Tag: dresses

Regency Summer

Today I would like to both praise and curse my friend Rhona, for being an extremely bad influence.

At the beginning of July I’m going to London for a three-day weekend with friends. Being London, and being July, I expect it to be excruciatingly hot and stuffy. (It’ll probably rain now.) In order to try and stay as comfortable as possible in the heat, I’d bought two patterns for sundresses – a 50s-ish halter neck, and a gathered maxi dress. I have absolutely miles of cotton shirting (mostly vertical stripes in various shades of pink and purple), plus all the organic cottons, so I figured these would be ideal. Long and floaty, nice and cool, and I could make little bolero jackets to go over the top to avoid sunburn.

And then Rhona started talking about making a very lightweight Regency-style dress to wear on her summer holiday. And then there were links to patterns, and fabric. And now there’s a fabric-shopping trip planned, and I want a Regency-style dress too!

So I’m looking at Simplicity 4055, mostly because I have a card from my local fabric shop for a free Simplicity pattern. (Hoorah for free!) And then I started wondering about Regency underwear (as you do), and discovered that there used to be a matching underwear pattern, but it’s out of print. And then I discovered that both patterns are actually by Sense and Sensibility, and I can buy the matching underwear pattern after all.

And then I started thinking about layers, and asymmetric hems, and combining lovely organic fabrics with stuff that’s been languishing in my stash, and about the visual ridiculousness of wearing a Regency-style dress with a half-shaved head and Doc Martens… and that’s something I really want to do! So, when I start wandering about looking like a somewhat punk Jane Austen, you only have Rhona to blame.

Vogue 2787

Vogue 2787

Remember the dress I made for the Vintage Vogue competition?

The deadline was today, so yesterday after work Paul and I rushed out to take some pictures. This is the one that I sent off to accompany my entry.

Vintage Vogue

Vogue 2787

I think this is going to be my entry to the Vintage Vogue competition. I’m not 100% certain whether it’s finished, or whether the seams go on the inside or the outside. I’m going to wear it and live with it for a bit before I decide. I also need to take lots of photos, which I’ll send off for the competition.

I realise that this doesn’t look like a terribly spectacular dress, especially not for entering a competition. But what I wanted to do was to keep the 1940s detailing (the gathering and the curving seams on the front), but translate them into a dress that would be comfortable and wearable and modern. I also wanted to break a few rules.

The pattern envelope says that the design isn’t suitable for stretch fabrics, or stripes. So that decision was easily made! Stripey viscose jersey. I eliminated all the fastenings and facings, drafted out the darts, and chopped off a rather drastic twelve inches from the hem. The stripes are matched at the centre back and side seams, but they can’t be matched on the front (which is why the design’s considered not suitable for stripes). I decided that putting the seams on the outside would draw attention to the structure of the dress, and also make it less noticeable that the stripes don’t match up. But then I turned the dress “inside out”, so the seams are on the inside, and I rather liked it. I think I’d be happy to wear it either way around, so I’m calling it reversible.

I feel as though it looks a bit boring, now it’s done. I don’t think it says “competition winner”, anyway. But hey. I’ve got a nice new dress, and I think it’ll be lovely for work if I wear it over a pair of black trousers. There’s still a month or so before the competition ends. That should give me time to decide whether I’m going to enter this dress, or maybe make something else.

Silk summer dress

Burda 7808

As promised a couple of days ago, here’s an almost-finished Burda 7808. Just the hand-sewing and thread-neatening to go, and then it’s done.

As it turns out, I followed the instructions more than I expected to – although there are a few things that I’ll change next time. I added extra gathering to both the front and back panels, to make the skirt more full. I also added longer and wider ties, and attached them to the front panel rather than the back. I decided to make the sleeves, but left off the cuffs because I happened to like the shape of the sleeves left loose.

I think the only additional change I’d make is to round off the neckline and also raise it a little. I have a favourite necklace which is my guideline for where a neckline should sit, and this one’s just a little bit too low.

Half way through putting the dress together I had a worrying moment. I looked at the dress and suddenly panicked that I was accidentally making a dress for an eight year old bridesmaid. Thankfully I think the sleeves and the collar have rescued it from looking too much like a child’s party dress. I’m hoping that the ivory dupion looks summery without being too weddingy – although my own wedding dress was bright pink chiffon, so this doesn’t seem terribly bridal to me!

I’m sure that making a dress with a collar and sleeves during the hottest day of the year must seem quite mad, but I have a lot of walking in the sun to do this week, so I need to be cool but covered in order to avoid frying myself. This should do the job very nicely indeed.

Incapable of following instructions

This is Burda 7808.
(Information now only available in German, since the English site has merged with Burda Style and all the patterns are gone. *sigh*)

I bought the pattern yesterday because the weather’s gone mad, and I’m going to need some kind of loose summer dress so that I don’t inadvertently boil inside my own skin. Now I’m thinking through all the changes I’m going to need to make to the pattern before I actually start cutting fabric to make the dress.

For a start, I didn’t realise that there was a zip in the side seam. That’ll have to go. And then I’ll have to make the dress a little bit wider under the arms, so that I’ll have enough room to get it on and off over my head.

I don’t much like the larger collar, so I’ll probably make the little stand-up collar on the version with sleeves. I also want to increase the width of the sleeve head, so that I can make gathers at the shoulder to match the gathers at the cuff.

If I do make the sleeveless version, I’m definitely changing the way that they’ve applied the bias binding to the sleeve edges. I think the instructions given will make them much too bulky.

Oh, and I also want to add gathers to the back, so that it matches the front. Then I’ll make the ties much longer, and have them coming from the front panel rather than the back. A little ruffle of broderie anglais trim at the hem probably wouldn’t hurt either.

All of which makes me wonder why on earth I bothered to buy a pattern in the first place!

Actually, my answer to that is because I find that having a ready-made pattern to start off with is much easier than trying to draft something from scratch. I can look at the picture, the shape of the pattern pieces and the instructions, decide what I do and don’t like, and then make my changes confident that all the bits will still fit together in the end.

I’m going to try and make a start on this over the weekend, so hopefully photos will follow soon.

Desigual

I went shopping with my sister at the weekend. (Hi Jo!) I don’t go shopping very often these days, so it was great fun to go round all the department stores and see what’s in fashion at the moment.

I almost fell down with excitement when we wandered into a new concession in House of Fraser. This coat is one of the more subdued designs from Desigual. Their tagline is “Atypical Spanish wear since 1984”, and everything in their range is amazingly bright and colourful.

Most of the coats I saw were in this asymmetrical style, but they were all made in different materials and colours. Some of them had mismatched buttons, some were lavishly embroidered, and there was only one which was made from a single fabric. (It was black brocade. Beautiful.)

It’s probably just as well that I couldn’t actually afford to buy anything. Not only would I have come away with one of these coats, I would have emptied the Therapy concession of all their novelty print dresses. They had bunnies, deer, and the cutest little umbrellas!