BabyShower Gift

In november my boyfriends niece was born. I love cute (vintage) baby clothes so I decided to make a cute dress as a gift.
My mom made me adorable dresses when I was a child (I'll post a picture of such a dress very soon ;)) I think that's where I got my love for petticoats and big dresses.

The dress I finished a couple of months ago but couldn't blog about it because I wanted the dress to be a surprise.

The pattern I used was Burda 9802

 

Just now, while writing this and  looking for a picture of the pattern, I realise I made a mistake. I thought the pattern didn't include seam allowances so I added the seam allowances. That explains why the dress looked so big. But children grow so that won't be such a big problem ;).

I have to keep this in mind when I use an other pattern of Burda. I'm used to using patterns of Burda Style, and these patterns doesn't include seam allowances.

Below you can see my result. I love it! It's such a cute dress and bloomers!

 

Front of the dress

 Back of the dress

 Back of bloomers

Front of bloomers

(In the background you can see my granny square blanket that is not yet finished. When i'ts finished I'll post a tutorial about this ;)

You may recognise the fabric. I made my cherry shirt out of the remnants of this baby dress.

Have a great Sunday evening!

Paris here we come!

In February me and one of my dearest friends will go to Paris for a weekend! We are both fashion addicts so Paris is our Mecca! We planned a trip to the Moulin Rouge! Yeah! You can't visit Paris without a trip to the Moulin rouge, the Eiffel tower, the Louvre museum and last but not least the galleries Lafayette. So we are going to visit them all! Our trip to Laduréé, Longchamps and Chanel are also already planned ;) (If you don't know Laduréé you HAVE to visit the website!)

To visit the Moulin Rouge I'll need an appropriate dress. So I'm making one! Yesterday I bought the fabric! Black cotton sateen and cream sateen. I'm making the Butterick 5605 again but this time I'll make view A. View C I've made already (see post).

To go with this dress I'll buy an ivory petticoat (www.topvintage.nl)

 

This dress is inspired by Coco Chanel my (and many others) ultimate fashion icon!

The Long Sleeve Seamed Dress

Finally some pictures of my finished dress (#131 Burda Style 08/2012). This dress took me a very long time to complete. I wanted the seams to align as perfect as I could. So I did a lot of adapting, basting and re-basting.
This dress patern is for a women of 1m70, I'm a petite so I needed to adjust the pattern to my length (1m60).

This is how I adjusted the pattern:

• I took my measurements in the manner Burda instructs. 
• Then I compared my measurements to these of Burda.
• I adjusted my back length and my front waist length. I did this because these measurements didn't correspond with my measurements.
• My front waist length is 45 cm. But I have a size 76 and in this size the front waist length is 47 cm. So I shortened the bodice with 2 cm. The same I did with the back length.

note for beginners (like me ;)): never shorten a bodice by cutting the underside of the pattern, you shorten a pattern by making a fold in the pattern and redrawing the lines (seams and pleads) so they'll match again. When you don't do it this way your seams wont align!

Because I adjusted a pattern for the first time I made a toile. I made my toile out of a very cheap polyester. This dress (showed below) ended up well and now I wear it to go to student parties.

While I was making this dress I met my knew best sewing companion.

It's so handy! I can't do without! This makes it so much easier to align those seams because your seam allowance is the same everywhere! Before I measured with my measuringtape but this is less accurate in my opinion.

Making the dress and how to align the seams and topstitching

For this dress I used a 100% wool. It was €35/meter, so I couldn't afford to mess it up!

 

Below you can see the beautiful aligned seams and top stitching.

This is how I did the top stitching:

1. The top stitching in the bodice was already done, then I (machine)basted the two parts (bodice and skirt) together and aligned the seams. Then I pressed! Don't forget this, it's the most important part!
2. While the two parts where basted I marked the point where the top stitching had to begin with a white basting thread (see below)
3. Then I undid my basting, topstiched the seam and stitched it all together again, while paying attention to the seam and top stitching! I do this by pinning the top stitching and seam together before pinning the rest of the bodice and skirt together. Then I stitch.
4. Et voila! perfect aligned seams and top stitching!

 And here is my dress! The pictures are taken at the première of a local theatre piece: Popcorn. I loved it! It was a theatre piece like I've never seen before with lots of action.

(btw: I adjusted the sleeves of the dress, I think the original sleeves made me look smaller and made the dress way to conservative.)