Ahhh... wrong dress made...

I had been making brown dress last a couple weeks.
Today I have finished but.. I don't like this dress.

I have done some mistaken. All mistaken was made by me.
1. Changed neck interfacing design.
2. Not correctly followed the instruction
3. Added zip first -> this caused a disaster
4. Already lost interested to carry on in the middle of process..

I have changed interfacing design. I thought I didn't like that part and just cut it. (I shouldn't do that)
Of course, this made neck part of sewing. I had to make bias tape to cover up.

I have seen the article somewhere, it could be easy if zip part done before side.
I did it. and worked fine. However............... I shouldn't cut top part of zip.
You can easily guess what could happen next. Yes, when zip up, zip header detached.

I was struggled to fis zip almost an hour... I fixed finally using by internet instruction.

At that time, I already lost energy. But I have already committed to finish this dress by end of today.

You can see back looks fine but not so balanced. Also at the to of the zip, you can see not matched right and left.

If I follow the instruction, it could be like this.
Simplicity 2247 C version.

Look! Beautiful model is nicely smiled with this dress but I can't smile with my dress today! Nah!

Never mind, move one!

:( ... I haven't made any dress this weekend..  Boo!

Have a nice evening,

Yasuko

drape drape trial!

drape drape - difficult?

I have bought drape drape book from 1 to 3 as these books are soon beautiful.

I have been looking at these books and wanted to try one of them - easiest one.

So I pick up from dress no.3 from 'drape drape'.

However the skirt of this dress is a little short for me.
So after trading, I modified pattern to make longer length.
 And I used the 'non' jersey fabric for trial... how challenger am I.

Of course, my trial was failed as I didn't use jersey type fabric. Never mind.
After this failure, I changed the plan to this failure dress to modify my traded pattern.

You can see it looks ok from front but if you look from side, ah... looks fat...

So! I add more gather parts.

Now I can compare from before and now.

// BEFORE vs AFTER //

Now I will add this modification to my traced patter.

I actually found this pattern is very simple. You can just carefully trace the pattern as there are a lots of pattern in the once page!
Sewing is not complicated if you have done some dressmaking before, you will find easy.
If you have never done dressmaking before, maybe you have to make some dress before try this book. I.m not advanced level, but I did it. I am between beginner and intermediate level?  :D

Have a nice weekend, Yasuko

Craft shop and Fabric shop

Today, I pop into local fabric shop for buying zip which I completely forgot to buy before.

In Farnborough, Hampshire, there are two shops next each other and I really thing it is so convenient for sewing and craft lover!

Craft shop is The Art of Craft
Fabric shop is Fabric Box

Located to Lynchford Rd, Farnborough. Just next to Camp road.
Big Car parking id located to the behind of these shops.

Cap road village is changing lately. There are some pretty cafes, charity shops, beauty salon, flower shop, Boots and butchers.. Only vegetable shop is missing.. used to he there but gone.

Anyway, these two shops, craft and fabric shops, for me, very very convenient. I could get what I want, from one of them.
It seems craft shop is expanding - I have seen many craft lovers regularly use this shop. (me,too)

Today, I bought a zip from craft shop and dressmaking patters and fabric from fabric shop. ;)

Luckily Vogue pattern was half price! I got 3 patters.
And this light green fabric is £5/meter from designer brand. 
Im thinking I could use this fabric for jacket. for early autumn. 

Ah... so many sewing projects are waiting for me!
Have a nice evening,


Yasuko 

Tried on - burdastyle dress no.116 from Aug 2015

As last weekend, I was down and I forgot to buy zip, I couldn't do anything..

However I tried this dress from burdastyle Aug!

Suit me!
I already tried this dress twice and let's say it's very easy to wear and no stress.
With Jacket, no problem at office.

my next project is something from drape drape! (hopefully...)

Have a nice evening,
Yasuko

Simplicity 2247

My current project is from Simplicity 2247

And this is in progress..

I pick up this brown fabric and traded to paper last Sunday and cut the fabric on Monday.
After that I did sew a pieces/a day as I work day time.
And now achieved this.
It's so confirmable to follow the pattern like this. seam allowance is already included and you can just trace the pattern and cut it. Even you can just cut the pattern - I didn't this time as I was not quite sure the actual my size and pattern.
If you trace the pattern, you can use the original pattern for bigger size or modify the traced pattern.
Leaning, Learning...

Now most difficult part is left. I have to put this and modify the size on this fabric and start to sew  for finishing!

Hope this will be nice dress.

have a nice evening!
Yasuko

Dress from burda style Aug 2015

I have done one dress for coming autumn and this from burda style Aug.

I really love this magazine and in the middle of the month, I usually browsing around in the bookshop in Waterloo station.
Once I get it, I bring with me to everywhere.... My husband said 'oh my god, you brought it with you again' - even we go to shopping, it's with me. While my husband is driving, I do check the patterns and image of what kind of pattern will be suit for me.

This time, I love this pattern: 116B

 Nice for office!
I used to work at office where near my home, it was so bored. You just drove between office and house. Especially that office was located to in the country side as security reason. And nothing around.

Anyway, I'm a city girl now! I commute to City of London everyday. I can see people are wearing fashionably. It's so fun.

My new dress is here:

fabric is from 'The new fabric shop' and £1.5/meter.
The good things is dress has pockets. I can put candies. ;-)

Have a nice evening,
Yasuko
P.S. This dress was donated to Charity shop in Dec 2016

Southall - Indian fabric shops

I love Indian fabric shops in Southall.
South is indian town, when I first drove through the area, I was surprised it's all Indian!
People walking, all shops and movie theatre.. everything Indian!
I felt like I was tripped to India. Really.

We sometimes pop into Indian supermarket to buy asian vegetables and instant Curry set.
I noticed the front of the big indian supermarket, there is Indian fabric shop.
It was few years ago, I don't remember exactly and I decided to have a look.

There are so many fabrics(of course) and silk, cotton, printed cotton fabrics, Egyptian cotton and more.

The price is so great. Start from £2/ meter.

Nowadays I regularly visit a couple of Indian fabric shops near the Southall Library(Dominion Centre&Library)  .
Big car parking space is just the behind of the library. Plenty of spaces are available.

'The New Fabric shop' is just next to this library and starting price is £1/meter ~ £4/meter.
Every week, new fabric are sold and if you missed to buy fabric, there will be no left in next week.
So if you find something nice, just but it. Otherwise it will be no longer available!

'Tanya Fashion' - start price from £2~3/meter. Their range of fabric is more fashionable and they display the fabric on the bodies on the wall. You can easily imagine how these fabric works on your body.

Around this area, other indian silk fabric you can find. They are very expensive but cheaper than other London retailers.

These fabric shops are a little away from the central Southall town.
In Central Southall, there are more more fabric shops you can find. However if you go there by car, it will be difficult to find the car parking space.

If you visit there by train, it will be easy to talk around and have a look. But you have to be careful, to buy too much fabric in there..!

I will show which fabric I have brought from which fabric shop later.. ;-)

Have a nice tea time!
Yasuko

New dress and learning Shirring

What is shirring?

As a beginner, when I knew this new dress required 'shirring' technique, I thought what was 'shirring'?
Thanks for the internet, I did google and found some articles.
It obviously many people had question about 'What is shirring?'.  ;-)
However just a reading the article for 'shirring', I was not quite sure how to do it.
So! the famous YouTube helped me again!

As Brother sewing machine user, this tutorial was the best for how to shirring.

Now I tried it on my machine and it works!!!

Okay, my half way to go dress, wait for me, I will stat my new technique of shirring and to give you the nice shape..!

It seems I have been nagged by dress... I need to finish!

Have a nice day,

Yasuko

Already August and where is British Summer?

It's been little chilly lately. I couldn't wear my new summer dress last week!
We talked 'Summer has ended'.

It's always like this - like around 5 years ago, we had very summer week in April. Everybody went shopping for summer clothes (included me)!

After week later, summerly days gone. And we had a cold summer..

Britin has 1 or 2 weeks nice summer days and weather always went wrong. We are used to it.
I don't expect a lots of hot days in Summer time. Thanks weather like women's feeling(means always change the feeling).

As I needed to keep warm, I worn my favourite dog skirt. ;-)

Even this skirt is my favourite, I can't wear it everyday. So! It's a time to start to sew new dress for Autumn!

This time, I will use this fabric.

Bought from Indian fabric store as usual. :-)

Trace pattern from my favourite sewing magazine.. burda Style August.

Tracing pattern while listening nice music.

Now I will start cut fabric for preparing tomorrow's sewing!

Have a lovely evening,
Yasuko