An Interview Dress

So I was offered a job interview this week - of course my first thoughts when they contacted me were - argggg what am I going to wear - I have nothing work appropriate in my wardrobe.  I thought that my maxi shirt dress might work, but decided that it was a good opportunity to make something new.

My basic design idea was to make a dress similar to my avian dress with the pleated skirt but make the top more work appropriate, I decided on a fitted button up shirt top with the flat neckline from my latest jumpsuit.

I pulled out both the pattern for my avian dress and the pattern for my maxi dress.  I took the back pattern piece from my avian dress  but superimposed the neckline and arm hole from my maxi dress.  I ended up putting two small darts into the back waist to get a great fit across the back.

I then started from scratch on the front.  I initially liked the fit of my maxi dress but something doesn't seem quite right so thought I'd try again.  I drew lines 2" apart vertically and horizontally across a piece of scrap fabric and then started draping on my dress form.  As I already had the back piece cut out it was easy to match it at the shoulders and sides keeping the grain straight and then just pinched out  princess seams down the front to get the fit right through the bust. I then added a 5" wide waistband which in the end was cut down to about 3" wide.

After one wear I am happy with the fit I've achieved with this.

I then basted on a basic collar band and button band and got my daughter to pinch out all excess around the back of my neck and basted it in place around the front so that I had a smooth collar and button band.

The last step was to  figure out sleeves.  I used the sleeve pattern from my maxi dress but added just a smidge of extra width around.  It looked right on the muslin, but once I cut it out of the final fabric the sleeves looked way too big so I ended up taking 4 small pleats along the lower edge of the sleeve before finishing the sleeve which gives it a slightly puffed look which I think works beautifully with this style.

Once I had my muslin all fitting perfectly  I trimmed everything off at the seam lines and lay all the pieces out on a piece of paper and traced around them to give me a perfect pattern for my new dress.  I added seam allowances back on where required and then I was ready to get started with my final material.

The material that I used for this dress is an upholstery fabric that I was given at my local town hall.  They were planning on throwing out about 6 bolts of material, but they knew I was giving sewing lessons there so offered the fabric to me first.  Of course I took it.  I figured if nothing else it would be great to use for muslins.  However once I saw this bolt of material I knew I needed to make a dress out of it.  Once again it's curtain material, but I have a thing for dresses made out of curtains - too many viewings of The Sound of Music obviously.

The top of the dress came together pretty quickly.  I finished all the seams with the overlocker and then top stitched each seam.  The sleeves I finished simply but turning under twice at 1/4" each time.   The skirt is two big rectangles the full width of the material about 46" x 23".  I traced the shape of the pocket off the Avian dress since I don't have a pattern for the pockets for that dress and sewed them into the side seams of the skirt about 2" below the top edge.

I then put a 2" pleat at each side of the side seam making a big inverted box pleat and then placed two other inverted box pleats in both the back and front of the skirt to use up any excess fabric.  I sewed the skirt onto the bodice and hemmed the skirt with a double turned 1" hem and my new dress was done and ready for the interview - now to wait and see whether I got the job.

Paisley Denim Rayon Jumpsuit

I was wandering through Walmart the other day and as I passed the fabric section I noticed a rack of discounted fabric.....and on this rack was a beautiful denim coloured lightweight rayon fabric.  Scattered over the fabric were small paisley designs and then down each side of the bolt was a border pattern of bigger paisley designs.  It was beautiful -  I knew I needed some and decided to get a full 4 ft.

I had a design in mind for the fabric and I think I did pretty well executing the design, unfortunately I didn't get the fit quite right - otherwise this would be close to perfect.

The design I was looking for was a button up raglan shirt with a collar  that sits flush around the neck - I call it a baseball shirt - connected on the bottom to wide legged shorts with a wide waistband in between.

I started with the top using the pattern I used for this purple and teal linen shirt.  Reading back over that blog post I really should have re-read it before I started as the issues I had with that shirt are all still apparent in this one. The neckband doesn't sit perfectly flush around my neck and the princess seam doesn't sit perfectly under my bust, plus there's a bit of pulling across the bust line, but it's nothing I can't live with.

I cut 3 inches off the bottom of the pattern so that it could be joined to shorts to make a jumpsuit, but otherwise made it as is.  I placed the larger paisley design along the top of the shirt, across the sleeves and chest.

The button band and collar band are all interfaced using light weight iron on interfacing and the shirt is closed with 5 grey plastic snaps.

The sleeves are finished by simply turning the edge under twice for a very narrow hem.

Then I moved onto the shorts.  I started with the Closet Case Sallie Jumpsuit pattern.  Took about 3/4" length out of the rise at both front and back and then added 4 inches of width down the center of each panel, which I turned into inverted box pleats when I fitted the pants to the waistband. I cut out the shorts so that the border print was around the bottom of the legs.

Hmm looks like I could do with some work on the back crotch curve!  not the most flattering.

I added a 3" wide straight waistband to join the shirt and shorts together.   I cut two waistband pieces and  sewed them together with the shorts sandwiched in between, then cut some 3" wide elastic to length and sewed it between the two layers of waistband with two rows of zig zag stitches at the lower edge and in the center.

I then attached the shirt to the top of both waistband pieces.  I ended up taking about 1" off the length of the shirt to get everything to sit nicely in place.  The final seam was then turned down and top stitched in place over the elastic using another row of zig zag stitches.  This is the only exposed seam in the whole jumpsuit - I tried many times to enclose this seam but it just wouldn't work neatly so in the end I just gave up and serged it and top stitched it.

I hemmed the jumpsuit to just above the knee -  I would like to make it a bit shorter but then I'd lose the border print.  I already re-cut the shorts pattern once as it was way too long the first time and I didn't want to lose the print  - its a good thing the pattern is pretty much square!

I love this outfit and have worn it multiple times since finishing it.  The few minor fitting issues  are a bit annoying and I've thought about taking it apart and fixing them - but I did a good job making it in the first place - french seamed every seam (except the last) and top stitched to within an inch of its life so there will be no unpicking for me.

Messenger Bag

For Christmas last year I made my best friend a messenger style bag sort of like this one.  One of her friends liked it so much she asked me to make one for her. I was a bit worried about how it would go making something for someone so far away, but facebook came to the rescue and we were able to get it made.

She didn't want the cathedral quilting (probably couldn't afford how much it would cost), but wanted something with a black background with a basic pattern.  I took a trip to all my local fabric stores and took photos off all the possible fabric choices, sent the pictures through messenger and she chose this fabric.  It an upholstery fabric - based on the smell when ironing a polyester of some sort.  The circle design is actually woven into the bag in a light blue grey colour.

I then used a light blue cotton to line the bag.

I added a zipper pocket into the bag which divides the bag into three sections.  A thin section behind the zipper pouch, the zipper pouch and then a main section of the bag.

To close the bag I added a bronze/gold metallic snap

Because I didn't know how long she wanted to the shoulder strap I wanted to make the strap adjustable.  However I also wanted to keep the strap nice and wide - a 3" strap makes a bag so much more comfortable to carry.  Unfortunately It's not possible to find hardware to fit a 3" strap - not without going to hardware designed for industrial use which is really huge and thick and clunky.  So instead I made the strap in two sections and put a belt loop on the end of each strap, the straps are then woven through the opposites straps loop before being attached to the bag creating a basic slider.  I'm not sure how well it will stay in place - hopefully I can get some feedback once it arrived.

New Swimwear

There hasn't been a lot of sewing going on around here lately.  Too busy taking advantage of the beautiful weather outside to spend much time in front of the sewing machine.  However before we could go out and enjoy the water, I had to make everyone a new pair of swimmers for the year.

J found some fabric at the local fabric store that he absolutely loved and had to have so I made his swim suit out of that - just a basic poly lycra with a green blue black and white pixelated print.  I used the same basic pattern as last year - euro swim trunks and a short sleeve rash vest.  I made one modification to the swim trunks this year and added a 2" wide gusset down the inseam.  I like the way this works a lot more than the basic pattern I used last year.

We also went with the full length zip his year to make the rash vest easier to get on and off.  The only issue I have with this suit is that I made the elastic in the pants too loose so the pants tend to slip down - I tried going back and running in the side seams including the elastic as I was too lazy to unpick all that elastic, it helped a little but not enough - oh well he can use these till the die and then I'll make a new pair - I have plenty of left over material.

L's swim suit pattern is the same as last years, just upsized with again that one modification to the pants to include the inner seam gusset - it seems to have eliminated the camel toe problem she had last year so I'm happy with that.

Otherwise same basic crop top and shorts with zip up rash vest.  The fabric I used for her suit is one that I bought out of the remnant bin at the end of last season - A blue and green stripe.  The fabric felt like a really good swim suit fabric but it hasn't held up well to the chlorine - one week of use and its already all faded.  And after all the trouble I went to matching those stripes.

I then started on a new swim suit for myself. This did not go quite so smoothly.

I'm happy enough with the rash vest and the pants of my swim suit.  Though the top ended up a bit tight due to the fact that I wanted to wear it the next day, but I didn't have a long enough zipper in my stash so I actually sewed up the front seam of this rash vest.

The cuffs on the sleeves are also a touch too tight, and the cuffs on the pants not quite tight enough!

The bikini top is where the majority of the issues are.  The pattern I used last time, the cups are a bit too small these days so I wanted to try and redraft that - I also wanted to try and design a swim top that didn't need underwires but was still supportive.

After a number of different iterations I was sort of happy with the design - it's pretty basic, but in my practice fabric it seemed to fit fairly well - what I didn't take into account was that my final fabric had less stretch than the cheap stuff I was using to practice - so the cups ended up being slightly too small again.

The second issue I had was material - I didn't have enough of it.  I was using a beautiful fabric that I had again found on the remnant table at the end of last year - it's a blue ombre with just the occasional big paisley pattern.

 I cut out the rash vest and pants first figuring the top was all small pieces and I'd be able to use the left overs - unfortunately the only left overs big enough had a bit of the paisley pattern on it and it looks a bit strange - to put it mildly.  Luckily the top doesn't get worn by itself very often, I usually have the rash vest over the top.

Overall it's not as fantastic as I had envisioned when I found this material, but it's functional and I've already worn it a couple of times.  I would however like to try again at some stage this summer.