Centaurée B&W

Here's my first take on the Deer & Doe Centaurée dress. I fell in love with this pattern as soon as I saw it, and originally tried to follow the sew-along that Deer & Doe hosted, but as usual I didn't actually end up finishing it by the deadline.

I envisioned this dress as something to be worn to a summer musical festival. After not being too interested  music shows for the last few years, this summer I was excited to be going to the Toronto Urban Roots Festival to see Man Man, Neutral Milk Hotel, and my personal High School idol Jenny Lewis.

Well, the dress wasn't done in time and I had to make due with a different sundress, but I still wanted to finish the dress! It's a bit of a statement for everyday wear, but sometimes being overdressed is worth it. I wore it out this weekend with a slip, tights and boots which worked nicely so I think I won't be packing this one away with my other sundresses :)

Pattern Notes:

Although design wise Deer&Doe is one of my favourite indie pattern companies, with my boyish frame I'm pretty much the opposite of the hourglass figure they are designed for.  I made my muslin up in 38B 40W 38H. From there I then had to make a SBA of about 1cm, which was pretty easy using the sew-along instructions. I then took in the side seams by about 2cm. I also altered the back high-lo to be 2 inches shorter at the back. (Note on the switching back and forth between metric and imperial... I actually do that a lot when sewing. I think it might be a Canadian thing as we're technically a metric country but since most of our media comes from the US imperial is used a lot too. I tend to use metric for small changes and imperial for larger ones. My sewing machine seam allowance marks on the throat plate are in imperial as well).

Sewing & Fabric Notes:

Both fabrics are from Fabric By Designer on Queen street in Toronto. Both are light drapey rayon. The white print is quite sheer so the dress is fully lined with white rayon. I only had a couple of issues with construction.
First was the side invisible zip which is not so invisible really. I tend to do a good job on my back centred  invisible zips but my side zips are often a mess. All I can think of to maybe fix that would to interface the seam allowance in my next version, a step I generally skip. Any other side zip tips would be appreciated. I don't think it's that bad really, but I might not wear it around another sewist I was trying to impress :)
My other issue was with my self made bias binding. Even with my clover bias binding tool I hate making bias binding. HATE IT. Which I should work on I guess because it looks nice. I used this method and it turned out ok, but was a little uneven in some places.

Other upcoming projects are (hopefully): a Gertie Shirtwaist dress for a friend that I have been taking forever to finish and a Cat lady Datura. So until then happy sewing!

Datura refashion / wearable muslin

Lately most of my sewing projects have been failures, and I really can't gather the will to blog about them. This one almost ended up in the failure pile too, but a couple of rough on the fly fixes and I ended up with a top I'll actually wear! 

This is the Datura blouse from Deer and Doe Patterns. You've likely seen this one around! I'm pretty broke so I consider indie pattern purchases a bit of a luxury. It took me a long time to cave and finally buy this pattern. I already have three more planned so I think it will be worth it!

Pattern Notes:

I started  with the size 38. I know doe and deer patterns are sized for a c cup bust, which obviously is not me! This is actually my second try with a D&D pattern. I have a failed Belladone stashed away, waiting for me to deal with it sometime. For the Belladone I did a small bust adjustment, but for some reason this time I skipped it. 

My first hurdle with the pattern came with sewing the yoke together. I could not for the life figure it out. I spent quite some time searching online for someone to explain it, and that just turned up either people linking to a dead french link explaining it, or just commenting on how ingenious the construction is. Ha! I felt like a bit of an idiot. 

Anyways: you turn the front yoke piece so that it is right side out, then place it inside the back yoke piece! ugh. For some reason the wording in the pattern completely threw me. I might try to make a mini photo tutorial to replace the dead french one in case anyone else is out there on the internet confused as hell by this pattern!

Once the yoke was figured out I tried my WIP and the fit was pretty bad on me. The bust dart was quite a bit too low and the whole thing overwhelmed my small frame. In progress fixes I did:

1) take up the straps 3/4"

2) drawing a waist shape into the body like so:

 

Fabric notes:

This is actually a refashion from an old unflattering dress I was holding on to because I liked the print. It's a light weight poly and was a little tricky to work with. I'm a still a novice when it comes to slippery fabrics!

I've changed my stash diet rules a bit to deal with my particular situation, which includes lots of potential refashions. Any one finished refashion project (even if it used more than one old piece) counts as one complete "stash" fabric. So not great for counting used up yardage but what I need to get my sewing corner under control!

...Actually I'm just off to visit fabricland on this lovely (warm! sunny!) spring day, and likely use up my whole earned fabric allowance of three pieces!