Pink bodycon from McCalls 7538

This is yet another version of McCalls 7538 and this time actually made from a decent sized piece of  fabric and not just left overs from previous projects. This definitely made it much easier to be able to cut it out without taking ages finding the right sized pieces and managing to find a bit big enough from the scraps to get to cut both a back and front of one piece in the same fabric cos though I have loads of scraps I have discovered often I can only get a front skirt and not a back from it. I probably need to find something smaller to make now from the smaller bits - like underwear or exercise tops. Then I really will have almost zero wasteage.

I have previously made several other items from this pink stretch fabric. Not soo sure what this pink body con fabric too is but its an all 4 directins stretch which varying people call two way or four way stretch. I do not know the correct terminology. I bought this from ebay a few years ago and its one of the fabrics I am trying to stash bust. Its a very stable knit though very stretchy. Perfect for body-con type dresses. Reasonably warm as well.

Faux suede dress

The waist this time is faux leather and faux suede. The faux leather is from left overs from these leather leggings and the faux suede from this lovely but not that wearable dress.

Faux leather leggings

I had some problems with lighting when taking these photos. It was a very cloudy day and we just could not get the right light for the pictures but hopefully you can see the dress anyway.

 One thing about making this pattern so many times - this is dress number 4 - is I am much better at sewing accurately. I found lining up the pieces properly really hard on the first two dresses but I am better at pinning so it does not move as you sew and this one is almost perfect.

I have one more of these dresses cut out and I think I have done this pattern to death once I finish that one. There is a top version of this that has even more pieces so I may have to make a few of them just to get rid of some more small bits of fabric out of my stash and also the top obviously takes even less fabric, but really its time to have a rest from this pattern.

The upside is I have loads of wearable, unusual, work worthy dresses from what was essentially scraps of fabric - though this one was cut from a whole bit of fabric but that also was clearing out something that has sat on a shelf taking up space for far too long.


Although I have mixed stretch woven leather with stretch jersey this is still very wearable and I love my contrasting waistband.

Stuff made priviously from this fabric:

LEGGINGS  using the black back of the fabric for the side panels

https://brackencrafts.blogspot.com/2016/05/02052016-me-made-may-day-2.html

 and two tops both from Butterick 5562 View D

https://brackencrafts.blogspot.com/2018/03/two-tops-and-my-latest-stash-builing.html

http://brackencrafts.blogspot.com/2017/10/multi-media-t-shirts-tms-october-2017.html

Looking at previous photos of stuff made from this fabric does make me think maybe the problem is the fabric rather than the light since it seems its a recurring problem that the photos are not good with this fabric.

 The dark photos are taken in a lovely nature park in Rugby, UK.

The lighter photos were sadly taken in a car park. Not the nicest place but whatever this is my life and where I go. Life and photo-shoots are often not perfect.

These are my previous versions of this pattern:

https://brackencrafts.blogspot.com/2019/02/knowing-when-to-stop.html

https://brackencrafts.blogspot.com/2019/04/camo-dress-from-small-bits-of-fabric.html

https://brackencrafts.blogspot.com/2019/03/a-work-dress-from-small-bits-of-fabric.html

I am enjoying wearing these dresses and they have become part of my everyday work wardrobe.

In itself that is amazing!!

I love each version (as in all which is most unusual for things I make!) and they are all very different to each other.

AND I am not usually a dress wearer!

Making all these things though, kind of says you should wear them, and not just once a year for Me Made May. Which thinking about it I need to check out and sign up for.

Thanks for dropping by

Bracken

Finished version 2 of The Vampires Wife dress - my style 😉

 So here it is at last. My turquoise blue cotton chintz dress.

Its a very nice dress and today I did the finishing touches - sewed the facings down etc.
Its aptly photographed in Rugby Church graveyard lol!

This version is actually overocked on all seams and finished properly. Version one is not. I never expected I would wear that one being floral but actually I probably will.

I do love this. I wore it to town today -hence a few wrinkles when I finally got picture of it due to sitting in the car on the way there. There are some issues I need to look at. Despite this is fits as well as many RTW dresses so I will still wear this. I think it will be a lovely summer dress for work since the skirt length is quite long. Obviously not as long as the Street Sweeper dress I made last time. This version though has the puffed sleeves though as I blogged a few days back they are not yet quite right.

Also there is somethig not quite right about the right shoulder. It is I believe a fault of my own body rather than my pattern and can be fixed - or at least according to Winifred Aldridge it can be adjusted to hide the fact I have one shoulder I believe higher than the other.

I never thought I would care about this kind of pattern tweeking but it would appear I am getting into this now so I will have to investigate how to sort this one out at some point. Right now it is not my priority.

Oh and I fixed my uneven sleeves surprisingly easily - if you read my previous blog post -by adding an extra rows of stitching to each to even them out so both now have 3 rows of stitching rather than just 2 rows. It works.

 What is more important is my arse. Or the way the fabric pulls across it. I suspect I need to let this out a bit. I am not intending to bother if I am honest because it was comfortable to wear and to walk in and I will put up with this but on my next dress I need to try it on a bit earlier.

This time I went with the fact the previous dress I had checked at every stage and it fitted but this time I just sewed and never checked.

I finished it and it looked fine in the mirror. Then my partner took these photos and clearly its not quite right.

To fix this I would have to take off the frill - so two rows of stitching as well as probably needing to re-gather it all, so a further 2 rows to do that. Then rip out the zip and replace it letting it out a bit then replace the frill etc.

No not bothering!

Its a muslin and will do.

If I did all that I will more than likely wreck it and as I said it feels comfortable to wear so stuff that.

I have bought much worse looking RTW and paid loads for them so this is actually not so very bad.

Besides, I felt good when I wore it. Shame about the photos but with a bit of luck Version 3 will be better. So what to do now:

• I want to add fullness to the sleeve - middle not the top which I think is OK. Pleat the sleeve not gather.
• Make the skirt back slightly bigger and check it looks OK before I add the frill.

I think I will make a short version next out of a fun fabric I want to wear at the weekend.

Watch this space!

Thanks for visiting and all input about fitting gratefully received.

EDIT: I ended up altering the back of this dress to make it fit better which you can read about here:
https://brackencrafts.blogspot.com/2019/05/alterations-to-my-turquoise-blue.html

Bracken

Update on The Vampires Wife sleeves

So this is a close up of The Vampires Wife : SILVER METALLIC SILK MINI FESTIVAL DRESS and clearly my sleeves are wrong!

Still I will leave for now. They have been overlocked and are wearable. My next version will have pleated not gathered sleeves. 

Also this was bugging me before when I sewed dress 2 together that my gathers seemed a bit too far forward and yes they are so now I know! 

Well I have quite a way to go yet it would seem to atcually make a similar dress.  

This is a close-up of my sleeve:

I gathered mine. Next time I need to pleat instead!

Also I have a couple of misplaced gathers too far down the front sleeve so I need to ensure that does not happen next time.

Well I am getting there...........

Bracken

  

Troubles with ruffles - The second version of The Vampires Wife dress (version 2)

  I originally intended to cheat with the ruffles and to gather a short one and a long one that I intended to put along the sleeve edges together but it just did not work. After 2 attempts when the gathering threads broke and I redid again only to have the gathering threads break again, so then I had to give up. I gathered both seperately but having added the wider frill decided this is frilly enough and have left it as that.

I ended up redoing the hem rolled edge as well because despite my carefulness making everything the same width it still did not quite line up on the sleeve so I did this again after attaching to the sleeve. Next time I will join the sleeve frills before I gather and add as a circle the same as the skirt frill.

Then having finally got the frills onto the sleeve I have somehow made one with a smaller edge frill than the other!

Can you see? Yes probably!

 This is how the sleeve frills look when side by side:

 I suppose its not too bad!

Bother it! I am going to live with this because this has taken me far longer than I expected and most people will probably never notice. Of course I will - every time I wear this dress.

My test for this ( other people noticing) is to show my other half and if he cannot see what is wrong even when I tell him what he is looking at, then I assume most other people won't either. A sewist probably will but in my real day-to-day life there are very few of them around so I will leave well alone here.

In the end this is yet another muslin really to get my sleeves right - as in how they fit and look overall.It will however make a very nice summer dress even if its just a muslin.

So again this week not much progress on my TVW dress at all. I got so frustrated with the frills I decided it is time to stop and do something else instead rather than keep going and wreck it.

I am starting to think maybe the sleeve gathers on top of the sleeve I was so fretting about last week may be OK after all though now its together and on Harriet you can see here it does not look too bad and does look pretty similar to The Vampires Wife, so I have overlocked all the edges with the reasoning I want this version to be as RTW as possible and properly finished.

My last muslin ( seen below) has mostly raw edges. It still looks OK outside but I am wishing I had finished the inside off better. I had large seam allowances and did not want to cut anything down until I knew it would fit which made it very difficult to over-lock the inside.

The Vampires Wife birthday dress

 I have cut out the neck facing.

Sadly this version will have to have the usual shoulder seams because I have only very small bits of fabric left. I did like my one piece neck facing on my original muslin:

three piece neck facing with shoulder seams

The one piece facing with no shoulder seams on my original muslin seen here

I did actually manage to get everything for this version of The Vampires Wife dress cut out in the same direction though, which was worrying me when I began this version, so that's a plus and bearing in mind I had such a small piece of fabric to play with ( just under 2m and badly cut at an angle) I feel this is overall going OK. So I really must go slowly and not ruin this dress because it is going to be very wearable once it gets hotter which it will as the summer comes.

Next on my to do list - attach the skirt - it is just pinned in place in the pictures here, add the back invisible zip and add the skirt frill, then finish it off with a neck facing.

I think this dress is going to hit just around knee length.  I expect to finish this by next weekend though so see you then with my second version of The Vampires Wife dress. Fingers crossed it works as well as my last version.

Thanks for reading

Bracken

Camo dress from small bits of fabric

 This dress is another McCalls M7538 made in navy mesh and offcuts of fluorescents here:

https://brackencrafts.blogspot.com/2019/02/knowing-when-to-stop.html

This version has a corset type of effect in stretch leather offcuts from these leggings

This is definitely a great pattern for using up precious offcuts.

And because its faux stretch fabric the corset is very comfortable!

Looks good with my bike jacket too:)

Thanks for visiting

Bracken