sureau dress – deer and doe
i’m super excited about writing this – i have loved making this dress!
i first saw the sureau dress on google AGES ago, and bought the pattern maybe two months ago. i bought the fabric to make it with at the sewing for pleasure show at the NEC in birmingham in march, and since i finished those stupid blankets, i had the time this weekend to get some good sewing time in!
i struggled on picking fabric. i always do. i’m never sure if i should go for the cute quirky pattern, a safe plain fabric, or just pick little flowers and end up looking like a little old lady. i went for little old lady flowers in this light cotton.
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| i went for little flowers, and vintage-y looking buttons. |
i took this opportunity to use my carbon paper and tracing wheel. i bought the tracing wheel at the craft show too! i got the carbon paper from amazon, i think it was about £2.50 for a pack which i was quite happy with!
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| here goes nothing… |
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| i’m not sure how well they photographed, but here’s my carbon paper markings! i love this tracing wheel! |
my dressmaking experience is pretty much zero to nil, so i was dreading trying the gathers a bit. a lot. whatever. but honestly, they weren’t too bad! there’s gathers in the front, either side of the button placket, the skirt (front and back) and the sleeves.
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| here’s me doing the skirt gathers… |
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| some of the gathers either side of the placket along with my buttons. i really love these buttons, my boyfriend tells me that they look like something his grandma would have on her clothes. but i love his grandma, so i think that’s fine! |
i’d never inserted any sleeves either, so that was another hurdle to get over. not taking into account the fact i’d never put sleeves in before, they were gathered too, so i just tried to take my time. i might have youtubed it. my mom was trying to help me, but i think she was the reason i put it in wrong the first time because she was watching me! is parental sewing pressure a real thing?! i caught a huuuge part of the sleeve in the machine, it was so awful! however, some steady unpicking happened (i love that seam ripper!) and left the sleeves for the next day.
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| sleeve inserted properly second time round, with some gathers. |
i’m really happy with how nicely the seams are finished, i used a ‘special stitch’ on my machine, it’s pretty much blanket stitch. personally, i don’t like how zig zag stitch looks to tidy up seams and seeing as i don’t have an overlocker, this will have to do!
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| some of my finished seams/edges. i think this might be the facing. |
so here’s some pictures of the dress all done..!
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| crashing my parent’s bedroom for some classy mirror snaps.. |
as you can see, i changed the arms. i haven’t changed the pattern of anything before! i had made the full sleeves, as per the pattern, but i didn’t love them. because of the lack of shape, i felt like they made me really frumpy. so i just snipped them off! i obviously re-hemmed them too. i really like this little short sleeve that came from my chopping!
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my mom takes THE most unflattering photos in the world, which is why i have cropped my head off. the sleeves look wonky, but i think it’s shadow!
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| putting this one in, just for the comedy value. |
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| i love that the skirt is full, but not massive like a circle skirt tends to be. |
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on the hanger, back in my own room.
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| finished with one of my labels! |
overall, i had such a good time making this, i took my time (because i had too much alcohol the night before? never!) and it worked out nicer than i expected it too. it’s definitely the best fitting this i have made so far, and i’m planning on wearing it to work tomorrow!
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