Category Archives: Patchwork

Patchwork quilt dress

Patchwork dress

I’m sure I’ve said this before, but this is my new favourite thing I’ve made. It feels like a well-loved quilt in dress form. I’ve worn it for two days in a row. I’ve hung it on the wall to admire. I’d sleep in it if that wasn’t a bit weird. I even went and did a nice photoshoot for you at the beautiful Victoria and Albert Museum to show it off (well, I was there anyway with my sister to check out some Design Week goings-on and got her to snap these).

Patchwork dress

This dress feels ever so London-appropriate. I like the feeling of blending into the grey pavements and buildings, or in this case the V&A’s stunning marble staircase.

Patchwork dress
Patchwork dress

Blogger cliche red phonebox klaxon! At least I ignored my sister’s art direction request to pretend to speak into the receiver. London is having one final lovely warm snap, hence the bare legs.

Patchwork dress

So the idea to patchwork a dress basically came out of necessity. On my trip to Merchant and Mills I was kind of plagued by indecision and foolishly bought all these short lengths of narrow linen and cotton, none actually enough for a garment. I kept petting them and placing them together and realised they’d probably blend nicely into a single garment. I was pretty inspired by this Rachel Comey dress and the clothing line Ace & Jig to take the plunge and go for it.

Patchwork dress

The pattern I used is the Megan Nielsen Darling Ranges with a round neckline adjustment. This isn’t my first go at the DR, but I’ll chat more about it in another post coming up soon. Spoiler: I really like it and it fitted basically perfectly right off the pattern.

Patchwork dress

I didn’t overthink the stripe/block placement too much, just tried to be a bit organic about it. I made panels roughly the same size as each bodice pattern piece, French seaming the pieces together before cutting out the pattern piece from it – easier than chopping up the pattern and adding seam allowances.

Patchwork dress

I love the neckline binding on the DR, it’s done in a really nice way to get a clean finish around the placket. I decided on a whim to use one of the decorative stitches on my machine for the topstitching around the neck, down the button plackets and for the hem. The sleeves are cuffed on the outside, slipstitched invisibly down by hand.

Patchwork dress

I think I like the back piecing better than the front – it’s a bit more random. The grey and white stripe linen is probably the nicest fabric I’ve ever worked with: it feels like silk, I want a whole dress in it. I grabbed the very last 90cm that M&M had – it you spot it somewhere else pleeeease let me know.

Patchwork dress

This dress was really, really enjoyable to make. It was a pretty slow sew in my terms: I took my time doing a little bit here and there almost like an actual quilt project. It’s all French seamed where possible and the remaining raw edges are overlocked. The fabrics feel quite delicate but I’m hoping it holds up to washing and wearing OK. Because I want to wear it all the time.

Patchwork dress

I’m so pleased with how this dress turned out; it’s all the more special because it’s unrepeatable and it actually looks hand-made – but in a good way, I think/hope! An interesting thing I’m finding lately in my sewing is that I’m becoming less interested in emulating ready to wear garments and more into making things that you can’t find in rtw – hand-dyed textiles, fabric piecing, self-drafting, luxury fabrics that would otherwise be out of budget. Perhaps that’s a natural evolution?

I’m also chucking it into this month’s Sewcialists theme, Scraptember, led by Morgan. I’d definitely have a go at piecing a garment from scraps again – such a good way to use up those sub-1m bits you can’t bear to chuck away.

Quilted sewing machine cover with Heal’s fabric

Heal's sewing machine cover
Heal's sewing machine cover

Here’s a little make using some fabric kindly sent to me by Heal’s. This department store institution and window-shopping favourite of mine has just relaunched their fabric department, with designs by Zandra Rhodes, Cressida Bell and Malika Favre amongst more. The fabrics are all sold by the metre as well as ready-made into soft furnishings and accessories to buy; you can see the product range here.

Heal's sewing machine cover

I didn’t have much of each fabric so decided to patchwork them as I thought the prints looked so pretty together, and create a much needed sewing machine cover to keep the dust/cats out, and temptation away while I’m working at home.

Heal's sewing machine cover
Heal's sewing machine cover

I did this by cutting each piece into strips, using the width of my ruler as a guide…

Heal's sewing machine cover
Heal's sewing machine cover

…then sewing all the short ends together to make a long strip…

Heal's sewing machine cover
Heal's sewing machine cover

… then cutting the strip down into eight even pieces and sewing the long ends together.

Heal's sewing machine cover

I used leftover grey flannel for the sides and back, sandwiched with some fluffy wadding I had lying around, and quilted in simple straight lines down the ‘ditches’ between the rows. It felt so soft and snuggly at this stage I considered just making it a tiny useless lap quilt!

Heal's sewing machine cover

Finally I bound the edge and added some ribbon to tie it around my machine. It was good to have a little project to practice patchwork and quilting on, as I’ve just undertaken another quilt project – for a gift, so secret right now.

Heal's sewing machine cover
Heal's sewing machine cover
Thanks, Heal’s, for a bright and pretty new addition to my sewing room! I look forward to popping into store to check out the new fabric collection in person.