Finally, another dress for me!

It's been a long time since I've had the time to do some blogging about something I've made for myself.  I've been able to post a few things on my Instagram but I figured this dress actually deserved a blogpost.

Last year my Mum and I purchased a Pattern Drafter from Maria Boncaldo.  It's a tricky to explain, but it's basically a ruler to draft your own block pattern (or I think I've seen them called sloper) using your own measurements.  The demonstration I attended showed how to draft a whole dress but so far I've pretty much just done a bodice and sleeve.

After having just 2 attempts, with a little tweaking here and there (more with taking my own measurements correctly) I had a bodice that fit me perfectly.  I usually have a bit of gaping at my neck with a lot of patterns, but not here!  I've never had a dress fit me so well.

The next step was to play a little with necklines.  I've got a basic high neckline and then I had a go at making one with more of a v-neck.  Here I cheated a little looking using some existing patterns I had as a kind of guideline, but I'm pretty happy with how it turned out.  

At the moment I keep using skirts from my existing patterns and matching them with this bodice.  Luckily the skirts from my Boundless Style book from Victory Patterns seem to work beautifully with my bodice pattern and that's where this one came from.  I was bit unsure at first if it was too long, but the more I've worn it, the more I like it and now want to 100 more dresses just like this one.

The fabric is some lovely Cloud 9 fabric I picked up from Spotlight.  I initially made this as a tester dress but I think the fabric suited the pattern perfectly.  I wasn't at all fussy when it came to print matching, but that hasn't mattered and it's been a great dress for Summer, in fact even one of my preps at School commented that I'm always wearing this dress.  I'd better hurry up and make another one I guess.

Denim Tic Tac Toe

I;m really kicking myself for not buying this pattern sooner!

This is the Tic Tac Toe dress from Sewpony.  I'm not sure why I didn't get this until now.  I have seen and liked many versions online but just never got around to it.  I'm certainly glad I have now.

This fabric I've had on my shelf for a while, one of those ""I like it so much I'll keep saving it".  It's some Art Gallery denim and was dream to sew with.  Although it is a denim, it's lovely and soft and has a lovely drape.  It worked perfectly for this dress.

I decided to sew up the version where the bodice is split up a bit.  There's so many different ways to put this pattern together  it can suit many different fabric and combinations.  I used just one fabric here, but I'd love to have a go at playing round with some different fabric combinations. It's a great way to use up some of those small piece of left over fabric.

I added some white piping which shows up the lines of the dress beautifully.  I love the way the piping continues down to outline the pockets.

I made a size 5 and it's a little roomy but fine.  I thought she might just grow out of the four too quickly.  Freya's on the borderline of so many patterns at the moment it's hard to know what size to make sometimes.

The pockets were a big hit!

Flowers and flutters, oh my!

I was lucky enough to have the opportunity to test the new Coffee and Thread pattern, the Polina dress.

I have noticed recently that I'm beginning to sew with more and more flowery prints.  This dress was perfect for showing off this lovely dress.

There's a few options with this pattern.  This is the gathered skirt and the circular frills.  I'm not going to lie, those frills were not easy to sew.  It was worth the effort though as they look very sweet.

Olga has worked very hard on this pattern, constantly improving every little thing.  This was one of the final versions and it looks great.  I made this size 4 with the lined bodice.  Other than the fiddly frills it all came together beautifully.

Now prepare for picture overload.

I did warn you!