Butterick 6054 Maggy London Wrap Dress

I do love a wrap dress, but I don't love the potential for wardrobe malfunctions that they have so I made a few changes to this wrap dress pattern.

Butterick 6054 Maggy London

I had this interesting double border dot print jersey.  I really wanted the lighter part of the fabric, which is in the centre, to be at the top and bottom of my dress though as I thought it might make the middle of me look bigger otherwise  So I needed a dress with a waist seam  and chose the one above.

(Oops I should have added that I bought the fabric in China - in Lowu shopping centre just across the border from Hong Kong which is probably of no use to anyone, sorry!)

This worked out better than I imagined to be honest and I love the way the print looks in the finished dress.

This would be a simple pattern to sew, but I made life difficult for myself by changing it to a faux wrap.  I extended the left underlay of the skirt so that it is joined at the right side seam - so basically it is a skirt with an overlay.  I didn't have to extend the skirt piece very much to do this so I think it is quite generously cut and next time I might just go with a proper wrap version.

The bodice is also stitched down to the centre front only as I wanted to keep the tie end free.  Joining the bodice to the skirt with their different wrap treatments required a bit of mucking about with pins to make sure I got the finished effect that I wanted.

Hopefully these photos make that a bit clearer....?

The pleats at the top of the wrap skirt are quite bulky, but they look good when they are finished, I wouldn't recommend making this in a heavy jersey though.

I did raise the front neckline, quite a common adjustment for me and this is one adjustment I will definitely also make again.  I really like the shape of the dress and I think I will try it again as a proper wrap which will be a much quicker and easier sew than this version!

Butterick 5753 Knit Top

Whenever I take advantage of one of the BMV sales to order patterns online inevitably I end up buying a few "fillers".  If the shipping is the same price for 4 patterns as it is for 7, well I will find 7 patterns (which I am sure is the whole idea).

This is one such filler, it's a pretty basic top and I probably have something similar in my years of Burda magazines that I could tweak, but I know myself well enough by now to know that I won't get around to it.

I made view C with the tie front, it looked pretty roomy so I cut a size smaller than my usual pattern size and used the Small.

I added a seam to the centre back, purely to fit onto my fabric, a deep sky blue knit that I had only bought a small amount of to match an orphan skirt (more on that later).  I also stitched up the side seams quite a bit higher than the pattern indicated to make the armholes smaller - I think around 8cm.

This is a very easy pattern, but the pattern instructions just say to do a 5/8" double hem on the neck and all around the hem and ties.  The neck is probably wide enough that you can get away with this treatment, although I used a strip of fabric as a mini facing instead.  I think if you try and do their suggested hem treatment around the ties it would be an exercise in major frustration with a messy result.  I did a kind of narrow hem treatment instead which is much easier, albeit not perfect.  I stitched a line all around the hem and ties just a presser foot width from the edge, pressed up against this line , stitched again and then trimmed away the excess close to the stitching.    

The front piece, can you imagine trying to turn 5/8" on that hem?

As I mentioned the neckline is very wide so I attached some lingerie straps to keep it in place.  I'm slightly embarrassed to confess these are purchased, but it's really easy to make your own with ribbon and press studs.  Hey at least I sewed them in instead of using the little safety pins they came with!  

If I make this again I will make the neckline narrower, views A&B appear to have a smaller neck.  I'm also intrigued by views A&B, the notch in the sleeve looks a bit weird, but the colour blocking will be good for using up some up my many leftover bits of jersey.

Here is the skirt that I made a while back and have neglected due to a lack of tops to wear with it.  It is a very simple straight skirt from an ancient Burda that I like because it hangs straight,  yet doesn't need a walking split.  There is a similar one in 05/2016 - 120.  Both originally have a side zipper, but I move it to the back if I can as it's much easier to fit as I go that way.

I love the print on this fabric, sort of a close up gemstone print. and it should be easy enough to find other things to pair this with.  The fabric is a silk crepe so I underlined the pieces in silk satin to give it a bit more body.

Butterick 5283 Knit Top

I dug out this old knit top pattern (sorry to say it's no longer available on the Butterick website) to find I had already cut out View C in a size 12.  I have no idea whatever happened to that, but am guessing it was too big and probably attempted in the days when I couldn't find decent knit fabric.  Time for another go.

I trimmed down the pattern to a size 10 after looking at the finished measurements on the pattern tissue and pulled a navy and cream stripy knit from the stash.

I didn't realise until I got started that the whole front is a double layer (for Views A and B just the bust part is doubled) and I was short on fabric so I broke all the rules, cut the front off grain and pieced it so it had an on grain portion at the hem that lined up with the horizontal stripes on the back.  This was a bit of a risk, but seems to have worked, stripes and twists are always quite fun to play with.

Once you have cut it out properly it goes together quite easily.  The instructions are written well (except for the usual serger existence denial), but they do jump around a bit between views so you have to take care not to miss a step.

The double layered front means that the neck and front arm are finished neatly and the back neck and arm are just turned and stitched.  This makes it quite an easy sew if you have trouble with t shirt bindings.  If I had the smarts I should have stitched the back neck in navy thread, oh well, I'm not unpicking it and risking it stretching out.

As it turns out I didn't need to make any alterations from a size 10 although the shoulder seam falls forward a bit, this might be partly due to the extra weight of the fabric in the front.  Anyway I am quite pleased to have rediscovered this little gem in my pattern stash and will be trying this and the other views again.

So I guess my twist obsession continues, after I posted my Style Arc Jessica dress, PatsiJean commented to let me know about Studio Faro, a really interesting blog that demonstrates pattern manipulation.  I don't know when I will get around to experimenting with it, but it makes fascinating reading.  Has anyone seen this already and tried something inspired by it?

Photos of me wearing it coming in the next post - shorts.  Bright red shorts.....

Here are my new sewing room companions, I only let them in when I am there, which of course makes it the most desirable place to be.  Unsupervised they can open drawers, pull out all the contents and cause havoc with my serger threads.  I think their legs and ears have finished growing, the rest of them still needs to catch up!

Butterick 5576 Handbags

Well this is how UFO's are born, but I have a few inbetween my inbetween jacket projects to post.  I am full of excuses why, but mainly while trying to sell our apartment I have had to keep the spare room tidy and constantly putting away the jacket was driving me nuts whereas one evening start to finish projects were good for my sanity.  We've now sold it so I can go back to my messy ways, although we have a very tight schedule now and will be moving the week before Christmas.  And my dad arrives for a two week visit tonight.  Argh!

It's becoming a Christmas tradition that I give my nieces a handmade handbag filled with treats and girly accessories.  This year I made two variations on Butterick 5576, View B (the yellow and silver ones from the pattern envelope below).

I used some leftover purple silk dupion and bits of trim from my stash to make them look a bit different to each other.  I changed the strap to a short shoulder style, but otherwise made them up following the instructions.  I used a medium weight canvas for the interfacings and although I would prefer a much stiffer bag for myself, these will be fine for kids dressing up, plus I'm not sure my machine would cope with many more layers.

Here they are, I have even mailed them already which is somewhat of a miracle!

With bow and satin ribbon trim

With pleated front flap and diamante trim

I have some more stuff to post, but today managed to snap two feet of my dressform stand and I am waiting for the superglue to set.  I promise I'll get back to finishing off the jacket soon and answer your questions from my earlier post then.

Not what I should be doing with my packing boxes!

Butterick 5749

I was inspired by many bloggers to make myself a birthday dress.  My birthday is actually today (Monday), but I chose to celebrate over the whole weekend instead!  I made this jersey dress by Butterick - it's from the Suzie Chin Maggy Boutique range and I loved all the elements in this design.

I made this up in a bright pink jersey which is not a colour I usually wear, but the closely spaced black butterflies printed on it help to calm it down a bit.  Or maybe I am going through some kind of mid life crisis.

I made a size 12  which is my usual Vogue size but in this Butterick design it was too big in the front bodice and I had to take a couple of 1 inch tucks in the neckline of the bodice lining to reduce gapping - there is also a bit too much fabric on the bodice layer too, but since it is a cowl I can just about get away with it.  Oddly though the shoulders and rest of the bodice fit just fine.  I will definitely be adjusting the pattern before I make this again though - and I do intend to.

The instructions for this dress were surprisingly good, the addition of a centre back seam means that the whole bodice can be finished cleanly and easily and it looks good from the inside too.

It looked a bit short on the model so for insurance I added a good 6 inches to the skirt length.  Apparently the finished measurements are supposed to be printed on the tissue somewhere but I certainly could not find them. In the end I didn't need the extra length at all and cut some off and made a deep hem.

Bodice close up - you can see I have too much fabric in the cowl

The worst part of making this dress is the cutting out as many of the pieces are single layer and with 60" wide fabric for most of us that means either pinning one piece at a time or having to crawl around on the floor.  I had a 2m piece of fabric and I managed to squeeze all but the back lining out of it (total requirement per the pattern for size 12 is 1.8m fabric and 0.8m lining).  In retrospect it would have been a better idea to use the self fabric for the back lining and contrast lining for the midriff pieces.  Also in my eagerness to get the most out of my fabric I cut one of the midriff pieces out the wrong way up so I had to piece it - luckily with the print and the ruching it is undetectable.

Back view

Side view with zipper

I wore this out to a birthday brunch on Sunday, these flat back pumps would not be my first choice of footwear, but the weather was wet, my knee injury has made a comeback and frankly rain + dodgy knee + high heels + champagne = potential disaster so I played it safe.  I definitely think this can be dressed up a bit more though with some heels when the right occasion and weather comes along. 

Finally I would like to thank Laura for nominating me for an award, but more importantly for bringing her blog to my attention.  It's in Spanish and as you know from my woeful Patrones output my Spanish is non existent, but it is still a joy to look at.  Just take a look at this stunning lace gown for starters....

http://miprimeramaquinadecoser.blogspot.com.es/2012/06/por-fin-el-vestido-de-encaje.html

Butterick 4985 Top - Finished

Here is my completed top/jacket. It's freezing here at the moment (well relatively at least since we don't have any central heating here) and the idea of even trying on this short sleeve top is not fun so the photo of me wearing it was taken rather quickly. I am really happy with the top and am looking forward to wearing it when I go to lovely, hot Australia on Thursday for the Chinese New Year holiday. Here is a clearer photo.

The fabric originally came from Spotlight (the Aussie homeware store) in Singapore last year. The hardest part of making this top was matching the pattern on the fabric. I cut in a single layer, piece by piece, with the centre of the pattern running down the centre front and back of the top. I made no attempt to try and match at the side, shoulder and armhole seams - I think it would be impossible to match everywhere and it was making my head hurt thinking about it! You can see the final placement of the ribbon is slightly different to my earlier little sketch. I decided to keep to vertical lines only, including on the sleeve which gives it a more sporty look than most asian style tops.

I hit my usual problem of trying to find fastenings I was happy with. I considered using some Chinese buttons, but felt it looked too similar to tops readily available in the markets here (nothing wrong with that, but if I am going to the effort of making it, it may as well look a bit different). Finally I settled on cover buttons and I did my best to match the buttons to the fabric they ended up sitting on to keep the closure as invisible as possible (wrinkly photo below). The advantage of doing all that pattern matching means that when I wear this shirt as a jacket, the buttons also sort of match the fabric underneath. I again swapped the sleeve of the pattern to Vogue jacket 8331 which keeps the volume without quite as much puffiness!

I really like this pattern, it's very versatile. This is the 3rd time I have made it and I'm sure there will be more.