Craftsy course princess seam draft

In a big tidy up of my sewing room recently (though not as recent as today...it is a mess again...sigh) I was dealing with some projects that were lying about taking up room.  One of these was the muslin for a princess seam dress, which I made many months ago when I was right into my craftsy drafting courses.  I transferred the changes back to my pattern and made up the dress using a stretch sateen from Spotlight.

Here are the results.

I am happy with the fit, and I was happy enough when I looked in the mirror, but I am not loving the look in these photos.  That is one of my problems lately...I like how I look until I see a photo of myself.  I like to document my sewing in this blog, but I certainly don't love the taking and looking at photos part.  

To be fair, I have never really loved princess seamed dresses.  I don't mind them in a bodice, but not so much a dress.  I think they look, not so much frumpy, as matronly.  

I have a bit of a problem with a silverfish infestation.  I got the house treated, but that didn't seem to solve the problem.  Last weekend I totally emptied out my wardrobe and hit it with some lavender oil.  I thought it would be a good chance to do a Marie Kondo clean out at the same time, which I have been meaning to do for a while.  Turns out I couldn't do it though.  Even if I don't wear the clothes anymore, I still love the fabrics.  I just went and bought more coat hangers instead.  Not for this dress though.  I had no trouble putting it in the "move on" bag.

Wrap Dress

This is the result of my drafting class for a surplice dress.  The class is part of Craftsy's "Patternmaking + Design: Creative Necklines". 

 I meant to follow the draft as instructed in the class, but really, some of the design decisions seemed a little bit crazy.  The instructions were for a gathered skirt.  There is already a whole lotta fabric going on in a wrap dress, without adding a gathered skirt.  If you google wrap dresses, you'll be hard put to find one with a gathered skirt.  Having gathers on the overlap and the underlap was way too bulky for me, so I changed the underlap to have darts instead.  In the class example, the gathers were applied to the regular portion of the skirt, with no gathers on the extension.  I guess this was so that the gathers on the overlap and underlap did not sit on top of each other, but I thought it just looked weird, so I distributed the gathers across the whole front section, stopping short about 2 inches from the side seams.  The class made a skirt facing to the whole skirt extension, but I was feeling weighed down by all the fabric, so I only faced about an inch of the skirt extension.

This next photo shows some of the bodice detail.  I used shoulder yokes, and then rotated all the darts into shoulder gathers.  The class had you draft facings for the bodice, but I think there is already enough fabric flapping around on a wrap dress without facings, so I drafted a band to finish the neckline.  I finished the armholes with bias binding.  

The back of the skirt is gathered as well.  It is a bit hard to see, but I rotated the back waist darts up into back neckline gathers, to tie in with the rest of the gathers on the dress.  I quite like the bodice design I ended up with, and I think it has enough interesting detail to work well in a plain fabric as well.

This dress has pockets.  Usually I can't see the fuss about pockets in dresses, as they add bulk, and I always carry a bag anyways.  These pockets were drafted by placing your hand on the skirt pattern and drawing a shape around it to make the pocket, which I must say makes for a very comfortable pocket shape with a good pocket depth.

I made this dress midi length, but I still may cut it off to knee length.  It looks more fun at knee length, but most of my dresses are knee length, so I thought I would mix it up a bit.

This fabric is a cotton lycra blend.  I'm not too fussed on cotton lycra blends, as they are so much hotter to wear than straight cotton, which means that this very tropical print will actually be too hot to wear in tropical weather.  I must have bought this print after seeing something similar looking great on somebody else...just another trap for fabric buyers!  I still have red velvet stashed from about 20 years ago when I momentarily lusted after somebody else's red velvet pants.  This fabric is not as disastrous a choice as the (actually fake) red velvet, and it is good to have less precious fabric to test out the class drafts.

Jeans No. 2 and first attempts at distressing

For my second pair of jeans, I watched Angela Wolf's craftsy course "Sewing Designer Jeans".  I watched it all the way through.  I then meant to follow along as I sewed my jeans, but my internet was down that day, so I had to go from memory.

I used denim that I had bought half price from Lincraft, and treated this as my second muslin, as after all my fussing about on the first pair, I wasn't certain where my final crotch shape ended up.

 So, a lot less wrinkles.  The downside is that I can't actually walk in them.  Well, I can now, but I couldn't at first, and I still wouldn't want to climb over a fence in a hurry.  I let the side seams out as much as I could, but there is still not enough room there.  Initially, I thought the crotch extension was too short, so I made it longer on my 3rd pair, made in a really stretchy denim, which then felt like I had a nappy between my legs.  So, in hindsight, maybe I have scooped out that crotch curve too much?

This pair will make its way to the op shop, but I am not upset, because I got to practice my top-stitching and distressing, which both got a lot better by the end of these. These are also my best belt carriers ever.  (My daughter is reading over my shoulder now, and she is amazed that I would discard them as she thinks they look better than my other pairs...but looks versus ability to walk, and I will take walking every time.)

Dress with midriff yoke

I think I am finally finished with lesson 4 of my craftsy darts and seamlines drafting course.  This part of the lesson was to draft "bust gathers with yoke".  I have had Vogue 1183, a Kay Unger dress with beautiful seamlines, in my pattern stash for a long time now, but the thought of fitting the pattern has put me off sewing it up (that and all the other dress patterns in my collection).  It is easier for me to draft to fit than to modify a commercial pattern to fit...all that twisting in the mirror...so I decided to use this pattern as my inspiration for a dress with yoke.

My pattern is not exactly  the same as the Kay Unger pattern.  I have less seam lines in the bodice.  I continued the vertical seaming into the front skirt.  I did not cross my fronts as much as the dress on the model, as I wanted to make more of a feature of the crossover.  My yoke stops at the natural waist, rather than dip down below it.  This sounds like a long list of differences, but I did copy the elements I wanted and am happy with the outcome.

The fabric is a cotton sateen from Spotlight.  I bought it as a backup for my daughter's primary school graduation last year, but she did not like it.  Now that I have made it up, I think she is wishing that she had bagged this fabric for something, even if not for her dress.  Never mind, I have quite a sizable remnant that I am sure she will find a use for.  The colours in the print are especially fun, even if the fabric quality is not so great.

With these large scale prints, I always have difficulty deciding where to place my pattern pieces at the cutting out stage (especially as I am normally quite stingy with my fabric purchases and don't have a lot of room for maneuver).  For this one, it would have been better not to have that white area cross my belly...it looks much worse in some of the photos that I have decided not to share!  I did re-cut the yoke so that it wasn't white as well.

I did a pretty good job of pattern matching through the skirt seams.  This is great from a pattern matching point of view, but it means that the seam lines do not feature as much as they would in a plain fabric.

I am really pleased that there is no gaping at the front.  I have not pinned or tacked the cross-over in place.  I wore this to work last week, and had no problems

I did go to try a belt on with this dress, as per the model on the pattern cover, but I could not find a belt.  I must have got rid of them all in my Kon Marie moment.

Cowl dress

Symmetrical prints are always fun.  Risky, but fun.  I mean, there is always the possibility that you might end up with a big white white dot over the top of your pubis. 

Sometimes, I like to keep the symmetrical prints centred, other times, off-centre seems the best approach.  This time I went with centred, as I have enjoyed the symmetrical, digitally printed skirts that have popped up in recent years.  The symmetry gives them a powerful look, with a kind of totemic vibe.  So in my mind, this a fertility goddess sort of dress.

I drafted this dress for my craftsy lesson on cowl necklines.  Even though the dress is a knit fabric, I started with my woven sloper (as directed in the class), and rotated the bust darts to create the cowl neckline.  I have loved cowl necklines in the past, and sewn quite a few of them, but do not feel the love for them so much at the moment.  For this reason, I only wanted a bit of a cowl, not an exaggerated drape.  I did not rotate the waist dart into the cowl, just left it where it was, and ignored it when it came to sewing the dress (my waist darts are pretty small anyway).

The fabric is an Italian ponti from Tessuti.  It is so lovely to wear (which make a vastly different experience from my Spotlight ponti).

The fabric is quite amazing.  It has lots of different colours throughout.  Changing the background in my photographs changes the colours that are emphasised.  As well as the obvious reds and oranges, there are sublte greens, greys and mauves on a black background.

I wanted to play down the reds and oranges, and put the greens up near my face, which is how I ended up with a big white dot amid a pulsing red circle right in the middle of the skirt.  Now that I have pointed it out, you probably can't stop noticing it, but I wore this out and about the other day and did not feel self conscious about it.  I didn't notice any snickers as I was walking the grocery aisle.

The other interesting thing about the fabric was that it had mirror images both horizontally and vertically.  The pattern repeat must be quite large however, as I could not see a mirror image for the whole print.  Either that, or just sections of the print were mirrored.  It was hard to work out after I started cutting, and it appears to be sold out, so I can't find the original pictures on the Tessuti shop site.  

I cut the front of the dress down the length of the fabric, and then cut the back skirt horizontally to get it to appear symmetrical as well.  The fabric stretches pretty evenly in both directions, so this did not matter.  The upper back is cut separately from the back skirt, and has a centre back seam, so I just found two matching section of print to use.  I was a bit cheeky, and extended the centre back seam down into the top section of the skirt, without actually cutting a CB skirt seam...sort of a seam ending in a dart?

Overall, I really like this dress, even though I was hesitant to draft a cowl design.  I am considering this one a win!

Dress with horizontal waist gathers

I am back on track with my craftsy course for this dress.  This is from the :Patternmaking + Design: creative darts and seamlines" course.  The class showed transferring the bust and waist darts to gathers in the waist dart.  I decided to do the same with the skirt hip darts, and I made the dress into a V-neck, both front and back.

I'm not sure that this is the most flattering design for me, or if maybe I need to fix up my pattern a little, but it seems all a bit droopy at the bottom of the bust, and it is a bit tight at the top of bust, which is why my facings are showing through.  The fabric is a lightweight sateen, which probably contributes to the show through.

The fabric is a much lighter colour than I normally wear.  It was an online buy, and I was drawn to the red in the print.  This is one of those cases where the closeup photo does not really show what the fabric looks like from a distance, as the overall effect is more pink than red.

So, the overall dress is okay, but I don't love either the design or the fabric.  Onto the next lesson...

Swing Tops

This is my first attempt at drafting a swing top, made up in a linen fabric.

 Here is my pattern.  Due to my pear shape, I already swing out a lot at the hips, so adding to this made for a top that was pretty loose and swingy.  Whilst I may want this look sometimes, it was more than I wanted at the moment.  Also, the top bubbled out strangely at the side dart.

I ran the side seams in, which has made for a top that is extremely comfortable and I have been wearing it heaps.

I had another go at the draft, this time pretending I was more of a rectangle shape before I added the flare, and taking the side seam flare from the bottom of the bust dart rather than the underarm.  This version was made up in a drapy silk.  Whilst it does not flare out when I am standing still, it has a lovely, swingy movement when I walk around.

 A lovely, cool top  (though I took the neck binding off and re did it after these photos.  Originally I measured the length of neck binding I thought I would need before applying, thinking I would have difficulty with the gauzy silk.  This didn't work and my usual method of applying the neck binding by feel was much more successful).  There is still some strange bubbling out of the bust dart though.

On my third attempt at the draft, I only took the second flare up to the bust point, and closed up the bust dart some of the way to accommodate this flare.  Finally, no bubbling out through the dart.  I also narrowed the front neckline a little to reduce some of the neck gape.  This version was made in an organza which sticks out naturally.  On this version, I went for a straight hem as I thought the curved hem would be difficult to do neatly in the organza.

I repeated this exercise with a higher neckline and cutaway shoulders.  I love this fabric, which I ordered from The Fabric Store after seeing it on their blog.  I have paired it with white shorts here, but later I indulged in a little print mixing and wore it with my bees-and-dragonflies pants, which was an outfit that I felt was completely "me".

I used this pattern to make a layered top.  The inspiration for this top was a style from Anthropologie. The original top had a knit underlayer and a polyester woven top layer.  

Both my layers are silk fabrics from my stash of special fabrics.  There is a third layer of white china silk between the layers so that the purple does not show through to the top fabric.  My version is less strappy, to allow for a comfortable bra.

This top really challenged my self perception as a good sewer.  I spent two weekends on the construction, and most of that time was spent trying to hem the different layers.  I'm still not happy with the hems.  I tried hemming from the top, from underneath, with pins, without pins, with stabilisers, without stabilisers etc etc. but could not get a neat hem in the yellow layer.  The problem with the purple layer, which is a georgette, was that the side seams drooped down because of the bias nature of the side seams, and I could not cut an even hem, let alone turn up a decent hem.  In the end, I had to settle for "good enough".

Halfway through construction, I decided to make the top reversible.  This meant french seaming and some more thought as to how all the layers went together.

I also had to pull out the under-stitching, which I had done in white thread.  Looks like the under-stitching did it's job though...the yellow layer still pulls to the purple side.

I have plans for more variations on the swing top, but my drafting and sewing is being severely curtailed by children's end of year functions and sporting commitments.  In the meantime, I have a handful on new tanks for summer.

Back V neckline

I made this dress a while back for my Craftsy course, but I only wore it for the first time this week, now that we are definitely getting into the warmer weather.  The fabric is a cotton that is lovely and soft to wear.  I bought it as a remnant, less than 1 m in length but 2.4 m wide, which makes me wonder if it originally was intended for sheeting?  It is soft enough.  It appears similar tp a batik wax print, though I have no idea if it is or not.  The printed squares are not printed perfectly in rows (it is not my cutting and sewing that is off grain!!), which makes it look a bit skewiff.  I did split the side French dart into 2, as I thought that 1 large dart messed with the print too much.

Dress with neckline pleats

Another dress!  I will have a wardrobe full of dresses by the time I have completed this craftsy course.  This time, the bust and waist darts were moved around to form neckline pleats.

Actually, the lesson was for neckline gathers, but I thought this fabric would work better with pleats. 

My narrowest point is a couple of inches above my waist.  On this dress, I did not follow the side curve so closely, as it doesn't always sit so well (feels like the side seam should be clipped), but, after wearing the dress for a bit,  I think I do need to take it in a bit more at the bodice side seams.  I have noticed on several of the Donna Karan for Vogue patterns over the years that she often has a triangular piece at the bottom of the bodice waist, which would allow me to get a better fit there...I will try that idea out in a later rendition.

For the skirt, I followed another lesson to draft a tulip skirt, only I used 3 pleats instead of 1 large pleat, to mimic the neckline pleats. 

Initially, I wanted a fully pleated skirt; however, the fabric print had large white areas that I did not want to use, which left me a bit short on fabric.  The tulip skirt has a plain back.  The bottom of the skirt is pegged by 1" on each side.

The back bodice has a scooped out neckline.   There is an invisible zipper at the CB.   I added a cap sleeve.  I have not done the drafting course on sleeves yet, so I borrowed a sleeve from Vogue 8552.  I did a little bit of print matching, by following the horizontal lines of the brush strokes in the print from front to back.

The fabric is a stretch cotton sateen from Emmaonesock.

The Diamond Dart

When I first saw this draft in my craftsy course, I thought it was a bit kitsch.  It has grown on me over time (and I have had time, because it is taking me quite some time to get through this course!) and now I have found a way to make it work for me....as a tank top with a peplum skirt and V back.

The bust and waist darts are rotated to form the sides of the diamond, so there are no darts on the front of the top.

In the back, I cut a V neckline and angled the back darts to mimic this V.

Here's a closer shot of the back darts. You can also see some of my neck binding.  I bound the armholes and neck with self made bias strips.  I have been watching old episodes of the Great British Sewing Bee, so I am a bit more conscious of how long my sewing takes and how neat (or not so neat it is).  It takes me an hour to bind the armholes and neck of a tank top.

I am so proud of my neat sewing on this top.  Look at the perfect top of the diamond.

The bottom of the diamond is pretty good too (though I do need to remove that gathering stitch from the skirt portion)

 I am not super happy with the draft of the skirt portion.  It is both flared and gathered.  I didn't muslin it, because I thought that my fabric would behave very differently to the calico I used for the muslin, and I don't have unwanted silks just lying around to use for muslins.  I think I perhaps overdid it.  Maybe gathered without the flare would have been enough.  To make matters worse, I thought I had heaps of fabric so I cut the bias binding strips before the I drafted the skirt...and then I could only fit the skirt pieces if I cut them on the bias.  As you can imagine, this was an absolute nightmare to hem...bias circular very full pieces.  In the end, I just stood in front of the mirror with a pair of scissors and hacked away.  I really should invest in a hem marker of some sort.

 Some photos on me.  Front view...

I forgot to get a back shot this morning, so here is a less than flattering shot of my behind when I wore it with a turquoise skirt last week.  Actually, the back V looks wider here than I thought it would...I really should take back photos in the muslin stage.  The top is meant to be a loosish fit so I can pull it on...which I can, but it does involve a little wiggle.  I will have to add width next time.

I like the upper portion of this top, so I think I will make it again with a different skirt portion.  I think it will be a great pattern for mixing prints.