Cowl Neck Wool Dress
In January I was approached by the generous team of Minerva Crafts who offered to try out one of their fabrics (including a pattern). I was over the moon and super excited, and rummaged through their shop for quite some time as I couldn’t decide (as always). The fabric arrived promptly in the mail two days later. Now, three months later, my dress is finished.  What?! Three months? Shame on me! And why wait to finish a wool dress until it’s almost too warm outside to wear it?
The reason it took me so long was that I struggled with the pattern. I picked a very ambitous Donna Karan for Vogue pattern, which was super hard to fit and in the end just didn’t work with the fabric I had picked. Lesson learned. I will show you the disastrous toile I made another time.
I still love the pattern, but at the moment I’m still fed up with the fitting process and I will have to let some time pass before I can pick it up again. The main problem of the fit was that there basically are no side seams and A LOT of pleats which run diagonally across the back, side and front of the dress. Any alteration (eg. grading up to a larger size for the skirt) requires A LOT of thinking. Unfortunately, the lovely wool I picked was a bit too light-weight for this project.
I picked three metres of a charcoal grey knitted stretch fabric which is 75% Acrylic, 8% Wool, 17% Nylon. The texture is amazing and works really well with more drapey projects, such as the cowl neck dress I ended up making instead of the Donna Karan dress.
I eventually went with a Burdastyle pattern of the 10/2012 issue, #118 A. The pattern originally has a zip and is made for non-stretch fabrics, cut on the bias. I skipped the zip as my fabric was very stretchy, took the side in a bit and finished the project in one evening. That’s how fast is was!
I love the cowl neck and the gathering at the waist and feel super comfy in this dress. I will probably not have too many occasions to wear it in the near future, as it’s a bit too warm for summer, but I see myself wearing this a lot in autumn and winter. It’s just so soft that I want to constantly hug myself (sounds a bit pathetic, I know).
I have a bit of the fabric left which will be just enough for a little cardigan! I’m also planning on sewing a little slip dress with some black spandex fabric, I’m a bit paranoid about the see-throughness of this fabric. And btw, this is #22 (actually it’s the almost unfinished #23) of my 27 Dresses Challenge! Five more to go! 
Will I ever be able to sew the Donna Karan dress? I’ll let you know, if I do.
Happy sewing!
♥
Today I’m featuring this wonderful navy blue 
She decided to make the cape without the hood and combined a navy knit fabric with 6 silver buttons.
I’m in love with this version of the Fairy Tale Cape! It is super elegant and navy blue is my favourite colour! Now I feel the need to make a copy of this version for myself!
I did it again! I made another version of Kitschy Coo’s Lady Skater Dress! Of course, I couldn’t just stick with the original pattern, but had to make some alterations. I re-used my altered puff-sleeve pattern from my previous
For the skirt and collar I used a light grey jersey I bought on sale half a year ago. The bodice was made out of a thrifted Laury Ashley jersey skirt. Normally, I’m absolutely not into floral fabrics, but I somehow fell in love with this one:
Here you can see that I had to shorten to sleeves a bit, but I could also re-use the hem of the skirt for the sleeve hems. Pretty convenient :)
I taped front and back of the bodice pattern together (folding away the seam allowance) so that they were overlapping a bit on the armhole edge (see below). This way the collar lies flatter.
Drafting the actual collar (don’t forget to add seam allowance!):
I handbasted most of the seams of the collar before machine sewing them. Parts of the collar are cut on the bias and might stretch and shift, so handbasting seemed like a good idea. I also basted the collar to the dress, turned the raw edges over inside and stitched the raw edges to the dress with a zig zag (which you cannot see from the outside as the seams are covered by the collar). 
I love my second Lady Skater Dress as much as I love the first one! I wore it already (way too often) over the holidays and in my head I’m already making more!
May I present – Hannah and her gorgeous
Hannah used a dusty pink suiting style fabric for her cape and chose to line it with the “softest, fluffiest fabric you have ever felt”. It really does look very soft, fluffy and comfy, I have to say! And it goes so well with the dusty pink colour of the cape. I love how you can see the little fluffy furry bits at the hem and front of the cape. It makes it look so cosy!
Berry made her beautiful 
I love the colour of the wool and the large hood drapes perfectly. The contrasting buttons are so cute and give the cape a slightly vintage-looking touch. 