And now it is.

Enough, anyway. I think I need to bite the bullet and buy a french curve, as the problems with the skirt resut with me not being able to draw a smooth curve! Can you tell I'd been wearing it sat down for a few hours?

And I finished the last pair of pants for MMM! 

(Can you guess the Boys name?!)

So I thought this was finished...

...then I took the photos, and the camera never lies!

It looked fine in the mirror, though maybe in need of a bit of an iron.

But from the back?

Whats with the weird puffy sides?!

So its back to the machine for this skirt, to try and smooth out those puffs!

I have a horrible feeling I may have to take the invisible zip out and start it again, but I'm hoping it doesn't come to that!

In other news, I just got back from the local sewing meet with 3 new pairs of knickers, all ready for MMM. I have one more pair cut out and ready to sew. While 5 pairs might be a bit sparse for the whole of May, its been a fun learning curve. I can definitely see the improvement in technique.

Lady in Red

Remember how I have a problem with buying $1 remnants from the Op-Shop?

Well, I finally put this one to good use!

We had a surprise birthday meal to attend on Friday night at a swanky restaurant.
So obviously I wanted a new dress :)

I've never actually worn a red dress before, so it was a little out of my comfort zone, but this red stretch sateen was begging to be made into a (semi) wiggle dress. I used the bodice of the Princess seamed Butterick 4443, with a few alterations from last times use in the Janet dress, and a few more because of the stretch nature of the fabric. I drafted the skirt myself with the aid of the Meringue skirt as I wanted a closer skirt than the flared one from 4443. Plus I didn't have enough fabric to work with anyway!

Apologies for the awful pictures- I couldn't for the life of me find the camera so these are dodgy iphone pics.

I felt a million dollars in it :)

When we were waiting for the birthday girl to arrive I kept squee-ing with excitement, and I got some great compliments. 

The most exciting thing (beyond the fact that this fits like a glove is the back:

Can you say heart-shaped cut out?! 

Tacky, maybe. But I love it :)

I think if I made this style of dress again I need to make the skirt a little longer, as I felt a little exposed. The original plan was longer with a kick pleat, but I ran out of fabric!

New techniques:

Cut out - worked like a dream. That section is lined with some red polkadot poplin scraps in the central section between the princess seams, to help support it and stop it stretching out of shape too much. This was probably some of the oldest fabric in my stash, originally used in this bag way back in 2010. SO good to see that go!

Understitching - I'd read about this before but never really tried it. BIG MISTAKE! Totally doing this every time I sew linings/facings. It kept the facing neat and hidden and gave a good, well defined fold line. It meant I didn't have to top stitch around any of the openings, which kept the lines nice and clean.

Cost:

Fabric - $1 (plus the scrap of polkadot) 

Zip - $2.50

Hook and eyes - 30c

Pattern - already used so FREE ;)

$3.80 - Score!

Much much cheaper than the meal and the champers! Though we did manage to claw back some good money from the Casino after the meal, Well, the boy did. I'm not much of a gambler, but I did treble my money on the pokie machines- $6 profit for me :D So thats the dress covered!

Meringue 2.0

Sewing with a plan... I'm starting to like you!

Seperates? Tick.

Wearable? Tick

Nice finish? Passable.

Feel like a toddler? Nope!

Meringue out of synthetic charcoal moleskin that I bought in the half price sale at Homecraft Textiles last year. I took this to the BurdaSewingClub meet yesterday to work on, but managed to forget the front skirt piece! So I just enjoyed that chat and the tasty goodies, and got to work when I got home.

Doggie photo bomb! Needy dog needs to be by my side at every second of every day!

The scallops didn't come out quite so well this time. This fabric is hard to sew with and doesn't take well to an iron so the scallops and the darts aren't as smooth as I would really like, but I think it looks OK for everyday:

The inside is all party! Made from scraps from the first dress I ever made, for our "come in bright colours" birthday/engagement/residency party

This time I traced the 10 and graded down to an 8 at the hem, and its pretty much a perfect fit- maybe a teensy bit tight across the bum, but hopefully not for much longer as I slowly try and reduce the kilos that spending a couple of months in Italy tends to add!

I think I like it!

This will be the last meringue for a while. I think the originally planned bird print needs a straighter skirt to not feel toddler-ish.

Colette Meringue ~ Ikat stylee

My parents bought me the Colette Sewing Handbook for my birthday back in November, but this is the first time I've got around to trying something. I didn't want to cut the pattern sheet, so I found some tissue paper to trace it (most of my patterns so far have been the print and stick variety, or traceable on grease proof).

I've had this fabric for at least a year. Its a cotton sateen(?) with a bit of stretch that I bought from the Spotlight clearance. Its been earmarked for a dress, but since my aim is to make more separates I figured why not. And I think it would be a very over powering dress! I know I said I would make it out of birdie print, but I wanted to try the pattern out first.

Bright, yes?!

I'm pretty happy with it, though I think I should have cut a few sizes smaller :) I remember looking at the measurements and deciding on a 10, but then I lost confidence and cut a 12. Probably will re-trace an 8 given how much I took off, even given the stretch. In order not to mess up the scallops too much I graded back out to the original hem line, so the end result has a a bit more volume to it than I would like- more A-line than straight

And the inside. Invisible zipper with facing. Inexpertly applied but not bad for a first time! All the seams are pressed open and pinked, and the facings are pinked. Both the facings are cut against the stretch to keep the fit, and the waist facing is sewn in by stitching in the ditch of the seams and darts, while the hem facing is help up by the iron-on hem stuff. I know, but the idea of hand stitching the hem on a (wearable) muslin  was a little too much!

The scallops came out very smoothly, if a little asymmetrical- definitely happy with those.