#Teambumruffle

Happy summertime fellow Australians! And those in the northern hemisphere - I hope your white Christmas preparations are coming along nicely!

Last week I presented a winter cape, so this week I have done a full 360 and made a summer frock! The Alder by Grainline Studio's to be precise. Another cult pattern release from Jen about 18 months ago. I purchased it at the time of release, but never got a chance to sew it up last summer. I did however, feel it was definitely a summer dress so waited until this summer to sew it up!

This dress has been tried and tested very well over the blogosphere, and for a very good reason! What a brilliant pattern! It came together easily and reasonably quickly for a pattern with so many little details. I began the project using French seams, which would have been fine. However, I chose to make view B. Which includes the glorious aforementioned bum ruffle. Now, this means a right angled seam... which even with the help of Jen's lovely tutorial, I couldn't figure out how to master. I did end up inserting it quite well, with a fairly sharp right angle turn but I just couldn't get that same effect when I was trying to use French seams. So the right angle French seam was abandoned (as was my seam ripper), and I whipped this one seam through the overlocker. It still looks very neatly finished on the inside. And I figured sharp professional outside vs. sharp professional inside should win, when I could only muster one or the other.

The fabric is a lovely cotton, lawn like texture I picked up in Vietnam in May. I found it at the Ben Thanh Market (where I picked up quite a bit of fabric), which came to about $5- per meter. On returning home, I saw it pop up a few other places, and it appears to be a rip off liberty print! Whoops - I'm not sure if this would have impacted my buying, but I still love the print, and it is such a perfect pattern for summery clothes! The quality definitely informs me it is not a real liberty, it had some scratchy pulls when I laid it out to cut, but I was able to cut around those.

It was such a busy print, I didn't attempt to pattern match on the pockets. A feature of the Alder pattern that I love, is all the precision sewing - think top stitching! Very similar to making some menswear. I followed the sew-along directions, including all the extra steps to add a line of top stitching to keep the bum ruffle in place.

I initially added 2 inches to the dress, thinking it would be too short. (I added two inches to my scout tee's as I found them a bit short). However, on hemming, that was lopped off - and the original paper pattern amended to not include this for next time! I also sized out on the bum ruffle, cutting a 14 for the ruffle section. Again, I will probably just cut the straight ten all over, as with the extra fullness in the ruffle it can catch fairly easily in the wind!

I finished my arm holes and hem with bias binding. White for the bottom, which enabled me to keep the lovely curved shape as drafted. I knew I would find it difficult to do a turned hem, so utilised bias tape instead. I had a small amount of my yellow vintage liberty bias binding (scored from etsy several months ago) left which went really nicely with the fabric print, so I decided to use this on the arm holes instead of the bindings drafted my Jen - I figured I had better use some genuine liberty in this make somewhere!

I also used a contrast inner yoke piece, choosing to use chambray instead of self fabric. I love little contrasts like this on my me mades. It took me a little bit of time to work out the button placket and the collar, but I am glad I took the time to do this step properly, as this is what makes the Adler a bit special!

I definitely see more Alders in my future! Woo - team bum ruffle!

The deets:

Pattern: grainline studio's Alder.

Fabric: 2m of cotton from Vietnam.

Notions: 9 buttons (10c each from Eliza's), bias tape - vintage liberty and plain white.
Total cost: Pattern (19) + buttons and fabric and notions (25)
= $44-

Other bits: shoes - wittner.

Alder in the wild... amidst my garden..

MonStoriaDen: My Astoria/Linden/Moneta mash up...

After a trip down to Geelong in early July - I came back with a stash full of fabulous fabrics from Joy's Fabric Warehouse (FYI - I have also had some pretties delivered following a phone order).. All of which have now been sewn up - excluding some gorgeous white, navy and red light wool coating. My purse is still recovering after I nabbed the delicious wools, stretch cottons, rayon knits and other bits... But I did grab some grey and black softer than butter ponti. 

bottom L-R: Stretch bottom weight cotton (now a chardon skirt), navy/purple rayon knit (now a copelia cardigan), The offending striped ponti, Top L-R: quilting cotton, checked coating.

top: rayong knits (now copelia's and mandy boat tee's). Bottom: french terries Yellow is now an Astoria and the blue is a Linden - Stay tuned for posts on these babies!

Full disclosure. This dress is slightly more than inspired by the gorgeous Renay - over at The Long Winding Bobbin - she posted a shot on instragram of her own Astoria dress mash up  in this same striped ponti- and my poor fabric never had a chance to become anything else... 

feat. Zoidberg.

The mash-up comes about by popping in my favourite features of my current favourite sews. I have been loving the Astoria and Linden jumpers to death recently, and have been merging a few of my favourite features. This dress takes the mash up cake. The bodice and skirt are the Moneta. The sleeves and neckband are a feature from the Astoria, which smoosh in together perfectly with zero adjustments, and finally the cuffs from the Linden by Grainline. 

Windy As F.

The fabric is really soft under hand, and handled very easily. The whole make took me about 2 hours (or two episodes of misfits, netflixs why you ruin my life!?!?!) and this was including cutting time. I have knocked up a few of each of these patterns now (at last count, five moneta's, three lindens, and another five Asotria's). So I sometimes need to stop and make sure I am not rushing a quick make like this, BUT I JUST WANT TO WEAR IT THIS VERY SECOND - despite half finished hems.....

My most recent versions of the Astoria have the added cuffs. I was originally using the cuffs from papercut patterns copelia cardigan, however, have found them slightly too long and the Lindens a much smoother fit for the cropped sweater look. The ponti had just enough 4 way stretch to cut the cuffs off grain for contrasting stripes. That said, it took some muscle to pin and sew them down. I do like how they have finished up though. The cuff finish is also a bit nicer than just a turn of edge seam.

Cuffs from the Linden pattern.

The Astoria neckband piece stretched easily into place into the Moneta bodice pattern, which makes sense as I have a sneaking suspicion the Astoria is drafted from the same block. Colette had a tutorial on how to turn Moneta into a sweater which I pinned on pinterest before the pattern came out. And as i had never gotten around to actually following the tutorial, as is the way with anything that comes from pinterest, I was very happy to see the pattern released in Seamwork!

Neckband from the Astoria pattern.

After a wear out and about, the fabric has dipped a bit on the bias, so will need a bit of a trim and tidy up along the hemline, which I am hoping won't make my stripe matching look awkward....

spot the ginger fur ball...

For the first time ever I am LOVING winter sewing. I think this may have something to do with all the soft cosy knits being snug as fuck when they come out of the dryer after a pre wash and I just want to roll about in them. Cosy. Toasty. Warm. Melbourne Winter. Go Away. But seriously. Wintery snug sewing for the win.

It's business time...

Fabric: 2m of striped Ponti from Joys Fabric Warehouse in Geelong.

Pattern: Colette - Astoria & Moneta, Grainline Linden

Size: mash up between a L & M.

Alterations: Toooo many. Basically just stretching all the bits to smoosh them all to fit. I think I may have trimmed my sleeves to short in hindsight, they sit just on my wrist and I usually prefer them a bit longer.

Other bits: Belt, C/O Heli (thanks mum) and boots are Merchant and Mills.

See Also: Rach (also check out her awesome Astoria cropped cardi tutorial), Melissa, Cut Cut Sew.

Is anyone else relishing in wintery sewing or are we all ready to move into the spring frocks and light weight cottons and linens? xx