The Jazz Diva Dress

It's not often that I get the chance to wear a long evening gown so when the opportunity arose, I simply had to take it. We were playing for the first time at the Ellington Jazz Club and it was our CD launch for the gypsy jazz band I sing with, Voudou Zazou. It was a pretty special event for us so I decided to go all jazz diva and sew up a long sparkly gown for the occasion

The fabric I used was a black sparkly velvet which looks particularly good under lights (I had some leftover from another stage outfit that I made some years ago). I wanted the dress to be fairly understated but let the fabric and the side split be the feature and Vogue 8357 seemed like the perfect pattern choice.

Silver Frog Bling

It was dead easy to lengthen the dress and insert a split at the front side panel seam. Overall it's a pretty straight forward pattern to sew but the shoulder straps are a bit fiddly and seemed to take longer than it should have. Also velvet is not really the most sensible fabric to be sewing with in the middle of summer.

I was a bit concerned that I'd be sweltering on stage in this dress, but figured I'd be in an air conditioned venue and it would be fine. Well, we just happened to have a heat wave that week-end, it was near 40 degrees and the venue's air con packed it in. It turned out to be one of the hottest gigs I've ever done, but the dress looked fabulous and the show sold out so it was all worth it in the end!

And here's the dress in action - not the best shot but you get the idea:

Stitching Reflections of 2015

Another year has flown by and here we are, it's 2016 - Happy New Year everyone!

It's that time for looking back at the past year and looking forward to the next so here are my Stitching Reflections using Gillian from Crafting a Rainbow's "Top 5 of 2015" categories.

Hits
My garments for the Vintage Pattern Pledge. I made 3 this year (which was 2 up from last year) and they were all a pleasure to make. The two 60's Cat dresses were so much fun to create and I'm really pleased with how my Strawberry Girl dress turned out too. This was the only sewalong I participated in this year, compared with 6 in 2014 but I really enjoyed it and I'm looking forward to more vintage sewing ahead.

Strawberry Girl, Kitty-A-Go-Go, Feline Groovy

Misses
Luckily I didn't really have any major stitching disasters, I usually encounter one or two hiccups along the way in most of my projects but I'm happy with everything I've made this year - even the ones with mistakes such as my Chuck sweater with the missed cable.

Highlights

My biggest highlight this year was our trip to the US which I blogged about here. Besides being one of the best holidays ever, I shopped the New York Garment District, went crazy with Hawaiian prints in Waikiki and I also got to meet up with Sonja from Ginger Makes which was pretty great. I also included a lot of me-made items in my holiday wardrobe which was really satisfying and fun.

Reflections

I'm pleased to say I've been steadily working through my fabric stash this year. Pretty much the only time I bought new fabric was when I was overseas and I love that because I'm reminded of my travels whenever I wear something I've made from it.

Stash Fabric from Japan and Hawaii

Goals

One of my 2014 goals was to get comfortable with using my overlocker/serger and in particular, threading it. I've got to admit I will do my utmost to avoid having to thread my serger from scratch! For anyone out there who was lucky enough to get one for Christmas (and I know that some of you did), this blog post from Sew For Life saved my sanity. The "tie-off" method is really the only way to go, but despite following many a tutorial on how to do this, I couldn't figure out why my thread kept breaking and why I couldn't easily pull the threads through. That was until, I found this post which included the crucial step about lifting the lower looper thread off the upper looper. Easy when you know how!

Looking ahead to 2016:
My biggest sewing goal this year is to take my time and enjoy the process (no matter how frustrating it can be sometimes!) It's so easy to get carried away with millions of sewing plans and that's part of the fun too but it's important to realise that you just can't do it all.

The other thing I'm going to do this year is master the art of centred zips - I still can't sew a neat centred zip! One thing I did do in 2014 was get an invisible zipper foot and for me, they are the easiest zips to sew neatly. But not all garments or fabric work with an invisible zip so it's about time I got to grips with this, instead of breaking into a panic every time I have to sew one!

So there you have it. Thanks everyone for reading my blog this year, it's been heaps of fun sharing my sewing journey with you and I wish you all a happy, creative and successful 2016! XX

The Strawberry Girl

I'm going way back to the 40's for my next Vintage Pattern Pledge make with Butterick 5209 which is a 1947 reproduction. There are 2 views: halter neck or with capped sleeves. I made view B with the sleeves and I have to say I love it!

This was a bit of a drawn out project though from toile to finish. I had to adjust each pattern piece because I seemed to be a different size for every one of them. The bodice was size 8, midriff size 10 and the skirt was pretty much size 6 because I didn't want as much fullness - too many gathers is not a good look for me, I'm just not tall enough.

I used a black bemberg rayon lining instead of self lining as I just managed to squeeze this out of 2.5 metres of this cute strawberry polka dot quilting cotton which has been in my stash for ages waiting for the right project to come along. I know sewing garments out of quilting cotton is a big no-no for some people but I think it worked out really well for this dress, particularly with the fuller skirt.

The construction part of the pattern was pretty easy to follow although I did find the lining a bit fiddly but then again, I often do!

Overall, I'm super pleased with this dress ... and ... I've managed 3 Vintage Pattern Pledge garments this year!

I'm leaving you with this song (one of my favourites) 'cos I can't get it out of my head - Christine, the Strawberry Girl ...

Feline Groovy Dress

Following on from my Kitty-A-Go-Go dress, my next make towards my Vintage Pattern Pledge is another Catzilla stage outfit featuring, you guessed it - more cats! Obviously this dress actually came first, because as you can see we started off with quite a small cat pocket which grew significantly in size for the Kitty-A-Go-Go dress. It features the same cat fabric but in green this time.

Believe it or not this is my very first proper vintage pattern and it's Simplicity 7526 - a mini shift dress with zip up front. The drawing suggests it's meant to be a young girl's pattern but our vision was a bit more go-go girl than school girl. As you can see it was shortened quite significantly but other than that not many changes were made. The pattern size is a 12 and pretty much fitted straight out of the box with only a couple of little added extras.

Cat pocket and cat zipper charm.

The back piece was quite big which I know is the style but I added in a couple of small darts and a contrast waistband to give it a little bit more shape.

The edging at the bottom of the dress was actually meant to add length as we cut it shorter than we intended to. Like, that really made a difference didn't it?

With it's twin in red