Category Archives: Sewaholic
Second Davie Dress – The Return
Hi, I was so impressed with the fit of my first Davie Dress that I have made another one, this one is in a stretch fabric bought from eBay it is thickish, and will be great for our holiday. It does have quite a big pattern on it and I was torn between thinking it was too big for the small panels, or because it was so big it wouldn’t matter. It turns out I was right the pattern is so big that it is not noticable on the dress.
I have made it in the shorter size, a straight 2 but I have changed the neckline. The problem I have with the neckline is it is a bit high and with having to take off an extra 1/4 inch off the shoulders makes it even higher.
So what I did was I made up the dress with a slightly lower neckline, this was still not low enough, so I put the dress on my dress form then put a t-shirt with the neckline I was going for over the top of it, then I drew it on the dress.
After I cut off the excess I had then had to decide how to finish it off. Too be honest I didn’t look at the instructions on the pattern at this point, and I didn’t when I made the first one. The Craftsy class I took had you fold the neck strip in half, stitch it to the neck line and topstitch it in place, I didn’t like the mess it left inside so I decided to do it a different way.
I measured the new neckline and took an inch off it then added the seam allowance, made it into a loop, trimmed the seam allowance and pinned it to the neckline, right side of the neckband to the wrong side of the dress, stretching it out slightly, as I had done in the Craftsy class. Then I stitched the neck band to the dress, timmed off half the seam allowance and folded it over to the front of the dress, and then folded it under on its self so that the neck edge was encased in the neckband, I then topstitched this round, it gives it a nice neat edge and I am thinking of undoing the previous Davie dress and changing the neckline on that.
There might be another Davie Dress on the horizon but I haven’t decided yet, I’ve just found out about the Deer&Doe free t-shirt pattern that can be made into a dress or the Anna top with a gathered skirt, this Florida holiday will be the year of the T-shirt dress if I’m not careful.
Back soon
2016 is shaping up to be the year of the indie pattern
Usually I stick with the big four, well actually two, Butterick and Vogue I have occasionally gone to Newlook, to be honest I’m a bit confused as to why they are called the big four as they all appear to be now owned by McCalls but who am I to question why.
This year I’m going Indie, I already have By Hand Londons Anna Dress, Pinup Girls Bra pattern and what seems to be half of Sewaholics pattern line – Davie Dress, Gabriola skirt, Cambie dress, Thurlow Trousers, Hollyburn Skirt, Belcarra Blouse and Granville Shirt. I have added the Birkin Jeans from Baste and Gather and two patterns from Hey June Handmade, Cheyenne tunic and Lane Raglan.
I have always fancied making Jeans but the pattern that seems to be most talked about is the Ginger Jeans, to be honest I haven’t worn Skinny Jeans since the last time they were in, and mostly I remember not being very comfortable especially while sitting down, I know they have bought out a bootcut addon pack but I still find them a bit meh. The Birkin Flares however I love, love all the photos I’ve seen of them and all the reviews seem very favourable.
Of course while I was checking up on the Jeans I came across the Cheyenne Tunic, which is quite close in style to the FatFace Popovers I’ve been buying (in the sale) so I thought why not. I have some very nice stash fabric I can use for it hopefully before I go to Olympia 4th March. I need to stash bust pretty darned quick 🙂
Sewaholic Davie dress
Hi, since my brief look at knit fabrics I have been looking to complete Sewaholics Davie Dress, when I ordered it I hadn’t realised that it was made in a stretch fabric, but I was willing to give it a go. I had some fabric bought from eBay that I wasn’t all that keen on once I had it delivered so it was ideal for my test run.
My first problem is that I’m not a pear shape which is the shape that Sewaholic favours, at 33 27 37 I was alright for waist and bust with a US 6 but my hips are a US 2, what I have done before in this position is just cut a straight US 6 but I have ended up with too much fabric at the hip and it has looked just plain wrong, so I decide to grade down from the waist to the hip size, I used my new hip curve and was very happy with the results.
I did a quick pin to my dress form and it looked alright
My second problem is that I’m short 5ft 2in and I do usually have a problem with princess seam but I’ll cover that a bit later.
Who wants to see the first attempt at the dress.
I would like to say it looks a lot better on the dress form than it did on me and also by this point I had already raised the shoulder seams about an inch. The dress was just too big all over, except on the hip, the other problem was that without raising the shoulder seam by an inch the bust part of the princess seam was way too low, and even with the inch taken out it still wasn’t sitting properly.
Because of the amount of excess I had at the waist and bust I decided to try a straight size 2, after all there are 8 seams so I could quite happily ‘steal’ back 2 inches from the seam allowance. Also by going for a size 2 you already lost 3/4 inch from the shoulder.
What I didn’t realise was how rollyupy the already cut pieces were going to be and ironing them didn’t help 😦 however what I did find was that if I laid it on the ironing board it stuck to the cover like fuzzy felt, I managed to keep it flat enough to cut the new pieces out.
The dress went together very nicely, I used a normal straight stitch as this was only a test dress, zigzag is so hard to unpick, also I don’t like the way it looks on the outside. I might just use my overlocker in future.
Here is the dress with the basic seams put in it fits loads better.
There is something squiffy going on with the back, but I’m not sure if it is how I standing, the shoulder seam could do with coming up slightly which will might fix this and will bring the bust point of the dress up to the correct position.
I made the longer length which comes just below my knees, I’m not sure if the shorter one might be just out of my comfort zone.
I’ll be back with the finished article soon, also I like the fabric made up a lot more than just laying in the drawer so this might by my first dress for Florida.
It is a medium weight stretch fabric with a nice amount of body, I used my walking foot which is brilliant and my sewing machine didn’t try to eat it once, bonus!
Also on my cutting table is By Hand London Anna dress, more about that soon.
Thurlow Trousers part 2
I cut out and put together my second pair of Thurlow Trousers  before Christmas, the reason I haven’t blogged about them it that I made a bit of a hash of the back pockets, and I was sulking. There were a couple of other issues with them as well but that was the main one.
I cut too far on the pocket slit, I’ve done bound buttonholes before so I had no excuse. The welts lie very nicely unfortunately I have a bit of fraying at the corners.
Since I started this post I have actually completed two pairs of Thurlow Trousers and apart from the welt pockets on the first pair I am quite pleased with them. I stitched further in on the welt pocket sides so now instead of the fraying I have a bit of puckering, as I am never going to use the pockets I have also stitched them up.
The first pair I added 1/4 inch to the front rise, as it seemed to slope down from the back and was quite away from my belly button, the second pair I added in total 1/2 inch I was much happier with the result, oddly enough I had more problems following the instructions for the last two pair of trousers than I did with the ‘muslin’ I think I did too much second guessing.
Here are pictures of the first pair
And pictures of the second pair
I think that they could do with being a smige longer but other wise I’m happy.
Sewaholic Thurlow Trousers
Sewaholic had it’s five year anniversary sale earlier this month and I decided to take advantage of it, especially after seeing the Thurlow trousers, they are almost identical to a pair that I have been wearing for the last few years and to be honest they are getting on a bit.
I bought four patterns, well it was buy one get one free, to be honest I liked the Davie dress before I realised it was stretch fabic and the skirt was there to make up numbers I really wanted the Belcarra blouse but it was unavailable(something to put on my christmas list ).
I read up on Lladybirds sewalong and after measuring my existing pair of trousers decided on a size 2, I’m a waist 26 and hip 37 at the moment. I decided to use some gabardine fabric that I got cheap from ebay, when it arrived I realsed it was horrible, it was quite thick, very frayey and had a slight sheen to it, (no wonder it was going cheap).
After cutting out the first thing you do is make up the front pockets.
and attach them to the front pieces.
I skipped the welt pockets on the back as this was just a test piece for size. I tried to skip the putting in the zip step as well and went straight to stitching the legs together, big mistake, without the zip inserted correctly you can’t judge how the front is going to lay.
I went back and put the zip in, which would probably been a darn sight easier had I not stitched the legs together.
here is a picture of the finished fly (which is the wrong way round)
a picture of the back
which I don’t think looks too bad, even though I fudged putting the waist on, which you can see in the way the seams don’t line up. you can also see from this picture that I didn’t take up the pattern before cutting out, I have taken two inches out of the length I should probably take another half inch out but I do like to wear my trousers long.
I am quite pleased with the fit, I will add 1/4 inch to the front as although the back and sides were good, I wanted the front higher. This is probably not the best photo and I should have got my camera and tripod out.
One note on the fabric once it was made up I liked it a lot better, in fact I’m planning on taking them apart and and putting them together properly.
my comments on the pattern instructions, they aren’t as clear as they could be, I wasn’t always sure if it was right sides together, on top of each other or wrong sides together.
I am going to make this pattern again but once I get the fit exactly right I’ll probably play with the leg, I like a bootcut tighter on the thigh then going out to the flare, but these are very comfortable.
Musings of a Craft Enthusiast 