Tag: Floral

Convocation Dress

Another event just happened. We opened the academic year yet again. This time, I had a dress that barely had any back. But it was too cold so I wore the magic Shrug? over it to keep warm.

It all started when I was looking for a pattern that would make a nice dress and would be interesting. So I searched through all my stash and found Knipmode November 2015 which contained dresses 7 and 10. I combined the sleeves from 10 with the body from 7. This was possible since dresses 7 through 11 all had the same bodice, just different sleeves, skirts and neckline treatments.

I finally managed to use a fabric that I had bought for an event like this. It’s some form of slightly stretchy woven thing with large floral print. I’m not generally one for florals, but this one was not dainty, so it fit me better. However, there wasn’t very much of it, so I shortened the skirt and did not make a full lining for the bodice, but improvised a partial lining. I attempted to do an exposed zipper for the first time ever. It was also the first time I tried a horsehair braid hem.

The main alteration was that I had to take the back in by at least 5 cm, I don’t know why. Apart from that, I think that the darts were all in the right places and the pockets are very nice. There is a snap on the top closure thing, since I didn’t want to make a button hole.

Cutting the pattern probably took the longest. I had put all the pieces on my fabric and it was not fitting on at all, so I shortened the skirt, which helped, and then tried to find the configuration which would save the most fabric. Then after sewing most of the pieces together, I had to cut out the partial lining. For some reason I was afraid of this, so that took a few days of gathering courage. Eventually I did manage to get my act together and put the thing together. Then some minutes of watching horsehair braid being applied and I went for it, which took some time at the television to hand sew and voila, a dress!

Bras are in danger of showing a little, but I have decided that it shouldn’t be too big of a problem. With the shrug over it, no one would be able to tell anyway. So far, it does wear nice, but it needs an under skirt of some kind if I’m wearing a legging. Shouldn’t be a problem next summer.

Floral Party

Friday was the moment the Floral Party dress went out to play. Floral Party dress came into being because the first batch of students from work graduated. Graduation means a ceremony and a perfect excuse for a new dress. The dress needed three elements: a fabric, a pattern and a sewing machine. All those elements were new to me, and I’ll explain below.

How I wore it

How I wore it

Now, I’m usually not a floral person. In fact, I hadn’t even noticed that the fabric resembled something florally when I bought it. I thought it was just random smudges of colour, silly me. The fabric is stretch and has a seemingly waffle like texture to it, it felt very interesting and not something I’d really used before, so that was new. I had about 2 meters, maybe a little less of the fabric to make work.

Fabric

Second, the pattern. The pattern is called (I think) “Odkodowana sukienka” or “Decoded dress” from Papavero and can be found here. Now, this site is completely in Polish, and my Polish is *cough* very limited. It does however, have some very nice free patterns. There are no real instructions, apart from a link from someone else who made it, and the comment that the sleeves are tight. This was my first time with a Papavero pattern, so that was new too, but with a stretch fabric I figured not much could go horribly wrong. I decided to pick size 36 based on my measurements and sewed it up according to what I figured made the most sense. I added pockets, reduced the length of the back bodice about 2 cm in the centre and took at least 10 cm from the hem.

Front Back

The third element was the sewing machine. You see, I got this very old-looking sewing machine from my friends for my birthday. I didn’t know if it would work, or how it would work. So sometime in the past two weeks, I figured it was high time to get the machine out of the corner it had been stashed in since April. I googled the serial number, eventually finding a site (ismacs.net) that told me that V machines with my number were a type 15K and made in 1909. That’s old! With the model type I could YouTube a movie on how to thread and use it. So I did, and it worked! It might originally be a treadle, but I only used the hand wheel, so it is slow sewing. Very interesting to do for a change.

Singer Cluttered

This is the difference between how I should work (left) and how I actually work (right). Spot the differences..

I used the old singer for all the seams, apart from the waist seam. I figured the waist might need some stretch to be able to go over my head and stuff. The Singer is a pure straight stitch and cannot do the zig-zag necessary for stretchy seams, so I used the old machine for that. I didn’t overlock the edged since it wouldn’t ravel, and I’m not sure my serger is back to a decent stitch again.

Hem Scarf

I even hemmed it with the Singer. First stitching along the bottom edge, then cutting the 10 or so cm excess, and turning in the left over length and stitching again. I like that hem and I think it is either straight, or longer at the back. While I like the dress in general, I do think it benefits from something to break it, so that’s why I’ve added the scarf.

Verdict: another successful and comfortable Graduation Dress!