And with DH:
(Shirt and coat also made by me ;) I need to find a pic from him wearing his shirt, so that I can review it too)
The location:
And here's my patternreview, crossposted on PR too!
Pattern Description: LOTR inspired dresses (Arwen, Galadriel and Eowyn), also suitable for renfaires and such. I think it is OOP now...
Pattern Sizing: I have no idea up to which size the pattern went up but my pattern was for the sizes 6-12 and I used a size 12 after making up a muslin
Did it look like the photo/drawing on the pattern envelope once you were done sewing with it? Kind of. I made view c and the trial gown looked a lot like the original but the "real" dress did not look totally like the dress, since the collar would not meet at the center front. Might be that my velvet stretched out during the dyeing process (more about that below)
Were the instructions easy to follow? The instructions were o.k. for most part but I could not figure out how they wanted me to sew the collar & the collar facing. In the end I was able to get a good looking pattern but I would have had problems if I hadn't made a muslin. (Make muslins! They are your friend!)
What did you particularly like or dislike about the pattern? I like the style very much but there are a few minor dislikes:
- the sleeves are snug. Very snug. I enlarged the sleeves by 1 cm and that was still not enough and my arms aren't that floppy!)
- the collar instructions
- the dress is pretty short and I'm 1.69cm "tall"
- the dress is not lined
- the zipper is in the back.
Fabric Used:
For the body: silk-rayon velvet. So nice to work with. Don't buy that crappy poly stuff. But be sure to use a walking foot for your sewing machine if you want to sew the velvet to any other fabric. Or baste. Or do both (I did that at some points!)
for the collar: bourette silk or raw silk, that Annika gave me :)
for a partial lining: a sari (also silk I guess) that Annika gave to me too.
Pattern Alterations or any design changes you made:
O.k. here is where the story beginns:
I had purchased some really nice white silk-rayon velvet and so I made up a muslin before cutting it and dyeing it, since I wore that to a wedding and I did not want to wear white although I knew the bride would not be wearing white either. Plus the white was very see-through.
The muslin was made and everthing was o.k. except for the sleeves, which I decided to make 1 cm wider, which should be o.k.
I cut the silk acordingly and basted the pieces thogether, figuring out that if the dyeing would come out blotchy, at least the blotches would be evenly distributed and not cut up in the middle and sewn together in a weird way. I tried the s.a. and they did not seem to ravel in any way and I wasn't gentle, so I just threw the dress and the dye into the washing machine. Our fastes cycle is 35 minutes and after the dyeing cyle you have to wash the fabric another cycle. Lo and behold: the s.a. had frayed away nearly into non excistence, which would have been o.k. except for the zipper area! Btw. instead of using 1 long zipper in the back I used 2 smaller zippers in the side seams.
Now I had to make some decisions, so I figured out I just would add some lining/underlining (better a mixture of both) , which was the right decision but took some more time and this was uhm bad. I finished the dress the evening before the wedding!
I interfaced both: collar & collarfacing since my silk needed a bit more body. The sleeves got a facing too!
I handsewed the collar facing to the "lining" and hemmed the dress by hand. I machine made hem on a silk-velvet dress was no option for me.
Other than that: no major alterations, I would have lengthend it but I did not have enough fabric. I also left off the belt since I ran out of time.
Would you sew it again? Would you recommend it to others?
If I would need another, I would sew it again but make the sleeves wider. I also recommend the pattern to others, just don't be so stupid like I was.
Conclusion:
I really like the dress and got a lot of compliments on it.
( Also Santa Socke won an award. I will blog about that and him another time, now I need some quiet knitting time - to finish something else of course!_
