Summer Dresses and Skirts Pt. 3: Ottobre Hippie Style and New Chic Dresses

I have been fascinated ever since Ottobre Woman 2/2014 came out with the two sundress patterns that feature the same v-neck bodice.  "The New Chic" has an A-line skirt and "Hippie Style" is a three-tiered maxi dress.  They both caught my attention, but which to make first?  This time, both were on my SWAP!  "The New Style" was originally going to be made from the tan and brown floral that I used for the ModKid Madeline.  Having used it, I decided to make this dress from a sheet that I have been wanting to use--don't you just love these fish?  I almost made the three-tiered maxi version from the fish sheet because I loved it so much, but then I decided I would look too much like a sheet--or maybe a sail--if I did that...

When I started, I was thinking of this as essentially a trial.  The sheet didn't cost me anything, and besides, I can usually wear things that I make for the first time.  I traced the 48 and 50 together.  I generally wear a 48 in Ottobre--particularly in dresses--regardless of what I measure.  When I have made a 50, it has generally been too big.  Not so in this case!  I cut out the 50, and was shocked and dismayed to find that it fit much more snugly than I wanted.  So much so, that when it was assembled, I ripped out the seam where the bodice joined to the skirt in the back and removed the darts.  At that point, I was able to zip it (side zipper) without fear of pinching myself, but breathing and sitting are still a problem.  And I made it a size larger than I usually do!

However, I was not going to give up on the pattern.  I loved it in the magazine, and I loved it on!  It is very flattering, even as a second skin.  So the next weekend I traced and cut out a sz. 52 to make the maxi dress version.  This is straight from my SWAP!  I used a muted seafoam-colored linen eyelet that I have been having since 2005.  My mom made me a maternity dress out of the companion piece, which was more green than this one and had a different pattern of eyelet.  It is rare to have so much nice quality linen hanging around; I think it was waiting for this pattern.

I did make a couple of modifications.  While the 50 was too small around, the bodice came up too high.  Under the arms was too high as well.  So when I traced the sz. 52, I lowered the arms and the top of the bodice by tracing those portions on a 48. I gathered the top tier, but left the front of the skirt between the two princess seams flat to avoid a maternity look.  I also left out the zipper, because heck--I was making it a lot larger this time. The difference between a 50 and a 52 is fairly significant.

Here is the result:

It's not very "crisp" because these pictures were taken straight out of the dryer, and I didn't iron it.  Pretty good, though, for an un-ironed linen dress!  I bought actual lining fabric rather than self-lining.  I wouldn't have bothered lining the skirt, except for the little holes in the eyelet.  In retrospect, it probably wouldn't have mattered.  A note about the third tier--it is very, very wide.  So wide that in my size, the sz. 48 tier would not fit on 56" fabric.  So what you're seeing is less full than it should be.  I don't think it's a problem, but I've been wondering how I might make the maxi version from 45" wide fabric...

So about the fit... It is still a very flattering dress.  But... you probably guessed it.  It is too big.  The sides gape a bit under the arm.  I could easily take an inch off and taper, because where the bodice joins the skirt, the size is fine.  The bust is perfect as well.  In fact, the princess seams seem to fit more where they should fit, though I didn't notice that the weren't quite right until I made the second one.  Whilt it is a little large, it doesn't matter too much. I will probably wear it most often with a sweather like in the magzine.  I need to make one, in fact.  When I wore the dress last week, I wore a 3/4 sleeve blue jean jacket.  I may have made it a little long, but it is maxi and I am short.  Next time, I will look at the picture and hem it slightly above my ankle!

There will be a next time.  I love this pattern, and I have already bought fabric to make another.  I have also already modified the pattern into something completely different!  But more on that soon.

A (short) Sewing Blog Round-up

In honor of trying to actually make a plan, stick to it, and blog it (we'll see, but I'll try), I want to put up a short list of blogs that I like, or people whose sewing I like who blog.  I am a member of the Ottobre English Yahoo! Group, which has members from all over the world sewing and discussing Ottobre patterns.  I discovered it early in my Ottobre Design adventures, and it gave me some hints and support with sewing Ottobre patterns.  (There's an accompanying Flickr group, as well.)  From those two sources, I discovered some very talented and creative people, including:

• Astrid at Connecting the Dots

• Teri at mermaids

• Joy at 21 Wale

• Pam at Off the Cuff - who does much more tailoring; always impressive!

And so many more whose blogs I have stumbled across before.  What is amazing is that the stories that go along with the people and the sewing.  So many of the members of the Ottobre Yahoo! Group sew for their children, their special needs children, their grown children, their grandchildren... And it is just nice to see the snapshot of the real people behind the wonderful things that they make!

Then, there are some I stumbled across while doing searches, like

• LiEr at ikatbag - my all-time favorite because of the sheer level of creativity and variety of crafts!

• Katy at no big dill - whom I love because of the themed sewing marathons

So this is my list.  I hope you find something to inspire and to share!

Disappointed: Review of Ottobre "Forest Path" Pants, #19, 4/2012

Every now and then, I am disappointed by the fit of an Ottobre Design pattern.  Usually, the problem occurs in the waist or the rise.  For the longest time, I was altering patterns for my older daughter to make sure that they came to her waist--particularly leggings and panties--assuming that she was just long-waisted.  And that might have been part of it.  I don't know that I've made her pants in a while--she's now 8 and I have found that Wal-Mart jeans fit her, as do Gymboree pants (now sz. 9).  I did find that some Ottobre Design pant patterns fit her just fine, while others were low in the waist.

My younger girl--almost 6 years--is the hard one to fit now, with her little round tummy.  She's in kindergarten, and just fits the clothes that her sister wore at the *end* of kindergarten (right when we discovered that she could fit Gymboree).  But this year's Gymboree pant styles aren't fitting my 6 yo at all.  So I decided to try the Forest Path Pants from the Autumn 2012 Ottobre children's issue.  They didn't take long to get together, particularly since I omitted the front pockets.  The only other modification was to the waistband.  They are supposed to have a drawstring. I also had narrower elastic (by 1 cm) than what the pattern called for.  Even so, I think the pattern could have been drafted with 1-2 inches more in the rise.  Here are my results.

They look fairly cute, if a little plain without the front pocket.  I was using a fine-wale corduroy from my stash, and I just barely had enough fabric for the pants--hence the pink waistband.  It's probably obvious why my daughter thought they were "sleep pants"...  *sigh*

The pocket and yoke details are nice in the back (though hard to see with the print):

But here's one problem.  They really are lower than I would like.

And the back pockets are positioned more on her legs than her bottom!

So what was the problem here?

Well, looking back at the magazine, I fear that this is how they were drafted, in part because they are primarily designed for younger children.  She is at the top of the size range, the next-to-largest size--at a European size 122.  The pants start at 92--which is the size her sister wore at 2 years old, just to give an idea.  The pants are pictured in the magazine three times.  First, on a toddler (they are unisex, which made me think they would be higher in the front rather than lower...):

http://www.ottobredesign.com/lehdet_js/2012_4/index.html?fi

It is pretty clear in the picture above that the pants come to the top of a diaper, no higher.  The second picture shows a boy wearing the pants.  I notice that he has his legs spread wide in the picture that actually features the pants, and that his hands are in his pockets.  You can tell that the top of the pocket is right under the hem of his shirt, which means that his waistband is only about 3cm above that point.  Still lower than I would like.  *sigh*

http://www.ottobredesign.com/lehdet_js/2012_4/index.html?fi

And the little girl who made me decide to make these particular pants?:

http://www.ottobredesign.com/lehdet_js/2012_4/index.html?fi

Her hands are in her pocket awkwardly as well, and her legs apart.  The top of her pants (you can tell by the drawstring) are right under the elasticized bottom of her top, though it is clear that they are sagging a little when worn like this.

I have to conclude that the pants are simply low-waisted, which I would have noticed had I looked harder at the picture rather than the drawing.  

The other thing is that the girl is wearing a sz. 110, the older boy, a 115, and the baby a sz. 92 (though his height is 88 cm--so maybe it runs small??)  None of the models is 6 years old, making me think that it really is a more juvenile design.  The pocket placement on the smaller sizes appears much better than on the sz. 122.  Oh well.

In the meantime, it is wearable with a longish shirt.  She doesn't have a longish shirt, so we'll have to work on that.  But lesson learned--scrutinize the design as shown in the magazine.

A Nancy Clancy Trench: Ottobre 3/2008, #40 "Birdwatcher" Linen Jacket

Every year my girls' school has a "book parade" at the end of October.  It's part of their "say no to drugs" week, which I'll excuse because the concept is so neat.  The kids and teachers dress up as book characters and then have a parade.  This is going to be the third year for my now-2nd grader, and though my youngest has seen the parade twice, she will be in it this year!

So while little sister will be the Cat in the Hat, wearing a hat and bowtie that I made for her last spring, big sister will be "Nancy Clancy," the detective incarnation of the Fancy Nancy character.  For her costume, I made a trench coat using Ottobre's "Birdwatcher" Linen Jacket pattern from the Summer 2008 issue.

I seem to be opting for more details and complexity these days, and while the prospect is always a little daunting, it pays off!  I cut out the pattern last weekend, and pretty much avoided doing anything with it until 6 P.M. this Saturday.  I worked on it for about 6 hours on Saturday, and then much of the day (excluding meals and Mass) until 9 P.M. on Sunday.  The only thing I modified was the length--which is longer--and the beltloops.  The pattern calls for 4, but instead I made two fat beltloops and placed one on each side seam.  I think I could have placed them a little higher, but it still looks good.  Here are the results, including the most intimidating feature of all--the sleeve. I think it's fancy enough for Nancy Clancy!

Finished Products!: Ottobre Design - Autumn 2010 - Vahvero linen Romper

And to think I thought I would be posting this in a few more stages...

This is a pattern I have been wanting to make since I first saw the "sneak peek" images in August of 2010, but it is one I have put off because--well, it's a little initmidating!  Sometimes, I look at the Ottobre designs and I undestand the phrase "the devil is in the details"--but the details are so nice.  And this pattern, though it did have elastic shirring, and it did have fancy pockets, just called to me.  So here it is, finished...

 Front and back.

Two of them, in fact!



So I learned a few things along the way, one of which I already mentioned in an earlier post.

Another thing was that not all elastic thread is created the same.  I have made garments with shirring before, and it came out... okay.  The main problem was that the shirring was not durable.  It broke.  And then, the garment was basically ruined--three knit shirts for my older daughter when she was in Pre-K had shirring on the sleeve, one woven shirt for me and three more (woven) that I made for the same daughter a little earlier than Pre-K also had shirring, this time on the bodice.  And, well, I wasn't very happy with the result.  THIS time, it occurred to me to look up brands of elasticized thread.  And Lo!  I discovered that most people were recommending Güterman.  Had I known that Güterman made elasticisized thread, I would have bought it from the beginning, but I was focusing on the elastic part, and not the thread part, so I bought the cheap stuff that JoAnn's had by the elastic.  This time, I bought the Güterman, and the difference is already noticeable!

So here is an intermediate stage, with the side-seams sewn.

And here are some of the details that make these jumpers so lovely.  The pockets:

The shirring at the ankle (or slightly above) that give them that "bloomer" look:

And here, the shirring again, with the straps attached:

The button fastenings (I had no idea how these things were fastened, and they fasten surprisingly easily!):

I learned another lesson while making these, and that is to make sure the straps are long enough, even if it means making them too long.  I remember, now, a cute purple jumpsuit that my mom made for me--it had puffed sleeves, if memory serves, and a long zipper up the front.  Besides the whole using the bathroom issue, I remember when I began to outgrow it, how uncomfortable it was to have the all-in-one garment--and I remembered it, unfortunately, as I was fitting my younger daughter with her gorgeous purple jumpsuit.  It was very nearly too short in the rise.  I moved up the straps in the back, attaching them much closer to the top of the jumper than the directions specified.  Even so, I was only just able to place the buttons where they were marked on the pattern, which will allow me to move them once for adjustment when she grows.  My other daughter, who I think has a long torso, fits hers very well, with ample room to grown in the straps, which is good.  It may simply be that I should have cut a size larger in the smaller jumper.  But... c'est la vie! She should still be able to wear it a good many times--and boy, is it cute.  No clown pants here!!  Now to find (or make) cute shirts to go under...

Sewing Pleats and Tabs: Ottobre Design - Autumn 2010 - Vahvero linen Romper

So after a hiatus of a couple of weeks, I've moved on to the second "step," if you will, of the Ottobre Design overalls I'm making for my girls.  At this stage, I make pleats on the front of the pants on either side that open up to the side seams.  There are a couple of things here that I have to interpret.  The first is the "depth" of the pleat.  It may seem silly, but I did think about this for a while.  The pleats are supposed to be 1 cm deep, so from outer-fold to inner fold, I measured 1 cm.  I think that's right.

The other puzzle is where to stitch down the pleats.  The directions say to "stitch across the pleats"--okay, got it--but where to stitch is a little fuzzier:  "plac(e) the first row 3.5 cm down from outer edge of seam allowance on top edge of front panel and spac(e) the rest 2 cm apart from each other below the first row."  What I don't quite get is what, exactly, the "outer edge of seam allowance" might be...

Ottobre patterns don't include seam allowances.  You trace the pieces, and add seam allowances.  The recommended seam allowance is 1 cm, but not being a metric kind of gal, I tend to add 1/2" instead.  So is the outer edge of the seam allowance the edge of the 1 cm that I was supposed to add?  Which would mean that I would actually subtract the 1 cm I was supposed to add, add 1/2", and sew the first row at 1.5 cm + 1/2" from the very edge of the front panel?  Anyway, that's what I'm going to assume.  We'll see how it works out...

In the meantime, I have created a little tab with a buttonhole that needs to be sewn to the inside of the garment on the wrong side of the pleats.  Again, there is some confusion over where to place the button tab:  "2 cm down from outer edge of seam allowance on top edge of front panel."  Then, I "stitch tabs in place along rows of stitching sewn across pleats," which I believe means that I would turn the garment over and stitch the tab to the wrong side by sewing on the right side.  Well, here goes...

Okay, so as it turned out, I discovered that the "outer edge" is not the edge of the piece as I cut it out (including the seam allowance).  The "outer edge" is the edge of the pattern piece before adding the seam allowance.  The instructions are translated from Finnish--I wonder if this might be a translation error?  Anyway, I discovered this by happy accident.  As I was sewing the first piece--the brown pair--I accidentally sewed 5 rows of stitching across the pleats instead of 4.  And I realized as I did this that it just seemed natural to keep going to the end of the mark I made for each folded pleat.  And that mark ended just as I made the 5th line of stitching, spaced every 2 cm.  So clearly, the top row was one row too many.  When I measured from the line I had made to indicate my seam allowance to the 2nd row of stitching, it was exactly 3.5 cm.  Mystery solved!  And so I proceeded accordingly, measuring from where my seam allowance began, and starting the first row of stitching 3.5 cm from that.







The only thing of note when I sewed on the button tab was that it had to be positioned so that the 2 cm gap between rows coincided with the buttonhole itself, otherwise I would have sewn the buttonhole closed!  I noticed that right away, though, so I could adjust my rows of stitching accordingly.  In a perfect world, I wouldn't have had to do that, because my buttonhole and my lines of stitching would have been positioned perfectly.  *sigh*  Ah well, this will be one of those garments that comes with the disclaimer that slight imperfections make it unique, right?





Hopefully, I will be able to write about the elastic shirring adventure next time.

Easter Dresses - Final Product!

Okay, it's a little late, and I did have them done for Easter (about 2:30 A.M., to be precise...), but here are the finished Easter dresses!  The delay was caused by my woeful lack of photo editing skills.  I would like to have pixellated or blurred rather than cropping, but I finally settled on a combination of cropping and vignette in iPhoto.  Here they are, modeled!

Now, I must admit to cutting a corner.  I did not stitch the lining in.  It was very late when I was wrapping up...  So the bottom edge of the bodice lining is free-floating.  It should have been stitched by hand.  And I never can quite get the lining attached to the zipper correctly--which is part of why I tend to avoid lined bodices like the plague.  But it is almost impossible to tell when they're wearing them!!  A trained eye would notice the lining riding up.  *sigh*  I feel guilty.  Can you tell?   But otherwise I'm so happy with them.  They don't look like drapes at all! (That was a fear when I came home with my fabric choices.)  And Bellie (in green) wore hers for picture day last week, and was (appropriately) the belle of the ball!  At least two children wanted a dress just like it.  One little girl asked Bellie's daddy if he would buy one for her!  Needless to say, she was pleased with the attention.  And I was pretty happy with it, too!

Easter Dresses - Penultimate Post!

When I post the next picture, they will be done and modeled!  Last night I assembled the back and front skirt panels before bed. This morning I stitched the side seams, gathered and attached the skirts to the bodices.  I am pretty happy with my gathers this time, but does anyone who sews not hate gathering??

I took a better picture--with my camera instead of my iPod--to celebrate my progress:

I still have to put in the invisible zipper and hem the skirt, and then they'll be done!  Ready for Easter after all!  Not so my first project, which was supposed to turn into bunny treat bags.  Oh well.  Maybe next year!

Easter Dress Progress: Bodice done!

Well, except the zipper. I love the sleeves. And the best part? The sleeves didn't have to be hemmed!

Easter Dresses: Slowly but Surely...

Well, between one thing and another, it was long after Spring Break (the second week after Spring Break, to be precise) when I cut out Easter dresses for my girls. Tonight I finally started sewing them, so here's the bodice front. Keep your fingers crossed that I will have the rest done before Sunday!

Easter Dresses! - Pt 1

Yesterday I bought some fabric to make the girls Easter dresses. The first fabric I found was at the local quilt shop:

It's lovely, but it would require just exactly the right dress pattern, and I just couldn't come up with the right combination with the ModKid and Ottobre patterns I already own, so I went to JoAnn's to see what they might have. (I'll probably go back for the puff flower print sometime when I find the right pattern...)

At JoAnn's, I found a beautiful floral that made me think instantly of one of the patterns I had in mind for the first fabric. It proved nearly impossible to match, however... until I got to the special occasion fabric. There, I happened to find polyester shantung in exactly the right colors. So I figured, what the heck? I may regret it at some point, but the fabric is so pretty, maybe not!

Here is the fabric:

And here is the pattern--a lovely version made by Astrid from Denmark, who blogs at Connecting the Dots and sews with Ottobre patterns:

This pattern comes from the Summer 2008 issue of Ottobre.  My only reservation (besides the fear that I somehow managed to buy too little fabric...) is that with the way the shantung ravels, I should probably make French seams.  I don't think the bodice is lined.  And I'm not a fan of having a lined, sleeveless bodice.  I've had some issues with trying to turn a lined, sleeveless bodice right-side-out.  I need to check on that.  But anyway, I haven't washed the fabric or traced the pattern yet, so I have time to figure it all out!