An Indie Love Affair outfit submission for Sew Indie Month

Rigel Bomber

Dorianne Dress

Rigel Bomber by Papercut Patterns

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 Soma Patterns Dorianne Dress

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A seriously blue outfit.  I absolutely love the two together.  This is my submission for AnIndieLoveAffair contest for Sew Indie Month.

The collar of the Dorianne Dress really fits with the neckline of the Rigel Bomber.  I think of everything I have made in May, the Rigel Bomber is going to be my most worn item.  In the ten days it has existed as a garment, I have worn it five times.  The Dorianne dress on the other hands needs some love and work.  More on that in a bit.

Side View of the dress and jacket.  Looking out of my veranda.  We're on the 24th floor, so the view of Sao Paulo is pretty impressive.  Actually- here is is.  Not too shabby eh?  We also are about 1.5 miles from an airport (luckily not in the flight path) so we watch the planes fly between the skyscrapers.

Here is the outfit with the jacket unzipped. 

Here is the Dorianne Dress from the front.  I used a wool suiting from Mood Fabrics.  It's no longer on the website.  I guess it sold out.  Honestly, I don't think it was the right fabric for the dress.  The Dorianne is made out of two rectangles and then pleated and cut to make a dress.  It's a really interesting pattern, but it's really for someone who knows what they are doing.  The instructions were limited, and currently the shoulders are hand basted as I don't think they're right.  Interesting construction fact- I used the selvedge of the fabric for the top edge so a hem wouldn't show.  I also used black iron-on interfacing instead of fabric to make the slit.  This required some heavy thinking pre-construction to make sure the interfacing was on the side not showing. I tacked down the pleats on the side front as they were gaping weirdly.

Here is the back, and why I think this was the wrong fabric. It also might just be that I need to open up the lower pleats on the bottom, so then the 'waist' is higher and the blousing effect goes away.  The back bodice area is definitely too long.  You can also see closer my attempts at the shoulder seam.  Suggestions?   The dress is super comfortable, and I love the color.  I really would like to be able to make it work!  I also hemmed it a couple of inches too short- you should never cut a hem when tired and frustrated.

Moving on... The Rigel Jacket by Papercut patterns.  Let me count the ways I love this jacket.  It is super cute, comfortable and was fairly easy to construct.  The main fabric is a mystery sateen from my favorite fabric store in Bras fabric district in Sao Paulo.  Originally, I had bought a black and silver houndstooth satinish raincoating fabric for this when I was on TDY in Yekaterinburg.  I was super excited about it, and had the pattern all cut out.  All I needed was the knit ribbing.  So I went to Bras and saw this fabric, but didn't buy it at the time.  Because who needs two bomber jackets, right?  Well... the houndstooth fabric was so off grain and then within the print not square, that it was utterly useless.

So I put the pattern aside and moved on.  But I thought and thought about this fabric, and wondered, was it still there?  (As a side note, Bras is where Brazilian clothes manufacturers buy their fabric, so the selection changes really quickly.)  Earlier this month, I decided that I was going to take my last trip to Bras before we moved, and luckily this fabric was still there.  I snapped up three meters at $5/m.  Then spent $10 on a meter of the knit ribbing as it was sold by the kilo and that was the minimum I could buy.

 The pattern is unlined, but it's cold currently and I really didn't want to have to finish the seams, so I decided to line it with silk jersey, from Mood Fabrics, as it matched well and I had it lying around. I cut all the piece for the lining except the facing.  I think it worked out really well.  It's super comfy.

Alex was helping move my mannequin around.

Here are some closeups of the details.  I think I did pretty well on the welt pocket.  They get easier each time I try them.

 If I make this again, the only thing I would do would be to raise the neckline five centimeters because most of my tops are pretty high cut.

 Final thoughts.  An extra picture with my little helper.  My other son Conor has been my kind photographer- he's been paid in Fifa 2014 World Cup stickers.