I think my absolute favorite sews are becoming hacks. Really, it´s getting in my system now and using great base patterns is making the hacking experience ultra gratifying. Not that the base patterns aren´t great as they are: it´s exactly because of that, because they fit wonderfully and are so well designed that they work so well also with some mods. A few weeks ago the new Eleena dress by Coffee and Thread was released (my tester version is here) and I couldn´t wait to give the pattern another go in a more relaxed and day to day look: meaning knit, right? I do love a good structured dress, but there´s no running away from the comfiness a knit dress gives.

The stripes + denim combo was something I´d seen on Boden a while ago and was dying to try. The stripes jersey was in my stash for a while now and the light denim was from some maternity trousers I had kept for upcycling. Now that I look at it more, it reminds me of "where´s Wally?", ha!
Let´s talk hacks: first I lowered the neckline by 1 cm all around, making the front curve more pronounced, so I could omit the back zipper. Another cm from the neckline was taken in account for the binding SA. The sleeves were also adjusted by slash and spread (or overlap in this case), removing about 2cm total ease from the sleeves head and adjusting the sleeve cap curve making it a little more straight. This made the sleeve fit perfectly regarding ease on the old armscye, but I should have adapted that as well, by rising it a bit, as it now sits beyond the shoulder point. No real harm done, she´ll grow and it will lay in place eventually.

To finish off the neckline I used binding that came with the fabric and was the worst finish I´ve ever done. It´s inconsistent in width all around but my serger hated it and when I went to my machine to try and correct it, it just made it worse, so I stopped fiddling with it and embraced imperfection. Ahh, liberating. Not really. I wanna rip that thing off and correct it asap. I also used the same binding for the cuffs; I kept the width of the sleeves and made the cuffs about 1,5cm shorter for the puffy look I love. Keep in mind that all these measurements I´m refering have to be adjusted depending on your fabric stretch, so always test first if it fits when it comes to bindings.

Of course, when you use stripes it´s mandatory you drive yourself crazy trying to match them at all seams. The flare line of the dress makes that chevron effect at the side seams where the stripes match. For the sleeves, well I tried. During cutting I realised they wouldn´t match perfectly because the stripes were to large and along the armscye curve they would go beyond their color match.  I also manipulated fabric a lot during the sewing itself, meaning I stretched it enough to make them match where I could but not too much that they wouldn´t match the essential notches to keep the fit right. Overall, I´m happy that the sleeves stripes follow along the dress main ones when the arms are down.

I prefered to keep the hem at the same stripe for visual purposes, so it´s not even but longer at the sides. Yep, people do crazy stuff for prettyness reasons, ha! If I had a large stripe at the bottom it could have worked with the original hem, but I prefered to match the stripes at top first. This way I ended up with my own unique hi-lo-hi-lo hem, ha!

Now, for some good stuff: the Eleena dress will be on sale for $7.00 (regular price $9.00) through March 7th, 11:59 EST. And there´s a giveaway too - two patterns of choice and one yard of Sara Jane fabric in the photo:

Thank you for having me Olga! Loved making this hack and, more importantly, my girl loves it too! And we had a blast shooting since she got me repeating silly jokes over and over again. For my portuguese girls, here´s her favourite:

"- Olá, como te chamas?

- Fu.

- Fu quê?

- Fumiga. E tu?

- Ota.

- Ota quê?

- Ota fumiga."

Skirts were never a big part of my wardrobe, mainly because in my adult years I couldn´t find any with small enough waist and also because I´m too cold during Winter and like to cover up everything, haha!

Fitting issues are transversal to all sizes, though I must agree it´s easier to make alterations by taking in some parts rather than adding. I get to skip most of the on paper alterations and adjust on my fabric pieces.

I had tried making gathered waist skirts before, but was never too thrilled about the results; if you go with a medium weight fabric it just adds so much to your hips it makes a puffed balloon effect no one desires, not even little-miss-no-waist-no-hips-no-butt here.

So, pleats were in order, but seriously, who has the patience to do all the calculations to get the right number of pleats around you, with the exact same width, gaah leave it to the professionals.

The Wedgwood skirt by Straight Stitch Designs brings you a simple box pleated skirt, with a back exposed zipper (or a side invisible one), two lenghts and some pockets with flaps I didn´t include, I´ll talk about it in a sec.

My first attempt for my testing skirt was with a grey cupro. And I have to talk about because you must be warned, ha! Cupro is like the devil in disguise for fabrics. It taunts you with its silky glossy look and you give in, passionately thinking you´ll make the most gorgeous flowy piece out of it. Never. It is in control and there´s not much you can do about it. Silk, chiffon, viscoses have nothing on this baby: it´s the most uncontrolable thing that changes shape even if you have it pinned, glued, scotch taped. It also wrinkles just by touch. For testing purposes I didn´t have enough time to master the beast, but i´ll get to it again and yes, it shall be a skirt! Regardless, it gave me an idea for the overall fit and for the adjustments I had to do.

This is a size 0 to which I removed 1" on each side seam to make it sit right at waistline. Because of that, my side pleats are far closer than the pattern predicts, so the pockets weren´t working: the flap was overlapping the front pleat and compromising its draping, so I ommited them. It´s in knee length, which for my 5´2" works a little over that point but it´s actually the lenght I prefer.

On the list is now an invisible side zipper version in a light summery fabric. I´m just happy to have added this to my skirt TNT´s at testing phase.
The Wedgwood is on sale now so if you´re looking for a flattering, simple skirt pattern I do recommend it!

This blog post contains affiliate links but all opinions are my own.

I have recently decided to close the shop regarding pattern testing; not that I mean to stop doing it, just that I love so many designers by now it would be impossible to keep testing for everything new that comes around.

Jilly Atlanta was my final adittion to the list, first because she reached to me in such a nice way I couldn´t say no and also because I couldn´t resist that ruffled detailing on the new Charlotte Blouse.

The Charlotte is a blouse or dress, long or short sleeve, with a very simple construction but with a detailed ruffled bib that gives it THE magic touch.

I used a very light and very small cotton lawn from Miss Matatabi (this blue one is sold out but the grey one is lovely too): only 50cm to work with for a size 5 and it was used to the very last bit. The ruffled detail is constructed with bias strips which I had to join together since well, there was not enough fabric, ha! I also decided to roll hem each of them to avoid tearing from wear, so it´s a little less wide than the original pattern. The sleeves are gathered at the hem to give it an extra puffed look but I skipped it because I like the short sleeves like this.

The cotton lawn is really light, almost like a voile, it´ll be the perfect blouse for Spring or Summer ahead. The jeans are the Small Fry skinny jeans from Titchy Threads and I really need to work on a post about them and all the Rowans I´ve done too; it´s been like sweatshirt factory around here, haha!

And as you may have noticed by the pictures, I´ve got a new add to my camera lenses pack: a 50mm f/1.8 that has been making me crazy learning about the manual potential on my camera. I usually used a tripod with my zoom lenses but with this one I have to exercise around to get the shot I want. These were shot at 1/125 and f/2.8 with ISO 800 and autofocus because, well I tried manual and I suck haha! Feel free to comment "crazy woman what are you doing!?" it´s my learning curve ok?