It’s a Coco Party!


coco party1


coco party2

Pattern: Coco by Tilly and the Buttons
Fabric: denim print ponte from Fabric Place Basement
Size: 3

Scarf: J Crew
Tights: Hue
Boots: Nine West

Today is the day, it’s a Coco Party around the world!  This is actually my second Coco dress – I’ve been too lazy to finish the hem on my first one, and this fabric was so perfect that I had to make another one in time for today.

What’s playing on my party playlist?  Happy by Pharrell Williams, because that’s how I feel wearing my Coco!


coco party4

This is just a fantastic, basic little dress pattern from Tilly, and I see so many of these in my future – this is a perfect transitional weather garment.  I couldn’t pass up this denim-like ponte fabric – some may have thought “jeggings” when looking it at, but I saw “chambray-esque knit dress” instead.  Think something like this cute shift dress, which I pinned to one of my outfit boards on Pinterest:





coco party3

I cut a straight straight size 3 and like the fit, but I may use 3/8″ seams instead of 5/8″ next time since the armholes go up into my armpits a bit.  Going up a size could be an option, but I don’t want a whole lot more ease – I think changing the seam allowances a bit would solve the problem.  I also added an inch onto the length of the dress and turned up the hem half an inch.  I plan on wearing this dress with leggings or tights this spring, but if I wanted to go bare legs, I think another inch would be necessary – it’ a little tricky bending over!


coco party5

I whipped up this whole dress on my serger in under an hour, and then used a twin needle on my hems and neckline.  It didn’t seem necessary to use fusible hem tape to stabilize the neck or hems since this fabric is pretty beefy as is.  And for a cute little detail, I sewed some silver buttons onto the shoulder seams for a nautical look.

This dress is absolutely cute and so easy to wear!  I love that it’s a great base pattern with endless customization options, and I see some others in my future – funnel neck, color blocking, striped.

Have you made a Coco yet?

Follow:

Pattern Review: Elisa-lotte Dress [By Hand London]


elisalotte 1

Pattern: Elisalex Dress and Charlotte Skirt combo from By Hand London
Fabric: stretch cotton from Metro Textiles
Size: Bodice – US 6; Skirt – US 8

Originally, I planned on making the new Georgia Dress by the BHL ladies for vacation, but I got a bad cold one week and it completely fouled up my vacation sewing plans.  I knew the Georgia Dress was going to require a bit of time to fit, and time wasn’t on my side, so instead I turned to a dress pattern I’ve been clinging to for awhile: the Elisalex Dress.  I knew the simple princess seam bodice would be easy to fit, and it was!


elisalotte 4

I cut out the lining first and used it for a test fit to see if I would need to make any fit adjustments.  At first, I thought the 6 would be fine since the bodice would hit above my waist.  When I pinned the bodice shut in the back, (do you know how hard that is to do on yourself??) I could tell I needed some more room and graded out the last two inches of the bodice to a size 8, which corresponded with the skirt that would attach.

The skirt attached perfectly to the bodice.  I didn’t bother moving the darts to align with the princess seams because of the busy print, but I would consider it if I used a solid fabric or smaller print.  What I found to be interesting about making the skirt this time, and I’ve made quite a few already, is that I had to take the sides in quite a bit!  I’m not sure if it had to do with the fact that the fabric I used had some stretch in it, but when I tried the dress on once it was sewn to the bodice, it wasn’t nearly as fitted as I wanted.  To get it to fit, I took off roughly the equivalent of the seam allowances.  Weird, huh?


elisalotte 3

Also reflecting back on the skirt, I think I should redraft the darts on subsequent garments – maybe take them in a little more.  The skirt is designed for a gal with more hips than me, so there’s a good amount of room in the pelvis that I should try to get rid of.  However, it is helpful for eating big meals, like the dinner I had wearing this dress at the Hard Rock Cafe!


elisalotte 2

The back is my favorite part!  The scoop adds a little bit of “back interest” to this somewhat demure sheath dress.  I made sure to understitch the neckline and underarm of the bodice to keep the lining from rolling out, instead of topstitching as the pattern suggests.


elisalotte 5

Obligatory high fashion pose!  You know how those models hunch and round their backs for those designer photo shoots, hahahaha.  Anyway, I feel so chic in this dress, and can’t wait to wear it more this spring and summer.

By Hand London gals, a big kiss from me to you!  Keep those fantastic patterns coming.

Follow:

Pattern Mash-Up: RenVogue Dress


renvogue1


renvogue2

Pattern: Renfrew bodice/Vogue 8663 skirt
Fabric: sweater knit from Joann Fabrics
Size: Renfrew – 2; Vogue – 8

Boots – Nine West

The idea for this pattern mash-up came from Sarah’s awesome SkaterFrew dress over at Katie and Laney – the Renfrew is a great pattern that I’ve made many many times (like most sewists in the sewing blogosphere!), and I loved the fit-and-flare style of Sarah’s dress.

I can be a bit of a lazy sewist – I’ve curbed some bad habits I used to have, but I like things to be as uncomplicated as possible when it comes to certain things in my sewing.  Take PDF patterns – ugh!  I hate the idea of printing them out, taping them together, cutting them out, and then still having to cut out my fabric!  Way too much work, but I make the exception with some patterns that are truly awesome or I know are well worth the effort (hello, Grainline Studio!)  So, the idea of going through hoops to print out and assemble the Lady Skater pattern when I had a perfectly fine flared dress pattern in my stash.


renvogue4


This dress is so comfy and easy to wear!  I wanted it to be a little more fitted than my other Renfrew tops, and I learned from another dress I made based off of the pattern that it would look better fitted.  But the best part is that because it’s a fit-and-flare, you can eat a big lunch and no one will know! (I did that the day I wore this dress and it was awesome)


renvogue5

It was a little tricky getting the skirt to match up to the waist, and I had to do some adjustments off of a mock-up I made first to get it just right.  Just a little grading magic and redrafting between the two patterns and the dress was all set – had this done in about half an hour.  The waist is slightly higher than I would have liked (I wanted it more at the natural waist), but ah, live and learn.


renvogue6

Back view – the waist line is a teensy bit lower than in the front, oh well! 

Hemming this dress was a biotch, there was no way I could do it by myself – knit fabric on the bias?  Yuck.  I actually had to bring it home with me during Christmas vacation so my mom could help pin up the hem while I wore it.  It totally sold me on the fact that I need to get one of those nice dress forms Gertie posted about a few weeks ago… 


renvogue3

I ended up catch-stitching the hem by hand since there was a bit of easing that needed to be done with the skirt hem.  After some vigorous steam with my iron, you could even see the tiny hem stitches (because, you know: “it’ll steam out”).

I love this dress!  It’s perfect for wearing with boots and is great for cold snowy days, which seem to  be happening even more frequently every week in the Northeast.

Is it spring yet???

Follow:

Pattern Review: McCall’s 6752 [Stripey Sundress]


mccalls6752_1


mccalls6752 2

Pattern: McCall’s 6752, view D
Fabric: gifty from my Spring Sewing Swap partner Sue 
Size: 8 graded to a 10 at the hips

Sandals: Nine West (old)
Crossbody: Michael Kors
Sunnies: Tommy Hilfiger

I only made this dress a little less than a month ago, but I’ve worn it a bunch of times already.  It’s so easy to wear!  I knew with a fabric this funky, I wanted to sew a dress that had simple design lines that would show off the multi-directional nature of the print.  And since the surplice style of the bodice is cut on the bias, it made the stripe direction even crazier.  Love this dress!

I read a review somewhere online about how the reviewer thought this was a ho-hum, yawn-inducing pattern.  Honestly, I think this is a case of you get out of it what you put into it: if you don’t use some kind of fun print, then yeah, you’re going to get a little bit of a snooze-fest dress.  But really, I would make this again out of a solid black or red knit.  It’s a great basic dress pattern that can be styled in many different ways- I actually wore it to a seminar last week with a cropped black blazer and peep-toe heels and felt professional but stylish.


mccalls6752 3

I was apprehensive about how this dress would fit, what with the low-cut neckline and a potential for gapeage.  Since I’ve been noticing a large amount of ease when sewing Big 3 knit patterns, I cut out an 8 for the bodice and 10 for the skirt instead of the usual 10 for the bodice/12 for the skirt I cut for patterns calling for woven fabrics.  It actually worked like a charm and didn’t need to be taken in any more to achieve the fit I like with knit garments.  Honestly, why would there be no negative ease with knits, or at least zero ease…


mccalls6752 5

Although I got the dress to fit, I still recommend to anyone who wants to make this dress to tack down the criss-cross neck.  It’s got to be almost impossible, because of the drape,  for this dress to not flap wide-open when wearing.  Also, if you’re thinking about skipping the elastic, you will end up with a drastically different-shaped dress.  Before I inserted the elastic I thought there was no way that this dress was going to fit me since I was swimming in the bodice.  After sewing in the elastic, I couldn’t believe how much the bodice changed!


mccalls6752 4

So yes, this is my new go-to, wear-everywhere summer dress.  I just wish that the fabric was holding up better since I lovelovelove the striped-ness and squealed out loud when Sue sent me this fabric.  Sadly, it’s starting to pill and the black is fading (I think the black is printed onto the white fabric).  I’m going to try and get as much wear out of this dress as I can!

Follow:

Finished Project: Floral Tiramisu


cake floral1


cake floral2

Pattern: Tiramisu by Cake Patterns
Fabric: Jersey from Metro Textiles in NYC
Size: this round, a 30D for the bodice

Finally, a finished garment!  Seriously, it’s been a month since I posted something?  Yuck!  I blame a) my schedule and Chris’ not matching up well and b) the weather being crappy when there’s an opportunity for him to photograph my garments.  I have at least two other projects that have been waiting for a month+ to be photographed, too!  According to the poll all of you lovely readers were kind enough to take, you like pattern reviews and finished projects on this lil’ blog, so let’s not mess with a good thing, hmm?

After heeding everyone’s advice (thank you!), I cut out a 30D for the bodice on Tiramisu Deux.  It made total sense to cut that size out; it looked like it equated the amount of fabric I removed from under the bust on my first Tira.


cake floral3

I think it worked out much better this time, although it seems to me that the waistband piece should come up higher underneath my bust a la an empire waist style (dude, I look like I have virtually no chest in all of these pics).  The funniest thing is that when I went to do the gathers and tried to match the notches of the bodice pieces to the waistband piece, it was apparent that the gathers weren’t necessary since it was making the bodice a smaller size than the waistband.  Hah!  One less step for me, which was good, since I was having a “stupid sewing” day and had to resew literally every seam at least twice – I kept making stupid mistakes.  Also, since I didn’t shorten the bodice pieces like I did the last go-round (aka hack the extra length of the bodice/neckband off), I needed to shorten the neckband by a significant amount – roughly an inch or so – to get the neckband piece to lie flat around the back of the neck.  There was some crazy floppage back there beforehand.


cake floral4

On the positive side, this dress got me out of my sewing funk.  I think for the past three weeks or so, everything I picked up to start sewing hasn’t really been jiving with me.  I didn’t really want to force the issue, so this past weekend I uncovered some fabric I totally forgot I bought last spring in New York, and it clicked in my head that this fabric would make a perfect Tira dress.  Problem solved!  Now I’ve got my “sewjo” back (pun definitely intended) and can’t wait to tackle some projects that I started but haven’t finished yet.

I’ll probably make this at least one more time…maybe even cut a different bodice size.  Possible a B or C instead?  For a knit, this pattern is designed with way too much ease and I think the fit could be even better.

Follow: