Oki dress - Moon Goddess

I made this pattern previously for the The Monthly Stitch Indie Pattern Month 2018 but in stretch black canvas. I prefer the first version because until I made this dress I had no idea the grainlines on the pattern are wrong.


Its too late now because I have made this and I do still like it but its not right at all so I am pretty P**sed Off if I am honest because this is special fabric bought from Ikea as a limited edition a couple of years ago and I cannot get any more. 

 I did my first ever proper exposed zip on the back of this dress too. I am reasonably pleased with that although its defo not perfect but you have to begin somewhere and it does work so thats OK>

 

I never had enought to pattern match which is also a problem but the fact the grainlines are out - see the sleeves! is terrible and very disapointing and I spent a lot of time lining everything up to make it work out as best I could because I knew I would have some mismatches pattern-wise anyway but never realised when I made the black dress that the grain arrows on the sleeves are completely wrong. 

The sleeves are weird obviously because thats the whole point of the pattern so I never realised till I sewed it all up.

Its still wearable and I still like it but yes this is disappointing. Its what you expect from a Big Four pattern rather than an indie designer. Tho why I think like that I have no idea. But anyway if I want to make this pattern again I will only use plain fabrics as of now because I do not think my brain can cope with sorting this out with the weird pattern pieces.

So yes I do like this dress but its far from being a big hit with me. Its just too imperfect and the strange part of this imperfection is I expected to have it imperfect but that was down to me not being an expert with exposed zips and knowing it would not be pattern matched with this print would show( it does!) but its the best I can manage but to have the grain lines out thats just crappy! And not my fault.

Will I make another? Yes probably in a sweatshirt type fabric in a plain colour because I think it would work. Never again in a  print tho!

Thanks for visiting and I hope this post helps someone else with the Oki Lola pattern!

Bracken

Two layer dresses for IPM 2018 final challenge.

I used the Teach me Fashion Layer Dress to make my Around the World- Inspired by Vivienne Westwood  dress and decided to go for a second dress using this pattern.


I find it a very wearable pattern and its a bit different to wearing just a shift dress because of that exra layer.

So here is my Eyeballs dress.

 I bought the fabric from Ikea as one of their limited editions ages ago. Its 100% cotton and it was just so very different.

As usual this fabric was not for Halloween but was actually part of the Ikea summer collection. Or maybe it was released in summer to allow people time to make for Halloween? Who knows?

It is a perfect fabric though for Halloween and IPM happens to have also fallen on that time of year this year so why not?

Having said that being me I will more than likely be wearing this all year round anyway😀. 

This version of the layer dress has the inner facing as well which makes for a neater finish than my last dress.

Again,  like my first dress the insides are all overlocked. The difference is I used me made bias to finish that dress due to lack of fabric to make the facings. The facings are certainly much neater and professional as finishing.

I did not both to pattern match because to be honest I was having difficulty working out where the repeats are. I do not think it matters anyway and it does also mean I waste less of this somewhat precious fabric. It only really shows as a problem at the back but I am still happy with this dress despite that.

I am finding this particular pattern is surprisingly fast to make up as well. I used a normal zip for this version since I did not have an invisible in the right colour. I also had difficulty deciding whether to go with red or a white zip and in the end red won. I am still not so sure white may have looked better.

As the Around the World Inspired by Vivienne Westwood dress I added a few inches in length.



Other than that there is not much to say about this.

I personally am very pleased with the end result.

Thanks for popping over

Bracken

Inspired by Vivienne Westwood - Around the World

This is the Layer dress from Teach me Fashion.  I am based in the UK and Teach me Fashion is I believe in Australia. I made this dress once before. That time I exactly followed the pattern. This time I did not have enough fabric really so I did not use the facing but instead attached a stand collar to neaten the neckline and me-made bias binding for the armholes which I made from a different fabric. I could not make bias from the same fabric since I had only a few strips left and used these on the hem.

This dress is made from upholstery grade sateen of unknown fibre ( pale blue) and part of an Ikea check blanket ( the overlay).  My first dress was stretch faux leather fabric so I made a bigger size for this because I need to be able to move and this is non-stretch fabric. I think this is actually the better dress of the two so far.

 I decided not to have the overlay doubled like the pattern ( and my first dress) because I wanted to make use of the fringed edges of my blanket, so I cut this as a single layer but then decided to add a second layer which is a bit shorter accross the front of the dress and try to offset the checks - so the opposite of pattern matching. It kind of works over most of the overlay.

Then because the original dress is very short and I am really a bit too old for this I decided to leave the hem unfinished to make it slightly longer and then make use of the frayed edges. It very much reminds me of Vivienne Westwood designs which I have always liked.

But when I cut out the back of the dress I realised I had slightly under-estimated my length. The front piece was shorter so I added a small strip to make the front and back pieces the same length making even more of a feature (hopefully) of my frayed edges.

Then I had just a tiny strip of fabric left so then I added what I had left of this fabric as one strip all the way around. I ripped the fabric to make the frayed edges as directed in the free pattern for the Vivienne Westwood shirt which I made in the summer. Then pressed them to make them as flat and even as possible, pinned and sewed. 

 Its got a wintery tartan feel. Since its rapidly feeling like winter in the UK this is going to be perfect.

I nearly did not finish this in time to post as part of #TMS Around the World because I could not decide what to do about the armholes. I did consider attempting to draft sleeves in the check fabric but decided to go with me-made bias instead. I think it works OK.

I would have preferred the neatness of finishing it like the first dress I made because the facings really make for a very professional finish but with no matching fabric this was impossible.

Thanks for visiting

Bracken