A Lady Renfrew

About a year ago, when I was still new to sewing with knits, I decided to adapt the Sewaholic Renfrew View  into a dress. I had several metres of a gorgeous soft russet red (viscose?) jersey that I’d bought for a Euro a metre when I lived in the Netherlands. Having made the Renfrew once before, in a turquoise ponte, I felt confident cutting into my russet jersey.

Unfortunately, everything from that point on went from bad to worse… The fabric had stretched really unevenly during pre-washing, it was really hard to find the grain (it was a ‘circular knit’ and had also twisted during pre-washing), and it had much more stretch than the stable ponte I had worked with before.

Although the finished dress was wearable, it stretched out during wear, so by the end of the day it was saggy (never, ever good!) Basically it was a disaster! I didn’t take any photos so I can’t show you, but at least I learnt a lot of lessons about sewing with knits, which helped me with the reincarnated version this year!

After the success of my last Lady Skater, I was keen to try the pattern again – and after seeing Lauren’s ‘Lady Renfrew‘ – mash up between the Lady Skater and Renfrew, I decided to give the dress version another go!

Adapting the pattern:
As I knew both the Renfrew and Lady Skater fit me fairly well across the chest and shoulders, I decided to stick with the Renfrew for the bodice, and then tapered to the waist to match the Lady Skater skirt. I then sewed up the dress using a 3/8″ seam allowance.

Having learnt from previous knit projects, I decided to stabilise the neckline with clear elastic (at a 1:1 ratio), as well as stabilising the shoulder seams and waist seam with clear elastic. This helps to stop the neckline stretching out as you wear it. It does mean you use a lot of elastic, but it’s worth it!

The end result is a very cosy dress:

Fabric: Misc. Sweatshirting from Minerva Crafts’ sale section at £3/ m (there’s definitely a high poly content, but it still feels nice!)
2.5m Fabric used for dress = £7.50Around 2m Clear elastic used = £2

Total cost: £9.50!

 

Making friends with my overlocker!

I was lucky enough to get an overlocker from my parents as a combined birthday and Christmas present last year. I’ve now sewn a few things on it, and I’m really starting to get more confident using it! It’s an Elna 664, which was recommended by my Mum’s local sewing machine dealer (Arcade Sewing Machines, in Huddersfied – I would absolutely recommend them if you are anywhere near, as what they don’t know about sewing machines isn’t worth knowing!)

Today I’ve got two projects to show you, both completed on my overlocker! (ALSO: Apologies about the bad photos – I didn’t have any time to take photos during daylight at the weekend, so you’ll have to make do with photos taken in bad artificial light!)

1. A quick fix…

Every so often, I see things in shops that have a massive ‘damaged’ label on. Usually it’s not something in my size, or where I like the item enough to buy and then fix, but I found this in the Monsoon sale for £15 – it’s a lovely viscose jersey and a size 12. After a quick look for the damage I realised that it was a really quick fix – a 4inch gap in the stitching in the side seam, a 5-minute fix with my overlocker!

Hole in seam…

Fixed! The black thread is the area I sewed up.

I bought this in the Boxing Day Sales, before the New Year, and before I had firmly decided on my RTW-diet, so I’m not cheating, don’t worry!!!

Monsoon dress

2. My first Lady Skater!After a really fun day with my sewing friends Leire and Claire last Sunday, I got home feeling very inspired to sew something, so I reached for the Lady Skater that I cut out on our last sewing day in November. This is my first time working with a Kitschy Coo pattern, and I can definitely say it won’t be my last! This was such a quick make (despite massively messing up the neckline …more below…) – I think it took around 4 hours, mostly on Sunday night, and despite the hiccup, I’m really happy with the result!

Construction was fairly straightforward, and I followed the pattern to the letter except for 3 adjustments:

• Removed 1 inch from the length of the bodice (this is a fairly standard adjustment for me)
• Cut the sleeves shorter as I didn’t have enough fabric for long sleeves.
• Took an extra half inch off from the inner arm seam, as it felt too loose.

The only thing I found difficult about this was getting the neck band right. Originally I didn’t think I had enough fabric to do the neckband, so decided I would finish the neckline another way, and continued to sew the dress up as per the instructions. But, when I got to nearly being finished, I then realised I did have enough fabric to cut the neck band, so put it on the dress… I think I must have stretched it unevenly, as in one small area, the stitches didn’t go through all the layers, leaving a little hole.

When I tried to go over this bit again (on my overlocker, as I was being lazy and didn’t want to baste it first – serves me right), I accidentally cut an extra 5mm off… while this might not matter with another seam, it was really obvious on the neckline, and meant that the neck band was waaay thinner on one side of the neckline than the other. I realised the only way to resolve this was to trim the rest of it down too, so now the front neck band is half the width it is at the back- I didn’t want to re-do the whole thing, and decided as long as it looked fairly deliberate and even, it would be ok! Of course, I’m not 100% happy with that, but I don’t think it’s too bad – it’s certainly wearable!

Neckband (next to my hand). Black on black is so hard to see!

Aside from basting on the clear elastic, and hemming, I did this all on my overlocker. The only other thing I would do on my standard machine next time is the neck band – I definitely plan to learn from this mistake! Next time I make this, I will also take off an extra half inch from the waistline as it’s still a little lower than I would like.

Details:

• Kitschy Coo Lady Skater pattern, size 5, mid length sleeve
• 1.5m Black floral print viscose jersey from Croft Mill (£8/m –I also seem to remember that postage was really expensive!

What’s on your sewing table at the moment?