Tuesday, July 21, 2015

Ethereal Dress by Figgy's Patterns

With this post I'm finally through the piles of clothes that happened as a result of a sudden sewing surge I had in the end of spring. Clothes were hanging and laying everywhere in my sewing room and it feels good to have gotten it all out and into the girls' closets.

Today I'm talking about the Ethereal dress by Figgy's Patterns.
I never meant to make them matching dresses. 
Let me tell you what happened....


But first let this post be a great example to why I usually insist on photographing the clothes before they get to wear it. After the first wash the clothes just loose that crispy look that they have when they are fresh from the sewing machine. I always prewash my new fabrics before washing them and that takes a tiny bit of the crispness but not too bad. The first wash after sewing though...that's another story.
The dress to the left (above photo) has been washed and ironed again. The one to the right has not been washed yet at this point. It's quite easy to see the difference between the two dresses. Oh well, whatever. I just felt the need to point it out, ha.


So why the matching dresses and why has one already been worn?
I have sewed quite a few Figgy's Patterns lately and little sister E has been a size 4/5 in all of them. So that was of course the size I made for her when I decided to make her an Ethereal Dress. I tried it on her before hemming to determine length (which I had added) and it was WAY too big. Too big to the point where it didn't work. SO that dress moved on to big sister W (who is 7 years old and pretty average height and weight though to the long and slim side) and the dress fit her perfect...except for length which I fixed by adding the contrast double folded cut on bias piece of fabric (can you tell I'm not quite sure what the correct technical term is, haha).
Little sister E was of course not happy with loosing a dress that was originally for her so I promised to make her a new one in a smaller size. Luckily it's a fast and fun sew.
And right around that time we got a note from preschool asking us to dress the kiddos in red, white and blue for the upcoming preschool graduation and DING...the rest is history.

The graduation dress was finished last minute and there was no time for photo shoots before graduation and that's how the washing before blogging disaster happened, hehe (too dramatic? okay okay!).


SO besides being WAY too big in sizing it's a great pattern. I did found one more mistake though (by checking the paper pattern - see previous post HERE if you want to read about the advantages of doing that). To me it seems that the front asymmetrical flounce is a bit too big. In this case you have to use your measuring tape, turn it sideways and measure the sewing line (not the outer edge) on both the bodice's and the flounce's neckline. They do not have the same shape since it is the curve of the flounce's neckline that creates the flowy shape and you can't just put them on top of each other to compare.
SO I measured and I measured and then I measured again and to me it looks like the flounce is a total of 2 cm too long (from one shoulder seam to the other). Then I measured the front armscye of the bodice and the flounce (which is sewed into the left armscye only) and here it seemed like the flounce's armscye was 1 cm too long.
A very quick fix to all this was to remove 1 cm (3/8") from both of the flounce's shoulder seams. Just like if you had to remove seam allowance from the shoulder seams. 
I hope I'm making sense without photos?!
When that was done it all went together perfectly.


For some unknown reason I decided to make the back closures different. Honestly I barely remember doing it, ha. I noticed it when I took the photos.
The left one with the button and slit is the suggestion from the pattern and the right one has an invisible zipper. I guess I'm just showing you options here...or I'm loosing my mind. Take your pick, ha.


The light blue fabric is tencel chambray from Robert Kaufman and the red dot flounce is made from Nani Iro Kokka Pocho. The neon orange dot flounce is quilting cotton from Michael Miller. I googled around and I think THIS is it even though it does not look like neon on the website at all(??).

And yeah I just had to make a collage of all those faces. Little sister always has to go one step further...it's sort of in her dna I think, ha.

Get your own Ethereal Dress pattern HERE.

Thank you!

6 comments:

  1. so lovely. I love the look of woven solids lately but I have the same thing about washing and ironing. Bella always want to wear it as soon as it comes of the sewing machine and that makes an unwashed photo session completely impossible. Love the dots with the solid.

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  2. Your 'sisters' shots are soooo cute.

    I have made Ethereal dress too, the one I made was also a light blue and had red spots. My daughter wasn't keen on it so hardly wears it :-( Is it annoying when that happens? I made it over a year ago and remember having a problem with the pattern but now I can't remember what it was. I wonder if it was the same flounce / size issues that you had.

    Anyway it didn't suit her very much, it seemed to just hang off her so I added a belt, which helped, a lot.

    I still really like the style, I may try another for my youngest daughter.

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  3. I love when you share your sewing methods Mie!!

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  4. Such beautiful dresses! Both fabrics work so perfectly with the chambray! And the complicity between those two girls is perfectly adorable! <3

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  5. Beautiful dresses and girls! that blue with the spots is a lovely combination!I also love that crisp finish of the dresses that are just out o the machine! but I think because of the the materials you used the washing give the dress a nice feeling, like that texture you get when linen is washed...well I could be totally wrong, but at least I found it nice :)

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  6. OK it is time to leave my closet and admit that I like matching outfits :) These dresses certainly have a little history already! Love the fabric combo, and the orange binding thingo (whatever the term is, I have no idea either) adds a cute little detail.

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