La Sartora

Back in August a friend of mine sent a “save the date” email for her 50th birthday party in October. Anticipating a glam event, as my friend enjoys a bit of glam, I thought, “Excellent! Finally a reason to make that Laurel in lace that’s been hanging around the sewing queue for a while, because I’ve not had a reason to sew it”. Unfortunately, when we received the official invitation, a week before the party, I found out it was to be an Australian themed costume party. Sigh.  So, here’s the story of the lace Laurel, the dress with no place to go (yet). I made my first Laurel back in February. I was pretty happy with the fit, which gave me the headspace to deal with sewing with lace and polyester double georgette underlining for the first time. I cut out the underlining first, marking the darts. I then sewed a narrow hem on the front and back pieces, attempting to use my narrow hem foot. The trouble with me and the narrow hem foot is that I only use it every so often, so every time I …

The Style Arc Pearl top was one of their freebies from a few months ago. It caught my eye as something a bit different, even though it’s not something I’d normally wear. The fabric is a viscose jersey I purchased at Tessuti a year or so ago. The colour reminds me of Dijon mustard. It has a good drape for this top. This is a not too demanding sew, but there were a few tricky bits:
 There is a bit of fabric origami going on there with the drapey pocket. Putting it together is not too difficult though. Just follow the directions literally, and try not to overthink it. The most difficult bit is getting a nice corner in the middle of the top. That took a bit of doing. I had another case of twisting knits doing the hem on this. I guess hemming on the bias was the culprit. The front hem was ok, maybe because it was in two pieces. The back hem though: that twisted quite a bit and took a few goes to get right. I ignored my sewing mantra “To avoid sewing regret, make an FBA” because I was just…