The Grad Dress, Part I: Choosing a Pattern

As I mentioned in my 2013 round-up post, the bright side of having tendinitis and being unable to sew for a few weeks gave me some time to think about my grad dress.

Speaking of tendinitis... I now have it in my left arm, too. It does seem to be slowly but surely improving, though.

Back to my grad dress, I actually began thinking about it in the summer, and although I didn't really know what I wanted, I definitely knew what I didn't want:

1. Glitter or sparkles
2. A strapless dress, or anything that I would need a strapless bra for (spaghetti straps, one-shoulder, etc.)

...which pretty much rules out 99.9% of all grad dresses (seriously, just do a Google images search for "prom dress"). As if I wasn't being picky enough, I also knew I didn't want:

3. Anything backless
4. A princess dress
5. A mermaid dress
6. A mullet dress

Hooray. So, I was pretty much resigned to the fact that I would be making mine. 

I did, in fact, go to a small bridal store to try out some styles, but more to see what looked good on me than anything. I tried on a few dresses that were the typical fitted bodice and flowy skirt kind that are popular now, and while they weren't terrible, they were very... meh. Mediocre. Boring. While they were flattering and quite pretty, they just didn't feel like me.

This store also had some dresses that were more of a 50's style. They had box pleated skirts and fitted bodices, with either a scoopneck with pleats at the bust or a boatneck. Even though they were less formal, they just felt so much more me than the other ones. 

Needless to say, I didn't buy one. Those dresses were cute, but they were also $200 apiece for 100% polyester, made-in-China dresses. Nooo thanks. All things considered, that's not a bad price for a grad dress (I know people who spend upwards of $600), but still. I've been trying to avoid polyester and anything mass-produced in terms of clothing, so why should I make an exception for my grad dress?

Anyways, by this point I knew I would be making mine, so I started brainstorming about what I did want, and came up with this:

1. A 50's style (or late 40's)
2. A full skirt, to be worn with a crinoline - but preferably without gathers
3. A fitted bodice
4. Princess seams, to allow me to perfect the fit a little more easily
5. Something I could wear a normal bra, with straps, under

With that, I started my search for patterns. I looked on Etsy, and found some that I really liked, even though most of them didn't actually meet all the criteria that I'd laid out for myself. Here are some:

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The only problem is that these kinds of vintage patterns are EXPENSIVE... that last one is $165 Canadian, no joke. There was no way that I wanted to spend that kind of money on the pattern alone, when I was already looking at over $100 for enough silk to make any of these dresses.

So, I started looking at reproduction vintage patterns instead, and at one point I was pretty sure that I was going to use Vogue 2903. It was a 50's style with a full (non-gathered) skirt, a fitted bodice, princess seams and a v-neck that I could probably wear a bra under.

Source

Then... I found this: 

Isn't it gorgeous? 

I borrowed it from family friend who has the most amazing vintage pattern collection I've ever seen. We spent at least two hours looking through all of them! She had lots of 50's and 60's patterns, and even a few as old as the 20's! 

This one is from 1956, and it must be pretty rare because I can't seem to find it anywhere online. What's funny is that it looks really similar to one of the ones I was looking at on Etsy (the second one pictured above), but I didn't have to pay $80 for it.

Plus, it ticks all the boxes of my list above. It's a 50's style with a full skirt (and a very full one at that... the hem circumference is over 5 metres!) and a fitted bodice. Okay, it doesn't have princess seams at the bust (it does in the midsection) but those pleats completely make up for it. AND I can wear a normal bra under it - I love it.

I'll be making view A, the short-sleeved version. I haven't decided on a colour yet, but probably dark purple or teal - two of my favourite colours at the moment. I'll be making it in silk dupioni - yikes! This will be my first time sewing with silk.

I'm so excited for this project! There will be many more posts to come about it... I already have another one on the go about everything I've done since.

Thanks for reading!

Completed: A Bombshell Swimsuit... in January

Yep, I just finished a bathing suit in the middle of winter. A watermelon print bathing suit no less.

But you know what? I don't even care that it's the middle of winter. I MADE A BATHING SUIT. You have no idea how happy I was when I tried this thing on and it fit. (And yes, I'm posting pictures of myself in it on the internet. Yikes.)

Practically speaking, I actually wear a bathing suit more often in the winter than in the summer because I'm not really a water person. I prefer my feet on solid ground. But... we do have a hot tub, which I use quite a bit during the winter. So perfect timing, really.

The pattern is, of course, the Bombshell Swimsuit by Heather Lou of Closet Case Files. I won't say all that much about the pattern itself because I feel like it's all been said already, but it's a great pattern and was EXACTLY what I was looking for when I wanted to sew a bathing suit last summer.

This was my first time working with a PDF pattern, but my dad has access to a large-scale printer, so I didn't have to assemble a million sheets of paper, which was great. I also actually cut the pattern pieces for once (usually I trace everything) but I figured since I have the file I can always print it again if I change size. Of course, I lost the files when my computer's hard drive failed (mentioned here), so I guess I can't change size now. 

I made a size 4, grading to a size 6 at the hips. I took pictures of the process but lost them too. If you're interested in what I did to grade it, I remembered after the fact that Tasia did a post on grading it here. I checked it out and realized we did the exact same thing!

The fabric is from The Fabric Fairy - it was my first time ordering fabric online, but I'm really happy with it. It was a great price (although I had it shipped to a mailbox in the States because shipping to Canada was $20 more...), and the quality seems good. If you like knits, they have a great selection of novelty print knits. The lining I bought locally.

Speaking of knits, have I ever mentioned how much I hate sewing with them? This was no exception. Admittedly, the fabric wasn't as bad to work with as a jersey knit, but this bathing suit is a bit of a mess on the inside.

Everything went smoothly enough (lost most of my construction photos, sorry), until I tried it on after putting the elastic in and realized that it had some serious fitting issues. The whole crotch area (I don't know a politer way to say it) was waaaay too big. I guess I'm a size 6 at the hips by my measurements, but not by my shape. The elastic openings  around the legs were way too big, and it rode up quite a bit. Looking back, I probably should have actually tested to see if the elastic was actually the right size for my legs.

I also decided not to stretch the elastic at the bust (which is optional), because I always have a problem with bathing suits (and bras) being too tight along the top of the bust. The only problem is that the fabric stretched as I sewed it. I just snapped a picture on my phone but you get the idea:

Um, yeah. That wasn't really the look I was going for. I really didn't want to rip out all that stitching, so I improvised. This sewing was done after my computer died, so be prepared for a photo overload.

I decided to tackle to bust first. I tried it on, and then pinned the excess out of the sides. I measured the amount I needed to take out and then drew a line from that point to the dart in chalk.

Obviously, the front part had a lot more fabric than the back part, so I sewed some gathering stitches along the line.

I gathered it up, matched the edges, and tried to pin it in place. An experienced seamstress would probably cringe at this because it twisted awkwardly and was really a mess.

I basted it by hand, then by machine. I tried it on, and it seemed to fit, so I went ahead and serged it off.

It's definitely not ideal because the lining is gathered and the serging doesn't lie very flat at the top, although it's better since I stitched it down by hand. 

I went ahead and did the same thing for the other side, and...

Oops. I don't really know how this happened - I could have sworn that they matched up when I basted it. There was nothing to do but rip out the serging. Then, I stitched the lining and outer layers together.

I gathered it, but I couldn't gather it enough for it to match. 

I ended up just basting it in by hand, and gathering it even more as I went. It worked out, but looked pretty ugly on the inside after serging it.

I did the same thing on the bottom as a quick fix, rather than ripping it all out and shortening the elastic. Without all the annoying gathering, it was much more straightforward.

I went and tried it on, and after realizing that IT FIT, I did a little happy dance around my room for few minutes.

Incidentally, after I had been jumping around for five minutes (or so...), it was still in place so I figure I could have totally left it strapless. However, I wanted it to be a little more practical so I sewed the straps on anyways.

I don't know what I'm looking at here... 

In these photos, the elastic flips forward a bit, but since taking them, I stitched them by hand to the straps so they don't anymore. (Also, I hadn't taken out all my visible basting stitches when I took these photos. Not going to lie, I still haven't.)

Another little construction detail: I did sew in some bra cups, but they weren't ones meant for bathing suits, or even for sewing in at all. My mom had a pair from the fabric store in her stash, but they were completely the wrong shape. The ones I ended up using were from a sports bra, but I usually don't wear cups in sports bras and I have a bunch more pairs anyways. The support in the suit is decent - I wouldn't want to run a marathon in it, but for using in my hot tub and the couple other times a year when I'll wear a bathing suit, it's fine.

If I made this again, I'd do a few things differently:

1. Increase the seam allowance. I found working with a 1/4" seam allowance really difficult, especially with swimsuit fabric. Pretty much all my basting stitches are showing. I actually thought of this beforehand, but forgot when I cut it out.

2. Grade back down to a size 4 after the widest part of the hips. I think this would probably solve most of the problems with it being too big there.

3. Use a smaller length of elastic around the leg openings. This would probably solve the rest of those problems.

4. Stretch the elastic at the bust. There's no way I'm going through all that again.

5. Shorten it. I'm shorter than average but I haven't had to shorten anything I've made recently, so I figured I could probably get away without shortening it. It ended up a little too long, but it's not noticeable because of all the ruching.

6. Sew a line of elastic under the bust. I was going to do this, but then I realized that you'd probably get much better support from it if it were sewn into the side seams and I'd already sewn them up. Next time though, I'll add it.

Overall, I LOVE this swimsuit. It's cute and flattering without being skimpy like so many bathing suits are. I feel like I could actually go to the beach confidently with this on. Sure, it's not super pretty inside, but I forgive myself because a) it's made with a knit and b) I MADE A SWIMSUIT. 

I was laughing in this photo because I had been trying to come up with things to do with my hands and they were becoming more and more silly and random.

Happy New Year! (Plus 2013 In Review)

Happy New Year! I won't lie and say that I'm a big fan of New Year's or New Year's resolutions, but I think it's good to reflect on and review the past year. It's been an exciting one!

It's been a while (over a month) since I last posted, so I'll quickly sum up the past month (or so) before moving on to summing up the past year.

I haven't been posting or sewing at all much because I've had tendinitis from my right hand up to my elbow. Being right handed, it makes it pretty difficult to do pretty much everything that I do a lot: writing, typing, sewing, playing the saxophone, dancing, yoga... you get the idea.

Unfortunately, the only way for it to really get better is rest. Honestly, though, how am I supposed to not use my right arm for a few weeks? Um, not going to happen.

Anyways, the project that I was working on got pushed aside for a while, and my plans for Knit for Victory were thrown out the window, which was a bummer because I have a 1940's knitting magazine and I was really looking forward to it.

On the bright side, since I couldn't sew, I reverted to planning for my grad dress (or prom dress, for my American readers). I'll post about that soon!

Oh, my computer also had a meltdown. It froze all of a sudden, which is pretty normal, so I shut it off. When I turned it back on, it told me it didn't have a hard drive. I'll skip the details, but none of my files could be recovered, and now it's sitting in the corner of my room, dead and useless. I really have no idea what to do with it. I also lost pretty much all the photos I've taken since starting this blog, since I last backed up around the end of August.

This also explains why this is a little late... I meant to get it out in 2013. I'm using my dad's old laptop, which is about nine years old, but is surprisingly still faster than mine that just crashed. Its only weakness, I discovered yesterday, is photo editing. I don't know if it just doesn't have the RAM or what, but the Gimp kept crashing whenever I would try to do very basic things... like moving a toolbar to better see the picture I was editing. Anyways, I didn't get the photos ready on time so here's the post now.

It's been a pretty busy year - I turned 17, started grade 12, and got my driver's license (a big highlight)! I'm in the process of applying for universities and scholarships, and it's really starting to sink in that I'll have a lot more independence after June. It's a bit scary, thinking that I'll be on my own pretty soon, but it's exciting too!

Anyways, enough about my personal life. Here's a list I've compiled of some of my sewing/crafty/thrifty highlights of 2013:

Sewing/Crafty Projects:

This doesn't include all of them, just the most notable ones, including some that were never blogged. You can see all of my blogged projects on my Sewn page.

Most-worn: Sewaholic Alma blouse

I practically lived in this blouse all summer because I burn like crazy, so shirts with a little more coverage than the average tank top are great (note to self: make more cotton blouses with sleeves for next summer). It's flattering, comfortable, and overall a great blouse. I'll definitely make another!

Least-worn: Simplicity 7148 Culottes

I really love these culottes, but I still have yet to wear them since I finished them right at the end of the summer. There were some days in the fall when it was hot enough that I could have worn them, but since they're linen, I wanted to save them for days when I would be standing more than sitting to avoid too much wrinkling. Lesson learned: next year, I won't wait until the end of summer to make shorts.

Most challenging: Bombshell swimsuit

Yes, you read that right - I finished a bombshell swimsuit! Here's a sneak peak - the full post will be out soon.

Biggest mistake: My second Pendrell blouse (pre-blog)

Ignore the bright blue tape on my arm. It was the only colour my physiotherapist had in stock when I needed some.

I like how this blouse, the Sewaholic Pendrell, turned out, but I seriously regret the fabric choice. It's 100% polyester and feels plastic-y and awful to wear. Since I was only just getting back into sewing when I made this, I didn't really know much about different fabrics and picked it because I liked the print. Looking back, it's amazing how much I've learned in a few months about sewing and fabric. Overall though, I don't regret making this blouse. We all make mistakes, and I learned from this one. Hey, if I hadn't learned to dislike polyester with this blouse, I might be planning to make my grad dress out of polyester! *shudder*.

Most likely to make again: Sewaholic Hollyburn skirt (pre-blog)

You may recognize this from my post about my knit Pendrell blouse (and from above). It's the Hollyburn Skirt from Sewaholic, made in a cheap rayon-poly-nylon blend. I wear it quite a bit, so I kind of regret not buying something a little nicer (again, this was before I knew all that much about fabric). I was stupid and didn't pay any attention to the finished measurements, thinking "I'm short, so if it says it hits just above the knee then it probably hits somewhere below the knee on me", and made view C, the shortest one (but with the button tabs from view B). It ended up too short even before hemming, so I added some wide lace hem binding so that I could turn up as little of the fabric as possible. I also put in an invisible zipper (my first ever) which broke after two wearings, so I replaced it with my first ever hand-picked zipper. I keep meaning to redo it because it wasn't actually very well done, but haven't bothered.

Anyways, there's my mini-post about that particular skirt. I seriously love the pattern, though, and really want to make more in cute quilting cottons in the spring (I love it when a pattern will work with quilting fabric). It's fast and easy to make, and it doesn't require any fitting, yet it's really flattering. I only wish mine were a little longer!

Took the longest: Pseudo Shibori Scarf

I worked on this for over a year... which is insane. My next knitting project will be more manageable (once my hand is better). Still, I love this scarf and I've worn it a lot! It's really cozy but still very delicate-looking, and it goes really well with my new favourite hat that I bought at the Circle Craft Fair (a huge craft fair in Vancouver) this fall.

Farthest out of my comfort zone: Nuno felted scarf

I have a post half-finished about this scarf that I will post someday, so I won't post too many details here - just a sneak peak!

Best thrift store find: My cashmere cardigan

I think I need to come up with a new pose...

I bought this 100% cashmere cardigan at a thrift store for $6.99, can you believe it? It had a strange fake leather buckle on the front but I unpicked it and then blocked where it had been because it had stretched a little, and it was as good as new! This cardigan is so soft and so warm that I practically live in it. Although you can't really see it in the pictures, it has a subtle diamond lace design. I used to wear it open, but more recently I've been pinning it shut with a cute pin that used to be my mom's, or tucking it in like in the photo.

Second place would probably go to the I'm wearing above. They're vintage pumps and made of red suede with black trim. I bought them at a thrift store for $7 or $8.

Favourite overall: The duvet dress (my second Sewaholic Cambie dress)

Hands-down, this is my favourite piece I've ever made. True, the fit isn't perfect but nothing I sew ever fits perfectly. Still, I absolutely love this dress and can't wait for the spring so that I can wear it again. (This was also the post with the most hits on my blog.)

A Few Highlights:

1. I started my blog!

I know, duh. But this was really exciting for me, and I'm so very thankful to everyone who reads it. I wanted to be able to share my passion with people who would appreciate all the work I put into it. At the moment, I have 6375 pageviews - I know, that's barely anything on the scale of the internet, but it's definitely a start. The fact that people care about what I have to say enough to visit 6375 times is wonderful! 

2. I won a prize

I entered in the Super Online Sewing Match Community Match just for fun, but actually won something! I entered my duvet dress and won a $50 gift card to Pink Castle Fabrics. I had been blogging for less than a month when I won, so this was really exciting for me!

3. I joined The Monthly Stitch

For those of you that don't know, The Monthly Stich is a community blog that began in August this year and has a different challenge every month. So far, I've only participated in one - the Frocktober challenge - but I really like the idea and the sense of community. January's challenge is New Year = New Skill which I'll try to contribute to (even if I don't have a finished product yet) because I'm starting on my grad dress soon, and there's lots of new skills I'll be learning with it.

4. I participated in "Concours d'art oratoire" talking about sweatshops and cheap clothing

This is an annual competition run by CPF, the Canadian Parents for French, where kids and teens (grades 6 to 12) prepare their own short speech in French and perform it in front of judges. They can really be about anything, but many students write them about something about which they hold a strong opinion. I wrote mine about sweatshops, the environmental cost of cheap clothing, and alternatives to fast fashion. I only made it to the district level, but it was a really great opportunity to learn more about something that I was interested in, and re-kindled my interest in sewing - it was right around then that I picked it up again.

5. I became much more independent while sewing

I used to be so unsure of myself with everything I was doing when I was sewing, and relied entirely on my mom's help. Since starting to blog, and reading other people's blogs, I've become much more independent and able to problem-solve while sewing. For instance, I did the fitting on my Ceylon dress entirely on my own, whereas with my Cambie dresses (here and here), I made the muslin, but my mom did all the fitting for me.

Overall, this has been a great year for me in terms of sewing, thrifting, and other crafty pursuits. I don't really do New Year's resolutions, so I won't formally make any to do with sewing. My most important project this year will be my grad dress, and I think that's enough of a goal for me.

Happy New Year! 

A Belated Halloween Post

Yes, I am perfectly aware that it is November 17th today. Better late than never, right?

After Halloween, I was so eager to finish my Ceylon dress, that a post about my Halloween costume got pushed aside and... um, forgotten about. My bad.

My Halloween costume this year was, as usual, put together the weekend before (actually, it's a little more usual for me to be putting it together the night before). I would have loved to have made a costume from scratch (one of these days I will make myself a fantastic beaded flapper gown for Halloween) but I'm always short on time. The one year I did make a Halloween costume from scratch was when I was in grade 10, and I was a parrot. My friend was a pirate, and I made myself a bright red shirt out of ruffled fabric, attached a red feather boa down my arms, and made multicoloured feathered shoulder pads and a headdress. That one I started about a month beforehand. Incidentally, our other friend was a boat, and I think she had the best costume out of the three of us. We painted a big piece of cardboard to look like a boat for her to wear, and I made her a headband with a pirate flag on it. It was pretty impressive.

Other than that, all my other Halloween costumes since I started making my own - an M&M, Pippi Longstocking (back when I had long hair to braid), a Rubik's cube - were done less than a week beforehand, and this one was no different.

I came up with the idea of Mary Poppins from my purse, believe it or not. It's sort of an inside joke - I have this bag that fits quite a bit, and I'm the kind of person to always have everything with me. If someone needs a band-aid, I have one. If someone needs a safety pin, I have one. If someone needs clear nail polish for a run in their nylons, I have some. People are also quite astonished when they see me pull a whole jacket out of this bag (which I can actually do with a light rain jacket or summer jacket. I haven't managed to fit a wool coat in there... yet). Anyways, everyone calls it my Mary Poppins bag, and that's where the idea came from. I figured that people who knew me would get it.

The costume was pretty easy. I already had my Mary Poppins bag (which I put a clipboard in to make flat on the bottom), a black blazer, the perfect shoes, a petticoat, and black tights. The hat I borrowed from my mom, and the umbrella I borrowed from a friend (the only ones I had folded up too small to be right for the part).

This white shirt I bought at a thrift store for $2 during an immensely successful day thrifting (which I will post about soon), and the skirt was $3. (Ignore the price tag on this - I bought it during a half-price sale.)

Excuse the unedited indoor picture. It was pouring rain when I took these and if I edit them all, this post won't be out for another week.

The shirt fit me reasonably well for ready-to-wear. There were no tags on it but it was in great condition and feels to me like cotton with a bit of spandex. There is actually a texture of solid stripes, although you can't really see it in this photo. The only problem was that it didn't button up all the way (although it did have a button at the collar), so I just sewed on some little snaps so that it wouldn't gape open. 

The yellow isn't a stain, it's just where I marked with chalk where the snap was supposed to go.

The skirt was huge on me. I measured the waistband, and it was forty-something inches... and my waist is 24. It was also quite long on me - I did want a longer skirt than I would usually wear, but this one covered my shoes.

Again, a horrible picture. Sorry. But this thing wouldn't quite fit on my coffee table.

If you buy things second-hand, do you ever think about the story behind them? This is an interesting skirt because it's made out of some awful polyester (I think, there's no fabric content label) double-knit that feels like plastic (I suppose because it is), but was well made. It has a covered button, lapped zipper, and hem done by hand. The label reads "Marjorie Hamilton Vancouver", and it appears to have been altered at home. There's a section added onto the waistband where there is zigzagging rather than serging to finish the edges, and when I unpicked the waistband I found that they had stabilized that section with some bright purple lining fabric, instead of the black non-fusible interfacing that had been used elsewhere.

It should have been an easy alteration, but of course I made it difficult for myself. I didn't want to re-do the hem, and since I had to take the waistband off anyways to take it in, I shortened it from the the top. I cut off the amount I wanted taken off, starting at the front. But... when I got to the back, I realized that I would lose all but one and a half inches of my zipper. Oops. It was too late to undo the damage, so I chopped of the majority of the zipper and figured that I would find another way to get it on.

I forgot to take an "after" picture of the zipper, but it ended up just over an inch long. It's cute.

Ready for my next facepalm-worthy mistake? Oh yes, there's more. I measured how much I would need to take out of each side seam, then sewed the new side seam, making a straight line of stitching all the way to the hem. I cut off the excess with my rotary cutter, and pressed the seams open. But when I went to attach it to the waistband that was the right size, there was still too much fabric! Either I miscalculated, or the fabric stretched. I blame it on the latter, but judging by how many mistakes I made while altering this it probably was some stupid math error.

Anyways, I measured and figured that I needed to take another 3 cm out of each side seam. I took it in on one side with no mistakes, but instead of taking in 3 cm on the other side, I took the same side in again. The centre seam, therefore, is not at the centre, and if I hold out the skirt, it's more flared on one side than the other. Double oops.

So, when I finally attached the waistband (not doing it properly, mind you, but it was late and I had had enough of this skirt already), I had a one and a half inch zipper and a lopsided skirt, but it was done. I can get it on over my head if I try, but I don't think I'll be wearing this one again. I'll keep it for a future refashion though, because I know that no one will buy it if I donate it back to the thrift store.

Oh, and I broke my needle with a few centimetres left to sew. I got a little too close to the zipper and for whatever reason it didn't like that. I ended up just leaving that bit unsewn, and it managed to stay together anyways.

All I needed now was a bow, but this proved to be much easier than I expected. I went to a little local fabric store and the salesperson suggested using some grosgrain ribbon  after I explained what I was looking for. I bought a metre for 75 cents, preparing for more stupid mistakes, but I was pleasantly surprised when I made it work on my first attempt.

I didn't make it so that it would go around my neck, because I tried pinning it and it didn't sit right because the collar sat too low down. I guess women's collared shirts aren't really meant to be worn with bow ties, who'd have thought? I ended up making two loops of ribbon, one big one and one small one, and slipping the big one trough the small one, and hand stitching it in place. I considered sewing on a snap to attach it to the blouse, but decided a safety pin would be much less hassle.

So that's it! A Halloween costume in a hurry! On the day of, I added a petticoat just for fun. It's not the same one that I wore when modeling this dress and this dress, because it was too short and looked really awkward. Instead, it's a longer and subtler (and softer) one that also belonged to my aunt. I also added some vintage pearl earrings although I have no idea if Mary Poppins wears them, but my ears felt strange without any.

I was pretty happy with the finished costume. Most people recognized it right away, and everyone who knew me got the joke. Oh, how I love Halloween dressing up! 

Seriously, I don't really care much for Halloween itself. But I do love an excuse to dress up.

Blouse: Thrifted
Skirt: Thrifted and altered
Blazer: H&M (probably my last fast fashion buy and makes me feel guilty every time I look at it)
Petticoat: Vintage
Shoes: Chelsea Crew
Hat: Borrowed from my mom
Earring: Vintage
Tights: Hue
Bow: Me-made 
Purse: bought at a market
Umbrella: borrowed from a friend

Completed: Colette Ceylon Dress

With every project, I try to do at least one thing I've never done before. With this dress, I tried lots of new things! It was my first time using a Colette pattern, sewing with wool, sizing down a pattern, fitting a pattern completely on my own, making covered buttons, and making buttonholes. Whew!

This was also sewn for my first time participating in an online sewing challenge, the Frocktober challenge at The Monthly Stitch, but I kind of missed the deadline so I'm not sure that entirely counts. Oops. I blame this:

So, the dress! It's the Colette Ceylon, sized down. I sized it down one and a half sizes smaller than the size 0 at the bust, one size smaller at the waist, and a half size smaller at the hips and graded between them. I didn't think to follow any sort of tutorial but it seemed to all work out (even the notches, which I wasn't sure would line up when I was done). I used a bunch of math to figure it out but I won't bore you all with the details. It took a while, but I guess it's just another step that I'm going to have to get used to doing. I then traced all my pattern pieces onto Swedish tracing paper so that I could keep the original sizes intact (which I do with all my patterns).

The great thing about Swedish tracing paper is that you can pin or baste it all together before you cut your fabric, which sometimes completely eliminates the need for a muslin. I prefer pinning so that I can easily un-pin and adjust as needed. After pinning it all together, I knew that I would need to take in the shoulder seams and adjust the back. I made the alterations on the pattern pieces and it seemed to work, but I wanted to be sure so I made a muslin anyways, since the tracing paper doesn't drape (or gather) like fabric does.

As it turns out, the changes I made to the pattern pieces were spot on, and the only thing I changed after making the muslin was that I took a little out of the centre of the gathered back piece, since it just seemed to emphasize my slight swayback. I was amazed and pleased that I had to make no bust adjustments, which I think is a first.

I laid out the altered pattern pieces on my cutting table, and realised that I could get the whole dress out of 1.6 metres of fabric as opposed to the suggested 3 yards (2.7 metres). When I bought fabric, I got 1.7 just in case. The fabric is 100% wool that I found at a local discount fabric story for $12.99 a metre. It frayed like mad, but other than that was very cooperative and sewed up nicely. This fabric store is the kind of place where a lot of fabric isn't even marked with fabric content, so I don't know what this type of wool would technically be called. Maybe gabardine? It has a little more body than a crepe but still has nice drape and is thin enough to be gathered.

This being my first time working with wool, I wasn't entirely sure what I should do to pre-treat it. Honestly, I don't want to have to dry clean this dress - I'll probably wash it by hand. I don't mind dry cleaning fancy dresses like this vintage one because they're quite precious to me and they don't need it very often, but a casual dress? No way. After testing it out on a small square of fabric, I threw caution to the wind and put it in the washing machine. I find dealing with uncut fabric quite annoying, and didn't really want to handwash it (although in my defense, I did put it in the handwash cycle and my machine is quite gentle). After coming across this article on Coletterie while trying to figure out what the heck wool challis was (I was browsing online fabric stores), I wish I had tried putting it in the dryer with a wet towel, but oh well. Next time. 

On a side note, I've been pronouncing "challis" wrong my whole life, and so has my mom. It's "shall-ee", apparently. I'm guessing it comes from a French word, just like crepe or boucle, because that's how you would pronounce it in French.

Where were we? 

Oh yeah, this dress. My wool looked just fine and not at all felted or shrunk after coming out of the washing machine, so no regrets there. Cutting it out was a pain and took forever, because I don't have a cutting mat big enough and have to shift it around. Usually this isn't a problem, but this wool seemed to want to stick to the mat and every time I shifted it it dragged the fabric with it, which meant I had to re-position the pattern pieces every time. I used pins up until quite recently (my second Cambie dress what the first thing I cut out using only weights, and I was amazed at how much faster it was), and now I'm too stubborn to go back to using them. In the end (after I'd spent over an hour re-arranging the pattern pieces) I gave up and pinned what was left to cut out.

After that, the construction went amazingly fast (for me, anyways). I sewed the whole thing except for the sleeves, buttons, buttonholes, and hem in one day, and I even took some - gasp! - homework breaks. I thought it would take a while because it has a lot more pieces than other dresses I've made, but I suppose being unlined helps.

Something interesting about how this dress is sewn that I never seen before is that rather than sewing a seam, pressing it, and edgestiching it, you staystich, press the seam allowance under, then just place in on top of the other piece and edgestich. I thought that I would have trouble with it, and figured I would probably resort to stitching it and then edgestich it, but it was surprisingly easy (although I was being a total perfectionist with my edgestitching, and made myself redo lots of it because it was too far from the edge). I'm not sure what the advantage to doing it this way is, but it seemed to work quite nicely.

Partway through the construction, I realised that I took a bit too much out of the back piece after my muslin (2 cm), because my gathering didn't look much like gathering. Because I didn't have enough fabric to re-cut the piece, I just took out an inch of gathering stitches (5 stitches) on either side, and then gathered it. I'm quite happy with how this turned out, and I might actually do the same for my next one, rather than adding back some of the fullness that I took out.

The only real hitch was my machine. It was doing funny things, so in the end I used my mom's. This was fine up until I finished the sleeves, but her machine (although a better machine than mine in many ways) doesn't do nice buttonholes. I wanted to do the buttons and buttonholes before the hem because I wasn't sure where I would want to hem it, and wanted to be able to see what it looked like buttoned up before deciding. So, this sat as a UFO for a very long time while I was too busy (aka lazy) to figure out what was up with my machine.

In the meantime, I made my buttons! I only bought 15 instead of 16 because that was all the store had in the right size, and they came in packs of 5 so it seemed to make sense. I figured that since I'm short and I was making smaller than the smallest size I could get away with it. I bought a tool for making them, too, to make things easier for myself.

I won't go into too much detail since there's plenty of tutorial out there on how to do this, but I quickly realised that a faster of making them was to cut a rectangle and cut away the excess as opposed to cutting a circle. If the circles weren't perfect, I had to re-cut them, so I figured that this way, they would fit perfectly every time.

And ta-dah! Covered buttons!

When I finally sat down to fix my machine, there were two things wrong with it. One, it needed to be oiled, and two, I was threading it wrong. I mean, duh! I felt pretty stupid. This machine is a relatively recent acquisition - I bought it secondhand because it was a great price, it's tougher than the machine I was using before, and it does nice buttonholes. I was going to give it its own blog post, but I have way too many other things to blog about. Sorry, machine! (It has yet to be named.)

Anyways, I have no idea when the last time it was oiled was, so that should have been the first thing I did when I got it. Actually, the first thing I should have done was had it serviced because it sounds like it had been out of use for a long time when I bought it, but I wanted to use it right away. Its performance improved so much after oiling it, but it would still get caught every so often. So, I admitted that I couldn't figure the thing out without a manual (it had been lost before I bought it) and bought one online. Turns out there's a little hook that you have to open up the machine to see that you're supposed to put the thread through, which keeps the thread from getting caught. Oops.

So, after fixing that, I could finally do my buttonholes. This was fairly nerve-wracking for me, even though I did a bunch of practice ones (this was only one of my samples...).

I don't know what's going on with this photo because the colour is completely different in the actual photo, and it just changed when I uploaded it. 

I ignored the button placement that was marked on the facing piece, and arranged them so that there would be no buttons directly on a seam. I didn't think it would look very good, and it would have made buttonholes trickier. At this stage, I also realised that it would be really nice to have one of those tools to determine your button placement. I measured the distance between every one individually and marked them with chalk, which took a while.

The first buttonhole was terrifying...

...but didn't turn out too badly!

I regretted using white interfacing, though. I really should have used black but I wasn't really thinking. So, out came the Sharpie. It wasn't a perfect match, but it worked.

Bottom right is before, top is after

Sewing on the buttons took me just as long as the buttonholes, which I hadn't really expected. I suppose it didn't help that my cat kept deciding that my dress was a comfortable place to sit.

Ready for the major blooper? I got to the end of my buttons, and still had a buttonhole left. I thought that I must have lost a button somewhere and looked around, but then I counted the buttonholes. There were 16 of them... *facepalm*. I don't know what I did wrong. I laid out the buttons so that I could see where they looked nice, and then I removed them one by one and drew in where the buttonhole should go. Somehow, though, I ended up with one buttonhole too many, and buttonholes are one of those things that are pretty permanent. I haven't decided what I'll do yet. I might go out and buy another five buttons, but I might just leave it. It's far enough down that it's not too noticeable... right? Maybe people will just think I forgot to button the last button... every single time. It's possible.

If you look closely, you can spot the lone buttonhole.

In case anyone is thinking that this was another mistake, I sewed the buttons on the wrong side on purpose. They're easier to get on that way, and hey, I don't want to be trying to button up 15 (maybe 16) buttons the hard way when I'm late for school. Most of you are probably familiar with this already, but men's and women's clothing have buttons on opposite sides because historically, men would usually dress themselves (and most are right-handed), so their buttons are on the right side. Women's shirts and dresses have their buttons on the left side because they would often have servants dressing them, meaning that the buttons would need to be on their servant's right. But quite frankly, I've been capable of dressing myself for quite a while now, so I see no reason to put my buttons on the side that's convenient for my non-existent servant. 

I thought that I would want to shorten the dress, since I'll probably be wearing it with boots and I find dresses worn with boots look nicer if they have a little bit of leg (or stocking) showing, rather than the dress going down to where the boot starts. But when I tried it on pinned above the knee, it just didn't look right. Below or just at the knee is much more flattering on me than above, and suited the style a lot more.

I thought that I would do a blind hem by machine because I didn't really feel like hemming by hand. Plus, a blind hem foot came with my machine and I'd never used it before. Honestly, though, I was disappointed. If anyone out there avoids doing blind hems because they don't have the proper foot, don't. Until yesterday, I had always done blind hems with a regular foot and had no problem with it. I actually think my blind hems without the blind hem foot look nicer because the foot makes the needle catch more fabric than I usually would with my blind hems.

I decided that this looked horrible, so I ripped it out and did it by hand. I used slipstiching rather than catchstiching, which I find just as invisible but much faster. The whole hem took me about 20 minutes.

For whatever reason natural light made this look a lot more purple. The other pictures show the colour better.

Overall, I love this dress! It fits me really well, and it's really warm. The fabric, being wool, is a little scratchy but no more than a wool sweater would be (and in my opinion, the warmth of wool makes up for any scratchiness). It doesn't bother me at the moment, but if it ever does, there's enough each in it that I could wear a slip or even just a tank top underneath. I usually avoid drop-waist styles because I prefer to emphasize my waist rather than my hips, but I find this very flattering. The only change I would make it I make it again is that I would add a little bit back onto the shoulder seams, because I think I took them in a little too much - I took them in an inch, when maybe I should have only taken in 1/2" or 3/4". I would also reduce the area that's gathered above the bust because it looks more like it was eased in rather than gathered.

Oh, and sadly it was too wet to take photos outside, so I shot these in my brother's old bedroom. He's away for university so his room is pretty empty, and this was the only place in the entire house that had a neutral enough background and decent lighting (although looking back it really could have been better). I think this may become my fall/winter photoshoot location anyways since soon it will be too cold to take photos outside in indoor clothes. When I took my close up pictures outside (because I thought the lighting would be better, when really it distorted the colour a lot), I had to wear my wool coat, so I don't think I would have been warm enough in only a dress, anyways (even a wool one!) I also took these photos with our point-and-shoot because I didn't really feel like bothering with the DSLR that I've used for my other photos. Theses aren't great, but they'll do.

For more pictures (I took lots this time!), have a look at my flickr.

Wow, that was a lot of writing! If you got this far, thanks for reading! (Heck, thanks for reading even if you didn't.)

Dress: Colette Ceylon
Tights: Hue
Shoes: Chelsea Crew

My sewing companion.