A quick maxi dress before the summer is over

September 6, 2013.Reading time 3 minutes.

maxi dress by thisblogisnotforyou.com

Hi everyone!

Believe it or not, I finally managed to sew a maxi dress! I never had one and always wanted to make one (just buying one is way too easy and boring!). I already had bought fabric for at least 3-4 different ones, everything already planned out in my head. But – oops – summer is almost over. Bummer.

It was a super busy summer and for some reason I worked on so many things, but forgot my maxi dress plans.

Well, I finally got around to making one but not even using the fabrics I bought. I used a pretty blue-ish chiffon I got for my birthday from Mr Thisblogisnotforyou’s sweet grandma, who also had bought matching thread and sewing machine needles (thank youuuu!). Isn’t that sweet?

By the way – this is dress number 14 of my 27 Dresses Challenge! I’m 50% done!

I made this dress without a pattern. How I did that? I’ll explain this in an extra post as this time, I took millions of pictures during the process and maybe not everyone is interested in this, I figured. If you’re not – you can just skip the next post 🙂

maxi dress by thisblogisnotforyou.com

I used elastic shirring at the waist, which actually was a really clever idea, I have to admit – with the shirring I can alter the length of the dress by raising or lowering the shirred waistband. This is really helpful – now I can wear high heels or flats with the dress without it being too long or too short. maxi dress by thisblogisnotforyou.com Flats!Heels!My favourite black vintage leather belt. I love this look the most.Brown belt with my new thrifted shoes 🙂 ( I forgot to adjust the length of the dress in this pics, ooops! Well, this way I can show off these shoeeees!)

Knotted at the hip 🙂

The “I’m so fabulous” pic. No, seriously, I hate taking pictures with selftimer. I always feel so stupid and then make funny faces. As soon as Mr Thisblogisnotforyou is back, that’s his job again (the picture taking, I’ll still be the one making funny faces).

Anyway, if you like to know how to make this dress – stay tuned! Another “sort-of” tutorial is on its way. And you’ll hear the story of the dubious underdress 😉

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end of summer shorts

September 3, 2013.Reading time 7 minutes.

corduroy shorts by thisblogisnotforyou.com Hello everyone!
I wanted to write this post days ago, but I was busy writing applications and going to job interviews. Fun times!

***Warning! This post contains very bad blurry selfies!***

In between all this post graduate madness I managed to whip up these cute corduroy shorts, which I call “end of summer shorts” as they are short enough for the last sunny days, but due to the corduroy can also be worn with thick tights when it gets colder. Genius, eh?

By the way, it’s number 13 of my 27 Dresses Challenge. For those of you who just happened to stumble across my blog: Yes, I do could shorts as dresses. Please don’t ask me why.

Again, I used a Burda pattern (I see everyone rolling their eyes…). It’s the Pleated Shorts 07/2013 #105A pattern. No idea why there is an A, B and C version, as they are all exactly the same pattern, just in a different colour.

As my legs don’t even remotely look like the ones in the picture above and I recently made the acquaintance of way too short shorts ( I won’t go into detail, I promise) I thought it was clever to lengthen the pattern before making a muslin. (I don’t always make muslins, but with trousers and shorts I always do, as – what can I say – my butt is not easy to work with.)

Lengthening the pattern:

corduroy shorts by thisblogisnotforyou.com

(Yes, parts of my dissertation drafts photobombed this picture and I don’t know why.)

I drew a horizontal line and cut the pattern pieces in two.

corduroy shorts by thisblogisnotforyou.com

I moved them apart by 4cm/~1,5inch and glued them onto a piece of paper (ah, now I know why the disso was lying there!) corduroy shorts by thisblogisnotforyou.com I then cut out the muslin and sewed everything together, just to notice that the shorts looked really bad and way too long. Due to the pleats they just made my butt look huuuge. I didn’t take pictures of the muslin, and trust me, you really don’t want to see this.

I ended up removing the extra paper and glueing the pattern pieces back together. Now the shorts have the original length and I’m pretty much fine with that. At least I could show you how to lengthen a pattern. Yay 🙂

Here they are in all their glory:

corduroy short by thisblogisnotforyou.com

I decided to make them a bit more fun by adding this flowery cotton fabric. I used it for the pockets, belt loops, and parts of the fly. corduroy short by thisblogisnotforyou.com

Since the cotton fabric was not as heavy as the corduroy, I cut out the pocket in corduroy and cotton and basted the two layers together before sewing. corduroy short by thisblogisnotforyou.com

I used a very narrow seam allowance, so the basting stitches are hidden in the final seam allowance. corduroy short by thisblogisnotforyou.com

After basting the layers together, you proceed like normally. corduroy short by thisblogisnotforyou.com

I wanted to have the cotton fabric on the left side, but ended up cutting it out wrong and did not have enough fabric to do it again…
I found this cute button in my button collection and thought it would look great on the corduroy fabric. What do you think?
corduroy short by thisblogisnotforyou.com

First time I made belt loops! corduroy short by thisblogisnotforyou.com

I got 15 different sewing machine feet for my birthday (from my lovely little sister) and decided to go pro and use them all as often as possible, haha.

But actually I noticed it made my sewing so much better! Look at this! Perfect stitching in the ditch. I never really managed to do this properly (so it doesn’t show in the end) and had to sew on my bias binding or waistband by hand. But now that I have an edgestitch foot I can do magic.

corduroy short by thisblogisnotforyou.com

I had this buttonhole foot before and use it whenever I have to make buttonholes. Just wanted to show it off: corduroy short by thisblogisnotforyou.com

It’s really easy to use and if you don’t have one – get one! They are inexpensive and absolutely worth it, if you’re sewing machine does have a buttonhole setting.

Quick tip:
When opening buttonholes with a seam ripper, I always put a pin at the end of the button hole to keep the seam ripper from going through the threads and the end of the buttonhole. Works like a charm and nothing is more annoying than screwing up a perfectly sewn buttonhole, believe me!

corduroy short by thisblogisnotforyou.com

I think these shorts might actually be the first garment that I sewed from scratch without any major catastrophes happening on the way. The only flaw: I cut out the waistband against the straight grain and it’s really wobbly now, even after pressing it. (As you can see in the picture below).

I stitched a few straight vertical lines that are hidden by the belt loops to keep the waistband as straight and flat as possible.

Done!

By the way, I found these awesome shoes in a thrift store last week (completely new for 4 pounds only. Sigh) I love thrifting! It’s inexpensive, you don’t feel bad refashioning and cutting apart things you just bought and you do something for the planet by re-using things instead of buying new stuff all the time.

I wish it weren’t END of summer shorts, though. I really don’t want the summer to end. There are so many maxi dresses I want to sew and already bought the fabric.
Did you make any autumn-inspired things lately?

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Oh lala, my dress form got bigger!

August 23, 2013.Reading time 6 minutes.

altering a dressform by thisblogisnotforyou.com

You probably haven’t noticed as you hopefully focus your attention on the dresses I make and not the dummy wearing them, but my dress form is now a curvier lady.

Actually, she’s got my curves as I customised my former dummy by padding her out, giving her exactly my measurements.
I don’t really have any ‘before’ pictures of her, since I normally photograph her wearing more or less pretty dresses, but I found a picture on Amazon (where I bought her April last year):

38 Euro really isn’t much for a dress form and I can only recommend this one if you are approximately the size of the dress form (they sell them in different sizes). Mine is a 34/36 (UK 8/10) which is the closest to my size. However, I couldn’t really drape on the stand as she is much smaller around the hips and has a different shape. These dummys are often quite “round”, whereas a normal body (well, at least mine) is wider but also flatter at the same time. So even when the circumference measurements are the same, you might end up with a dress that doesn’t fit well (ask me how I know this!)

As many other lovely ladies out there, I’m of the pear-shaped kind and they don’t sell dress forms like that. I would probably need a size 34/36 bust and size 40 hip dress form. Luckily, I was smart enough to buy a dress form that was slightly smaller than I am, so I could alter her shape by adding wadding, pillow stuffing and muslin pieces. I sewed them onto the styrofoam with a curved upholstery needle.

Bad blogger I am I forgot to take pictures of the process. (Oh no!) But here’s a link to a post from another blogger who basically did almost the same thing (in a more professional way hehe): Customising a tailor’s dummy

Here she is, pretty much looking like me 🙂
altering a dressform by thisblogisnotforyou.com Don’t look too close – she’s got a few bumps here and there, especially on her unmentionables, but I love her anyway.

Draping and making muslins is sooo much more fun now – the first muslin I draped on her fits like a glove. The blue ribbon I used as markings for my recent project (which is still top-secret). Here’s a glance – don’t even try to figure out what it’s gonna be!

altering a dressform by thisblogisnotforyou.com If you don’t have a dress form and want a dummy which represents your size, there are different options for making one yourself.

Tilly from Tilly and the Buttons has posted about her paper maché dummy here.
This is one of the easiest ways of making a dummy. There are also much more complicated options out there.

I tried the Tilly version just before I decided to alter my already existing dress form. Why I didn’t post about it? This is why:

making a dressform by thisblogisnotforyou.com

This may look like a distorted version of a clone of me in a parallel universe but it’s totally unusable. I bet our neighbours almost got a heart attack when finding this headless mummy in the dustbin.

Problem with the paper tape/paper maché option:

If you don’t use enough tape, the whole thing will loose it’s shape when cut off your body.
If you use enough tape, this thing will be a lot bigger than you actually are (ask me how I know this).
Try not to tie up your unmentionables with the tape, otherwise your dummy end up looking like mine. Hooray!
And: I almost fainted since I couldn’t really breathe after adding the third layer. I started shouting at Mr Thisblogisnotforyou who had patiently wrapped me up in this %$§$% and then had to lay me down (by this time I was stiff and hard as a concrete plank not breathing and definitely not moving) and cut me out of this thing. My second near death experience (first time I choked badly while drinking water)!

Well, sometimes the easiest way is not the best way.

At least there was a happy end – now I’ve got a perfect dress form. I’m still looking for a name (I name everything. Even my bicycle and plants. I have to in order not to neglect them). My sewing machine’s already named Marilyn. So this one might become an Audrey or Coco or Dita. Ideas?

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Featuring You: Freya May from the Dressmaking Diaries!

August 19, 2013.Reading time 8 minutes.

Featuring you Freya May by thisblogisnotforyou.com Hello my lovely readers! Today I will be featuring Freya May, a great seamstress and all-round talent. Besides sewing, she loves all things creative: knitting, writing, drawing, baking etc. and in the meantime is working on her MA dissertation! Sounds familiar? Her blog is about everything I love doing myself. (I wish you’d live closer to London, Freya May! Hehe.) – Well, luckily, I just finished my dissertation! I’ve been following her blog for quite a while now and hope you will, too!

Hey guys! I’m Freya May and I blog over at The Dressmaking Diaries. My blog is my way of documenting my attempt at teaching myself to make clothes, with the odd style, DIY or food post thrown in for good measure. I was so excited when Charlie asked me to be a part of this ‘Featuring You!’ series- I’ve been reading her blog since the start of the 27 Dresses Challenge and love her work.

Featuring you Freya May by thisblogisnotforyou.com

Q: For how long have you been blogging and why did you decide to start a blog?

I’ve been blogging on my current blog for almost a year now, but I started blogging three and a half years ago. My old blog was more of a random/lifestyle blog and when I started really getting into dressmaking I decided that I wanted to be more focused with my blogging and started a fresh.

Q: What was your first ever blog post about? How do you feel about it now?

My first post was about the first dress I ever made with my mum when I was 14. It was a super simple style, I’ve seen people on Pinterest refer to it as a ‘pillowcase dress’. I never wear it anymore, but it was nice to go back and remember the start of my sewing journey and share with my readers where I came from.

Q: What was the first blog you regularly read?

It was called ‘Playing Grown Up’, and it was this super cute lifestyle blog by a young married woman in the USA. She documented her life and as a newlywed at the time it was nice to see other people in that stage of life. This blog inspired me to start my first blog and I totally ripped off the name! (Bad Blogger)

Featuring you Freya May by thisblogisnotforyou.com

Q: How and when did you learn how to sew?

My mum taught me the basics back in my teens but when I got my own sewing machine for Christmas three years ago was when I really started learning. I’m self taught, but would love to do an evening class or something soon to help me improve.

Featuring you Freya May by thisblogisnotforyou.com

Q: What are you doing when you’re not sewing or writing blog posts?

I’m writing up my MA dissertation (which I’m sooo bored of) and hanging out at home with Dave (my hubby). I like writing fiction, sketching (although I’m awful and you’ll never see anything I draw on my blog), shopping and running. I’m doing a 5K training program and really getting into it. I’m also learning to knit and loving it! Just finished my first jumper and have many plans for more.

Featuring you Freya May by thisblogisnotforyou.com

Q: What does a normal day in your life look like?

I wake up about 8 or 9, depending on how late I went to bed, and eat breakfast while reading blogs, facebook etc. Then I’ll either sit at my laptop and (attempt) to get on with some dissertation work or head in to the uni library when my bike doesn’t have a flat tire (as it does now 🙁 ). We eat dinner about 6, usually in front of the telly- we’re working through my Buffy box sets at the moment. After tea I’ll blog/sew/bake and watch more TV before bed. I’ve just joined the gym so need to find space to fit that in now too!

Featuring you Freya May by thisblogisnotforyou.com

Q: Do all of your friends/family know that you are a blogger?

Yeh, I probably shove it in their faces- ‘have you read my blog? I’ve a new post up! I just made this dress, check it out on my blog! Etc’

Q: What are you working on at the moment?

I’ve a few projects on the go- naturally 🙂 . I’m making two yellow summer dresses, one white sundress, my first full sized quilt, pillow cases for our sofa and a bow tie for a friend.

Featuring you Freya May by thisblogisnotforyou.com

Q: What is your go to pattern brand?/ Or if you’re not using patterns, what is your favorite tool/technique to work with?

I don’t have a particular favorite pattern brand, I use Simplicity, New Look and McCalls mostly. I do enjoy using vintage patterns too. I’m still working my way though different patterns, companies, designs and styles but I would say my favorite pattern so far is McCalls M5094.

Featuring you Freya May by thisblogisnotforyou.com

Q: If you had 500 dollars/euros/pound to spend on your blog/hobby, what would you buy?

Fabric and patterns, every last pound would be gone! I would like to start buying independent patterns, so I’d totally use the money on them. Particularly I’m eyeing up the Belladona dress by deer and doe, the Mathilde blouse by Tilly and the Buttons and Colette Patterns Violet Blouse.

summery fabric stash the dressmaking diaries

Q: What can we look forward to seeing on your blog in the future?

I’m planning on planning my A/W sewing soon, post dissertation hand in date. I’ve chosen 7 patterns I want to make in the next 6 months, including trousers and a jacket to really challenge myself. Also I’m doing a house tour. We’ve just moved in and have almost got our stuff together. I love poking around other people’s homes, so I thought it’d be fun! And, hopefully, I’ll share my current projects as they get done.

Featuring you Freya May by thisblogisnotforyou.com

Thanks for answering all my nosy questions, Freya May!
P.S.: I want to steal the shoes you’re wearing in the picture above. Awww.

Refashion It! The Summer Dress

August 19, 2013.Reading time 3 minutes.

Beach Dress tutorial and pattern by thisblogisnotforyou.com summer dress refasion by thisblogisnotforyou.com

Hello my lovely readers!

After using this dress for making a fun and super easy Beach Dress pattern I finally got down to doing what I was supposed to do: taking off the sleeves. My mum gave it to me to alter the sleeves and make them less flutter-sleeve-like.

Since it was a rather quick and easy refashion I thought I’d share it with you.

summer dress refasion by thisblogisnotforyou.com

This is how the sleeves looked before the alteration. I love them because they’re super comfy. First, I thought the refashion would be quite tricky since the dress is basically a rectangle sewn together at the sides, so I had to do more than simply chop off the sleeves. I decided to make the dress a bit more fitted, but to also keep the drawstring at the waistband so it wouldn’t need a zipper.
summer dress refasion by thisblogisnotforyou.com

I put the dress on the dress form and cut off the sleeves at the shoulders on one side only.

As you can see in the pic above, the shoulder part looks a bit weird and pointed. I made a simple dart to solve this problem, first just pinning the dart, and then sewing it before adding the binding to the armscye.

summer dress refasion by thisblogisnotforyou.com

Looks much better, right? summer dress refasion by thisblogisnotforyou.com

summer dress refasion by thisblogisnotforyou.com

I then cut off the side seams to give the dress a more A-line-like shape. Clever me made sure to cut them off in a way that allowed me to keep the drawstring casing (If you read the Beach Dress tutorial, you hopefully know what I mean). summer dress refasion by thisblogisnotforyou.com

The quickest way to make both sides symmetrical is to simply fold over the dress at the center line and use the altered part as template.
summer dress refasion by thisblogisnotforyou.com

Chop, chop! summer dress refasion by thisblogisnotforyou.com

Keep the hem and remnants! I used them to make bias binding for the armscye. summer dress refasion by thisblogisnotforyou.com

I cut off approximately 2cm/1inch wide strips including the already hemmed part. For proper bias binding you usually cut the strips on the bias, but I was really lazy lazy and also wanted to make use of the already hemmed edges. summer dress refasion by thisblogisnotforyou.com

I pinned the strips onto the armscye part, right sides facing. summer dress refasion by thisblogisnotforyou.com

After sewing the binding onto the fabric I trimmed the raw edges and then, first folding them over and thereby enclosing the raw edge, topstitched the binding onto the right side of the dress.
summer dress refasion by thisblogisnotforyou.com I finished the side seams using the french seam technique where you first sew left sides together with a very narrow seam allowance. After pressing, you fold the fabric over, press again and sew the seams right sides together with a wider seam allowance, thereby enclosing all the raw edges. This technique is super useful when dealing with fabric that frays like crazy (this one did). french seams tutorial for pleated skirt by thisblogisnotforyou.com

Sleeve-less dress done!
summer dress refasion by thisblogisnotforyou.com

It’s still super comfy and mum loves it. What more could one want?

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