A new 'Grace'

Some things are slow burners.

Exactly five years ago next week I finished making a Wardrobe By Me Grace dress. As I wrote at the time, I wasn't totally enamoured of the end result. It was nowhere near Dress of Frump standard (my benchmark/nadir for dressmaking failures), but it certainly wasn't my new favourite dress, either.

To be fair, I did describe it at the time as a "good basic dress", and over time it has become one of my go-to dresses. The drawstring waist means that it's always comfortable - and a doddle to iron, as well. It always looks smart, and can be dressed up or down. And it has pockets. In short, it's had a lot of wear over five years, and while it still looks perfectly presentable, I decided that it was time to make another one.

I suspect that part of the design's allure is its late-1970s vibe. The band collar, shoulder yoke, and lack of darts or waist fitting - these are all details regularly found on my beloved 1979 Style patterns. So when, while documenting some more of the Stash Shop, I found a length of cotton which I had bought simply because the print was so utterly 1970s . . . well, it was clearly a match made in heaven.

1970s details, meet 1970s fabric

Happily, I had just the right amount.

The layout did take careful planning

There isn't a lot to write about the construction, except to say that I was glad that I'd noted the first time that all the work is in the bodice, as it seemed to take forever to complete. I reinforced the pocket edges again, this time using selvedge from the fabric. I also lengthened the skirt back at the centre, which made it easier to get the hem level.

One thing I really like about this pattern is that it has proper sleeves with cuffs, a detail which is vanishing rare these days. To my delight and astonishment, I found the perfect buttons in my button tin.

Right colour, size and number - it's a miracle!

And here is the finished dress. I was a little concerned that the cotton poplin might hang more stiffly than the viscose I used previously, but it is fine.

With pockets!

One thing which has changed since I last made this dress is that I now take seated photographs. So here is Grace, seated.

#SewnShownSeated

I may have had my doubts about my first Grace, but I have none about this one; it is undoubtedly going to join its predecessor in the 'heavy rotation' category in my wardrobe. Plus, it's a few more metres out of the stash.

Another 3.5m gone

Making Grace - part 3, finished (!) and pattern hacks

I finally have a completed dress! Most of the work turned out to be in the bodice, so once I'd made and attached the sleeves, the rest of it was fairly straightforward. I couldn't find any buttons for the cuffs which even remotely matched the greyish green of the fabric, so I went with mother of pearl instead. My hand-stitched buttonholes are getting much neater these days, which I'm chuffed about.

Cuff, button and buttonhole

On the skirt, my first pattern hack concerned the slant pockets. The instructions were to make the pocket, then sew the smaller pocket bag to the skirt along the opening. This would involve sewing two pieces of soft, drapey fabric together on a bias, so was sure to stretch - and then stretch some more in use. So I decided to add a stay tape along the pocket opening. Before sewing the pocket pieces together I laid a piece of cotton tape very slightly over the seam line for attaching the pocket to the skirt, basted it in place along that edge, and machine stitched it to the pocket piece along the other edge of the tape.

The pocket made up - the tape is machined on the left side, basted on the right

Then when I attached the pocket to the skirt, I sewed through the tape and both layers of fabric.

The pocket sewn in place, and the basting removed

Finally I top-stitched along the edge.

The completed pocket*

The instructions suggest that once the drawstring has been fed through the casing, the ends should be knotted to stop it from coming out. Instead I sewed it in place at the centre back through all the layers of the bodice and casing.

The final step was the hem, and this was another hack. The pattern only allows for a 1cm / ⅜" hem. It also uses the same pattern piece for the skirt front and back. Now if, like me, you have a sway back/big bottom and, also like me, prefer your hem to be the same distance off the ground all round, then you'll know that you need to make your skirt longer at the back than the front. And such a narrow hem doesn't leave a lot of room for manoeuvre in that department. For this reason I had added 10cm / 2" to the skirt length when I cut the pieces out. I ended up with a hem which was 1½" deep at the front and ⅜" deep at the back, so was very glad that I'd added the extra.

And here is the finished dress. It's OK, but sadly I can't say that I love it. It's not as bad as the Dress of Frump™, but then nothing is. Somehow it just looks a bit, to use a good Scots word, 'bumphly' - sort of rumpled and untidy.

Finished at last

I think that part of the problem is that the instuctions say to avoid gathering the tops of the pockets, so the front ends up with a lot of fabric bunched up at the centre.

Bumphle in the middle!

If I make the pattern up again (and I may well do so, it's a good basic dress) I think that I would make the skirt front narrower, and possibly shorten the sleeves a smidgeon. Certainly I do like the bodice. When I was taking the photographs I got distracted by a blackbird singing on the roof of the house, and the resulting picture of me looking up shows the collar and neckline off well.

The bodice is fine

Also on the plus side, this has used up a large chunk of the length of printed viscose that I bought in January. I have actually used half as much fabric as I've bought this year! This may not be something to be proud of, but it's better than nothing.

The stashometer - still not good, but getting better

* - The eagle-eyed will have noticed that the birds on the fabric in the three pictures of the pocket have flown round a bit! Somehow I managed to take two shots of one side of the skirt front, and one shot of the other; so for the sake of consistency I flipped the second photograph.

Making Grace - part 2, doing things differently

Aargh! Another week gone by, and still nothing to show for it. Even though the reality is that there are a lot of calls on my time right now, leaving me with very little opportunity to sew, it still feels as though the Grace dress is taking forever to make.

As I explained in my first post (which feels like months ago!), this is my first time using an indie pattern, and some of the techniques are different from what I'm used to. The bodice shape, with its yoke and stand collar, is similar to Butterick 5997, and it's interesting to see how the constructions compare.

First of all, the yoke. The method used by the Butterick pattern is the method I have always used, since I made this blouse, ahem, 40 years ago.

Style 2580, 1979

In this method the outer yoke piece is sewn to the blouse fronts and back, then the inner piece is sewn to the fonts, the seam allowance at the back is pressed under, and the inner yoke is slip-stitched into place along the back seam.

On the Grace pattern however all the yoke seams are machine sewn, with the bodice front and back rolled up into a 'parcel' of the two yoke pieces, and then pulled through the neck. I must admit that I was so dubious about this that I actually had to pin it together and do a trial run before I was convinced that a) I was doing it right and b) it would work!

Yes it looks odd - but it works

The other thing which is different so far is the collar. Usually I would expect to sew the collar front and back together, turn it right side out, and then try to wrangle it to the neckine of the bodice. Instead the pattern instructs you to sew the outer collar piece to the bodice, and then attach the inner piece. Genius - so much easier to handle! The cuffs are made the same way.

The outer collar attached to the bodice

Anyone who has read the comments on last week's post will already know that I wonder who this pattern is aimed at. The instructions run to 17 A4 pages (so I have to have my laptop to hand when I sew, as I can't bring myself to use that much paper), and are far more detailed than those on a Big-4 pattern. This would suggest that the intended audience is fairly new to sewing. However the ⅜" seam allowance, while making curved seams like the collar and sleeves a doddle, doesn't allow much wiggle room for the novice seamstress. But this minor query aside, there's no denying that it is fascinating to be introduced to new construction methods.

Making Grace - part 1, the pattern

This is a whole new area for me, making something from an indie, PDF pattern. I now sew mainly from my collection of vintage patterns and, if I do want to make something more contemporary, I'm fortunate (although my bank manager might use another word) to live within easy walking distance of a fabric shop which stocks all the main pattern brands. However when the Sew Over 50 Challenge was launched, almost all of the eligible patterns were from independents - the choice from the Big-4 was woefully small - so I decided it was time to spread my sewing wings a little.

This proved to be easier said than done. I have never really thought of myself as having a particular 'style', but turns out that I do, and most of the patterns suggested for the challenge are not it! I settled on the Grace Dress from Wardrobe By Me. It has got quite a 1970s vibe going, which ties in with my growing (and slightly worrying) love of 1970s Style patterns. The description on the website recommended using a fabric with a lot of drape, and I realized that the stash fabric which I bought on a whim in January, a soft printed viscose, would be perfect - win!

Close-up of the fabric, more below

Purchasing and downloading the pattern was easy. As this was my first time working with a PDF pattern, I really appreciated the 2" and 5cm squares which Wardrobe By Me include on the first page so that you can check that you are printing to the correct size. I was using the A4 option, which prints onto 36 sheets of paper, put together in a six by six formation. Each sheet is clearly numbered, and the instructions show how they should be arranged. The instructions state that there is no need to trim the sheets, but the print came out with a ⅛" margin on each edge. I'm not sure if this was due to me or the pattern, but I had to snip the corners off each sheet in order to see overlap properly. My rows of six sheets were a bit uneven - but that may just be that I'm overly fussy. It did feel like a lot of work, but perhaps it gets quicker the more of these patterns you do. In the end I simplified matters by not sticking all 36 sheets together: instead I made up three separate sections, based on the pattern pieces.

The pattern comes in 13 sizes, but fortunately there are instructions on how to remove any sizes you don't need. I printed it out with two sizes, and made a bodice toile to find out how much length I needed to take out. I also wanted to check neckline after Butterick top debacle. From the toile I realised that I only needed smaller size, but the two sizes had the same line style, so at times it was hard to tell which one to follow to cut the smaller size. (All the other sizes had different line styles, it was just unfortunate that the two I used were the same.)

Showing the line styles for the two sizes

Unless I missed it, the pattern has no cutting layout, so I was glad that drafting my own patterns has given me the experience of working this out efficiently. Also, it took me a while to find the dimensions of the neck tie and waist drawstring in the instructions; they were tucked away in the sizing chart.

The pocket bag pieces didn’t quite match, so I redrafted one of them to match the other. I must admit that this has made me slightly worried about how well the other pieces will fit together, but time (and sewing) will tell.

As well as taking up the bodice, I also lengthened skirt by 2". The only other change I have made was to change the direction of cutting the collar and cuffs to across grain rather than along it. My fabric has a design of birds sitting on branches, and it would look odd if it were used sideways.

The fabric, apologies for the creases!

The background of the fabric has more of a green tinge than is apparent in the photographs, and birds in the print are a strange mix. A few of them are recognizable species, others - I have no idea!

Some of the birds in detail

Everything is cut out now, so the next stage is sewing.