A Chambray Dottie Angel Frock

Long time no blog!  But I finally finished a new dress!

This is one of the patterns designed by Dottie Angel for Simplicity.  If you are not familiar with Dottie Angel, well, basically she makes grandma clothes.  But, like, cool grandma clothes.  I would describe her style as, “granny chic”.  She designs dresses, tunics, and aprons that are very practical and simplistic.

This pattern is Simplicity 1080.  It has a couple of different views including a dress version with color blocking and a tunic version.  I opted for the dress version without the color blocking. The fabric I used a chambray that I got from Hobby Lobby at some point, and the contrast pockets came from a fat quarter that I found at a flea market.  Hooray for finding a use for fat quarters!

Like I said, the design of this dress is very simple. For the version I made, I just had to cut out a front, back, ties, and the pocket pieces.  The dress has a basic A-line shape, which is an unusual choice for me.  I tend to go for full skirts with lots of pleats and gathers so that I know there’s going to be plenty of room for my bum.  I was very pleasantly surprised to find that there was plenty room in the basement in this pattern.

One of the things that I like about this pattern, is that it is very loose, but doesn’t look like a bag.  I think the secret that makes this pattern flattering, are the tucks under the bust.  They, along with the ties that are sewn into the tucks, give the dress its shape.  Since this dress is shaped by how tightly you tie the bow in the back, it is SUPER adjustable.  The only area I see fit being a potential issue in is the bust.  I am a D cup and the bust on this dress is just the slightest bit tight around my bust.  It’s not a big enough issue for me that I would bother doing anything about it, but if you have a bigger bust, that’s something to take into account.

One of the things I love about sewing, is that with each new pattern I try, I always learn at least one new technique.  Even though this dress is very simple in its design, it calls for bias bound, and French seams.  I was a little dubious about these techniques at first, but I am glad I tried them.  The neckline and arm holes are finished with bias binding anyway, so having the shoulder seams bias bound as well is a nice touch.  It is way more work than just stitching and overlocking your seam, but I think it makes for a good quality seam and nice, neat insides.  As for the French seams, I had never tried them before, mostly due to fear about having fitting issues with them, so this was a great pattern to try them out with.  Again, both of these methods take extra time and work, but I think they’re great, especially if you don’t have serger and don’t like zig zagging your raw edges.

Uneven stitching? What uneven stitching?

I think my favorite things about this pattern, which caused it to catch my eye in the first place, are the pockets.  Omg the pockets.  They are a great detail and are also super useful!  I added a little bit of lace to mine, which the pattern did not call for, but I love the effect it has.  Once again, you use bias binding to enclose the raw edges, which is both super useful and adds a little bit of a design element.  I like what the bias binding does for the pockets, but it was a pain in the butt to put together.  One thing that really helped me was to secure the curves with wonder clips while hand basting the binding onto the pockets  before stitching them on to the dress front.  Even if I could have forced a pin through that many layers, it would have made lumps and bumps, so clips saved my life here.

So there you have it!  The Dottie Angel frock!  I have really been loving this dress and wearing it to death (like I do with all of my makes).  I think this is a great pattern if you just want an easy make for a super quick casual day dress.  I am hoping to make more of them soon!

Agnes II

So I definitely plan on sewing more than just one pattern for this blog.  I just happen to have Agnes fever at the moment. This is my fourth project with jersey, and out of those four, three happen to be Agnes's.  There will probably be more.  I LOVE THIS PATTERN!

In case you missed my last post, this is the second Agnes on the blog.  It is a pattern by Tilly and the Buttons which can be purchased here.  For my last version I did the dress hack, but for this one, I made the plain long sleeved shirt version with no alterations in a size 4.

Hmmm... why is this picture crooked?

The fabric is a ribbed jersey that I got at Joanne's.  It definitely has some spandex content and possibly cotton or rayon?  Either way, it is super soft, and the ribbing helps the fabric to lay flat as you are working with it.  If you've worked with jersey before, you know it tends to curl at the edges, which is super annoying.

One of my favorite things about Tilly's patterns is that she designs them for pear shaped body types.  Most of her patterns come in at the waist and flare out at the bottom to accommodate your bottom.

A had almost no issues with the construction of this top.  I sewed up the side seams and shoulder seams with the serger, and did the hemming and attached the neckband with a zig zag stitch.  I could probably attach the neckband with the serger too, but I chicken out every time.  Although, since jersey doesn't fray, I think the neck band looks neat enough sewn on the machine with an evenly trimmed seam allowance.

The one issue that I did have with this project was stripe matching.  This fabric was fairly slinky and slippery and the stripes were really skinny, so I had some crossover as I was cutting out the pieces.  Luckily the front and back were cut evenly, but I had to cut a new neckband.  The sleeves were cut crooked, but I figured that wouldn't be super noticeable so I didn't stress out about it.

This will certainly not be the last Agnes I make.  It is super comfy, super flattering, and goes with everything!

A Grey Striped Agnes

I finished this project awhile ago, but for some reason forgot to blog about it.  For several weeks. *Ahem* Better late than never, right?

If you are at all familiar with the indie pattern and sewing community, you already know about Tilly and the Buttons.  Just in case you don't (it's okay, you don't have to pretend), this is one of their more popular patterns. The Agnes top! I had made one of these previously, and I loved it so much, I decided to hack my next one into a dress!

Since Tilly is so awesome, she has instructions on how to do this hack on her blog, here.  I pretty much followed her instructions to the letter.  The only thing I changed was that I did not cut a skirt front and back, but instead cut on the fold and stitched down one side.  I did this mostly because I was worried about not having enough room in my bum area and I wanted to have as wide a piece of fabric is possible.  If I'd had wider fabric, I probably could have made my skirt fuller, but I'm happy with how it turned out.

The original bodice pattern (or shirt if you're making it un-hacked) has options for ruching on the neckline and the sleeves.  Since this fabric is pretty frilly, I decided to go ahead with the frilly sleeves, but I kept the neckline plain.  The texture of the dimensional scallops on this fabric made it a little tricky to work with, so I am really glad I was able to get the stripe centered without having any of my scallop nubs cut off.

I did have a few issues with this project.  The texture of the fabric, while lovely, was super annoying while I was sewing it up. It made matching my stripes difficult.  I give myself a C- for stripe matching on this one.  This skirt is also uneven with the bodice, because I accidentally cut a hole in the bodice with my serger...oops.  I cried a little, stitched up the hole, covered it with a belt, and called it a day!

Over all, I am super happy with this project.  I want a closet full of jersey dresses to have as secret pajamas.  If you have been sewing a little while, but are feeling squeamish about working with jersey, the Agnes pattern is a great one to start with.  It's super simple yet flattering, and Tilly provides really great instructions with all of her patterns.

As a side note, I just wanted to say that sewing has really caused me to change up my style, in a good way.  I used to never ever wear skirts or dresses, because in my mind, skirts meant dressing up, which meant church or special occasions.  I also could never find skirts that were quite what I wanted to wear.  They were either too short, or too frumpy.  Too young or too old.  I can now make things I will actually wear every day.  It feels amazing to visualize something in your head and have it come out exactly how you want.  Sewing is basically magic.