Finished Project: A psychedelic dress.

 

I don't know if I can/should even tag this post with the label "McCalls 5845" any more since the only original part is the front bodice, and even that has a slight alteration... so I apologise to the people who stumbled on to my blog when googling "M5845". 

You've heard it before, the 5845 is my favourite sewing pattern of all time.

The 5845, a simple darted bodice with a high front neck, low cut back and fitted skirt. 

The version I have made has a low scoop back and full gathered skirt.

I found this cotton sateen in my stash, washed it, dried it, then stared at it for days. Days. Not even exaggerating. I couldn't decide between making another strapless M6349 (with short full skirt) or a M5845 with short full skirt. In the end, I stuck with my TNT pattern - M5845.

The bodice is the same as my floral version with outside darts except I did a swayback adjustment, a proper one. The skirt is from M6349 so it's slimmer than my "self drafted" full gathered skirts. I prefer this skirt, it's less poofy and less hem to handsew.

I lined the bodice with red sunsilky polyester, installed a waist stay, and handpicked the zip.

Here is the low down...

Pattern: McCall's 5845 bodice with alterations, McCalls's 6349 skirt
Size: 4 bust, 10 waist, 6 skirt.
Fabric: 1.5m cotton sateen (Darn Cheap, I think! I don't even remember buying this fabric), 0.5m sunsilky lining
Notions: Gutermann thread, dress zipper 14" (black), 80cm grosgrain ribbon, bikini hook,
Cost: Fabric $20, Lining $5, Zipper $2, Grosgrain Ribbon $2, Bikini hook $1

Hours: about 8hrs
Pattern Modification/Adjustments:

• Lowered front neck
• Scoop back
• 1cm sway back adjustment
• Replaced fitted skirt with full gathered skirt

Techniques Used:

• Waist Stay (great tutorial by Sewaholic here)
• Hand picked zip
• Gathering (skirt)
• French seam (skirt side seams)

I did my best to match up the squiggles at the seams. Looks pretty rad!
I added a grosgrain ribbon waist stay to take some pressure off the zip and to cover up the waist seam. Love waist stays, they look so pretty.

The best part of this dress is the hem. I deliberately hemmed the skirt so that the solid black would sit on the edge of the hem.The hem is quite thick - 8.5cm to be exact!! I wanted to leave the hem thick, kinda like a faux-hem-facing. Can't get enough of the psychedelic print.
I french seamed the skirt side seams for a neat finish.

The print is so crazy, my sister nicknamed it 'psychedelic' so I stuck with the name. It is kind of mesmerizing to look at. Maybe that's why I was staring at it for days. Maybe I was in a trance?

Cos it's such a crazy, colorful print I found it super hard to style cos I suck at ANYTHING to do with accessorizing. I will never be on of those girls that can pair up a printed dress with bold accessories and crazy shoes. I tend to stick to plain jewellery (sometimes no jewellery) and plain shoes. Boring, plain Jane. Boo.

I tried the dress on with a pink envelope clutch to bring out the pink in the dress, and plain black patent leather heels and tweeted for help! The #sewcialist ladies gave me the thumbs up on my outfit so I wore it to my builders awards night on Friday.

It was a cool evening so I ended up wearing a black ASOS blazer over the top of the dress. Borrowed the hot pink clutch my my sister. The event was wonderful as usual, great food, awesome drinks and it was great to see builders win awards for houses that they put their heart and soul into building.

Initially I was hesitant to wear this dress out. I even had a back-up outfit planned!
I'm so used to wearing plain colors or florals so this crazy print was a challenge.

I am more critical of myself when I wear a handmade/me-made dress, everything has to be perfect, because I can't really blame "the dress" if I look like a fail... cos I made it myself!

Does anyone else feel this way?

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Finished Project: A self-drafted asymmetrical collar.

Pattern Review: V8511 (bodice only)

Size: 6 bust, 8 waist

Fabric: 1.5m cotton sateen (Darn Cheap), 0.7m bemsilk lining (Spotlight)

Notions: Dress zipper 22", Gutermann thread, 0.8m grosgrain ribbon, 1 bikini hook

Time: 10-12 hours, over 4 days.

Cost: Fabric $20, Lining $7, Zipper $2, Grosgrain Ribbon $2, Bikini Hook 0.50c

Pattern Modification/Adjustments:

• Added self-drafted asymmetrical collars
• Replaced tulip skirt with full gathered skirt

Techniques Used:

• French seams (skirt side seams)
• Princess seam
• Lined bodice (bagging tutorial here)
• Gathering
• Handpicked zip
• Blind catch stitch on the hem
• Waist stay (tutorial here)

WIP

I am head-over-heels for this fabric! 

Sometimes all you need to get you out of a sewing rut is some oh-hot-damn floral cotton sateen.

This is my jam. Definitely.

I found this baby last Saturday. After having lunch with @SixInchHeel and fam bam I decided to do a drive around town looking for fabric. Ended up taking these four home.

I was in love with the it because it reminded me of the forest, foliage, butterflies? When I got home I washed and ironed and got to work cutting out the V8511.

Favourite part of sewing process - stepping back and admiring the perfectly cut pieces.

Like my 'corsage floral dress' I didn't cut the bodice on the centre fold. I wanted the perfect butterfly to adorn the centre of my princess seamed bodice. 

Same deal with the collars, I wanted a nice big flower so this meant that the collars used up a chunk of fabric I reserved for my skirt so the skirt ended up not as full.

The skirt length was 19" (SA and 3cm hem included).
The finished skirt hem measurement was 62".

Stay stitched around neckline and arm hole curves.

I re-used the collar pattern I drafted when I made the red V8511 work dress. 

By midnight Saturday I finished the shell and collars. Rewarded myself with back-to-back episodes of Californication and some wine :D

Hard at WIP on a Saturday night.

Sunday afternoon, I cut out the lining, bagged the bodice, understitched and prepped the skirt pieces (side seams frenched, three rows of gathering stitches).

Bodice lined with cream bemsilk.

Side seams matching perfectly.

Parfait!

Monday night I attached the skirt to the bodice. My unpicker was my BFF that night cos fabric kept getting caught, zz. 

Green grosgrain ribbon waist stay went on, and final fitting. Hurrah it fit. 

I took a couple of days break to focus on work and gym (went twice this week, yay... dined out 7 times, lol) and Wednesday I handpicked the zipper and handsewed the hem.

I love handpicking - more control and it's therapeutic.

Love those pricks!

I finished the dress in time to wear to my friends 30th birthday dinner last night at Rosetta.
All the bread, pasta, potato, pannacotta and wine I consumed was nicely hidden under the full skirt. DRESSES FTW.

#OOTN
ASOS Linen blazer, ASOS glitter skinny belt, ALL THAT JAZZ handmade vintage look clutch.

Waist stay!

#selfie :P

I love the V8511 bodice. I've perfected the fit and have used it to make many dresses. This is almost overtaking the McCalls 5845 as my favourite because it has no darts (I don't like marking darts!!)

Collars - Slit & Cummerbund - Scooped Back & Full Circle Skirt 1 & 2 - Gathered Skirt - Full Gathered Skirt & Collars.

Once I find a pattern that works, I tend to get obsessed and addicted to hacking it... nothing wrong with that hey, and I'm not the only one, my interstate blogger mate Erin of I-Heart-Fabric is currently in love with beautiful BurdaStyle 120 and has made soooo many versions of the same pattern. 

I didn't even realise they were all the same pattern cos the fabrics make each dress look completely different. Go check out Erin's dresses, they are to die for <3

I hope you all had a fun weekend. I definitely did. I ate way to much good food (blogged here), caught up with a few of my friends and to top it off the Melbourne weather was marvelous :) 

I have a long weekend next week so I'm planning to make another dress... don't be surprised if it's another V8511 with self-drafted collars and a full skirt.

If it ain't broke....!!

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Finished Project: A bodice NOT cut on 'centre fold'.

#selfie :P

I have always cut my 'front bodice' pieces on the 'centre fold' as instructed by the pattern, and so far have not had any issues with prints landing on awkward places. Example...

Source: Dave Hughes Tweet:

Carrie Bickmore got flack for wearing this dress on the @theprojecttv last night. 

Do you see something rude? pic.twitter.com/el630J0e

.... I'm thinking the designer intended it that way cos I doubt they would miss *that*! I also see a crab and an alien.

Gorgeous dress.

When I started cutting out the bodice for my 'Christmas Party' dress, I had my front bodice on the centre fold but could not find a flower arrangement I was happy with. The flowers on this fabric vary from small to large and are scattered about. 

I didn't want to end up with a front bodice with mostly 'white' and little flowers, or flowers smack bang on my lady lumps so I did something different - I didn't cut on the centre fold!

The collage below shows:

• Pic 1 - My fabric
• Pic 2 - Option 1 if cut on centre fold - not enough big roses, bit meh

• Pic 3 - Option 2 if cut on centre fold - three big roses... but something still not right
• Pic 4 - Bodice if cut away from centre fold. Me likey.

To do this, I had to trace out another pattern piece as if it were the actual front bodice, use the 'centre' of the bodice as the grainline, un-fold the fabric and measure-measure-measure my grainline.

It is trickier than cutting on the fold, but I am far happier with how the flowers are arranged on the front bodice now. I deliberately placed the large rose up on the chest/shoulder so it looks like a corsage.

I didn't have enough fabric to play around with the pattern placement for the back bodice because the remainder was for my gathered skirt so I had to make do with the fabric left over from the front bodice.

Doesn't look too bad though.

The pattern I used for this dress is old faithful M5845 (oop). I've made this bodice many times with a circle skirt, wiggle skirt and it's original skirt for myself, but never a full gathered skirt.

I did make a version with a full gathered skirt once, but that dress was for my sister and I always envied her version, so I decided to make myself one too!

Isn't my sister gorgeous! Dress blogged here. 

I used the same size pattern pieces, except I made an adjustment to the shoulder line. I took off 1cm.

I followed this tutorial by Anna (::Paunnet::).

The M5845 bodice is dart central. A total of 16 darts on shell and lining. I used this tutorial  by Rochelle (Lucky Lucille) to trace my darts the easy way.

It was a bit hard to do this technique on the lining because the chalk didn't stay on the polyester, but on cotton, it's perfect. My darts have never been so straight!

The fabric I used for the shell of the dress is a cotton sateen I bought from Spotlight. You know by now how much I love florals, so I just had to have this.

The lining is red sunsilky polyester.

I decided to line the bodice only. I think I'm going to skip the skirt lining from now on unless it's a fitted skirt.

Inside the bodice lining...

I handpicked the zipper, french seamed the side skirt seams...

...lined the bodice, added a white grosgrain ribbon waist-stay,
 hand sewed the hem (yes!! I hand sewed 2 meters of hem, took 1 hour).

Summary: Floral 'corsage' dress.

Pattern: M5845 bodice, self drafted full gathered skirt

Size: Size 6 bust, 8 waist

Fabric: 1.5m cotton sateen (Spotlight), 70cm sunsilky lining (red)

Notions: Dress zipper 16" (hot red), Gutermann thread (800, 156), 1m grosgrain ribbon (white), bikini hook (1)

Time: 8-10 hours over 3 days, didn't really keep track, only remember that the bodice was finished in record time of 3.5 hours
Cost: Fabric $25; Lining $10, Zipper $2; Grosgrain ribbon $2; Bikini Hook 50c

Techniques used: 

• French seam
• Darts
• Lined bodice
• Gathering
• Handpicked zip
• Blind catch stitch on the hem 

Pattern Modification/Adjustments:

• Shoulder line adjustment
• Side seam allowance 2cm
• Raised back by 5cm
• Lowered front neckline by 2cm

I'm so happy with how the bodice turned out, my favorite feature of the dress is the huge 'corsage'.

I read somewhere that the only reason the pattern companies design the pattern piece to be cut on the centre fold is so they can save paper (and money). 

If I ever work with fabric that has scattered prints everywhere, I will use this technique to cut out the pattern pieces so I can control where the prints end up. 

What about you guys, do you ever not cut on the fold? 

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