White Lace Maxi Skirt

A few years ago I saw this lace skirt on Net-A-Porter and loved it:

It's by Alice + Olivia and was made of silk and tulle. I added it to my "Lace" Pinterest board and went searching for a fabric. Eventually I found just what I wanted at Moodfabrics.com, but it sat in my stash for several years and is completely sold out. The fabric is an ivory nylon lace, and I layered it over a lining of white tricot. I wanted this skirt to be washable and not too formal, so I went with a comfortable/stretchy fabric for the lining.

Butterick 5817 - Blue silk top

I think I might be the last Mood Sewing Network blogger to make a garment out of their great Thakoon designer fabrics. Seriously. But, I'd seen a picture of what the designer used this fabric for, and I couldn't get it out of my mind. That blue solid border wanted to be at the top of a long sleeve blouse, so of course I had to wait for some cooler weather to use it.

This fabric is a silk crepe de chine from Mood Fabrics, which has a neat border print that doesn't show up in their photos. I used silk crepe de chine last month to line my aqua brocade dress, and I'm getting less and less afraid of sewing with it.

Since this fabric is pretty busy, I wanted to use a simple pattern. Finding a slightly fitted simple long sleeve blouse wasn't easy! After combing through all my patterns and Burda magazines, I went looking through patterns online. This is Butterick 5817, and I had to look at the line drawing to figure out exactly what it was doing. I liked the long darts and slightly shaped center back seam. I could not even think of trying to put a zipper in this thin fabric, so the small slit at the neckline really appealed.

I used a fabric covered button at the back, and interfaced the fabric before making it into a button. Experience has shown these thin fabrics will show the sheen of the metal without interfacing. I made a thread loop to hook around the button. This pattern has cuffs at the end of the long sleeves, which I did cut out. The sleeves turned out to be the perfect length without the cuffs, and I decided I liked it with just a small 5/8" hem. The neckline was finished with a strip of bias binding. I had to use the print of the fabric here since the blue wasn't wide enough to fit the entire binding in.

I've been seeing lots of silk blouses on the runways lately, and I wanted one too. Goodness knows you can't find silk anything in mid-priced department stores anymore. I hope to make another silk blouse soon, perhaps with buttons down the front and a collar.

Red wool + leather DKNY dress knockoff

When I saw this advertisement of Ashley Greene in a DKNY leather and wool dress, I instantly knew I would copy it. Mixed material garments are everywhere right now, as are cutouts.

I was going to do it in black just like the example. However, as I was getting some winter projects together, I happened to set some red wool crepe next to my roll of leather hides. The reds were a perfect match, so I made a red dress instead.

The red lambskin I purchased awhile back to make into a skirt. I still have two skins of it left, maybe I'll get to that sometime this winter. Both fabrics were purchased online from Fabricmartfabrics.com. Sometimes they have really good sales on their skins, and I think these red ones were $15 a piece.

When I started work on this dress, I had nothing to go by except that taxi cab picture posted above. DKNY has since released the RTW dress on their website. Personally, I think it's a bit of a disappointment. The leather is pulling across the front and the cutout looks smaller because the neckline under the collarbone is lower. Obviously they made that dress custom for the Ashley. Anyway, mine is different in that it has leather across the back and no sleeves. (I actually did make the sleeves, but they pulled terribly, so I went back and removed them.) Also, their dress has a seam at the waistline and more of an A-line skirt. The top of it has princess seams which, had I thought to do the same, would have made the bust a LOT easier to fit. Oh well, there's more then one way to construct a garment.

The hardest part of this dress was getting a tight fit through the bust. If it was too tight the leather at the neck would gap forward; too loose and I was showing off my strapless bra. I worked and reworked this area quite a bit, and finally got it to a point I feel comfortable with. Good posture is a must AND, I'll be wearing it strictly as a date night dress and not to church.

I used that same bias tape finish for the armholes as my last dress. I also added a facing to the lower neckline and started the lining below that. The triangular shape of the leather was slipstitched to the lining after the upper neckline had been sewn by machine.

This dress has a full lining made from red polyester. I usually like to use Ambiance lining but couldn't find any in a matching shade.

 I used a really old pattern from my stash, NewLook 6717, long OOP. I'm not sure why I hung on to it this long. I used to purge patterns after they'd been used and I made the ruffled version years ago. (It is now too big and I don't care for the floral anymore.) But, it's a nice basic dress with lots of variations and design possibilities. I made a muslin to perfect the fit and raised the neckline up to my collarbone. Then I drew a line where I wanted the wool to meet the leather and added seam allowances.

Knocking off designer dresses is fun and challenging. I'm hoping to get another one done in the next few weeks!

Butterick 5521 - Mixed materials sheath dress

I saw a picture of this Johathan Saunders dress on Michelle Obama months ago and absolutely adored it. The mixture of fabrics really resonated with me, and I knew I wanted to make something similar.

However, finding the right materials proved something of a challenge. I had the black leather already in my stash, and was able to purchase the black wool gabardine quickly, but the dark gray tweed was a challenge. I thought I had some at one point but it sold out before my order was cut (an online purchase.) All of my local stores had some in polyester, but if I was using leather and wool for part of the dress, I really didn't want to use polyester for the main body. Just when I had given up the search, look what I found at the Goodwill secondhand store:

It was a Ralph Lauren 100% lambswool gray tweed maxi skirt in size 2P which was too small for me even if I liked wearing maxi skirts. But the fabric was LOVELY and at $2.99 I couldn't pass it up. I was just barely able to squeeze out the necessary pieces to make my dress, and had to put a vertical seam in the back bodice area that is hopefully not very noticeable.

And no, it is not an exact copy of the inspiration dress but I am okay with that since I didn't have to do any pattern drafting. (It was really cold and windy the day these pictures were taken. My face is saying oh-my-gosh-I'm-SO-cold-hurry-up-and-snap-the-picture-already!) I did make a muslin and only had a few minor tweaks at the hips and center front bodice. The pattern did not call for any interfacing and I didn't put any in, but now I'm wishing I had along that center front slit. As is I had to spray some starch on it to get it stiff enough to hold its shape.

I have this thing about sleeveless winter dresses. Maybe it's because I like long sleeved dress a lot, I don't know. Anyway, my plan was to include sleeves even though my inspiration dress didn't have any. I cut some out and stitched one to the dress but really didn't like the looks of it. By this point, of course, the bodice had been completed and the zipper was in. This forced me to iron the SAs in on both the dress and lining and stitch them together invisibly by hand. 

I think this was a good project for my first go at sewing with leather. The amount necessary was relatively small and didn't make me quite so nervous of making a mistake with it. At first I glued the leather SA to the outside leather where it gets folded back, but that was noticeable from the outside. So I found our rubber mallet and hammered them down instead.

Here you can see where I had to piece the center backs together because of fabric limitations. I hated to do it but now think it blends in perfectly. Also, this pattern was top notch for having all the various pieces come together neatly. Notice how the width of the flanges is the exact same as the distance between the back skirt darts:

The leather flanges were backed in the same black wool as the dress sides.

Here is the pattern envelope picture:

This dress fulfills item #5 in my fall/winter must haves list and I absolutely adore it. I have two more projects almost complete including some overalls for my little girl. Hopefully I'll get at least one posted by Sunday. I hope you all have a really great weekend!