Mustard Pants (Burda 7214)

Yesterday was a public holiday in Australia, and although the weather was fine and going to the beach on Australia Day is a very Australian tradition, my kids wouldn't have a bar of it.  The new school year is about to start. and I suspect they are trying to eke the holidays out for as long as possible by avoiding doing fun stuff; everyone knows time flies when you're having fun!

No matter; I spent the day sewing, and finally managed to finish off a pair of pants started ages ago and very nearly finished in December.

This is how they were looking in December - so, so, SO close to done!  All that remained to do was the buttonhole and button:

The pants are now finished, and I'm pleased they're done, but putting them on again reminded me why I hadn't finished them earlier - I don't like them. The colour is not doing me any favours, and the fit on my backside is not good at all.

The fit seems to have got worse since December - it could be that I've changed weight (probably) but it could also be that ironing the pants stretched out the fabric in the backside.

Let me show you how they were looking yesterday afternoon:

In these front / side views you can see the front crotch curve is too long; that's why I get a fold of fabric on my upper thigh when I move:

There's also a lot of wrinkling on the side seams. The wrinkling alongside my knees is fine, but the wrinkling at top of my thighs unfortunately relates to the problem at the back of the pants:

There's a lot of extra fabric there - my backside is flatter than the pattern :(. 

I know what to do to fix these issues; I had to work on exactly the same problems when I did a pants fitting class using a Vogue pattern. I wish I'd compared the Burda pattern pieces to the Vogue ones I'd adjusted to fit, but I was too lazy! Next time... 

Although I'm not very happy with the fit of these pants on me, I think this is a terrific pattern, and I've seen it look great on many others.  I really like the proportions of the waistband and yoke (I hate a long yoke!), and the order of construction is very sensible, allowing you to take the pants in to fit at the CB seam rather than just the side seams. 

Speaking of taking in, I should mention the adjustments I made to view A of this pattern. I started with a size 40 (EUR)/ 14 (US), corresponding to my measurements, and then I: 

1. lengthened the legs (I don't recall how much, but it would have been at least 5 cm for my 174 cm height);
2. omitted the knee patches;
3. omitted the zips on the lower leg side seams;
4. omitted the zips just below the front pockets; 
5. omitted the belt carriers because I wasn't liking the pants enough to bother - though if I'd ended up liking these, a belt would have been useful, as the pants sit at the low waist;
6. took in the pants at the side seams by 1 cm for the full length of the pants, suggesting I should have gone down a size;
7. took in the pants at CB by another 1 cm, tapering to nothing at the junction with the CF seam; and
8. removed 3.5 cm in the height of the pockets after pinning the originals in place, ready to top stitch. On fitted pants, my preference is for the back pockets to finish ON the backside, and not encroach into thigh territory. For someone with more curve in their backside than me the original pockets should have been fine. 

There's one other part of the pattern I'd change if I made these again, and that's the front pockets. The pocket bags are deep and their outlines show through the front legs in my stretch cotton, so next time around I'd make the pocket bags from a much lighter fabric and perhaps also make the pants themselves from a heavier fabric.  I'd also change the shape of the pocket opening, as I find it quite low and very wide - I prefer a smaller opening to that pocket.

I'll leave you now with some "in the flat" photos so you can see the details properly, including my dodgy repair to the inside of the waistband at CB where I'd accidentally snipped away fabric, and the place where I left the seam finishing too late:  

 

Happy sewing!

- Gabrielle x

In the Garden: V9021

New floral dress - quickly, out to the garden with you!

There are probably two things that will strike you about this dress:

1. the fabric, and  

2. the shoulders.

First off, the fabric. 

This stuff is a stretch cotton, referred to on the internet by a few people who've used it as THE fabric of the year. For 2013, that is!  I bought it on impulse and without a plan in late 2013 from Tessuti fabrics, and then I loved it so much I couldn't decide what to make with it - I'd only really bought enough (1.6 metres) for one garment, you see. Meanwhile, Rachel made a Belladone dress, Kirsty made a Tokyo jacket and an O'Keefe skirt, Debbie made a Rigel bomber, and the fabric soon sold out. And finally I made my mind up in early 2015...

And then the shoulders. 

I spend a lot of time taking patterns out of my filing cabinet, staring at them, and choosing "the next ones to make", which then face me from behind my sewing machine, ready to go. There's an 80s pattern that was sitting behind my machine for ages, and it's got a similar wide-shouldered, straight-skirted look to this one. A couple of weeks ago I decided to start on it, and I flipped over the pattern envelope to see how much fabric and what notions it needed. To my horror I discovered it used those ginormous, thick shoulder pads that were around in the 80s - the sort you sometimes come across in second hand stores, no longer available in fabric shops.  I have tried using big shoulder pads before, but when you start off with narrow shoulders, it's hard to place enormous shoulder pads without them hitting your neckline - so the 80s pattern was retired to the filing cabinet. 

Enter Vogue 9021: the same basic silhouette - big shoulders, narrow skirt - but with no shoulder pads. It's described as "Fitted dress has front and back extending into sleeves, low armholes, back zipper and hemline split."  This is what it's intended to look like, and here's the tech drawing too:

The pattern isn't recommended for stretch fabrics but obviously I've made it in a stretch woven and I think it's perfectly fine - my fabric and fit choices did impact the sizing though, as I ended up taking the side seams in by one to two sizes (down to about a 10 or 12 from the 14 I cut out). This does make for a very fitted dress, which you probably wouldn't want if the fabric weren't a stretch, but in such a non-drapey fabric the dress just looked too big in my usual size.

I have to say I think the dress would look very different in, say, a thin, drapey silk - I doubt there'd be as much shoulder enhancement, and you'd want the dress to fall in folds and drapes rather than cling! You can see the dress made from this pattern by Adrienne in a poly blend over here - and she also shows you a very similar dress sold by Saint Laurent :).


I really like the way this dress has turned out, but if you're thinking of making the pattern, I have a couple of cautions...

The back split is kind of high, and it's finished in the "Easy" way. I folded mine differently so there's some overlap between the two sides, and stitched down the top of the fold as you would the split in a denim skirt, say. This just strengthens the split a bit, and reduces the likelihood of the split travelling up any higher under stress. 

And the side view can give you a lot of side bra... You could obviously wear a tank top or a slip underneath - or just a regular bra that you're prepared to share with friends and passersby.  My daughter says, "what's so rude about seeing underwear?" but I'm still undecided on that one... 

Along with that side bra issue, also comes the fact that the inside of your fabric and sleeve facing are going to be visible. I just serged the edge of my sleeve facings before top stitching, but if I'd thought this through better I would have turned them under and pressed them before top stitching. And my fabric is a plain white on the wrong side - the floral is just a print, not woven into the fabric. I think if I make this again I'll fully line the bodice with something that complements the outer fabric, and I'll skip the sleeve facings entirely. 

I should mention the fit of this dress too!

When I sew dresses, I tend to sew shoulder seams, then attach skirt pieces to front and back, and then baste the side seams and centre back to check the fit. This dress shape looks very simple, but the bodice fit didn't work for me straight out of the envelope. Initially I had a lot of excess fabric above and to the sides of my bust; this might have been alright in a drapey fabric but just looked like poor fit in this stretch cotton. I'm sure this is an unorthodox approach, but to remove the excess fabric I decided I needed to create more tension between waist and shoulder. Originally the shoulder line was quite curved; I altered this to a straight line from neckline (where the length to my waist seemed OK) to the start of the sleeve facings.

This unusual alteration seemed to take me down a couple of sizes over the bust as it reduced the distance from shoulder to waist (ie if you have a small bust, you need a smaller length of fabric to go from shoulder to waist) - you wouldn't need to do this if you had either strong shoulders or a larger bust.  I also had to take the bodice in a couple of sizes at the (very short) side bodice seams.  Based on this experience, I'd recommend not cutting out the sleeve facings (if you want to use facings rather than lining) until you've got the fit worked out. Hmm - isn't that what muslins are for?

And I should mention the metrage and dress length, right?

Vogue says you'll need 1.8 m of 150 cm wide fabric or 2.7 m of 115 cm wide fabric for a size 14 (the size I originally cut) in the longer version, view B, of this dress - assuming direction or nap aren't considerations.  I only had 1.6 metres of 130 cm wide fabric, and I really wanted the longer, midi length dress rather than the knee length (view A) version, but I found I had enough fabric to add about 5 cm to the dress length IF I cut my sleeve facings from a coordinating stretch cotton - I think this would have ended up only just below knee length otherwise at the standard longer length, and FYI I'm around 5'8".  To try to maximise the length and minimise hem bulk I then also used a stretch lace to bind the hem, hand stitched in place:

The pattern recommends using a regular zip with a hook and eye, but I just used an invisible zip - I love invisible zips, and I don't tend to get any strain at the top of dress zips. I got the seams nicely aligned, but as you can see I didn't even attempt any print matching - there was no fabric to spare for print matching!

 

My conclusion is that this is a simple but lovely silhouette, and one that to me is reminiscent of both 30s and some 60s dress shapes. It's definitely not an everyday dress - I won't be hanging out in it on weekends, but maybe it'll work for a party or frocktails,  I really like pretending to have bigger shoulders, and the wiggle factor is fun :)

Thanks for reading, and see you soon!

- Gabrielle xx

Pastel Pink with Flare (Butterick 5650)

Earlier this year I came across a compelling image in a fashion magazine. A pale pink, flared midi skirt, paired with a boxy pale pink oversized jumper.  It looked terrific - a modern take on the 50s skirt shape - but I can't for the life of me find that image now.

I made this skirt to try to copy that image, and the shape, colour and drape of the skirt fabric are exactly what I was trying for.  The length is perhaps a smidge too short, but I'll live with it. And I've now also made a pale pink jumper to go with the skirt, totally copying fashion!! I'll have to take photos soon of the jumper - it's ended up more fitted than I expected, but I'm still happy with the result. Amanda of Bimble and Pimble's November sewing questions on Instagram (look for #bpsewvember if you're curious) have got me thinking it might be interesting to show you how my inspiration translates into sewn garments? I'll have another go at finding that inspiration photo to share with you so you can judge for yourself how near or close I was to the mark :).

OK, so back to this post - back to my pale pink stretch cotton, flared midi skirt.

Earlier this year I made the same view (view A) from this pattern, Butterick 5650, in chambray with a silver stripe down the centre (you can read about it here), and I am still loving that skirt shape and length, and yearning to have more in my wardrobe.  But last time around I moved the grainline around to make the seams I was adding easier to sew. PLUS the silver stripe turned out to be not quite on the straight grain, Second time around I committed to stick to the rules.

UpSewLate: Butterick 5650 front view

UpSewLate: Butterick 5650, another front view just because I love this skirt

The fabric grain obviously affect the way the skirt hangs, so this time around I followed the grainline recommendations, and I put seams exactly where I was told to.

I am really glad to see that I did what I said I'd do ("Version 2 is going to be by the book"). The final result is much better, although there are still some annoying excess folds radiating from the top of CB when I wear this, which I don't believe are intended to be there. Is this to do with my being so short waisted? Is it a sway back issue? Is it just the pattern?

Answers on the back of an envelope can be addressed to PO Box 999 in your capital city, or simply comment in the box below :).

 UpSewLate: Butterick 5650, back view

My pattern was already cut out in a size 14 (thank you previous owner, and thank you for donating this pattern to the second hand shop), and I added 2cm in total at the waist, tapering out to nothing by the hemline. As with my last version, the skirt feels quite fitted at the waist - it IS a loose-fitting flared skirt as described on the pattern envelope, but of course even a loose-fitting skirt needs to be fitted at the waist or hips so as to stay up!

UpSewLate: Butterick 5650 side view

UpSewLate: Butterick 5650 side view with dodgy posture to make the front hem dip :)

The fabric is a medium weight stretch cotton, which I bought from Tessuti Fabrics in Surry Hills at the start of the year.  If I remember correctly it was on sale and something like $10 a metre - and I think I bought about 2 metres. 

UpSewLate: Butterick 5650 - how much flare, you ask? 

The stretch cotton has proved to be an absolute delight to cut and sew... it was firm enough that it was a pleasure to sew, my overlocker loved it, and the resulting skirt is nicely fitted around my waist and hips with some give (streeeetch) in case of a big lunch.

UpSewLate: my overlocker loved this stretch cotton

I had a limited amount fabric that I was determined to make this skirt from, only just enough to cut the skirt from at the regular (view A) length, so that's the length I made it. In fact this length is not quite right for me - I'm taller than average at about 1.73 metres, and my extra length is in my legs, so this standard length of skirt ends on my calves instead of mid-way down my shins as it's supposed to. There's a lesson for me - measure the lengths, not just the widths! 

UpSewLate: Butterick 5650 is fitted at the waist 

Hmm what else is there to tell you? I didn't make many pattern adjustments: 

• let out the waist, tapering back to a size 14 at the hem
• swapped out the regular zip for an invisible zip
• left out the pockets as I didn't want extra bulk on my hips 

UpSewLate: close up of invisible zip, and waistband hand stitching in Butterick 5650

Next up I'll show you the boxy hibiscus print top I was planning to wear with this skirt - but it turns out too that a boxy waist-length top with a flared skirt is not necessarily the best look if you have a thick waist! 

Have a great week, and see you soon

- Gabrielle xx