A touch of neon, in lace...

Hello, all, I hope you are having an enjoyable weekend. I was in Edinburgh for the long weekend, the main purpose of which was to attend a wedding yesterday. It was truly a beautiful day, and it was so lovely to see the sweetest couple tie their knot. 

We've just got back home now, and I couldn't wait to share my wedding guest outfit with you. 

You have probably guessed from just looking at the dress that it was another Mccalls 2401 make!! What I can say, whenever I lay my hands on some slightly stretchy material, that is the first pattern that pops into my head. It is perfect for so many occasions, and attending wedding is certainly one of them. 

The fabric is an interesting one. Fabricland described it as a jersey, which is completely true, but the lace is not a print, but an additional layer that's "glued" on top. I think the lace layer is less stretchy than the jersey itself, so it ended up being quite a stable fabric, but with a bit of give. My favourite type!

I loved the lace, and the colour -- kind of pink, kind of coral, but with a touch of neon to it. How very on trend? 

What a lovely spot to tie the knot! 

The best thing about using a tried and tested pattern is that you could "whip up" a dress in no time, as no additional effort is required to adjust the fit. I used my normal sewing machine, with a ball point needle, and despite the fabric being jersey, it sewed up in straight stitches without any issue, as the stretch goes from left to right (very handy!) and this pattern doesn't contain a vertical seam. There's not much more to say about the construction, but if you did want to refer to what adjustments I made to the original pattern, please click on the tag Mccalls 2401 below which will bring up my 3, yes 3, other versions. 

A photo of the bias facing for the neckline and armhole -- I really like the lace and stripes combination. You might be able to see what I mean with the fabric more, here.  

So that's it, the loyal little pattern strikes yet again, this time in an interesting fabric. How do you feel about neon colours? How "neon" would you go? I would love to hear from you.   

Giveaway winners

Hello! I hope this post finds you all very well. It's time to announce the winners of the giveaway:

The winners picked at random are:

• Melanie Robin from A Little Yorkshire Girl in a big craft world
• Elena from Tea for two

Congratulations ladies! Katy and Alex from AlexSwfit Designs will be in touch with you shortly.  

In the meantime, I hope you all have a lovely weekend.  

Garment District and last week of the GIVEAWAY

Greetings from the Big Apple! So I shopped the Garment District, and it was downright fabulous! Just a few snaps to share with you today. 

Also a reminder that the wonderful GIVEAWAY is closing in just a week's time, so if you haven't entered, please feel free to do so not only for a chance to win some fabulous handmade goodies, but also to support a great little independent shop that is just starting up. 

This is at Fabric for Less, where I bought 2 beautiful pieces of viscose/rayon (more on that later).
 

The fullest fabric shop I've ever been in, and trust me, I have been to the fabric shops on Brick Lane! (It's next to AK Fabrics on West 39th, although I can't for the life of me remember its name, the shop owner described it as a "fabric garden"). 

Gray Line Linen -- although I didn't buy anything from there, I could see that it is a perfect place to go if you need anything linen. I even saw some jute runners, which might do as stair runners with some modification? I digress. 

Here's some fabric that I bought:

Three pieces of cotton jersey, in different weight. Yep, I play with knit now! More on that another time. 

Some beautiful rayon from Fabric for Less -- you can actually see the red one on the roll in the picture above. The green one? I'm sorry if you like it, too, as I finished the roll with my 3 yard purchase. I think it would make a beautiful dressing gown - something different, eh? 

The stretch fabric, lining, and the rose print rayon (with some body, which I have earmarked for a dress with some structure) are all from AK Fabrics, together with some sweatshirt fabric. 

In addition to the fabric, I also bought some rayon seam binding, which is very hard to come by in the UK. 

The shops that were most successful in getting me to open my purse are Pacific Trimming and AK Fabrics, because of their great variety of stock, and the extremely helpful and knowledgeable staff. I also made purchases from Chic Fabric and Fabric for Less, both of which are apparently owned by the same people, though I found the former to be much better in terms of service. But hey, when I can get beautiful viscoseon/ray for a $5 per yard, how can I complain?

So all in all, it was a very fruitful trip to the Garment District, and a great day indeed (I also fitted in comfortably the High Line, New York Public Library, Macy's, and managed to catch a brilliant musical, After Midnight.). No complaint from me whatsoever (apart from tired feet)! 

 

That's all from me for now. Until next time, happy sewing! And if you get a break, make sure you don't miss out on the giveaway! 

My first maxi skirt - a vintage make, and help please!

Hello my dear readers, I hope you are having a good week and are looking forward to the weekend. I'm flying off to NYC on Friday for a quick weekend break, before heading to Houston for a week on a work trip. I'm super excited about NYC, not to mention the fabric shopping in the Garment District all day on Saturday (I'm writing a long list, and bringing my big suitcase), and am pretty happy about the work trip - it will be a nice change.  

I have something a bit different to share with you today. I made my first ever maxi skirt! It's not just the first maxi skirt that I've made, but also my first maxi skirt altogether. It's not that I don't like maxi skirts, in fact I love the look, but I was never convinced that I could pull it off. Being a petite person I didn't want to be drowned in it, but lately I've decided to be brave, mainly as they look so damn comfy, and I kept seeing them in fashion magazines right, left and centre. 

So here is my version: 

Although I really like the look of fuller maxi skirts, I didn't think they would suit my small frame. Instead, I opted for a slimmer silhouette, and used a vintage pattern, Butterick 5884, as a base. Marie-I hope I'm making you proud ;)

I was lucky enough to win this pattern from the Sew Grateful giveaway on Gloria & Me, and I am very grateful indeed! Isn't this a beautiful pattern? This is actually the first unprinted vintage pattern that I've worked with - in fact, I had no idea they even existed until I saw them on the Great British Sewing Bee, so you can imagine my excitement when I laid my hands on this little beauty!   

Here's the instructions to de-code to the secret language, and they were very helpful! 

As you may have worked out by yourself based on the above, the skirt is cut on the bias. The main alteration I made was to lengthen the skirt by 8 inches or so, to make it a maxi length.

I'm sitting in front of a 13th century bridge, 5 mins walk from my house. Doesn't it look incredible for its age? This was the starting point of a beautiful riverside walk, and I love taking a stroll there on a sunny day, even if I felt a bit overdressed for it! 

And this is the Common Meadow that follows: 

What's the fabric, I hear you ask? You may remember the little tale that I told you last week in the Jamie shift dress post, and this is indeed the matching blue viscose that was the other side of the equation. It is even more drapy when cut on the bias, and not to mention really comfortable to wear. 

I even made French seams on the inside for the delicate fabric, and I love how neat it looks on the inside. The other good news is that I finally feel happy with working with viscose, after some puckering issues in the past. To sum it all up, I think the tricks are:

1. Use a smaller needle - I used a size 70 this time, but switched to a 90 (normal) when sewing more than 2 layers of fabric together.  
2. Larger stitches - I increased the stitch length to between 3 and 4 on my machine
3. Very loose tension - I turned the dial down to almost 1, and I suspect this was the main reason behind the puckering issues previously as I only used to turn this down to around the 3 mark, as my machine manual suggested. But this time I thought, what's the point of having the scale all the way down to 1 if I wasn't going to use it? and it worked! 

With the beautiful drapiness there came problems, though, and for this, I need your help! 

Can you see the bunching around the zip on the left side seam (right on the photo)? And here's a close up from the side:

And from the front:

Not attractive.  The worst part is, I saw this whole thing coming. The fabric is quite a thin one, and as the pieces were cut on the bias, it stretches out of shape easily. So before I inserted the lapped zipper, I strengthened the seams with some grosgrain ribbon to prevent this... and it hasn't worked, even after unpicking and re-attaching the zip 4 times :(    

So, any help you could offer either to help me fix it or prevent it from happening again would be very much appreciated!   

Despite the issue, I am pleased with how the maxi skirt has turned out, and teamed with a cropped top (the top I'm wearing is not actually a cropped one, I just tied it at the front for the effect), I don't think it shrunk me any more than my "normal" clothes... I think I will be able to look past the bunching issue, and wear this skirt again. At the end of the day, who stares at your hip when you walk past anyway?

  

That's all for now folks, and as always, it would be great to hear from you!