By Hand London Charlie Dress

A couple of months back Simply Sewing offered a free pattern for a lovely summer dress. I was immediately smitten with the slightly 70's vibe and a close resemblance to one of my favourite green Top Shop dresses circa the early noughties.

I was even happier when I realised the 'Charlie Dress' was a new release from the awesome girls at By Hand London.

Favourite Top Shop RTW from the 2000's

The free pattern came as a two-part piece (bodice pattern and instruction in issue 12 and then instruction for the skirt section and final finish with issue 13).

I decided the Charlie Dress should be made from a patterned gem from the 50% off Liberty Sale purchase in January called Curly Whirly. I started construction of the princess seamed bodice with great enthusiasm and even traced the pattern. I know, get me!

Unfortunately, as sometimes these things go, I didn't get a chance to sew the whole bodice together in one session and it sat in the UFO pile for a quite a while. The next time I had the inclination or energy to continue I realised my notches were not that easy to see and ended up sewing the individual bodice sections together wrong about 4 times.

I finally sewed the bodice together and measured out the quarter circle skirt using the By Hand London circle skirt calculator on their website. I finished the hem with some blue bias-binding I had in my stash.

The bodice had to be adjusted quite a bit to fit me and I am not 100% happy with the princess seam curves - more work needed here if I make another one. I will also probably move the straps further apart to be more in line with a regular bra strap position. I think I will also add some cute patch pockets too as in-seam pockets are not possible due to the quarter circle skirt construction.

Over all I am pretty happy with the dress. I am yet to see whether it will get much wear as the weather is still not quite warm enough for a cotton summer dress.
I will keep you posted if the sun comes out!

Pattern: By Hand London Charlie Dress = Free in Simply Sewing magazine over two volumes = £10

Fabric: Two metres of Liberty Tana Lawn 50% off online sale = £22.00

Gutterman Thread: Blue from stash

Total = £32.00

Recreate at Ray Stitch

Two weekends ago I attended an afternoon workshop at Ray Stitch in Islington to recreate a garment. You select a favourite piece of clothing (I took two) and the very knowledgable Alice Prier demonstrates how to construct a pattern from it.

I chose to take a dress that I bought from Uniqlo S/S 2013. It is a very predictable LBD and I took it along because it fits perfectly and has pockets. What more does a girl need?
I also took a lovely late 1950's vintage dress that has some unique detailing on the skirt section.
I thought about creating a bit of a mash-up of the perfect fitting bodice (Uniqlo dress) with the interesting details of the 1950's dress!

The tools and equipment you need for this technique are:

Pattern paper / any large paper
Pencil
Rubber
French Curve
Pins
A2 or larger foam board (the sort you get in an art shop)

Alice advised us to start with the bodice of the garment and find the centre line. So far so good. Luckily my dress was symmetrical - things get a little more complex for asymmetrical garments. Draw a straight line on the pattern paper (with the foam board underneath), fold the dress in half lengthways and pin down the dress with the fold on the straight edge you have drawn on the paper.

You can now draw around the outside edge of the dress. If you have any internal seams use a pin to follow the line of the seam and when you remove the garment, draw a pencil line using the pin-holes as a guide. It is best to use the French curve to create smooth lines if the pin-holes look a bit wonky.

Continue for another few hours. Mark the pattern pieces as you go with cutting instructions and grain line information. Once you have marked out all your pieces you can then add your preferred seam allowance. I used the standard 1.5 cm. Alice advised us to add a little extra on side seams to give you more flexibility on the final fitting.

Overall it was a very informative and fun afternoon. Classes run regularly at Ray Stitch if you want to try it out yourself.
I now just need to find some time to make a new dress with my self-drafted pattern!