LWD Completed also January's Garment AGAM (Pic Heavy)

Completed

These two dresses from the Chanel Spring/Summer 2014 RTW Collection were the inspiration for my design. I was/ am loving both the textiles and and silhouette. So I had to have mine.

So I have finally finished my dress. It only took me a month ( being sarcastic here).  I first had to redraft my knit top sloper. For one I have gotten a bit smaller since I perfected my first one last summer and two I needed a lower hip for this dress. Then I took like two weeks off due to the only thing that can get in the way of me and my sewing... FAMILY.

Once I was back in the studio, cutting out was a lot easier than I expected. I think this is my first time cutting out single layer, I basically treated the fabric as though it was a plaid. What took me a lot longer than I expected was matching and hand sewing the seams. Other than that sewing this dress was quite easy. The main body and skirt portion is made up of a polyester ruffle knit. For the sleeves, neckband and skirt band I used a cotton knit. The skirt band is made up of two layers to help give it support.


Quick Stats:

• Self drafted dress
• 8 pattern pieces (front, back, sleeve, neckband, front skirt band, back skirt band, front skirt, back skirt)
• Sleeves are just below elbow
• Dress is ankle length
• Semi fitted design
• This was my own design inspired by Chanel S/S 2014 Collection

 For the fabric I used both a cotton knit and a polyester ruffle knit I got  here in Riyadh. You can get your own from fabric.com. I had been eyeing this fabric for probably at least a year and I really wanted after seeing MazzyGirl's review. I have at least another meter left I think a simple tee maybe in mines or one of my daughter's near future.

Cut single layer since I need to match the ruffles on the side.

breaking out the good shears

I almost pulled a Jennifer Lawarence , ruining my dress with doritos dust.

I had to pin and hand sew every seam to keep it from slipping under the machine

Matched Side Seams

Cotton Knit Band

Front Plain

Back

LWD

Until next time, happy sewing...

A Garment A Month January Plans

Chanel Spring rtw 2014 is the inspiration behind my next garment. I really like the lines and textiles of this collection and want to see how I can play with them for myself. I'm going to use this in my little white dress.

Self drafted of course and details to come soon.

Until next time, happy sewing...

BurdaStyle 9-2012-109 In A LBD

Remember that post a few weeks ago where I talked about all the things I wanted to make from the September issue of Burdastyle. Well now I'm ready for my first item with a plan. I'm hoping to use the shift dress in the LBD contest coming up next month over at PR.com. Once I finish up my jeans I want to start fitting it and have it ready on October 1 so keep an eye on Instagram. I'm still waiting for the rules to be posted but I don't think there will be any surprises.
On another note, I think I am done with my jeans pattern but my fabric was not ready, so while that was washing I took time out to look for a basic dress pattern for the contest, so studio time was put to good use.

Until next time, happy sewing...

Changing Plans.... Slightly

So recently HotPatterns came out with a new dress/top pattern and as always I checked it out along with the accompanying youtube video. Well as soon as she mentioned about the the new denim dress in J.Crew's new line, I had to check it out and lo and behold I had already seen it and even eyed it quite a bit but did not think much of it since I had other sewing plans. Well after revisiting the site and thinking about the denim I'm already going to use for my skirt ,I think I have just enough for a dress. I can use the dress pattern I already had planned Simplicity 4118 and morph it a bit with Simplicity 3827 to get the look they both are apart of Simplicity's cup sizing collection, so I think it will be easy to do. So I'll still be doing my dress for the month but slightly different.  I'm going to use the lighter denim you see in the pic below. I bought that one here and the darker one I got from fabric.com a few months ago. The darker one has a bit of stretch to it while the lighter one does not. I decided to use the lighter one since for one it was washed and ready to go and also if needed I could get more easily since I got here instead of waiting for another shipment from the States.

I still have not sewed anything yet for this month and this because of some pattern work I had to do but I'm still optimistic I can get all or at least most of what I had planned done.

Until next time, happy sewing...

McCall's 5138 ain't happening

Let's put it like this after many Bart and Homer ( why you little....)moments with this pattern and garment I had to call defeat. I just don't know enough about fitting to make it work. So it was off to finding a new pattern, I needed a pattern that would be somewhat easy to fit. So I decided to try Simplicity 3684 it already has the FBA done for you. Since I was already using Simplcity 2599 I thought I knew which size to sew up, a size 12 with a D cup. I am SOOOOO glad I decided to make a muslin first. I used the same size as Simplicity 2599 and made the same changes. Well talk about a big surprise. The neck was fine a little tight but fine the hips again fine, bust was whole different story. Wasn't enough pulling going to get that thing to meet in the middle. Talk about feeling down. Here I want to sew for myself, I love to sew and yet I can't fit to make the things I want. I have no one here to help me so what was going to do. Am I confined to knits and loose fitting or ill fitting clothing.  After reading a couple of reviews, one reviewer noted that the shirt is very fitted, so I decided to retake my measurements and found that I'm between a 12 and 14. After that last shirt muslin I was just done with looking or even tracing another shirt pattern. I knew that after the McCall's shirt fail I wasn't going to be able to fit the dress pattern I had picked out, so I decided to try Simplicity 4118 a very fitted dress in a size 14,while tracing I noticed that the difference between a  size 12 back and a size 14 back was exactly half a inch,the same amount I was broadening the upper back on the size twelve. So the only adjustment I made was to lower the bust dart 1 inch and to ease from a 14 in the bust to a 16 at the hip on down. It was late and it had already been 4 hours in my sewing studio almost  5am and had not been to bed but I just needed to see how this was going to turn out. So I gave myself a half hour to pin, cut and sew up the muslin. I really didn't have my hopes since the 12 was so bad and this seemed more fitted. Well when I tried it on, I had to make sure I was still awake, it fit so well I could not believe it. I mean it looked almost as it was made for me. I took it off right away and went to bed thinking its something I'm not seeing no way this is fitting that well. So the next morning I tried it on for my husband to take pics from different angles so I could see all the way around. The only think I could see I needed was a swayback adjustment other than that it was almost perfect. So now I'll be changing my dress pattern to Simplicity 4118 and I'm hoping to make a muslin of Simplicity 3684 size 14 sometime this week. I'm more hopeful now that things will be much better.
 Until next time happy sewing.....

The Dress

Now normally I don't wear dresses for two reasons, one its hard for me to find them to fit me on both the top and bottom and also just ones that are flattering. I want more dresses, I love wearing them so why not. Finding the right pattern was a lot harder than I thought. All the patterns and Burdas I have did not have what I was looking for or only part of what I was looking for. So what I did was make a mental list of what the pattern had to have and I would not settle for any less since this had to be a pattern I was going to working with for the next year. Well after not find that in my pattern stash I looked through the patterns I was selling and came across the pattern I was looking for, Simplicity 2359. For some reason I never noticed this pattern before and Simplicities are some of my favorite patterns so I was surprised, I was also surprised how few reviews this one had but I like it and I plan to work with it. I already have my fabric ready and waiting for when I get around to fitting it.

Until next time happy sewing...