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

L-O-L-A Lola Dress - Indie Pattern Month entry week one

This is the very first time I have entered an Indie Pattern Month contest. The pattern was bought as part of  pattern bundle in IPM 2017 and not even stuck together until this week. Its the Oki Style Lola pattern ( hence my title) and is described on the Oki website as the "deformed dress" presumably because of the very unusual sleeves.

I always fancied making this but never got round to it. As it turns out its a relatively straight forward design - basically a raglan with front darts. Mind you I have changed a couple of things to make it work with what materials I have available.

 I omitted the back zip. Reasons for this are my fabric is stretchy. I used the same fabric previously to make black work trousers and they do have zips but I rarely bother to undo them because I do not need them to get the garments on and off - and I am lazy! This dress is made from the left over bits from the trousers. I had just enough fabric as it turns out. The fabric is a stretch woven of unknown fibre content.

My pattern changes are:

1. I added a ribbed neck like a Tshirt neck - because it seems to work
2. My cuffs ( Manchettes) are also ribbed and do not fasten with a button as the pattern suggests. I simply did not need to make them opening. I cut about an inch off the cuff length to make them work without buttons.
3. I removed about 1 inch from the centre back and inserted a strip of faux leather because I like the back feature but had decided to omit the zip so I get a similar overall look this way.
4. The sleeve arm holes are edged with faux black leather to match the centre back strip rather than bias.

There is a relatively deep hem because otherwise this would have been a bit longer than I prefer to wear. Overlocked and twin needle stitched to allow for the fabric to stretch. 

I have no idea what the fabric fibre is.

 

 Unfortunately the cuffs and neck edge are a bit (very!) creased but I happen to have already discoved this fabric melts easily so these were no pressed. Hopefully once this gets washed they will lose the creases.

 So my end result is a LBD and I love it.  I wish I had made this at the start of summer instead of the start of winter because this is office worthy and the arm holes will probably make it very cool and comfortable for the hot weather.


 
The funniest bit about this is from the front its a very basic boring black dress but from the back its far more interesting with its deformed sleeves and the centre back decoration.
 

Thanks for visiting

Bracken