Andy's 40, how about a new dress?

Today is Andy's 40th birthday, but right now he's in Texas for work so there's not much I can do to help him celebrate. Which is a bit sad but we'll make up for it later. He's bought himself a pair of cowboy boots; very fitting for turning 40 in Texas I think. I wish he was here. Happy 40th my lovely. We sure do love you.

We have one last week of school holidays coming up here. Charlie decided he wanted to make himself a new pencil case for school. With the pick of my stash he chose some Heather Ross Owl & Pussycat fabric and some Tammis Keefe reproduction with cats and birds.

He decided on the dimensions he wanted and I followed this tutorial to help him. He did every bit of cutting and sewing himself, even on the zip. I just instructed and pinned. Somehow I got the zip teeth pointing the wrong way in the final construction and Charlie was so amazingly patient and unpicked it all so we could re-do it. His calm persistence amazes me. At his age I probably would have thrown the project on the floor a few times and maybe never finished it.

It takes some effort to hold myself back from my desire to jump in there and do a lot of the sewing for him. He's really becoming quite confident with the machine and obviously, the more I let him try, the more he'll learn. I guess I'm learning as a teacher, too.

Maybe dear Charlie is also teaching me a few things because these days, I sew with far more patience. I cut this dress out in early December... and finished it just this morning. I've grabbed small moments here and there between kid-projects and everything else. It could wait. No hurry.

Yes, it's my third Miz Mozelle. In Spoonflower organic cotton knit that was part of my Spoonflower binge late last year. Charlie was my photographer.
As with each of these dresses, one of the most difficult things was choosing the one perfect button!

oops, spot the stray thread

I actually sewed most of the bias tape on by hand. Since the hand-quilting I did, I've appreciated more the meditative nature (and satisfying result) of hand stitching. I used some Japanese linen bias tape that I've had sitting around for a while. It's wider than I've used before so it became more of a feature.

I took the time to add pockets in the side seams. I love pockets. I used scraps of voile so they wouldn't add much bulk.

Since I eked this out of two yards I ended up with a much narrower belt than the pattern calls for, but I don't think it matters at all.

lots of summer swimming means Jane is more toned and tanned than she's been in some years!

As it has previously, the dress turned out a bit long for me. So I turned up a nice deep hem and finished on my (ridiculously indulgent purchase) coverstitch machine. I even bothered to change the top threads to match. See, patience!

I wish I could find a bit more saintly patience over wanting Andy to be done with his work trip and be home with us. I'm a bit worn out and battling some sore throat thing. Only two-and-a-bit more days though.

- Jane x

Miz Mozelle in Nani Iro knit

I'm going to need serious restraint to stop myself creating a vast wardrobe just from this one pattern.

It's the Jamie Christina Miz Mozelle again (my previous version here and here).

This dress is just so comfy and easy to wear. In knit fabric, it barely needs ironing (big points in my book!). The construction is quite simple, with just enough detail and embellishment to make it 'a bit spesh' and a satisfying sew. What's more, it calls for a single button, which is a great chance to go mad selecting the perfect one from the stash.

For my second go I lashed out on some lovely Nani Iro cotton knit, which is so soft and cosy, yet pretty and drapey enough for a dress.

really styling' it up for the camera, in bare feet next to the half-dead mint,
oh and now I see the spray bottle of pest oil in the background, noice

This time I cut the front skirt and bodice, and back skirt and bodice, as single pieces because I wanted to try a bit of shirring at the waist, instead of elastic in casing. I was thinking of going without a waist tie/belt. In fact I miscalculated fabric requirements a wee bit and didn't have enough to cut one as per the pattern piece. (This fabric is only 80cm wide and I ordered 3 metres.) However I needed to cut some fabric off the skirt length in the end and used that to make a thin belt. I did eight rows of shirring. It looks okay without the belt but I think it's probably better with it.

 I looked at all sorts of options for the bias binding but in the end just went with the same cream coloured store-bought I'd used on my first version. Sometimes simple is best.

photographic assistant

 I felt like this dress needed a little embellishment at the bottom. I opened out some more of the bias tape, ironed it flat and overlocked/serged it to the hem, facing up, on the right side. Then I turned the hem under and let the bias stick out at the bottom, and hemmed it up using a plain straight stitch. It didn't need a stretch stitch because of the stabilising effect of the bias tape. In fact one of the great things about this pattern is that even though it uses stretch fabric, most exposed stitching can be done with ordinary straight stitch because it is stabilised with bias tape, and the collar with interfacing.

I'm hoping this will just gently fray a little with washing, and look pretty rather than shabby. We shall see!
This fabric is called a 'double knit' and it literally is two thin layers which are somehow joined by those little diamond shaped bits. Is this what 'double knit' usually is? In any case as promised in the fabric description, it didn't do that annoying curling thing that can make knits frustrating. Fabric... so many mysteries.

- Jane x

Miz Mozelle Dress - the details

I found the post at Flossie Teacakes about her experiences making Miz Mozelle very useful. She pointed out that on her, the keyhole turned out too large so I made mine smaller right from the start.
For my fellow sewists, here are some details from my first version, in case anyone finds them useful in making their own.

1. If you have wide fabric, you can probably get away with considerably less than the pattern specifies. My fabric was 150cm wide and I easily cut the whole thing out of 2 metres, whereas I bought 2.7 metres (3 yards) as specified. Check out the pattern pieces before you buy your fabric. I could fit a skirt front or back, plus a bodice front or back, across one width of the fabric.

2. The bias tape requirements are quite small so it could be worth making your own if you fancy something pretty. I can imagine a plain navy dress with Liberty bias trim, for example. Mmmmm....

I find using a zipper foot helps me sew the bias tape on accurately

3. The pattern specifies single fold bias and double fold bias. Now - after a bit of Googling and confusion - I have discovered that double fold is really the same thing, just folded in half again. And all the pre-made bias I've ever seen is only single fold. So all you really need for this pattern is half inch single fold bias tape (or quarter inch double fold, essentially the same thing), and two metres or yards of it would be more than enough.

4. I found the attachment of the collar hard to visualise. The collar is sewn onto the right side of the bodice and then bias tape is used to cover the join and make the seam turn towards the inside. Here's a (dark) picture of how it ends up, which is rather clever and neat:

Using contrast-coloured bias tape led to difficulty with coordinating thread colours and I ended up with a bit of pink stitching going across the keyhole bias.

the button is a sweet pearlescent glass one I got in a bunch of old buttons from eBay

In this case it would have been preferable to stop just short of the keyhole bias and 'invisibly' hand-stitch the very ends of the collar bias down.

5. The pattern specifies 'cord' for the button loop but I made a narrow self-fabric tube, as you see above, which works quite well. It would probably look good made from the bias, too.

6. I cut a size 12 bodice and 14 skirt, according to my measurements. I think a straight 12 would have been fine.

7. The skirt is gathered slightly to join onto the bodice. The difference in size is so minimal however that I am thinking of cutting the top and bottom as one piece next time:

this is a 12 bodice and 14 skirt - the size difference would obviously be even less with 12/12

8. There is elastic at the waist, in a casing made with the seam allowance of the skirt/bodice join. I zigzagged the pieces together then overlocked/serged the s/a before sewing down, for a clean inside finish. 1/4 inch elastic was specified but I only had 1/2 inch, which was a squeeze, but it fit!

bodice/skirt seam at bottom, seam allowance serged, pressed upwards and sewed down to make casing for elastic

And for my next Miz Mozelle....
I think shirring at the waist would suit this pattern really well. If I cut the bodice and skirt pieces together there'd be no waist seam and I could shirr up and down as far as I wanted. That would probably work really well with a lawn or voile as well as jersey.

This pattern is so simple and sweet, and came together in one afternoon and evening - including the dreaded tracing off the pattern. The hardest part for me was finding a decent fabric!

this rather bright choice was 'the best I could find' at Spotlight and although nothing special, was still $15/m! 100% cotton, soft and a nice weight but the quality of the printing is horrible.

I still find shopping for knit fabrics quite confusing and frustrating. I prefer natural fibres (narrows the selection massively). I don't want 'baby' prints. Most of the plains I find look and feel, I don't know, cheap and nasty. Or too 'ordinary' plain for something like this dress. Maybe I just don't have the eye for them yet. Or perhaps I need to head back to the dyepot! Any tips on selection and sources?

- Jane x

My (first) Miz Mozelle

I say first because I'm sure there will be more.

I love this. I'm so excited to get pictures of it up, I will have to do a more detailed post on it later.
My natural tendency is to go on about how it's not the perfect fabric and point out the sewing mistakes and apologise for myself in general.
But look. It's a cute pink frock! The sun came out! How can I not be happy?

Clem is yelling 'huuuuug meeeee' because he wants to be picked up and I am pretending it is a photo opportunity to look like we're dancing on the cold, damp bricks

Pattern is Miz Mozelle Dress by Jamie Christina.

- Jane x