The Megan Dress – Stitching My Way Through Tilly’s New Book
Two weeks ago I got Tilly’s Love at First Stitch in the mail and on the same evening read it from cover to cover. Although I love Tilly’s blog, I had my doubts about buying the book. I have so many sewing books that cover all the basics and as I consider myself an advanced seamstress by now, I thought this book just wasn’t for me. However I saw all these gorgeous Megans, Lilous and Mimis popping up over the interwebs and wanted to get a hand on these patterns myself.
Even if I don’t like the book, I thought, it would make a perfect prezzie for a novice sewer. All I can say is I wasn’t disappointed. Quite the opposite! Although the book covers all the basics more advanced sewers will already be familiar with, it’s super entertaining to read. I love Tilly’s voice in there and you will find her distinctive style on every single page in the book. I even found out that my cheapo-machine has a thread cutter, which I had never noticed before. Win!
The book itself is absolutely adorable and I won’t be giving it to anyone. I will keep it. Forever. HA! But I might get a second copy in the future, should I ever need a sewing-related gift.
Since I was eyeballing the Megan dress from the beginning, this was the obvious first choice. I traced the pattern before even knowing what fabric I would use. I found two fabrics in my stash which were leftovers from previous projects.
Basically the same fabric in different colours. I don’t quite know what fabric it is though. It’s quite heavy-weight, but stretchy and seems to be a woven. It’s probably a blend which definitely contains polyester. Any ideas?
I used the navy fabric for my Audrey Hepburn dress and the green fabric was leftover from my wiggle dress. Stash diet ahoy!
The dress was stitched together in just a few hours, with no alterations. I cut out a size 3, which according to the measurement table should’ve been rather wide, but it ended up being a bit too tight, although the fabric is quite stretchy. There’s a bit of gappage at the back when I lift my arms, so I have to keep reminding myself to pull the dress down every once in a while.
I started the dress the night before the John Lewis Sewing Bee and still had to put in the zip in the morning. But I managed to finish it on time and wore it that day.
I actually wore it twice already, on a hot sunny day last weekend but I noticed that it’s a bit too warm for those incredibly warm days outside. I will probably sew it again using some light-weight cotton.
Oh, and a Lilou pattern hack is on its way 😉
Are you planning on getting Tilly’s book or have you already tried some of the patterns?
xx
Charlie
Happy sewing!
♥
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Sewing along and making the cape? 
1. Take your cape and pattern piece and mark the position of the arm opening as shown above. The position of the armslits really is up to you. I put mine closer to the centre front, others prefer it to be on the lengthened shoulder seam line.
3. After marking the position of the arm opening (with chalk or tailor’s tacks), cut out four strips of your main fabric (or lining fabric if you prefer the contrast), two for each armslit. They should be approx. 4-5cm (2inch) wide and 3cm longer than your armslit measurement. So if your armslits are 20cm long, these strips will have to be at least 23cm long in order to include a seam allowance of 1.5 cm on each end.
5. Turn your cape around, so that you are facing the left side of the fabric. Carefully stitch two lines approx. 7mm (2/8”) from the armhole marking, starting and ending your seam at the markings, as shown below. 
6. Cut the armslit open along the marked line starting and ending 1.5cm from the marked end of your line (see picture below).
7. Cut diagonally towards the end of your stitching lines, so you will end up will small triangles.
8. Push the fabric through to the other side and press.
9. You could now simply understitch the facing. I decided to press the facing so that it shows through the opening on the other side.
10. Stitch in the ditch to hold the facing in place. 
I used a special presser foot for that, but you can simply use a standard feet as well, stitching slowly on the previous seam.
11. When you have understitched, topstitched or otherwise secured the facing, pin the small triangles in place and stitch them onto the facing’s seam allowance. You can either to that by machine or with hand. 
12. If you are not adding a lining to your cape, you can sew the outer edges of the facing onto your cape with wide catch-stitches.
1. After your cape is lined and pressed, first pin the armslits closed and an then add some pins to hold lining and main fabric together along the opening. Make sure all layers are lying very flat before you pin (or baste) them together.
2. Take out the pins you used to close the opening and carefully cut the underlying lining open along the marked armslit line. (You can either mark the line before you sew in the lining, or before cutting, after you take out the pins.)
You make the cut in exactly the same way as before, ending the cut with the small triangles.
3. Push the seam allowance between the layers and pin everything in place. 
4. Using thread and a handsewing needle, slipstitch the lining to your facing. If you absolutely loathe handsewing, you can (from the right side) stitch in the ditch again, catching the lining. For a neater finish, I’d always recommend handsewing, though.
And you’re done! Congrats!
I just love this dress and hopefully will be able to wear it on many occasions this summer. I also love my new handmade jewelery – some of the materials are courtesy of my new sponsor, which I will introduce this week!
Left to right: Freya (who assisted Lisa during the day), Lisa, Fiona (
To celebrate their anniversary, John Lewis brought back heritage fabrics from various decades and we were using these gorgeous John Lewis Commemorative 150th fabrics to make our dresses. Lisa had picked some cotton fabrics and patterns for us to choose from.
Sewing Bees are messy. Here’s the evidence.
Fiona went for the purple/pink brick/’bacteria’ fabric. 
Roisin. Probably the fastest sewer in the world. 
Emmie decided to be dress twinsies with Lisa and made a Betty dress from a gorgeous flower print cotton.
I don’t know how she did it, but Clare managed to baste all seams first, fitted the dress and still had an almost finished dress by the time we left. And I loved the McCalls dress she wore that day! 
This awesome lady, Elena, was just so much fun to have around. I’m loving the 
Amy chose the same Vogue pattern, but a completely different fabric. I can’t wait to see her finished dress!
And yes! I was able to try out the Janome overlocker, which I probably fell in love with that day. I’m trying to convince the Mr to come with me on one of the next weekends and pay it a visit (and carry it home!).
Amazing Lisa was such a great help that day and was so kind to be our fitting buddy. If this woman approaches you armed with scissors or a seamripper, let her. She knows what she’s doing!
Freya helped us out cutting fabric, interfacing and pressing while we were still sewing. Thank you, Freya!!
Freya and Lisa with the awesome JL team!
Guess who was the only one with a dress on the dressform when the photographer came to take pictures? Yep. In Dolly-Clackett manner Roisin whipped up this dress in no time. Pretty impressive, me thinks. Never take part in the GBSB, should this lady be one of the contestants. You will hear her pull up the zip when you’re still cutting out fabric.
We all loved our fabulous pinneys!
We took the group photo on the new rooftop garden. It was pretty amazing up there. They even have a juice bar there!
John Lewis provided a pretty freaking fantastic sewing box for everyone of us for the sewing bee. And the best part? We got to take it home!
Loads (!!) of goodies in there (sorry, I had to show it off):
I guarded it like a treasure chest on the train home.
Such happy faces after a whole day of sewing like mad. Sewing really must be good for you!
Making the cape? 
1. Before you cut into your lovely fabric, have a think about pattern matching, if your fabric has some sort of a print. The centre front will be parallel to the grainline, the centre back will be perpendicular to the centre front.
3. The first thing we will do is sew the shoulder seams. Pin the shoulder seams (right sides together) and stitch on the marked seamline (1.5cm seam allowance).
4. Press seam open like so:
6. This next step is completely optional.
We want the lining to be a tiny bit shorter than the cape, so it doesn’t peek out at the hem later. We will be bagging the lining.
13. Breathe! You just finished the hem! The biggest and most difficult part is done!
14. Pin along the neckline and front edges down to the hem, leaving a 20cm gap on one of the edges (we need this to turn the cape inside out later). Stitch all the way around the front edge and neckline making sure you don’t sew the gap closed. If you’ve attached the hood, make sure you don’t catch it while you’re stitching.
