Selfish and unselfish sewing

Hello there! It's been kind of quiet here over at my blog, but I've been sewing. Here are some FOs from this week:

• A striped Giraffe dress for me:

• A striped Giraffe dress for my sister Charlotta (on the left):
• A Washi dress for me (on the right):

Look at that shirring in the back! So pleased with the result.

My first time shirring ever!!! It was way easier than I thought, so I will do this lots more now.

That's all for now! See you later,

Johanna

Another giraffe dress... what can I say?! I love them!

So far, I've made a few (many) Giraffe dresses. What can I say... I just love them...

I have one that is grey with yellow and white flowers that I haven't blogged yet. Last week I made one in light grey with white dots. And this weekend I made one in medium grey for one of my sisters (the one in the collage above). That makes a total of eight dresses...

Or maybe nine, since I finished another today...

As you can see, it's black. But since I don't like dressing all in black I had to put some colour on it, so I added bands on the sleeves and around the neck. The bands are also black with neon green polka dots.

I have tweaked the pattern a little; the dress is alittle tighter over the bust, less gathers under the bust and the sleeves are a tiny bit longer (still kimono-version). I have also drafted a neckline facing, so now I can choose to finish the neckline with a facing, a band or just fold over and stitch.

Yes, I also made the boy in the photo... :)

Ok, enough of giraffe dresses for now.

Later,

Johanna

Unselfish sewing part 5 - Striped giraffe dress for one of my sister

I did some unselfish sewing the other day, Sunday actually. I had already cut out a giraffe dress from the same fabric as my striped maxi dress, but when my sister really liked my giraffe dress and the fit was good, I decided to sew it up for her instead. It was a very nice coincidence that she haad thought of buying some striped fabric so that I could make her a dress, and then I already had a dress cut out! :)

It was fast and easy to sew up the dress and I used only my sewing machine, and not the overlocker, so I can show her that she also can sew with knits/jersey fabrics using her loaner sewing machine (one of mine, a fairly useless plastic Singer).

I also cut out a rather big heart out of a scrap of fushia jersey and put it near the hem with my label inside it. It turned out pretty well and my sister really liked it!

I only have one photo to post, but here it is (I think she's wearing two(?) tank tops underneath):

BTW, my sister had surgery, a gastric bypass, in September ans since she has lost like 35 kilos!!!!! She now weighs less than me, which hasn't happened since we were toddlers! I'm so glad that she feels better and that she's in less danger of different health issues. I love you Lottis!!!

On a totally not different note, my other sister and her family is coming to visit us tomorrow and will be staying for a few days. Let's see what she would like me to make for her (I have to be fair!). I love you too Emmis!

I'll be back soon with a new version of Simplicity 1699.

Bye for now,

Johanna

Maxi dress (Butterick's 5837)

A while ago I saw the lovely maxi Tiramisu made by Cation Designs and found that I wanted a striped maxi dress too! A maxi Tira would be a great idea, but instead I found  Butterick's See and Sew 5837 and decided to try it. This is how it turned out!

This dress is über-comfy and it feels (and maybe looks) like you're wearing a nightie all day long. It's perfect when the weather's a bit on the chilly side (even though we're having great weather at the moment) because it covers the legs.

I think the detail in the back is really cute, but for next time I would make it more round instead of oval. The instructions were easy to follow, but to avoid hand-stitching (SO tedious!) I followed a tutorial for another maxi dress I found here at Melly Sews. This tutorial made it very easy to get away from said hand-stitching.

The arm holes are a little big, but it doesn't bother me much, so I'll just keep them as they are.

The bodice is lined, to get a nice finish, I guess. I just used what I had in my scrap bin, but of course you can use your "good" fabric. It was just that I had enough fabric left for another dress if I used other fabric for the lining, so that's what I did! White in the front and flowery in the back. :)

I already have fabric lined up for another maxi dress from this pattern, so of course I recommend the pattern if someone's thinking of using it! Size-wise I cut a US16 for the bodice and a US18 for the skirt, it is no problem matching up different sizes for the top and bottom since the skirt is gathered. I also cut the length of the pattern and didn't hem the skirt and that turned out to be the perfect length for me, I'm 175 cm (on a good day :)) which I think is like 5 feet 10 inches (correct me, please, if I'm wrong).

Well, that's all folks, thanks for stopping by,

Johanna

Giraffe dress

Have you ever walked in to the fabric store and felt the sudden and compelling urge to have a black and white giraffe dress?

I have...

Went to the fabric store to get something completely different, can't even remember what now, and saw and touched this fabulous black and white giraffe-print jersey. And I just had to have it as a dress.

This is THE most comfy summer dress and I've worn it so much since I made it. The pattern is the same as the blue House of Lola-inspired dress. I just moved the gathers up about 10 centimetre/4 inches, which turned out to be about 2 centimetres/an inch too high, but I'll fix that on the next dress!

Bye for now,

Johanna