THORNBERRY

My lovely cousin Freya had a birthday back in January, and my gift was the offer to sew her a dress.  We went and bought fabric and pattern, I did a toile, cut out the fabric…and it’s still waiting to be sewn up. Yep.  It’s now September.  Whoops!  But I did sew her this one in the meantime.

This is Simplicity 8231,  which is a collaboration between Simplicity and Sew House Seven (actually, the pattern is also available on Sew House Seven’s website as The Mississippi Avenue Dress and Top).  I chose the cap sleeved, longer length version to sew for Freya.

Now I’m trying to remember what size I sewed…I think it was straight size 14.  I eyeballed the pattern pieces and thought that they looked pretty small; I really didn’t think that they’d fit me, but Freya is smaller than I am, so I went with the 14.  Always remember when your’e sewing that although you might start choosing a size according to the measurements on the back of the pattern envelope, you really need to check the finished measurements (often printed on the pattern pieces) to determine what size to cut, taking your preferred amount of ease into account.

This dress is actually very easy to sew and quite straightforward to fit. The elastic in the back that extends around to the seamlines on the front allows for some variation in size. I can’t remember whether it was supposed to have a double channel for the elastic or a single one for wider elastic – either way, I think this looks pretty!

This fabric has been in my stash for some time. It’s a medium weight cotton, and the print is very Freya. It was very straightforward to work with, although the cut edges were a little prone to fraying.

The neckline was finished a strip of bias binding (made from coordinating cotton I found in stash – I generally make my own bias binding rather than use purchased). It’s so long since I sewed this dress that I can’t actually remember much about whether the centre front V was tricky or not – which suggests that it wasn’t tricky, because I surely would have remembered if it was!

I was very pleased when Freya sent me photos of her wearing the dress. It’s always a bit of a gamble sewing for someone else without them available to measure or to try on as I go! Anyway, it looks as though it worked out just fine.

So, I’d better hurry up and get on to sewing the dress that was originally promised!

My cousin Julie expressed admiration when she spotted the draped t-dress I sewed in December on my Instagram feed.  So I offered to sew one for her.

Who knows how many of these dresses I have made! I don’t think that I’m ever likely to stop – each version has had heaps of wear. It’s so great for summer, but can also work with tights and long sleeved tee underneath in winter if made from a slightly heavier fabric.

The fabric is a printed viscose knit from Spotlight. I really love viscose or rayon blends for this dress, because they work so beautifully with the drape. You really do need something that’s a bit liquid for the best results. It’s one main pattern piece – cut two, scoop the neckline a little more on the front, add a neckband. Straightforward, simple, and surprisingly effective.

I sewed the Large for Julie, then popped it in the mail. Fortunately it arrived right before a heatwave, and she obligingly sent me a photo of herself wearing it.  Posing for a blog photo is part of having a garment made to order!

The pattern can be found here.

And no, expressing admiration of something I have sewn doesn’t generally mean that I will sew one for you too!  I don’t know what came over me – it must have been the heat!

Hello there!  My poor neglected blog.  Thanks to the lovely readers who have emailed to check up on me – everything is fine, just lots happening!  As many of you know, I changed jobs at the beginning of the year.  I now do contract work, and it’s been busier than I had anticipated.  On top of that I finally upgraded my 12 year old Mac to a PC, and I’m still in the process of moving photos, music and other documents from the old to the new.  Cross platform transitions are not straightforward!  I’ve still been sewing, but there’s no way I’ll be able to get my blog caught up, especially given that I don’t have the photos moved from the old to the new yet.  However, I remembered a few older unblogged photos that were already uploaded to Flickr, so I’ll catch up with those!

This dress is McCalls 7742, sewn back in January. It’s perfect for really hot days.  McCalls describe it as ‘very loose fitting dresses have front and back yokes with gathers and sleeve variations’.  Well yes, they do.  And yes, it is very loose fitting.

I sewed view B, with the ruffles around the armhole.  I chose to sew size Small based on the finished measurements, and I’m glad that I sized down so much.  The fabric is vintage, and I had barely enough of it to eke out the dress.  I left out the side seam pockets, and the sleeve frills had to be pieced.

I used a lightweight white woven to line the bodice yoke in order to avoid show through of the print through the lightweight fabric. I like the little gathers at the centre back of the yoke too.

This is a really pretty print, with fabulous greens, and I quite like how this dress looks in these photos – but I nevere wore it. I took it straight off after the photos and gave it to a friend. I wasn’t sure if it was the sleeve frills, or the delicacy of the print, or it having too much white, but it just wasn’t me. Actually, I’ve removed the sleeve frills for my friend too – she found them too much for her frame.

But I wasn’t done with this pattern. I really liked the concept and the breeziness – especially in Melbourne summer heat when it feels absolutely baking. So I ferreted through my stash, pulled out some fabric that was more ‘me’, and sewed up another!

SO much better! It’s the same dress, same size, different sleeve treatment, different fabric. This double gauze comes from Thailand (via Notionally Better on Etsy)and it’s beautiful to sew and wear. Both this version and the previous one were sewn at pattern length – I’m 158cm tall (around 5’2″) so take that into consideration if you’re making this – it’s short!

Now I doubt that this style would be considered conventionally ‘flattering’ but I don’t care. This dress has survived a couple of wardrobe purges already, so it’s clearly striking a chord with me.  It’s also very easy to sew, and doesn’t have many pattern pieces.  Good for someone early in their sewing career too, as there aren’t as many areas to ‘fit’.

As with the previous version, I lined the yokes in a lightweight solid woven. Looking at the photo above reminds me that I did a fair bit of faffing around to get the checks lined up properly at the centre front and through the V-neckline. It’s not perfect though. Remember that if you choose to sew in stripes or checks that you HAVE to pay attention when you’re cutting out and sewing! Plenty of pins and dare I say it, even hand-basting, could be useful to get everything lined up. The sleeves are simple rectangles, folded up as cuffs. They had to be cut as mirror images to get the same stripe colour along the fold.

I had enough fabric to include side seam pockets in this version. I am not wedded to pockets in everything like some people – if I load them up they often pull the garment out of shape – but they do come in handy for a hanky (although let’s be real – more often it’s where a mobile phone gets put).

There are some other nice versions of this pattern out on the internet. Many have found the sleeve to be rather voluminous – I think it’s all about proportion, your height and frame, and the overall dress length too. I’d recommend this pattern though – make it work for you with the style and fabric combination that you feel your best in.

I sit on some fabrics for ages, even when I love them.  I’m never quite sure whether it is because I am waiting for the perfect pattern, or whether it’s because I am enjoying imagining the myriad of items it could become, and actually sewing it up would eliminate the opportunity for further imagination.

This yarn-dyed striped linen was purchased in Chiang Mai on my first trip to Thailand (that must be about five years ago now). When I bought it I wasn’t even sure if it was destined to be something for me or for someone else in the family. Now we know – it’s for me!

There are so many great colours in that stripe – and really, the Style Arc Quinn patterns are the perfect choices.

From the Style Arc website: This is a great boxy shaped top. Use your creative skills with this style and mix textures, stripes or colours. Why not team it with the Quinn skirt for the perfect outfit? FABRIC SUGGESTION: Linen, crepe, cotton and silk.

I sewed size 12 (my usual Style Arc size) and it’s just a fraction more snug through the bust and belly than I’d like. My middle-aged spread is definitely spreading, and I need to keep that in mind when choosing size, although the 12 is still best for my shoulders, neck and upper chest.

I really like the bias strip inserts in this top – they work so well with the stripes! And as you can tell, I also made the skirt.

T

he skirt was more tricky, for a couple of reasons. I’d actually avoided this pattern for a while because it had a fitted waist with a zipper and facing. My waist is about three sizes larger than my hips, so I generally avoid those patterns. Elastic is my friend! So after some consideration, I decided to convert the pattern to an elastic waist. I did this the easy way – I didn’t sew the waist darts at all, didn’t include a zip, and used wide elastic a bit like a facing. I can wriggle it over my hips without much fuss, and the elastic keeps it in place.

You can see the the photo above how the elastic is attached – overlocked to the top of the skirt, then turned to the inside.  I stitched in the ditch along the skirt seamlines to try to keep the elastic where it should be, and it does sit nice and flat during wear.

Because the skirt is linen there is just enough fabric give for wiggling in to it.  This would be difficult if your hip to waist ratio was greater than mine – eliminating the zip makes it that bit harder to put on.  But it works for me.

From the Style Arc website: Be creative with this stylish panelled skirt. Mix textures and contrast bindings or simply make it in a single coloured fabric, the choice is yours. The Quinn Woven Skirt pairs perfectly with the Quinn Woven Top. FABRIC SUGGESTION: Linen, crepe, cotton or silk.

The other tricky bit was getting the front to meet up nicely where the angled hemline panels meet.  To be honest, it’s a little while since I sewed this and I can’t remember exactly how I worked it out, but I did find that the diagrams, pattern illustration and my common sense together gave me a satisfactory result, rather than relying on written instructions.  If I sewed this in stripes again I would switch the direction of the lower front panel that comes to a point, so that those stripes ran around instead of down. Otherwise, in my opinion this outfit has turned out very nicely!

By now you’ve figured out that I’ve only just started blogging what I sewed in January.  I really don’t want to let my blog lapse, for about a million reasons, and I won’t ever stop blogging, but sometimes it just takes a little more effort than I can find in me.  I started a new job in February, and as with any new job it is a little exhausting learning new processes and procedures.  I’m lucky – I’m working alongside people I’ve worked with before, doing types of work that I’ve done in the past – but it still takes a while to get into the groove.  Much of the work is done remotely from home, and I’ve traded off a permanent job for an hourly rate with flexibility (yay for having every school holidays with the girls). Overall it’s great, but I’m still in the early days of adapting to change.

One of the first things that I sewed for the year was the Papercut Patterns Pinnacle top. I bought the pdf pattern when it was on sale – I consider Papercut Patterns, like Named patterns, to be very expensive, and as a consequence I don’t own or sew many of their patterns. There was a lot that appealed to me about this one, and I admit that I was probably influenced by the number I’d already seen popping up on Instagram. My purchase was also influenced by the number of options – it can be sewn as a knit sweatshirt as well as a woven top, there are a couple of sleeve lengths, and there are two neckline options. I also really wanted to check out the construction and the shape of the pattern pieces.

So, to start. Sizing. I sewed straight size Small, despite measuring the Medium. And have you noticed something else in the two photos I’ve already posted? The second one (immediately above this paragraph) is the pattern exactly as drafted. See how long this top is(n’t)? I am only 158cm tall, and I have a short torso. This top really is designed for high waist bottoms or for those who feel much better about their bellies than I do.

So, what to do? I knew that I was unlikely to wear this top at this length. I rifled through my scraps – and there weren’t many – and managed to cut a band to add to the bottom. So that’s what I did! The width of the band was entirely dictated by the amount of fabric I had left. I think it added about 5cm to the length overall.

Oh, it’s looking crumpled in these photos! I really like this printed cotton/linen that my friend Kathryn gave me – it was lovely to work with and the print is subtle yet defined.  However, it obscures the lovely design lines.  It’s really worth sewing this pattern in a solid – which will definitely happen at some stage.

The fronts and the backs are cut in one – there is no shoulder seam. So there is a centre back seam, and by the time you get to sewing front fronts to the centre front inset, the fronts are on the bias. It’s interesting drafting! You really do need to pay attention when sewing the fronts so that you get the point nice and neat. It’s helpful if you’ve done patchwork in the past! You really do need the line diagram to have a better appreciation of the pattern.

I sewed variation 1 with the shorter sleeve option, in a woven.  I’m going to try variation 3 in a knit at some stage for winter, but will need to think hard about whether it will need lengthening or whether the bottom band in the pattern will be enough.  In regard to the V neckline – it’s a deep V, but I found it quite wearable.  However, that will depend a bit on the distance of your shoulder to bust point.  I have noticed that many people have raised the V, so take note of that if you are planning to sew this and prefer not to have a deep neckline.  I imagine that it also depends a bit on what type of bra you wear under it.  I am a boring beige cotton bra wearer, and it didn’t expose the bridge of my bra but certainly came down very close to it.

Hopefully if you zoom in on that photo you can see the seamlines a little better! The neckline facing is also stitched in place from one angled front seam around the neckline to the other angled front seam. There’s actually lots that I like about this pattern. It is simple – there are very few pattern pieces – but it’s clever. It is designed to be oversized, so choose the size that you want to sew taking the design ease and your own preferences into account. Consider the finished length, and the depth of the V neckline. Or just launch in, like I did, then adapt as needed!