Petticoat in action

First with my Circle Skirt. I love how much fullness the petticoat gives the skirt.

And I just realize that I don't have feet in these first pictures. Well, isn't that a bummer.

 Here is finally a picture with me wearing my last year creation of the Colette Crepe Dress. With the petticoat of course. It's cotton lawn lined with white cotton lawn and voile.

 This is my seersucker version of the Colette Crepe Dress, also from last year. This one isn't lined.

Thanks Hugo for walking through the picture!

Lisette Continental Blouse and Skirt

A couple of months back I bought this pattern at JoAnn's for $0.99. Great deal!

 I have six Lisette patterns, and I love the pictures on the front of all of them, but it seems that somehow they don't really work for me. It could of course be that I don't have the fitting right. Usually I can make a straight size 12 with all Simplicity patterns and they fit. But not these ones. It's just that they somehow turn out to look boxy on me. The blouses/tops that is. The two Lisette skirts I made so far are great.

The skirt is perfect and I like the seams on the front and back side. This time around I used a very simple cotton twill, but as you can see on the envelope front, the seams at the front and back side give a nice opportunity to play with prints. Next time I will take advantage of that. And there will be a next time for sure! It is such an easy and quick skirt project and the fit is perfect. I wish I could say the same about the top. The fabric is a cotton lawn from the Lisette collection at JoAnn's. It is so boxy, and even thou I used this very light cotton lawn, it sticks out at the back a lot. Maybe I just have to make it a size smaller.

 

Back view (obviously) 

Here is a close up of the gathers at the lower back.

Crepe Dress by Colette Patterns

I couldn't wait to finally get my hands on the Crepe dress pattern and make my own version. I had seen this dotted cotton lawn fabric online and knew instantly it would make a cute Crepe dress.

 

I call this dress the Confetti Crepe. The ties are from Cotton Voile.

I didn't have to make any alteration on the bodice muslin. I guess I just got lucky with my built :)

Because the Cotton Lawn was very sheer I fully lined the dress. The plan was to line the whole dress in the same white cotton lawn, but I had only enough for the bodice. So I lined the skirt with the same cotton voile as the ties are. 

I used these two tutorials for lining the Crepe dress: 

Sew Country Chick

Sew Mental Mama

Thank you guys for posting these helpful tutorials!

 

And because I love the dress so much and had this awesome cotton seersucker around I made another one (within a week). As you can see I do like pink!

 Here is a back view. The perfect summer dress. Fast and easy to make. More to follow :)

 

Two projects finally finished

This week I was able to finish two projects, that where lingering around here. First on is the Cabo Halter from Amy Butler. For the fabric I chose Cotton Sateen from the Lisette Fall 2011 collection. It's the same as the fabric from my Lisette Continental Dress, just another color.

Here is another closer look at the overlapping neckline. I decided to go with the more modest version and topstitched the two parts together to prevent gaping. Which it does anyway. I don't know what I could've made different to prevent it.

And here is my absolute favorite dress I've made so far. I soooo love the fabric. A very soft cotton voile with a white cotton lawn. The instructions call for 1/2 inch seam allowance and don't really say what to do in regards of how to finish the seam when sewing with such delicate fabric. I decided to go with french seams, although I forgot that for a moment and finished the shoulder seams with my serger, bad mistake! It isn't too bad, but still! For the waist seam and the armhole seams I decided to make bias binding out of the voile and enclose the raw seams with it. I finished it yesterday and it worked pretty well. I have to admit that I couldn't wait until I got time to enclose those last seams before wearing it and worn it already twice, ergo the wrinkles.

Close up of the front.

 Backview