Day Dress – Stacey Stitch

The Joan Wiggle Dress (Charm Patterns Patreon) Slash Neck: All Sewn Up

Published on February 19, 2022February 19, 2022 by Stacey Stitch3 Comments

I was over the moon when I first saw what Gertie had created for us for January’s Patreon release. If you have read my blog previously (over the years that Mad Men seasons were still being released -gah – way, way back in time) then you will know

a. how much I love Joan and

b. how obsessed with Mad Men I was (and to a certain extent still am).

The pattern came with two necklines, one the classic Joan office wear with a slash neck based on her iconic silhouette of the wiggle dress that hugs every curve, and the second a daring sweetheart neckline for those who dare to bare a little more.

Now, I have promised myself that as my sewing room/office is now all done and I am finally moved in that I will sew one garment a month at the minimum (more on that in a later blog) so this seemed like the perfect opportunity to jump right in. So off I went and purchased some pretty on the nose fabric for the slash neck top, because I really loved the way that cutting on the stripes made the chevron pattern on the bodice of the dress.

It didn’t take me long to cut and sew the top although the chevrons did need a little bit of unpicking (hello seam ripper, my old friend) after my first attempt, but holding my breath seemed to somehow magically work for the second attempt and I had some fantastic matching I was very happy with.

The top of the dress was incredibly high on my neck, so there was a certain amount of fiddling about to make sure that it sat in the right place. There was mention of this in both the video and the printed instructions so I was prepared.

The skirt was way too curvy on my hips, something I really should have measured for properly when I cut my pieces, I did feel like I should have graded between sizes but I just ignored the little voice. Thankfully I tried the skirt part on before I attached it to the bodice so I adjusted, took the skirt in, made the curve less prominent and re-sewed the skirt to ensure a better fit.

What I didn’t consider and what I feel like I should have done (can you tell who has had their sewing machine packed away for a year due to renovation?) was the weight of the skirt fabric which was heavier than the weight of the bodice fabric. Thankfully it wasn’t so much that there was additional drag or pull on it when it was all finished, but it’s definitely something I’ll think about in the future. Every sew is a learning possibility.

I was super excited to get it on and feel my inner Joanie – did I mentioned I’ve had a replica of her pen necklace for a good few years now? Nope, well, here it is and me in all its glory.

I am so super pleased with how this fantastic dress has turned out. A million thanks to the Charm Patterns crew and to Gertie for such a wonderful pattern to start the year with. I’ve been a subscriber since the Charm Patterns Patreon first started and I have to say this is hands down my a favourite pattern release. It’s always a special one at the beginning of the year and we get a little extra bang for our buck, and what a gloriously special pattern it is. What I love about it the most is the versatility, I will be wearing it to the office on my return in a couple of weeks and I can equally imagine wearing it out to a dinner date with friends.

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Simplicity 7702: All Sewn Up – 60s Shift Dress

Published on March 22, 2015April 21, 2016 by Stacey Stitch9 Comments

My first sew of 2015. A few weeks ago I put a blog up for advice, after I scored some gorgeous vintage style fabric from John Lewis in the sale, asking what your opinions were on the pattern to pick.

In the end the simplicity won out. I wanted to try something different, something with a sixties silhouette different from the more tailored sews I’d done previously. The fabric seemed more suited to that. I decided to sew up a toile with some left over cotton that I had as I am a 34 in the bust but I have junk in my trunk, way more than is allowed for on the pattern.

I am so, so glad that I decided to do this because the toile was far too tight on the hips and it was throwing everything off shape wise. So I got out the Swedish tracing paper, made some adjustments and came up with a much more pleasing and better fitting toile.

I used this to cut the fabric and with gritted teeth marked it all out to ensure that I matched the pattern at the back of the dress, which turned out very well even if I do say so myself, first time almost perfect, I decided to leave it at that. It was only a tiny bit out of sync and I wasn’t about to tempt fate by taking the zip out again and seeing it all back in only for it to not match at all.

This is the first time that I’ve ever sewn up a pattern putting the zip in the back before sewing the sides in. Easier x one million. I don’t even know why I haven’t considered doing it before. I think I’m just a stickler for the instructions. I must do what they say. I might remedy that in the future.

I tried the bodice on and had a bit of a worry when the centre back wasn’t lying flat against my skin, until I realised I was wearing the shoulders a little high and they should have been sat a little further down.

I then had the sleeve quandary. Knowing how much I dread setting in sleeves I considered the flat method for a while BUT I decided just to knuckle down and get on with it in the end and sewed the side seams before setting in the sleeves traditionally.

They went in like a dream. I pinned and pinned and I ensured I sewed in slowly and carefully easing them in as I went and sewing from inside the sleeve side rather than the bodice side if that makes sense. After a good old pressing they looked great.

I took three inches off the bottom for the hem allowance rather than the two and three quarter as specified on the pattern, and voila I was done.

So here I am in my new dress.

There are a couple of things to consider:

I have started going running. A lot. Which means my hips are now smaller than they were, hopefully I don’t look like I’m wearing a tent.

I love that it’s not fitted because I feel free! I love wearing more structured garments but there is something so gloriously comfortable about this shift dress while still looking super smart.

What do you think? Have you made anything similar? I;d love to see your version – link me up!

Stacey Stitch Gets Social & 12 Month Pattern Giveaway

Published on January 27, 2014 by Stacey Stitch6 Comments

You may have noticed I’ve done a little overhauling on the blog recently. Not only do I have a fantastic logo/header thanks to the amazing Lucy Blue and a new layout, I also have those lovely new buttons with links to my social media accounts.

Here they are in button form if you’d like to click and link up:

Vintage Sewing Pattern Give-away

In addition to the little online housekeeping I’ve been doing some at home too.

You may have read my post about my new sewing area.

I decided a couple of weeks back to go through the vintage sewing patterns I have and sort them into things I would make/things I haven’t made/things that aren’t my cup of tea/things I’ve made but wont make again.

As many of these were given to me I would like to return the favour and pass them on to someone who’d like them, so keep your eyes peeled because as of this month I’ll be offering up a different pattern from my collection for one lucky winner in every month in 2014.

January’s is this lovely Economy Design dress, which was the first dress I made when I started sewing a few years back. The give-away will begin on 30th January and end a week after, good luck!

Simplicity 4697: All Sewn Up

Published on October 31, 2013October 31, 2013 by Stacey Stitch6 Comments

October brought me to towards the purple cotton that I had in my stash, lovely against the Autumn colours of red, yellow and brown. I love Autumn, when the leaves turn and the mornings get frosty and you can smell winter is coming.

I managed to make myself a dress that Prince would be quite partial to (if he was into wearing 60s day dresses) or at least a dress that I could dance about it while humming Raspberry Beret and whilst simultaneously channeling my inner Joan.

The pattern I picked was Simplicity 4679, I was feeling quite up the challenge of a new style of collar and the cross over button front looked interesting enough.

I feel for the first time since I started this blog that I can say I actually found this quite straight forward, an obvious sign that my sewing skills (or at least confidence in my own ability) has grown.

The collar wasn’t too tricky to figure out. The sleeves weren’t sewn in, rather they’re cut into the pattern, which is something I haven’t come across before.

The main problem was the choice of the buttons. I narrowed it down to four and they were all chosen from my Great Nana Wilde’s button box which I inherited along the way.

My Nana Wilde was an amazing lady, she lived to just before her 101st birthday in 2001. She wanted to be a seamstress and she was very good at sewing but being the first girl born in a family of 9 (and all the boys miners) she of course left School at 14 and ended up staying at home to help her Mam out with looking after the boys and the household so she never got to sew for a living.

So these are the buttons that I narrowed it down to.

In the end I went for the last ones shown, they do look a little scratched in this photo but I think it’s the light. They look rather lovely on the dress and the others didn’t really suit it when I pinned them on.

So here we go, my lovely purple day dress, Joanie eat your heart out! What do you think? Can’t wait to prance (like Prince) about the office in this little beauty!

Simplicity 4980: All Sewn Up

Published on September 23, 2013September 23, 2013 by Stacey Stitch19 Comments

To kick back into sewing after a little absence I decided as I had a week off that I’d try something a little more testing than usual and went for this lovely pattern with a hidden collar and a soft pleat. I had some blue cotton in my stash so cracked on with cutting the pattern pieces out that weren’t already cut and pining them out.

It wasn’t until everything was cut out that I suddenly realised that some pieces were missing; the collar interfacing pieces. I was very grateful that this was all as they’re pretty easy to knock up, so I cut out the extra bits and ensured they were the correct size.

It took me three days to finish the dress. I have no idea why I chose something difficult, I have only made a collar on a dress once before and it was wonky and no where near and confusing as this one. My dyslexic/dyspraxic brain and vintage pattern instructions do not mix and I spent a night sewing things the wrong way round and mulling over instructions before putting them to one side only to have a full on EUREKA moment at half 11 at night when it finally clicked in my somewhat befuddled brain. And thus the next day the collar was finished!

Then followed the sleeves (easy peasy – although my life would be drastically improved by the purchase of a sleeve roll….a rolled up towel isn’t quite cutting the mustard).

And then came the soft pleated skirt. Again, after only doing two pleats on any dress before this was trial and error and basting and re-basting (me and my seam ripper are now very firm friends). Thankfully when I attached it to the bodice it was perfect and I wasn’t again pulling my hair out.

There is a side zip closing, which is new on me too but which I managed to get right the second time round when I had to alter it because the first time I had somehow managed to make the bodice wonky and it didn’t meet where it should have done (ah, hello seam ripper me old chum!).

When I did finish and hem it up I was very proud of what I’d achieved, this has by far been the most technically challenging dress I’ve made and it was perfect for the vow renewal that we attended on Sunday.

I added a vintage brooch and my Great Nana Wilde’s 60s paste bracelet for the perfect accompaniment. I even got to wear my gorgeous blue Kiss Me Deadly stockings for the first time (if you don’t know about KMD you should!) but enough about my undercrackers, what do you think?

Any tips on making sense on vintage instructions? I don’t know if it is just me, or if it’s just because they were written at a time when most people had sewing skills to a certain degree.

As always, any feedback and help greatly appreciated, thank you!

Footnote:

I know I’ve been a little quiet of late and unfortunately it’s for a sad reason, my (step) Father In Law passed away a few weeks back and I’ve been concentrating on making Tim as happy as I possibly can and supporting the in-laws in what has been a difficult month or so and obviously sewing has been on the back burner.

Ken always complimented me on the way I dressed and the things I created and I’m ever grateful for the kind words and the welcome he gave me into the family. He was a gentleman to the end, I will always think of him ‘pom pom pom’-ing around the house, making those around him smile and laughing his bellowing laugh.

Simplicity 4675: All Sewn Up

Published on August 2, 2013 by Stacey Stitch47 Comments

I threw myself in at the deep end a little. Thinking along the lines of “if you don’t try something that looks hard soon you never will” I settled on Simplicty 60s pattern No. 4675 in View 1. I chose a burgundy cotton, which again came from my stash (what will I do when I run out of stash material?!).

There are a couple of things that I was a little concerned about and they did indeed prove to be tricky.

The facing on the neck I managed to (just about) get right, it has a tiny gather in it but as I have decided I’ll be making this dress again at some point I’m using this as a test dress, it’s only meant for work as it so so I’m sure I can get away with it being a little scrappy in places.

The sleeves are more than a little puffy for ones which are meant to be set in, but in all honestly I lost the will to live after trying again and again to get them perfect. Advice needed: can someone please explain to me how I am meant to get them without any gathering? I have read a fair few tutorials, looked at videos and I still can;t get it right. Is it just a case of practice makes perfect or am I missing some vital step here? Any advice would be appreciated.

The zip closure at the top isn’t perfect but it’s the first time I’ve done a zip like this, which is overlapped on one side. I think I maybe just didn’t pin it where I meant to when sewing it in, but again this is something I can improve on for next time. I did find it incredibly fiddly though, I think I just get too excited about wanting to finish something and it all goes to pot.

The part which I thought would be the most tricky, namely the ruffle, turned out to the the easiest out of all of it. Which was a nice surprise! I am finding the simplest looking parts to be the most time consuming. Lesson learnt.

Hopefully the next time I make this dress I’ll be able to correct past mistakes, it’s certainly been a learning curve but overall I’m very happy with it and even happier that I’ve lost the weight to actually fit in it!

sleeve failure…but the pretty vintage brooch makes up for it right?

So, honest opinions, what do you think? Any advice, sleeve or otherwise, would be greatly appreciated!

Pattern Giveaway: And The Winners Are….

Published on July 31, 2013 by Stacey StitchLeave a comment

Thanks to those who commented on my last blog and were interested in giving those patterns a good home. Although there weren’t many replies I still sued a random number generator for fairness.

The new owners will be……*drumroll*

Vogue: Christi

and

Simplicity: Sharon

Can you please email my your postal address? mrsbcrafty@gmail.com

I’ll get them posted out to you as soon as possible.

And in other news: I have been sewing BUT it’s been raining non stop here so I haven;t managed to get any photos of my new dress yet…but here’s a sneak peek of part of it (full post to follow as soon as the weather cheers up!):

McCalls 2440: All Sewn Up

Published on June 26, 2013June 26, 2013 by Stacey Stitch18 Comments

This weekend just gone I cracked on with making the lovely (and not very different from a Swirl) apron dress from McCalls vintage pattern number 2440.

As I couldn’t find any teal fabric in my local shop I ordered online, along with some rather expensive, but very pretty, Michael Miller atomic fabric. It was all medium weight cotton and I matched it with my Gutermann Sew All swatch booklet I’d recently purchased online (something rather handy to have if you’re ordering fabric online because it saved me lugging it to the haberdashery, or cutting a swatch off and taking it with me) and popped into Leon’s to pick up some thread.

It didn’t take me too long to cut the material which was a good job really, as I pretty much took over the dining room, it being the only space in the house that has room enough to cut what turned out to be a rather large skirt piece.

I marked up all of the pattern pieces using a tracing wheel and carbon, which is the first time I’ve used that method. I have used tacks in the past but boy oh boy; was this so much easier, even if it did take an extra bit of time to ensure all pieces were marked up correctly, the time it saved me in the long run was priceless.

I got to sewing and finished the bodice on the Saturday. I have to admit using the new sewing machine is brilliant. I braced myself for the thickness of the fabric about to go through (seam plus binding on the sleeves) and for the needles to refuse the task ahead but it just did what it was meant to do, no fuss no bother. It does make me wonder at how much I used to struggle.

I confused myself quite a lot when it came to bias binding. I couldn’t for the life of me figure out how it worked when you stitched close to the line BUT I did eventually understand. I should say at this point I am mildly dyspraxic and I am dyslexic so sometime instructions don’t work the best for me. I made one mistake of sewing the bias binding to the inside of the sleeve first and had to break out the seam ripper but it was a lesson learnt.

I found these bias binding tutorials to be pricelss though: thank you Colette Patterns and Fashion Sewing Blog!

At that point though I decided to stop sewing for the evening, as mistakes are usually a sign that I’m tried and should start fresh the next day, which I did.

On Sunday I gathered the skirt, pinned the pleats (again brain did not function too well and I only had that eureka moment when I was munching through a sunday roast) then I made and attached the waist stay and attached the skirt to the bodice. I then made a huge amount of bias binding to finish the dress off with and put the machine away until the next day.

Monday night after a return from work, I added the binding and a press stud on the back of the dress (it seemed to be gaping somewhat and I may replace with a covered button in the future) then popped it into the washer and waited to see what came out…and guess what did? Only a blummin beauty of a dress!

New to me on this sewing project:

Bias Binding (making and attaching)
Waist Stay
Pleats

All of which I found okay. My bias binding could be better, I did stray from the line a little in certain places and I don’t think anyone would get close enough to tell but it does need improving, mind you by the end of the ridiculous amount of binding I added to this dress I was becoming quite a dab hand!

The finished dress:

The front

The back (the binding does go all the way round by the way but the wind caught the side that was wrapped over!)

So what do you think?

I am, personally, extremely happy with how it’s turned out, I thought it would be a lot trickier than it turned out to be.

McCalls 2440: Sewing Project

Published on June 14, 2013June 14, 2013 by Stacey Stitch3 Comments

I recently purchased this amazing vintage pattern from ebay. It was on buy it no for £8.99, it’s rather more than I’d usually spend but I have been in love with this style of dress for a while now but without the cash to purchase one of my own.

It is very much like the classic Swirl wrap dress often available on ebay and etsy but usually costing around £50 – £100 that’s plus postage (and usually tax if it’s coming from America). The lovely ones are always at the higher end of the pricing too, which is why when I saw this pattern I snapped it up immediately.

Then there’s Heyday’s version, which again is quite expensive, usually around the £85 mark, unless they’re on sale.

I have um-ed and ah-ed a little as it has so much bias binding on it, something I have never attempted before, but I do like to throw myself in at the deep end.

I have found some gorgeous teal cotton for the main material and for the bias binding (and maybe the pockets) a beautiful black atomic print cotton.

teal cotton

Teal cotton from fabric rehab

Atomic print cotton from Frumble

I’m also guessing I’ll need one of these tape makers? Something else to add to the stash.

I do like the thought of the two materials together, I am not sure about the pockets being so dark against the teal though, but I’ll just figure that one out when I come to it, I can always change my mind. Any thoughts would be of help though.

If anyone has used this pattern before or can give me any tips on bias binding on a curved edge etc that would be a great help.

In the meantime I am off to London this weekend, to visit one of my best girls for her 30th. Then it’s fabric purchasing time and getting down to it. Wish me luck!