Birthday Dress 2012 in progress

There are now only 2 sewing days left unitl my birthday, and I *think* my new dress will be ready. I have a back up dress in mind just in case, but I am really hoping that this year will be the year I get it done.
I just spent a lovely afternoon in the comany of Antqueen working on my dress, and its really starting to come together. I am about to go and do another 30 mins on it, after which it will be ready to have the skirt attached to the bodice.
I am making up a vintage Butterick 2255 in a linen/cotton blend white with overblown pink flowers print.
Here is the muslin:

I hope to have it close to complete by next Saturday, when I am heading to Antqueen's house for a hat trimming afternoon. I might also impose upon her to mark my hemline.

2012 sewing goals

Goodness how time flies!

This year, inspired by The Unclutterrer blog, I've decided to make monthly sewing goals. Let's see how I went in January 2112:

• muslin the Butterick dress - almost done, wiht assistance from ant_queen of Ant Country. Construction of a test run dress is scheduled for this coming weekend.
• sew a garment for Rachel's daughter, Keira (9mo) - almost done. The pieces are cut with construction also scheduled for this weekend.
• post some pre-loved garments for sale on gumtree - nopt done, but I have organised for a stall to sell off some vintage clohtes in Feb
• have a refashioning/sewing day with ant_queen - done! We had a lovely day together durign my end-of-January holiday, including much tea and talk and watching Paper Giants, which she gave more for Christmas.

Photos to follow.

 

As for the next few weeks, here's what is planned:

•  sew a garment for Amber's baby, due in early March (sex unknown or at least undisclosed)
• finish Butterick dress 
• hold a stall at the Nth Melbourne Markets to sell off vintage garments (19.2.12)

 March

• have that long-promised millinery day with ant_queen
• Birthday outing 31.3.12.

 

 

 

Pic Spam - vintage dress muslin

Muslin front

Muslin back

Vintage Butterick 6621 - skirt

I may have mentioned here that I am currently on a weight-loss journey that has seen me drop at least a dress size since Christmas. I hope to drop one more before the end of the year. This, of course, means I am shrinking out of my clothes, in particular, skirts and trousers. Recently I realised that I have nothing suitable to wear in the events of external meetings or job interviews (my current contract expires early November).
My grey suit jacket still fits reasonably well, but the skirt that matches it is unflatteringly and uncomfortably large. Remembering that I had some grey patterned fabric that was gifted to me years ago, I turned to my pattern collection for inspiration and came up with this:

Notice how in each picture the model wears her jacket buttoned up? Now I know why - the skirts and pants all have gathered elasticised waists. Of course, had I bothered to read the garment descriptions when I bought the pattern I'd have know that all along. Gathered waists are not normally my style, but as it turns out, might be just the thing while I am "between sizes" as I can cinch in the the waists without having to significantly alter or unpick the garment.

And so, here is my first attempt at Butterick 6621:

Hmm, that invisible zipper in the back isn't as invisible as I thought.

I've styled it here with a belt to cover the gathered waist. This is how I wore it to work on Friday.  I'll post pics of it styled with my suit jacket for a more formal look next week

I'm not sure I'm loving the centre front seam. Perhaps its just not the best fabric choice for this project. I might try it again with a more drapey fabric. And I'll also experiment with tweaking the pattern to cut the front as one panel. But its comfy, and based on this success, I will also try out the other garments in the wardrobe, perhaps for a spring capsule collection.