The Final Mouret dress!

Happy new year and apologies for the lack of posts over the holidays! Before the Christmas break I managed to finish the Mouret inspired dress for my friend, Carol. I was really happy with the outcome and so was Carol. Carol choose the perfect colour to complement her complexion and also found some really lovely accessories which matched the dress perfectly. She looked beautifully elegant.


I was especially glad to have been able to achieve that square neckline which didn't gape but sat nicely on the shoulders and chest. I find that this is a great difficulty for me and many others when wanting to buy an 'off the peg' dress from the shops. The chest area always gapes! so I end up wearing dresses/tunics mostly made from a stretchy fabric like jersey. A big thanks again to all those more experienced seamstresses from The Sewing Forum who answered a few of the queries I had about this neckline!




The poly satin fabric we used wasn't too much of a nightmare to work with although I did find it difficult to press on a low heat and take to the fusible interfacing at times. This fabric frayed very easily, especially at the bust points where the seam allowances were clipped. Using iron-on interfacing on the seam allowance of these seams really helped me out! and will be something I will be definitely trying out again on other garments.


Hemming this dress was also a tricky choice as it was so fine and snagged very easily. I thought I would be able to hem it by hand but the impression stitches on the right side would have spoilt the hem for sure, no way was I going to spoil the dress right at the end!
So I researched into hemming satin and silk fabrics and decided to use fusible hemming tape which worked beautifully! One word of advice - always, always try out stitches or fusible tapes on a scrap piece of fabric. I had quite a few tries with the tape on scrap pieces of satin before I went ahead and tackled the dress itself. The patience was well worth it!!

Stylish Dress Book vol 1- How to make a tunic dress V

I managed to sew up the next dress from my Japanese sewing book a few weeks ago, dress V which is the shirt dress with a collar and pocket. I found sewing this up was much like the first dress although I did find sewing the collar a tad tricky as I've never actually sewn a garment which has a fold over collar. I did however manage to work it out by looking at an existing shirt I had which had a similar collar.

I made a few alterations to the pattern which I thought would give it a slightly more feminine touch to it. I noticed on the original pattern the shape of the shoulder is quite straight and was of a dropped nature so I raised the shoulder line and added gathers. I also added gathers to the cuff. Below is how I did these alterations.

For this dress I chose a lovely soft cotton plaid fabric (about 1.7 metres). Matching up the lines wasn't too bad with this pattern, it just took a little extra time to make sure they were in line.

The alterations

Raising the shoulder
Trace your sleeve pattern onto tracing paper. To give the shoulder a raised look you'll need to increase the head by about 2cm. Mark 2cm above the very top of the sleeve and then draw a gentle slope, starting from the back balance point mark. This line will continue over the top of the sleeve head and to finish at the front balance point mark.



This is your new sleeve head. Now you've altered the sleeve you'll need to take 2cm off of the front and back bodice piece. This is to ensure that the sleeve will comfortably fit the sleeve hole.
Mark 2cm in from the end of the shoulder on the front bodice piece. Start from that mark and draw a gentle curve sloping inwards until you reach the sleeve line where the balance point is. Then cut off the area you've just marked.




Do the same with the back bodice piece and you're done.

This technique of raising the shoulder is really useful when you require a gathered shoulder head. Raising the shoulder allows the gather to sit slightly in of the end of the shoulder which aesthetically looks better.

Gathers
So onto creating those gathers. At the bottom of your sleeve measure the desired height of the cuff you want, I think I made mine 5cm. Mark across and cut this amount off. This is your cuff- remember to add seam allowance to the top edge of your cuff after pinning it to your fabric.

Starting from the top centre line on your new sleeve piece draw 5 lines, 2cm apart. Cut down along these lines.


Number your strips and then spread them out leaving spaces of the desired amount (I did 2cm). Stick these all down on top of a new sheet of tissue paper, tidy the top sleeve curve by re-drawing the line. Go onto cut around the whole sleeve shape.


This will be your new sleeve. Your gather line will be from where the first strip starts to where the last cut strip ends. Now you're ready to sew the rest of the dress.

Step 3. Sew pocket

Take your pocket and fold in and press the seam allowances according to the image in step 3. remember that the top edge folds over twice, once by 1cm and again by 1.5cm making a total of 2.5cm. Sew down your top edge, 2mm from the edge.


At this point I actually sewed all the edges down as shown in the main image on page 76 and then sewed the pocket to the dress front. However the proper way would probably be to just go straight ahead and sew the pocket onto the dress without sewing the edges down first. by the sewing the edges down first it did help me to neatly sew the pocket to the dress more easily, especially as the pocket it cut on the bias but it's up to you which way you do it!




There are quite a few steps to this tunic so I'll be posting them up in stages! Stage two coming soon...

Mouret dress: Work in progress 1

Just a quick post to show how the dress is coming along. Here are photos of the poly satin fabric and of the lining I have nearly finished sewing.

Because we couldn't locate lining which matched the self fabric perfectly I've made facing pieces from the self fabric for the neckline and I'm wondering whether to do the same for the edge of the sleeve too.

Once this part is finished it'll be onto the main part of the dress and interfacing the parts of the dress which come under a lot of strain and are prone to stretching. Lots to do and only 4 weeks to go till the wedding event!

Mouret dress: Fitting number 3

Today we had the last fitting for the Mouret inspired dress. I forgot to take photos of the final dress fitting and to mention how the second fitting went but there were only a few minor alterations to be made which I think I've got in hand. These included altering the toile to accommodate swayback, widening the hip area and curving in the princess seam at the neckline. I've really learnt a lot about the numerous subtle alterations which have to be made in order to achieve a really great fitting dress and it makes me have even more of an appreciation for couture fashion designers who create perfectly fitting garments for their clients and do it all by by hand!

We also bought the fabric (a lovely turquoise poly satin) and notions we need for the final dress so I'm just about ready to get going! The last thing I need to do is create extra pattern pieces for the lining pieces and the areas of the dress which are interfaced. I'll document the process of the final make up of this dress -I'm looking forward to seeing the final result! I don't regularly sew with satin fabrics so if anyone has any tips about working with this type of slippery satin fabric I'll be happy to hear them. Off to work I go!

Mouret dress: Fitting number 1

So yesterday I had a fitting session of the Mouret inspired dress I'm making for my friend Carol. Drafting the first toile was a better process than I first imagined and this was all because of the great help I received from the great members of the sewing forum website who gave me so much advice and answered all my questions. A big thank you to you all!

Toile 1
I was really happy with the look of the first fit but there are still quite a few changes to be made.
Firstly I added too much width to the hips plus the ease which meant that the front, back and hip area were all too baggy and didn't fit as snug as I would have liked. This can be sorted out relatively easily by taking in that excess fabric.

I was extremely happy with how the neckline came out for the first fit. I was really worried that it would gape badly as these sorts of necklines are prone to doing so. We've decided to take it down a tad- about 2cm which will also mean taking in the bust darts slightly to remove the subsequent excess fabric and also take in the side area (at the shoulder) of the neckline too as there is a slight gap around that area.

Carol chose cap sleeves but I wasn't sure what length would fit her best so I made each sleeve a different length so we could see the effect. We both chose the shorter side (on the right) as it sat better.

The hem area is plain at the moment but we thought that perhaps we could include a thick hemline like galaxy dress in the image below and see whether it would look good and suit Carol height too. I'm aware that these horizontal lines can have a widening effect to the figure so I want to be careful! Does anyone else have a dress with a similar thick hemline? Does it only suit certain figures? I need to do some research and make up the second toile....

Rachel's Bridesmaid Dress

Last month a friend of mine was having serious difficulties finding a decent bridesmaid dress for her 13 year old daughter. You know the situation, either the bust fits and the hips don't, or the waist is great but the bust gapes. I think most of us experience some sort of problem when trying to buy a garment - be it a dress, trousers or a blouse. But I think teens even more so. They're in that transition stage where they don't want to look too young or girlie, but on the other hand they don't want to look too old. Also a lot of the bridesmaid dresses in the stores can be rather low at the front and this was also one of the problems my friend faced while shopping with her daughter.

So my friend Mary asked me (8 weeks before the wedding ahhh!!) if I could design and make a simple bridesmaid dress for her daughter. We worked together to come up with a simple A-line shaped dress with matching hair band. Rachel had two fittings (one of which was done over Skype, and the other was over the phone while Mary was in France!). This was quite a challenge but we managed to work through our distance issues with modern technology!





The skirt part of the dress was developed from the Libby skirt. It also has a thick band detail at the waist and a shallow sweetheart neck. The fabric is a brilliant jade stretch cotton sateen from C&H fabrics in Canterbury. Improvements: in hindsight I think I would have made the sweetheart shallower. I think a straighter neckline suits a dress that requires a higher neckline. But all in all i'm really happy with the dress and Rachel looks wonderful!