Hey there Sew pals,
I hope all of your navigational equipment is working in the noggin and you are finding a way through August.
All is well at FOB HQ, I’ve had a few fabric deliveries and had some time not only to sew for myself, but a few gifts for my favourite ladies.
In other exciting postal news, I have bought TWO Wool and the Gang kits, one was on sale and one was just so delicious I couldn’t control myself. My autumn craft goal is to move beyond scarves and knit some garments. I went for the Double Trouble jumper in rust and the Addicted to Love cardi in luscious forest green.
I will take this as a chance to thank my junior office colleagues who happily sign for and stash my sewing post without any protest, I owe you all fancy coffees.
I am planning to take the cardi kit on holiday with me in September, thought being the tape yarn would be temperature appropriate, so get ready for some ‘knitting from the sun lounger’ instagram posts and any suggestions on how I could knit from a’top a lilo in the pool would be greatly appreciated.
Anyway, with that September holiday in mind, I wanted to really nail it with a few sun dresses.
I decided to give the Rosie dress from Sew Over It a whirl. The combo of fitted bodice and full skirt is always a winner and the option of wide straps (essential for the industrial bra dependant among us) got it over the line.
As per the norm, my fabric was from eBay at was in the region of £3/meter. It is slightly textured and has a slight stretch. It was dreamy to work with, as one of those perfect mixes of natural and manmade fibres and took a press with a terrific obedience.
So the stripes, yes they are beautiful and delicate and will makes me look like a maiden strolling through the french countryside…was I going to try and pattern match?
This pattern has some curved seams and also the stripe is relatively fine, so I made peace with myself to not match the stripes. On the front bodice piece I did a very simple match at the top just so the eye had something to latch to, but otherwise I cut my pattern pieces like I was going skinny dipping.
I opted for version one and knew from the outset I was going to omit the collar pieces as I just wanted a really simple shape. However in usual FOB fashion I did dive in without really reading the instructions- this is for a boned bodice, I didn’t have boning, I didn’t want boning (insert adolescent teehee), so I just omitted the boning.
The panels come together nicely and I had enough fabric to self line.
I love the skirt construction and having the combination of a pleat at the front and gathers for the rest of the waistband leave you with a skirt that’s swishy but not bulky- there is a skirt option with the pattern too.
I checked the fit half way through construction and found I had heaps of space in the bodice. I cut a straight 14, where my measurements were actually closer to the 12- why did I do this? This is a two part answer…
i) I have a large bust, but small back and small waist. I really need to start doing a FBA or at least a bit more grading between sizes instead of just making bigger tops and dealing with the fit issues later. It’s on the list, but please expect at least 3-4 more makes before I deal with this.
ii) I automatically expect to be too chubby for things. The frequent occurrence of trying on my ‘standard’ RTW size in a shop and not being able to do the zip up or having a criminal camel toe has filtered into my sewing habits. It’s very silly but hey old habits die hard. Let’s talk about body image and self depreciation another time, or I could save it for when I finally get invited onto the ‘Guilty Feminist’ podcast.
At first I started to reduced the seams on all of the bodice panels, but this was pretty labour intensive. In the end I took away sections from the centre back seam, what would be either side of the zip. This worked pretty well.
Zip went in with out incident and strap placement was aided by producer Ross and yes the straps are wide enough to cover my juggernaut bra.
Otherwise the insides are pretty neat and my overlocker cooperated despite having had thread colour changed 4 times in the last week, prior to that I think I’d been coasting on grey for about 4 months.
I’m really happy with this dress. I like the shape and I like the fabric. As mentioned above I could have done more fitting on bodice, there is some gaping under the arms, right at the bra bulge squidgy bit. The waist has a little room, which is good so it won’t feel to restrictive in the hot hot heat.
Thanks for rock n’ roll photos, courtesy of producer Ross in his rock n’ roll studio.
Pretty good result lads. Happy with that.
Fuck Off Bunting. 