My new favourite dress - Liberty fabric with exposed sparkly gold zipper

Finally I get round to sharing one of my favourite makes!  I absolutely adore the fabric- its a heavyweight Liberty cotton twill, bought on Goldhawk Rd.  

Here is a close up of the texture, its got the weight & feel of a denim.

I found the perfect zip and binding to combine with it at McCulloch and Wallis the other day too - a sparkly gold exposed zip- it goes soooo well and some  burgundy wool bias.  Here is my haul from M&W the other day....  (for those not London based, its a fab haberdashery, huge, with every button , zip, ribbon & trimming you could ever wish for just off Berwick St)- here are the things I bought there!

The pattern is a tried & trusted favourite. I really like it- its from Simplicity's 'amazing fit' range and I do find you get a perfect fit from it!  As well as having different pattern options by dress size, the front pieces vary by cup size and the back sizes also have slim, medium and curvy options.  Also the shape of the pattern allows you to really tailor it on the body- assuming your fabric is happy with pinning, stitching, pinning, stitching until you get it spot on!  

  Here is my first make with this fabric- its my favourite summer dress in an adorable cherry blossom print from Croftmill.  This time I wanted to create a winter version in a thicker fabric with sleeves.

Anyway- on with the make!   First step - cutting out...  as I mentioned already, there are lots of pattern options so you have the get this bit right.

I kinda ignored the instructions and put it together in my own order.  I started with the back zip- Its the beautiful sparkly one and I wanted it exposed.  I m really happy how that looks.

Next up, I sewed all the pieces together.  I used my overlocker as the fabric freys a lot on the edges. (lazy me put white cotton in the needle threads and left black in the others which works fine- well its not just lazy, I don't have 4 spools of anything other than black!!).  

For anyone trying the pattern, the only bit I find tricky is deciding where to stitch the front bodice pieces together.  The best way I found to do that is to line up the body curve bit as below first, pin that, then sew the round the curved  bust  section later from that point - I don't pin it, I personally find it easier to sew slowly & just curve it to fit as I go- but I guess most people would pin it.

So once  i d sewn the sides all together, here comes the big job - the fitting.  I took a long time over this, trying on inside out, pinning, sewing, retrying, repining until I got it just right.  I fitted the front and back seams first, then adjusted the side seams afterwards.

After the fitting I added the neck facing...

Last time I made the dress I didn't do the sleeves, but it turns out I LOVE the shape of the sleeves in the pattern- they've got 3 darts at the top & it gives a really structured look, I think it worked great with the weight of this fabric.  I cut the sleeves a lot longer than the pattern, given its the middle of winter.  Then I finished the sleeves with the lovely burgundy bias I showed above...

And for the finishing touch, I over-sewed  all the seams on the front & I m really happy how that has turned out...

So how does it look?

I m really happy about the fit on this one & how flat all the seams are down the front and back...

As you can see, I made it for Christmas (sorry its taken me several months to share ;(.   And I loved it so much I quickly made another ;)....  this time with a double sided wool where I could really emphasise the shape & cut.

Messy Essy Makes. x
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Fabric Haul (s).... my stash just grew

I ve been busy adding to my fabric stash recently, I thought i d share some of it.  I m going to have to move house if I keep buying fabric at this rate!  A combination of Christmas gifts, new years sales as well as shopping trips have been a perfect combination!  here is what I acquired

Some Chambray from the Village Haberdashery that I plan to use more for trimmings or coordinating with other fabrics.

A Liberty corduroy... trousers or a dress I think?

2 grey jersey fabrics off ebay- they were cheap and I could'nt decide between them so I bought both... really happy with the quality given they were quite cheap!!

One is now already made up into a dress (New look pattern below) - you can see it on my Instagram

Oh and then we ve got the pile of Liberty my mum bought me for Christmas.   Here we go...

This is a rich teal colour with flowers on - I find it beautiful and it will become a summer dress, maybe the pattern below from Bootstrap

These 2 small patterned fabric I thinking of coordinating into one dress.  Will that work?   I m thinking pussybow blouse with an attached circle skirt

Next up a bold flower print which is going to be an Orla top

And then maybe my absolute favourite.  Its the Hiro fabric.  I ve wanted it for ages, I put it on my Christmas list and didn't get it but then the Village Haberdashery had their sale on so I bought it...  so happy I did.

I bought this burgundy Chambray to go with it.  The photo doesn't do it justice, its the perfect colour match.  The original plan was a top- but now I m thinking maybe a skirt or even a dress (although i d need to order more fabric for that)!😍

And the lovely Fabric Godmother had a sale... so yes, you guessed it - I couldn't resist a few more purchases :)  and of course some more Liberty, my all time weakness.

First up a Liberty wool fabric- this is just a stunner, I adore it. I ve found a dress pattern that I m going to try .💃

I m thinking of this:

And then.... I already bought this one in pink & love it so much I ordered the blue fabric in the sale. Its got a great feel to it & I m sure it is going to sew perfectly.  Not sure what it is destined to become - a top or summer dress I would suspect .

I thought I was done and then a business trip took me to NYC and somehow my feet took me to Mood. Cue more purchases 😮. I had to exercise severe self control to only leave with 4 fabrics.  Unintentionally there is a theme!! Everything I bought is double sided!! Check them out.

I got some stunning double sided wool for my first coat....

Next up a pretty cotton in white & navy, broiderie anglaise style - designer apparently.  I only bought 1yrd as it wasn't cheap so it will be a top that doesn't need too much fabric!!

Then some spotty denim for a new skirt- I think this is my next project.

And finally, yes I m stopping with this one, some pinkish/ burgundy denim for my first pair of trousers.  The fabric could be used either way I ve signed up for ultimate trousers at sewoverit so my fear of sewing trousers may be about to be conquered!!! 

Let the sewing commence....
Messyessymakes x

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My vintage top

Here is my first vintage make...  and I love it...now its completed !  

Its the Simplicity 1278 1950s pattern that has been reprinted.  I totally love the style- I went for view C with 3/4 length sleeves and I used my favourite Liberty Hebe tana lawn I got for Christmas.  

I love the finished result a lot -see photos at the end ;) and I ll definitely make another- it as one of those makes that you don't really know whether it is going to fit until you are close to the end, which was a bit scary but it worked out just fine with a few fitting adjustments.  I never make toiles, I always just wing it with my chosen fabric- live on the edge ;)

I had a few areas of the pattern I had a challenge with, 3 specifically which I ll share in case you are making it up.  This may be me not reading the instructions properly or begin a bit of a novice! Don't let this put you off, its worth conquering as its a stunning pattern.

Firstly the neck- I didn't get the pleats right at all but couldn't really tell until I tried to put the neckband on - so ended up doing a lot of unpicking & re-stitching until I was happy with them  - basically next time I'd largely ignore the fold lines on the pattern and do it more by eye so they look even (the one that goes under & over).  I d also recommend tacking the the neck band on as thats the only way you can see if you are happy with them (unless you've got a bit more vision and skill than me!!).   I also was convinced the pattern for the neck band was the wrong size- then after a lot of frustration I realised I was sewing it on upside down - you need to sew the long end to the top not the short end- now that is obvious now I think about it but the pattern doesn't specify and I m so used to doing facings where you sew the short end that it didn't occur to we for a really long time that I had it upside down!!  Doh!!

  

Anyway, once I d got it right, I was pretty happy with it- here is the neck line  ....

The next challenge was the hem.  I had 2 issues here.  On the front you sew the front 2 pieces together first, then do the  interfacing then stitch them together to create the curve (see patter instructions below).  I really struggles to get the bit right in the middle (near pink pin)correct- sewing the bits you need & avoiding the bits you shouldn't sew. Next time, I think I would sew the interfacing to the front parts before I sew the front together to avoid this.  There may be other pit falls that I come across doing that but I m convinced it will make that meeting point easier to crack!!!!

Anyway, I persevered and was happy with the result:

The other issue I had with the hem was that the front is obviously done using the interfacing, but the back not and I didn't find the pattern was super clear on how to make that join particularly neat.  I found there wasn't enough fabric at the back to do a great job of a neat edge so I used bias binding on it.  Next time I would either  continue the interfacing all the way around or I would cut the back piece 2cm longer to have enough spare fabric to do a neat hem.

And my final challenge was on the sleeve- and I m convinced this is a pattern error.  There is a really nice detail where there are darts in the sleeves where your elbow bends which I ve never done before, but look cute.  But the ends of each side of the sleeve are equal in length, then you add the dart in one side, and then there is a big discrepancy between the length of the sleeve on each side of the fabric. I then was left with the question on how to even them up (do you cut off at the top or bottom?).  I found that taking it off at the top made more sense in terms of the dart being at my elbow- and it worked ok, but its a strange bit of the pattern.  The other sleeve issue to watch out for is that I ended up with one dart facing forward and one facing back as I m so used to cutting sleeves out identically- so watch out for that.  The pattern also doesn't specify whether the dart is supposed to be at the front or back - I worked out the back in the end. So be careful on cutting and doing the darts!!  These I think are all pretty  obvious pitfalls with hindsight!  Here is the pattern directions, as you can imagine, when you do the darts, that side is much shorter than the other side!

So they were my challenges.  There are some things that went well.  I was very happy with my invisible zipper -I got a perfect colour zip and I used my binding foot to bind the edges which looks very smart.   So here are some pictures of that bit!!

In fat to make it uber neat inside, I bound all the edges with the grey bias, which makes me smile every time I put it on :)  I think I m becoming a convert to neat insides!!!

And then I was done.  If you didn't get the idea before, I totally love this top.  Next time  I'll make it in half the time I m convinced now I understand how it goes together a bit more!   Hope you like it and hope these tips help if you are giving it a go !!

Messy Essy Makes
xx