Summer Dress Serie - The Red one

I have not posted for 2 weeks, but I have been sewing like mad. I have been in a real summer-dress-sewing period, producing sometimes even two dresses a week. Because: well, because is there some more fun than sewing cute little dresses? I can hardly think of anything else :)
Sooo, I just enjoyed myself and got my machine spitting dresses one after another. And today, when my photographer and myself finally got to taking pictures, there were like 9 of them to photograph. We got seven of them in the camera and then stopped by exhaustion. Brace yourself, my summer dress serie is starting.

The first dress is actually the last one made, directly hot off the machine, maybe 20 minutes before our picture session started. This dress is Burda 134-05/2013 pattern,

an old one, but a great one. I had already sewn this dress twice, in my early sewing years:
- one in a very cute viscose, which never got worn because the cleavage and the back V got desperately stretched out and the adjustments I did shifted the "under-the-bust-line" way too high.
- another one in black/violet silk crepe which still has a few flaws but is my favorite when the temperatures get over 30. The silk is just so light and the fit is pretty good so it feels like wearing nothing.

I did not plan sewing this dress again, it is not office-friendly, but then, I was going through my stashed pieces under one meter, desperately looking for ideas on what to sew with them and I found 80cm of this red silk crepe. I have sewn a cute top with it already, but since I wear trousers only rarely and the top only works with black, it was not the biggest success in terms of wears.
And the it clicked together: with a little chance, I could squeeze this dress from my remnant.

Well, in the end, I had more than enough to make this dress. I could even self-line the top part of the dress which makes a cleaner finish. This time, I actually retraced the pattern again, did my usual short-torso and narrow-shoulders adjustments and resewed a muslin to make sure the fit is fine this time.
I was really careful on the cleavage pattern pieces, I interfaced and stay-stitched all of them, just to be sure that nothing gets extended.

And bingo, I just love the result! The fabric makes me so happy when I see it, it goes so well with my complexion and feels amazing against my skin. It is exactly the same weight as the black-violet leopard, so a great one for a summer dress.

I am really happy that I could use up this remnant and that the result is so awesome! Did I say I love this dress?!?!

False Chanel Jacket

Well, I still have a plan to buy some great bouclé and take the 100+ sewing hours needed to make a real Chanel jacket, but for the moment, I have at least sewn a little simple bouclé jacket and I like it a lot.

The bouclé fabric comes from sales at Coupons de St.Pierre, is quite simple, but I really like the style. In my new job, jackets are more of a norm than cardigans, so this one will work great with black dresses.

The pattern is Burda 108-02/2017 (oh, the February 2017 issue - I think I have already sewn at least 5 patterns from this issue). I did a few usual adjustments on the shoulder part, but I also narrowed the jacket to make it less boxy and more fitted.

The jacket is entirely interfaced, because the bouclé was very moving, and lined with some black light silk which makes it feel very luxurious.

Originally, I did not want to add any decorations, but when the jacket was almost ready, I tried to add some fringes and a black ribbon. And I am really happy I took the time (the ribbon was to fragile, so I had to sew it by hand) because it really finishes the jacket. 

I did not bother with any closing. At first, I wanted to add the little hooks, but it did not wok well and I figured out I would never wear the jacket closed, so why bother...

It is a little different style than what I usually sew and wear, but it will fit to my work wardrobe very well.

Another Episode of Baby Sewing

And again, it was great fun. This time, I wanted a gift for the two sons of my cousin: 6 months and a 2 years old. Which meant two big challenges :
- choose the right fabrics, as I do not have tons of really boy-fabrics in my remnants
- find cute boy patterns - I was rather surprised how very little there are. I went through all my Burdas (I might have 20 of them) and only found 1-2 patterns for boys of this age category.

Yes, I would also use the Burda body and trousers patterns I bought before X-mas (Burda 9347 and 9340). In the end, I bought a baby version of Ottobre to have some more choice.

I then spent an afternoon on whatsapp with my mum deciding on colour combinations. Originally, I wanted to make a body and pinafore trousers for the little one and a t-shirt and the same trousers for his big brother, but I did not have enough fabric for the second pair, so I switched to some normal ones from Ottobre.

Also, I wanted them to work as an ensemble. For the little one, I decided on this violet milano jersey for the body and a deep green linen for the trousers. I bought a cute green fat quarter for the "decorations" and bias binding and buttons with the similar pattern (the fabric has little dots, the buttons little stars).

I think the light green really makes it work together and I totally love the combination.

For the older one, we chose yellow milano for a t-shirt (decorated with some vichy binding) and grey trousers. I must say I really liked the details on this pattern: there is elastic on the waist, but you sew a faux fly anyhow, the braces and the braces' fix.
I used some vichy cotton remnant for the waist lining and for the trousers' hem.

So again, two cute sets of baby clothes, proving that even sewing for boys can be fun. When are the next coming?

Kate Spring Coat

And just because I can , I sewed another coat. I really took pleasure in sewing my previous coats, even though I still have many things to learn. But I no longer fear sewing coats and also, it no longer feels like a big hurdle or time investment.

Of course, black spring coat is just a basic of my wardrobe and it became urgent to make one. I had a cute Benetton 60's coat for a few years now, which showed way too many signs of its age and I knew I would probably not wear it any longer this year.

Originally, I wanted to buy specific fabric for it, but then I realized I had this stretchy black gabardine in stock (originally bought for a pair of black pants which are not going to happen any time sooner), so I decided to use that. The fabric is probably too stretchy for a coat, lesson learned, and interfacing did not 100% help either. Anyway, it still makes a wearable coat and a great lesson for next year.

As I am a big fan of Kate Middleton wardrobe, I got again inspired by one of her coats. I used Burda 6772, and I actually mixed both version. I used the narrower "skirt", but flaps and round collar.

As my previous coat felt too large, I tried to make this one narrower and I think I overdid it in the waist area. This, together with the stretchy fabric, resulted in some drag lines around the waist. I will know better next time. It is way better when not closed, which is fine for me, I will mostly wear it open anyhow.

I went all crazy with the lining, I used some flowery silk, and also put in some orange piping. That is a detail which makes me smile anytime I put my coat on, so totally worth it.

Another mistake I did - the lining is way to wide. On my first jacket/coat attempts, the lining was dragging the main fabric, so I am a little obsessed by having enough lining ease. And this time, I just overdid it. This one is easy to fix though, so I might just open the coat and adjust it.

Despite all the little issues, I am very happy with this coat and wear it almost every day now.

La Maison Victor Cara Dress

It is funny how the choice of patterns to sew can be influenced. I have already pondered about how I can check Burda magazine, not like anything in it and a few months later "discover" an amazing pattern in it.

I might have a "to sew" wishlist which I am going through slowly, but in the end, when an interesting pattern comes by, I will change my priorities.

And this is how I sewed from La Maison Victor for the first time. Truth to be said, this is not a magazine I prefer. It is nice, on great paper, with detailed explanations, cute styling, but when I look at the technical drawings, there is rarely something to fall in love with. I find their patterns rather simple, nicely styled, but I already have a stock of simple patterns to begin with, so I have never bought the magazine.

Also, it takes way too much space for the few patterns it has. Again, I do not think I really need the detailed explanations on simple patterns.

However, at the beginning of the year, I read a blog on 3 patterns sewed from the winter issue of LMV and I actually liked all of them. At that point of time, the magazine was no longer on the newsstands, OF COURSE, but I managed to order its German version and start sewing from it.
For the moment, I have sewed only one pattern - the Cara dress - but I did it twice and it is certainly not the last one.

The first is from a quite thick viscose jacquard from Stoff & Stil. I really liked the colours and it makes for a nice transition spring dress. I am not sure about the long sleeves though, as it looks too much like a pyjama, to my liking. We'll see if I decide to shorten them.

The other dress is from a milano black jersey and honestly, I have no idea how I messed up on that one, but on the black version there was just way too much fabric around the arms. I ended up shortening the dress on the shoulders (my usual adjustment) and taking away some of the fabric excess. Dress saved, but in the end, I must have lost a few cm on the length, to the dress is slightly too short now (at least when worn without thighs).

I am starting to think I would add a panel to extend the length and sew this dress in black again because it really creates a great little black dress for everyday wear, it is a perfect secret pyjama.

The Different Trench Coat

I have always thought that a trenchcoat is such a great wardrobe basics, however, I have never really liked them on myself.

Until I have seen this Burda coat 103-02/2017 on another sewing blog. And I also realized that I had the right Burda issue already. So after having sewn my winter coat, I set out to make a spring one.

Of course, I muslined the pattern, and adjusted it based on the winter coat. I must say that most versions of this coat I have seen on the blogosphere were sewn from light fabrics, linens etc, while I have bought a quite stiff cotton twill in a wonderful grey shade.

Therefore, the coat has little bit of volume which was not so obvious on my muslin, even though I tried to transform the folds to darts on the bodice. This is probably the only thing I would change on the pattern if I sewed it again. Apart from that, I really love this coat (and wear it quite a lot currently).

I used black silk for the lining and just for the little pleasure, I added a rose piping with little grey freckles. This detail makes me smile every time I see it.

The coat has big pockets, a necessity for me, I totally love the buttons on the waist.

I have to say that the coat is a big success, it gets worn all the time and works with a lot of my wardrobe items. It fits right and was real fun to sew. I cannot understand why I was so afraid of sewing coats before; this was my 2nd coat (and I have sewn a 3rd one in the meantime) and I had real pleasure sewing it.

So here is to the next coat!

Sallie Jumpsuit

I have been pondering sewing a long jumpsuit for some time now. Actually there are two reasons: jumpsuits keep popping up all over the blogosphere and I had a colleague who was a big fan of jumpsuits and it was always so nice and elegant on her.

I had sewn 2 short jumpsuits about two years ago and wore one of them on vacations. The other one is clearly showing too much skin to my liking, so I ended up donating it (it was originally a long jumpsuit with open back which I shortened, so it ended up not quite harmonized).
However, I wanted to try my teeth on a long one and the Sallie jumpsuit from Closet case patterns seemed quite appropriate.
Now, I have to admit that there were like 3 months between the time I bought the pattern and the fabric and another 2 months before I got to sewing it. And that is where I realized that Sallie is clearly defined for 4way stretch jersey fabrics and I had bought a black viscose crepe (with 0 stretch!). I sewed a muslin in the size above, just in case, which revealed that whatever happens, it was not going to happen in a woven fabric.
For whatever reason, I thought having seen the Salie jumpsuit in wovens, but a quick google search only showed jersey versions, so I capitulated.

Change in plans:
1. I ordered McCall's 7366, clearly a woven jumpsuit I have been eyeing for some time now, as McCall patterns were on sale

2. I decided to use this viscose jersey I had bought at Stof &Stil at the beginning of the year and was not at all convinced on. I actually did not like the pattern of the fabric (also, it feels rather viscose-y), but when trying it on, I thought it was rather cute and in my colours. I must admit that when ordering it I was not expecting it to bee soooo stretchy, and in the end did not know what to sew with it. So the jumpsuit was actually a great replacement project for it. At worst it would only be a wearable muslin.

As expected, the fabrics was really painful to sew. My machine was chewing it on occasions and the fabric is strangely light-weight and heavy at the same time. I put a clear elastic on the shoulder seams, as well as on the cleavage, just in case. I can feel that the fabric can stretch very easily, especially with the weight. Also, I adjusted the waist elastic really on my waist, because this is the only thing holding the trousers part in place.

As for the pattern, I added 2,5 cm on the cleavage and I really like it that way. Also, I lengthened the the bodice part by 2cm, next time, I will shorten the crotch. I do not know if it is because of the trousers' weight, but I feel it is slightly too long. On the other hand it really creates an illusion of incredibly long legs ;o)

Verdict: I totally love the style! It is rather easy to take it off, so technical break does not equal 10 minutes of getting un- and dressed.
I think that it is too colorful and too pyjama-feel for wearing to work, but as a casual outfit, I take it!