Nora - Beta version revamped

Thanks for all the feedback about blogging repeats everyone.  The consensus seems to be that it's fine in moderation and if the patterns are made up in different colors/fabrics. That's good because today's post also is a bit of a repeat. Just kind of repeat I'm more comfortable blogging about.

Remember the pattern mash up of Nettie and Flora, or the Nora as I liked to call it?  Well today I'm showing you slightly tweaked version of that pattern love child.  It's my Nora muslin revamped.

Most of you probably know that I'm a serial musliner.  It's my way of working out not only fit problems, but any dumb brain farts that might happen when I'm sewing a garment for the first time.  And let me admit that I still make A Lot of dumb mistakes when sewing. Enough that it's a tad embarrasing. Therefore it's no surprise that I whipped up a muslin of the Nora idea before cutting into the precious tree knit.  The knit muslin stores are a bit low at the moment, so I used the left over chuck of green polyester jersey from last summer's favorite dress.

The muslin Nora was close to being perfect but for a few things.  First the neckline was too low and secondly using a facing to finish the neck and armhole didn't work well. The only reason I'd put in a facing in the first place was that there wasn't enough fabric to cut a full self lining.  But whatever, it's just a muslin right? I threw the muslin in the corner and went off and made the "real" tree print version.

If I'd used some crappy knit that probably would have been the end of it.   Instead I keep starting at that pile of green knit thinking, "It's almost wearable and there are decently sized fabric scraps to work with. Why not use those problem solving brain cells?"

First bit of business was to rip out that crappy facing. Next I shortened the shoulder straps by about 1/2" to counter act some stretching and take care of part of the low neckline problem.  To further fix the depth of the necking I decided not to reinvent the wheel and used the Nettie neckband. Due to the width of my fabric scraps the neckband had to be made out of two pieces, but who's checking for extra seams at the shoulder anyway.  Now the dress wasn't too low cut, hooray! Why not continue with the theme and finish with some bands at the sleeves?

Yeah, I did put bands on the sleeves and it looked horrible! The proportions of the shoulder area were wrong for a banded sleeveless finish.  Hmmm, cut into the bodice blindly or put on some sleeves that would probably work? Sleeves it is then.  Due to my fabric scrap constraints the shortest sleeves in the pattern stash were chosen, the shortened skater sleeve used in this dress.

When I tried on this dress to check the sleeves it was instant love, just like the dress in this fabric last year. Oh my lord, the fabric is magical! Why hadn't I bought 10 yards of this fabric? What am I gonna do next year? Crap, need more magical fabric and or a time machine to buy more of this magical fabric.

For now I'm contenting myself with wearing this dress on a weekly basis. It goes with half of my Luxulite brooches and is comfy as all get out. Note to self, buy solid colored jerseys once in a while.  It's not a crime to have a layering base some times. Don't you agree Desmond.....Desmond?  (He just runs off to play with worms.)

P.S. I took these photos right off the "main drag" of my local town center. It was the first time that I had a lot of foot traffic and consequentially gawkers around while taking blog photos. So if I look kind of stiff or weird in these photos that's why. 

Sundress Hacks - The Nora

Oh No, some hooligans have been graffiting the blog again. Well they must have tapped into my brain because I have a special sew-a-long installment planned today, a sundress pattern hack. "A hack you say? I would have never in a million years thought Heather would hack another pattern." is what no one said ever. You come for the hacks and stay for the crazy. Yes? yes.  So let me take off my lab coat and present you with my latest Pattern McFrankenstein creation, the Nettie/Flora knit dress - Nora for short. Frogore, throw the lights.

This particular hack did not jump fully formed from my head and thank god cause ouch!  Instead I was inspired by Sown in Brooklyn's instagram feed. Nettie posted a picture of a great dress that immediately called two patterns to mind. Nettie on top and Flora on the bottom. It's comfy, it's sexy, it's Nora. And apparently if you start binge watching "Mr. Selfridge" then you think of everything in terms of marketing.  Do you think Mr. LeClaire will design me a window? What if I tempt him with the back view?

The bodice of this dress is the front scoop neck and the medium back view of Nettie with the straps narrowed. Instead of finishing the neck and armholes with bands, I cut two front and back pieces and made a self lining.  To get a clean finish on those areas I used the handy technique posted by Colette for the Moneta dress.  The Flora skirt was attached with a few "on the fly" changes to pleat depth to get the two pieces to match in diameter.  On my size the back skirt fit perfectly, but the front knife pleats needed to be deepened by about an 1".

Ooo look at that lovely hem sweep while I'm checking out an open trash can of hornets just out of frame. The things we do for sewing/blogging/decent backgrounds without too much sun. At least I wasn't wounded in action. I do appreciate hornets that respect fashion.

Nora is my favorite kind of knit dress.  One that is comfortable to wear, but still makes you look put together. Even better the pattern hack for making it is super simple.  I've outlined the steps so you can start making your Nora today. Yes, TODAY. You won't regret it.

*Note - I went one size up on the recommended Nettie size for this dress.  Mostly because of my wider back issues with the higher back neckline. You may not need the extra ease so muslin, muslin, muslin.

How to Adjust Nettie
1. To start, trace the front scoop neck and the medium back view on the Nettie pattern.

2. Use one of the lengthen/shorten lines as your waist seam for the patterns. I used the upper line.

3. On the front shoulders mark 1/2" in on either side of the strap. Then repeat this step on the back pattern piece.

4. On the CF raise the neckline at least 3/4". You need to fill in the neckline a bit because you won't have the added coverage of the neckband . Also the weight of the skirt will pull the bodice down giving you a deeper plunge then you might expect.  You may want to raise the neckline further depending on the vertical stretch of your fabric.

5. Raise the CB of the back scoop 3/4" for bra coverage.

6. Using a french curve redraw the neckline.

7. Then redraw the armhole.

8. Repeat the last two steps on the back pattern piece. Cut off the excess paper on the armhole and necklines to get finished pattern pieces that look like these.

Optional Bodice Step - You may also want to shorten the strap length to counter act the weight of the skirt pulling it down. The more vertical stretch the fabric has, the shorter the strap length should be.

Optional Skirt Step - If we are being good little pattern drafters, then the final step would be to compare the length of the waist seams between the Nettie and Flora patterns.  Then adjust the Flora skirt to fit by either making the pleats deeper for shaving some of the side seam off.  
If you want to be lazy like me and do it on the fly, then do the following.  Notch both the CF and CB on the bodice and skirt.  Pin the skirt to the bodice at these notches and both side seams.  Now you can see how much fabric needs to be folded at the pleat to make the two pieces fit.  You can fold the correct sized pleat and sew the skirt to the bodice.

Quick note about fabric - Because of weight of the skirt I'd recommend using a jersey that doesn't have too much stretch in the vertical direction. However it should be light enough to have some drape for the skirt. Something like an ITY would work great for this sort of design.  The fabric I used has been stashed long enough that the fiber content is a little hazy in my mind.  I believe it's a cotton/lycra blend, due to the hand. It's a lot more stable than a rayon jersey, but I still needed to shorten the straps to keep the neckline from getting too low.

Now that it's back to the sewing machine to work on my Cambie hack. Can't stop, won't stop. :) There's still plenty of time to join the sew-a-long if you get the itch. Just pop on over to the flickr group and join. I'll have Froggie mix up a fresh batch of daiquiris when you arrive.

Frolicking in a Field of Poppys

What's this? Back to back poppy print dresses? Oh yeah, I think we all need another hit of pretty poppy goodness. Just shield your eyes from the glare coming off of my lily white legs. Ahhhh it burns, quick find me some sunglasses!!!

Everyone have their protective eye wear in place?  Good, good, then I can show you this. Poppies precious, so many poppies!

Dipped hem Heather?  Did you go and make another Flora skirt? Guilty as charged.  To say that I've been jonesing to make another Flora would be putting it mildly. Instead of going the TNT pattern repeat route,  my brain was all, "Let's switch things up and make something fun and semi impracticable."  Just like that a plan was hatched to do a little BHL pattern mixing and matching.

Yep, it's the Elisalex bodice with it's gorgeous neckline and sleeves for those of us with reptile blood.  Wooo Hooo, I'm only partially freezing in these pictures and there was a nice patch of sunlight out of frame. Mmmm warm me sunshine, but don't burn my pasty flesh.

For this smaller sized Elisalex bodice I did all of the same pattern alterations as the first time, with the exception of increasing the diameter of the sleeves. One new change was made, the front of the sleeve cap was flattened to compensate for the 3/8" taken out of the front princess line seam. Here I was wondering why there was so much ease in the front sleeve with a forward shoulder adjustment made.  Ummmm because you removed 3/4" of armhole diameter without adjusting the sleeve Heather. Ooops.

The good news for those of you who also like bodice/skirt swamping is that the Elisalex/Flora patterns don't need much tweaking to fit together well.  I sewed a size 10 for both pattern parts and found the Flora skirt to be around 1/2" bigger in the front then the Elisalex bodice.  It was then a simple process to make the knife pleats a little deeper so that the circumferences matched up.  The back circumferences were the same to begin with, but I moved the box pleat over an 1" or so to match up with the princess seam line.

All pleat adjustments were done on the fly while attaching the skirt to the bodice.  The proper way would have been to check the patterns and adjust them before cutting out the fabric.  But I'm all for truth in sewing and doing it the lazy way work out just fine. Don't tell the sewing goddess lest she smite me.

Now about this fabric, it's a Milly cotton sateen with.......wait for it.....an ivory background.  Past Heather really had an ivory background buying problem.  This fabric should have gone in the "give to other people with warm complexions" pile.  But as you can see I greedily held on it it cause poppies and reasons related to poppies. I hope you can forgive me.

Overall I'm pretty pleased with this pattern mash-up.  The one thing I would change is to slightly lower the front portion of the dipped hem.  Because the front seemed short, a very narrow rolled hem was used to preserve as much length as possible.  I still get the feeling that a pair of poppy modesty shorts might be needed for getting out of cars and stiff winds.  I see London, I see France, I see your underpants, you hussy! So sorry, that's my inner grandma talking. Go bake me some poppy seed cake grandma and keep your opinions to yourself. Mmmmm caaaaaake.

I'm Here for the Garden Party - By Hand London Flora Dress

*I got an engraved note in the mail the other day.... "We cordially invite you to our fence garden party on the first of April. Please RSVP if you're bringing cookies."  Let it never be said that "All the patterns" Heather would turn down a cookie party.  I made sure to bake up a fresh batch of cookies and got myself all dolled up in my new party dress, Flora.  Well I must have gotten there early because there was no garden party or cookies, just the fence.  At least the fence and I are old buddies. After catching up we decided to take a few pictures to commemorate the event.

The age old story of a girl and her fence

Where the hell are those cookies?

Right about this time I started suspecting some foul play about the cookie party.  Wait a minute, isn't it April fools?  Hey where is my plate of cookies?!  I ran back to the house to find frog face down in what was left of the pile. To say I was displeased would be putting it mildly.  After a thorough scolding I put him to work paying off his cookie debts sewing hems.  I'm currently monitoring him drinking a glass of wine and smoking cigarettes Betty Draper style. Still working on my Nordic bitch stare.

Speaking of Betty, I'm pretty sure she would kill for this dress.  OK fine, she's made some snotty comment about being a size 6, but secretly she'd want it. And who wouldn't, it's full of girly awesomeness.

I know some of you saying, "Wait a minute, that dress is supposed to be a blue and white floral. Not a black and teal flora. What the what what?" Well ladies, that lovey pique turned out to be about 4" too narrow and a yard too short.  Guess I should have checked the yardage requirements before writing up my ridiculous dress list post.  The circle skirt needs the entire 60" of fabric to get the full sweep and it eats up yardage like crazy.  Luckily for everyone I have lots of wide flora prints in the stash.......lots.

But let's get into an actual pattern review. Remember those?

Pattern
By Hand London's Flora Dress  I sewed a size 10 with the faux wrap bodice and the skirt with the straight hemline.

Fabrics used
Ascher Studio dress weight cotton.  I really like the vintagy large scale prints Ascher Studio makes and have several of their fabrics in my stash.  This one I bought at my semi-local store, Steve's Sewing.

The lining is black siri which I picked up from Gertie's store last summer.

Pattern changes/alterations
1. Usual 1/2" forward shoulder adjustment.
2. For my low set bust I dropped side seam dart 1 1/2" and shortened waist dart by 1".
3. Took in the side seams under the arm only about 1/4".  The pattern flares out in that area so it was very simple to cut off the excess making the side seam straight.

Note - I always have to fix gaping in wrap bodices and was prepared to make that alteration to this pattern. Imagine my surprised when trying on the Flora muslin and finding no gaping what so ever. I did cover this alteration in a previous post, so if you need it then click here to see it done in the Gertie wrap dress pattern.

Confessions/Advice
1. The waist darts might be a little too far over towards the side seams.  This wasn't that noticeable in the faux wrap bodice, so I did not change their location.

2. On the faux wrap bodice the zipper is not supposed to be encased in the lining.  The overlap of the two pieces keeps you from turning the SA under in the waist area. Because of this you're supposed to finish the CB layers together and sew the zipper on top of the lining.  Well that exposed zipper irked me, so I did some unauthorized sewing to get around it.  The lining and self layers were sewn together up to 1 1/2" of the CB where I stopped and back stitched.  Then I folded the lining back and continued attaching the skirt to the bodice with only the self layers.  This isn't good sewing practice, so I wouldn't recommend it.  But I got to encase my zipper tape and be happy.

3. Those of us with low set bust fullness will find that there is plenty of coverage in the wrap bodice. At least that's my theory for why the pattern mock up shows so much cleavage and mine has none.  I actually prefer the non revealing neckline because keeping my boobs inside wrap bodices is usually a problem. Much like water, they always seek the lowest point.

Husband Comment
"You're all dolled up in a summer dress.  It's pretty but aren't you cold?  Well I guess you'll be ready for summer."

Bonus son comment - "You think you like ballet? Spin, SPIN!" *Giggles as I spin and skirt twirls out* "AGAIN!!!!!"  I had to run away because he made me spin until I almost fell down and had some "regurgitation issues."

My Final Thoughts
This is the first By Hand London pattern that I was crazy about from the start.  The others were more of a slow burn/be swayed by other people's FO's deal.  I think a full skirt without any gathering is really what sold me.  Full Skirt + Wrap bodice = Girly prettiness which summer Heather enjoys.  I'd make another in a heartbeat.  Now if I can only wrangle an invitation to a real garden party. The fence is my plus 1.

P.S. - It's the day to announce the Spring Clean Swap pattern bundle winner.  Grace Cunningham, you will be getting the bundle of patterns and thank you for taking them off my hands.  I'll be emailing you for an address in a bit.  For everyone else, I still have plans to do a thorough weeding out of the pattern stash. Those will go up in the Stash diet group and I'll give everyone a heads up when that happens.  Thanks everyone!


*Crazy made up story. Except the part where frog concocting a intricate plan to get more cookies. He would totally do that.