Simple stripes...

... with a little twist. 
I can't believe I didn't get round to blogging about this all week! E took these pictures a full week ago. However, I've been busy and I have had a cold so I'm not going to blame myself.
This is The first thing I wanted to show you (I'll write a separate blog post about the skirt later this week):

A simple long sleeve t-shirt made from the red-and-white striped fabric I used before. 
In that first top, I got creative with unusual pattern shapes and the direction of the stripes. This one is much more normal. A simple, fairly close-fitting top with raglan sleeves. And matched stripes, of course.

It's only with those sleeves that I tried to be a little bit clever: Along the raglan seams, the sleeves are gathered a bit and I have used some satin-edge lingerie elastic as piping on those seams.

Fellow pattern makers may know that if you take a normal sloper with a set-in sleeve and make that into raglan sleeve, you end up with a dart where the shoulder seam was. You can sew that dart or eliminate it in the way which is usually used for sportswear, essentially taking away the sleeve head and bringing the sleeve up to almost a right angle to the bodice. Here, I have slashed the raglan pieces and folded the dart closed, creating room for those gathers. I could have added extra length to make the effect more pronounced but I only added a little bit. 

It may not be the most exciting top but I think it will serve me well. 

Stripes, stripes, stripes

Slowly, my casual liking of striped fabric is growing towards full-on obsession... Two of my favorite garments from last summer were were made from striped jersey (that dress with the multicolour stripes and, earlier in the season, the not-so-normal t-shirt). Woven fabrics will always be my first love though... If I pass a fabric store/stall I'll always look at the striped fabric. Super synthetic stuff is out of the question, obviously. And I prefer stripes which are woven, or knit, in rather than printed but I can't turn down a printed stripe when it's going cheap...

All of this doesn't mean all stripe-y fabrics get sewn up as quickly as I can buy them. I've made a few but there is more fabric waiting for me.
This one is from two years ago: 

There was an earlier, much more obviously stripe-y dress. This one: 

I still love the design but those armholes are a bit uncomfortable nowadays. 

When I was planning that dress two years ago, I also had another dress in mind, paired with another fabric I already had.
This dress:

Which I though I could make from this fabric:

Almost immediately, I started second-guessing myself which is one reason why I didn't make the dress in the past two years. Some shades of orange look quite good on me. I found that out around the time that I bought that fabric and it has given me a bit of a love for the colour ever since. However... This particular shade of orange leans towards ochre yellow. A colour I like but really can't wear anywhere near my face. I can't tell how many times I have posed in front of the mirror with this stuff draped around me. 
the colour doesn't flatter me. It makes my skin looks kind of patchy and washed-out. And added to that is an issue with the stripes: They are fairly narrow and spaced in such a way that they are not that obvious. Like the fabric for that first dress, this one seems plain from a fairly small distance. Not great if I want to do some interesting things with the direction of the stripes.
It is nice cotton though, so I could always dye it. 
At the moment, I'm thinking about this dress again. I don't think I'll make the bodice quite like that, I'm thinking about a more standard and casual shirt-dress shape but that skirt still has its appeal.

Summer stripes!

Most of what can be said about this dress has already been said. In that first post, in which I discussed the design options and whether or not they were suitable for this particular fabric. And in the second one, in which I complained about the fabric.
All I can tell you is that the sewing didn't present any problems and made me feel a lot better about the dress.
This particular jersey is stable enough to be easy to handle. The order of construction was simple enough to plan and to execute (I usually plan how to 
sew something from the moment I start making the pattern).

All I really have to do now is show it off...

Some guesswork went into making this pattern. Educated guesses, based on the way an older dress fits now. And it really worked out! 

I am also really pleased with the way the skirt falls. It has only one seam, at center back. This means the front is on the straight grain and the sides and back curve to the bias (of course, as I mentioned before, grain doesn't quite work like that in a knit but it also kind of does and it makes for an easy term to discuss fabric behaviour). As a result, it falls down in a sleek shape at the front and has some flare at the back. Quite flattering, if I say so myself. 

All's well that ends well. I'm happy with this dress and in the end it became just the kind of pick-me-up project I needed. 

Progress... of a sort

So, I have made the pattern for that striped dress. I agreed with those of you who commented on my previous post and went with sketch number one. 

Making the pattern, based on my knit sloper, was really easy. The difficulty with this dress was always going to be found in cutting and sewing those stripes to match. 
And when I started on that cutting, I made an unwelcome discovery: No matter how much I tried, I couldn't manage to fold the fabric in such a way that the stripes matched. It even seemed like the same stripes weren't even similar in width across the entire width of the fabric...
Obviously, I gave up on folding the fabric. I decided to go with a single layer lay-out. Then, I realized that one of the selvedges was putting tension on the fabric. So, I cut it off. And then, I realized that there was yet another issue. An issue which is not uncommon for jersey fabrics but I had hoped this one wouldn't suffer from it: The selvedge was not at a square angle to the stripes at all. 
This is common because a lot of jersey is knitted in the round (which is much quicker and therefore cheaper than knitting flat). This means that there are no separate rows of knitting, just an almost endless spiral, which, in turn, makes all the stitches slightly slanted in the direction of the knitting process. Sometimes the resulting big tubes of fabric are sold like that but more often they are slit open and the cut edges are finished with something that kind of feels like glue.  That cutting isn't necessarily done with great care. The round knit fabric didn't really have a perfect straight grain (which is actually an incorrect term when it comes to knitted material) to start with and the rough cutting means you can be in serious trouble with fabric like that.
In this case, the selvedges didn't look like they had been cut. So, I thought it would be fine... No such luck. 
After messing with it yesterday, I decided to preserve my sanity and double the pattern pieces. So, today I had another go at it.

Much better!

This simple thing caused so much fuss that I almost felt like giving up on it. Now I'm glad I didn't. I just machine basted all the seams where the stripes have to match. Like most of the time, all is well as soon as I start sewing.

Simple stripe-y summer dress

Although I love all kinds of complicated well-constructed dresses, vintage style and otherwise, there is another style I can't really do without: The simple jersey dress. I've made several different versions over the years but I think it is time for some more. 
The first fabric I want to use for one of those is this dark brown jersey with stripes in different colours. I think it may be a blend of viscose and cotton and the fabric is nice and solid and has good recovery. So, no weird issues I have to compensate for. 

I have about 3 meters of this stuff and I wouldn't mind having enough left for a top. Because the scale of the stripes is fairly large, I think it would look best if I used it in large, fairly uninterrupted pieces. And I think I should pay close attention to which part of the stripe pattern I place where.
I have been thinking about it for a while and there are some features I know I want, and some I am still considering.
The one unusual detail I want in this dress has to do with the skirt: Obviously, I like to match obvious stripes like this but I am considering a long dress and long, straight skirts (the only ones which can be matched nicely at the side seams) don't really work for me. So, I think I will cut the front of the dress as one piece and attach the back skirt to it, following the waist-to-hip angle. I hope the fabric is wide enough.

For the top, I am considering different options. Cut-on cap sleeves, normal set-in ones or raglan. Plain back, back yoke and/or some kind of cut-out. Straight waist seam at the back or one which follows the stripes. 
The options are in the sketches but could also be mixed and matched. 

I actually love the idea of a back cut-out but every option which has one also leads to more piecing at the back. If my fabric had simple even stripes in just two colours, I think I could make that work really well. But this is a colourful, busy kind of striped fabric and that makes me think I should keep things simple. With that in mind, I am drawn towards the first sketch. I'm still not sure about the sleeve choice though. The cap sleeve is nice but I also like the t-shirt effect you get with the set-in sleeve...
What do you think?  

Getting creative with stripes

Cotton jersey with stripes... Gotta love it! 
I was given about 4 meters of this fabric as a thank-you for helping with the fashion show at the high school where designer friend M teaches (I'm the person who comes in during the last few lessons before the show to make sure that everything gets finished). They had a whole pile of fabric and notions I could choose from but most were really synthetic and/or stuff I never use anyway. So, I managed to summon some self-control and didn't take more than this to add to my already bulging stash. 

I really like sewing with stripes. Knitted and woven ones. There's just so much interesting stuff you can only really do with a striped fabric! 
Oh, and there are loads of good classic looks which use striped fabric without trying to be clever. In fact, I have a small piece of reddish and dark blue striped jersey in my stash which I have been afraid to cut into because I have too many ideas for it... At least with this stuff, I have enough to test out the different basics and have some pattern-nerdy fun.

This top, my first creation in this fabric, is of the last variety. 

I wanted to make a design which would really showcase those stripes and that made me realize how many things like that I have already done. 
A simple top with the stripes meeting in a chevron shape? So simple and more suitable for a woven fabric. A twist top? Done that. Twice. 
No, I wanted something a bit more experimental, something which would be ALL ABOUT those stripes. And then I thought of some part free form tops I had experimented with way back in 2010. 

The first one started with my idea to make a kind of t-shirt using a popular super-simple shrug pattern for the back and sleeves. The original post is here but it doesn't show the shape that well.

It looked like this. Only with a bit of gathering at center back but I don't like drawing gathers in Illustrator.
It was a fun design but there were some wearability issues. Like just how far the top pulled up with just about any arm movement. I wore it anyway but I also continued with the experimentation. The new-and-improved version abandoned the simple pattern piece shapes to create a top with a more defined version of the same silhouette. That top is here and I even wrote a pattern tutorial for it here. I still have that one. 

This time, I decided to go back to that first design and alter it to suit my stripe-y fabric. Fortunately, my original pattern had survived the two pattern clear-outs I had in the years in between. 
There are more angles in this new design. I kept the original shoulder line of the front bodice sloper and simply sewed the rectangle of the upper back/sleeves around it. I didn't keep the original side edges of the front bodice but brought those a bit to the front. With a square corner at the waistline. For freedom of movement, I cut the back/sleeves with some extra length and made the sleeve openings not on the sleeve seam but by folding and sewing the sleeves and then cutting their corners to create openings. Oh, and I cut the lower back in one with the front bodice. Just to make sure there would be interesting things going on with those stripes everywhere in this top. 

Of course, this top is not quite as easy to wear as a normal t-shirt either. And there is at least one feature I'm not 100% sure about (which you can only see when it is worn) but I really enjoyed doing this kind of random fun-with-patterns kind of thing again. 
I will ask E to take some pictures of me wearing this (and maybe even some next thing too) in the coming weekend, so you'll be able see how it works on a person. 

Choices, choices...

In fact, my 1930's dress is finally finished. It isn't perfect at all but it's better than it was and to be honest, I'm tired of fussing with it. Now, I just have to take proper pictures of it.

In the mean time, I'm considering other things. I still have some black stretch cotton in my stash which could make a nice tapered pencil skirt. And how about a pair of culottes or a cute 1950's blouse (to wear with the skirt and culottes ;) ). Separates are nice and practical... but dresses tend to claim center stage!

I'm loving my 1966 dress so that has opened up a whole new genre of dresses for me. It won't surprise you that I'm eyeing up other options from my 1960's Marion magazines now.

In fact, I have already traced the pattern for the dress on the left. It's very simple: Just two pattern pieces and facings. I haven't found any trim but there are other options: Interesting fabric, added design details. I wanted to use purple linen first but I think I will try black cotton with big red flowers first.

And then, there are my usual 1950's options...
I've said I was going to make this dress for two years now:

I guess I should get started on it before summer is over. I have a great fabric: narrow orange and white stripes, but I'm not 100% sure. Will I be able to make the stripes on the bodice look so perfectly horizontal? Where did they hide the darts? And should I really make another shirt dress? 
I love shirt dresses so that shouldn't be a problem...

And yet, there are other lovely examples of striped dresses. Some simple, some complicated. Some shirt dresses, some other options. Some which would require the use of big, clear stripes, others which would look great in my fabric...

I don't know yet. There is yet another 1950's dress I'm thinking about too... 

Tiers and stripes

With spring on its way, I just can't help but think about sewing pretty dresses.

These are two 1950's designs I really like. Two designs from different sources which have some things in common.

I've shown you this one before. It was published in the French Elle magazine in the spring of 1955. I think it's great with the unusual skirt design and the clever use of the striped fabric.

This is the other one. From the Dutch magazine Libelle, from the summer of 1956. Isn't that a brilliant skirt?

Both these striped dresses show very original variations of tiered skirts. Versions which should not be too difficult to replicate but still look fresh, original and unexpected.

I'm normally not a particular fan of tiered skirts but I would love either or both of these.

In fact, I consider making one of them my next project.

I don't really have the perfect fabrics in stash but I have options.

Last year, after I saw that first dress for the first time, I bought the orange striped cotton. The size of the stripe should work well for a design like this and the hand is fairly crisp which is necessary for those pleats. I'm not entirely sure about the colour on me though.

The other design looks like it's made for a stripe as well. A bold black-and-white one. Colour might make the end result too cute. I don't have a boldly fabric but I have this finely striped stuff. This cotton is a bit thicker and has a bit more drape. Which is fine for this design. 

However, this is such a fine stripe that the fabric would look plain from a short distance. Which might be rather a waste of those cool spaced gathered bits.

Of course, there is always the option of looking for new fabric but I am still trying to sew from stash as much as possible.

What do you think? Which dress would you like to see, and do you think this fabric is right for it?

Retro stripes!

My striped dress is finished! And just in time too, because next week's weather forecast is about sun and sun.
In fact, it's a rather simple dress: Bodice fitted to the waist, big gathered skirt with wide hem. Invisible zipper at the side, faced neckline. Slightly elongated shoulder/cut-on cap sleeve (a detail copied from the Marion dress). Four darts at the back, center front seam with front darts from there.

The real attraction is all in the placement of those stripes. 
The fabric is a thin, fairly loosely woven cotton with red and dark blue/black stripes of various widths woven in. It's pretty ideal for a hot-weather-dress: thin enough to be cool and light to wear but just heavy enough not to be see-through. And, as I wrote before, if I tire of the bright colour, I can always dye the dress without having to worry about the topstitched hems. For now, I like it though.

Here's the back. You can see how carefully I stitched those back darts: they're not even visible in the picture. Normally, I use two wide back darts on a bodice with a waist seam but here I thought making four would allow me to make those horizontal stripes look uninterrupted.

There are no pockets (yet). In my vintage fashion magazines, dresses like this one usually have patch pockets with the stripes running in a different direction. I thought about that but was afraid that might make the whole a bit too costume-y. And I could always add them later. Or make patch pockets with the stripes matching those of the skirt, or in-seam pockets...

Again, E was willing to take the pictures. In fact, he was so enthousiastic, he got started before I was quite ready...  

P.S. - Yes, that little balcony is the largest outdoor space belonging to our appartment.
- And yes, that corner of my work room near the door is a mess.
- No, I don't usually sun-bathe on that table. It was their already and adding a chair would have made the balcony too full for pictures. (in fact, I'm not big on sun-bathing anyway. I get sun-burnt so easily)
- No, it's not all my hair. Well, the hair is, but I bought a ... eh... thing which fills up most of that bun. It makes it surprisingly light and easy to wear. Strangely, it's much more comfortable than a normal up-do. And I enjoy the look.
- I made that belt last year. You can see it in detail here. So far, I didn't wear it often but it matches this dress perfectly.