My unusual top

If you follow this blog regularly you have probably noticed that I love the navy colour and fabrics with kittens, stripes and flowers. I raaaaarely sew anything else but once in a while I'm attracted to a different print, usually something strange and in the home department of the store. I always call the garments I make from these unusual fabrics my ugly ducklings because even though they started differently in the end they fit well with the rest of my wardrobe :)
Today's top is the perfect illustration of this theory:




The fabric's from Ikea's children home section with black and pastel geometric patterns, writings and numbers on an off-white background. I fell in love with it the second I saw it even though I have no idea why since it's so far from what I normally like^^. Then there's the design, I used New Look 6808 which is a favourite but I changed the collar to a peter pan one and the thing is I don't usually like this type of collar on me yet I think it works quite well here!
BTW I can't remember if I wrote this before but I removed 1" horizontally on the front and back upper bodice above the bust to get rid of some fabric sagging and I lowered the armhole bottom edge to make up for the lost inches in case you'd have the same fit problem.
To sum up I ended adoring this top and I wear it at least once a week so it will certainly show up a lot for MMM 2012! See ya!

Guess what? More dresses!

So I solved the problem with the infamous birdy dress and to celebrate the fact that I'm literally drowning in dresses I made another one! It's a wrap dress from the same ol' Burda bodice and the fabric is a light polycotton with nice yellow tones. It's really grown on me since said fabric had been lying next to the shop's door for years without my looking at it until I dreamt of it a few weeks ago and went straight to buy it on the next day^^. I'm not completely sold on the design, I thought that since the bodice part is quite fitted with its slimming darts I would avoid the your-body's-quite-the-block-isn't-it effect but the fabric does bunch a little around my -ahem- waist :( On the bright side it has a totally cute 60's vibe and it's really pleasant to wear since it's so light.




The other dress I wanted to show you is a wax variation of my mum's favourite pattern: I only added a sweetheart detail on the front and a contrasting fabric belt. I think she was quite pleased and I must say I'm quite proud of the result :)




Have a nice week, see you!

Birdy dress

Humpf, I'm a bit upset sewing speaking. See, today I got to wear the latest version of my Burda bodice dress and it was supposed to be great: this time I drew a heart shaped yoke at the front, I cut the back panels so that I could use contrasting fabrics and I added sleeves from a vintage pattern, as for the skirt I made big inverted pleats instead of gathers. I used super cool blue batik and black cotton, of course I washed my fabrics first and everything was going well, the fit was fine, I could actually breathe in my dress, until I washed the finished object. It shrinked! I lost all the ease from the bodice and though I can still wear it it's really small and you can see the zipper at the back because the fabric is pulling like crazy -whyyyyyyyy!!!
I've had a look at the seams and I may manage to win back 1 or 2cm if I unpick the sides, but I can't do anything about the zipper seams because they're already very small since I didn't have much fabric to make the dress. I wonder if I can unpick part of the back darts or if it will spoil the garment. Meanwhile, here's the baby:

Birds in and out of cages!

The Horror

I so hope I can save my dress, I love it! Have a nice week, see you!