It’s getting hard to take photos! Daylight savings finished last week which means it gets dark at 6pm. The place we’re staying at is on a hill so the sun goes at 3 or 4 (before I finish work) – sure I can see the sun but it’s only shining on far off paddocks. I finished a bit early today so was able to finally take photos of this dress I finished a fortnight ago, and even so the light isn’t great (Mr. Guy is learning though, I think). I’m going to have to start planning trips on the weekend for photos!

This is.. not a dress I fancy much. Which is evidenced by the fact that I made it a fortnight ago and haven’t worn it once – usually I can’t wait to wear a new garment. I did some work on the BHL Anna pattern to get it fitting better, and while I think it does fit better than before (the tucks were too high on my previous three versions), I just don’t like it.

It has too much ease in the bust and waist, and pulls weirdly. My bust looks saggy. I also don’t wear light colours much – I think I’m going to mess them up (and certainly I can’t wear them to work – haven’t got bodily fluids on my clothes yet but there’s always a first).

It does have pockets though, which is rad. And I got the facing to sit really nice and flat (clipping and understitching). But overall a bit MEH from me! I haven’t even hemmed the sleeves for goodness sake, that is some sloppiness I had thought myself over.

I’m sure I’ve talked about this before, but – I try to only wear clothes that make me feel amazing. A few years ago I realised that the reason I felt so crappy at the end of the day was because I was wearing clothes that didn’t fit me well, or were dowdy in some way (I kind of wore what I could get my hands on that fit both my body and my crazy fashion style). I then told myself that I should get rid of everything that doesn’t give me confidence – so I gave away some clothes I loved, because they just didn’t look good.

You may be looking at this dress (or some others that I’ve mentioned I don’t like) and say “Sophie, it doesn’t look that bad!” but I basically compare it to other clothes of mine (my two shirtwaist dresses, all of my Gertie pencil skirts) and this falls short by a long shot. I think it’ll look better on Tough Chick; or if anyone else wants it, let me know!

Details

Pattern: BHL Anna and gathered a-line skirt

Fabric: Cotton from fabric.com, ~$30 after shipping (I’m almost done with the fabric bought in that haul, I promise)

Notions: Interfacing, invisible zip, thread from stash

Total: $30

Also, I’m having a bit of a problem importing all my comments from my old website into the disqus system. Trying to fix it but that’s why they’re all missing, and why I’ve had to disable all my plugins temporarily.

A summer dress to present to you all.

The bodice is made from By Hand London’s Anna and the skirt is a plain gathered “dirndl” style skirt (just two rectangles gathered and attached to the bodice).

If you excuse the fact that I was a bit heavier, and the photo is blurry… this dress fits me terribly! Too short, too low, the waist is crazy high (it’s a gathered skirt on an empire line dress for goodness sake), it’s 100% polyester, and the pattern placement on the bodice leaves something to be desired. And yet, I loved this dress, put it on lay by and paid it off over several weeks. I think I only wore it that once.

It can be so off-putting sewing something up only to be unhappy with the result, that I would encourage you (especially beginners), to not be so hard on yourselves! This dress cost me very little for the fabric quality, fits me well, is going to be really comfortable when Wellington decided to be summery (although I’m a bit worried about the skirt in this wind!)

I constantly have to remind myself that whatever fitting issues I have, my clothes are still better than RTW. There may be construction issues, yet – but that’s okay, I’m still learning and my main problem is actually impatience.

Anyway, I guess I should say a bit more about the dress itself. This is a simple dress made from a birdy rayon from Arthur Toye. The bodice is made from By Hand London’s Anna and the skirt is a plain gathered “dirndl” style skirt (just two rectangles gathered and attached to the bodice).

The dress is sewn in the flat and all seams finished with the overlocker. I hemmed it using the narrow hem feature on my overlocker (I LOVE this). In making the skirt, I just made it as long as I could and forgot to leave some fabric to make a facing from. I decided to do a bias binding neckline, which ended up looking like crap so the dress hung in my wardrobe for a month or so before I unpicked it and did it again – instead of sewing all the way around, I’ve just tacked it down at about 6 different spots. Seems to have worked alright, and saved me a lot of hand sewing.

This dress is going to be especially good for Camp A Low Hum, the best music festival in the world, that we’re going to in early February. Hopefully it’s super sunny like the last time I went (3 years ago) and this super-light weight rayon will be a life-saver. I also have another rayon that’s waiting to be made up into a ground-length Anna (hopefully after I’ve sorted out the bust pleats) for the same festival.

Let me cuddle you!

Details

Pattern: By Hand London’s Anna bodice with a gathered skirt

Fabric: 100% rayon from Arthur Toye sale, originally $25/m, 2m = $25

Notions: cream zip, stash (for some reason) and thread, stash.

Total: $25

I don’t know what I’m doing here but I look pretty fab.

This dress combines three of my favourite things in sewing: polka dots, sateen, and collars.

As soon as I saw The Fabric Warehouse’s post about their new sateens in stock, I was scheming. The next day I took my scooter (a piece of crap that Mr. Guy did up for my birthday; it now works most of the time) across town, trying not to get swept into parked cars in the strong Wellington wind. I narrowly avoided buying other fabrics (like a black sateen with cherries on it – that can wait until next time), hopped back on my bike and did the same windy trip back home – pulling out on a lady right at the end of a trip and giving her a nasty shock. I’M SO SORRY LADY!

It went straight in the washing machine (as with most fabrics I buy these days) – then, not having the courage to put it in the dryer, had to wait until the next day.

Once I got going, the dress got made… remarkably fast. In fact, from starting cutting at 6pm, it was completely finished (except for the actual hem) by 10.30.

Obviously, it went together very smoothly. I added a collar (why WOULDN’T YOU) which I have had cut out for yonks, for some reason. I just raised the neckline of the bodice to match the collar I already had. This, unfortunately, made the neckline CRAZY high, coming half-way up my neck when I’m sitting, haha. In the future I will change the neckline of the dress as I don’t really feel that comfortable with high-cut boat necks, especially as the front is the same, if not a bit higher, than the back neckline.

I haven’t included information about adding a collar, as there are already dozens of tutorials for drafting a peter-pan collar out there. Mine actually gets sewn in to the shoulder seams so it doesn’t extend all the way around – this is because it was originally cut out for a different pattern (Burda 7494) which I made once, but the skirt was cr-AAAAZY on ones bottom. Like Julia Bobbin, I found the skirt to sit like a tent. Like her, I also planned to just extend the box pleats down to princess seams but.. erm… never got around to doing it. And speaking of the cats mother*, I must admit that I am in total awe of Julia Bobbin. Not only gorgeous, and a very talented seamstress, she just seems like the kind of person I’d be trying to be friends with. But probably failing because she’s so cool.

* My mother-in-law uses the phrase “she is the cats mother”, which is in response to people using pronouns instead of people’s names. It is very school-teachery and I LOVE IT.

I also lengthened the skirt (from the original version 3 cutline) by 3″, and I much prefer this length. It hits juuust below the knee which is much more work appropriate.

Speaking of work appropriate – does anyone else wear crazy stuff to work? I was walking into the hospital on Thursday in this dress and my red Watson jacket, noticing that everyone else was only wearing brown and grey – I stuck out. Most of the time I love this, but sometimes feel like it’s a bad thing and I should just… blend in. Sometimes I love wearing scrubs and a scrub hat for just that reason (although I do have my own, personal scrub hat with pansy’s on it rather than using disposables).

The seams are finished with my overlocker; the whole thing has a rather professional finish, in my opinion. Like my last three versions, I did the facing last to tidy up the top of the zip. Using my pinking shears to trim the neckline seam right back means the neckline sits properly, unlike my last ones where the facing tends to roll out – why have I forgotten all these tips I had previously learned??

Because of the sateen having some stretch, it has a fair amount of ease, which I am enjoying.  So far I’ve worn it with a belt, as usual! I never got around to removing some of the width from the skirt pieces, or moving the darts on the pattern so they line up. Should do that now but… well, I’ve put the pattern away and moved on to something else.

Details

Pattern: By Hand London’s Anna dress, stash.

Fabric: Polka dot sateen from The Fabric Warehouse, 2.5m at $18/m = $45. I only used about 1.7m so will be able to make a skirt too, woot.

Notions: white invisible zip, black thread, from my stash

Total: $45 if you count all the fabric, ~$30 for the fabric I used.

This is, obviously, the second dress I have made from By Hand London’s Anna pattern.

To be honest, I’m not a big fan of this dress on me. It’s the same size as my previous one (I think I used a 2cm seam allowance because the last one was too big) but this cotton has zero stretch so it is toooo small. You can see it pulling around my ribcage. I’m also not sold on the colour on me – I looove the fabric, a light teal with seagulls over it, but a whole dress of it on me is pretty bleh.

In fact, I didn’t get a single good photo in this dress – which may be because I dragged Mr. Guy out for another set of photos after doing the Cambie; or because I chose to wear these shoes which I don’t like – too high and don’t fit right, and make me fel like a giant.

The lace at the bottom was just going to be a hem facing, but I decided I liked it and let it hang. Still not sure though.

This is the first item in a wee while (that I can remember) that I don’t really like. It is well made (except I forgot to clip the facing seam, whoops) but, after making it ~1 month ago, I haven’t worn it once – and that’s not just because spring hasn’t quite hit Wellington yet.

Details

Fabric: Teal 100% cotton with white seagulls, from trademe. Cannot find the price, let’s say $20

Pattern: By Hand London’s Anna dress

Notions: cream invisible zipper, $4.50. Fabric and lace, stash

Total: $24.50

As I write this, my Anna pattern is being borrowed by two other sewists, and I have some more fabric cut out beside me to make a whole other one. Obviously, this is one hell of a pattern.

Although I like the designs and aesthetics of By Hand London’s other patterns, I haven’t yet bought one – I figure I have pencil skirt patterns already and I need to alter/draft one to my shape more than I need to buy a new pattern. There are some gorgeous elisalexi (Roison’s million versions, in particular), but I already have a princess seam bodice pattern (srsly, did noone love princess seams before this pattern? Everyone raves like it’s something new – reminds me of how noone liked coulotts until Megan Nielson’s pattern – how could you not like coulotts?? More on that later…). The Victoria jacket is a bit too snazzy for my tastes.

But the Anna dress – well. I don’t think I’d looked forward to a pattern as much as this one. It only took three versions (those by Sew Busy Lizzy, My Oh So Vintage Life, and Kim-ing – that squirrel rayon is so freaking fabulous) until I was waiting until pay day and buying the pattern from SewSquirrel. Unfortunately something happened on the trip from Australia to NZ and it took three weeks to get to me. When it arrived I immediately pulled out all the potential fabric I could make it with, and forgot that I was wanting to sew more for Mr.J this month.

So without further ado, my Anna in red linen.

When I traced off this pattern I did a reasonably usual alteration, grading out from my underarms to my hips. Generally I’m three different sizes (like a nesting box), so I went from size 12-14-16. In this pattern I didn’t need to do that; and I didn’t have to lengthen it, either. In fact, when I held up the full length piece, it’s too long – and I’m rather tall at 5’10”. So hooray for patterns designed for tall ladies!!

The dress came together really smoothly – easy peasy, in fact. The insides are all overlocked (in black thread). Since I first wore the dress (to Mr.J’s first gig, hooray!), I have taken the neckline a touch as the front was a bit too high, so I felt like the back was too low in comparison (so it felt like it was slipping back). Taking the front down a bit has fixed this. I also took out the ease I added at the waist and hips as it was a bit too roomy for me and I felt I needed a belt – which doesn’t quite suit the style.

This dress is perfect for the warmer weather I’m expecting soon. I love linen but for some reason haven’t sewn with it much – I had this mental block “linen creases too much”, completely forgetting that’s part of it’s charm. In fact, at high school I used to have a black linen dress (from the $2 op shop in Christchurch) that I sewed checked fabric on the bottom; I wore this until it developed bit holes in the side, and I still wore it. I wish I hadn’t thrown it out so I can trace a pattern off it, though I think it was just a simple princess line shift dress.

Details

Pattern:Anna, by By Hand London. Cost was $20 from Sew Squirrel, but I don’t count the cost of the pattern if I’ll make it again

Fabric: Red linen from Global Fabrics (now The Fabric Store), $20/m = $40 (can’t remember if it was on sale or not)

Notions: Matching thread and invisible zipper, $3.50 each. The zipper was bought from Made on Marion, on my rushed way home from work, in order to finish this (Project Runway style) in time to wear to Mr J’s first gig

Total cost:$47

In conclusion: I love linen. I love Anna. Here’s for many more of both.