Tiramisu: A Sweet Success!

One of the best gifts I received this Mother's Day was the gift of time. My husband entertained the boys so I could have some daylight sewing hours (a rare treat!). I used the time to sew up my Cake Patterns Tiramisu dress.

I LOVE this dress. LOVE!!!!

I used a really lovely teal blue Sophia double knit from fabric.com (which is still available! I may need to buy some more colors...).

It is drapey and has a beautiful weight to it, and is very soft. It also seems to have excellent recovery. And it twirls! (Well, as well as it can with me in 5" heels... but you get the idea.)

The instructions were straightforward-- clear and concise with some nice illustrations. Even more awesome though was the online support through Cake Patterns' Web site. Stephanie (the designer) hosted a Tiramisu sew-along when the pattern was released and the posts for that were so helpful! It takes you from cutting through construction to finishing with helpful photographs, tips, and videos. I especially appreciated Day 5 and all of the information offered about checking fit. It was a HUGE help and very effective. To wit:

No gaping!!! I had done a 1" FBA following Cake Patterns' instructions. But to get it to fit well, I ended up cutting about 1" from the bottom of the bodice, moving the center notch points out by 1" on either side, and then doing 7/8" side seams through the midriff band. (ETA: I started with the size 35D bodice and a 32.5 skirt.)

In the sew-along, Stephanie suggested that decorative stitching can add a bit of fun to understitching. I gave it a try and love this little detail. Only I know it is there, but it makes me happy.

And check out those pockets! I was afraid the pockets would drag or just make my hips look ginormous. But they are awesome.

I also braved the dreaded coverstitch machine and used it to finish the hem.

I love my Tiramisu. I love how it fits, how it feels, and how I feel in it: fabulous!!!

Feeling dressy...

Last night, I finally took some time to cut out a couple dress patterns I've been wanting to make.

First up is the Cake Patterns Tiramisu knit dress:



I traced this pattern back in February, but needed to step away from it for a bit (my angst at putting together the .pdf pattern was just too great!). I'm using a beautiful teal double knit I purchased from fabric.com last year. I'm excited to finally have it all cut out now and to give it a go!











Also on the docket is Vogue 1224:

For this one, I am using a beautiful border print jersey I purchased from Gorgeous Fabrics last summer (sadly no longer available).










They both seem to be relatively simple designs, so I am hopeful that I'll have a new dress (or two!) soon.

Not-so-instant Gratification

The last few weeks have pretty much been a bust, craft-wise. At the end of January, I got a virus that put me out for nearly two weeks. Ugh! And since then, I'm still dragging and lacking motivation. So I've been spending my time trolling the blog-o-sphere looking for inspiration to kick-start the creative juices. I finally found it in the form of a dress: Cake Patterns Tiramisu.
Ooo... after seeing it made up in different fabrics on widely varying body types, I decided I needed this dress. Need, I tell you! And I did NOT want to have to wait for the pattern to ship from Australia... who knows how long that would take? No. I wanted it NOW. And, lo! I found that the pattern is available as a pdf (for less $$$ too!) and I snatched it up.

Ugh.

An hour of printing (to say nothing of the time I spent fighting with my printer to attempt to scale the pattern pages to the correct size).

About 120 pieces of paper.

Two rolls of scotch tape.

2.5 hours of cutting and taping.

40 minutes to trace (having to dodge the cars and trucks the boys were racing on the hallway floor where I was tracing may have affected the timing here)

I still haven't managed to cut any fabric.

But, through all of this I have definitely learned something: pdf clothing patterns are definitely NOT for me. Next time I shall go ahead and spend the extra couple of dollars (well worth it!) and wait for the printed pattern.