Category: dresses

Vogue 1301

Vogue 1301

This is Vogue 1301, a Koos van den Akker design. I’ve been stalking this pattern online for ages, so as soon as it appeared in the UK I snapped it up. The recommended fabrics are chiffon, georgette and gauze, all of which I hate sewing with a fiery passion, so I decided to go for a fine cotton voile instead. I also decided to go for plain black, figuring that would have an easier place in my wardrobe than the four contrasting prints pictured on the envelope! It also meant that I needed much less fabric – only three metres in total.

Despite being marked as “advanced”, the pattern came together really easily. All the seams are sewn on the outside, and then finished with the overlocker. The dress has a simple three-piece lining, so you don’t have to make the entire thing twice. I used cotton lawn for the lining, which was probably a mistake as the two layers tend to stick together. (And it shrank A LOT when I pre-washed it.) Next time I’ll use bamboo, which is much more slippery.

Vogue 1301

The finished dress is actually extremely full, although it doesn’t look it because the fabric’s so thin. It’s pretty shapeless, so I added a large belt. I think the only thing I’d change about this pattern is the shape of the armholes. They’re enormous! It does say “cut away” on the envelope, but they come down almost to my waist! So this dress can really only be worn with a vest or a t-shirt underneath, unless you don’t mind showing your bra to all and sundry.

The belt I made up as I was going along. The wide part is from Butterick 5371, and the ties are my usual 2″ fabric sash belt. The ties are offset (at the top on one side and the bottom on the other) so that they don’t get all tangled up as they cross over in the middle of the belt. They simply tie in a bow at the back. I lined the belt with velvet, the idea being to stop it from sliding around over the top of the dress.

I think I need a plainer belt for every day wear, but I’m really pleased with this dress. Although I made it for the summer, with a contrasting t-shirt and socks underneath, I think it’ll actually get a lot of wear all year round.

Waltz on the Wye – the Cabaret and Ball

Waltz on the Wye by PP Gettins
Photo © PP Gettins

This is our official Waltz on the Wye ball photo, taken by the official photographer Pete Gettins. Isn’t it lovely? The photo booth was set up in the Drill Hall, and there were lots of brilliant props to choose from. We had our photo taken very early on in the evening, which was just as well, as I suffered a slight dress disaster later on!

Do have a look at Pete’s official photos – they give a really good sense of what the atmosphere of the weekend was like, as well as showing how fabulous everybody looked!

Saturday Evening

And here’s the dress in glorious technicolour, taken on Paul’s iPhone. He didn’t bring the Canon to the ball, as it had steamed up the night before, so it seemed more sensible to leave it behind. The gold trim on the hem does go all the way around (five whole metres!), but I didn’t wear the original shoes that went with the outfit, despite having given them three coats of gold paint and glitter. I wore my gold Fairysteps boots instead and, being completely flat, they made the dress a bit long.

Saturday Evening

And here I am, trailing my dress in the gutter. How glamorous. But given that I’d already trailed it the entire length of Chepstow high street, I didn’t think it mattered too much! Unfortunately the length of the train was the cause of a slight wardrobe malfunction. I walked away without realising that Paul was standing on the back of the dress… and the stitching broke, leaving several inches of suddenly unpleated fabric flapping around at the waist. Oops!

Whilst I did enjoy the cabaret acts, there were a few technical difficulties, which was a shame. All of the acts were very entertaining to watch though, and the compere kept us all amused during the moments of technical wonkiness, so full marks for professionalism to Lily Belle. I think my favourite performers of the evening were Hazey Hoop, and The All Electric Music Hall.

After the cabaret Paul dashed back to the hotel to fetch safety pins, arriving back at the Drill Hall just in time to see Professor Elemental. Who was brilliant. Absolutely hilarious. Best act of the night, by an extremely long way! Anybody clever enough to invent an impromptu rap containing the word antidisestablishmentarianism on the spot, gets a huge round of applause from me!

Waltz on the Wye by PP Gettins
Photo © PP Gettins

After Professor Elemental had left everyone in the mood for dancing, Gwilm obliged with a typically eclectic DJ set. Putting the punk back into steampunk, I think Pete caught me dancing to the Sex Pistols. In a giant ball dress. As you do. (If you look closely, you can see the safety pins holding the waist of my dress together!)

Sadly all that dancing was the cause of another dress malfunction, as one of the steel hoops escaped from its casing. Fifteen years in the loft had caused the lining to become brittle, which I hadn’t realised until I stepped on the hoop and the internal workings of the dress came to bits! Rescued again by more safety pins, the dress just about held out until the end of the evening. It also caused a comedy moment when we got back to the hotel. We had to go through the bar to get to our room, and just as we were walking past the gents, a very drunken man emerged, looked at me, and simply exclaimed “bloody hell!!”! I guess he’s not used to going to the pub and encountering a woman wearing a ball dress that’s wider than the corridor…

The following morning I surveyed the damage to the dress and decided that it was just too much for me to fix. I snipped the remaining stitching holding on the satin overskirt, and bundled the five metres of horribly filthy fabric into the bin. I then carefully replaced all the flowers over the freshly revealed ivory dupion skirt, and packed it up in its original bag, complete with the matching shoes. It’s now been donated to Oxfam in Chepstow, looking like a wedding dress again. Hopefully it’ll go to a good home – or perhaps I’ll see somebody wearing it to Waltz on the Wye next year!

First Birthday Dress

First Birthday Dress

It was my niece’s first birthday last week, so of course I wanted to make her a little party dress! I was very tempted to make something very floofy and over the top, but given that her primary means of locomotion is crawling at high speed, I decided it made more sense to sew something that she could move about in.

This is Butterick 3772, in the smallest size. The fabric is half a metre of Alexander Henry, which I bought because I fell in love with it a couple of years ago. I’m glad it’s finally made its way out of the stash and been put to a good use.

Milly's First Birthday Party

As you can see, the dress saw a lot of action at the party!

I have lots of little pieces of interesting and unusual fabric in the stash, so I can feel a few more of these simple little dresses coming on. I’ll wait until she’s a bit bigger before I go for the full-on floofy party dresses, I think.

McCalls 5924

McCalls 5924

I haven’t been able to settle to anything for the past couple of days (I’ve been unwell again) so I made a very simple little dress. It’s McCalls 5924, which I’ve made before.

The first incarnation came out a little on the generous side, so this time I trimmed the pattern down a size. This jersey’s also much more light and drapey than the cotton lycra I used the first time, and I think it suits this style better. I am a bit worried that it might stretch out of shape though, as the skirt’s pretty heavy to hang from such a little bodice. There is an option to add elastic at the waist, but the casing adds a lot of bulk and I didn’t want it to be tight.

It’s more flattering on than it looks on the dressform, and the most important thing for me is that it’s really comfortable. Not tight at the waist, nice soft fabric, and it has pockets. Perfect.

(Also, the pink flowers match my Fairysteps handbag.)

Now I just need to find some orange woolly tights to wear with it, and I’ve reached the height of mad-art-teacher chic. Excellent!

Butterick 4731

Butterick 4731

Yes, this is exactly what it looks like. An evening dress, in wet-look lycra.

Another one for the “it seemed like a good idea at the time” pile, I suspect!

This is Butterick 4731. It looks a bit odd (relatively speaking) on my dress form because I’m in between sizes. The bust on my larger dress form doesn’t go small enough, and the waist and hips on the smaller one don’t go big enough. Typical. So there will be slightly more curvaceousness (is that a word?) going on in Real Life, but it won’t be quite skintight except at the bust, which obviously is holding up the dress.

The dress went together remarkably smoothly, considering I made such a radical departure from the suggested fabrics. The only change I made to the pattern was to leave out the centre back zip. The fabric is so stretchy that it doesn’t need any fastenings, and I didn’t fancy trying to top-stitch on this fabric. Having said that, it didn’t stick to the machine anywhere near as badly as I’d expected.

I do still need to add a lining or facing to finish it off though – the top edge is just folded over at the moment. The pattern is constructed with a boned foundation made from interfaced lining, but there’s not much point in trying to bone a stretchy dress, and the edges of the bones will show through the outer fabric anyway. Instead I think I’m going to make an internal girdle, of sorts, using powermesh. I’m not sure exactly how I’m going to achieve that yet, but I’m sure I’ll figure something out!

Steampunk Petticoat

Petticoat

You might have noticed that this is made to roughly the same pattern as the black linen dress. This time the ruffle’s a bit shorter, but that was mostly because I’d almost run out of stripy fabric. The body of the dress is a little longer to compensate. The hem is trimmed with one layer of wide flat lace, and another of red gathered lace to provide a little bit of extra fullness. The butterfly sleeves are simply overlocked at the edges, and the beaded trim matches the skirt.

Petticoat and skirt

Here’s how they look together – rather smart, I think! The plain red doesn’t exactly match the stripes, but I think they’re close enough that it doesn’t matter too much. The petticoat doesn’t make the slightest bit of difference to the fullness of the skirt because it’s much too narrow, so you probably won’t even see the two layers of lace. The attention to detail makes me feel better about the outfit though, so it’s worth the effort.

Black Linen Dress

Black linen dress

Okay, so I didn’t dive straight into the organic cottons, but I needed a new black summer dress and I had a piece of linen tucked away in the Shed. It was originally earmarked to become another Regency-ish dress, but I decided to try out a long version of the blue organic tunic instead.

The ruffle’s twice as deep, and I think I might go back and chop a couple of inches off it, because the dress touches the floor. I wanted it to be long, but that’s a bit too long even for me! I haven’t made a matching belt for this one yet – in fact I’ve been wearing it without – but I think it looks quite smart with the blue one.

Having worn it, I also want to go back and add pockets. It’s too late now to put pockets in the side seams (well, I could, but I don’t fancy unpicking overlocked linen!), so it’s going to be big patch pockets on the front. I just need to decide whether to make them in matching black, or whether to have the pockets and belt in a contrasting colour. Maybe I should keep the pockets plain, then I can choose whatever colour belt I’d like.