Its been a beautiful sunny day here and it got me thinking about spring! having spent the entire summer, autumn and now winter in jeans, wellies and thick woolly jumpers, I have decided that I will be very optimistic and get ready for a warm, early spring and that means I need a new dress!
Now, I haven’t made any clothes since I left school 30 years ago so I don’t expect to be giving Donna Karen a run for her money just yet but there are some lovely patterns out there and so I have been online and ordered a few to get me started.
I have decided that the first dress I make will need to be very simple, without any fitting adjustments if at all possible as well as being quick to make as I can be quite impatient so if I can get good results fast then so much the better! I have chosen a Vogue Very Easy pattern number V8764, which has their Custom Fit feature where they include bodice pieces for A, B, C & D cup sizes, so that should ensure a good fit from the start. I like the simple shape of the dress…and the fact that there are only 5 pattern pieces!
I am very lucky to live right next door to a fabric shop (I’ve lived here for nearly 17 years and I’ve not been their most regular customer!) so I took my pattern in to choose a fabric…how hard is that! So many colours and different fabric types, I was rather overwhelmed and couldn’t make a choice straight away. I could visualise how different the dress would look made from the different fabrics but in the end I decided on a lovely French Blue Linen/cotton blend with a darker blue cotton for the lining. I settled on a plain fabric as the pattern design has quite a lot of top-stitching detail so I want to make this noticeable rather than lose it in a bold fabric pattern. I bought the sewing cottons at the same time, one for stitching the seams and another for the top-stitiching and a zip for a total of a little over £26, which (if it turns out well!) is not at all bad for a linen dress that should fit me well rather than an off the peg dress that is always too tight in the bust and too big in the waist.
It’ll be interesting to see how much my sewing teacher managed to drum into me all those years ago but I very much expect I will need a bit more help along the way! So, I have got myself a brilliant book called Complete Book Of Sewing to show me how to do everything from sewing the seams to setting in sleeves to professional techniques so I know I will be able to tackle more advanced patterns as I go along making my own clothes. It’s perfect for a complete beginner (me!) as well as those who may have some experience but who want to take their dressmaking further.
Anyway, tomorrow I will be pinning and cutting out the pieces for my dress…I hope you’ll come back to see how I get on!
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The pieces are all cut out…and after a week of just about everything getting in the way of actually starting sewing my dress, I will be firing up my lovely old Singer this afternoon!