After I finished making Dress ‘W’ with the Pocho nani IRO, I looked at my leftover fabric and thought I could squeeze out a simple tank top. I remembered that there was a tank dress in the Colourful Fabric Dress Book. I just traced out the two top pieces for the dress.
I don’t know why I don’t make more tank tops! It is the perfect thing to do with leftover fabric. I think you’re going to see a lot more of them from me. I wanted to try a couple finishing details with this. I made facing pieces for the armholes, rather than do bias binding. Sometimes I just prefer a more elegant invisible finish. I also tried doing a silk bias binding on the neckline, with the raw edges facing out. I have a box full of beautiful shades of vintage silk charmeuse. A bit fancy for everyday, but so incredibly beautiful. I’ve been wanting to use them, so this is a good start. It’s a simple way to add a little bling to a basic piece.
I also made a matching silk tank top to wear underneath. I wanted this to also have raw edges, so I sewed the seams on the outside to emphasize this. I need to perfect this pattern a bit more before I show it to you, but it’s a good start for a layering piece.
The day I took these photos it was WAY too hot to be wearing jeans. Even today, the first day of September is going to be a scorcher. I’m a bit confused about what I should make next – a sleeveless summery dress or something more autumn appropriate.
This nani IRO double gauze fabric was one of those bolts that arrived at the shop one morning and by the time the shop closed that night, it was all gone. I’ve ordered more, of course. These huge polka dots are just too cute!
I envisioned a dress made from this fabric with a little gathered sleeve, so I went back and pulled out my pattern for Dress ‘W’ from Stylish Dress book 3. Instead of cutting out a yoke, I just put the two front pattern pieces together and cut a single front bodice piece. The rest of the dress is pretty simple. For the pockets, I used a lovely tiny stars prints. I think it goes perfectly.
One detail that I’m really happy with is that if you look at the sleeves, the polka dot colours match on each side. Love!
This is the first dress that I’ve made of the double gauze, I’ve mostly made tops. The one thing I’ve noticed is that with the fabric being so soft, if I have anything heavy in my pocket (ie. my iPhone) then the side seams pulls down a bit. Nothing major, just something I’ll keep in mind for the future.
I had cut two metres of this fabric and after making the dress, there was a little bit left. I didn’t want any of it to go unused, so I was able to make something else with the leftovers. I’ll share that project with you tomorrow!
I had a question yesterday from Shelley about how I took this shot. I’ve been meaning to tell you that I recently got a remote control for my camera. I had a remote for my SLR camera years ago and it came in so handy.
Previously I had used the timer on my camera to take shots that I was in, like this or this. I found this to be a bit tricky because you need to have something in the frame to focus on. This is difficult, if you’re by yourself and shooting against a white wall. The other thing you can do is position yourself within arm’s reach of the camera. Also pretty limiting.
I got the remote about a month ago and you may have noticed that I’m changing up locations for my clothing photo shoots. In this photo, I used a tripod in my backyard. But very soon, you’ll see shots of me in High Park, on the West Toronto Rail Path, who knows where! Most of the time, I just find a bench, table, tree stump or other suitable object to put my camera on. Once in a while, I actually take my tripod along. At any rate, I’m getting much better natural lighting, more interesting shots and having way more fun creating these photographs.
The great thing about the remote is that there are two settings. The first setting has the camera taking a photo as soon as you press the button. This is great if you are trying to reduce shake on your camera, rather than pushing the camera’s button. (especially in low light situations) The second setting has a timer, giving you time to hide the remote and position yourself within the frame. With the remote, you can focus the camera from a far distance.
The remote came with a handy little pocket that slides onto my camera strap. The pocket is black and rather ugly, so you may be seeing a customized and cute remote pocket very soon!
The week before last, Andrew and I took some time off work and enjoyed a week staycation here in Toronto. We had decided that rather than travel somewhere, we would relax at home and enjoy the city. We had a great time checking out great new restaurants, many of which are walking distance from our house!
Here are some highlights from our week off:
- Blue Plate : We went here for both a dinner and a brunch and enjoyed both the food and the atmosphere.
- Zocalo : Awesome new place that opened up at Bloor & Symington. Great food and service.
- We watched ‘Scott Pilgrim’. Perfect Toronto-centric movie.
- June Harlow : Very new restaurant at Dupont and Edwin with wonderful food. Their dessert menu includes freshly baked chocolate chip cookies and homemade smores.
- Bloordale Pantry : We’ve been here multiple times now for their brunch. Delicious.
- Yasi’s : They sell Kawartha Dairy ice cream and they are half a block from our house. Danger.
- A visit to see Andrew’s brother, Mike at the organic farm he’s living/working on. We were sent home with a load of amazing produce.
Look at how awesome all the Amish Bars Quilts turned out! Everyone in the class got to the point where they had attached their binding to the front and were starting to work on hand stitching it to the back side. Yay! What a fun way to spend the week.
I’ll be finishing up my binding, adding a hand embroidered label and maybe doing a tiny bit more quilting before posting a final photo of my quilt.
We made lots of progress on Day 3 with our Amish Bars. We spent the day happily machine quilting. The excitement of the day was watching a tv film crew shooting a chase scene (stunt doubles included) right out front of the workroom, over and over again. For about 5 hours.
All the Amish Bars quilt tops were finished in the early part of day two. How wonderful to make such a simple quilt top. We spent the rest of the class working together to layer and baste each of the seven quilts. The great thing about group basting is that with all that practice, you get really good at the process.
With all our quilts ready to go, we attached walking feet to the sewing machines and started to machine quilt. Many of us got some preliminary ’stitch in the ditch’ quilting done. Today we’ll look at doing some additional quilting and cut out our binding fabric. I think this quilt will actually be finished tomorrow!
ALSO – the new Liberty of London fabric arrived!
This week is the Amish Bars Quilt day camp. Since I get to be a student in this day camp, I thought I’d document each day.
I changed up the fabric selections that I had posted a few weeks ago. I finally decided who the quilt was for and that helped to finalize it. Some friends recently had their second baby boy down in Austin, Texas. I’ve chosen to make them this quilt in an aqua blue/brown/cream palette.
We put together our quilt tops today. I can’t wait to show you all the wonderful fabric choices that everyone made. Tomorrow we’ll be getting the quilt back ready and basting the top, batting and backing fabric together. The goal is completed quilts for Friday!
There’s a shipment of Liberty of London fabrics in transit to the workroom. So, of course, I am up late looking at each of these six prints and wondering just what fun things they will become.
Mauvey, Kate Ada, Kitty Grace, Ebs, Douglas Stripe and Clemmie – we’re going to have so much fun together!
