Friday 10 January 2014

Actual photos of Pastille 2!


So I got the iron out, and then discovered that it only takes me sitting at my computer for 5 seconds for the creases to return. 

I guess you can't have it all.

Anyway, I had a wee photoshoot in my living room. Wanna see?








Not unsimilar to the first Pastille, there seems to be a funny thing with the waistline, which, like before, I never noticed until the very end. See how the fabric pulls from the top of the skirt darts? If I raised the sides of the skirt just half an inch they disappear, so I might see if I can have a fiddle without messing up the hemline. 

For the first time, I hand stitched the hem! With the contrast band there was no way it was going to look good if I machine sewed it, so I bit the bullet and went to Youtube. I used a herringbone stitch, which I liked, but I'll probably try another one next time to get a feel for some different hand stitches. I don't do much by hand. Ever.

I also herringboned the facings down, but the little stitches (or where they're being pulled) are not invisible. Definitely improvements to be made there, but if I discover a better way I can easily redo that part in the future.

That's all for now, but I have recently purchased a somewhat ridiculous amount of patterns, so if I can get my arse into my sewing room more there will be many new things to come! Yay!

Tuesday 7 January 2014

Colette Pastille in Jade

I never intended to make a second Pastille dress, as the first one was very much just for the learning, rather than for the dress, but I saw this gorgeous jade green cotton stretch poplin in FabricLand months back and knew I had to make something with it, as it's just such a lush colour, and I'm very into my greens this year!

I returned to fabric land, one Pastille down and thought what the hell, lets do it again, so I picked up a couple of meters and off we went! 
I had a bit of an alternative design in mind - I wanted to try it with a flared skirt, and pockets, but in my haste I just started drawing extra bits onto the pattern and bleurrggghhh didn't work. In the end, the pockets were hacked off (sad times) and I went back to the original  patterns, sans pleats. I did keep the contrast hem and the buttons though!

I actually started this dress way back in September, and it's been looking at me and making me feel guilty for not finishing it ever since, but I had so much trouble with the zip (as usual) that I just got so frustrated. But, new year is here and I must persevere, so I agreed with myself that I would finish this before starting any of my many new designs.

As I am lazy, I have yet to take any decent photographs of the full dress. I tried, but they looked awful, so here is a sneaky peak of the button detail, and I will post full photos soon.


Toodles!