My Galaxy dress!

Celebrities (and me!) in Roland Mouret's Galaxy dress. Original photo from Diamonds and Lions blog

Roland Mouret's Galaxy dress has got to be one of the most famous dresses in the world. Obviously I couldn't let Dita and Cameron and the rest of the girls have all the fun, so I had to have my own Galaxy, even if I am 6 years late to the party!

Mine of course is made using pattern Vogue 8280. I made view A and added 3/4 sleeves, and from what I can now see in these photos I didn't do a very good job, hmmm.... I wonder what causes all those wrinkles on the sleeves? Did I have the sleeve on twisted for the photo? I'll have to investigate...

Vogue 8280 technical drawing, courtesy of Vogue Patterns.

Anyho... I do like my Galaxy dress and have worn it many times to work already, but there are two things that I must definitely change for v 2.0. First, is that I feel a bit too sexy with such an open neckline at work. So I think in the next version I will try to bring up the horizontal piece by 2-3cm. Or maybe I'll try the version with the sweetheart neckline.

The second thing I would change is something that many of the reviews on Pattern Review already pointed out: the side flange pieces are a bit too large and stand away from the body. I should have made the alteration that Pattern Review member Cristinagf describes in her Galaxy dress review. Instead as usual I forgot to read any reviews until after I was done with my sewing. My solution for the too large flanges was to ease some of the additional length at the bottom where they join the front bodice piece. Well, that worked to keep the flanges close to the body, but it also brings the bodice up a bit. That distorts the front skirt by bringing the hemline up a bit on the front compared to the back. You can see this on the side view, middle photo above. Not a good solution!

But I would say these two things are somewhat minor. I am quite happy with my Galaxy dress and I do wear it often. It looks stylish and because I made it with a pin stripe wool it brings just the amount of serious business for the office. Perfect combination if you ask me. :-)

I usually finish my posts with a link to the pattern review, but there are enough reviews of this pattern at Pattern Review, so I got lazy and decided to skip it this time...

The punching bag dress

This past week at work has been absolutely horrible. Record-breaking awful. Ug. Actually the whole month had already been pretty bad. But this week, with my husband away at a conference, I just oscillated between being absolutely furious and totally depressed. Now, some people head to the gym and take it out on a punching bag, yes? I instead headed for the sewing machine.

So, this is my punching bag dress. The rest of the world knows it as McCall's 6278. And let me tell you, the poor thing has had to withstand some seriously furious sewing, I'm afraid.

Yes, I know, it is still missing a sleeve. In fact, I will also have to remove the one that is already attached so that I can take the dress in quite a bit at the shoulders. I must have traced the seam line for the sleeveless version, because it comes about 2cm lower on my arm than it should... And, that is not the only problem, you know...

My "furious sewing" has not been without consequences. Those sharp points at the hips are unforgiving, even if I had been in total command of my mental faculties. And because I was not, I also forgot to redraw the sleeve cap to match the 1cm I took in at the horizontal seam over the bust. And then I somehow thought that an inverted pleat at the top of the sleeve would fix it all. Not quite!

Despite all that, the dress looks quite nice on me. Plus I've kinda grown fond of it. I guess I'm thankful for its help.

So, I've set it aside for a little while. It deserves a rest. I will come back to it to fix those few things, certainly in time to wear it this summer.

In the meantime, and because I know that my woes at work will continue for a while longer (we are "re-organizing" you see...) I've now set my eyes on re-organizing the sewing room...

Wish me luck!

Vogue 1117 by Michael Kors

OK, 2 posts in 4 days is hardly a "whirlwind of activity", but that's the speed for which I'm known I'm afraid. So without further ado, here is another dress I've been happily wearing for a few months already, I just hadn't blogged about it.

The pattern is Vogue 1117 by Michael Kors, and it was the last garment from my Spring 2012 SWAP, the one piece dress. I originally wanted the dress for that SWAP to be made using Vogue 8648, but I could never get rid of my worries about the side skirt pieces being on the bias, so I went with this gorgeous Michael Kors model instead.

Making this dress was a bit tricky because all the pleating is fiddly. I kept checking and double checking, and wouldn't you know it? In the end I still made a mistake! I ironed the pleats on the left skirt towards the top instead of towards the bottom as I had done on the right skirt, aaarghhhh!!! I only realized this once I had attached the skirt to the bodice and serged the seam closed. Ug. So I left it alone and have been wearing it like that quite happily thank you very much...

The truth is that what bothers me now the most is not the pleating mistake but the fact that this polyester blend is rather "spongy" and it makes the pleats stand out a bit too much. I think I may try again this dress in a tropical wool fabric or maybe even a nice cotton sateen where the pleats might behave better. But that's a bit nitpicking, actually. Until I make a version 2.0, I'm quite happy keeping v1.0 in my work clothes rotation.

My review of Vogue 1117 by Michael Kors is at Pattern Review.

Shawl-collared dress, Burda 08-2011-125

Hi, I am Lucia, I am a fabricholic.
I still buy and buy, but a sewn wardrobe is beginning to materialize, yay! Here is to keeping that up.

This weekend I finally got around to photographing most of the garments I haven't yet blogged about, woohoo! So hang on to your hats, the next few days will be a whirlwind of activity around here.

Let's begin, shall we? Here is Burda 08-2011-125. I was attracted to this dress because of the knotted collar. I especially liked its "fluffyness" or "bulkyness" or whatever you call the fact that the collar folds rather thickly around the neck.

But then I made mine with a lightweight wool boucle with a great soft hand. And you can guess what happened, can't you? Yep, my fabric is much less bulky and so the neckline is much wider and open than in the magazine. Sigh!

Right after I finished it, this bothered me a lot. So I shoved it deep in the closet with a humpf! But after a month or two it looked again fine to me. I've now worn it a couple of times and it is definitely a welcome addition to my wardrobe.

That's not to say that I don't have a few bad memories about this dress... When I noticed that the fabric was a bit loosely woven and thus prone to raveling, I decided that the best way to handle this was by flat-lining all the pieces.

Why did I think that was such a good idea on a princess seamed dress with 18 seams!! With the flat-lining technique you have to sew 5 lines of stitches for every seam. Are you doing the math in your head? Yup, that's 18x5=90!!! Ugh, what was I thinking??? It does, however, look very pretty from the inside, if I say so myself...

My review of Burda 08-2011-125 is at Pattern Review.

Cute plaid top with back tie detail

Hi, I am Lucia. I am a fabricholic.
I still buy and buy but a sewn wardrobe is beginning to materialize, yay! Here is to keeping that up.

I have been a good girl lately and have been making good progress on all those UFO's you saw in my New Year's resolutions post. Two of the dresses are already finished. Hooray! By contrast, I have made very little progress on blogging the considerable backlog of garments from last year. Ug! My bottleneck is definitely the photo-making. The indoor photos are just appallingly bad and I don't get home early enough from work to still catch the daylight outside. Which leaves only the weekends. At least until the days get longer. Maybe I'll just have to do multiple garments in each photo session...

Anyway, today I want to show you a simple top in a pretty plaid print that I made last summer.

The pattern is Burda 08-2012-122. It is a very simple top, it doesn't even have darts! The only thing that makes it special is that scarf on the neckline that ties at back.

I made mine with french seams and bias binding at the armholes and it still went together very quickly. It does take a lot of fabric because of the scarf on the bias. I pieced the scarf differently from the pattern, with a diagonal seam to save fabric. I still made the scarf as long as I could. I always do this, as I love looooong scarves. But in this case I think it was a mistake because the scarf is heavy and it pulls the facing out. I had to take a few stitches to hold the facing in.

The fabric is a polyester georgette with a satin stripe and it does not wrinkle no matter what I do to it. Perfect for work! I do love the top, and I feel all chic walking around with that scarf at my back. But I have to tell you it is only for summer. That knot at the back is somewhat uncomfortable under a jacket and even a little when leaning back on a chair. But, come summer I'll wear it as much as I can.

My review of Burda 08-2012-122 is at Pattern Review.

A new temptation: Vlisco!

Hi, I am Lucia, I am a fabricholic.
I still buy and buy but a sewn wardrobe is beginning to materialize, yay! Here is to keeping that up!

Over the weekend I picked up this book at one of my favorite bookstores. It is in Dutch, so it is slow going, but so far I've gathered that Vlisco is the latest name of a company that has been producing wax printed cottons for 210 years and has been a leader in the African fabrics market for a few decades. In 2006 Vlisco made the conscious decision to become a "fashion label" and has been setting up flagship stores all over African capitals.

"Yeah, yeah, very interesting... I wonder if they have a web shop?" Google Vlisco, bingo! OMG! Run to the Vlisco webshop right this minute! (Photos courtesy of Vlisco)

Still here? OK, let me tell you there are good news and there are bad news. The good news is that they have upwards of 700 gorgeous, outrageous, colorful and totally scrumptious prints to choose from. Now the bad news... did you think I was going to say price? Well, you'd be kinda right... The thing is that their prices are not too bad, around €10 per meter. The trouble is that they sell only in 6 meter increments! This is apparently the traditional African way of buying and selling fabric. Every African woman needs 6 meters for a full outfit. Hmpf!!

They do seem to have a limited selection of prints that they sell in 2m and 4m quantities. I think I might try something from that group first.

There are two other things that "give me pause" (if that was ever the case with me in the vicinity of beautiful fabric). I cannot find anywhere how wide their fabrics are. So they could be a full 150cm but they could also be 90cm, cannot tell. And, I think that all their pattern photos are showing a full width of fabric, because I can see the printing on the selvedge on both the top and the bottom of the image. This means that their print motifs are even bigger than I expected!!

Anyway, if nothing else, head over there for a jolt of color and design that will have you dreaming for a couple of days.

Be sure to check out their "inspiration" photos. And if you do order something from them, do tell!

I heart Christopher Kane

Hi, I am Lucia, I am a fabricholic,
I still buy and buy but a sewn wardrobe is beginning to materialize, yay! Here is to keeping that up.
For my daily dose of eye candy I follow the Red Carpet Fashion Awards blog. For 99% it is gorgeous evening stuff that I would never have the occasion to wear. The rest of the time there are photos of celebrities in day or casual clothes. And every once in a while, among the wearable day dresses, there is a true stunner like this Christopher Kane pleated dress with overlay (photo courtesy the Red Carpet Fashion Awards).

The minute I saw it I knew I wanted to have my own, and with a very level head I pinned it to my Pinterest board to remind me to look for professional pleaters in my area.
One week later, I realized it was now halfway through the Pattern Review's annual RTW Contest. I don't know what it is about that contest but it gets my heart pumping every time. And this year the prize is free fabric?! From Mood?! Nothing could stop me from joining. Nothing. Not the fact that I didn't have fabric for this dress. Nor the fact that half the month was already gone. Nor the fact that I was 2 days away from leaving on holiday which would leave me with less than one week to work on said dress. Not even the fact that I would have to pleat the fabric myself (!) by hand (!!) because there was no time to have it done professionally since I didn't even know where to do that...

To make a long story short, I now have a pleating board of my very own after following Nicole Beaufrog's very helpful video. And, with a few tips from a 90's Threads article on pleating fabric for skirts, I managed to cook up my very own Christopher Kane knock off in 5 days flat.
Wow. For me, this is like having achieved warp speed.



Let me tell you I cannot believe I got this done. Sure, the pleats are not as skinny nor as sharp as on the real thing, but I'm kinda proud of my beautiful knock-off with fat, wonky pleats :-) And that diagonal pleat on the bodice? Nightmare, I tell you. I first sewed it to the lining bodice at the inner pleat fold, but in the end I had to give it a few stitches near the outer pleat fold as well to stop it from curling out. Darn bias!
And that skirt overlay you see? That's the second one I made. This one has a silk organza underlining to stop any waving at the diagonal edge (that darn bias again) and it is wider at the bottom hem to compensate for the sideways pull from the pleats underneath.
All in all I am loving my dress and the crazyness that made me make it in the first place. I do wish that I was a better photographer (or this fabric was easier to photograph) so you could see the great color and shine of the fabric. And I also wish (and this is something I realized only while wearing it for the photos) that I knew how to tame static cling, because the more I move in it the more it clings! Yikes! How can I ever wear this in public??? I will need to research that next, sigh...
Here are a few more photos, next to the original Christopher Kane. Yeah, the one in the professional photographs with professional lighting and "professional stuffing" or whatever it is that they do to make it look so perfect while floating freely in space?! How DO they do that??




And now, I'm going to enter it in the Pattern Review's RTW Contest. Wish me luck! :-)

Ah, almost forgot. To make this dress I used Burda pattern 03-2013-110 but heavily modified. My review of Burda 03-2013-110 is at Pattern Review.



Update
It really bothered me how appallingly bad those photos above are, so tried to make better photos today in daylight. I am still a very bad photographer, and the wind wasn't helping either, but at least you can see the dress details a bit better in this one. BTW, many thanks for all the kind comments, they make my day! I'll respond individually when I have a bit more time.