FO: NewLook 6471 - aka emergency prom sewing

Eldest daughter was adamant that she did not want to wear a dress to her 6th form prom this year, and bought herself a floral suit from H&M.  We had some discussion at the time about the kind of top she would like to wear with it, with out really coming to a conclusion.

A month or so later I went to the Balenciaga exhibition with a crowd of sewists. After the exhibition we had a lovely lunch and then a small group of us went to Goldhawk Road. I was pretty tired and not really finding anything that I liked but in A One Fabrics I found what I thought would be the perfect fabric for a prom top.  It was super cheap - I think £2 a metre so I bought 2 metres thinking it didn't really matter if Eldest didn't like it at that price!

I washed it and added it to my stash, then we kind of forgot about it.  Suddenly it got to the end of April and we realised on the Monday that her prom was on the Friday of that week - we had a little bit of a panic then realised that it was completely doable in the time frame.  Eldest went through all my patterns for tops and came across New Look 6471 which had come free with a sewing magazine.

She didn't want the cuffs or a tie neck on the pattern, both of which were easy to change.  She had a rtw top that she had seen as a reference point, and it had shirring in places which she wanted.

I finished the raw edge of the sleeves, then did the shirring at the cuff. I think there are 5 or 6 rows. It was pretty straight forward to do - I put elastic thread in my bobbin and normal thread in the needle - as you sew the fabric ruches up.  I was pretty sure I had some black shirring elastic but couldn't find it and had to make do with white.  Of course as soon as I had completed the whole top I found the black elastic! 

My machine didn't like the fabric very much so I used tissue paper between the fabric and the feed dogs, which made it much easier to handle. You just tear it away when you have finished the seam.  I keep all the off cuts of tissue from commercial patterns for this purpose.

I did french seams throughout - the fabric was so sheer that any raw edges or overlocking would have been visible from the right side. Luckily the pattern was a raglan sleeve so I could french seam the sleeves easily too.

I initially put little buttons on the collar but they were too heavy so I swapped to a couple of lightweight plastic snaps instead.

The top was finished with a day to spare, it met all requirements of eldest and she received lots of compliments at her prom - win!

FO: Anda/Staples dress mashup

I started this dress last year during a mini staycation/sewcation in the summer holidays. It was originally a Burda Anda dress.

Image from BurdaStyle

I downloaded the pattern whilst we were still living in NZ and took forever to do anthing with it. (I did start a tunic top for eldest a couple of years ago using the pattern, but it remains a UFO).

I deserted this make part way through because when I tried it on it was a shapeless sack reminiencent of a hospital gown. This was as much to do with the fabric as the style. The Anda is supposed to have a drawstring tie, but whatever I did I couldn't get the channel for the tie to go in the right palce around my middle or for it to look level all the way round - so I had a bit of a hissy fit and gave up.

Earlier this summer I found it whilst looking for something else, as you do, and thought I could probably do something with it. I actually finished this at the beginning of July, took all the pictures, wrote the bare outline of a blogpost, then didn't do anything else until now. 

Having seen quite a few pretty versions of the April Rhodes Staple Dress, I had already noted the similar style so I decided to do some shirring around the middle as I had a bobbin of elastic left over from this.  The shirring isn't as tidy as it could be, and I have probably done one row too many, but I was trying to control some of the volume in the back - it's pretty blousey.

shirring

blousey back

 I lined the skirt section only, otherwise I'd be doing my own version of the famous 'Lady Diana Spencer' shot!

It's not my best make, but for the swelteringly hot days we had at various points in the summer, it was great. The weave of the fabric is quite open and was perfect for letting cooling breezes pass through. I considered a high-low hem as per the Staples dress, but to make the proprtions look right, the skirt would have been uncomfortabley short at the front, so a straight hem it was.

It's quite swishy:

And lastly, this picture is here just because I like it!