Basic Bodice Design Series: Sew Much Ado

Well, folks...

It is our last 

guest post!

We are so excited to welcome Abby from Sew Much Ado. Her blog that has a little bit of everything- her fabulous Wednesday linky party and lots fun tutorials:

How about this gorgeous Valentine's Day Wreath?

I need one of these!

She makes amazing women's clothes:

and adorable clothes for little ones!

We are thrilled to have her posting for us today!

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Hi iCandy readers! I'm Abby and I blog over at Sew Much Ado, where I love to share tutorials and patterns. Hasn't this Basic Bodice series been fun? I've been following along since the beginning and am excited to be the final guest today! I hope you've been enjoying using all your new skills - and that you have room for one more!

Today I'm going to teach you how to take a basic bodice and alter the pattern to add pintucks. I love pintucks because they're so sweet and simple, but still give the perfect amount of detail to a dress.

Ready to get started?

Materials:

basic bodice pattern - front, back, and sleeves (if applicable)

fabric

ruler, scissors and pen

disappearing ink pen

skirt portion of dress and back closure supplies (zipper/buttons, etc)

Directions:

Assemble your basic bodice pattern pieces. I used a bodice and sleeve pattern that I drafted for this dress for Lola, my 8 month old.

From your fabric, cut out 4 back bodice pieces (2 will be for the lining), one bodice front along the fold (will be for the lining), and 2 sleeves.

Next we'll alter the bodice front pattern piece to allow room for the pintucks. Use a ruler and draw 2 vertical lines at equal increments (I spaced mine 3/8" apart) from the center fold line. This will result in 5 pintucks (two on each side of the fold and one along the fold line). You of course can adjust this to make more or less pintucks.

Cut along each vertical line. To make pintucks that are 1/8" wide, space each strip 1/4" from the next strip or pattern piece (the spaces should always be twice as wide as you'd like your pintucks to be). At the center, the strip will only need to be 1/8" away from the fold. If you are making an even number of pintucks, you can align the outermost strip right along the fold and then there won't be a "middle" pintuck.

Cut out the bodice front piece, following the curve from one strip to the next along the neckline.

To mark where each pintuck will go, use a disappearing ink pen and ruler to mark down the center of each space between strips, and along the center fold (if the fold is pressed you can use that as your mark).

Repeat these marks onto the other side of the bodice front.

Press along one marked line. Stitch 1/8" from pressed edge.

Press along an adjacent marked line, and stitch 1/8" from pressed edge.

Repeat pressing and stitching along remaining marked lines. Press all pintucks in desired direction (if you made an even number of pintucks you may want to press each half towards the nearest side seam).

Your bodice front and lining will now be the same size!

You can now stitch the shoulder seams of the front to the back (of the main fabric and lining) and then stitch the main fabric and lining together at the neckline.

Continue to attach the sleeves onto the bodice as directed by the pattern...

And attach the skirt and back closure!

That's it! Now that you've learned this technique, have fun adding pintucks to any pattern you'd like!

Thanks for having me, Jen and Autie!

Regular Programming Has Been Interrupted

Hello friends,

Our normal Monday and Tuesday posting won't be happening this week...

Autie's cute baby Scarlet was hospitalized for most of last week and is still there being monitored.
Hopefully she will be able to come home soon.

She got hit with a really really bad case of RSV and has been on oxygen and an IV.  Poor little thing.

We will return back to normal with our last Basic Bodice Design Series guest post on Thursday.

Then we have something really exciting coming up.... stay tuned!

(tutorial and pattern) Her Favorite Sweater

 For Christmas, Emily got a purple sweater that she just LOVES. She would probably wear it every day if it was clean.  

And I am terrible at keeping up with the laundry so I thought I would duplicate 

it in knit so she had other options.

I let her look at my stash and pick out the fabrics she wanted.  I did give suggestions... :)

She loves this cute print, and I thought it would be super fun to do in this style.

 Had some of this cute textured white knit left...

This was the rest of the fabric I had used on her maxi dress. It is two layers/reversible fabric and perfect on a cooler day.

Aaron really wanted in on the photo shoot so I had to throw this one in.  I used my new 50 mm f/1.8 lens! Love it!  Just have to keep practicing with it.

This is a super easy project and great do do assembly-line style if you want to make multiples.

Here is a size 6 pattern.  It would fit a size 5 too.  

I probably would make it one inch longer if I made it again.. fyi.

Thanks for tuning in!

Want to make one?

Basic Bodice Design Series: you & mie

Hello there!

Today we have another awesome guest posting in our

You are in for a special treat today.  

Cherie, from you & mie is amazingly talented!  

And she has such great taste.

Here are some of my favorite tutorials she has written:

So cute, right?

I can't believe she recreated that little jacket so perfectly.  And you are going to be so excited when you see her tutorial for today!

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Hello iCandy fans! I'm Cherie from you & mie and I'm really excited to be here with you today! When Jen contacted me to be a part of this great series, I seriously thought it was the most brilliant idea. If you have a great bodice pattern and some ideas for mixing it up, you can pretty much make anything!

And now that we're getting close to the end of the series and you're all pros at altering bodice patterns ( ;) right?), I've got something fun for you.

A reversible coat!

It's going to take a bit of pattern altering, of course, but I'll walk you through it and it'll be pretty simple!

And the finished product will be a sweet and practical coat for your little one!  I used 2 lightweight fabrics (nani iro double gauze and linen) to make a spring coat since I know our weather will be warming up soon.

You'll need:
- 2 fabrics (yardage will depend on size you're making)
- 4 buttons (or as many as you desire, just be sure they are the same size and you have enough for both sides of the coat)
- interfacing (optional)
- bodice pattern
- sleeve pattern (or draft your own)
- tracing paper
- ruler

I started out with Made by Rae's Geranium Dress pattern for my bodice because it's the pattern I've been using for dresses recently.  I went up one size because this is outerwear and I want it to fit over clothes, so instead of a 2T (which my daughter is), I cut out the 3T size bodice pattern.

The original pattern has the front bodice piece cut on the fold and a button placket in the back, but we want our button placket in the front and will cut our back piece on the fold.  So, the first step is to cut the extra off the back bodice.  Place the front bodice pattern on top of the back bodice pattern lining up the bottom of the armhole and bodice.  Mark the fold line onto the back pattern and cut on the line.

Depending on your bodice pattern, you may want to lower the bottom of the armhole.  I trimmed off a bit starting from half an inch down.

On your tracing paper, line up the straight edge of your back pattern piece with the edge of your paper and trace the shoulder seam and armhole.  I raised the neckline so it hit about an inch higher at the fold line.

From the bottom of the armhole, use a ruler to make an A-line shape for your coat.  You can make it whatever length you want.  The bottom hemline is slightly curved.

For the front pattern piece, you'll want to take another piece of tracing paper and tape it so it hangs over the straight edge of the back coat pattern by 1.5 inches (1/2 an inch for seam allowance and another 1 inch for the button placket).  Place the front bodice pattern to top so that the bottom of the armhole and the straight edge lines up with the back piece.  Trace the shoulder seam and armhole of the bodice pattern.  I brought the neckline up by about 1/2 an inch.

Remove the bodice pattern and trace the side seam and bottom hemline from the back pattern piece.  Make sense?

Here's what my pattern pieces looked like.

You'll also need to draft a sleeve, collar and pocket pattern.  For the sleeve, I actually used one that I already had.  To make sure it'd fit, I cut a muslin of the sleeve piece and after I sewed the front and back pieces together of the coat, I checked to see if it would fit in the armhole, then adjusted the pattern as necessary.  If you don't have a pattern piece for a sleeve, you can find many tutorials for drafting your own with a simple web search.

For the collar, I used this tutorial by Vanessa of LBG Studio.  And for the pocket, I took a piece of paper, folded it in half and drew the basic shape that I wanted.  Be sure to add seam allowance!

From Fabric A, you'll need:
- 2 front pieces
- 1 back piece (cut on the fold)
- 1 collar piece
- 2 sleeves
- 4 pockets

And from Fabric B, you'll need the exact same thing!

Now we get to the sewing part!

*If you are using super thin or flimsy fabric, you may want to fuse interfacing to one or both of the collar pieces to add more structure.  I did not.*

Place your collar pieces down (1 from Fabric A and 1 from Fabric B) with right sides together.  Pin and sew the outer edge.  Clip rounded edges to reduce bulk when you flip the collar right side out.

Flip right side out and press flat.  Top stitch around the outer edge, if desired.

Place two pocket pieces together (right sides together) and pin.  Sew around the edge, leaving a 1 inch opening.  I like to sew along the opening as well because it helps flip the seam allowance in when you turn the pocket right side out.

Flip the pocket right side out, press flat and sew onto one of the front coat pieces.  Stitch close to the curved edge of the pocket, back stitching several times at the tops of the pocket to reinforce the corners (don't sew the pocket closed!)  Repeat with the other 2 pocket pieces for Fabric A.

*Again, if your fabrics are really thin, you can add a strip of interfacing to the front coat pieces where your buttonholes and buttons will be.  Cut two strips of fusible interfacing 1 inch wide.  The length will depend on how many buttons and where you will place them.  Fuse them to the wrong side of your front bodice pieces 1/2 an inch from the edge.  I skipped this step too.*

Pin and sew shoulder seams.  Press them open.

Open up the coat at the shoulder seam, right side up.  Find the center of the sleeve and pin that to the shoulder seam, right sides together.  Continue pinning the sleeve to the armhole carefully.  Sew and press seam.  Repeat with other sleeve.

Line up the side seams and the bottom of the sleeve, pin and sew (right sides together).  Repeat with the other sleeve and side seam.  Turn coat right side out and press.

Take your prepared collar and line up the center with the center of the back of the coat.  You want the right sides of Fabric A to be facing up for both the collar and the coat when you lay them on top of each other like this.  Pin the inner edge of the collar to the neckline of the coat.  Baste the collar to the coat.

Repeat all of the steps with Fabric B (except for basting the collar).

To attach the two coats, lay Fabric A coat down, right side up.

Lay the Fabric B coat on top, right sides together.  Sleeves should be on the inside.  Pin the entire outer edge and sew together leaving about a 6-8" opening along the bottom.

Pull the sleeves out.

Take one of the sleeves and fold it out (towards the wrong side) by about 1.5 inches.  Slide it inside the other sleeve, line up the bottom seams of the sleeves and pin the ends of the sleeves together.

Sew the sleeves together along the pinned edge.  Go slowly and untwist the coat to your left as you go along.  Repeat with other sleeves.

Flip the coat right side out through the opening in the bottom.  You're almost done!!  Press all the edges of the coat out.  Hand sew the opening shut using a slip stitch.  If you want, you can top stitch along the entire outer edge of the coat.

Sew your buttonholes where desired and attach your buttons.  You'll want to either use the same buttons on both sides or at least use the same size buttons.  I sewed buttons to both sides of the coat at the same time using one thread.

You're done!

Now your kiddo has two stylish coats in one!

I hope you guys are having fun with your bodice patterns and realizing all the endless possibilities a great pattern has.  If you have any questions or just want to stop by and see what else I've been up to, please come visit me at you & mie!

Thanks so much for having me, Jen & Autie!