Category Archives: Frankenpattern

AnnaKim Skywalker

Anna-Kim

Sewing time has been woefully hard to find lately, but here’s a wee dress I made recently for a friend’s wedding. I procrastinated for ages on what pattern to use and ended up short on time, so went for a TNT bodice with a frankenpattern twist.

Anna-Kim

If you didn’t deduce from the post title, it’s the By Hand London Anna bodice with Kim‘s pretty petal skirt. Then I couldn’t resist a bad Star Wars pun since the fabric print sort of looks like little space invaders! As we know BHL patterns are definitely ripe for a spot of Frankenpatterning and I think this is a lovely combo. I wish I could say I carefully planned the hack but in fact I just cut both patterns out as is and hoped for the best. The back darts join up seamlessly and I sort of eyeballed the front as I went along. With a bit of fiddling I made the wrapover skirt front hit the outer bust tuck of the bodice so it sort of looks cohesive all round. Yay!

Anna-Kim

Luckily the Kim skirt fitted fine with mini tweaks along the way. I exaggerated the side seam shape a bit, curving out at the hip and pegging in at the hem for more of a tulip shape. I also made a tuck instead of the little pleats in the wrapover skirt to echo the bodice design.

Anna-Kim

As one final flourish I left the top half of the back seam open like a keyhole split. There’s an invisible zip right below it to close the dress. The neckline is finished with self-bias.

Anna-Kim

The fabric is a lovely silk double georgette (I think) that I got at Mood in LA; it might’ve been from the Anna Sui section. It was the last 1.5yd on the bolt and I used nearly every last scrap. It was a little shifty to cut but pretty nice to sew. It’s quite bouncy and thick but still pressed well, though I serged my seam allowances rather than French as I thought it’d be a bit bulky.

Anna-Kim

This isn’t overall my best or most precise sewing as I was up against it with time. But it’s nice to have made a little black dress for party season – something my wardrobe was lacking – and I’d definitely use the Anna-Kim combo again.

Be-zazzled Franken-dress

Darling-Alder

Finally, I made a new dress! I haven’t had much time to sew properly since before New York, so on Sunday and Monday I carved out some time especially to knock out a fun new frock. Plus the fabric’s a bit special too…

Darling-Alder

This is a true Franken-dress by design. The bodice is a sleeveless Darling Ranges, with the shoulder line extended out to make cut-on cap sleeves rather like the Burda 7078 I just made.. The skirt is from the Grainline Alder, lengthened by 3″ from my previous ones.

Darling-Alder

The patterns fudge together fine since you can just adjust the gathering at the top of the Alder skirt to match the bottom bodice edge. I could well have just used my v-neck Alder piece for the top, but I think the DR is just a slightly better fit around the chest and shoulders for me.

Darling-Alder
Darling-Alder

I love the drama of the full, swoopy Alder skirt at the back, especially when lengthened. Lots of swish-factor!

kimono sleeve

Tip for converting a sleeveless dress into a kimono sleeve: you’ll want to raise the pitch (angle) of the shoulder line or you’ll find it a bit tight and hard to move your arm up and down. You may also need to drop where it hits the bodice by an inch or so for more wiggle-room. I’m sure there’s a more technical way to make this adjustment, but eyeballing the angles and drawing straight lines worked for me.

Darling-Alder

OK, the fabric! I was really excited to be asked by Zazzle to try out their custom fabric offering recently. You can choose from their premade design library (there are some really cute ones), customise a design, or upload your own design entirely – which, being the control freak type, I went for. It was super easy to add my design (a simple moon and stars repeat that I made in Illustrator) and I was amazed that the fabric took only three days to get to my door from the US.

Darling-Alder

(I didn’t mean to have the print going in opposite directions on the bodice and skirt by the way, oops.) This is a Pima cotton, described by Zazzle as ‘high-quality, luxurious fabric… extremely soft to the touch and easy to work with…’ I’m REALLY happy with this fabric and would say the description is totally accurate. The handle reminds me of a cotton sateen but without the stretch – it’s smooth and silky, more drapey than crisp. The print is good and sharp and it doesn’t have that papery or coated feel like some digitally printed fabrics do. It had a slight inky smell but that was removed in the prewash (a 40 degree delicates cycle). Zazzle promise no colour fade despite their eco-friendly inks, and I didn’t notice any fading in my prewash. I’m keen to see if that keeps up as I wash the dress some more.

Darling-Alder

I’m really pleased that this dress turned out how I imagined in my head, and that it’s super unique thanks to the Franken-pattern and me-designed fabric. The question is will I ever make a non-buttony-up dress again? The jury’s out.

Zazzle gave me a voucher to try out and review their fabric printing service. Views my own!

A Kitty Holly

Kitty Holly

The wildest of all the wild animals was the Cat. He walked by himself, and all places were alike to him.

This is a double By Hand whammy – my approximately billionth Holly dress hack, plus the fabric was printed by their very own super-printer, Patsy.

Kitty Holly

I was one of the first to have a play with the By Hand fabric customis-o-matic – firstly because I helped the girls design the whole uploading process, and secondly because I backed their Kickstarter campaign to fund the printer. When to came to cashing in my reward print of 2m of fabric, it didn’t take too long to decide what to send to Patsy. I designed an interpretation of the Rudyard Kipling Just So story, The Cat Who Walked By Himself, which has always been a favourite of mine since I was a kidlet.

Kitty fabric

When I got the fabric though, way back before Christmas, I was a bit stumped as to what to make with it for a while. It’s not the kind of fabric I’d usually buy: it’s a cotton poplin so rather stiff and crisp to the touch – barely any drape at all. Then I remembered I already made Holly in a fairly crisp wax print and it’s one of my favourite dresses, so suddenly it seemed obvious.

Kitty Holly

Working with the fabric during the sewing process was easy enough. Its crispness means it presses and stitches up really smoothly, so hemming and doing the neckline and cuffs were a piece of cake. However I did find that it left permanent marks when I needed to unpick a few bits (*glares at buttonholes*) and I had a slight issue where I tried on my unfinished bodice and it tore right down the side, requiring a crafty patch-up that’s luckily now hidden under the arm. It feels more secure now it’s all sewn up but I’m slightly concerned I might bust out of it, Hulk-like, with any excessive arm movements. Next time I might consider underlining the fabric for a bit more strength.

Kitty Holly

Anyway, I’m really pleased with the fit I achieved, and with such a crisp fabric you really need to make sure you have the fitting nailed because any little error will show pretty clearly. Despite my initial misgiving about the fabric’s stiffness it’s very comfortable to wear, and I’ve washed it twice already with no noticeable fading or bleeding to the colours.

Kitty Holly

Now if Patsy could just start printing on a nice drapey viscose or knit, that’d make my day!

Festive diamonds Anna

Firstly, quick thanks for the kind comments on my coat. I wrote that post the day I finished it when the woes of making it were still quite raw, so I was probably a bit more harsh on it than it deserved. Reading the lovely comments and actually wearing it all week (it’s become my daily coat) have made me very fond of it. Hurrah!

Onto a much more breezy sew, my third BHL Anna dress, with a festive spin. This dress started with a pin:

… which sadly leads to a dead Etsy link, but it was enough to spark the idea of a copycat. As you’ve probably noticed, I’m not really a vintage style kind of sewist or indeed person, but I fell head over heels for this 1950s frock. The washed-out black silk, kimono sleeves, ruffly skirt and of course that fab geometric diamond pattern over the waist. Siiiigh. The silhouette immediately said Anna to me, so that was my starting point for recreating my take on it.

Anna dress
BHL Xmas
BHL Xmas
Appropriately, I wore it to BHL’s Christmas party bash last week, which was held even more appropriately on the fabric mecca of Goldhawk Road in a cosy Polish restaurant. BHL sure do make a good party frock pattern, I think about half us at the dinner were in BHL creations! It was a lovely night, as anything social involving sewists always is. Thanks Kathryn for snapping these photos in front of the impressive Christmas tree for me.

Anna dress

I should really have used a silk for this dress, as it says right in the description that my vintage inspiration is made of silk georgette. But the idea of creating the patchwork detail in diaphanous silk made me shudder, so I went for a rather sturdier cotton sateen in black and beige from Minerva (this is my Minerva network project so the fabric was provided for me). It’s my first time using sateen and I love it – it’s got a nice heavy drape, takes stitches and pressing beautifully and looks a bit formal with its sheeny finish.

Anna dress

To copy the dress, I cut the Anna bodice straight across about an inch shy of the end of the tucks. I folded the tucks out of the lower piece (and the darts out of the back) then joined the front and back together to make a wide strip, which formed the pattern piece for the diamond panel. I used this tutorial to cut and piece the diamonds and some strenuous maths to make sure I had the right size template to fill the length and width of the panel. With such a colour contrast accurate sewing was key, so I really took my time to get all the points lining up. The final panel got backed in a plain piece of fabric to hide the raw edges. When it came to sewing the bodice back on I just box-pleated at the notches to retain the effect of the tucks.

Anna dress

I used the Anna’s seven-gored skirt but chopped about six inches off the top so it was a bit wider than my bodice edge. Then I lightly gathered the top edge to fit the bodice, so I got a nice flared shape with minimal bulk around the waist. I’m quite pleased with this simple pattern mod and will probably use it again – a bit fancier than just whacking a plain gathered rectangle on.

Anna dress

This dress was really fun to make and wear and it’s a good one to have in the wardrobe for semi-dressy occasions. I’m looking forward to seeing more Christmas party outfits in blogland!

Tobacco toggle coat

Tobacco cat

I finished the thorn that’s been in my sewing side the last few months: my new coat. Please don’t look too closely; it is far from my finest work. But I am sharing anyway in the hope that you might learn from my follies.

Tobacco cat

This was a right pickle of a sewing project. I think I rivalled Jenny in the hand-wringing, internet-consulting, and nearly balling the whole thing into the bin on multiple occasions stakes. I’m somewhat amazed I have something remotely wearable to show for my efforts at all. But wearable it is, and Josh took these nice photos on our Saturday stroll so all is not lost.

Tobacco cat

My problems basically stemmed from bad choice of pattern and failing to toile first to realise my mistake. I started out with Vogue 2692 (an OOP 90s pattern, I think) which I thought was a nice simple relaxed shape and quick win of a sew. HA. I should have paid more attention to the fashion sketches on the pattern envelope and single other example of this coat on the internet, which pretty clearly show a loose fit, dropped shoulder and baggy sleeve – not what I was going for at all. Halfway through making it up I was stuck with these ginormous ill-fitting twisted sleeves and an extremely low armsyce already cut out of my lovely wool. Agh.

Tobacco cat

I ended up re-cutting the sleeve and armsyce using a pattern I knew fitted – vintage Simplicity 6682 as used for last year’s biker coat (which I’ve worn plenty this year too, it’s holding up great). Of course I needed to add on more fabric to the low-hanging armsyces to bring them up a bit, so for a dirty fix I sewed on some little underarm ‘gussets’ to raise them. Since the original sleeves were far too wide I could fit the closer-fitting new pattern piece onto them and just cut off the excess. Amazingly that all worked out alright and I could use my spliced-up pattern for the lining, which thankfully I hadn’t cut yet.

Tobacco cat

After all that, at least the fit worked out pretty nice – it was kind of what I had in my head from the start. I think any success of this coat really hangs off my fabric choice, which is an absolutely luscious brushed tobacco wool that I got in Dalston Mill. I’ve been after a brown wool coat for ages so was very excited to find it. It was an absolute dream to work with, feels so warm and snuggly to wear, and I am annoyed at myself for not treating it better.

Tobacco cat

By the point of getting the fit right I’d given up on the original pattern and forged ahead with some made-up-as-I-go-along design choices re pockets and fastenings. I pinched the slanted welt pockets from the Papercut Rigel bomber (which is bang at the top of my to-sew-next list now thanks to Sonja!) and decided to fasten it with handmade toggles right at the end.

Tobacco cat

The guts look quite swish! The lining came from my Mexico trip. I managed to colour-match it to my coat fabric from memory which I’m quite impressed by, and I’m also pleased with the quality for what I paid for it (something like £2.50 a metre) – I’m sure it has a natural fibre content itself as it pressed nicely and didn’t have that polyester burning smell, but it did fray like crazy. The sleeves are in a satin bought locally for easy slipping on and off. I didn’t want to lose any more length from hemming so made a bottom facing from my last scraps of wool, which got attached to the lining before stitching to the outer all around the edges. I bagged out the sleeves per Jen’s tutorial which always works a treat. (Jen, incidentally, is releasing a toggle coat pattern imminently which I am obviously kicking myself for not waiting for!)

Tobacco cat

A few more little details that weren’t so disastrous… I pressed all the seam allowances open and topstitched along both sides of the main seams. I added a facing to the inner hood because I don’t really like the lining coming right up to the edge. And I made the toggle tabs myself after failing to find any readymade ones I liked. They’re just triangles of faux leather sandwiched with suede cording and topstitched around. The toggles themselves are from Liberty, where for some reason they were £3 each as opposed to around £7 everywhere else, and they’re good and chunky.

Tobacco cat

This coat undoubtedly has many, many flaws. It’s lopsided through the shoulders thanks to my merry hacking; the pocket placement is a bit uneven; the sleeves might even be slightly different lengths; there’s no interfacing anywhere so it’s all unstructured and collapse-y; it’s all wonky when fastened. But honestly I still rather like it, and I learned a lot about how not to make a coat. Frankly, I will never be the kind of sewist who gets excited by roll lines, pad-stitching, horsehair canvas and all those fine tailoring and couture techniques. No matter – this coat fits well, fills its function, and will get a lot of love both this winter and hopefully for a few more to come. I’m glad we came out the other end as friends, coat.

Weird Winter Centaurée

Winter Centaurée

This was a funny little experiment in pattern hacking/self-drafting. I’m not sure how I feel about the result – it’s a bit odd! Basically it’s a cold-weather-appropriate spin on the Deer & Doe Centaurée dress. I knew I wanted to try this hack as that bodice is simply too nice to only wear in summer (previous versions here & here). Fact fans: Centaurée is the much less pretty-sounding ‘knapweed’ in English – all D&D’s patterns are named after plants and flowers. I think this dress is definitely more knapweed, ha ha.

Winter Centaurée

It was a pretty straightforward hack to convert it from sundress to smock-ish dress. I traced off the Centaurée front bodice pieces and removed the seam allowances, then overlaid these onto my bodice block to see what kind of modifications I needed to make. I realised that the bodice’s top seams are basically a horizontal princess seam, with the darts rotated to the centre and side instead of up and down. Here’s briefly how I altered my block:

centaureedraft

1. Rotate darts to the lower armsyce and centre front, using the Centauree pieces as a guide.
2. Snip through the rotation apex.
3. Round off the sharp corners.
4. Cut the bottom into a separate piece, using the Centaurée pieces as a guide. At the last minute I also cut the top piece diagonally to reflect the original neckline – 8 piece bodice, yo.
Then just re-add seam allowances and sew per the Centaurée. The back and sleeves are straight off my block.

Winter Centaurée

So I’m not sure what is making the dress feel a bit weird. I think it’s partly the fabric, which is a double-faced lightweight corduroy I bought from Miss Matatabi. It’s lovely fabric – I originally bought it for pants but changed my mind – but something about it with this dress is giving me a gothy/grungy vibe which isn’t very me. It was great to sew with though and I love that the dress looks lined thanks to the stripy backing, which I’ve also turned back on the cuffs.

Winter Centaurée

It also fits well, it’s nicely made and comfortable, so it’s not those things. Perhaps it’s the design itself and the Centaurée really doesn’t want to be a sleeved dress? Anyway it was fun to kind of reverse-engineer the pattern and figure out how to draft something like this, so I’m pleased I made it, and I have worn it despite my reservations. I may well have a go at a v2 sometime – I’m thinking a cheerier floral or chambray would be nice. What do you think – odd or cool?