Thursday, December 15, 2016

Red and Green, Cotton Sateen


A couple of months ago, I was contacted by Organic Cotton Plus with an offer to try two yards of one of their fabrics.  What I was expecting to find on their site was a lot of solid colored fabrics.


Well, it turns out, there are also a lot of really lovely prints to be found there.  After perusing the website, I had it narrowed down to four choices.  My final decision had a lot to do with the fact that this ginkgo print cotton sateen is 110” wide!  I figured I could squeeze a dress out of two yards of fabric with that much width to help me along.


Once I had chosen the fabric, I decided that I wanted to make a shirtwaist dress, so I pulled out BurdaStyle 7179.  I have been wanting to try this design for some time, and I thought it would work nicely in a cotton sateen, provided that I could fit all the pieces on two yards of fabric.


To give myself another challenge, I decided that I wanted to graft the sleeves of Vogue 8193 on the BurdaStyle bodice - sleeves that eat up a massive amount of fabric.


Since I was not exactly sure how the combo would turn out, a muslin was in order.


That went quite well, so I cut into my cotton sateen.  This fabric is really, really lovely.  The red dye did bleed quite a bit on the first wash, and the silvery white ginkgo leaves picked up a bit of a rose hue from the water, but I actually like the way it turned out.


I used leftover cotton scraps as a sew-in interfacing.


And I even used up a few fusible interfacing scraps while working on my bound buttonholes.


I really never get tired of making these!


I have tried making friends with machine made buttonholes, but so far, we just don't trust one another.


So for now, I am going to stick with the old fashioned technique.  It has served me well, and I don't plan on abandoning it anytime soon.


And, of course, I had to sneak a bit of rayon seam binding in there for good measure.


About half way through this dress, I had a terrible feeling that I made a mistake pairing the fabric to the silhouette.  I stepped away from the project for a while, and spent my creative hours working on my knitting.


At some point, I got sick of looking at the partially completed pieces on my sewing table, and finally finished the darn thing.


Turns out, I love it!


I am also beginning to like these covered button kits with the mold.  In the past, I have had some bad luck - particularly with the tiny sizes.  This time around, I added a drop of glue (gasp!) to the back piece before sticking the two pieces together which seems to have worked very well.  I think that these buttons have a slightly smoother edge than the version with the teeth that snap into place.


I am not a complete convert yet, but I will be giving these another try at some point.


And as luck would have it, the perfect buckle was stashed away, which was the perfect finishing touch for this dress!



[Disclosure:  The fabric for this project was sent to me by Organic Cotton Plus, but the opinions written here are my own.]

12 comments:

  1. Oooh I have an obsession with gingkos! Thanks for the link. And I can't wait to see you model this. It's lovely.

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  2. I too love the fabric. But especially I love seeing the insides of your garments, the seam binding, the hem stitches - lovely - perfect.

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  3. REALLY pretty! I think the print & silhouette are perfect together & my goal is to finish things are well as you do :-)

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  4. Beautiful!! Your fabric and the pattern are a fantastic match!! Looking forward to seeing a picture of you wearing this fabu dress.

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  5. Thankyou for the photos of the inside of the dress - you inspire me to try to follow your example

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  6. Oh my goodness, your bound buttonholes are to die for! The fabric is lovely as well. I'm such a nerd about seeing the inside of people's creations. Maybe I should take the hint and start taking some photos of mine as well.

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  7. What a lovely silhouette! Beautiful inside as well, taking this as inspiration to make every detail count.

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  8. What a lovely dress. The fabric is out of sight!
    And thank you for giving me permission to use bound buttonholes without shame! I, too, haven't had any kind of luck using my machine buttonhole maker.

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  9. The gingko design is really reflected in your sleeve choice!!! Beautiful!!

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  10. Nice job. Beautiful dress. Those buttons and buttonholes are great! And it's such a lovely printed fabric.

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