Pattern review

Fabric shopping in Barcelona

I visited Barcelona in April, and spent some time on fabric shopping. I want to share addresses of the stores. Both of them are located at the same street, close to each other. There's another store on the opposite side of the street, but I bought nothing there.

So here they are:
1. RIBES & CASALS
Roger de Lluria 7
Barcelona
tel 93 301 23 45
www.ribescasals.com

2. LA CASA DEL RETALL TEIXITS
Roger de Lluria 9
tel 93 318 94 61
www.lacasadelretall.com

 Here are my finds: rayon knit in blue tones, for summer dress, very lightweight rayon, probably for lining, and multicolor rayon knit, for another dress.

2014 round up

Here is a little summary of 2014, the year I joined RTW fast and sew my clothes instead of buying them. I managed to sew 15 garments for myself, 9 of them are dresses. 10 projects are made in knits, which means that I conquered my fear of knits forever.
New techniques I learned:
- baby hems,
- hand rolled hem,
- coverstiching - I bought coverstitch, which was a splurge, because I already owned a serger, but it took my sewing to next level,
- setting sleeves flat,
- full bust adjustment (for my sister)

Sewing goals for 2015:
- sew work appropriate wardrobe - during 2014 I sew mostly casual wardrobe, now I need some more office clothes,
- sew more separates - including shirts,
- sew more Burda patterns - in 2014 I sew only 3 garments. Burda is consistent with sizing, and I have a lot of experience in adjusting patterns to fit me.
- sew some loungewear (tunics, robe),

Parisienne dress

That's my last sewing project this year - dress from Burda 08-2009 model 128, so called Parisienne dress. It's the second time I sew with this pattern, this time in ponte knit.
I made the same alterations as before. I added waist seam at the back to make fitting easier. I removed 1,5 cm from waist area, make narrower shoulders and shorten skirt. I did swayback adjustment. All seams were sewn with sewing machine and finished with serger, hems were simply turned down and coverstichted.

Holiday sewing - silk top

This year I planned my holiday sewing in advance. The first thing I sew is silk top, which was meant to be worn during office holiday party.

I had very little yardage of silk satin in deep teal colour (this thing was quite expensive, so I bought only 75 cm). It's been in my stash since January, and almost became one of "too good to use it" fabrics. But finally I dared to cut into this precious fabric.

I used  New Look 6895 which I sew last year. Due to very limited yardage I only managed to cut cap sleeves.

I cut size 8 at shoulders  and added 1.5 cm in side seams.

I put a lot of effort into this project. I made muslin (which I rarely do) before cut into the fabric. I did French seams. I learned new technique of hemming - so called baby hem (very neat finish indeed). But I'm somehow  disappointed with the results, because silk satin wrinkles madly! I'll probably wear it under the jacket, where wrinkles will not be visible.

Dress for my sister and first FBA

This is the third time I sew a garment using Butterick 5873. My sister really liked my wool dress, and asked me to sew the one for her.

For the first time I did full bust adjustment (FBA) for the pattern. After reading several tutorials, I managed to do it myself. It was a bit tricky to figure out how to do it on wrap dress. I cut the pattern and make alterations on the bodice, and then adjusted skirt. I added 5 cm on each side of the bodice It ended up with extra 5 cm at the waist, but it was exactly what I needed.

I'm very glad with results.

Corduroy dress

As I was preparing 2014 round up, I noticed that some garments did not featured on the blog. In order to keep the record I will try post them before year end.
So I'm starting with the dress I made for little Gosia, my friend's daughter. I used New Look 6061. I cut the smallest size, but it turned out to be too big, so I don't have photos on the model. The fabric is cotton corduroy with cute flower print.