Pineapple completed

Having, finally, decided on a design for my pineapple dress I went to cut it out - and made a discovery about the fabric.

It naturally curled when folded over

The selvedge was very tightly woven, to the extent that it actually puckered. Fortunately, just snipping the selvedge at fairly close intervals fixed the problem and caused it to lay flat.

I wanted to match the pattern on the skirt centre back seam, as I felt that such a bold design would look terrible if it didn't align. I cut one piece, and traced round various fruits and flowers in the seam allowance.

The tracing is just visible here

Then I flipped the pattern over, and used these tracings to place it correctly on the fabric for the other piece. I'm pretty pleased with the way it worked out.

Good match!

The bodice back slopes down the centre seam, so pattern matching isn't possible. Instead, I cut the pieces out so that pattern flows across it. Similarly I made sure that obvious elements such as the pineapples and oranges are at the same height round the skirt. I took particular care placing the bodice front pattern piece - I didn't want a pair of pineapples in 'interesting' positions!

It dawned on me that in all the examples I had seen, the contrast element of the bodice has a top edge which is pretty much straight across, whereas mine curves up at the outer edges. I experimented with a mock-up, and decided that I preferred my version. Such are the advantages of making your own clothes! I completely forgot to take any progress shots, but it was built up on an interfaced inner layer. The two pieces for the outer layer were sewn in place along the top edge, then the excess fabric was pleated and stitched down. Finally the inner and outer layers were overlocked together along the lower outside edge. The insert is just hand sewn in place, and I am considering making at least one more in a different fabric.

The completed bodice

The skirt is quite full, and there's a lot to hem. Fortunately I remembered that on a day trip to a meeting in London last autumn I had found time to pop into MacCulloch and Wallis (because of course I did!) and bought, among other things, these.

I had wanted these for ages

The bottom item is a kakehari or 'third hand'. The clamp is screwed onto something solid, such as a table, the kakehari is attached to this, and then it holds the fabric in place so you can tension it with one hand and sew with the other.

In action, albeit the wrong way round for most people

Because I am left-handed, I sewed with my left hand and held the fabric taut with my right. It made the job much easier, and quicker.

And here is the finished dress, complete with matching belt.

The 'fruits' of my labour (sorry not sorry)

#sewnshownseated

Naturally, a dress with large pineapples on it need to be accessorised with a pair of pineapple earrings! These are from a shop called Digger, in Edinburgh. It first opened when I used to live up there, forty-plus years ago, and I always pop in when I'm back. I was delighted to spot the earrings on one trip, as I knew that they would be perfect with this dress - if I ever made it!

Digger has always looked like this

The stashometer meanwhile remains in the red, but slightly less than before.

Better, but still not good

I need to get sewing with some of those fabrics on the left column if I'm going to get anywhere close to stash-neutral.

Pineapple progress

64 months is nowhere close to the longest time that a dress length has sat in my stash (that dubious honour goes to the anemone dress), but this project has frequently felt like The Dress That Didn’t Want To Be Made. My first plan for this fabric never felt quite right. Then I found some plain cotton which was perfect for adding some kind of contrast section, but I got distracted by another project and it was sidelined again. Not even the fact that I already had a zip of the exact length and colour required - a dressmaking miracle - could coax me into action.

Lack of materials was not the problem

But then @blossomsandwich announced that she is running her SewFruity challenge again this year, and this prompted me to finally get on with things.

The challenge

Since I last abandoned this project in 2023, I had found this image online, and decided that I wanted to make something similar, with the plain fabric on the bust.

Inspiration 2.0

However, it was impossible to find any suitable patterns. There are a few modern and repro designs for shelf dresses, but none of them have sleeves. I have Simplicity 1155 (now out of print), but not only is it sleeveless, to me it seems greatly changed from the original design. To add insult to injury, Laura Mae of Lilacs & Lace had tracked down the original pattern, and discovered that it did have a short-sleeved option!

So many questions

The whole thing was in danger of being shelved (pun intended) yet again, when I found this image.

Pierre Balmain, 1955

Here the shaped, plain, section is far more part of the overall dress shape than on the shelf dresses. It is also something which could be achieved from my original plan of using a bodice made from my Butterick 5748/Simplicity 3662 mash-up. I made a toile from some of the leftovers from my 2020 scrubs making (I've still got lots left!), without the neckline shaping on the bodice front, and set to work.

The shoulders needed flattening a little.

With the original neckline marked in yellow

Once I was happy with the fit, I put it on, and drew on the neckline I wanted. Unfortunately, black pen lines on blue fabric didn't show up well enough to trace them onto the tissue pieces. So I machine sewed over the lines with white thread. This provided a better contrast, and also a slight ridge which was easy to follow when tracing.

The new neckline

The pattern piece for the contrast section is a striking shape.

From Balmain to Batman?

I now have all my pattern pieces drawn and have started cutting out a dress. I don’t know whether I'll get it completed in time to submit it for the challenge on 30 June but at least it's, finally, on the way to being made.

Whoops

Yes, again.

"At the Sign of the Three Squirrels" - Goslings Bank *

At least it gives me a chance to use this photograph I took last time I was in London. (And yes, we have reached the stage where I take photos of squirrel-related things when I see them, because I know they will at some point be useful for this blog!)

This is what I should have been working on.

Exhibit A

And this is what I am working on.

Exhibit B

The two are actually related. When I am making a bodice toile, I always struggle to get the length right. What seems fine initially can change completely once a skirt is attached. To get round this problem with the bodice of the pineapple dress, I decided to use a skirt which I had acquired in a box of sewing stuff bought at an auction. It appeared to be part made - two panels of batik fabric sewn together at the sides and hemmed, with what I'm guessing was a very haphazard channel for a drawstring at the top but no drawstring. I had unpicked the top, closed up the misaligned drawstring holes with tape, pressed under the top edge to a uniform length, and got no further.

Drawstring holes (I assume) from right side and wrong side

It has been folded up in my workroom ever since, until I had the idea of using it as a 'mock skirt' by pleating it roughly to size and basting it in place.

Attached to the bodice mock-up

It worked very well for checking the bodice, but you can guess what happened - it looked so good that I immediately wanted to make it up as a dress. To speed things up, I decided to use the bodice pattern I had just drafted but with the neckline of Simplicity 3662. Unfortunately, despite having lots of plain blue cotton in various shades, none of them really worked with the skirt fabric. So it was back to the fabric shop to look at yet more plain blues. While I was there, I spotted a roll labelled "original vintage cotton". The staff couldn’t tell my anything about it, but the fact that it is only 90cm/36" wide, has a proper woven selvedge instead of a modern fluffy one, and also has some discoloration along said selvedge makes me think that it is indeed vintage deadstock. Either way, the colours blend perfectly with the skirt.

Such neat selvedges!

So now I have not one but two dresses on the go, and more fabric.

Another 1.6m

* - Goslings Bank was a very old bank on Fleet Street, which eventually became part of Barclays. While geese might seem more appropriate for the sign, squirrels were chosen for their thrifty habit of storing nuts for the winter. Sadly all of this history did not protect the branch from the onslaught of online banking, and Barclays closed the branch in May this year. I wonder what has become of the sign?

I bought some fabric!

I've been trying very hard not to buy any 'new' fabric this year (vintage or other second-hand fabric is acceptable), and have mostly succeeded. The only yardage I have bought was for a specific project, and has been made up. Unfortunately, I can't claim that this was down to iron-willed restraint - I just don't allow myself to go into fabric shops!

No!

I have even created what I call the 'Stash Shop' - images of fabrics in my stash, alongside possible pattern choices. These have been printed out and pinned to a noticeboard in my workroom. I find this approach less restrictive than my old MakeNine/UseNine attempts, but when I'm thinking about a new project it acts as a useful reminder that I have plenty of choice already without going out and buying anything.

Part of the Stash Shop

My next project from the Stash Shop is to finally use a length of cotton which has featured several times on this blog, but has never got as far as being used. According to the invoice I found folded inside, it was bought in February 2020. After a lot of thought, I had settled on making Butterick 5556, but was never really happy with this choice so nothing happened.

Not entirely what I wanted

Looking at it again, I decided that I wanted something with a fitted bodice, but a wider neckline and much shorter sleeves. After considering and rejecting various patterns I have made already, I decided that Butterick 5748 was the best match - but it needed more shoulder coverage.

Closer, but still not right

I had recently bought Simplicity 3662, and decided that the grown-on sleeves were exactly what I want for this dress.

Getting there

Yes, I could have just used 3662, but I would have had to redraft it to fit me, which seemed silly when I already had a very similar bodice pattern which fits perfectly. Then I remembered that Tasha of Tasha Could Make That had a video on merging patterns like these two - the link is here, and the video is excellent.

I started with the back piece, as this was easier. The two fitted together perfectly, but there was one issue. 5748 is cut on the straight grain, but 3662 is not.

Note the grainline on 3662

I assume that there's a good reason for this, presumably to do with fit. Tasha mentioned in her video that she always matches the grain, so I decided that the simplest solution was to mark the grainline on my new piece to match 3662.

The front pieces are more complex, but again matched well. Even the bust darts were almost the same size - note the word 'almost'!

The two fronts

I used the neckline of 3662 but made it higher at the front, for reasons which will become apparent later in the making process, and started on a toile. This was when I discovered that the front side seam was shorter than the back. Luckily I was able to fix the problem by reducing the bust dart to, ooh, about the size of 3662's dart!

In line with my ongoing sewing goals, I want to do something a bit more complicated than just make up a mash-up dress in this cotton, and this is where the purchase comes in. I wanted some plain fabric in a toning colour, but was expecting to have to concoct it myself using white cotton and fabric paint. But to my amazement, when I went to the fabric shop to buy paint, I found a cotton poplin in a very similar colour to the background of the printed cotton (the brown stippling over the top makes it look darker), and a similar weight to boot. Half a metre was actually cheaper than a jar of fabric paint which was a less good match - it would have been silly not to buy some!

I could hardly believe my luck

Half a metre in will hopefully lead to far more out

The next stage is drafting the extra details for the dress.