Tag: Couture

The Boatneck Top

On By Sharon5 Comments

I am finally wearing my new silk boatneck top that I started in 2018 with Susan Khalje.

Back in 2017 when a group of us were discussing what we would make if Susan made it back to Australia again, I always said it would be the Ann Klein Womens Peacoat V1467.

When we heard that Susan was coming to Australia again in 2018 I realised that my wrist was still not 100% and I didn’t think all the tailoring involved in this project would be a good idea.

Talking to my sewing friends about a suitable project, Wendy mentioned Susan’s new Boatneck top that CissieW had mentioned on a Pattern Review that she had worn when she reviewed Susan’s Skirt.  Once I read the description of the top I emailed Susan and she organised for the pattern to be sent to me to prepare my toile for the class.

Susan made some adjustments to the neck and shoulder and felt that this was the best starting point.

For the class I had purchased some gorgeous burgundy silk from Tessuti Fabrics.

One of the design challenges we had was that I wanted long sleeves but not a zipper down the centre back, but on the left hand side of my top.  This is not an issue if you have short sleeves, but as I wanted long sleeves Susan came up with the use of a placket.

When sewing the left sleeve, I stopped 2″ from the top.  At this stage I basted a strip of silk organza selvedge along the stitching line on one side only.  This then gets folded back so the press studs can be sewn to it.

For the 2nd side a placket is sewn to the seam allowance. 

Then the the clear press studs are sewn in place along both edges.

The sleeve has a large dart at the sleeve head which gives it a beautiful shape.

The neck facing had been sewn, trimmed and pressed and then it was time to trim the neck facing and armhole excess fabric.  I trimmed this on my tailors ham and then basted the neck facing edge and armsyce edges together. When I tried it on there was something not quite right so I undid the basting and got out my shoulder stand and realised that I had trimmed off too much of the neck facing, so the edges weren’t meeting up evenly.  I was only able to stitch 3cm together along that edge, whereas the other side I could stitched 5cm on each side of the shoulder seam together.

I also left the armhole on the shoulder stand to baste the seams together so it was all sitting correctly.

Then it was the small bias binding on the sleeve hems.

Another feature Susan and I had decided on was to put a 7.6 cm (3″) French Bias on the hem of my blouse to give it some weight.  The challenge was that when I measured one of my tops that I have finished, I am 29.5cm on the left hand side and 31 cm on the right hand side.  So I marked these spots on the top’s hem and drew a chalk a line from each spot and then basted this line so I could try it on and get my friends to fine tune it for me during one of our weekends away.

The photo below shows the re-basted (adjusted line) and cutting off the excess fabric.  Now the basted line is the finished edge of the top.  I will need to mark up another 7.6 cm (3″) and baste another line as this is where the French bias will have it’s first stitching.

So to prepare for this next step I have made the bias binding and have it rolled on a toilet roll to stop it from being creased.

During another sewing weekend away the 2nd basting line was sewn in place,

and the bias was machine stitched along the blue basting thread, pressed, the excess fabric was cut away and the bias was folded to the inside to be slip stitched in place.

Thank you Jenny for the sparkles!

A press and I have a new top to wear for winter.

oops forget to pull it down

The photo below shows the picked zip and the underarm gusset when worn.

Now to find time to finish the 2 x Little French Jackets and Couture Skirt.

******************
2019 Stash Out: 3.3 m
2019 Stash In: 3 m

Delicate Nothings

On By Sharon12 Comments

One of the classes I attended at the Australian Sewing Guild Convention in Melbourne last year was a class with Tatyana Anderson, called Silk Camisoles that was a 1/2 day course.

Thankfully Tatyana and her staff had cut out our silk and stablised it so we could get started on the placement of our lace straight away.

At the end of the 1/2 day I did have my lace sewn in place, the side seams french seamed and the elastic pinned in place along one edge of the front armhole.

During a couple of ASG group meetings I worked on this to finish the elastic and also to hand roll the hem,

as I couldn’t get a nice finish by machine and then finished the straps.

This is where it was up to when I found out that Tatyana was holding a 2 day workshop in Sydney.  I jumped at the chance to do this, as we hadn’t really dealt with the initial preparation and cutting out of the silk and this is skill I want to work more on.

During the workshop Tatyana pinned my cream straps in place and I was able to sew these in place during the class as well.

Surprisingly to my fellow attendees I had chosen a black silk with a black and gold lace kit.

We set about laying out our pattern pieces on the silk and cutting it out before we started playing with the lace placement.

Seeing I had made a “v” neck for the cream camisole, Tatyana suggested I make this one a round neck which worked perfectly with my lace.

French seams are used and this time I was successful in getting a lovely machine rolled hem.

I was very pleased to get this finished within the 2 days of the workshop.

******************

Multi muted V8572

On By Sharon4 Comments

I thought this blouse was finished a while ago but it was one of those that wasn’t quite right.

The fabric was in my stash and I can’t remember where I purchased it from but the colours in it means I can wear it with navy, brown and olive skirts.

I ended up doing a burn test to work out what it might be and it is pure polyester although I find it quite comfortable to wear in the heat we have been having recently and it drapes well.

I have:

–  put an invisible zip in the left hand side seam

–  a tiny bias neckband, stitched on by machine and then handstitched in place



I wore it a couple of times and it just didn’t look right and finally realised it was too long, only by 1cm but that perfect length was not there. 

So I took the hem up and I thought I had a new top to wear.  Not so!

On my pattern I had noted to shorten the back darts after seeing the pictures of this top, however I also did the same to the front darts (my blog post did say back only) which was a mistake as the top was falling away from my body, not a look that I like.

The top sat around for a few more weeks before I lengthened the front darts into the hem.  I am glad I persisted in getting this right as it has been a great addition to my wardrobe.

*****************
2019 Stash Out: 1.5 m
2019 Stash In: 0 m

Turbulent Sea DVF Wrap Dress

On By Sharon7 Comments

You know when you purchase your ticket for Frocktails and then it dawns on you, “what am I going to wear”.

Of course I left it to the last minute but with a sewing weekend coming up I decided to make another DVF Wrap Dress with this dry knit that was in the stash.

Thank you James Broadway

Just before all this happened the ladies over at Artisan Square had a Pre-2019 SWAP Dress Challenge that had to include a new fabric or new technique.

As this knit is heavier than my previous DVF dress, I decided to add a waist-stay which is a technique I have never used and I found this very detailed post over at Stitch N Smile.

The next thing I did was to do a gaposis adjustment in the front neckline of 1cm, this has made the front neckline sit much better.

So armed with all my sewing goodies I headed off for a weekend of sewing.

To make the waist-stay I used some navy petersham ribbon I had purchased from Torb and Reiner and a trouser hook and bar.

Then I realised I had to add a buttonhole to the waist-stay as one of the ties for dress has to pass through the side seam,

where I attached the waist-stay to the dress and I had positioned the hook and bar to be offset to be on the other side away from the tie on the outside. 

By the end of the 2nd day of sewing the dress just needed hemming and thankfully Mark was on hand that evening to level off the hem so I could use my coverstich to finish the hems that night.

This dress is getting a lot of wear besides Frocktails and I can see it getting a lot more with summer finally arriving.

This will also be  my first garment for SWAP 2019 as “One garment may be completed by today (28 October 2018) US Time Zone.  

******************
2018 Stash Out: 6.3 m
2018 Stash In: 5.0 m

V8648 – The Finished Couture Dress

On By Sharon9 Comments

At last the couture dress is finished, well I should say it was pretty much finished when I last posted during MMMay 2017 as it was worn to Government House on the 5th of May for an Investiture Ceremony as my husband was part of a group reciving a Group Bravery Citation for a resuce they assisted with in Japan in 2007. 

I realised that my in my haste to finalise the dress to wear to Government House, the zip was not as nice as I would have liked it and when your husband says he can see the zip you know it must be obvious.

So unpicking of the pick stitching of the zip happened as well as the lining being undone so it felt like it was going a long way back to get the zip back in,


and the lining, which is sewn in sections e.g. skirt, bodice and midriff.

The final step was to do a rolled hem for the silk lining,

adding some lace to finish it off.

With the wide neckline I also decided to add some thread bars to attach the dress to my bra to stop any chance of it slipping off my shoulders.

I found it interesting that once the dress was finished I wasn’t keen to wear it, it didn’t feel right.  So I took it along to one of my ASG Groups and asked my sewing friends what was wrong, the length, the sleeves or what?  The unamious decision was that the sleeves were too long so they were shortened by 2.5″ (nearly 6cm).

Since then the dress has been worn a number of times and I love the new coral/red accessories I now have to wear with it.

So here are some more photos of the dress after being worn all day at the office.

Unfortunately the jacket hasn’t progessed much further as my sewing time at present is on curtains for the house now that we have a new colour scheme and is also why there is a lot more knitting appearing.

V8648 – The Coutre Dress progress

On By Sharon11 Comments

is very slow, especially when you have been laid up with influenza for the last 6 weeks.

Our first day started with Susan Khalje discussing with the group what we were going to make and what fabric we were going to use.  I had purchased some wool crepe for my dress, but found in my stash some wool with a twill texture which I also took along as it was larger piece.   The class nominated I use this fabric which I was happy to do as I had now decided I wanted sleeves.

Next up Susan had us putting on our toiles and doing the first round of adjustments.  Thankfully my 4th toile was pretty good but still some minor tweaks were made.

These are then marked in another colour marker on your calico and the seams are then unpicked and the pieces ironed flat.

Everything is then laid out on your silk organza and cut out, then this is laid on top of your fashion fabric and you are ready to start hand basting each piece together.

For the next fitting, I used every pin I had and felt like an Echidna whilst Susan did the next round of tweaking.

Then it was more thread tracing of the adjustments and sitting down at the sewing machine and sewing it all up.

The midriff panel gave me some grief and you can see below the different adjustments I had to do to it.

By the time I left the class 6 days later, I had:

  • the dress bodice, midriff and skirt all sewn together.
  • hand picked the centre back zip.
  • the right sleeve was basted in place, and the left sleeve was waiting it’s turn.

There is still a lot of work to do, I only finished the catchstitching of all the seam allowances over the Easter break and I am now in the process of making sure all the adjustments are on the pattern pieces so I can cut out the lining.

More to follow.