Enter the Dragon

I haven't kept many of my old patterns, but for some reason I did keep this Vogue pattern from 1994.  I can't remember the dress I made with the pattern. I have a feeling it was something with long sleeves.  

 

 I was trying to find a pattern to use for my dragon print material.  It is always hard sewing with material that has a design that runs in a particular direction.  This means that you can't go turning pattern pieces upside down on the fabric. I learned this hard way previously.  The fabric is a cotton that looks like a linen. It's wrinkle factor isn't too bad either. 

This pattern is nice and simple to make up. However, I had to make adjustments for the underarms as they were very snug and slightly uncomfortable. It involved some upicking and cutting away near the under seam to give me some more room.  I guess that's the difference when my 20 something figure had a little less going on in the underarm department than my 40 something figure does.  I also probably could have forgone the zip at the back. There would still have been plenty of room to get over my head without a zip. This pattern would be particularly good for a feature style fabric as the design is a good basic shift style dress.    

 

I certainly didn't mean to make this dress as short as it turned out.  I'd definitely add a few more inches next time.  That's another disturbing thing about getting older, your knees start looking weird.  Not that knees are anyone's best feature.    

Overall I love this dress. I wore it to a friend's house for dinner and it was hit, as was the tiramissu that I made.

 

Hooray for Stripes

I am very happy to finally use this material that I bought in Vancouver back in August during my Canada holiday. I wanted to use a pattern where I could have the stripes going in different directions for the bodice and skirt.  This worked perfectly for this self-drafted number. The material is a cotton which has a lot of body.  So it's not great for our summer weather, but will be a good for me in the cooler months.    

 

I used a bodice from one of my go to New Look patterns and then just cut out 2 rectangles for the skirt. I like using the 50's style patterns, but I've decided I prefer the 70's style of this type of dress where the skirt is more highwaisted. 

This was a new colour pallet to add to my work wardrobe. I don't think I've had a maroon before.   I am very happy with how the sleeves match up with the stripe in the dress.  Unfortunately the side stripes don't match. That's always hard for darts, you've got to remember to match from the bottom of the pattern piece not the top. Ah, next time then.