MMM - Day 11 and a new Tiramisu

Day 11 of Me-Made-May was a reasonably warm day in Nashville and I was able to take this dress out of my suitcase finally!

This is my second Tiramisu, my first (blogged here) was reasonable successful when first made, but over time has stretched and stretched and now is not looking so great. Still comfy as heck but I don't really leave the house in it too much now.  The fabric has a lot of looseness to it and when it stretches, it doesn't bounce back. Aaah, the things we learn from fabric choice.

My second version I made a little differently. I cut a size 35 bodice but with an inch off the bottom. I also took just over an inch off the depth of the waistband (since I am a shortie). This fixed some of the fit issues I had on the first version. Instead of following the pattern marking, I draped the bodice on to get the bodice to sit right. I also ended up running in the side seams by about 1.5"and now, finally, I am happy with the fit.

Also as before I omitted the pockets, whilst I love pockets, I didn't want to add them, stick my hands in them and stretch the dress out of shape.

My best improvement this time was my choice of fabric, a high quality cotton rayon with a small amount of spandex.  I think the spandex has really helped the fabric to keep its shape rather than stretching indefinitely.

With these changes I am now really happy with this pattern, I love the swooshy skirt and the flattering neckline, plus the dress can easily be super casual or dressed up.

I hope you are all enjoying Me-Made-May!

Tiramisu

Everyone seems to be making the Tiramisu at the moment and I am no exception!

I signed up for a course with the wondrous designer herself, Steph, in Brisbane last weekend. I have some stretch sewing experience, but it is mostly lycra from early days of making skating dresses.  I figured I wasn't going to pass up on getting some tips from the best of the best, on top of that, it seems there are few chances to get together with other sewers in Brisbane.

Steph was great, she started by eyeballing me to gauge my body type and size and without measuring she was spot on.  I cut a high bust 35 and bust of size 35D.  She also showed me a great tip to mark my tissue pattern pieces with the stripes noting which colours go where so that I would not have matching issues later.



Construction wise, this went together well, although this fabric was a pain to sew as it is so stretchy.  Reducing the downward pressure on my foot helped, but perhaps a walking foot (which I don't have) would have helped more?

We had some fit issues at the bust, one problem was that the neck strips were cut the other way around on the fabric, and the fabric stretches differently in each direction.  Lengthways = stretchy, widthways = MEGA-stretchy!  This caused a bit of a pulling issue at the wrapover but also an excess of fabric under the bust. We ended up cutting about an inch of the bottom of the front bodice to fix the excess fabric issues. I think this also stemmed from me being a shorty, so this is my petite adjustment too!



You can see in the above there are still a couple of issues in the centre, but nothing that I am too concerned about.  The dress is too comfortable to care!!!



It passes the obligatory movement test!! No flashing here :)



I also reduced the width of the waistband as probably partly due to the fabric and partly due to my lack of height, it was just way too wide.  I took a pair of stripes out, about an inch.



I really like this dress and it is so comfortable, I don't even feel like I can wear it to work as I am sure I am not supposed to be that comfy at work, it just seems wrong, it's like wearing PJs!!

I had no issues with the pattern at all and learnt so much during this make and it was such a pleasure to meet the lovely Steph. My only issue was my fabric choice, whilst is is a lovely drapey jersey, it seems to have too much drape and is super stretchy and even now after a wear of a few hours, it is still getting longer and I may have to re-hem it.

My tip: think through your fabric choice, think hard, the skirt is full and therefore heavy; drape, weight and stretch really need to be kept in mind when picking fabric.

Look out for two more wintery versions soon!