Creating something new: mixed prints musing dress from a pattern refashion

This was another moment of inspiration from a magazine, that I was trying to decide whether I liked or not. The underlying blues are very similar, but the prints are so different. What would I have in my stash that I could use like this?

Resident Magazine, NT - Model, Magnolia Maymuru - Dress from Raw Cloth, Darwin

I pulled fabric out, only large pieces, to see what colours I had. I would prefer not to do blues, too much like the picture. 

The basket print piece, from Injalak, is 2 metres long. 
The Japanese-style cotton duck is a couple of metres too.
The third piece is a large scrap, but I think it would go very well with the other two.
I could make a fairly straight dress out of the basket print alone, but I want a skirt with more flow. I should have enough fabric between all of them to do whatever I like.
I have a rockabilly dress pattern, maybe I'll have a play with that.

I didn't want to make the jacket, so that meant there were seven pattern pieces that I didn't need.

Cutting the pattern out is the most annoying part... the paper is tissue thin! At least it is recycled.

And then there's the instructions...

The pattern also has a side zip, which I hate, so I was more than happy to make extra cuts in my pieces so that I could make a back zip instead. A few extra seams never did anyone any harm! 

I couldn't decide if I wanted to makes stripes or do blocks of print, with the way the pattern was styled it was all meant to be one colour.

This is what I thought would be the front of the skirt, because its the fabric that I like the most.

I deliberately cut one half of the front of the top out of the third, darker bit of fabric. Hopefully I would have enough left to use for the trimmings. 

I had enough of the basket print to cut the whole back piece of the top out. 

When I used the fabric I didn't just fold it in half, I folded as little as possible so that I would have bigger scraps leftover. Far more useful that way.

I did the same for the straps and other small pieces, to use as much as I could.

The front of the top looks pretty good, huh?

I'm glad that I had so many metres, because I still ended up running out of fabric! I had to cut four bands, about 10cm wide, for the contrast strip on the bottom of the skirt. Turns out I didn't have enough length in my leftovers to do this, so I got creative and connected a lot of the scraps together so that very little went to waste. It will make it a bit bulkier, but very funky.

Onto the skirt. I had cut the two large pieces out and there were two ways they could go. 

Solid front, solid back?

Opposite fabric split?

My husband gave his opinion on the layout of the skirt and I agreed: the split front is the way to go. And the skirt is the perfect size. The top, on the other hand... is too small! Argh! I HATE patterns.... time to refashion it!

What was wrong:

• The darts under the bust went up too high and made the top tight across the bust. Luckily I could make them smaller.
• It's too tight around the body, meaning I have to put some extra material in the sides.
• The straps seem far wider than in the picture, even when I cut them down further...

Look at the gape in the back! There were more bits of fabric that I had cut, but I really couldn't see myself adding anything more to this top.

And how tight it is on the sides, and yet it puffs out alarmingly around the sleeves?

I added in the side bits in first, to see what difference that made. It was significant. With a dart in the bust on both sides it actually fit and would wrap around.

A better fit on the back, too.

A couple of extra seams to sew and I was better off. Just needed to finish all of the edges. Bias tape is a time saver: it makes hemming and edges less bulky than if I had hemmed by folding. The lines are cleaner, too.

A much better fit! Just the bottom hem to go at this point.

I like how the binding has brought all of the parts together. It might have been too much of a contrast otherwise.

What I hadn't counted on was that by making the top wider, it no longer matched the skirt. I would have to lose a significant amount of the length of the top to make it match. My solution was to keep them as separates instead. It does always mean that I can mix and match things.

I overlocked and joined the edges.

And then I put the zip in.

After that I hemmed the bottom of the skirt - which was metres in diameter! I almost didn't have enough bias binding to complete it.

Unfortunately I didn't end up using a lot of the strips that I had cut out for the pattern, but it meant that I could use one for the waistband of the skirt. I folded it right-sides in and sewed it in a tube.

After that the skirt needed a button and a loop and it was done! 

Very comfortable and, I think, very funky!

None of the matching parts were planned (which is kind of my favourite way to do things).

Add the two together aaaaaaaaaaaaand.... here it is!

I keep looking at the ensemble and shaking my head at the mix of patterns, but I suppose that was the point!

 #lovelypennypatterns

Green Tiwi Princess Dress Refashion

I thought it was time to make another dress instead of a skirt. I decided to try a princess style, making the bust fitted without darts. It would also let me keep the alternating stripes effect. Like this:

Website here.
Essentially the dress will be in five pieces. I would also like to make the skirt fuller than the pattern above, as that is more flattering for me.
I made quite a successful dress some time ago just by pinning two lengths - front and back - of fabric onto the dressmakers manikin. Admittedly, the inside is a bit scrappy, but you can't tell from the outside. 
Draping and pinning fabric is a great way to create your own style and fit, but if you start with too much fabric you end up cutting away a lot of small pieces that are less useful than a bigger piece that you could have cut to start off with. Sometimes it's a good idea to make a dummy dress out of calico or a similar fabric first, to make sure your design works.
A starting point is to have an idea of what sort of dress you want:

• What length?
• Where will the waist sit?
• What kind of neckline do you want?
• Where will the zip be? (I prefer a back zip)
• Where are you wearing this? ie. does it need a certain modesty

With the dress below, the front panel connected to side seams ie. it was a single panel, not lots of wide strips or pattern pieces. I added the shoulder straps onto the original fabric, rather than trying to pin it around my shoulders. I found that it was a bit short for work, which is why I added the lace to the bottom.

I was going to start this princess dress with a blank piece of fabric again, but then someone gave me this dress. And it was princess cut. It's from Tiwi Designs, their Sandpiper bird print.

You can see the curved seam here, which is the princess seam:

It was too small for me on top, and a bit short:

And because it had been made for someone shorter, the pockets were too high:

I started by unpicking the side seams of the dress. And then I pinned and sewed the pockets closed. They were going to be too difficult to remove.

I needed more fabric to add to this dress, and luckily the same kind donor had given me two more green dresses.

 They both looked good with the sand piper fabric.

I thought that I could cut from the bottom of both dresses and use the material to lengthen the original, maybe in alternating sections. I also needed to put inserts on both sides to make it big enough for me. Plenty of fabric to work with.

I cut the light green dress open to make my inserts.

A mistake I have made previously has been inserting the side panels before I  have shaped the dress. Though this dress has the shape provided by the princess-cut, it was made for someone smaller in the bust than me. So I needed to insert darts to make it fit. This changes the length of the side seams because it folds (ie. removes) fabric. I put it on the dressmakers mannikin to do this.

 After that I sewed my side panels in.

 Then I put it on the mannikin to see how it had turned out.

Not.... well. At all. It's a sack. A pretty, green sack.
It was disappointing, and I tried pinning it several different ways, trying to make it fit. No luck.

No luck at all. I gave up, chopped the top off, and went to make it into a skirt after all.

 The top wasn't quite level, but it was easy to patch the gaps.

Because my clothes are refashioned from existing ones, the inside isn't always very pretty. But I don't mind at all.

I left the zip in, so could either put elastic in still or some darts to make it fit well. I looked at the folds on this skirt when I went to hang it up, and decided that I would try them. 

 Definitely!

 A straight stitch along the top to keep the folds in place and then it was on to the finishing touches: waistband and a pocket, maybe some braid?

 I like the contrast between the light green and pink, it's pretty.

 And there you have it.

I do love the bird print.

It seems it is harder to re-size up than it is to re-size down. I'll try again another time.

#lovelypennypatterns