FINISHED! Tiny Dancer Drop Waist Shirt Dress

Just in time for the end of the month, here is my finished Pattern Runway Drop Waist Shirt Dress made up from Liberty of London AW2013 Art Fabrics, Tiny Dancer (colourway A), from the Audio theme.  The fabric is from Tessuti and I snapped it up the moment I got the email notifying that some new season Liberty was in stock.

"Tiny Dancer celebrates the collaborative work of choreographer Merce Cunningham and his musical advisor and partner John Cage, as they explore the relationship between dance and music. Sketched from performance videos with pen and ink, the design was stylised to create symbolic shapes. "

But let's talk about the dress.  Oh how I LOVE this dress. I've been working slowly on this most of the month, in between my other projects.  This is so 'me'. The collar combined with the drop waist and the fabulous print is a perfect fit for my style.

A big congratulations to Pattern Runway. I wasn't particularly familiar with their patterns and hadn't sewn up a pattern from their range before, but I was really impressed. The pattern was a digital buy, which more and more these days I'm preferring. Clear pattern (I really liked the grid on the pattern) with very good instructions. I had a question which I emailed through and I got an immediate answer.

As for the making of it, you may remember way back at the beginning of June I made a muslin for this dress. Well I think the adjustments I made back then were spot on.  It is probably a bit loose in the body but I don't think that matters and I like it. In the end I didn't have to adjust the armscye like I thought I would - the change in the bust darts were enough to lift them.

It wasn't a quick make but it did come together reasonably easy.  Oh except for the fact that I sewed the left shoulder up 4 (yes 4 times) before I got it right.  Yes, it was late at night and I kept twisting the seam as I was sewing it inside out.  The result is lovely and clean on the shoulder but I just kept twisting the damn thing. Only on one shoulder of course!

I had a few problems with putting the collar on getting the curved ends to be neat.  I really must hunt down a tutorial for that.  It was a tight squeeze to get a button on in the space I ended up with but I did and hopefully the Tiny Dancer fabric hides any little issues.  Last night when I was finishing it I was so worried about this tiny button space, that I resigned myself to never wearing it buttoned up, but now that I'm wearing it, it feels and looks ok done up. In fact that will be the default wear.

I didn't line the dress, partly because I just didn't know where to start with doing such a thing with a shirt dress. I'm not worried as I can always wear a slip under this for winter or in summer, my own legs will be just fine.

I'm a bit off across the bodice on the pattern, but I'm just going to forget that I noticed it and I'm sure you will too :)

Do check out Pattern Runway.  I certainly will be looking at more of their patterns and will be putting this one away as a definite one to remake. ... although for now, I think I might make something really easy.

Anatomy of a Drop Waist Shirt Dress Muslin

It's a long weekend here this weekend, so yesterday morning, when it was foggy and cold and we were all taking it slow in our pjs,  I snuck in some hours and worked on my muslin for my Tiny Dancer Drop Waist Shirt Dress.   This is the very first muslin I've ever taken the time to do and while I approached the task with a bit of trepidation, I quite enjoyed it and don't feel that it was at all a waste of (precious sewing) time.  

I didn't take as much care as I should have:  I accidentally sewed the back on inside out... and the collar on the wrong way.. mmm..(blaming the fabric that doesn't have an obvious 'wrong side').  Definitely things to not do on the real dress.  But I also learned that, if I'd make up this size in my real fabric, it would have fit me but it wouldn't have looked great.  The placement of the bust darts is too low and the drop of the waist is way too low for a shorty like me.  So, hopefully if I make my adjustments correctly, then the dress will look even better.  There might be more adjustments that I could/should make but I think this is a good start.

I must add that this is the first time working with a Pattern Runway pattern and I highly recommend it. The dress comes together beautifully and the instructions are very clear.

June sewing and an ironing disaster

I have bought quite a lot of patterns this year, so have quite a lot of things on the to do list (so many in fact that I haven't even kept my list up to date), but they have all been sidelined by a dazzling new piece of Liberty fabric. I saw this fabric, "Tiny Dancer" on the Tessuti website last week.  I think it must be from the new Art range but it isn't yet on the Liberty website so I don't yet have any more details, except that I just love it!

I moved quickly and snapped up a couple of metres of it, imagining it made into the Pattern Runway Drop Waist Shirt Dress.  I haven't sewn a Pattern Runway pattern before so I'm interested to see how it makes up. I am always in love with the versions by Jolies Bobines, so I'm feeling positive.

Normally I'd just cut right in, even with a pattern I haven't used, but this time I'm going to try a muslin first. Inspired partly by my love for the fabric and by Kenneth D King and all of you who make muslins, I thought I'd try a bit of slow sewing and as I have plenty of this check fabric in the stash, I thought why not?! I'm not intending to finish the dress in the check fabric, at least not yet, but will just use it to confirm the sizing.

And in other news, I took the Dart Manipulation course on line at Creative Bug last weekend. It's short, but I found it really helpful. So armed with my new confidence I undertook this afternoon to fix the darts on my Laurel.  Hooray!! I fixed the darts.... but sadly managed to burn the dress in the process.  I'm not sure how I did it...the first I knew was when I tried it on and felt the shoulder. Oh oh :(  

I think I'll try and salvage the sleeves, but all is not lost I suppose as after all I have the pair of Tania Culottes out of the left over cord from this dress and the Simplicity 2154  big bow blouse out of the Liberty.  It still begs the question. How could I have been sooooooooo stupid?!!!?????