Dress 2 of the Plain Pattern project.

Here is dress 2 of the Plain Pattern Project.

 The fabric is an embroidared crepe backed satin. It is actually mint green, but my camera has made it look silver.

The changes I made to this version is I made it longer, I made a belt and this time I did not add the large pointed sleeve cuffs, I also used over 14 metres of white satin binding. Instead of the buttons I used 7 white frog closures, as they seemed more appropriate to the fabric choice.

Here is a close up of the embroidary

This time round I think I got the understanding of the lap technique for the interfacing right, (well I hope so) and the only issue I had was trying to iron the seams flat

Here is a shot of the back neck detail which mirrors the pointed collar.
 
I wore this dress to my nephews' wedding and felt fabulous all night.
The plain pattern project is held by new vintage lady and I bought the pattern

Butterick 6747 dated 1953 from Tina at what-i-found

Have a fantasic week everyone, Sew Vala

Skipping stiches and 'what on earth?' instructions.

Ok so back to more on Butterick 6747 . When I picked up this dress this week and began to sew this happened

Looks like its time for a little machine maintance.Empty bobbin fluff, check tension, check stutch length/width etc. A few test pieces later

The unpicked stiches can clearly be seen but next to it looking good.

I also had problems with my overcasting so had to revert to zigzaging the edges.

 I think a service may be in order soon.

And then this is where the real problems started. And I felt like this

I could not at all understand the inerfacing for the colar and front, at all. So I bloged help, and  the lovely ShelleyJ over at New Vintage Lady sent me a link which descrided what I had to do way better than my instructions did. Thank you ShellyJ.
Basicly it was the same as the facings I did in my Loud Shirts, but the technique is very diferent. Once I had the hang of it the dress bagan to take shape

Although with that colar as it is I could audition for the next Flash Gordon movie

Any way back to reality. I am still not sure if I did the interfacing construction 'right' The instruction asked me to 'lap the interfacing, so I did this

??????.

And when I sewed the interling to the facing it all went wonky. But hey thats inside it did cause me minor irritation becasue I really want to do things right, I am not a perfectionist by any means, I just want to do well.

Before I go today

I have just realised I meant to do a contrasting colar. DOH.

SewVala.

Fabric/Patterns and excitment in a small village.

Hello all, and welcome to my new followers,

I have been away for a while doing more fabric, pattern shopping and actually starting projects. While at the same time it's summer hols with three teens at home and still preparing for the new roof.

So whats with the news on projects lined up so far,

I have finally chosen my fabric for the walkaway dress sew-a-long with Edelweiss

In the end I decided to go with a day dress, something in cotton. Mainly because I am used to how cotton feels and sews up.

The spots are not as large as they look in the picture.

At the moment I am still bit a tad slighty unsure on what I think about the fabric. My main reasons for chosing it are, It was in my price range (and at 5 metres needed, at £ 3.30m  bargin) Being rather small I didnt want to be overloaded with an all over pattern with all that fabric. My Ideal would have been a pattern for the front central part of the dress and something plain to complement on the wraparound part, However I couldn't find this, If I found a pattern I couldn't find something simple to 'go with' , Hence the polka dots. And if it does perchance look 'off' well at least it's cheaper than calico at the moment so I can use it as my draft.

Also at the end of last week my fabric from Linton Tweeds arrived

(image copyright of Linton Direct)

as of yet I haven't got a pic of the fabric

and so the hunt was on for the perfect pattern to use this fantasic bargin fabric and today I saw my local fabric shop has an offer on Simplicity Patterns and there I found this

 I think view C and D would be just perfect ( it's the jacket and skirt in the lower left picture.)

And as for items currently drapped over Betsy (the dressform). There are two more Loud, Loud Shirts.
One waiting for buttons and holes (I forgot to buy them (Doh) and the other just needs side seams, hem, buttons and holes. Hopefully they will be finished tomorrow.

And before I leave you tonight dear followers here's what counts for excitment in our little village in Wiltshire, Yesterday all was quiet until my daughter screamed 'Mum come look NOW!'  I ran to her and what she wanted to show me was this

We weren't the only people out there taking pictures, (good to know) but they really were so very low. they started to land in the field just in front of our house, then lifted on up and carried on.
It was very cool.