's time to finish that hem!

Chantilly - fitting #3

The wrinkles from before are much better. Still there, but much better. I think with the weight of a full gathered skirt, they won't be very noticeable. I'm happy with the back now. Especially considering what I started with! 

I was all excited to get started tonight, when I remembered I haven't washed the fashion fabric! This might not seem like much of a problem to most of you, I can just pop it in now and it'll be ready later right? Nope. As we're in student accommodation, we have to use the on site laundrette. We usually do our washing early in the morning as no one else does. Trying to find an unoccupied washer at this time of day is impossible! So it'll have to wait till morning. I can start on the lining tonight though, as it's polyester so doesn't need pre-washing :)

Also, I'm making a spinach and cheese flan tonight with cheesey pastry! Yum! :)

Ashley x

Chantilly - fitting #2

I've cut the seam allowances away from the waist and armholes. Lucy was right, I need to pinch out a little from the arm hole. I've transferred this to the pattern piece. Now here's the back before:

And after:

Much much better! But still not perfect. Hmm. Any ideas on those diagonal wrinkles under my arms? I think part of the problem is the darts, as the tuck I took out made the darts point towards the seam line. I've fixed this on the pattern piece so the darts are now parallel to the side seam as they were before. I also think it might be because the neckline part of the back piece is now angled downwards. So I've added a little height back to the centre back neckline and smoothed the line out.

I'm going to muslin the back again with these changes, but before I do that does anyone have any idea what could be causing those wrinkles? The changes I made were just guess work. 

Ashley x

p.s. Yesterday was weigh in day. I lost 0.8lbs and a total of 2.5 inches. Also, the waist on the Chantilly muslin isn't as super snug :)

Update After doing some googling, it seems adding a little height to the centre back was the right thing to do. I came across several sources that said diagonal wrinkles from the underarm to centre back indicate there is not enough length between the neck and the waist. So. . . another muslin is order!

Chantilly - fitting

Look!! Actual sewing has taken place! Well, kind of, it is only a muslin/toile but still! Please excuse the tummy ;) It's quite snug, but that's what I aimed for what with the weight loss/gym thing. (As a side note, my first weigh in was last Wednesday, and I lost a pound and a total of 5 inches!). 

On to the fitting! I came up with a cunning plan for the fitting. As the yoke is completely separate, I cut the size 6 so it would fit my shoulders. Then I cut a 6 for the armholes and graded out to a 12 (yep, 3 whole sizes bigger and it's still snug! Ick!). It worked pretty well!

The front fits really well I think. I wasn't sure if it was a little tight across the chest but Dom says he thinks it's ok. Opinions please? Bearing in mind that when I lose weight, it comes off my boobs a little too. As I said, it's snug across the waist but I'm ok with that for now. 

The back needs a tuck taken out horizontally. Dom pinned it out for me and I need to tuck out about an inch. Apart from that I think it's ok. Once I've taken the tuck out of the back bodice piece, I'm happy to start on the real thing :) (Unless you think I should add a little width across the bust?)

This is such a pretty pattern! I absolutely love it, and I think I'll be making more for summer dresses :)

Ashley x

Pendrell Dress - part 3

Here's the second muslin of my Pendrell dress. It's much better, the only problem now (apart from the hastily pressed seams over my tummy) is the bagginess under the bust. Hmm, I complained about it to Dom as he was taking the photo, and he said it looked like if I pulled it up over my chest it would be fine. So . . .

Ahh! The bust fullness was in the wrong place! So I measured how much I had to move it up by and have transferred that to the paper pattern. I'm glad Dom spotted it, as I was just going to pinch the extra fabric out, but it turned out I need it! I knew I kept him for a reason ;)

I also measured the centre back seam on my inspiration dress and then measured the centre back on the Pendrell. The difference was 5.5 inches so I added 1.5 inch to account for the hem. This gives me a little extra length to play with too if I want it. So I've lengthened the pattern pieces by 7 inches and also tapered them out to roughly match the skirt of my inspiration dress. Then I ran out of tissue paper. . .

So tomorrow I'm going to pick up some more tissue paper and draft a collar. I'm also considering an exposed zipper. My inspiration dress has a metal exposed zipper, and I love the look. And I haven't learnt a new skill like that in a while. I guess it depends on whether the haberdashery stall even has metal zippers! I think I'll look online. I'm also going to trace new front pieces as they're very hard to pin in their current sticky taped state!

I hope you're all enjoying your weekend :)

Ashley x

Pendrell Dress - part 1

So I've decided to make the Pendrell blouse pattern into a fitted dress. Why? Because I want a princess seamed dress and the Pendrell blouse is the closest thing I have. 

The inspiration for this comes from one of the dresses I bought last week. It fits surprisingly well, and I love how flattering the princess seams are. 

Excuse the shoeless-ness. I love the shape of this dress, and the neck line detail is amazing (I'm sure there was a tutorial on the Colette blog a while ago, but I can't remember what the technique is called to search for it!). I wear the dress with a belt at the waist too, so it makes my waist look nice and small :) What surprises me most about this dress is that it's a Miss Selfridge dress! It was the most expensive dress that I bought (though I got student discount on it as I bought it from House of Fraser). The dress is a size 14 but it fits! I think a 16 would have looked good too, but I like how close fitting it is. It was kind of an impulse buy, as I saw it in the window as we walked past. I don't usually go in House of Fraser as the floor is all wonky and it makes me feel travel sick after a few steps in there. But I wanted that dress! :) 

So the first thing I needed to do was address the extra ease in the Pendrell blouse. After studying the finished garment measurements, I decided to go two sizes smaller than what my actual measurements. I was pretty sure this would be ok. And I was right! Mostly. Here's the back:

I made no alterations to it at all! Other than to add a zip of course. Though I discovered that I can get in and out of it without the zip, but it's a tight fit and I'd rather not put too much stress on the seams. However, the front obviously required quite a large FBA. I split some of this between the front piece and did most of it on the side front piece. Here it is after pinning out some excess:

As you can see I lowered and re-shaped the neckline. Then there was some excess length in the front that I tucked out. It was also gaping out under my chest so I pinned it out. Looking at the photo I also noticed that there is a little bit of bumpy gaping going on at the sides of the neckline. The stripes also emphasise my boobs which isn't a good look! lol Thankfully none of the fabric that I have is stripey. But I think the general shape is ok, though I think I'll let it out a little in the side to give me a smidge more room in the chest. I just need to add length to make it dress length, and maybe add a bit of flare to the skirt. 

Once I have the shell fitting ok, I'm going to draft a peterpan collar (using Casey's tutorial) which will be a contrast colour in the final dress. I'm also going to test out whether the sleeve from Colette patterns Ceylon will work. If it does, then I'm also going to add a contrast colour cuff to the sleeve. If it doesn't, then I'll add a little capped sleeve and bind the rest of the armhole. 

So how on earth do I go about making my changes to my paper pattern?! And ignoring the optical illusion of the stripes, do you think the fit is ok so far? Hopefully I should have muslin number 2 ready soon once I've worked out how to transfer my changes to paper.

Ashley x

Almost done!

The zipper is in and top stitched! Though the top stitching was a pain to do. I nearly gave up for today. It just didn't want to stay nice and flat and kept puckering. An iron only helped so much, but it is only a summer dress after all. It goes up and down, and is nice and strong so I'll just be happy with that :) 

If I make this dress again, I'll cut the midriff pieces on the grain. Trying to top stitch over the bias cut midriff pieces was the hardest part, as it's made funny diagonal folds. 

Not my best zipper insertion, but I suppose I'll just keep practising :) Oh and note to self, top stitching the zipper obviously makes the bodice smaller, so next time top stitch the zipper before taking in the side seams! I wasn't happy with the waist, as in I didn't have one! So I took in 2 inches after pinching about that much out while wearing it. But of course when the zipper got top stitched, fabric was pulled in to cover the zipper. So there's a little less fabric in the bodice. It's not tight exactly, but it's certainly closer fitting than I originally intended! Lesson learned :)

Now there's just the hem! But I'm going to wait for Dom to help me mark the hem to make sure it's straight :)

Ashley x

ps. Have you entered my give away yet? Click on over for the chance to win a sewing pattern of your choice!

V8648 - muslin

Ok, but first I have to show you this adorable broach that Dom's little sister Imogen picked out for my birthday:

Perfect for someone who sews! :) I enjoyed Monday afternoon a lot, it was lovely to see everyone again. Mum cooked my favourite meal (curry fry, I remember my uncle teaching us to make it) and did party food! 

Anyway, back to what you're here for:

I think princess seams are the way forward! I've never managed a successful darted bodice, but I'm really pleased with the fit of this princess seamed one. All my hard work paid off! Looking at the back of the bodice, I think the narrow back adjustment was successful. So I have a narrow back! Who knew? As I've already said, I'm happy with the FBA too. The waist pieces are the right length too, though they look like they're too short. I think with the weight of the skirt, they'll be the right length though. But. . .the sleeves. I'm ditching the sleeves. The armhole is currently too big, so the sleeve pulls terribly. I unpicked the part that was pulling for these photos. I can sort the armhole, but I don't know what to do to the corresponding sleeve piece. So I'm being a coward and ditching the sleeves. It is meant to be a summer dress after all (she says, as it's pouring rain outside)! And sleeveless dresses are great for layering. Or I was thinking of using a capped sleeve piece form one of my other patterns, as I think that would be cute. What do you guys think?

So I have a couple more adjustments to make. I want to add 1.5cm to the front part of the armhole, so that when the lining is in the armhole will be where it is in the photos. Also, you can see in the photos that there was a little gaping in the neck. I think this is a result of the FBA as it happened on the birdie blouse too. So I pinned it out on the muslin (roughly!) and I need to pinch about 2cm out. As these are only minor adjustments, I'm going to make the changes to the paper pattern, then go ahead and cut out my fabric! :) I'm excited, my first dress that might actually fit!!

On a completely unrelated note, I also got some birthday money! :) I picked up 'Little Red in the City' by Ysolda Teague from Spins and Needles. This book is exactly what I've been looking for. She goes into the detail on bust shaping in knitting patterns and how to alter for a bigger bust and other fitting problems. I love how its explained, it's finally starting to make sense to me. Not only does she give advice on fitting a knitting pattern, but she also explains a few techniques that are used in the patterns that are in the book. Yep, not only do you get wonderful advice and instruction, but you also get 7 patterns! She also shows each pattern on two different body types which is helpful to see. All in all, I think I'm going to get a lot of use out of this book :) 

As well as the book, I also couldn't resist a look at the yarn. There's a scarflet pattern on Ravelry that I've had my eye on, so I picked up some yarn for that:

After reading the notes on other peoples projects on Ravelry, it looks like I'm going to need another ball! Ah well, next time I'll check first :) I also picked up some yarn to make Dom a pair of socks:

I'm so glad that I went to the sock knitting class, as I love this pattern! The yarn is DK weight on 4mm needles, so it knits up super quick for a sock. Dom thinks it's sweet that I'm knitting him some socks, and now complains that he has cold toes and that I should hurry up!

I also finished another pair for myself. I bought two balls of this yarn to make a shawl with, and ended up with a ball left over. Plenty for a pair of socks!

I didn't bother trying to get the colours in similar places on each sock, as I was only trying to use up the yarn. They turned out really well :)

More later!

Ashley x

V8648 - adjustments.

I let Dom choose my next project and this is the one he chose. I also let him choose the view, as I was stuck between the blue version and the red checked version. He chose the red checked version, which I'm happy with as I like the sleeves :)

So onto the pattern adjustments. I've started to record the adjustments I make on the amazing notepad that I won in Nina's giveaway at The Vintage Family.

Now in case you can't make out my crazy scrawling, I took photos of the pattern pieces before and after so I could explain the steps I made. I started with a size 14.

The side bodice front. As you can see I've made an FBA. I tissue fitted the front and determined that I needed about an inch extra. It needed to be added to the side piece not the front piece, so following Fit For Real People I ended up with the piece shown above. This also added an inch to the waist, which was perfect as I need the extra room.

The back piece. I think I have a narrow back. I always seem to have too much fabric in the back and the armhole goes too far into my armpit. So I made a 1.5cm narrow back adjustment. I'm not sure if this will be enough, but its a start. If it seems to help, but the back is still gaping then I'll do another adjustment and record how much I needed. You can also see that I added an inch to the side so I'd have enough room in the waist. The narrow back adjustment changed the armhole and shoulder seam, so I measured the new shoulder seam and adjusted the front shoulder seam so it matched. Then I measured how much the back sleeve piece needed to be altered to fit this new armhole. I needed to raise the sleeve cap by 1cm as that was how much the shoulder seam had been reduced by. I also needed to take 1.5cm of of the underarm seam on the back sleeve piece so it matched the underarm bit of the back piece.

I just realised I forgot to take a photo of the actual front piece (not the side front piece, which is shown above as the FBA piece). All I did to it was add length to it in the corresponding place and amounts so that it matched the side front piece.

The waist peices. Yep, I'm really short waisted. I shortened them by 2 inches. Then added the inch to side pieces so that they matched the bodice pieces. This means that the waist is now a size 18 (instead of the 14 that I started with). So as for the skirt, I'll just cut the 18 out so it matches the waist seam.

This took me 3 days, working for an hour or two a day. Yes I am slow. But working on the floor is uncomfortable, and I get pins and needles in my feet every half an hour so have to shake it off! lol It's really hard to explain what I did without showing you in person. Hopefully you have a vague understanding :) Writing it down also helps fix it in my head so I don't forget. The notepad helped a lot as it meant I didn't forget to do things to other pieces. For example, I'm sure I would have forgotten to add the extra to the sleeve cap if I hadn't written it down!

I'll cut out a muslin soon, and test the alterations I made. I hope that if I need to make any more alterations, they are only minor so I can go straight onto the real thing :) And of course I'll share photos with you lovely lot.

More later!

Ashley x

Crescent skirt - muslin

Not too bad from the front, right?

And then you see the back. . .

Ah, well, that *may* be a *smidge* too tight. Lol. I'm not sure how this happened, I traced off a size 12 at the waist grading down to an 8 at the hips. Perhaps I didn't need to grade down to the 8? Not sure, but anyway its an easy fix. I think I'm going to add about half an inch at each side seam piece, so a total of 2 inches. This will give me plenty to play around with, as I'd rather it be too big than too small. As a whole though, I love it! Such a lovely shape, and those curved seams lend so much inspiration for adding something pretty! :)

Are you participating in the Sewalong? How's it going?

Ashley x

B4985 - muslin

Overall, I'm really happy with the fit. The changes I made to the tissue were to do an FBA, and to move the waist. My neck to waist measurement is about 3 inches shorter than the norm. To fix this on the pattern I had to shorten the pieces so that the waist shaping was in the right place, then lengthen it at the bottom the same amount so it didn't end up as a crop-top! Very boring and tedious but I got there in the end. Is there an easier way to do this?
I'm going to go for the puffed sleeves as the drapey sleeves just don't sit right :S I'm also going to add a smidge to the length and to the side seams for a bit more room.
I'm really pleased with the fit, I've finally found the right starting size! I didn't have to make any changes to the upper back or shoulders which is a first! :D
I've already cut the fabric. I cut the collar upside down the first time! Luckily there was plenty left to cut another, this time with the print going the right way! Just got to cut the interfacing out.
I'll be doing a muslin of the Crescent skirt this week too! The sewalong started today and I can't wait to get going.
Now I need some advice. I'm going to end up with three projects on the go - the shirt and two crescent skirts. Any advice for staying organised? I'm thinking of making some really quick tote style bags for each project to keep everything in. These will be useful for future projects too. My main problem is space. We live in a small studio apartment so being able to put a project in a big bag and sliding it under the bed is ideal. Any other ideas?
Ashley x

Evening gown muslin!

The pattern arrived today! I spent the day doing the adjustments :) Here are some photos:

I think the fit in the chest is great, though there wont be a seam in the middle of the real thing. I'll cut it on the fold for the real thing :)
We'll get to the photos of the back in a minute. First of all its a smidge too tight in the hips, and the front armhole is too big. Easy enough fixes. Second of all, we were playing around with the back. Becky really liked the back dipped lower.

The only problem was her bra strap. How to hide it? I had a brainwave! Here's what we came up with:

Rather messily done, but you get the idea! A cute bow back! With a strategically placed bow to hide the bra strap! Cute and practical :D Becky would also like the bottom bow to be a real bow with tails that flow down the back of the dress. I think this will look amazing. We decided that the bows will be cream, as we thought this would be a lovely contrast to the sky blue fabric (when it gets here!). Oh, and the zip will be moved to the side seam, so the bows can be sewn in properly instead of using poppers which was our first idea. Then moving the zip hit me! lol
I'll spend tomorrow working on the adjustments and making another muslin, though this time only to the hip to save on fabric :)
More soon!
Jellybean x

My first attempt at fitting

So I've made my first muslin! No pictures for you though, as you can plainly see through the muslin and I'd rather you didn't see that! I'm going to keep a look out for a stretchy white camisole top so I can wear the muslin over it and show you pictures next time.
I used the tissue fit method in Fit for real people, and it worked great! Of course, I needed Dom's help to check the fit in the back, and measure bits. I went with a size 16, though in hindsight I should have gone for the 14 for the shoulder fit.
Before I started the tissue fitting, I added 3 inches to the waist. Then the tissue fitting began, starting with the back of course! I shortened the length by 2.25 inches, and took a 0.5cm vertical tuck out of the back. I thought I had a narrow back, but I could also have started with a size 14. This made the back piece sit 'flush against my back' to use Dom's words. Now that the back was sorted I had to do the FBA. I needed a 1.5" FBA. This wasn't as scary as I thought it would be :)
I sewed up the muslin and tried it on. In fabric the shoulders were waaay to wide, 2.75 inches too wide to be exact. Also the bust apex was too low in fabric. And it hit my waist with no seam allowance left.
So for my second muslin I need to:
-move the shoulders 2.75" in, tapering down to 1" in at the neckline (if that makes sense)
-adjust the darts to work with the new bust apex
-add 1.5cm to the length.

Shouldn't be too difficult :) I hope so, at least. All this adjusting has made me realise why my first dress fit so badly! How did your first fitting attempt go?
More soon :)
Jellybean x
ps. sorry that I switch from inches to centimetres, I can't seem to stick to one!
pps. Dom is adjusting the pressure on the coffee machine so it brews the perfect shot of espresso. Its making me nervous! What if he breaks it?!

New book!

Fit for Real People is only £11.75 at Amazon until the end of January! I've been meaning to pick this up for ages as I'd seen so many bloggers swear by it. The money off and an Amazon gift voucher for Christmas finally gave me the shove to grab it :) I can't wait to have a look through, I've already seen the FBA instructions, and loved how well explained and illustrated it was.
Happy New Year!
Jellybean x

Phew. . .

Kneading bread dough is hard work! I haven't made bread before, so I hope it goes ok :) the dough is currently on the warming plate on the top of our coffee maker, I'm hoping the warmth will make it rise well.


Update on that dress: I sort of gave up. The bodice was just too big, and I couldn't be bothered with altering it. The skirt bit was still ok though, so I've decided I'm going to make my own bodice part for it. I think I'm going to try a 50s style pin-up dress. I'm sure I can salvage that much from the left over material. . .I hope.
Jellybean x