Summer Sewing: Lady Skater Dress

There's no way to take a good photo of this dress, when unworn. It's one of those garments. And y'all know that navy just doesn't show its stars in my photography. I've given it a go though, just to prove what I've been up to :-):

My love of this pattern is boundless. It's so aptly drafted for my specific body that it's as if I devised it myself. In truth, I did numerous rounds of alteration, so in some ways it has been drafted for me.

What makes it good?

• I've used the right fabric. It's got some heft but it's still quite light. It also has very good recovery.

• All of the vertical proportions are perfect. That real waist seam, the one that everyone has to lengthen? Well, I don't.

• The unmodified skirt length is one of my best: just below the knee. I don't hem this dress. I like the raw edge as I feel it gives it an extra dimension and modernizes it. Furthermore, the degree of fabric undulation (dictated by the properties of the fabric and the angle of cut) is just lovely. It's full but minimally so.

• The neckline is a great depth and, because the shoulders are cut narrow (like me), it sits in a flattering way.

Alas, I started this too early in the day, without coffee, and I made a couple of tactical errors that cost me time. One of my challenges was my fabric layout, which was in no way carefully considered and which left me with a need to cut the back skirt in 2 pieces, rather than on the fold. I have made this garment with 1.5 yards before but this time, due to my lack of forethought, I only had a (total) mess of 0.3 of a yard remaining. My piece of jersey was also messed up at the edges so I lost a bit of fabric. I don't know why I was so laissez-faire. The piece seemed large enough before I started cutting.

I also feel that I could have made the waist a bit smaller. I'm having a body dysmorphic moment and I appear to be overestimating slightly in the hips and waist.

At any rate, this is today's wardrobe addition. I feel that this and yesterday's skirt are going to be very useful wardrobe additions. Thoughts or feelings?

This Makes Me Want To Take Up Skating

Yesterday, I lost some. Today, I won... In 2.5 hours (from cutting to hemming), I made a Lady Skater in my Liberty jersey.

Lest you think that the process was quick because I've done it so many times before - this is but my second version. And it's as fucking awesome as the first.

In some ways, this one is better than the first one because today I was on my game, I'd made it once before and my workmanship (what with stars aligning) was stellar.

I love this dress. It's so intuitive to create, so simple (but elegant), a whole outfit in the time it would take to make a T shirt. And really, it looks so good on me, people at work have emailed to tell me that they saw me in the hallway and my dress is awesome (plus where did I get it?). I make a lot of things, and many of them are well-complimented (to my great pride), but this one is in a class of its own. It just works.

How do I feel about the Liberty Fabric, having used it for the first time?

It's beautiful to work with, no question (though this seems non-optional to me what with it costing 40 bucks a yard). It sews easily, it feels great. The drape is perfect. If money were no object, and the offerings were plentiful, I could see myself using this stuff most of the time. I can say that it fades slightly (almost imperceptibly) over the bust (where it stretches the most). I wouldn't want to make the dress any larger - it fits really well and I really like the amount of negative ease in the bust - but this doesn't happen with my striped version. I wonder if it has something to do with the way the fabric was dyed or the extent to which it has been dyed (it's VERY saturated). Don't get me wrong, this fading is almost unobservable and it will likely disappear altogether as the fabric stretches over a wearing or two, but I find it odd. Before my next purchase, I will stretch my Liberty jersey very taut to see how the fabric changes with stretching.

In terms of the look of the fabric, it is mesmerizing. I'm not into prints, as you know, and I'm really not into busy, colour-rich prints, but this fabric channels the sea and the sun. It's a portrait of nature but is simultaneously geometric. It's an optimistic, rich print and it's quite unusual.

My goal is to take a photo later today (on the dress form, if it'll fit over the shoulders), if not on me (looking too weekend grungy). I'll upload it later tonight or tomorrow.

Today's questions: What's your most flattering pattern? Which one do you like sewing most? And when you merge those variables, which pattern comes out on top? Let's talk...

Weekend Bound (And a Diatribe of Sorts)

I'm looking towards the weekend, as it pours with rain and hovers at 7C. This year has been hateful, weather-wise. At this point, I believe that it is actually affecting the ability of most to function normally. It's like we've all be stuck on a ship in the middle of the sea for 7 months. (That, for what it's worth, is the amount of time during which I've been wearing gloves.) People here are so crazy that every fucking patio in the downtown core was open for dinner yesterday (an unusual day in that there was sun) - as it hovered at 10C. I saw crazy Canadians removing their gloves to pick up forks. And I could almost get with it.

No doubt, affected by weather-induced malaise, I've got a few things to report:
 
Neither my new fabric (for the next round of the Rosie top) nor my sister's dress and fabric (for that hideous bridesmaid experience) have arrived this week. That means I've got nothing doing on the sewing front. I could sew, but I busted my ass for 5 days last (long) weekend and it was not easy sewing. I don't know that I've got the fortitude to hole up again.

My final sewing goal of last weekend, while it was no more enjoyable than any other sewing activity of that weekend, was a tremendous success. The Lady Skater Dress is all that and a bag of chips. It's nicely drafted and, once I altered the armscye, arm width and sleeve head, everything else was perfectly proportioned for me. That's to say, I do believe this is drafted for a short woman with a short waist and curves. I think it's also well-suited to the larger ladies because the unaltered pattern version of the arms and armscye unit are not cut small and narrow. This is corroborated by the versions, made by plus size bloggers, which look terrific.

To give you some sense of it, after I spent 30 minutes altering the arm unit (as per my knit top sloper), I did not make one other alteration. The arm unit is a size 1. The rest of the dress is a size 4. The waist height was perfect. The bust depth, perfect. The skirt length, perfect. In my world, this was a pretty seamless process.

OK, in truth, this garment came close to being eaten by a serger more times than I'd like to say - and I managed to fuck up so many ways by reading instructions when I should have just done things the way I knew they would work. Don't misunderstand, the instructions aren't bad, they're just too detailed and too fussy. Here's what you do: Make a T shirt. Add a skirt. Don't overthink it by looking at fussy photos.

What's utterly miraculous - and I will tell more of the story when I take pics of myself wearing this insanely flattering garment (to follow when the weather permits me to wear it) - is that I had only 1.5 yards of striped fabric (65" wide) and I still managed to get a 3/4 sleeve dress with no skirt shortening. And I pattern-matched like a fucking star.  Honestly, this is a coup.

I'm also saving the photos because I've opted to use this dress as my contribution to Clio's Sew Sexy Sew Along. It may be simple but it looks terrific because it fits fantastically. It brings out the sexy!

One final thing I'll say right now about the Lady Skater (man, I wish they'd chosen a better name...): At this point, I would recommend it over the new Colette Patterns Moneta.

How can I say this authoritatively, having not set eyes on the Moneta pattern? Well, I've sewn a lot of Colette Patterns and I've always felt that the drafted fit leaves much to be desired. While the instructions are good (and the marketing superb), I find the drafting clumsy. Of course, any brand is apt to work better for some than for others but, really, I've seen too many unflattering versions of too many Colette patterns on too many differently-shaped people. As the cult of Colette takes tighter hold, I feel I've got to tell it like I see it. (Furthermore, I'm entirely prepared to mea culpa if I start to see a zillion gorgeous versions of the Moneta. Not that it will change my opinion about lots of other Colette offerings.)

By contrast, I have not seen one bad version of the Lady Skater on anyone.

I don't find the Moneta attractive on the plus-size model (an obviously gorgeous woman) - so I don't have much hope that, unaltered, it's going to fit the average lady much better. The bodice veers too closely toward empire to flatter those with large breasts and wide rib cages. The gathers at the skirt are juvenile-seeming and they add bulk.

The Lady Skater is a very sleek fit. It works wonders to disguise the lumps and to highlight the curves. The drafting of the skirt produces a perfect hang. Natch - use the best fabric you can find! If you use crap T shirting with no recovery and little stretch, it's not going to end well... The trick with T shirt dresses is to spend a FORTUNE on the fabric. Trust me.

I mean, if you're game, please buy both the Lady Skater and the Moneta, make the both and tell me how it goes! But I don't expect I'll be undertaking that experiment for myself.

I have a lot more to say on other topics(what else is new) but I feel I should leave it here and pick up in another post. This has been a lot of words (and no pretty pics).

But before I go... Today's questions: Which appeals to you more - the Moneta or the Lady Skater? Have you made either or both? Do you prefer one over the other? Let's talk!

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!