The Beatles Dress

This dress was made for me to wear on one of the most important days of my life - the day I met the single hottest man on earth, and got my picture taken with him.

Anyway this blog is about the sewing/fashion type stuff not to gush over Karl Urban.  Unfortunately I am too big to fit this dress at the moment - though it is close so hopefully this year will see it back on my back (and can you believe I thought I was "fat" when I made it)

Anyway jokes aside this dress is made using a simplicity reprint 1960's shift.  Some (ok all) of the seam detailing is lost in the super psychedelic pattern I chose to use.  The material was part of a quilting series for the Beatles and is called Yellow Submarine.  It was my first time working with Quilting cotton and I loved how it it sewed.  Quilting, however is a heavier cotton than some so works better on dresses with structure.

I chose the short version of the dress, because I have always loved mini's.  Age and wisdom has told me that sometimes the heart has a love the legs can't carry off, were I to make this again I would use the longer version.  The mini is super dooper mini, even at the time I ended up wearing it more like a tunic over jeans.  Don't judge me it was the style of the time.

I lined the dress in some navy polyester lining.  The lining was sewn like a bubble into the hem to avoid any visible hem seems on the front of the dress.  Basically, I cut the dress a few cm longer than the lining and sewed the two together.  Then I ironed it so that the extra dress hem folded up into the lining.  Not something I would recommend to others as ironing is a nightmare but the concept of a hem stitch was years away at this point.  The other change that I made was to move the zip down, mostly because it meant I would not have to finish the zip top.

Things that I like about this dress, the finishes are all well done.  The fabric is amazing and stands out and the dress when it did fit, fit really well.  I was initially; concerned that with my bust it wouldn't sit well but I was pleasantly surprised.  There is just enough shape in the dress to define waist and hips.

I do recommend this pattern
I also recommend the Beatles - still the best band of all history.

Projects for the Upcoming Stash Blitzkrieg

Officially the Blitzkrieg will not start until Saturday night - because it looks like that will be the first chance I will get to sit down at a machine and sew anything.  With friends visiting from around the world, annaverysorry's and movies to see I have been hardly able to breath.  But I did take some time tonight to quickly put together some pictorials of the projects I will be working on.

8 Gored Skirts

I have 5 meters of rayon (1m each type) and I am going to make 5 of these 8 gored skirts from a 1940's advance pattern 3287.

I have made this skirt 3 times before and am close to perfecting the fit but the pattern is just lovely - especially in the soft floaty fall of this rayon ($4/m).  I used a lot of rayon to make skirts to travel around Italy with due to the not needing to iron and fell in love.  Actually I already have one in the same pattern as the orange floral but red.

Hopefully I will be able to process line these and will therefore have all of them done saturday night.  Which reminds me I had better call into spotlight for zips and buttons.

Skull Dress

Sorry the pic for this is a little smaller but the square allowed a better view of the fabric that I picked up of Ebay.  total cost was about $50 for 3m including all postage.  To be honest the fabric photographs better than it looks in person but I still really like it.  I don't have anything else like it that's for sure.

Whether I manage this as part of this Blitzkrieg or not is questionable because I am unsure if I have enough material to do it, and because I need to find a green to accent it with if I don't.  It may also be put in the when I have lost a little weight pile.  Dropping a size could cut .5m off what I need by this pattern, now there is weight loss incentive.

Childs Play Clothes

All around me friends are having babies, recently some are even having girls which means I can make cool things for them.  This one has been on the to do list ever since we got back from Italy and being so small I doubt it will take too much time so I am including it in this blitz.

Pattern is an old one, 1960's by my mothers guess and of a mail order variety so I am not certain of the company but I think its really cute (size 2 but kids do grow right)

The material is quilters cotton picked up on sale probably about $6 for the pattern and $5 for the plain.  I will do the top patterned and the pants plain.


So there it is 3 projects (well 7 really) and more to come.  I figure if I put the info up here I will remember what material goes with what pattern which should be useful in clearing things out.

The "Perfect" Dress - a cautionary tale

Let me start this post by telling you all that I can never make anything perfect, I just can't do it. Be it a wonky hem, a rushed dart, stitching escaping the ditch it does not matter what the issue is there will always be one. Mostly this comes down to the fact that I rush most things, even the things I make a conscious effort not to rush somehow end up finished in a week of nights at most with some issue, or slip up for me to focus on at later dates thinking if I just... but being to lazy to re-do.

Enter Buttericks retro reprint 6582. To start with I made this in the full skirt version, which I will post about later once I have pics of me actually in the dress, sufficed to say it has some issues but generally I was happy with the outcome of the size 10 full skirt version, the wonky hem I can ignore the arm holes made for barbie thin arms I can handle, it is one of my favourite works. But this is supposed to be about the wiggle version right there on the front in the black.

Just look at it, doesn't it scream sex kitten? Is it not the hottest little number you have ever seen? The sexy curves the modest yet alluring neckline, surely the perfect pattern. And look at the fabric I found. A beautiful cotton sateen, with an abstract rose pattern in fuchsia and gray and cream. Modern and Retro all in one and sexily perfect for my perfectly sexy pattern.

The problems started at get go. I didn't have enough material to cut it with the stretch and so I cut it against the stretch. No biggie. It fit Just.

Then I realised that I had cut a piece the wrong way - so I re-cut it out of my minimal scraps only to realise then that I was an idiot because it was already cut the right way. Then I located another piece that was cut the wrong way and I had nothing left to cut it from but hey it was a facing piece so again no biggy.

I really took my time on it - taking a week of nights to finish a pattern that has only limited pieces and I would normally run together in a couple of hours. I took extra care that my double ended darts started and finished symmetrically, I painstakingly lined up and re-lined up my zip, I read and re-read the kick pleat instructions until I got it all just perfect. And it is - you can see it here on Mavis, this dress is everything it promised, sexy but classy, slinky but elegant. Beautiful.

Want to know why it is on Mavis, well because the bastard is at least 2 sizes to small for me!!!!! So maybe I didn't measure myself first up, generally I would accept a slip up like this to be my own fault, I obviously made the wrong size. Except remember above where I said I had made the other version, the full skirted version, in the same size. Remember how I said it fits me fine. Well the very same pattern has a wiggle dress that is two sizes smaller than the skirted dress. They share only one piece, and due to changes I made on the full skirt I didn't even use that piece the first time (the small triangle-ish piece that makes the false cross-over effect, on the full skirt I made it a proper cross-over).

So I made changes to the full skirt - but those changes should have made it tighter not looser!!! How could Butterick, a normally reputable company make such an error, just to mess with the heads of impatient people like me who assume that they put to much ease into all there patterns? For the record I measure up to a 14 or 16 bust on most modern patterns but all that measurement is out front, my back is quite small. I usually make a 10 or 12 and that fits fine, but this one I made a 10 and should have made a 14 or 16, and it isn't even the bust that is the biggest problem. It is the hips, that sexy curve is not so curvy on the real thing, infact it is pretty straight. Even if I had of cut with the stretch there would still not be enough butter to grease me into this dress.

The lesson I learnt - www.patternreview.com, learn it, live it, love it. Had I but read some of the reviews available on this site, I would have known the inherent problems with Butterick 6582 and all of this angst could have been avoided.

To those with the discerning eye yes I have not hemmed the dress yet - despite it being finished for months. It is too perfect to forget so I have been hunting for the person who will fit this perfect dress, so that they may enjoy it's wonders. That does mean however that it will need to be hemmed to them and unfortunately not me.