dress Archives - Page 4 of 8

Lucinda March 6, 2013

Faux Missoni Dress

Pattern: combo of Renfrew by Sewaholic and Vogue 8138 (OOP)
Fabric: sweater knit from Fabric Place Basement

Leggings: DKNY
Boots: Franco Sarto

I don’t own anything designer. Probably the closest designer items I own are a Michael Michael Kors blazer and a Marc by Marc Jacobs iPhone cover. I love looking at designer clothes for inspiration, like the Calvin Klein top I used last year, or even going into Nordstrom and inspecting the inside of garments for construction details and ideas. As I was snooping around my favorite local fabric store, this fabric jumped out at me. It makes me think of the Italian fashion house Missoni, know for their famous zig-zag and geometric knitwear. So, in a sense, the fabric inspired me to make a dress styled like the Missoni dresses I’ve seen in Neiman Marcus, but for a fraction of the $1,000 price they usually retail for (seriously, I made this for under $30).

Knowing I wanted a simple silhouette, like many Missoni dresses, I looked in my stash to see if I had a simple knit dress pattern, but everything I pulled out had some kind of styling to it that wouldn’t lend itself well to this funky print. You know where this is going…

Oh good old Renfrew, how I love you. I took the top of the Renfew pattern and the bottom of my Vogue dress pattern and combined them together at the waist, grading seams where necessary. I had some tweaking to do at the sides to make it a bit more fitted than my Renfrew tops, attached the long sleeves, and hemmed the dress to a shorter length that I’ll be ok wearing in warmer weather, sans leggings. I’m thinking that these colors will make my faux Missoni dress a great transitional garment when the weather decides to get a little warmer.

While I may not have used real Missoni knit fabric for this dress, like Sarah’s version, I still feel like this dress is special and fun to wear. I’m looking forward to getting lots of wear out of this in the coming months!

Where do you look for sewing inspiration?

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Lucinda December 10, 2012

Pattern Review: Vogue 8825 [Christmas Dress]

Pattern: Vogue 8825, view B
Fabric: Jersey ITY from Metro Textiles, NYC
Size: 10 graded into a 12

Boots: Bandolino

I’m sure I’m not the only sewer that’s bought fabric intending to use it for another purpose. Take this knit jersey, for example, that I bought back in May – I saw it and instantly thought, “long maxi dress for a wedding this summer.” Instead, this is the dress I wore to that wedding, and the jersey ended up sitting on a shelf in my closet. Sometimes the original design intention is just not meant to be, which was definitely the case when I flipped through a pattern book at Joann Fabrics and discovered Vogue 8825. I needed a “festive” dress for my coworker’s Christmas party, I loved the retro feel of the pattern, and I had this funky red and black fabric begging to be made into something fun. Presto!

Plus, it’s not like I’d get much wear out of a maxi dress in New England…the summers are way too short.

The Pattern

Even though Vogue calls this a “Very Easy Very Vogue” pattern, I believe I’ve sewn patterns other than this one that deserve that title. Yes, it’s not complicated, but I wouldn’t recommend this pattern to someone sewing a knit dress for the first time, which is how I view “Very Easy Very Vogue” patterns to be classified.

It was also the line drawing, not the photo of the dress, that caught my eye in the pattern book – I think that really speaks for something…

After cutting out the pattern, which consists of eight pieces, it went together fairly quickly. The neck facing is built in to the bodice pattern piece and connects to a back neck band – pretty great pattern drafting, if you ask me. I think I only referred to the directions when I attached the sleeves to the bodice.

The raglan sleeve is actually a two-piece sleeve, which gives the sleeve the fullness necessary to create the gathered puffiness at the cuff. The barrel cuff could have been a little smaller in circumference, I found that while wearing the dress the sleeves kept slipping down over my hands. If the barrel was tighter, it would stay up better and create a more poofy sleeve – my biggest disappointment of the pattern. Don’t get me wrong, I love how it turned out, but I really wanted that dramatic sleeve flounce shown in the pattern illustration. I definitely want to make the tunic version of this pattern and will draft my own barrel cuff for the next go-round – probably out of a solid colored jersey.

There’s also some shaping to the dress as well, it’s not just a dress shaped by a sash like some other simple knit dresses – the back bodice and skirt pieces have waist darts. The sash is super duper long so it can be wrapped around obi-style and tie either in the front or back, depending on your preference, which I love. It keeps the surplice style of the bodice in check as well and prevents it from gaping open, something I was very concerned about with this style of dress.

Also, I took the hem of the dress up about four inches so the proportions of the dress would work well with the boots I intended to wear.

The Fabric

I’ll be honest – it’s the fabric that’s doing all the work and really makes this dress. I love that the giant paisley paired with the dramatic sleeve give it a retro-cool vibe, hence my cheesy pose above! I was a little worried that with so many pattern pieces, the print would be broken up and not work well, hence the reason I originally thought of using this fabric for a maxi dress. But really, this print is so crazy that it didn’t even matter. I’m really glad that I bought the three yards of fabric that I thought I needed for that maxi dress, otherwise this dress would never have happened. I’ll be getting more wear out of this dress for sure this winter, even though it’s quite bold and loud.

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Lucinda December 2, 2012

Saturday Stitching and Crafting

This morning I realized that I have exactly one week to whip up my dress for the Christmas party next Saturday. Eeek! Needless to say, everything today was about the holidays – cutting out the fabric for the party dress, making wreaths, and decorating in general.

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Lucinda October 31, 2012

Happy Halloween! Pattern Review: Simplicity 2054 [Grim Reaper]

Pattern: Simplicity 2054 (View A)
Fabric: poly knit from Joann Fabrics
Size: 10/12

Tights: iParty
Boots: Michael Kors

No, this isn’t my zombie Halloween costume I’ve been working on, but instead a costume to wear to work today (you know, zombies aren’t a work-place friendly costume. Blood and everything). After seeing Sarah’s Grim Reaper costume, it seemed like a quick and easy idea to whip up. The most challenging part was getting the makeup right. Sadly, I didn’t make any little children scared today but I did get some gasps and double takes from customers.

As far as sewing the pattern goes, the only part I needed the instructions for was the construction of the cowl scarf. Other than that, it’s a simple straight up-and-down long sleeve knit dress. If I was to make this again (out of a cozy sweater knit or something), I’d do a complete size 10 instead of a 10 graded into a 12 – it was little baggy and I like my knit dresses fitted. A belt I had in my closet was an easy solution.

The cowl also double as a fabulous hood.

What are your Halloween plans? Did you get rained/blown away by Sandy and have parties later this week? My Halloween party is Saturday night, so I’ll definitely post pictures next week of my real costume, complete with a “zombie survivor” boyfriend that I’ll try to attack all night long.

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Lucinda October 16, 2012

Pattern Review: Vogue 1250 [Feather Dress]

Pattern: Vogue 1250 (DKNY)
Fabric: Knit jersey from Metro Textiles, NYC
Size: 10 bodice, 12 skirt

Boots: Nine West

A couple of weekends ago, I attended a birthday party at Finale in Harvard Square, a fab-oo-lous dessert place that I’d been dying to go to since I watched an episode of Phantom Gourmet featuring the restaurant. That morning, I got the idea in my head that I absolutely HAD to whip up a dress to wear out to dinner that night…you’ve had those crazy moments, right? And considering that the weather was unusually warm for October, we’re talking around the 78 degree mark, it was even more of an excuse to make something for the party. This pattern has been in my back pocket for awhile now and it was the perfect dress pattern for the few hours of time I had before I needed to get ready for the party.

The Pattern

At only three pattern pieces, and one of them is the neck binding, you really can’t complain about sewing this dress together. There’s only a center back seam for the skirt, a seam connecting the skirt to the back bodice, a partial side seam on each side of the dress, and the shoulder seams. That’s it! I think the most time-consuming part of the whole pattern was marking and stitching the pleats together and tacking down part of the neckline facing to the shoulder seams. You can kind of see the back seams in the photo below:

It was slightly tricky trying to figure out how to grade the pattern into two different sizes since there are virtually no side seams – the bodice front and skirt are entirely one piece with the skirt wrapping around and joining in the back. I cut a size 10 for the bodice and switched to a 12 for the skirt segments, with a little bit of grading in-between the two pattern sections. I probably could have cut a size 8 for the bodice and a 10 for the skirt, but it’s nice that this dress is a little roomy and not so fitted – it worked out well when the dessert menu came around after dinner that night!

My only gripe is the neckline. This baby is super wide and super low, which is evident by the model on the envelope. The night I went out I wore a long cardigan over it and was conscious of observing that my neckline wasn’t flopping around or that I wasn’t bending down or leaning forward too much. I really need to wear a cami with this dress, which is fine since I made it to wear primarily during fall and an extra layer won’t hurt. The facing is very fiddly and the raw edge flips out too easily, something else I have to watch when wearing this dress. I’ve never had to deal with a facing doing that on a dress like this before. But the draping the neckline creates gives the illusion of curves I don’t have. Score!

There’s a reason why there’s over 90 reviews on Patternreview.com for this dress – it’s a universally flattering pattern that delivers great results considering how simple it is to construct. I love that I can dress this up or down depending on how I accessorize it and it can be layered easily for the changing fall temperatures. I just may have to make another one of these next year when the spring weather returns.