Sewing on a Budget - Garment Bag for a Communion Dress

This is a more unusual project to pick for sewing on a budget, but as I am working on a special occasion dress it seemed to be very appropriate.

My nieces Communion dress is coming along well and with fittings needed, I also had to have some way of transporting the dress (other than covering it with a large bin bag!!!)

So I made a garment bag with fabric and notions from Abakhan Fabrics.

The pattern is from Modkid by Patty Young and in my stash for a few years. There is also another adult-sized pattern available from the Sew Daily shop, on sale at the moment for $4.20

I sewed it with some alterations. It is much longer and also has French seams on the outside edges to help give the bag structure. The zipper tapes are enclosed between the fabric and the lining, rather than sewn onto the fabric. As the outer fabric is a heavier weight cotton, I decided against using interfacing.

The seams at the opening for the hanger on top are folded under twice and sewn, so there are no raw edges inside. Ribbon seam-binding was used to make a zipper pull.

 

 

 

The construction is very similar to the construction of regular sized handbags, except on a much larger scale!

 

Making sure all the seams were hidden was particularly important for this garment bag, as the dress has an outer layer of chiffon, and I wanted to be sure that the fabric didn't snag on anything scratchy inside.

 

 

 

The cost of the fabric and notions for this project were:

Wide curtain weight Polycotton sateen £5.99 per metre x1

Wide White Sheeting fabric £4.99 per metre x1

Grey seam binding £0.30 per metre x 5 = £1.50

Communion Ribbon £0.55 per metre x 1

Long zip £2.05 (had this in my stash)

Total = £13.03

(I only used half of the fabrics because of the width and have about 4 metres of seam binding left, so that total could be reduced by £6.70. Allowing for the cost of the zip, this project could be sewn for less than £10)

The bag was finished with a little freehand application of ribbon seam-binding, to personalise it. My niece's face lit up when she saw this, so I'm glad I didn't resort to the ubiquitous 'bin bag' cover instead!!!

 

(The fabric and notions for this garment bag were chosen by me and supplied by Abakhan Fabrics, free, as part of their challenge to sew on a budget)

 

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A Birthday Gift - Girl's Dress with Princess Seams

(Aka: How to sew a Communion dress part 1 - The Muslin)

My niece (also my goddaughter) turned 9 recently, and as usual my gift is a dress. Most dresses I made for her over the last few years have lots of ruffles, or are in brighter colours, so I toned it down dramatically this year as she tends not to like too many flowers or frills - oops, oops & ahem oops!!

The major reason this dress is different from others that I made her, is because it's a practice run for her Communion dress.

She is making her First Holy Communion next month and I offered to make her dress - very exciting, if more than a bit nerve-wracking!

We picked a style by going specialist shops and she was very specific about what she wanted - fairly fitted, not fussy, with a wide a-line type skirt. The style she most liked had a chiffon outer layer, underlined with satin and then lined, with a diagonal sash on the bodice (and costing €230!)

Fabric was bought at Hickeys Cork (costing approx €50), but not a pattern, as I already had Vogue 7845 - the exact style she wanted.

 

The next major step was a muslin which I usually try to avoid, so that's why I made her this style of birthday dress.

As I prepared the pattern, I noted the sizes on the pattern are 7-8-10, which is just the age before puberty for most girls. Vogue, however, seem to know something that I don't and when I compared the bodice pieces, I found they were shaped to give extra room at the bust - see the pattern pieces on the right above.

My newly found pattern drafting skills do not yet extend to drafting princess seams, so luckily the summer 2012 edition of Young Image magazine came to the rescue! I copied the Princess seams from Y1204, redrafted the neckline and used the skirt shape from the Vogue pattern and finally got to sew the birthday/practice dress.

The Communion dress will be lined, so I also lined this dress. Sewing the princess seams was interesting, and the first time I've tried it. I found that sewing from the end of the skirt, right up to the top made it easier to sew the curved seams at the bodice (There are some great tips in Simon Henry's book Little Best Dress on sewing curved seams)

 

All the seams are hidden, and there's an invisible zip, which is actually not that invisible! The Vogue pattern has a curved centre-back seam, which made matching the dots more difficult.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

As usual I couldn't resist adding a trim somewhere. I had almost decided to add ribbon to highlight the princess seams, but I went for simplicity this time and just used a ribbon from Farbenmix on the hem.

What is a pretty dress without an accessory?! The heart-shaped bag is a from a Japanese Pattern Book.

My niece was delighted with her dress, and she wore it for the one warm spring day we had recently! The feedback on the sizing was that the bodice and neckline are perfect, but the waist is about 2cm above her waist - an easy fix!

This week I am planning on making a lot of progress on the dress .....

 

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Vintage-Inspired Girl's Raincoat

My daughter needed a raincoat - this is Ireland after all! With the weather forecast promising wet and mild weather here for April, I finished it just in time.

This has been on my to-do list for a while, but needed to be sewn because I only had a metre of the green polka-dot coated cotton from Westfalenstof, barely enough for my 6 year old. As I planned to make a raincoat, keeping the number of seams to a minimum to ensure it would be waterproof was a priority.

This all led me to choose a raglan coat because I love that vintage style and thought it might use less fabric than a coat with regular sleeves.

 

Raincoat with hood (colour is washed-out in this pic

Perhaps I was looking in the wrong places, but finding a modern pattern for a child's raglan-sleeved coat proved impossible. I resorted to Pinning images of vintage raglan-sleeved coat patterns and eventually decided to draft my own. Using Cal Patch's book and my daughters measurements I had no problem with the front and back pieces, but got stuck on the sleeves. Should they be in one or two pieces, should I draft following Aldrich or Armstrong? ...... Stuck .... until I saw that Sew Magazine (April’13, issue 46) had a pattern for a child's raincoat, age 2-4, with ...... raglan sleeves! The magazine also has 2 pages, 38-39, of helpful information for sewing with waterproof fabrics. It took a bit of work, but grading up raglan sleeves, proved easier than drafting from scratch.

Of course the sleeves are not perfect, but it's a wearable raincoat, and I really couldn't wish for more than that with a first effort at drafting, and not even sewing a muslin!

The colour combinations of pink and green really appeal to me so I added cuffs in a coated cotton from Hilco via Dotsnstripes. I added a little label from Farbenmix, just for fun!

With all my emphasis on the sleeves, I nearly forgot to mention that I drafted the hood from scratch, using Aldrich. It could be a little bigger, but fits and I was so pleased that I had enough fabric left for it.

There is a general theme of nearly running out of fabric throughout this post, and so it is for the green cotton lining fabric that I bought locally - didn't have enough for the sleeves, so I used a different cotton for them.

This is a picture of the inside, which also shows the zip cover/placket at the centre front which I drafted separately. I used a zip from an old raincoat of my daughters and the Velcro was leftover from my Minoru.

Not having consulted with my daughter on the design or the fabrics, I asked her if there was anything she wanted to add - her request was for pockets (for what is now an obvious reason!). So after checking my Pins for inspiration, I went with patch pockets.

She also picked the ribbon type and colour for the hanging loop and the zipper pull - details that are so tiny hat they could be missed, but are important to her. The colour of the ribbon came up blue in the picture, but is a purple stitched ribbon from janemeans, which picks up a purple in the lining. (And most recently seen threaded through lace by Ann on The Great British Sewing Bee!)

Unlike my Minoru, I didn't tape any seams in this coat so it remains to be seen how much rain it will keep out. Of course I don't intend to let my daughter out in a downpour to test it out, much as she'd probably love that!

 

 

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Sewing on a Budget - Easter Dresses and Bonnets

With Easter so early this year, there were dresses and bonnets on my mind!

This pretty balloon fabric from Abakhan Fabrics looked just perfect, mind you I didn't imagine that there could be snow for Easter when I was planning on dresses. Of course they would also be very suitable for any special occasion in (a warmer!) spring and summer!

These patterns are from a book of French patterns by Her Little World. The book is called Creations à coudre pour l'été (which includes 22 patterns) and the patterns are all in French, but the diagrams are excellent, so they are not difficult to sew from.

I picked these patterns for sewing on a budget because I had them already, so I count that as no cost! As well as patterns (French and English) and books (French only), Her Little World also have 2 very unique free dress patterns (Shutt & Mistinguette - in English) on their site, which would be another excellent way of keeping costs down.

The fabric costs for 2 dresses and 2 hats were:

4 metres cotton mix fabric (£2.85pm) £10.60

1 metre white linen fabric (similar to this) £2.99

1 metre heavy interfacing £0.89

(Elastic from a previous order with Abakhan Fabrics)

Total £14.48

(Apparently this is a 'flamingo' pose!)

 

The hats were easy to sew, and instructions are to sew the lining and outer layers separately, then sew right sides together, leaving a gap at the outer brim for turning. Turn right side out, then topstitch the outer brim. That's what I did for the dolls hat.

For the bigger hat I sewed it differently because I thought the interfaced brim would get very crumpled by being pulled through the opening. Instead I constructed the brim pieces first, using the method described on page 3&4 of the instructions for Oliver+S free hat pattern.

There's another free hat pattern available from Hot Patterns, which could be used for a child if printed at approx 75%

This picture of both dresses illustrates the two major changes I made to the dress pattern. I added lining (sewn to the front armholes and back top seam, then follow instructions, and sew each side seam of outer and lining all in one) to give the dress more body and sewed the straps into the top back seam of my daughters dress unlike the dolls dress. We thought this would be more comfortable to wear, rather than tying them at the back of her neck.

Of course the dress is twirly too!

It's been a while since I sewed anything for her dolls. She was so happy when she saw this dolls dress and hat, that I will have to make more, and soon, before she grows out of playing with them.

 

(The fabric and notions for these dresses and hats were chosen by me and supplied by Abakhan Fabrics, free, as part of their challenge to sew on a budget)

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Bubble Dress in Liberty

I've 'mentioned' before how much I love sewing dresses, but it's the little baby dresses that I enjoy the most, and bubble dresses would be the favourites.

This dress wasn't on my list for February, but a friend recently had a third baby girl, and I couldn't resist sewing such a tiny dress (6 months).

The fabrics are from Liberty and probably not colours that would immediately come to mind for a baby girl. However, I had sewn dresses for my friend's two older daughters in June of last year, and decided to use these fabrics again. I suppose the dresses really are much too matchy!!!

For a little difference, I sewed on a beautiful dusky pink/raspberry stitched grosgrain ribbon from janemeans which picked up colours from both fabrics.

I found a template for a dress card, and just had to add a little stitched ribbon to that too.

 

 

The pattern is from Ottobre 6/2012#7 and it's the first time I've used it.

When deciding on patterns for baby dresses, I usually pick those that will be comfortable for the baby to wear. This baby pattern from Ottobre is the one I have used the most, here, and here though trying to tie the ribbons with a wriggly baby might be difficult!

This bubble dress pattern is ideal for baby presents and easy to put on & take off because of the length of the zipper

 

 

I generally avoid zippers on little clothes as I imagine they could be uncomfortable for a small baby. This pattern has a zipper, so I added a placket to the pattern to cover the zip on the inside.

It's a rectangular piece of fabric, about three times the width and 3 cms longer than the zip. I sewed it in, while attaching the lining to the zipper using the same method as for this Liberty dress. The placket is crooked! but at least it's on the inside! For a first attempt, it worked and should be very comfortable for the baby to wear

 

I was particularly pleased with how the ends of the ribbon were aligned at the centre back!

For the older sisters, I made some hair ties using a free pattern from Oliver+S.

 

Perhaps it's from watching too many old films, but the idea of a dress presented in a box has always appealed to me! A shoe box, lined with tissue paper, was the perfect size for this dress. The logos were covered with washi tape and I tied some more narrow stitched ribbon in a bow to add to the fun of opening it!

 

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Sewing on a Budget - Aprons and Napkins

With Valentines day almost here, it was impossible for me to resist this free pattern from Hot Patterns for Abakhan Fabrics Creative Budget Challenge. These challenges are now on Pinterest and the board is a very useful collection of projects which can be completed on a budget. Abakhan are also running a Pinterest competition to win one of 4, £20 vouchers which is worth checking out.

 

The Sweet Nothing's Retro Apron Pattern is a great pattern to sew and would make a perfect gift at any time of the year. I made some slight changes to the pattern by using bias binding for the ties as well as using pre-ruffled trim. This saved me both time and fabric, so I was able to make two aprons.

 

The fabric and notions I used were:

100% Navy Cotton with Strawberries 112cm wide x 1 metre for £6.25
Pleated Polka dot ribbon and tulle Trim x 4 metres for 1.30 = £5.20
Spotted Bias Binding x 4 metres for .55 = £2.20
Super stitch Thread 457 metres x 1 for £0.59
Total = £14.24 (for 2 aprons and 8 napkins)

These aprons were a lot of fun and such a simple and quick make. I sized down the pattern to make the smaller apron. Though I didn't have enough ruffled trim for the circumference of 4 pockets, I had plenty to add trim to the tops.

The pictures could be better, I'm not sure if it was the light, or if it was the contrast between the red and navy, which affected the focus.

 

There was some fabric left over, enough to make 8 table napkins. I could have hemmed each of them, but it would have made them much too small, so I planned to bind all the edges. I had yellow fabric left over from a previous project for Abakhan, so there was no extra cost. But the biggest problem was the mitred corners. I have tried these a few times before, and they have never looked good.

This time I persevered 'Fearlessly'! I checked YouTube and found a very helpful video, and then practiced!!! Each napkin has 4 corners, and with 8 napkins, that's 32 times to practice mitred corners on binding.

 

 

It almost worked like magic! I'm not sure there's a secret, but folding the bias binding in half lengthwise, pressing, then sewing both raw edges to the right side first as in the video link. The corners just formed this neat 'mitre' on the front - I can't believe it worked so well and it feels like a major achievement.

I think I sewed some very respectable mitred corners! and have completely lost my fear of them.

 

(The fabric and notions for these aprons and napkins were chosen by me and supplied by Abakhan Fabrics, free, as part of their challenge to sew on a budget)

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Fearless February & Serendipity

Participating in Steph's Tiramisu sewalong was a great motivator for me so I had been looking for ideas to 'encourage' my sewing in February. Victoria, who blogs at 'Ten Thousand Hours of Sewing' has been writing about challenging herself, and others, to sew projects that we have been putting off. She has come up with the Fearless February Sewalong and has lots of details on her blog, well worth reading. It took me 'till the very last day to sign up!

 

So what do I want to do for Fearless February? It's not a very long list, but I really, really want to be fearless about:

• Being a Pattern tester for Gather Kits. This is a first for me and I tend to make changes to most patterns I sew, so I hope it won't be too much of a challenge.
• Fun, frivolous sewing - the opposite of fearless! I have some lovely cotton fabric and trim from Abakhan Fabrics that I want to have some fun with!
• Drafting patterns. This is what I want to be most fearless about! I've pinned lots of vintage styles of girls dresses and coats, and want to try and draft a childs raglan-sleeved raincoat (like this, but with a hood) and depending how that goes, maybe a childs vintage-inspired dress!

 

Amazingly, once I had signed up for Fearless February, look what arrived in the post! Katie, who sews gorgeous clothes for herself, and her children and blogs at Kadiddlehopper held a giveaway and added an extra winner - me!

Not only did she send a beautiful piece of white fabric, but also 2 patterns and a book on drafting patterns for clothes! How incredibly generous, and what a coincidence that I have been thinking about drafting!

The book, Design-it-Yourself Clothes by Cal Patch, approaches pattern drafting by directly using our own measurements so I should be able to apply those principles to my daughters measurements, hopefully!!!

Here's to a very Fearless February!

 

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A Belated Date with Alice

 

This is a catch-up post and I'm glad to say that it is not about a Halloween costume! However, it was sewn for the Pantomime season, which 'ahem' finished in early January.

Perhaps it's not too late to be posting this costume. Burda magazine always have great costumes in their January edition for Carnival season in some countries, and there are even a few costumes patterns free on the website.

My daughter gets a birthday gift of tickets to the pantomime every year from her godmother, and it has become on opportunity for me to get creative!

I sewed the apron first (my own pattern), thinking that she could wear it over one of her other dresses. She tried it on, before I added ribbons, and it looked like she was wearing a nurses apron, so I also needed to sew a blue dress.

 

For a quick make, I decided on the 2+2 pattern from Oliver+S.

 

The fabric is a stretch velour, so I adapted the pattern by adding length, omitting the neck ties and back buttons & cutting the back on the fold. It worked surprisingly well!

It still looked like what nurses used to wear, so I decided to add a splash of red. Using a red gingham ribbon from janemeans, I sewed a very simple ribbon appliqué. I folded the ribbon in a heart shape, pinned it to the apron and sewed it twice, once on the outer edge of the ribbon and then on the inner edge.

Another strip of gingham ribbon was attached to the end of the apron. To make it a little more 'Alice' I could have added ruffles to the sides of the top of the apron.

With a petticoat underneath and a bit of practice tying the bow, she managed to look very Alice!

 

Couldn't resist ..............

Alice in Wonderland (1951)

White Rabbit: [singing] I'm late / I'm late / For a very important date. / No time to say "Hello, Goodbye". / I'm late, I'm late, I'm late.

Alice (2000) (VG)

The White Rabbit: Please don't dawdle, Alice! We're very late, indeed!

The White Rabbit: [to Alice, reprimanding her] You've taken your sweet time!

 

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Sewing a knit dress - Tiramisu!

I decided to join Steph's (from Cake Patterns) Tiramisu Sewalong, because I had the fabric and the pattern and I thought it would help with motivation to sew after the holidays.

What a great experience! The posts on the Sewing Cake website are very helpful and the Flickr group has lots of great pics of the process.

The pattern is a completely different concept in sizing, sewing instructions and fit.

The sizing, devised by Steph is based on a high-bust measurement so i found I bypassed a whole conversation in my head comparing the pattern to others, and comparing my 'size' to some ideal 10,12,14,16. The sewing instructions are very visual and remind me of the Japanese style that I love. Achieving a good fit is built into sewing steps and means that you baste, fit, alter, sew throughout the whole process.

I have a habit of avoiding muslins, because I measure patterns carefully, and sometimes tissue fit, but my main fabric was Liberty of London cotton jersey (from Raystitch.co.uk), so this time I didn't take a chance!

The muslin fabric is a viscose jersey which I used before for a Vogue dress and is lighter than my main fabric. I cut the Midriff piece of the pattern longer in the hope that the muslin would be wearable, and it worked.

 

The muslin was really helpful in relation to sizing. There was way too much room in the shoulders for me - with the shoulder seam ending up a few inches down my back!. I usually have to shorten the bodice in patterns and this was no different. Also the weight of the skirt was going to pull down the dress even more, so I went down a size.

 

 

The only alteration I made to the pattern was cutting the front skirt on the fold rather than two pieces to save fabric, as I had just 2 metres of the Liberty.

There are still some lines/wrinkling in the front bodice at the crossover, but it is almost impossible to see because of the print on the fabric.

 

 

 

 

 

As the skirt is cut on the bias, the dress needs to be left hang before hemming. It hung for 2 days, and I turned up the hem once, turning up extra where it was hanging more, and basted it. It seem to have worked - the hem is mostly very even.

 

It's an incredibly comfortable dress to wear, and best of all there's no gaping at the front because of the binding. The Flickr group has lots of great pictures, especially the 'no gaping' shots!

 

 

 

 

 

I don't sew much with knits and there seems to be a few reasons for this. It's difficult to access knit fabric in Ireland despite all the beautiful cotton knits, many organic, being produced in Europe.

Knits are mostly not conducive to my usual seam finishing methods, because the seam becomes too heavy for the fabric. So with knits, I have to get over myself! and my need for tidiness on the inside and leave seams exposed inside the dress.

There doesn't seem to be a classification of knit fabrics similar to that of cotton fabrics, which means two similar knits when sewn with the same pattern will produce 2 completely results and fit.

It's been so worthwhile participating in the Tiramisu Sewalong. It has helped me to be more confident in sewing with knit fabric and learning how it behaves. Steph has been a very 'hands on' teacher and very responsive to pictures and queries posted.

 

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A Vintage Christmas Dress

Quite a bit of sewing and posting to catch up on here ...... again. The light for taking pictures is generally just too dull, so I've been waiting for good light ... and it hasn't made much difference!

This is the dress I sewed for my daughter for Christmas. The fabric is from two old dresses, but It ended up being more work than I expected, possibly because of the 'drapiness' of the fabric.

I had Pinned this dress pattern because I loved the style, so when I saw it on eBay, I (obviously) couldn't resist! I sewed the bodice exactly as in the pattern, and avoided facings by adding a lining of cotton voile instead.

However, the skirt is sewn differently. Instead of adding a side zipper, I changed the pattern by turning it into a wrap dress.

The dress fabric is a silk velvet and was worn as bridesmaids dresses for my wedding .... a while ago! I used one dress and just about had enough for the remake, except the sleeves needed to be cut in two pieces to fit the fabric available.

When originally worn, the fabric was quite dark (winter wedding) so I changed the direction of the nap, basically turned the dress upside down, and now the colours are much stronger.

The collar and cuff fabric is from an old maternity dress of mine.

Though the dress looks ok, the fabric would have been more suited to a less detailed pattern. There is also lining and tulle added to the skirt to give it some badly needed 'poofiness' and it needed to be worn with a separate petticoat to give it some extra lift. It was almost a zero cost dress, as I didn't have to specifically buy anything for it.

It was given the thumbs-up by my daughter which, as always, is what matters most!



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