PWB, Lola, and Me

Last month I attended another Purple Workbench weekend crafts event, this time at a lovely farmhouse in Cobourg.  I don't quite remember all the things I've been preoccupied with over the past four weeks but clearly I've neglected my blogging.  Time to play a bit of catch up.

I headed out early with Kelly and Meg to pick up the food that the eleven of us girls would be feasting on over the course of the weekend.  After unpacking our bags at the farm we drove into Port Hope. First stop, lunch at a small pizzeria.  When two very pregnant women want pizza, I've learned not to stand in their way.  Pizza was delicious, olives and all!

Next stop was Queenie's bakery, then the farmer's market, then Betty's for desserts.

So many desserts to choose from!  How do you select just a few? Well, simply, you don't.  You let Nancy sweet-talk you into buying more than you planned on in her totally innocent little way.  Just like a pro.

Kelly posing with Nancy at "Betty's". Confused yet?

I spent the weekend meeting a fantastically creative group of women with energy and spunk that was oh so refreshing.   For those two days women sewed, painted, quilted, crafted, talked, laughed, and ate so much good food.  Kelly, you're a fantastic chef.

I had decided to make another Lola dress, this time in a navy and gold polka-dot jersey.  Sounds like a strange combo, right?  I actually loved the result...at least, the combination of fabrics that is. Unfortunately the dress itself turned out to be too big on me, which was kind of bewildering considering I used the exact same pattern that I assembled for my first Lola.  That one fits beautifully.

I suppose it could be that the jersey is so much stretchier than the micro-suede...but still.    This dress ended up being at least a full size too large.  Perhaps a run through the dryer in high heat will help ;)

I ended up modeling it in the photo below with safety pins tucking the excess fabric in the back.

For fun I suggested that Meg, at 31-weeks pregnant, try on the Lola dress.  She was skeptical about her belly fitting and was concerned the fabric wouldn't bounce back after our little dress-up session.  Well it did, and she looked stunning in it!  Was it an expectant mother's glow?  Breathing fresh air on a sunny afternoon?  An incredibly talented photographer?  Maybe all of it combined.  Either way this is my favourite photo from the whole weekend. 

Meg, kicking off her shoes and enjoying the sunshine

Finally here are a few more photos from the weekend to show off some of the projects completed by the girls.

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

Drape Drape Project #4: Drop-Waist Gather Drape Dress

Save the best for last.

I love this dress. It was the first pattern that I bookmarked from the Drape Drape series but I left it for last because I thought it would be the most challenging of the four.  It's the only fitted piece where sizing actually matters and on top of that it requires a zipper.  Well as it turns out it didn't take me much more than an afternoon of sewing plus I nixed the zipper altogether without a problem.  Oh, and counter to the sizing chart (see discussion at the bottom of this post) the large-XL didn't end up being quite right for me after all.  It was fine in the shoulders but I had to chop off about 2" from the back seam, and that still allows me to pull the dress on without a zipper.

The gathering detail on this dress is fantastic (and I'm complimenting the design, not my own handiwork).  I love the bodice of this dress.  First of all, it blows my mind that this whole dress was cut out of a single piece of fabric.  How does someone think up such a thing?  Second of all the sleeves are about the cutest I've ever made - gathered in the front and flat in the back.

A clever seam along the sides and back of the waist allows for more gathering detail in the skirt portion of the dress.

And finally instead of putting in a zipper I was able to sew up most of the back seam leaving a short opening near the top that I closed off with a loop and button.  Usually I don't shy away from invisible zippers but I was a bit anxious  to use one with stretch material.  The slightest misalignment in installing the zipper would surely result in ugly wrinkles accentuated by the stretchiness of this beautiful teal microsuede fabric.  It's too bad I didn't take better care to match up the left and right seams of the neckline.  I think I'll put the dress through one more quick pass under the Singer and clean that seam right up.

Here's a better view of how beautifully the dress hangs.  Don't be surprised to find a few more of these dresses hanging in my closet by the summer.

Scottish Piping

Okay, so from the title of this post you might think I'm going to blog about the Scottish bagpipes but what I'm actually referring to is Scottish wool and red piping!  I finally gathered up the courage to cut into this beautiful blue Scottish wool that my mother-in-law gave me last year.  There wasn't quite enough to make the full design of this dress (which should have a collar and dainty short sleeves) but I made the most of it.  In fact the piece of fabric was not quite long enough for this dress so I had to add a 3-inch strip to the hem.  Luckily I remembered to keep enough length in the red piping so that the extra hem line in the wool looks more like a detail that was put there intentionally.  It took two painful attempts before the "invisible zipper" at the back of the dress was no longer glaringly visible but it was well worth the effort.

This flattering dress pattern is definitely one that I will use again since it typically takes several iterations before I can get something to fit right.  Now that I have the proper measurements it should be much easier to get through the next variation of this design.

Teardrop Leaves

Here's another top that I ended up doing some surgery on because the striped cotton was starting to look pretty worn out. I wanted to preserve the white embroidery detailing so I replaced the torso using scrap fabrics I had on hand.

Original Top

The leaves are actually the final remnants of the fabric I used for the cloth book and elephant projects that I posted about below.  The top turned out nicely but if I were to do it all again I would have bought nicer fabric for the cream torso. Instead the scrap cotton I used is on the thin side and wrinkles too easily which is no good for dress-length tops!  

Pinning on the pattern

Crimson Summer Dress

I did it! I finally managed to motivate myself to alter the red dress that I made last summer in my intermediate sewing class. Last year after I finished the dress I had been very disappointed about it being too big in the  bust and torso. It had taken so much effort to make that I couldn't bring myself to start taking it apart again right away. I wore it once to the office to see if I could get away with not making it any smaller. A co-worker asked me whether I was pregnant which seemed to be a pretty good indication that it wasn't a flattering fit! I decided to shove the dress in the back of my closet to rest there indefinitely.

Well months later I bumped into the same co-worker and she mentioned that in the spring she had found out there were five pregnant women at our workplace but only knew of four. Since we don't have that many women at our engineering firm she naturally thought to ask me since I was recently married. Apparently she never even noticed my dress. Funny. 

Anyway here is the dress now after my alterations and trust me, it looks much much better. I took in the sides and added a ruffle to the neckline by transforming what used to be the tie around the waist. Then at the last minute I decided to add some cap sleeves. Ta-dah! I will definitely wear this dress again now.

Pocket Dress

I love pockets! I once saw a wedding dress on television with hidden side pockets and wished I had seen something like that in time for my own wedding. I think it's because I never know quite what to do with my hands and they always tend gravitate towards pockets (my own, of course). I'm quite proud of this dress which was created by only loosely following the guidelines for the cotton tunic.

I added pockets, long sleeves, darts, and a zipper in the back which weren't in the original instructions. I bought the fabric at a 40% discount sale during Fabricland's 43rd birthday celebration and promptly got started on the dress right after I finished my cotton one. The fabric was more difficult to work with than I had expected because there was absolutely no stretch to it. Consequently I had to put in the darts and invisible zipper so I could easily get into and out of the dress without needing to call for help (which I did the first time!).

Cotton Tunic

At the end of March I developed some crazy allergic reaction and my hands flared up so horribly I missed more than a week of work. It was very upsetting being unable to do anything for myself because both my hands were blistered and swollen over. I only got relief two weeks later when we headed to the emergency room at Toronto Western and they prescribed me with Prednisone. It's been a slow recovery so far, and unfortunately I had to drop my jewellery course at George Brown midway through the term, just as I was about to finish my silver box project (grr).

So, as my hands continue to slowly improve I've decided to temporarily set aside my jewellery tools and bring out the ol' Singer again. Sewing is much kinder on the hands than jewellery-making. Plus I have a few projects lined up already, starting with this cotton tunic/dress. Originally I had longer sleeves and a longer hem line but I started wondering if it was looking to 'granny-style conservative' so I snipped off a few inches. It instantly made the outfit look better.