Project 20ne

Wow, time flies and it’s now April already. I must admit I haven’t been very productive and all I had sewed this year is one cheongsam for the Chinese New Year. It’s not that I don’t have the time to, but the energy. I guess I am still getting used to my new job and all I want to do when I reach home is just to stone.

Anyhows, I’ve procrastinated enough and finally started sewing the wedding dress. Gosh, it’s making me very excited!!! Ever since I picked up dress-making 3 years ago, it has been a dream to sew my own dress. There’s a superstitious saying that the bride should not sew her own wedding gown because it brings along a life of hardship. It does’t bother me because I don’t believe in such myths.

Some time last year, my sew-mate and I went crazy buying wedding magazines. I even bought some from France and Germany while I was there last year. We browsed through countless magazines, tore down pages with designs that we like and kept them very neatly in a file. Very often, I will be distracted by something else that caught my eye. After sometime, I found my style – lace, tulle, boat/normal neckline, tea-length. I made some sketches based on the ideas I gathered and finally decided on the design.

Source: weheartit.com via Crystal on Pinterest

Source: style.com via Tiffany on Pinterest

Source: style.com via Tiffany on Pinterest

Source: shop.nordstrom.com via Tiffany on Pinterest

Source: couturehayez.com via Lulu on Pinterest

Source: weheartit.com via Rindi on Pinterest

 

After the fiancé proposed, I was given the license to shop for the materials! I knew that I will be wearing a lace dress and lace is not very easy to shop for. You can read about it over here. I went to our usual supplier, saw some really beautiful laces but nope, they didn’t scream “I’M THE ONE!!!” nor “BUY ME!!!”.

the only lace that caught my eye at the supplier’s

I also combed the entire Arab St to no avail either. Then lo and behold, when we were in Bandung last August, to cut the long story short, I found a piece of lace that all of us fancied at the fiancé’s family friend’s shop!!! And best of all, it came free!!!!! Yes FREEEE!!! Since it came free, the budget of my gown is now reduced from SGD 200 to SGD50.

As much as I would love to update on the progress of the wedding dress, I want to save the final look for the big day. I’ll be updating as much as exclusivity allows me to but I’ll be definitely sharing the DIY projects.

Hello 2013!

It has been a while long since I last posted. In between the Fall Dress and now, I submitted my FYP, graduated and already started teaching. I’m settling in well in my new school and very thankful for the people around me. While revising for exams, running all the errands and making sure that I made full use of my last holiday, I also had to keep sewing. It may be my last sewing break! I have been making new dresses, but no time or occassion to photograph them nicely. I made a lemon zesty princess shift for a wedding I attended in Decemeber,

a Parisian peplum which is a little short for my already-very-short torso, another Parisian number,

a snow flake Christmas dress, and

2 samples for my wedding dress!!! Yes I’m making my own wedding dress!! As exciting as it sounds, I’m way behind schedule for the wedding dress. It was suposed to be all sampled in December. I may be making a couple more samples to test out a few more cuttings and I should be all ready to make the real thing!

2012 had been a fruitful year. I will sum up my brief experience sewing with Sew Weekly in another post. With all the wedding plans and my work coming up, 2013 will be spent on wedding projects and very possibly work clothes. I will keep my blog updated as frequently as I can!

The “Falling For You” Dress

The Inspiration
This week’s theme at SewWeekly is Fall Palette. My interpretation for the theme is rather literal, I decided to wear fall. Yes, falling leaves in autumn! Besides, the fiancé and I celebrate our special day this week so that calls for an occasion for a new dress.

The Dress
With such a busy print, I opted for a simple silhouette: shift dress with a slight flare. It is also work/teacher-friendly which adds on to my working wardrobe. Well, I wasn’t very happy with how it looked when I first pieced the dress together. I thought it was too stiff, and flat (READ: boring). Thankfully the end result didn’t look that bad after I paired it with a belt.

The dress is fully lined, concealed, with the bust darts were folded instead to give a little more space to move. It’s also possible to fold the waist darts if it is not a shift dress. Folded darts are slightly more comfortable as it is less restrictive.

The Fabric
It is purchased from one of my favourite local stores at Chinatown which I love to frequent once every few weeks to get hold of some freshly imported fabric when I wasn’t on self-imposed shopping ban. This is a piece of slightly stretchable cotton in the sweetest palette for fall.

Huat Ah!

I FOUND THE BEST FRENCH ONION SOUP AND TRIED ESCARGOTS FOR THE FIRST TIME AND IT WAS SOOOOOO GOOOOOOOD!!!

Tutorial: How to make an interfacing

Necklines and armholes can be neatened and concealed by using interfacing or bias tape. While you can find ready-made bias tape in craft stores, interfacings have to be made on your own.

You will need: interfacing, fabric, iron and the sewing essentials.

1. Draw a parallel line about 3-5cm away from the neckline. Mine (the thin red line) is about 3cm.

2. Pin the pattern (if you are using one) onto the non-glue side of the interfacing. If not, you can lay the garment flat and trace out the neckline as well.

3. Using carbon papers, trace the outline of the necklines.

And the front piece (with a sweetheart neckline) should look like this:

4. Cut it out, leaving approximately 2.5cm allowance. Repeat Steps 1-4 for the back.

5. Pin and iron both pieces onto the fabric. There are different types of interfacing. Some adhere well with heat application. Some requires moisture. Test it out using a piece of scrap fabric first, just in case it shrinks.

6.Cut out both pieces.

7. Interlock the non-neckline ends.

8. Right side facing each other, pin and sew the shoulder seams. Now we have one piece of the interfacing for the neckline.

9. Align the shoulder seams of the bodice to that of the interfacing.

10. If the neckline has other pointy angles such as V-neck, square-neck and the sweetheart, align them as well. Then pin the rest of the neckline in place and sew both pieces together.

11. Trim and neaten the allowance.

12. Snip the allowance with about 1/8″ teeth all around.

12. Top stitch the interfacing to secure it. You can choose to conceal, or not, the top stitch. This time round, I choose not to. Simply fold in and pin the interfacing in place, and sew at about 1/8″ away from the seam. Voila, a neatened neckline!

This method is good for bodice that does not require a zip down the centre back. If you are attaching a concealed zip at the back, it requires a little bit of modification because the interfacing has to be concealed at the zip too. I will do up another tutorial on this.

The “Feeling Blue” Dress

The Inspiration
I have been missing France, missing Paris. I can’t help but feel blue at the thought of it. Besides reminiscing through instagram, I decided to wear my favourite city. With all the feeling ‘blue’ and colour theme of my fabrics, you should have guessed the theme for this week’s challenge at Sew Weekly.

The Dress
I chose a sweetheart neckline. The cliché, if you get it, is unintended. The skirt is the tricky part. As the words run perpendicular to the selvage, it took me a while to decide if it should be cut on bias. Straight in your face or the arty-farty less obvious orientation. I choose the latter.

After drafting out the skirt, I conveniently cut out two quarters (of a circle), instead of 1 quarter for the front and 2 eighths for the back. This leaves me with a seam down the centre front if I were to attach the zip down the centre back which I always do. As I insist that prefer back zips, I pinned the bodice to the skirt just to double confirm how the seam down the centre front would affect the aesthetics of the ensemble. It turned out to be quite hideous so I had to resort to side zips. That means being extra careful with the hair and makeup when I wear the dress.

There were extra fabric so I made interfacings and bias tapes to go with the Parisian theme as well.

The Fabric
What I really enjoy about being able to sew is the part where I manage the fabric – both the prints, colours and type. You decide exactly what fabric and colour(s) to use, what kind of prints – from your favourite florals to city maps, as long as you dare to wear it. I rummaged through my stash of fabrics to retrieved all my Paris/France-themed numbers. They are all cotton and happen to be blue of some sort. I stared hard at them and finally picked the less loud of the lot and matched it with a navy silk linen blend. I am not that brave to wear the entire Paris on myself yet, thus an introductory street names/attractions de Paris. Let’s see, among those featured, I’ve been to Avenue des Champs-Élysées, Lourve, Musée d’Orsay, Notre Dame, Parc du Champ de Mars, et Rue di Rivoli. You can find them here!

Signing off with a clearer view of the sweetheart neckline and missing Paris even more!

Paris, Je t’aime

Tutorial: How to make bias tape

Bias tape is often used to neaten the arm hole and neckline, either concealed or for decorative purposes. While craft stores are well stocked with a wide variety of colours, sometimes they just do not match the colour of your fabric. At times like this, I make my own bias tape. It is a very simple process.

You will need: a piece of (scrap) fabric – sufficient to be cut on the bias, a bias tape maker, a pair of scissors, a ruler, a fabric pencil (or any other marker), an iron and iron board.

1. Decide on the width of the bias tape and purchase the bias tape maker of the correct size. The standard size is about 12mm. I bought mine from the local craft store, and the brand is Clover. This range of tape makers have 5 different widths: 6mm, 12mm, 18mm, 25mm, 50mm.

2. Mark the bias i.e. the diagonal of a regular piece of fabric. You can do so by folding the fabric at 45°.

For my piece, it is a piece of scrap fabric from my half circle skirt which is cut on bias. So i trimmed off the excess to neaten the ends to get a triangle.

3. Multiply the desired width of the tape by 2 and round off to the nearest cm. For a 12mm piece, the tape should be about 3cm wide. Mark it out on the fabric (parallel to the bias) and cut it out.

I’m assuming that the piece of fabric has sufficient to produce the length you want. If not, you can always sew and connect stripes of them on the bias ends.

4. Feed the strip of fabric, with the wrong side facing you, into the broader end of the bias tape maker. It is easier to feed the fabric into the maker if the fabric has a 45° pointed end, rather than a 90° end.

5. Pull out about 1-2cm of the fabric out from the narrower end. What the maker does is to help you fold the strip of fabric towards the center.

6. Iron press the fabric as you pull the tape maker away from the iron.

7. Trim off the pointy ends.

8. And voila! You have the bias tape!

The “Tissue Pouch” Dress

The Inspiration
This is not a new dress I made. I blogged about it very briefly here. It was Mad for Plaid on Sew Weekly two weeks ago but I did not participate because I didn’t have a suitable fabric. Self-imposed ban on fabric shopping only allows me to use up fabric from the stash. Still, I want to share with you one of my favourite dress. Other than the special event I wore the dress to, the dress is significant to me because it is my first ‘praactice’ dress. The first time I made a dress on my own! I completed by beginner’s course at Kadomay, made 2 skirts, 1 blouse and 1 dress and it was time to practice and revise the techniques. So here it is!

The Dress
A simple round neck and a-line skirt, nothing fancy. The only modifications I did to the basic block was to add in the gathers at the neckline.

The Fabric
The boyf and I went fabric shopping because I wanted to make him a tissue pouch. He picked this for the pouch and then requested for a ‘matching’ dress. I have no idea why he wants me to have a dress that match his tissue pouch, but that was his request. I didn’t want the entire dress to be made from the plaid so I matched it with a plain black cotton.

The “I <3 Sewing" Dress

The Inspiration
Just because I need want a new dress.

The Dress
Since I wanted something new really quickly, I had to use a simple pattern. I quickly decided on the neckline I want and made use of my multi-pattern (which is not in a very pristine condition). That saves time on drafting a brand new pattern. This is the first time making a V-neck and I’m mightily pleased with how it turned out. The dimensions are perfect. The skirt is a straightforward rectangle gathered skirt which I’ve made many times.

You can try Burda’s Tank Dress or any other pattern with a desired neckline and a gathered skirt.

The Fabric
The print says it all. I’m wearing my hobby!!! Walking the talk I got it from a local craft store, and it didn’t come cheap. I assumed that it is more for quilting and crafting rather than dress-making, hence the price (more than SGD10/m). Still, I can’t resist such a pretty piece of cotton.

The Blunder
This is one of the fastest and neatest dress that I’ve made so far. My only complain is the uneven interfacing. It was done in a rush, my bad, and the first time with a V-neck. I will try harder next time!