I received Gertie's new book (Gertie's Book for Better Sewing) in the mail a while ago now but wanted to wait until I'd had the chance to properly read it and make something before I followed up again.
There are tons of great projects in this book, some of my favourite are the the Portrait Blouse, Wiggle Dress (below left), Shirtdress and, the one I made recently, the Tiki dress (below right).
Picture source.
Here's my finished version of the Tiki Dress. I decided to go with two straps rather than the halter neck because there's no way I'd ever really actually wear a halter neck. I just love bras too much.
Overall I really like this book. It's definitely not a beginner book, the instructions can be a bit vague and you need to know the basic construction of how things fit together. There are lots of useful techniques in here but to be honest the only one I used on this dress was the lapped zipper, and even with that I had to do a bit of googling.
I think the range of patterns are the main drawcard. If you like vintage style and shapes then these patterns are for you!
With the Tiki dress, I did make a rough muslin but I probably should have spent a bit more time fitting it. The bust was gaping a bit and particularly at the sides is a bit loose.
I think this may be due to the shirred back bodice moving apart slightly at the top. I had some difficulty with the shirring at first, it just would not come out tight enough but then I did some more google research and discovered this great post on how to fix it. After tightening up this bolt it worked like a dream!
I discovered you can embed songs from Spotify (btw, do you have spotify? Do you like it?) which I'm going to try do with each post. I listen to so much music when sewing it's a good chance to spread the music love! First up, a song that's good for ze dancing:
There are tons of great projects in this book, some of my favourite are the the Portrait Blouse, Wiggle Dress (below left), Shirtdress and, the one I made recently, the Tiki dress (below right).
Picture source.
Here's my finished version of the Tiki Dress. I decided to go with two straps rather than the halter neck because there's no way I'd ever really actually wear a halter neck. I just love bras too much.
Overall I really like this book. It's definitely not a beginner book, the instructions can be a bit vague and you need to know the basic construction of how things fit together. There are lots of useful techniques in here but to be honest the only one I used on this dress was the lapped zipper, and even with that I had to do a bit of googling.
I think the range of patterns are the main drawcard. If you like vintage style and shapes then these patterns are for you!
With the Tiki dress, I did make a rough muslin but I probably should have spent a bit more time fitting it. The bust was gaping a bit and particularly at the sides is a bit loose.
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| Gappy bust |
I think this may be due to the shirred back bodice moving apart slightly at the top. I had some difficulty with the shirring at first, it just would not come out tight enough but then I did some more google research and discovered this great post on how to fix it. After tightening up this bolt it worked like a dream!
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| Sides not quite sitting flat. On me they stick out a bit more. |
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| The shirred back. My first time shirring! |
Finally, instead of sewing the straps in, I left them off until last so I could place them in the right place to hoik up my boobs. I attached them with two buttons at each join. It worked pretty well, although I wore it out last night for the first time and I did have to put some safety stitches through the straps to my bra to make sure it held up! Especially when dancing was expected!
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| the inside of shirred back and the button-joined straps. |
Inspir
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