Marcy Tilton Bubble Dress

For a change, this was a very straight forward project, with almost no changes at all of the Vogue 9112 pattern.

The only alteration I made was to change the gathers at the hem ‘bubbles’ into little pleats. I alsmost always do this, as I dislike gathers and think pleats are nicer. But that is a very personal preference, or possibly, quirk.

You can read up on the sewing process here and see more photos of the finished dress below.

A Dress for Christmas

Isn’t it nice to have a lovely new dress for Christmas? I certainly think so. The only trouble is that this type of dress often only gets worn once or maybe twice and then joins the stack of special occasion outfits languishing in the back of my wardrobe. This is because it is usually too dressy for the office and not quite an evening outfit either. Not that I go out often in the evenings these days, and when I do it seldom requires too much dressing up.

So this year I decided to remake a previous Christmas dress into a new one, so the lovely silk dupioni it was made from would get another outing. Below is my inspiration piece from Amalthee:

Pretty, isn’t it?

My silk was green, not red, but equally suitable for Christmas and a colour closer to my taste, although I have started to quite like dark red of late. But the sleeves had to go. Trumpet sleeves look lovely but are totally impractical for someone who would be doing some last minute food handling and quite a bit of eating as well. Trumpet sleeves dunked into salad dressing and turkey gravy are not very appealing. Besides, in our Australian climate you are very likely to dissolve into a puddle of perspiration in long sleeves and silk ones at that. I considered elbow length, but even that is dicey on a hot day, and anyway, when I checked the leftover fabric at my disposal 3/4 sleeves ceased to be an option. In the end I decided on sleeveless with a shawl worn over the top.

The dress originally had cut on cap sleeves, which weren’t all that comfortable, a round neck and a voluminous swing shape with a hi-lo hemline. I believe the pattern had been a modified Tessuti Lily, which is my go-to pattern for A-line swing dresses. I had extended the shoulders for a sort of cap sleeve effect, not all that expertly I have to admit, and it looks to me as if I increased the width of the skirt at CF and CB too, by tilting the pattern pieces away from the fold, as illustrated in the picture below. (What is marked selvages could equally well be the fold of the fabric, if you did not want a centre seam. With the tilt of the pattern piece the width at the neck remains the same, but volume is added lower down without tacking it on at the sides.) More details about the sewing process can be found here.

But back to my green silk dress. I unpicked the side seams and recut the armscyes based on the Tessuti Eva dress, which I particularly like for a good fit in the shoulders and bust. I considered copying the interesting funnel shaped cowl of Vogue 9112 but in the end I left the round neck as it was, because I had a matching silver and green marble statement necklace I wanted to show off.

The back view of the hi-lo hem was a problem. Such a vast expanse of fabric! I had put a CB seam into the original dress, but even so, the dupioni did not drape much and that made it look enormous.

However, some time ago at a visit to the supermarket, I had seen someone wearing a hi-low tunic with ‘tails’, i.e. the back was split from the waist down. I really liked that look, so I decided to try it with this dress. I also took in some width at the back waist, about 10cm, to stop the CB seam from bulging outward unbecomingly at that point, and give a more fitted shape to the waist and the upper body. Not fitted, just ‘more fitted’. I am hopelessly spoiled by the loose clothing style I have become accustomed to.

Christmas lunch was lovely. A most enjoyable afternoon with our children, grandchildren, and some of our extended family, fun, laughter and good conversation. Even the weather was cooperative for a change, temp in the mid twenties, so not too hot, and sparkling sunshine. Just right to enjoy the view from DD’s back deck down to Chinamans Beach…

 

… and out through the headlands of glorious Sydney Harbour.

Flamingos

I am doing more bird prints, this time flamingos and using a commercially cut stamp. Aldi had a couple of cards of transparent acrylic stamps for sale and I couldn’t resist. I am quite new to acrylic stamps, which have the advantage that they stick to a rigid perspex backing, but can be removed again and stored, while you use another stamp with the same backing block. I don’t think you can carve these yourself, but the scrapbooking community seems to like them and there are lots around for purchase. I don’t mind using whatever comes to hand for my creations. If you are not familiar with these acrylic stamps, have a look at this YouTube video. Sorry that this is a commercial video advertising products, the company has absolutely nothing to do with me, I only wanted to borrow their video to show anyone interested how to use the clear stamps. Scrapbooking stamps are usually quite small to suit cards etc, and of the stamps I bought only one is suitable for fabric printing, i.e. large enough, but never mind. I will be able to use the others for making cards and gift wrap with the grandchildren.

The top is a repurposed Tina Givens Poppy slip.

I loved it when I made it, but found that I never wore it. The reason was that the fabric was too sheer to wear the slip on its own, and the colour was too difficult to wear under other dresses. Besides, I feel too dressed up for everyday life in this sort of outfit. And while I loved the gathered hem,  I discovered that the ties are a little unpractical at ankle length because they do get caught up in things.

So I thought I would turn this white elephant into a tunic. Tunics and pants are my staples, hence no chance of not getting worn, and the sheerness of the fabric would not be a problem with pants and my usual cotton tank top underneath. I also fancied sleeves, and fortunately I had some fabric left, enough to cut short sleeves and a cowl. You can read my review of the sewing process here.

The fabric is a cotton voile of the most beautiful quality. I have been working quite a bit with silk/cotton lately, and could not believe that this one was cotton only. But when I did a burn test, sure enough, no smell of hair. I think that maybe there is some rayon mixed with the cotton, which would not be detectable because rayon smells much like cotton when you burn it. Rayon was originally invented to imitate silk, and while these days it is mostly woven to have its own distinctive look, it can still be made in such a way that it resembles silk closely.

The fineness of this fabric is ideal for block printing and the prints turned out beautifully. I have to say that cotton voile in general is a great fabric for block printing and I suspect that China silk is too. This is because the paint penetrates the thin fabric really well, improving the coverage of the prints, which can be a problem with thicker fabrics. Below is a tunic made from ponte, printed with an American native bird motif.

You can see in the closeup that the prints are quite transparent, with the red of the ponte coming through. This is because the stamp cannot hold enough paint to cover and penetrate the thick ponte properly.

I still like the tunic and have worn it a lot, but I would be happier with the prints being a solid black.

Below you can see how much better the prints look on a thinner fabric. Fortunately it is summer in Australia and I see a lot of printed voile in my future, and also some China silk.

This is linked back to the blogger party RUMS.

Bags from Beijing

KarenDee on Artissan Square posted a question about what types of bags go well with Lagenlook. I suspect lots of styles do, but as Karen is such a lovely person who ALWAYS has something nice, kind and encouraging to say to everyone, I thought I would take the opportunity here to talk about the bags I like to use and show some photos too. After all, descriptions only go so far.

First of all, there is such a thing as personal preference. Not everyone likes the same styles, and a good thing too! I like simplicity, and never more so than with handbags. At least on the outside. On the inside I like to have a variety of pockets, so I can find my mobile, keys etc easily. I also like to have a zip up pocket for the times when I carry something I can’t afford to lose, such as an important receipt or maybe my passport or other critical paperwork.

Then there is size. Yes, for me, size does matter! Some people like small cross-body bags, and that’s perfectly ok, but I like BIG. Not so big that it crosses the pain threshold, aka you catch your bag on displayed items in shops all the time which then crash to the ground, but close.

I have never quite got into making my own bags, somehow I’m just not attracted to that kind of sewing. Possibly because there are so much fiddlly hardware and specialised supplies necessary for a professional look, which are not easy to come by. More likely though because I have been visiting Beijing once a year for the last few years, and let me tell you, Beijing is Handbag Central on the global handbag map. (Possibly all of China is, but I only get to go to Beijing.)

I would say that very little of what is on offer there, in the markets where I like to shop, would be actual leather, or has ever been within cooee of a cow, pig or sheep. Don’t be fooled by sales assistants whipping out a cigarette lighter and holding a flame to the bag, it still isn’t leather. That does not really bother me, I am quite happy with a vegan handbag, and the knowledge that no poor creature had to lay down its life for my accessories makes me feel rather virtuous. There is no issue with breathability or wearing comfort with handbags, and as long as the fake leather does not actually look like fake leather I have no problem. And let my tell you, you really can’t tell. DDIL used to work for Coach, and the leather of her super expensive bag looked more fake than my fake one. Go figure.

However, quality is an issue. I have noticed that the general workmanship has rather deteriorated in the markets, which I am not too happy about. I am told that there are back rooms in shops where the prices are higher and the quality is better, but I am not sufficiently in the know to have access to those. For the moment I am content to keep my eyes open and check the stitching carefully when buying.

The markets I go to are the Pearl Market, Yashow Market and the Silk Market. The latter is the most expensive, but the merchandise is more upmarket and the quality is generally better, although I have seen poor stitching there too. Yashow is where the locals shop, and therefore the cheapest, and the Pearl Market would be somewhere in between. You have to bargain quite fiercely at all of these markets. Fortunately I have quite a lot of practice, as I have lived in the Middle East and have also travelled quite a lot in Asia. I probably still pay a little more than the locals, but that’s ok.

None of these bags have cost more than around $20. A careful look by a knowledgeable fashion buyer would no doubt reveal them as fakes of whatever designer brand they purport to be, but I am not fussed. On the whole they have help up well after a couple of years use and they are cheap enough to replace at the first sign of wear.