Sunday 26 August 2018

Tango outfits - vol 2

When I was sewing the tango outfits for my dear sister H, I knew I would not have much time and I wanted to use the 2-3 days we had together to a maximum. So the strategy was pretty simple - fit a dress pattern (Nettie dress) and use it as a basic for all other variations. In order to speed up the fitting process, I sewed a Nettie dress from black ponte (the same material as all the colorful ones) and fitted to myself (and kept it, hehehehe, but more on that later). I would then very quickly see all the adjustments needed for my sister (almost none, as it is a very forgiving jersey pattern and we are very close in size) and sew a dress for her.

Once this is OK, then I can do everything from dresses, to tops and skirts. H was not very keen on starting with a dress, as she prefers separates, however, I was the one sewing, so I started sewing a dress anyhow - the first one was this blue flowery one.

Funnily enough, when we got to skirts, she suddenly did not want only a simple jersey tube skirt, but something "special". I found Burda 110-05/2013 quite a funny pattern, I was just worried about the weight of the ponte.

My sister could not imagine it at all. I must admit that the pattern was presented in a Burda "tropical collection" and we all know how Burda can be inventive, so that was just too much for her. In the end, we tried anyhow, since we had an almost the same yellow fabric for this. Although I did not double the pieces, as advised by Burda for some sheer fabric they were using and then took A LOT of time to try to understand how the skirt was constructed. Fortunately, this was one of the rare Burda patterns explained with images and schemas and not only words. It was kind of a puzzle, but I liked the challenge. And definitely a kind of pattern I do not usually sew for myself.

The only thing I would somehow change is the back which is a simple elastic, so if I wanted it to be perfect, it would need some darts, which I am not used to in jersey clothes.

And the result is just... amazing. We just love it! The only regret I have is that it does not make much sense to make another one in a different colour because it is such a special pattern.

As for the second skirt, this is a mix up of the Nettie dress and Burda 120-05/2013, the same I did for this dress. Again, the waist is a simple large elastic, but since my sister is quite slim, it works quite well as well.

Last, but not least, the tube tops. These are based on the Nettie dress as well, and they were a great way to use up all the scraps.

Do you have a piece of jersey, let's do a tube top. I stabilized the top of the top with an elastic, and there is not much to do with it anymore.

Wednesday 1 August 2018

Tango Dresses

So after five years my sister came to visit me. And she had a sewing wish - get some new tango dancing clothes. I thought, hmmm, what an interesting challenge, let's try that.

We started with sharing some ideas and researching on Pinterest at least to agree on some basic principles. It has soon become clear that my sister wanted comfy, body-hugging clothes, therefore knits. As I do not have a stock f knits at home, we did some research and fortunately found a few nice stable knits at bennytex.fr. I placed the order and two days later a huge bag of fabric arrived. Of course, I took the opportunity to get some knits for myself as well, which will hopefully get sewn later this year (hopefully, because my stash is just increasing this year, so I should make some more effort on that).

I bought some ponte di roma, which had little strecth but is very soft and had the most incredible colours, then some more cotton stretch.

In addition, my sister chose some kind of blue flowery polyester, which was really different from all the others but suits her very well and it will be very comfy for dancing as well.

As for patterns, I used Nettie dress from Closet case patterns as a basis and it worked really magic and then some Burda ones. So that you know, the few next blogposts will be about the new tango wardrobe.

Let's start with this blue flower dress. As already said, the fabric is not my favourite, but the end result is very cute and looks great on my sister, so a big win. I used the Nettie dress with the very deep backline and a deep neckline. Apart from that, I kept it simple and I just love this dress.


The second dress is a mix of the Nettie dress pattern and Burda 120/05-2013 for the shirring in the back. This time I omitted the sleeves and used some blue ponte di roma.


The dress is also very cute. My sister was originally worried about the shirring, but I convinced her to try it and see and when she saw the final dress, she liked it as well.