Tasha Sews

Pattern Review: Simplicity 8221 I snapped up quite a few Mimi G patterns back last year during a Simplicity sale and Simplicity 8221 has been in my stash waiting for the right fabric.  The fabric used was a stretch linen look denim picked up from John Lewis during the sale for £7 per metre. It cut and sewed so beautifully, that I it did make me remember how easy it is to work with wovens sometimes. Especially after my last chiffon dress here ! I cut a size 16, and I think that it fits pretty well out of the envelope. You can see in the photo below that for next time it would be worth doing a swayback adjustment to get rid of the pooling. The line drawings of the pattern show that there there are fish eye darts in the back. However, there isn't a huge amount of shaping, which I think is why a tie belt has been included.  To tell you the truth, I fell out of love whilst making this dress as I thought that I had made it too small on the hips. I had the rig...

Pattern Review: McCall's 7084  This dress has been a slow burner and feels like it has taken me ages to finish. McCall's 7084  is my 4th #2018MakeNine garment.    One of the reasons this took so long to finish is that is that it has around 20 pieces and to top it off I decided to underline this dress. This lovely floral linen was a post-Christmas bargain from John Lewis in Oxford Street, London. It was initially priced around £18 per metre and I managed to snap up 2.5 metres reduced to £5.50 per metre. I underlined the dress with cotton lining from my stash. I didn't have enough blue lining so some patches are purple!  The linen was only 110cm wide and I didn't have enough fabric for the undercollar and placket facing. So there are some contrast blue parts on the dress. At first I wasn't convinced it would work but I had spent so long cutting out the pieces that I persevered and I quite like it now.  I knew that the princess...

Pattern Review: Simplicity 8084 Shirtdresses have been all the rage this past year and I have taken the plunge and jumped on the bandwagon. When Simplicity Patterns were on sale this summer I snapped up Mimi G's Shirtdress pattern .  I cut a size 14 for this dress. I added an inch to the length, but other than that I made no fit alternations. However I really struggled for the placket to lie correctly. Every time I stitched it, it ended up twisted and didn't sit right. In the end I recut the placket. The same thing happened, but not as badly. I wondered if it has something to do with the grain of the fabric? I also had to re-cut the collar to be larger as I found it ended up being too small.  I am glad that I persevered as I love the style of this dress. With the blouson effect and waist tie, you don't have to worry about the fit and you still get good waist definition. As this dress is unlined I french seamed the sides and used bias binding  to on the ...