Dress muslin

The muslin of the upper part of the dress was easily made. I only cut seam allowances to the shoulder, side and center back seam. Then I marked with carbon tracing paper and stitched it together.
The result was definitely in the right direction, but a few changes were necessary.
I cut this on the bias, as I intend to do on with the fashion fabric too.

The back: I did not sew  the back darts and therefor took some extra space from center back and removed a bit of the side seam. It’s too wide and the back armhole is gaping a bit.

The back with a bit more taken from the side seam and just a little bit taken from the armhole, tapering to nothing in the back neck.

The front doesn’t look bad, no gaping at the armhole, cowl depth is fine. It could be a little less wide at the side seams too.
I haven’t made a dress from this sloper with a waist seam. Seeing these pictures and the line marking the waist, I think my waistline is too low. I’d like to hear your opion on that.

This is the front after the side seams are taken in a bit. Could be a bit less?

Before and after of the armhole. The armhole on the sloper is fine for a garment with sleeves. You need a bit more room for movement of your arms. On a sleeveless dress this is not an issue and I took out about 1 cm.


Any thoughts on improving the fit are welcome and appreciated.

I’m in dress mode

When I bought the navy/black fabric I made the Burda dress from, I bought some other fabric too. This is a woven and a bit more expensive. I was not sure about what style I wanted to make with it. It’s just enough for a sleeveless dress that I can wear as it is or with a cardigan or jacket.

I contemplated making a simple dress with a cowl neck and draped the fabric on my dressform and yes, that’s what I want to make. I drafted a cowl neck top from my sloper some time ago and the result was a rather deep cowl neck. This time I wanted it higher. As I don’t have any fabric to play with, I decided on making a muslin first to prevent disappointment.

Like last year I’ll write a few posts about the process, not exactly knowing where it will end (do I have enough fabric for example?)

This is my starting point, my sloper for front and back.

For the muslin I used only the top part. Unlike last time I did this, I did not rotate the waist dart out to make sure my cowl is not too deep. I took 1/4 inch from the shoulder seam at the side of the arm and drafted a 3 inch wide shoulder from which point a line is drafted for the cowl in a 90 degree angle to the center front. This results in a 21 cm line for the cowl (I know I’m completely mixing inches and centimeters, depending on the ruler I’m using, doesn’t bother me).

The length of this line is important, as it defines the depth of the cowl. This is not something what is mentioned in the drafting class from Suzy Furrer (from which I used the technique). As I’m full busted and have wide darts, this means a long line/deep cowl when all darts are rotated out. This won’t be so much of a problem for someone with a small cup size.

I measured on myself, but for the idea this is what I checked.

The back has the same changes in the shoulder area. I ignored the shoulder dart (hence crossed) and did the same with the waist dart.

I’ve already sewn the muslin. A matter of half an hour or so. Too dark to take photos now so will do that tomorrow.

Comments on my blog - I can reply

Not a sewing post. This post is about a more or less trivial thing on my blog. For a long time I saw the "Reply" option to comments only on my phone and not at my computer.
Which meant that I seldom replied to comments directly under the comment any more, as I can touch type at my computer and it takes me too much time on my phone (on which I'm typing with 1 finger).
This morning I thought it was time to dive into the matter again and I finally found the solution. It meant editing a line in the html code, but that's familiar territory for me.

For my readers/commenters it means that if you have a question on something it's easier to answer for me at the spot where the question is asked and of course just react to comments in general.

I might be doing some more housekeeping on my blog in the next few days, it might be time for a new look and checking on the sidebar options. Haven't done anything about it for a very long time.

Another Burda pattern–dress from the January 2017 issue

Most of you who have been reading my blog for a long time know that sometimes I get so enthousiastic about a pattern that I want to sew it immediately and often do that as well. This dress was in the enthousiastic category, but was not made immediately.

The main attraction for me was in the upper part of the dress. What a lovely neckline and raglan sleeves are something different too. As stated earlier, when I showed the first in progress photos, pleats on the hips and a point emphasizing that part on the back are not for me.

These are pictures from the BurdaStyle website.

I made my version in a fabric with a stretch very similar to a ponte knit. I bought it at the Utrecht fabric market. Two friends bought exactly the same fabric, I’m looking forward to see their versions. Very difficult to make good pictures, the colours are black and very dark navy. The sun made these photos brighter.

The fit is not too bad, as always the wrinkles are showing more when you’re standing still and in real life it doesn’t look that bad. I lengthened the body a bit too much this time, the waistline could be slightly higher and the back a bit narrower. Note to self: next time draft it from my sloper. Sometimes it’s just easy to trace a pattern ;).

I want to wear it with a small belt, but have none in my possession that suited this dress.

In the back I opted for a zipper that doesn’t go to the neckline completely. Not necessary to get my head into it and at the same time making the step of sewing it accurately so that there’s no unevenness at the end of the zipper unneccessary. I need the zipper for the waist.

I changed the pattern and construction of the neckline facing. For those interested, these are my changes.

I made a neckline facing for the back and sleeve togehter. There’s a little extra fabric as the sleeve parts do not exactly match, but I considered it not enough to add a dart.

For the front I made a separate facing too. Sewed the facing to the front first and then sewn both the sleeve and the back facing in one pass. I hope you can see it in the next photo, it’s very hard to explain and photograph. The bottom layer is the back with the sleeve attached, then you see the front (with facing side up) and on top is the back neck facing. After you turn this it has a nice and crisp corner. No fiddling with points to clip in.

To conclude the skirt part. For this I used my skirt block, but any pencil skirt pattern that fits would do. Usually you will have one dart in the front and in the back pattern (I use two but that’s not too important here). I moved the darts so that they started at the same point from center front and back as the top of the dress. Then I just cut down to make a seam in the same line as the princess seam from the top and made sure the waistlines matched. I could have sewn the dart only, that’s just a design option/choice.

Describing all this makes it seem like a lot of work, but it’s not that complicated. It’s a dress I will wear a lot this winter.

A blouse with dots

I showed pictures of my work in progress last week. All three projects are finished, my daughters dress has already left the house (in the form of her wearing it before I had a chance to take photos).

Let’s focus on the blouse for this post. It’s a nice pattern, Burda 6632. To my surprise it was very long and very wide, I took off a bit while normally I have to add length. I didn’t change the length of the sleeves either.

A more major change was made to the placket. The pattern has only buttons as decoration element, they’re not functional and there’s a seam at center front, no overlap. I wanted to have a placket which overlaps and using buttonholes. Not very difficult, but somehow it took me a while to grasp what and where I had to change.

The fabric was, as I said already, very difficult to work with and I used starch to keep it from slipping away continuously. I was asked what I use and it’s a spray starch that’s sold here in the supermarket. On the bottle it says it’s to make ironing easier and giving it a bit more stability (the starch). For me this little amount of starch was enough to help me in construction.

The photos of me wearing the blouse. As so often, Burda’s neckline is deep, this blouse requires a camisole.

I’m sewing (occassionally)

A bit of a catch up post on things I’m working on. Summer is definitely over here. We never had a lot of it and I’m now sewing garments for fall/winter.

This first project is a blouse from a Burda pattern (I’ll check on the number in a future post about the finished garment). A fabric that feels as as silk and behaved like it too. Very slippery and difficult to work with. I used loads of starch to control it. It’s finished and washed to remove the starch. Just waiting for an iron before I can take proper pictures.

This week I started a Burda dress from the January 2017 issue. The fabric is very dark navy and black. The picture on me shows the colour best, the other is made lighter to show the print better. I love the neckline. A bit too deep (Burda!) but will fix that. I won’t make the skirt as it is designed (pleats on the hips are a big NO for me).

Another project for my daughter. A dress from an Ottobre magazine. Almost as easy as a t-shirt.

And for fun: a picture of my daughter and me on a little trip we took together to Stockholm. Lovely days!