Ready to Wear

If the weather happens to warm up, I have a new summer dress:

I don't remember when I started sewing this dress. Sometime since 2015 when we moved here, I cut out this dress and sewed some of it together. I used a machine I bought in Dec 2018 for the decorative top-stitching (which isn't really visible in the photos), but I don't know if I used that machine for all of it.

It doesn't really matter, I guess. The point is that now it is finished!

It is a better fit on me than on the dressmakers dummy. Her curves are not in the same place as mine.

Now we just need some summer dress weather:

 Not in the next 6 days, it seems.

 

Lily Three

Finished my third instance of the Tessuti Lily dress today:

Previous versions: Lily One and Lily Two. Version three has the same pockets and sleeve variation as version two, but is a bit longer.

Lily II Finished

In time for the warm weather forecast to return this week, my second Lily dress is finished:

I left the hem tucks off because I used narrower fabric, which meant the whole dress is narrower at the hem. Compare this with my original version here.

Instead of hem tucks, I put them on the shoulders

and matching ones on the pockets.

I'm ready for some more hot weather.

Looking For Some Warmth

I was meant to go to an early Christmas gathering this afternoon, but my cough is still sounding disgusting, and I didn't think anyone would want it for company. So I stayed home alone and finished the Tessuti Lily dress.

It should be comfortable on hot days, as it is a linen/cotton blend. And maybe some warm weather will help me get over this lurgy!

I think I like the look of the dress on. I had to make a lot of adjustments to the pattern to make it fit me and to make myself happy with how it looked. I've already mentioned the changes I made to the shoulder area. I had to place the pockets a good 5cm lower than marked on the pattern. Interestingly I made no change to the length of the sleeve, but it is much longer than the sleeve in Tessuti's pictures. If I make this again I might shorten the sleeve a little.
Close-up of the unusual pocket treatment:

I'd definitely do the pocket differently in a second iteration. But I thought I should make it according to the pattern this time to see what it looked like.
What happens when the wind blows:

Looks a bit like a tent...

I also made the dress longer than the pattern, by 4cm. The pattern came to just below my knee, but this dress is meant to be longer than that. Even with the extra length, this is not as long on me as the picture on the pattern. However, even if I hadn't lengthened the dress, I would have needed 30cm more fabric than was specified.

I moved the pleats at the hem in by about 20cm, as the front and back pleats were too close together when I put them where the pattern said.

The last adjustment was needed to make the hem level. I had to trim off about 1.5cm from the centre back and front, tapering off to nothing at about 30cm from the centre. This was necessary because the hem dipped down too much.

So, overall, I'm happy with the dress, but the pattern has a few issues.

Proof

Here's proof I finished my dress yesterday - I wore it to work today!

Photo taken in bathroom mirror at work. Sorry about the grainy, out-of-focus nature of it, but if I'd used the flash you wouldn't have seen anything! Apologies too for the lack of a smile, but the shot where I remembered to smile was even more out of focus than this one!

In Which I Meet A Famous Person

A Dress A Day is one of the first blogs I ever read. Erin McKean is an entertaining writer. She's in Melbourne at the moment:

She signed a copy of her novel for me:

All Together

The hem is still to do, and there is a little internal finishing to go, but at least it's in one piece now:

Still not quite sure how I feel about it...

After the Cool Change Arrived

My dress is taking shape.  Once the temperature dropped I ventured into the sewing room and started on the collar.

The dress is now in four pieces; the main bit, the collar, and the two sleeves. However, there are seven buttons to sew on, so perhaps it's really in 11 pieces. Does anyone else count down the pieces when sewing?

Sewing Again

Cut out and started sewing a dress from May 2010 Burda. I'm using some very unusual cotton sateeen fabric which came from the Mornington Antique Centre (should have been called junk centre, really, but it's a shame it's gone). This dress will either be so wacky that I love it, or so wacky that I never wear it outside the house.

Only got the sleeves made before my brain stopped working and I had to step away from the sewing machine before I wrecked something.

Optimism

Is it too optimistic to spend time on the last day of winter working on a summer dress?

Outside the wind felt freezing, so it was good to stay inside and play with fabric and irons and sewing machines.