Spring Sewing: Rosie Top and Lady Skater Dress (And Another Issy)

I've got an extra long weekend and I'm trying to make the most of it, sewing-wise.

Yesterday I put together another version of the Issy top (photo to follow - I can only do so many things at once and I'm overwhelmed by the tracing and cutting and marking and sewing etc.). Alas, it was a miserable process. The finished top is wearable, but has the wrong-side look of drunken mice at work.

I have to say, I will not be making the Issy again any time soon. This is my third one. The first is a massive hit, which is why I threw caution to the wind of my crap spatial reasoning to make the second (with alterations). The second was a failure for a bunch of reasons, not least of which was alteration-related. This time, I went back to the original pattern. In my coral rayon jersey, it fits in the neck perfectly and doesn't do what the leopard-print does (neckband falls backwards slightly over time). The good news is that the issue, I believe, is in the leopard-print fabric rather than in my construction. The bad news is that, nonetheless, I had to go through the same, hideous pain this time as I've experienced in the construction of each Issy top. My brain just doesn't understand what the fuck is going on. The instructions (stupidly basic to begin with) are useless cuz I trashed them with my iron. So the whole thing is like a nightmare of endless attempts and ripping out. Doesn't make me want to wear the finished garment but I hope that I'll get over it.

On the plus side, the coral fabric is truly delicious - soft, perfectly drapey and stretchy enough to hide the worst of it.

But moving on, I have plans to make 2 other garments this weekend:

StyleArc Rosie Top

and

Lady Skater by Kitschy Koo

It appears that practically no one's made the Rosie - last month's free pattern from StyleArc. Admittedly I wouldn't have bought it (given that I rarely wear woven tops). On the other hand, there's no one left who hasn't made the Lady Skater...

Thoughts About The Rosie Top:

This one is truly a wild card. I have NO idea of how to alter woven bodices to achieve the desired outcome. That didn't stop me from spending 2 hours altering the size 10 down to something in the neighbourhood of a size 4 ??? May I remind you that I don't make woven tops because I'm super small in the shoulders and far less small in the bust? Thing is, I did the math (ok, potentially incorrectly) and this would be a tent in its original format. Natch, I didn't make the bust any smaller!! But I've taken 6 inches out of the waist and an inch from the shoulders. It's a loose-fitting garment but 46" at the waist (for a size 10) is absurd.

Now, I'm not hopeful. It would be stupid to be hopeful given my lack of experience with wovens and the seemingly-incomprehensible sizing of the pattern. Mind you, gotta start somewhere. And the pattern was free!

I'm going to use a crepe with some stretch, recently gifted to me by S (my fitting friend). It's very light fabric in burgundy. We'll have to see how it goes but I've got enough to make a muslin and then another version - always the best plan of attack when you don't know what you're doing with fit.

I'll go into fitting in detail once I've made the Rosie, if it isn't an abject failure, but the main thing I've done is to remove a wedge of 2 inches from the centre back waist-length. I can do this because there's a centre back seam. Effectively I just took out a horizontal dart and closed it (adjusting the base of the bodice to maintain the lines). I haven't touched the length of the front bodice because I have to assume (as with all tops), I'll need more length there to compensate for the boobs. Mind you, the side seams are the same length, front and back, so one hopes (even if the proportions are off) that the alteration is sound.

Thoughts About The Lady Skater Dress

I scarcely know what I can say about this that hasn't been said already. OK, I'm game: The envelope drawing is a real deterrent to purchasing this pattern. I'm glad that so many others have shown that it's a lovely finished garment. Furthermore, it's a pdf download. I'm more willing than some to tape 22 pages (especially if it means I don't have to trace) but the lines were somewhat off, which really offended my sense of order. I mean, it's fixable with some attention to the grain, but really... On a side note, it appears that the newly-released Colette Patterns Moneta is pretty-well the same pattern. I'm intrigued to hear about how people feel one compares to the other.

I reviewed the unaltered Lady Skater pattern against my T shirt sloper and I had to make massive changes to the armscyes and sleeves. My sleeves and armscye are actually a size 1 (smallest) while the bust and waist remain a size 4. I had to change the angle of the shoulder seam dramatically - and to cut about an inch off the depth of the armscye and sleeve head. Happily, I knew this before cutting into my fabric. Slopers for the win (we hope).

Now, thing is, the dress requires about 2 yards of fabric for the size 4, 3/4 length sleeve version. I've got a 1.5 yards of stripes. It's going to take some serious layout skill to make this happen while pattern-matching striped fabric. Having said that, my version is really more of a size 1 than a size 4. And I'm willing to fuck with the volume and grainlines of the skirt as I have to.

Ridiculously, I don't have 2 yards of any T shirt fabric in the stash. The minute I buy it, it's gone and I cannot justify buying another piece of fabric till I've used at least 8 yards of the stash. Why? Cuz it's only economical to buy 6+ yards online (re: shipping) - which is where the best of the T shirting comes from. And I don't have space for that volume in the cupboard at this point.

At any rate, please tell me what you think of these pattern choices. Do you like them? Have you made them? Did you find either completely nutty size-wise? Let's talk!