The ongoing saga of the Liberty shirtdress, and a red skirt

Long time readers of my blog might remember my Third Time Lucky Blouse from last year. I had bought a vintage Liberty shirtdress that was several sizes too big. First round: Resize it, second round: remake it into a M6696 shirtdress with a straight skirt, forgetting I have hips, third round: blouse with a mandarin collar. As I said in the post at the time, I realized I should have tapered the placket at the neck to make the collar sit properly, but I was happy to wear it high buttoned. However, I only ever wore it the one time, and back to the pile it went. I had enough left over scraps to piece together the collar sections, and once I'd sewn it together, I unpicked the top seam on the collar stand, and sandwiched the collar in before hand stitching it in place. Two hours worth of work, and finally the blouse is wearable, and the saga of the liberty shirtdress comes to an end.

 Every year my grandmother's retirement village has a big spring fete. I al ways end up at the craft stall (when not at the books). Most of their stock is handmade items made by residents, but this year I was lucky on the sewing front. I bought a large amount of vintage zippers and bias binding, patchwork scraps for my hexagon quilt,  and this red fabric. It seems to be a wool, but it's light enough for summer.  I managed to just cut out  Simplicity 6862, the best ever skirt pattern and I
added in a side seam pocket out of some old red floral from my first dressmaking project. Nice and simple. It's going to go with a lot of my blouses.

That's all to say on that. I've been loving reading everyone's plans on sewing in 2017, so I'll be back in a few days to share mine. Needless to say, it's a lot of vintage florals!

The best ever skirt pattern

I am quickly becoming of the opinion that Simplicity 6862 is the best skirt pattern:
1. It only takes one meter of fabric
2. No darts, pleats, tucks etc, it's incredibly quick to sew up
3. The shape is really flattering
4. If I wanted to, there are some fun pocket pieces and belt tabs
5. You could easily have a whole wardrobe of these, this was my Mum's main skirt pattern back in the 1970s
6. There's a few patterns on Etsy and Ebay, even if they'd be single size, it would be a really easy pattern to resize.

I first made this skirt last year out of some tacky pink wool. I thought it would become a good wardrobe staple, but the waistband was never finished nicely, and Mum, who is thankfully always honest with me, told me she hated it. It was also a smidgen too tight. I wasn't prepared to give up on this pattern yet though. For a while I have been wanting some floral skirts, so found this small length of cotton in the stash. It has a deep brown background, so I think it's from the 1970's, and it's much too stiff for anything other than a skirt.

To fix the sizing I just let out the seams slightly. I sewed the centre front and side seams at 3/8 inch, and kept the back at 5/8. This is an incredibly quick sew, only complicated b the fact I had to redo the zip multiple times. I decided to finally try a tab on my waistband, which worked wonderfully after a few goes of aligning the zipper. I finished it off with tw small press studs. Only tip would be always cut the waistband much longer than you need.

I liked the length of the skirt as is; it falls just below my knee, so I finished with mauve bias tape.

I absolutely love this skirt. Even if it's a bit different from what I usually wear. At the moment it just goes with my white blouses, but I am hoping to soon fix the no plain blouses problem as well. The colour scheme will hopefully allow it to be worn through autumn as well.

An entirely handmade outfit

 My staple of handmade items to this point has been dresses, but I am beginning to dream of many summer separates. I am itching to hand in my thesis so I can have days of uninterrupted sewing. However, my days are currently more filled with referencing, and questions of twelfth century English identity through historiography.

Last Saturday night I decided to just sew something. I needed a break. I only had a metre of this absolutely beautiful floral fabric. It's Japanese, and the hand of it feels almost like Liberty lawn. I bought it at a fabric market last year. I wanted something simple, so I decided to modify the bodice of BHL's Anna dress, one of my TNT patterns.







I cut both front and back on the fold, and added about five inches to the length. This was dictated by the limited amount of fabric. I just extended down the pleats. It was a incredibly quick sew. I finished the neck with bias tape, and put in a side invisible zip. I always wear things tucked in, so the hem is actually the selvage. Very pleased with myself I then ran into a significant fitting problem. I hadn't graded out the hips. I am very much a pear shape, and the blouse no had hips narrower than my waist. There was no way this was fitting. I thought about adding a peplum, but in the end the fix was quite simple. I unpicked all the pleats and darts to their original lengths, creating enough room in the hips. I was incredibly relieved. I then also made a matching hair scarf. It's a little thinner than my previous ones, so it was a bit more a struggle to catch in all my thick hair, but it worked!

The skirt was made a few months ago. The pattern is Simplicity 6862, a one metre, four gore 1970's skirt pattern. This will certainly be a TNT. The fabric is a light weight pink wool. I didn't line it to make it a quicker make; I have a very large collection of slips as it is.

So there is the first of my summer sewing projects. I have a new outfit, and all the pieces will be able to be mixed and matched as well.

Refashioned Grey Floral Skirt

The skirt swamping my dress form

This skirt came from a friend of my Mum's. It was almost ankle length, about a size 22, and elasticised in back waistband.

I unpicked the side seams and kept the front section as is, then measured the back section on my dress form sewed it back together and placed a new waistband in, no elastic needed!

I then hemmed it to just below the knee, a very flattering length. 

I wore it today to uni, it's so comfortable, I will have to find more tops to match with it. 

The buttons are mother of pearl, expect the bottom two which are odd. I will replace them, and also sew another button hole; they stop about three inches above the hem, and the flapping was annoying me a little today.

So a lovely rayon skirt for free in a lovely colour that I would not have worn otherwise. 

Today's uni outfit