Dressew

I spent this past weekend in Vancouver, BC, with the husband and a group of friends. We left immediately after work Friday and returned late Sunday evening, so I didn't get a single stitch done on my quilted jacket project. I did, though, manage to break away on Saturday afternoon to pay a quick visit to Dressew.


As I approached the storefront, I discovered a line of people waiting to get into the store. They've got a huge selection of Halloween props and inexpensive fabrics that are perfect for costumes (polys, furs, glittery pieces, etc) so with Halloween being only a week away, I guess it shouldn't have come as a surprise that the place would be packed.

I cruised through a bit of the main floor, then headed down to the basement where the real bargains are to be had.

Clearance fabrics can be had for $3 to $4/meter. There's a lot of unappealing stuff down there but it's worth digging through.

Zippers in all colors and lengths.

Buttons, buttons, and more buttons.

All sorts of belt buckles and closure hardware.

Wide variety of lingerie elastic.

An assortment of boning.

I didn't buy anything this time (I'm trying to be good, plus I didn't have much time), but if I did, I would have thrown these decorative studs in my basket - only a quarter per package, with various colors and shapes available.

The dress I don't want to take off

BWOF 10-2008-115

Fabric
Heather brown/grey 50% wool/50% cotton jersey from my local fabric store. The fabric doesn't feel scratchy like wool at all, it's super soft and hence the reason I don't want to take this dress off.

Notes on construction/alterations
This is one of those quick-to-make dresses that we all love. There are only 4 pattern pieces, plus a binding strip to finish the back neckline. I didn't make any alterations (although looking at the pictures, I'm wondering if I need a forward shoulder adjustment...).


BWOF tells you to stabilize the shoulder seams, back neckline, and front neck fold-lines with the ever elusive (to those of us in the US) Vilene Bias Tape. I finally broke down and purchased what I think is the equivalent - this iron-on bias tape, made in Japan - from my local fabric store. They carry it in black and white, bias and straight grain. It sure beats tediously cutting bias strips of fusible interfacing.

I wore this dress at a wine tasting last Thursday, it was a fundraiser for PONCHO, a local arts organization that my neighbor is involved with. Georg Riedel of Riedel wine glass fame led the tasting. He is quite the Austrian jokester, if you ever have the chance to attend a similar event with him, I highly recommend it. The great part was that we all went home with several of the company's best wine glasses.


Me & my new favorite dress dress with my husband, Georg, and my neighbor Margery.

In the mood to reduce/reuse/recycle, apparently, I made a cat toy with the scraps of fabric I had leftover from this project. I made a little pouch, filled it with fabric scraps and dried catnip, and voila. Tabitha approves.

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And folks, I've decided that my BWOF Project of the Month series has come to an end... When I resubscribed to the magazine last year, I made it a goal to complete at least one project per issue, in a timely manner. My aim was to make sure I was making good use of the subscription (which I wasn't in the past), and now I know I certainly am. In fact BWOF has greatly overshadowed my interest in "The Big 4" and I couldn't survive without the subscription. I hope this gives me time to make more garments from back issues that continue to tempt me.

Thank goodness for BWOF back issues

Remember my quilted Anna Sui fabric I showed you recently? I found the perfect pattern for it. I was going through my back issues of BWOF, and the November 2005 issue has a section of jackets & coats all made of quilted coating. Jackpot! This was perfect as it eliminated the guesswork of me trying to figure out if quilted fabric would work well with a particular pattern.

BWOF 11-2005-117

I like that you can unzip the jacket partway and fold the lapels down for sort of a notched collar look (click on link to view).


So far I've got part of the shell done. I bought lining fabric yesterday, I'm going to hand wash that that before cutting it out (although I already used some of it for the pockets because I was too impatient to wait).

I have to put in plug here for Zipper Stop! I've heard great things about them, so I decided to try them out - they have a great selection and will do custom sizes. I placed my online order the evening of Wednesday, October 1, and my zippers showed up in my mailbox on Saturday, October 4! I've never had a coast-to-coast order arrive so quickly.

Memories of summer

This is a belated pattern review. I made this dress back in August, just days before my summer vacation. I've worn it 4 times in the past 2 months and I can honestly say I loooove this dress! It's one of those patterns where it's hard to see what it really looks like in the model photo, and I don't think the line drawing is a good representation of how the dress looks on an actual human body.

BWOF 6-2008-120

At the riad in Morocco

Fabric
50/50 cotton/silk woven from my local fabric store.

Notes on construction/alterations
This dress pattern is one of BWOF's petite offerings. In regular-sized patterns I tend to remove a bit of length between my waist and hip, so I just used the petite pattern as is with no adjustments.

As you can see, I lengthened the dress to floor-length, since I was really wanting a maxi-dress. To do this and still end up with a managable sized pattern piece, I removed some of the flare from the skirt during tracing. I just over-guesstimated the length so I'd have plenty to work with when hemming.

This is what happens when you're in a hurry and you don't make a muslin. Makes you shudder, doesn't it? Let me tell you, I freaked out when I tried on the dress-in-progress and saw this. Do you know why this happened? Because the V-neckline is cut on the bias, and I didn't stabilize it ahead of time.

Thankfully I was able to save it. I fused a 1/2" strip of interfacing to where I planned the new (wider, lower) neckline. In addition to restitching the neckline, I also scooped out more from the front center seam, a sort of small bust alteration, if you will.

Two rows of stitching hold the gathers at the shoulder line, and the back shoulder strap is gathered onto the back bodice.



The dress is very close-fitting between the bust and waist (something else I would have known if I had made a muslin). If I make this again, I'll go up a size.

Conclusion
This could have easily landed in the wadder pile; thank goodness it didn't, it's been one of my favorite sewn pieces recently. I'd consider making this again now that I've got the bodice fit down!

Tessuti Wrap Top

I'm naming this my Tessuti Wrap Top because the fabric was a gift from the very generous Colette at Tessuti Fabrics. I felt compelled to get this done while my hair is still pink so I could look completely matchy-matchy coordinated.



The pattern is BWOF 1-2008-116. It looks like a wrap top, but really it's a top that you have to put on over your head because of the built-in camisole panel in front. This makes it more secure to wear than a traditional wrap top.


I'm grateful to the many other bloggers and Pattern Reviewers out there who paved the way and provided plenty of helpful tips on this pattern so I didn't have to do much thinking while sewing this up. I had to add a seam to the front ties in order to lengthen them, and I used Sigrid's cutting layout in order to fit all the pattern pieces on the folded fabric (BWOF would have you cut it in a single layer and since the ties are on the bias it uses up a lot of fabric). I also followed Debbie's example and sewed each tie into a lengthwise tube so the wrong side of the fabric wouldn't show.



Colette included a cut of a coordinating pink knit that I thought would be perfect as the "cami" that peeks out from center front. To get this, I added a horizontal seam in the front pattern piece. I cut the solid pink for the top portion and the main fashion fabric print for the bottom, this is visible below the wrap ties.



I'm so pleased with how this turned out! And relieved that I didn't turn this awesome fabric into a wadder, as is always in the back of my mind when I'm working with special fabric. I wish you could reach out and feel it yourself, the cotton knit print is just heavenly. I'm looking forward to showing off this top at work this week.

Thanks again, Colette!