Your Style Rocks - Eva Dress

After reading about the Your Style Rocks on Lazy Stitching's blog, I went to take a look, and fell in love with the Eva Dress.

It's size range finished just a squirt below my own, but I was keen enough to want to give it a try.

After taking advice from the ladies over at Pattern Review about the best way to incorporate my needed alterations, I made a trial of the pattern up in a cotton jersey. The fit was pretty spot on, so I went ahead and made it up in a lovely raspberry coloured merino knit.

The alterations I made were to add 1" to the centre of the front pattern pieces to accommodate a fuller bust and a fuller tummy than was originally intended. I also pulled the top drape piece a little tauter than than the under piece it is tacked to, so the pleats were held a little better.

The drape is designed to start at the waist on one side, and sweep down over the opposite hip, which is a nice detail that lifts the design beyond a plain dress. It also has an inverted box pleat in the back that provides nice shaping too.

It is a very flattering design, and was reasonably quick to go together. I think it has the potential to be dressed up or down depending on how you styled it, and it would make a great dress for travel if you were to use a no-crinkle knit.

I'm still trying to figure out how the cowl neck should be arranged, but this seemed the most flattering way on this particular day!

Rock and Roll Shirt

Today is T's birthday, and so the grand unveiling of his 'rock and roll' shirt has arrived!

As I've mentioned previously, T chose the fabric as we were looking around the fabric store a while ago. 'Nuf said!

For the pattern, I used this Bowling shirt  by Scientific Seamstress. These patterns are great, especially if you are new to sewing, as the instructions really walk you through the process step-by-step. If you have a bit of experience under your belt, you might find the 47ish pages of directions overkill!

One part that was really quite well thought out, is that you make your button holes on the placket before you attach it to the shirt, so that if you end up with wonky button holes, you need only cut a new placket rather than a whole new front piece. Fortunately, I was happy enough with mine, so didn't need to do any extra cutting.

The main fabric is a cotton, and the blue lining and contrast is a poly cotton poplin.

Originally I had planned to have the plackets and collar in the main fabric, but when I was doing the cutting out, I couldn't think which way up to cut the collar pieces, so made them in the contrast instead.
Now that it is all made up, I'm quite pleased I made this change, as it looks a bit more, dare I say it, 'ROCK and ROLL'.

The last minute change I made was to change out the buttons. I had picked clear buttons when the plackets were going to be patterned, but these didn't look quite right with the plain plackets and yellow buttonholes. So I found some yellow hands, which T loves - he thinks they are 'high 5' hands. Success!

Final pic is the birthday boy himself, in his new favourite shirt.

Rock and Roll Backpack

As a birthday present for my older son, T.  I made a backpack based on the Penguin backpack in the Oliver and S book, 'Little Things to Sew'. 

He wasn't overly inspired by the penguin rendition in the book, so I used this as a basis for making one more to his interests.

As I've mentioned previously, letting the cherubs help choose fabric can be a bit hit or miss, and the 'rock and roll' fabric I used to line his backpack is what he chose to have a shirt made out of! (Incidently, the shirt is cut out, but still requires finishing in time for his birthday too)

Given the 'vibrancy' of his fabric I went for something a little plainer for the outside and used a royal blue pinwale cord. 

I simply appliqued his initial on the front, and used a little of the lining to bind the ends of the shoulder straps.

This was another great Oliver and S pattern, with well written instructions and diagrams to help you along. 

I made it slightly harder for myself by making it plainer, as the directions are very much written assuming you are making the penguin. 

It just involved a bit more thought to figure out which bits you didn't need to cut, and then which parts of the instructions to skip past. 

In conclusion, another winner from the 'Little Things to Sew' book.

Colette Crepe

I recently made a muslin of the Colette Patterns Crepe dress, to check it for fit and alterations needed, before moving on to some rather special fabric I had in mind for this pattern.

It is described on the Colette website as 'A sweet and easy wrap dress with no closures to sew. The dress wraps in back and has cap sleeves. The wide ties encircle the waist for a comfortable dress with a fitted look'. 

I used some fabric that I suspect was destined for bedsheets sometime in the 60's, as it looks very similar to some my Mum has lurking in the back of her linen closet.

This dress was very easy to sew, rated as a beginner pattern by the designer, and had extremely well written instructions complete with diagrams. As with all Colette patterns, the instructions are in a wee bound booklet with a pocket in the back that the pattern tissue slips into.

In all, I am very happy with how my muslin came out. My only minor adjustments I would make for next time, are to cut the neckline a size smaller, as I feel it sits just a little too wide on me, and to raise the waist seam by about 1" .