Birthday dress bodice progress…

The bodice of Simplicity 1802 (aka The Super Late Birthday Dress for 2012) has been complete since last week, then I ran into a little snag.

Looks good on Scarlett no? I have tried it on myself too 😉

The size chart suggested I should cut a size 16 but after looking at the finished measurements on the tissue pieces I ended up cutting a size 14. So. Much. Ease!

In general the fit is good, that bit of pulling under the bust is nothing, just how it’s sitting after I pinned the side seams, ignore that.

I love the colour and the piping and I am still really excited for the finished dress.

I’ll show you what you can’t see in this photo:

All the bodice shaping is built into the seaming of the front panels but it begins waaay too high, there is much gape-age and this weird baggy convex effect above my actual bust. This bodice is designed for a bust so high up that if I had an extra set of boobs on top of my real boobs it would fit perfectly!

I think my husband would be pleased too 😉

We also have armhole gape-age:

…and some pretty extreme back gape-age:

This photo makes my hand look gigantic and my dress form tiny!

Sigh…

It does fit though, apart from the gape-age (have I used that word enough yet?) and the unusually high boob issue. It can all be fixed, it just needs to be taken in at strategic places, this would be easy…except that we have piping to deal with…

So I have pinned out the excess, marking the new seam lines comes next then I can relocate the piping and stitch it back up. It won’t take long, it’s just super annoying!

Due to almost all of my family members being in various other places on Christmas Day we are having our Christmas dinner early this year, as in this Saturday. With work at the moment I can’t see this dress being finished for that, plus I want to get the rugby jersey out of the way this week instead.

Still, I need to set myself a bit of a goal, so I would like to be able to share it with you all by the following weekend, the 15th/16th – nothing particularly special happening that weekend, but I am sure I can convince Nerdy Hubby to take me out to dinner anyway 😉

Keep your fingers crossed for no more crazy fitting weirdness please.

I can wear it for the Christmas dinner on actual Christmas Day we are planning for Nerdy Husbands family at our house (our first Christmas at our very own house, exciting!) then I can start dress number 2, maybe that can be my New Years dress, not that I need any excuse for a new dress!

Pattern pyramid reminder: Have you left a comment here to be in the draw to win my selection of the Wellington Pattern Pyramids yet?

How about on one of the other fabulous Wellington bloggers blogs?

Nikki and Jo have their pyramids up and Joy and Kat each have TWO pyramids to give away. That’s 7 chances for you to win some fabulous vintage kitschy pattern goodness so hop on over quick and comment away 🙂

If you can’t enter the above due to you not having your own blog, don’t worry, on the weekend I realised I had just cracked 200, 000 hits so I will be doing some sort of give-away in celebration of that soon too, keep your eyes open…

Halp!

Phew guys! I had a HUGE sewing weekend, but that post is going to have to wait until tomorrow, work is crazy right now! We just won a big fat juicy job that I am super excited about but means a heap of work in very little time.

I’ve really missed whipping up a mid-week blog post during my lunch break or after work but it has all just been a bit too much for me over the last week or two and it isn’t looking any better for the next couple either.

I shouldn’t complain because if we weren’t crazy I’d be pretty nervous!

I am going to share with you all the fun of our Wellington Sewing Bloggers Meet Up tomorrow though, I just have to scrape together all my photos. Seriously, those girls! I needed a nap just to recover after I got home!

I am so ready for Christmas break…well not really, I haven’t done any shopping yet and I have a HUGE family Christmas dinner to plan (whose idea was it to host that?! Oh yeah, mine, haha!) but mentally (and I may just go a little mental) I am ready, bring on the joyous festiveness!

Ok, but for now, I need your guys help! I’m going to post this up on BurdaStyle and PR too but maybe one of you brilliant peeps can help me first.

I thought I had the RNHS Rugby Shirt button placket all worked out, I was going to use this tutorial from Two On, Two Off but when I looked at the pattern pieces on the weekend, mine are different. If no one can help me then I will calculate a new piece similar to the one in this tutorial but first choice is to make it up as cut…

Here are the placket pieces, there are two…

…and this is what the front looks like…

What do you guys think?

With the RNHS Rugby Jersey stalled I did make good progress on my Birthday Dress, much bias was cut for piping, so much bias was cut!

But the whole time I felt like I had a little Sewing Angel sitting on one shoulder, and a little Sewing Devil sitting on the other.

The guilt-ridden little Sewing Angel was tugging on my ear lobe and whispering that I should feel guilty for enjoying rotary cutting bias strips so much while Nerdy Husband went rugby-shirt-less.

But the selfish little Sewing Devil was jumping up and down and gleefully rubbing its tiny hands together, “Cut! Cut!” it chanted, a little look of sewing madness in its eyes, “Make that beautiful dress, make it!”

So bias strips I made. The good news is that I am loving the contrast colour I chose, difficult to photograph accurately, it’s a deep blue with just enough purple.

So if you have any ideas on how I can shrug off my guilt and get the rugby jersey finished asap or want to draw me a scribble so I can understand how to attach the button placket I would really appreciate it!

Happy Monday 🙂 xx

Sewing Update

I have had a busy few days but I thought I’d share what I have been up to sewing-wise:

RNHS: Rugby Jersey

Not much progress to report. Everything is cut out, white drill has been acquired for the collar and button placket. I also found a tutorial for how to make the button placket since my photocopied Burda instructions tell  me to refer to another items instructions for how to make it…I did not photocopy that items instructions, not that it would have done me much good, we all know about Burda’s reputation for instructions… 😉

I need to finish it asap because even thought Nerdy Hubby hasn’t mentioned it for a while I will feel guilty if he pops into my room to see what I am up to and finds me cutting out a dress instead!

Look! I found it!

Simplicity 2364 – DO NOT ASK ME WHERE IT WAS – because the answer is that it was in the exact place where I looked for it 10 times. I took it with me to Sunday’s Fabric Hoarders meet and cut it out twice in NZ Merino, one grey, one almost-black.

Birthday dress progress

My birthday was in June, like almost 6 months ago…so I should probably stop stubbornly calling it that, but I won’t. I have been asked about the birthday dress twice now, once in person, so I though I better update. I have narrowed it down to two dresses but I will be making both anyway 😉

I think I will make Simplicity 1802 first which I found fabric for on Sunday from the Fabric Warehouse.

The only reason why I hadn’t started this dress was due to lack of fabric. It needs 3.0 meters and I usually only buy between 2 and 2.5 meters when I am stashing for future dresses so that meant I had to buy something. Fabric shopping for a particular garment is actually quite difficult. I looked in all my favourite stores and was originally going to buy that zig-zag cotton sateen I saw in Arthur Toye but I just couldn’t get my head around the pattern matching.

Next I fell in love with an expensive print in the online Tessuti store, I even loaded up the required 3 meters into my cart but then baulked at the total, even with free shipping, eeek!

As I was umming and ahhing the online shop suggested another fabric I might like, the same print but in a blue/green (I had chosen pink/lilac) but it was sold out (seriously, why bother showing me if I can’t have it?!)…still I really liked it, a bit more than the pink, so I emailed to see if they were going to get any more into stock.

It took them 3 days to email me back with a “no” and by then both fabrics were sold out.

So it’s a good thing I snuck by the fabric shop on my way back from the sewing meet.

I really like the 100% cotton I have chosen, it has a sort of woven stripe running through it, is nice and floaty and, at $12/meter, a much better price than some of the other fabrics I was only so-so for. Only the top of the dress is lined in the pattern but I will also need to line the skirt and I just need to choose which solid colour to use for the piping, maybe the dark purply blue? What do you think?

Vogue 1161 on the other-hand, I have had fabric in hand for about 2 weeks.

I did intend to make this dress from the stash but when I saw this silk/linen in Global Fabrics I had to have it – DO NOT ASK ME HOW MUCH IT COST – the answer is too much, but I LOVE it. It is grey with shots of white through it and pinky/white/yellowy-tulipy-leafy-blurry-floral thingees on it.

Good description huh? 😉

It was a bit stiff off the bolt but it did relax a little after the first wash so I think it will be ok.

I have had a quick little play in Photoshop (or you can do it with Gimp too) and now I am really excited about both these dresses! What do you think? 

A finished project

I did finish one project, actually a little while a go and despite wearing it really often I haven’t managed to get a photo of it yet so here is Scarlett doing an excellent job of modelling my new top.

It is from Burda 02/2009, top #108 and I made one about 2 years ago, as a copy of a rtw top (never blogged), in a grey merino that I wore to death. So now I have a new and very fun version to replace it.

I also have enough of the grey and almost-black merino from the Simplicity top to cut two more. It’s such a versatile top, I may as well sew them all up at the same time.

My only change this time was to add sleeve bands and a band to the hem just to finish it a bit nicer. Next time I will add a facing to the neck, instead of just folding it over, for more stability. I also used two short strips of twill tape on each shoulder seam to control any stretching there.

This is an interlock from Spotlight, the colour is called “flame” and it probably came from the children’s section 😉 but how cute are those little guys all over it?! Check out my three favourites:

Birthday dress 2012 musings

So, now that I am properly settled in, it’s about time I started to think about this year birthday dress.

“The idea is that it can be a nice every-day kind of dress, or a completely unjustifiable and unnecessary dress and that’s ok, because it is the birthday dress and no excuses will be required.”

-thecuriouskiwi, 2011

It is so very late, but, start as you mean to go on, no??

Anyway, here are my thoughts for this year’s dress – Feel free to comment on your favourite, but as I am a bit flighty with my sewing queue (who isn’t?!) there are no promises it’ll even be a dress on this list 😉

Simplicity 1802 is from my most recent pattern splurge sale purchase. I LOVE it and wanted to make it straight away! I like the short sleeve version (also piping!) and I could definitely wear this to work in spring/summer and I can see a winter version too.

Vogue 1190 has been in my collection for a little bit and is very pretty. It is probably more of a “going out” dress for me, but you can never have too many of those. I like it in a print (check out Katherine’s version) but I think it would also make a gorgeous LBD.

I think I bought Vogue 1161 at the same time as the pattern above. I gushed about this as an option for last years dress (check out Tasia’s and The Slapdash Sewist’s versions!), there are plenty of other gorgeous versions online. I like the little cap sleeve and the flounce in the skirt back , this could also easily be a work or going-out dress.

Vogue 1265 is newish in the stash and very work appropriate. I love the collar, cap sleeves and full flouncy skirt at the back. It would look great in a suity looking pinstripe and is high up the sewing list either way.

Another new pattern, Butterick 5749, perhaps a quick and easy option (not to jinx it or anything!) to use up some jersey from my stash – I love Allison’s version.

One day when I am feeling brave I will give Vogue 1258 a go. Sometimes when I first see a pattern I think to myself, “That’ll never end up looking as good in real life” but I have seen some great versions (see Jessica’s and Allison’s versions, gorgeous!) and I think maybe I could pull it off, so I bought it!

A few other patterns I’ve had on my list for a bit: I’ve never made anything from Your Style Rocks but when I do this will porbably be the first pattern I try.

So what do you think? Is there one you want to add? Remember the Birthday Dress motto, “completely unjustifiable and unnecessary” is perfectly ok.