Hola, Lola Dress!

The Lola dress by Victory Patterns is a wonderfully versatile dress.  Depending on what fabric you use it can be great for summer or fall, casual daywear or cute party dress.  I chose to do something a bit more summery and bright using some leftover teal microsuede from the drop-waist gather dress.

There are many things that are great about this dress.  First, the raglan sleeve.  This style of sleeve which extends all the way to the neckline makes sizing easy since there is no seam along the shoulder.

Secondly I love the extra panels that help shape the bust line, that is, the two seams on the bodice (one on either side) that separate the colourful knit from the microsuede.  The shape is very figure flattering.

Thirdly the dress has an asymmetric seam that connects the top half to the bottom skirt.  Well, at least asymmetric when you look at the profile of the dress; the horizontal seam is high in the front (a few inches below the bust line) and angles downwards to waist-height along the back.  The only problem is that the seam makes it a real pain to take in the sides if you find that the dress is too wide.  That's what happened with this dress.  

According to the sizing chart I could have been anywhere between a size 8-10 at the waist but Kelly convinced me a 6 was probably generous (having made this dress herself earlier this year).  I altered the pattern to go from a size 4 up top to a size 6 at the hips.  Surprisingly it was still too big.  Maybe a size 4 all around would have been better.  I'm relieved I didn't try making a size 10 waist to begin with but at the same time I have no idea why the sizing chart was so far off.

Finally, the other wonderful thing about this dress is the pockets.  Not everyone loves big pockets, and honestly they don't look great on every body type. But I think they are quite fun, plus they are an added detail with the contrasting fabrics.

This pattern is definitely a keeper.  I'm positive I could get away with making a whole rack of Lola dresses that differ enough from each other that people won't even realize they were made with the same pattern.  But of course, now I've let the secret out :O

Family Ties

Okay, well just one tie actually.  Here's my first attempt at a tie (last week's Father's Day gift for Mike). I found the pattern here but cross-checked it with a few other sites because the pattern (annoyingly) doesn't say what the final dimensions of the tie will be.  Turns out this tie is standard 3.5" width at the widest section.  You wouldn't be able to guess it from the pattern alone which looks like it's for an enormous clown.  It's easy to forget that the sides fold to the back so that the finished width is considerably reduced.

There was actually very minimal use of the sewing machine for this project.  The only seams were attaching the three sections that make up the length of the tie, plus making the diagonal edges at the two ends.  The rest is all hand-stitching.  A bit tedious but something you can easily do while curled up on the couch watching your favourite show.

I was a bit skeptical of breaking up the length of the tie into three sections as opposed to cutting the tie out of a single long piece of fabric but the seams ended up being quite obscure.  Here's a closeup of one of the seams (extending from thumb diagonally down to middle finger).  Not obvious at all! And it means a lot of savings on fabric, especially if you are using an expensive silk.  The tie is cut on the bias (45 degrees diagonal to the grain) which requires almost a full yard of cut as a single piece of fabric.  With this one I needed only half a yard and had some scraps left over.  

Several patterns call for light to medium-weight interfacing between the outer fabric and lining but one site recommended using a wool for additional padding. I liked the feel of the cotton quilt batting that I add to my wool capes so that's what I used here rather than interfacing.  

Finally I added the little piece that holds the narrow end of the tie in place.  Handstitched again.  The only thing that's missing is a nice label :)  Hmm.

The Fabulous Red Herringbone Cape

The Wool Cape, version two point oh-so-lovely.

I love this cape. I really do.  Of course, I'm biased.

My fabulous new herringbone cape took about a week to make, although I lost track of how many actual hours were spent sketching versus pattern-making versus browsing online fabrics versus sewing (...versus staring off into space).  

It all paid off.  There are two dozen details I'd love to share about what went into making this cape but I doubt most people really want to hear all about the intricate details, the design decisions, the mistakes, the frustrations.  Mike has no choice (once as he was falling asleep I rushed into the room to tell him all about the welt pocket I just finished) but for you I'll just highlight some features.

The Lining

Beautiful, no?  I found this piece at Fabricland (of all places) and I think it was in the outdoor fabrics section.  Can't quite remember but it was somewhere I wouldn't have expected to find fabric that could be used as lining.  It's a little thicker than actual lining but is still silky smooth and has a gorgeous floral print.  I actually bought this piece weeks before I ever got the red herringbone wool to know it would be such a good match.  Just a hunch, I suppose.

Original loop placement

In this version of the cape I added wool pieces to the lining half to make it look more finished.  Also put in a loop for hanging up the cape, something I forgot in my first one. Originally the loop was centred along the back neckline (where you'd expect a loop) but because the cape is asymmetric that caused the whole thing to hang awkwardly.  I had to move it over to the right shoulder, which looks odd from the inside but allows the cape to drape much more evenly without tilting to one side.

Final loop placement by right shoulder

The Piping

The wool wasn't quite as red as I originally wanted so I chose sharper reds for the accents. I knew I wanted to put more piping detail in the back but played around with 3 different options before settling on this one.  The first prototypes with muslin were good but had too many lines. This one is cleaner and simpler but still gives that extra pop of colour.  Now I just have to muster up the courage to take out the iron and press down the back panels flat since the cape definitely needs some iron lovin'.  Please oh please don't let me burn this piece!

The Pockets

This is only my second project with welt pockets.  I found a good tutorial here for sewing a single welt instead of the double I tried last time.  I did two practice runs with muslin and then went for it on the wool front piece.  At the last minute before pinning the welts to the wool I decided here was another good opportunity to add piping :)  Then for the actual pockets I used the same lining fabric for kicks.

The Leather

Here's the leather piece I found from the Leather and Sewing Supply Depot that sold me on this wool. I had entered the store with just a sample of the red wool, found this great colour of leather, then promptly returned to Designer Fabrics to purchase enough wool for the full cape.  I didn't know where I wanted to add leather detailing but I knew I wanted it.  

In the end I added leather to the bottom corners of the wing panels and love the overall look but need to practice with sewing leather.  I didn't want to leave the edge raw so I doubled it underneath but it made for quite a thick layer, especially where leather meets piping.  The Singer foot slipped a few times and the top-stitching isn't as clean as I'd like it.  Maybe it wouldn't be so obvious if I had used matching thread but contrasting thread on top of leather looks so much better.  We'll see if this feature makes it into future capes.

The Buttons

Again these colourful chic buttons were found at  good ol' Fabricland.  The original idea was to use toggle buttons to close up the cape but I loved the look of these red buttons too much.  I decided to add an extra loop on each wing panel and small buttons on either side of the front panel so that the cape can be closed along the bottom if desired.  I will leave these buttons undone pretty much all of the time since the lining is displayed much better with an unconstrained cape.  However on particularly windy days it'd be nice to walk down the street without all the cape panels fluttering chaotically around your ears.  Not very stylish.

So that sums up my new Red Herringbone Cape and all of its new features.  I finished up the last of the hand-stitching last night while watching the second half of the Ontario Leader's Debate (they're all robots) and 1 1/3 episodes of How I Met Your Mother.   I told Mike I wasn't coming to bed until it was all finished :)

Hopefully soon I can get some shots up of me actually wearing it, despite the wrong season, but for now I have to rely on photos of it with the trusty dressform.