When Jo used some leftover Liberty Print to create some undies for her friend, she turned her attention to making some for herself next. Take a look!

We hope you've heard the good news! We're now stocking Sew Over it patterns and kits! We thought we'd explore one of the kits in depth to give you a better look at what's in the box! Take a look....

Read about how Amy is staying lovely and cool in her fresh floral flora dress!

So, which dress bundle did you choose for your Eliza M Vintage project? With so many dress patterns and printed cotton combinations available, we're sure our customers had a great time choosing what to make. Our blogger Amanda certainly did. Read more about which supplies she selected and take a look at the outcome!

Take a look at the lovely dress Louise created with Tilda Cotton fabric and a By Hand London dress pattern. The results are wonderful!

What do you get when you cross a Tilly and the Buttons pattern with some Tilda fabric? A pretty awesome dress, actually.

Over to Louise....

My third White Tree Fabrics Make – The Tilly and the Buttons Francoise Dress

Hi there!  I am extremely happy and relieved to be able to show you my final version of the Tilly & the Buttons Francoise dress, made for the White Tree Fabrics blog team.  I have already shown you two previous versions, both essentially acting as toiles for this project. The first one was too small for my liking (even though it perhaps didn’t look small to anyone else) and the second one had something fishy going on at the back…something I thought might be improved by making a sway-back adjustment to the pattern.

For my third toile, I made a sway-back alteration of 1″, re-positioned the lower part of the back darts to line up better, reduced the centre back seam allowance at the very top by 1″, adjusted the facings to match and lengthened the dress by 2″.  It was not good.  The problem at the back seemed to have worsened, so I concluded that the sway back alteration needed increasing.  I made a fourth toile, this time increasing the sway back to 1.5″, and reducing the centre back seam only by 1/2″, and increasing the length of the dress by a further 2″.  It was AWFUL.  I threw away both the third and fourth toiles without taking photos.

I was feeling pretty depressed by this point.  I’ve been trying hard to find the motivation to sew as I mentioned in a previous blog post, and I felt like I had wasted effort and time (not to mention fabric!) trying to get this dress to work.  It enraged me.  This is a simple dress!  How simple could it get?  Why is it I can make a coat or a shirt but I can’t get a shift dress right?!

I decided to give it one last go, but this time I planned on keeping it simple.  I’ve been sewing for five years and I’ve never needed a sway-back alteration before, and it didn’t seem to be working now, so to hell with it.  I retraced the pattern, lengthened the dress by 4″ and took out 1/2″ at the centre back tapering to nothing.  And that’s all.  If there was going to be a bit of wrinkling over my bum then so be it, I was past caring!!!

Back when I first started planning this dress I wanted it to be a special Francoise.  I wanted it to be just that bit different.  I wanted it fully lined and I wanted the collar to also feature some lace.  I chose the Tilda fabric ‘Olivia Red’ for the main fabric, which I think is more pink in real life.  I chose to make the collar with contrasting plain cream cotton and an ivory lace overlay.  I chose a lovely ‘premium’ viscose lining which feels far superior to the polyester linings I have used in the past – much softer and smoother.

I made the dress with the 3/4 length sleeves, but for the lining I followed the directions for the sleeveless version.  The lining is attached at the neckline (like the facing would have been) and it is sewn into the zip but otherwise it hangs free.  The armholes of the lining are finished with bias strips.

The lining – sewn into the CB zip

For the lace collar, I cut two layers of collar pieces, a layer of interfacing and a layer of lace and basted the lace onto the upper (outer?) collar before sewing.  I think it works quite well although maybe a heavier lace would have stood out more – I don’t know whether understated is better or worse in this case!

Lace collar

Making this dress has made me realise I’m not a fan of raglan sleeves.  They make my shoulders seem too rounded, I prefer the definition of the seam on a regular armscye.  I want to see where my shoulder stops and my arms begin because otherwise it feels as though my shoulders are slopping halfway down my arm.  I also think regular sleeves are easier to fit, even though they are (slightly) harder to sew.  The raglan seams wrinkle a bit on this dress and it’s probably down to my apparent lack of ability to sew well but whatever, I JUST DON’T LIKE THEM OKAY?!

The Francoise Dress – front view

Fit-wise, this dress is thankfully better than its four precedents: loose enough fit to be comfortable, and a better length.  The full lining is lovely, and means I’ll be able to wear it all year round over tights etc.  The back still needs work, but I’m not a complete glutton for punishment – Francoise and I are done!  One thing I noticed when I looked at a lot of other Francoise dresses with collars was that the collar pieces at the centre back seemed to be very far apart.  I bore this in mind when altering the dress so although I took out 1/2″ per side of the centre back neckline, I kept the original length of the collar pieces, hoping they would meet closer together at the back.  In hindsight, obviously I should have actually measured it, because there is still a pretty large gap between collar ends.  What is that about?!

The Francoise Dress – back view – with creases from when I had been sitting down!

Luckily the main fit issues and the gap in the collar are both at the back, and I can’t see the back when I’m wearing the dress so I’m not too fussed.  I like the dress from the front and I know I’m being about 1000% more critical than most other people would be anyway..…so this dress is going to get worn.  All that effort has to be worth something, right?!  Besides, I love the fabric!

The Francoise Dress

Thank you to White Tree Fabrics who sent me the pattern, the Tilda fabric, the lining, the lace and the cotton – all beautifully packaged :-)

We're so pleased to bring you Emily's second project for WhiteTree fabrics. She's made the most perfect, cool Summer dress from Tilda Cotton print Light Sun. We can't think of a better fabric for Sunny days!

M is for Marie, M is for May.

One thing WhiteTree fabrics are proud of is our extensive selection of laces. Stretch, rigid, with a scalloped selvedge, without, floral, geometric, all different colours and designs.....we have over 700 designs to choose from. So when we saw that The Greart British Sewing Bee were going to be featuring a Pencil skirt challenge where the contestants had to work with lace, we reached out to our bloggers and challenged them to make a garment of their choice, the only rule being that that had to work with lace too.  Katie chose our corded Burnt Orange Lace. Take a look at the gorgeous results below.

GBSB Lace Challenge

When White Tree invited its blogger network to pick a lace fabric to celebrate the lace week (episode 5 of GBSB), it didn't take me long to pick my favourite. I went for this Burnt Orange corded lace because the colour is so beautiful and, being quite inexperienced in sewing lace, I thought a more rigid lace would be easier to deal with.

It's fabulous quality with a corded flower design set on a firm net background, though still with a bit of give for wearing comfort. The selvedge is edged in scallops, which I was determined to use as part of the design.

To show off the lace I picked a simple T-shirt pattern - the Salme pleated t-shirt. I did plan to add the pleats initially, but decided against it in the end as I wanted the lace pattern to be the star of the show. I made sure to line up the bodice and sleeve hems against the selvedge to be able to use the scallops for the edges.

I was going to underline the lace in a matching coloured cotton originally, but I like the idea of being able to wear different coloured camisoles underneath for different effects - I think it looks equally nice with dark and light colours underneath.

I wanted the seams to be as inconspicuous as possible, so after sewing the seams with a plain straight stitch I cut the seam allowances down to about 5mm and finished the raw edges together with a small zig zag (the fabric barely frays at all anyway). The neckline is simply turned and hemmed and of course there was no hemming required on the cuffs and bottom hem! This tee feels really luxurious yet easy to wear too. Be sure to tune in to episode 5 of the GBSB to see what one of the contestants did with this very same fabric!

One thing WhiteTree fabrics are proud of is our extensive selection of laces. Stretch, rigid, with a scalloped selvedge, without, floral, geometric, all different colours and designs.....we have over 700 designs to choose from. So when we saw that The Greart British Sewing Bee were going to be featuring a Pencil skirt challenge where the contestants had to work with lace, we reached out to our bloggers and challenged them to make a garment of their choice, the only rule being that that had to work with lace too.  Amy chose our beautiful Teal Leaf Lace. Take a look at the fabulous results below.

GBSB Lace Challenge

Hello Sewing Bee fans!

In advance of tonight's episode White Tree Fabrics gave me 2 metres of the lovely teal/aqua coloured leaf lace seen in the show and in the accompanying book, used on this gorgeous pencil skirt.

The lace has such a pretty scalloped selvedge I wanted to showcase that. So I thought if I made a strapless dress I could include a scalloped neckline and hem.

I used my tried and true Butterick 5351 as a starting point. This is a non-stretch lace and I found a teal rayon to use as a lining. I underlined the lace using tiny hand stitches and then changed the order of the construction to line the bodice and added fabric covered boning. I decided not to line the skirt and just underline it; the skirt pieces are just two gathered rectangles.

I don't personally think this is the type of lace to worry about pattern matching. The leaf design is quite free flowing so seam lines don't interrupt the print too badly. I bet I'd get marked down on the sewing bee though.

Before I started I washed the lace on the cool handwash setting of my washing machine, and because it's a cotton lace there was a little shrinking but no colour fading. There's not a massively clear difference between the right and wrong sides either. It was a really nice lace to work with.

So there you have it! A sweet new blue dress paired with a black patent belt and shoes.

The Great British Sewing Bee series 3 has seen the contestants facing some difficult tasks, but cast your mind back to the very first episode and the very first challenge - cotton trousers! One of our lovely bloggers Jo decided to tackle this challenge herself, with fantastic results. She's created the perfect Spring/Summer look. Over to Jo!

GBSB trousers

 

White tree fabrics sent me this gorgeous Liberty print called Wiltshire which is a cotton lawn ideal for lightweight summer trousers.

I saw a free pattern attached to Sew home & Style magazine in the March issue and it looked quite perfect. The whole magazine was great actually. My lovely neighbour bought me the February one for my birthday and I was lured into getting the following edition.

 

 

 

 

They don't have a waistband, I used bias binding on the top of mine. 

There is an invisible zip on the side so the front is smooth.

So get out to a newsagents/supermarket, grab the magazine and free pattern, dust off your machine and choose your favourite Liberty print.