Ench By Sew-36: Fiona, the Irish Laurel Dress

Dress creation brings out the romantic in me. When I looked ahead to my summer sewing, I thought if I could sew only one garment for the season, it would be a dress. Fiona, the Irish Laurel dress, satisfied my yearning to design and sew the perfect summer frock.

Hey let’s listen to the show! To do that you can either download the ‘cast from iTunes - Click on this link to iTunes  , 
*OR* listen directly on the web, by clicking on this link
* * *

This dress was a very satisfying project for my arty romantic style. 

In between sewing summer essentials - shorts and tees - I worked off and on to determine what design lines spoke to me about summer, mock up a miniature sloper pattern to test my ideas, draft a pattern from my sloper, and then finally to sew up Fiona, while summer was still on!

* Pensamientos Primeros - Thinking through my idea for this summer dress
     - Part 1 - Planning Fiona
        - Part 2 - Farewell to Summer Romancing Fiona, the Irish Laurel Dress  

*Technicos - Pattern Drafting and Kissing Zipper using a Prick Stitch

*Pensamientos Finales - Fiona's Design Lines have roots in my own history

Finians Rainbow was a modern American fairy tale. It expressed late 1960's dreams for racial harmony and folks coming together. Fred Astaire (Finian McLonigan) and Petula Clark(his daughter Sharon) added in the romance of America seen, and idealized, fresh from Irish eyes. The story of Finian's determination to plant himself a crop of Irish gold, intertwined with romance of countryside and a new happpily-ever-after love for Sharon draws me in as well today as it did when I was a kid who'd only recently arrived in a new place myself. Any wonder that the movie's costumes inspire my pattern work and sewing today?

Visit Me Encanta Coster/Enchanted by Sewing - my regular sewing blog for other summer sewing I enjoyed along the way... in between time spent bringing Fiona to life

Farewell to Summer - Romancing Fiona, the Irish Laurel Dress (Part 2/2 -Termindado!)

Fiona, the Irish Laurel Dress

Fiona is made from a yellow green Linen-Rayon blend, lined with Bemberg rayon.

This dress has a one piece front and one piece back.

It includes front bust darts, back shoulder darts and partial darts that open like tucks in the torso front and back. The bodice above the dart/tucks is quite fitted.

The kissing zipper is prick-stitched.

I started day dreaming about creating Fiona at the beginning of summer. Then  in Fiona, my Summery Irish Laurel Dress,
I got more serious about my romance with this dress. I began playing around with a small pattern replica, imagining how I might manipulate my sloper*.

Since then, my summer frock dreams came true. I drafted a pattern for my Irish Laurel Dress, and sewed her up too. I've worn this perfect summer frock several times and really enjoyed the feel and flow of the garment. I'm already looking forward to using and altering this pattern again.

I talk about creating Fiona in my September Enchanted by Sewing Audio Podcast** - Remember you can either download Enchanted by Sewing audio shows from iTunes OR you can just listen right on the web (while sewing perhaps?). Links for both will be in the show notes, as they always are.

(Listen to the Fiona Show right on the web by clicking on this link)

~ ~ ~

* Initial Blue Sky Plans for Fiona - http://meencantacoser.blogspot.com/2015/08/romancing-my-summery-irish-laurel-dress.html Playing with a small version of a sloper pattern was a great way to envision the actual pattern work.

** Stop by the shownotes for the Enchanted by Sewing Podcast and sign up to get an email abouut new monthly audio shows. Or subscribe in iTunes.  http://www.enchantedbysewing.blogspot.com/

Romancing my Summery Irish Laurel Dress- Pattern Blue Sky (Part 1)

It's fun looking back at what led to the creation of Fiona, my newly finished Irish Laurel dress. I'm going to talk about this new frock over the course of several blog postings, as I recall what led to the pattern draft, pattern choice, and spirit of the dress. I also plan to dedicate a podcast to Fiona. I'm not sure if I'll produce that 'cast as my August or September show. You can signup at http://enchantedBySewing.blogspot.com to get email notification when new podcasts are released.

I began work on Fiona using a quarter scale sloper pattern, which I traced from a sewing book. There are a lot of slopers on the web that I could have printed out as well.

 My sloper has a bust dart and fisheye front dart like this one.

I wanted Fiona to be empire waisted, but I didn't want to simply gather a high-waited skirt under the bust. 

Design Goals
1) Sleeveless
2) Empire waist
3) One-piece front (and back).
4) Very fitted bodice
5) Pattern with very simple lines
6)  A light, floating and easy feeling summery dress

It really helped working in quarter scale. 

a) Initially I cut apart the bodice below the bust, creating a second, separate torso piece. Then I cut another line at the waist.

b) Notice that I pinned in the bust dart (goal 4) and put some padding under it to give me the sense of a three-dimensional garment. That also shows where a skirt would attach to the stitching line, so I know how long to make the seam line for any pattern piece that might be separate would need to be. 

In this case, as you can see from the curved line I extended the pattern at this below-the-bust point, so that was not an issue. If I were cutting a separate skirt piece, it would be.

c) I then cut apart the skirt as though I were creating a flared skirt pattern. I blogged about making a flared skirt from a sloper shortly after I finished my "French Pattern Drafting" class with Lynda Maynard. This is the first chance I've had to actually make a flared skirt. Of course this flared skirt will not hang from the waist, but I figured it was the same idea.

d) After I taped up the flared skirt - by closing the waist dart and pulling the skirt apart to accommodate that - I graded down from just below the bust (where I cut the pattern apart) to the side seam of the skirt in the area of the full hip. That's the slightly curved line you see drawn in.

Later on, when I created the actual full-sized pattern based on my sloper. I didn't cut apart the bodice, though I did cut away the skirt at the natural waistline, reforming the full front by judicious taping and pattern paper insertion. I did cut several lines to accommodate dart movement however.

Another thought, if this were a really complex pattern, would be to use some kind of small dress form just to do the pattern work without the fit. I'm not sure if this quarter-size would fit a large doll, but it might. Or you could rework this mini-sloper to fit a large doll. Madeline Vionnet used to drape patterns on a fashion doll. 

If the doll represented a child, I'd need to pad it out to represent a more womanly figure. It would be fun to try - if life were only all about sewing!