Tasha Sews

Pattern Review: Vogue 9251 As the #makeyourstash challenge has been happening this May, I cut out a couple of long time stash fabrics to try some new patterns. The first one was Vogue 9251 . This dress ticks 2 boxes as not only is it a  #makeyourstash  dress, but also my 5th  #2018MakeNine  garment. The fabric was purchased at The Great British Sewing Bee Live, which took place in September at the Excel in London.  I was pretty restrained, and only picked up one piece of fabric - this floral polycotton priced at £5 for the whole lot. I was drawn to the floral print, but I hesitated when deciding what to make with it as the flowers are very directional. Whilst snooping my stash I thought that it would be perfect for a muslin for this woven wrap dress! Despite some niggles with the bodice (listed below), I really love the style of this garment. It is flattering for my pear shape, is easy to dress up and down and fits with so many of my other wardrob...

Pattern Review: New Look 6301 Welcome to the first make from my  #2018MakeNine challenge!  I wear a wrap dress at least once per week as part of my work wardrobe and knew that I wanted another one in the rotation.  I sewed this one up exactly the same as my previous version  here . A size 14 overall, with size 18 on the top of the bodice for modesty and I took 1" out of the centre back. I took 2" off the skirt length so it hit above the knee.  The fabric is an ITY knit that I bought in NYC, Brooklyn in Belmont Avenue during my holiday laast year. The fabric was $4 per yard and I bought 2! I knew as soon as I saw this print that it would be  a perfect work dress and version of  New Look 6301.  It washed and sewed up beautifully. I really don't have anything to add that I haven't covered in my previous reviews. However I will say that the #2018MakeNine challenge has really made me more reflective about my wardrobe needs. As someone...

Pattern Review: New Look 6301 I still have a couple of makes from 2017 that I haven't gotten round to posting. Mostly due to being busy and the bad light in the winter. This TNT pattern still hasn't gotten old for me! This version was made to fill a work wardrobe gap. The length is perfect to wear bare legged in the Summer or as you can see from the photo with tights and boots during the Winter. I made this dress back in October and it has been in constant rotation in my wardrobe. The ITY knit fabric was purchased from  Simply Fabrics  in Brixton, London. It was a only £3 per metre and a dream to sew with! For those of you that might not have caught my 3 other versions ( here , here and here ), I cut my typical size 14 for this dress. For the top of front bodice pieces (i.e. the cleavage) I cut the size 18 lines for extra coverage. I took around 1 inch from the top of the centre back.  Despite the fabulously sunny photos this dress...

Pattern Review: Simplicity 6301 As some of you may know I started a new job at the end of March which also happened to be the beginning of the organisation's peak event times. I haven't had too much time to sew, but we had a launch event and I decided last minute to make a dress for the occasion. I have made Simplicity 6301 twice before here and here , so I knew that this would be a quick make. The star of this version is the fabric. This is a border print fabric that I picked up during my holiday in New York City in mid May. We met up with some family during our stay and went for a mothers day brunch and after headed to Belmont Avenue for some fabric.  This ITY knit was a bargain at $4 per yard. It is actually a border print so it was a bit tricky to squeeze out all of the pattern pieces. I ended up having to cut the neck and arm bands out of the black border, but I think that it ended up being a nice detail. I was worried that the lack of fabric wou...

Pattern Review: New Look 6301 I am back with yet another wrap dress. This is my second iteration of New Look 6301 . I can't get enough of wrap dresses. They are so comfortable and easy to wear. This will be number 4 on my blog! Here are the links to dress 1 , dress 2 and dress 3 .  I don't have too much to add that I didn't blog about in my last wrap dress post . One thing that I did notice is that as this fabric has much more stretch I did find that the bodice is a tad larger than last time. However it is not noticeable with the busy print and still fits well.  I knew that I would definitely be rotating this in the work wardrobe so I only removed 3 inches off the skirt hemline this time. This will be a transitional dress so I am looking forward to pairing this with tights and a black cardigan in the Autumn months.  This fabric was purchased from  Karstadt in Rosenheim outside of Munich in Germany. I was visiting a friend over New...

Pattern Review: New Look 6301 I am addicted to floral prints! I would say a good 85% of my stash is made up of floral print fabrics. Following on from my last two garments (blogged here and here ) I decided to stick with the current  floral theme and sewed up this  New Look mock wrap dress .  My sewing group are currently running a Summer garment sew-a-long and I thought that a this floral fabric would fit the bill. I did sew it knowing that Autumn/Winter time this will be paired with a cardigan, tights and boots so I am really classing it as a transitional item :-) I cut a size 14 for this dress. For the top of front bodice pieces (i.e. the cleavage) I cut the size 18 lines as I knew that I would want a little extra coverage. This worked perfectly and means it is work appropriate without a camisole underneath - win!  I changed the construction process slightly for the bodice. I attached the front to the back at the shoulders first so t...

Pattern Review: Butterick 5454 This months theme was to try something new. I totally went against this and sewed up another wrap dress.  And no, your eyes are not deceiving you, I am indeed wearing a dress with sleeves! When I sewed up this version  here  one of my colleagues at work mentioned that it would look nice with sleeves, so I decided to give it a try.  This ITY knit from my stash was purchased back in June at Vogue Fabrics in Chicago. It was on sale for $2.99 per yard. It sewed up beautifully. I cut a 14 and made no changes except to add in a bit more boob coverage in the bodice. I am wearing a black strap top under this, but mostly for warmth as it has been pretty cold here in London.  I don't have too much else to say except that I LOVE this version. Who knows, maybe 2015 will be the year I sew up lots of sleeved dresses.  You can see my pattern review here.   I am still deciding what to sew for February. I h...

Pattern Review: Butterick 5454 At the beginning of September I went on holiday to Paris.  We were walking past the Galeries Lafayette where Diane von Furstenberg was paying homage to 40 years of the wrap dress. It was such an awesome window display, here is a very sunkissed photo that I snapped.  Suddenly it dawned on me that my current wardrobe does not contain a wrap dress. And I wanted one. Like right now. For this wrap dress I used Butterick 5454 , now OOP. I had made this pattern before ages ago in my pre-blogging days and knew that it would be perfect.  As you may have guessed, I am not a huge fan of dresses with sleeves, so I went for the flounce sleeved version, which is also a bit different and not hugely DVF in style. I cut a size 14 all over and made minimal changes My only alterations were to grade in a bit more boob coverage to the bodice pieces (aka a FBA) so I could wear this bad boy to work and I took 1.5" off the length, no reason reall...