Dress and cardigan

Two weeks ago, after my ling erie set and in my desperate mood that my sewing was not going the way I wanted I went shopping for some notions and came home with two fabrics and two patterns. More or less to console myself and to get a quick start. The Burda pattern I just cut, instead of tracing it, what I usually would do. Though I was not completely taking risks, I made a quick muslin of the upper half of the dress to make sure there was enough space in the bust area and to see how the armhole would be. Burda is very consistent in sizing and this time I took the size 42 for the upper part, tapering down to 46 at the hip area. It was almost right the first time. I took out 1 cm in the back arm hole because it had a little gaping problem and took out half a centimeter of the back shoulder at the side of the arm.  Otherwise I didn’t change anything.

The waist is not completely “fitted”. There is a bit of extra space. Enough accent on my waist as it is now, think that if I fitted it more, the hip area would be too prominent.

I did line the dress and was stupid! I had sewn the zipper and back seam, the shoulder and side seams and then thought: there are some tutorials on lining a sleeveless dress on the internet. Let me check how it’s done. To be remembered of the fact that the order of construction is completely different. So I had to do it different, which involved some hand sewing the lining. Live and learn, I’ll sure remember next time. If you don’t want to be as stupid as I was, check this or this tutorial

Thanks Rose, I used one of your zippers here!

The picture on the envelope and the line drawing.

 

 

I can wear this dress with a jacket, I even have two (one black, one grey) that I can wear with this dress. But I also made a cardigan to go with it. It’s a pattern from a new pattern line: It’s Afits. A bit of a strange name to me, I think I read it’s from the German company that also makes the Abacadabra children patterns.

First the pictures from the envelope:

 

The minimal instructions are in Dutch and in German. For my version of the cardigan the instructions tell you to zigzag or serge the edge or  leave it as it is, because knits don’t ravel. Well, that’s not what I like, so I cut 2 cm extra on the edges, interfaced them them with strips of Pam’s tricot interfacing and topstitched with a double needle. I quite like the result, especially as this only needs a little more than 1.5 meter of fabric.

   

And to finish off this already picture-heavy post a picture of one of my roses: Félicité and Perpétue. The buds are dark pink, but opened they have  beautiful white, small flowers. I’ve been working in my garden a lot this long weekend, but I also did some sewing. Next post will show some results.