Nina Lee Kew Dress: Sewing Pattern Review

It's been a busy couple of weeks around these parts and blogging has fallen slightly by the wayside. I've still been finding time for sewing though so I'm developing a little backlog of projects to talk about. Most of them are still waiting to be photographed, so I've just got one to share today. It is a good one though, so I hope you won't be too disappointed! Here's my Nina Lee Kew dress...

The Kew dress is a pattern that's been in my stash waiting to be made for a while, but for some reason it kept getting neglected and not quite making it to my sewing table. When Nina Lee released the expansion pack for the pattern recently, the gathered skirt option really appealed to me and gave me the push that I needed to finally sew up the pattern.

For this first one, I combined the gathered skirt from the expansion pack with version one of the bodice from the original Kew pattern. This bodice has a touch of the 1940s tea dress about it with the front bodice gathered into a yoke at the shoulders and ruched sleeves (more on those later!).

The instructions for the pattern are really detailed and easy to follow. There's nothing too tricky about sewing the Kew dress, and if you're a little uncertain about anything then I'm sure the instructions would explain everything. The pattern is recommended for confident beginners, and I'd say that's an appropriate rating, and it's a nice straightforward-but-not-boring project if you have a bit more sewing experience.

In terms of sizing, my measurements put me between a 12 and 14 at the bust and between a 14 and 16 at the waist and hips. I looked at the finished garment measurements and decided to make a toile in a 14 at the bust blending out to a 16 at the waist. For button-up dresses, I prefer to have just a little more ease so that the dress is nicely fitted but without the danger of having inter-button gaping issues.

While I was making the toile I decided to test out the sleeves as I was a bit concerned that they might be awkward to wear under cardigans. On my toile, I added the ruching on one sleeve and left the other one plain. My suspicions proved to be correct and, while I think the ruching is really pretty, that sleeve did seem a bit bulky under a cardi and I also found that the ruching restricted my arm movement a bit. That made it easy to decide to just leave the sleeves plain.

The only other alteration that I made to the pattern was to lengthen the bodice by 2 inches. Lengthening a bodice is standard for me, but 2 inches is a bit more than I'd usually have to add.

The fabric that I used for this one is a spotty chambray from Minerva Crafts - I can't see it on their website at the moment, but they do have lots of other chambray options. It was a lovely fabric to work with - as it's a cotton it behaves nicely, but it has enough drape to handle the gathers on the bodice and the skirt of this dress.

As blue and white spots are pretty much a neutral in my book, I decided to use this dress as the opportunity to try out something I've been wanting to do for a while - rainbow buttons! I got these from ebay (again the ones I bought don't seem to be available, sorry!). I love how the buttons look - I think they're the perfect finishing touch for this dress.

All in all, I'm really glad that I finally got around to making a Kew dress. This one is the perfect everyday dress for me, and the combination of the blue and white spots and rainbow buttons will make it very wearable I think. I'm planning to make the strappy bodice of the Kew dress as a pinafore at some point, and I'd like to try out the other skirt options some time too. Have you made a Kew dress? What options did you use?

Sew Over It Carrie Trousers

I've got something a bit different to share with you today - I made trousers! Specifically, a pair of Sew Over It Carrie trousers.

Trousers aren't something I've contemplated sewing before because it's actually been getting on for 10 years since I wore trousers (other than pyjamas!). While this is largely because I love wearing dresses and skirts, it's also at least partly because I always used to hate shopping for trousers as it was so difficult to find any that fit. That doesn't necessarily need to be a problem now that I sew though, and since I moved to an often-windy coastal town last year, I've been thinking that it might be a good idea to try some trousers to help avoid 'Marilyn moments' on particularly blustery days!

The Carrie trousers are loose-fitting through the leg tapering slightly towards the ankle, with a flat-fronted elasticated-back waistband, front pleats and slanted pockets at the side seams. When Sew Over It released Carrie as a PDF pattern (it had previously been available as part of their Ultimate Guide to Sewing and Fitting Trousers online course), I thought that it would be a good place to start giving trousers a go.

The pattern is simple to sew (I'd say only slightly more complicated than an average pair of pyjama bottoms), and the elastic-back waistband made me fairly confident that even if I decided that they weren't very "me", they'd be a comfy option for lounging around the house so would still be worn somehow!

I made a size 14, which is the size recommended for my measurements, and made a toile just of the top of the trousers (essentially a pair of shorts) to check the fit. Even though the Carrie trousers are designed to be loose fitting, I wanted to make sure that there was enough space in the thighs because I have fairly "sturdy" legs. Thankfully the thighs were fine, and the fit was pretty much OK. The only slight change I made was to raise the waistband by about 2cm to make the rise more comfortable on me.

Sewing the trousers was no trouble at all, and fairly speedy - I sewed the toile and the trousers themselves over the course of a fairly leisurely day of sewing. The instructions were very detailed and easy to follow.

The only slight criticism I'd have is that some of the photos that accompany the instructions might have been a bit clearer if a less patterned fabric had been used for the sample. That's just nitpicking though, because it didn't really cause me any problems.

The only change I had to make during the sewing process was to cut the elastic 9cm shorter than recommended, but elastic length is always going to depend on how stretchy your elastic is, and my elastic is definitely stretchier than most.

The fabric I chose is some navy and white spot print viscose from Minerva Crafts. I thought it was a good fabric for me to use for this project because it will go with a lot of my tops (I'm not the only one who thinks that navy and white spots count as a neutral am I?!), whilst still being a bit more interesting (and therefore more likely to appeal to me) than a plain colour.

I'm actually turning into a bit of a Sew Over It fangirl in this outfit, because the top I'm wearing is an as-yet-unblogged Silk (or viscose in my case) Cami. I made it earlier this summer after the pattern was included with Simply Sewing magazine. It's another great pattern from Sew Over It, but this was just a wearable toile and I want to make a couple of tweaks before I make another version and I'll blog about it properly once I've done that.

So what's the verdict on the Carrie trousers? I'd say the pattern itself is a winner - the fit is good for me, and the trousers were easy to sew. As for me wearing trousers - the jury's still out! They're very comfy and it's nice not to have to worry about my dress/skirt blowing all over the place when wearing them, but I did feel slightly like I was wearing my pyjamas and I still think that dresses/skirts suit me better. I'm definitely going to keep on wearing them though, so hopefully I'll grow to love them more, and I might give some other trousers a try at some point. I'm also quite tempted by the idea of dungarees/overalls/whatever they're called in your part of the world. Have you got any good trouser/dungarees patterns to recommend that could convert a dress lover?!