Pauline Alice Nautic Set Blouse

The Pauline Alice Nautic set appealed to me as soon as I saw sneak peeks of it on Instagram, so I was fairly quick to purchase the pattern when it was released. I already had some fabric that was just right for the blouse, so it jumped to the top of my sewing list.

The Nautic set includes a blouse, skirt and shorts. The blouse, which I've made here, has a sailor collar, short sleeves, decorative binding/ribbon and front buttons. The shorts have an elasticated waist, slanted pockets and contrasting bias binding, while the skirt has an elasticated waist and gathered tier.

The pattern covers bust sizes from 31½" to 47¼" and hip measurements from 34" to 49½".

I enjoyed sewing my Nautic blouse. The instructions and accompanying diagrams are easy to follow. They maybe don't hold your hand quite as much as some instructions do, but they're still perfectly clear and I didn't have any trouble sewing my blouse. 

The pattern is rated as beginner level, which I'd say is probably fair. You probably wouldn't want to sew the blouse as your very first pattern, but if you've made a couple of projects and are looking for something to build your skills a bit, this could be a good option. 

You need to be quite careful and accurate when sewing the decorative ribbon/binding, but other than that it's a fairly simple blouse.

In terms of sizing, my bust is currently 39" but I made a size 42, which is intended for a 38" bust. I could tell from the finished garment measurements that it would be big enough, and that the next size up would probably be bigger than I wanted. 

After making a toile, the only adjustment I made was to lower the bust dart by an inch. 

Rather than lengthening the pattern (I'm just under 5'9"), I simply used a smaller hem. I used a total of 1" for my hem, whereas the pattern calls for you to use 2⅝".

Another non-fitting change that I made was to interface the facing pieces. This isn't included in the instructions, but I just thought that it would give a better finish. 

I also used 5 buttons instead of 3. It's a personal preference, but I just felt like 3 buttons wouldn't be quite enough and might result in gaping.

The main fabric that I used is a lightweight cotton that I bought in a charity shop a few months ago, and the white that I used for the collar is part of an old sheet. So this was a pretty thrifty project! I bought the ribbon and the buttons locally, and I love how they highlight the little pops of pink in the fabric print.

I'm really pleased with how my Nautic blouse turned out, and I like the fact that the collar makes it a bit different to other blouses in my wardrobe. I'd definitely like to try making the skirt from the set too, so there may well be more Nautic projects in my future!

Pauline Alice Cami Dress

The project I have to share with you today is my third version of the Pauline Alice Cami dress. While I love my first two versions, the fabrics that I made them in mean that one feels quite wintery and the other one is very summery. I really enjoy wearing them both in the appropriate seasons, but felt like making another Cami that could be worn more throughout the year - and here it is...

To be honest, I'm quite surprised that I haven't made this dress before! Navy and white is one of my favourite colour combinations, and I do have a bit of a penchant for stars. Actually, the fact that there simply weren't enough star print dresses in the world for my liking was one of the things that first attracted me to the idea of trying to sew my own clothes. And yet in the five years or so since I started sewing, I've only actually made one star print dress before. I suppose that one of the great things about sewing is that you suddenly have a whole world of prints available to you, and all the novelty prints were just so tempting that I've neglected the stars until now.

Thankfully, I've put that right now thanks to this lovely poplin that I found in John Lewis a month or so ago. I actually bought this in a spare few minutes before I had to head to the station to get a train back home after a weekend away for a friend's hen do, so this also provides a nice little reminder of that weekend too.

Obviously being poplin, it was very easy to work with and pressed like a dream. I'm also pleased to report that it's nice to wear and doesn't seem to crease too easily either. I'd been wearing the dress all day (including crawling around on the floor constructing an Ikea filing cabinet) when we went out for a walk and took these photos, and while it's not completely pristine it looks better than some garments do when they've been ironed right before taking photos.

In terms of the dress itself, I used the same adjustments as I did for both of my previous Cami dresses (size 44 with 1.5 inches added to the bodice length, and 3 inches added to the skirt). I didn't have the same problems with the collar stand that I mentioned in my post about my summery Cami, so I can only conclude that I must have done something odd when I was making that one! The instructions are really thorough, and the only problems I had making this one were due to me not sewing the zip particularly well first time and so having to unpick it.

The colour lover inside me was very tempted to add some bright red or pink buttons to this dress to give a pop of colour. I did also contemplate adding a rainbow of different coloured buttons, but I'm thinking of doing that on another shirt dress that I'm planning to make soon, and there's probably only so many dresses with button rainbows that one person needs! In the end I decided to go with some neutral coloured buttons so that I can wear the dress with absolutely any of my cardigans or accessories.

The Cami dress was re-released recently with a different second view featuring a looser bodice, full length centre front button band and patch pocket. The looser fit probably isn't for me so I'm happy just to stick with my older version of the pattern, but if you'd previously dismissed the fitted bodice version of the Cami dress it might be worth taking a look to see if the new view is more to your taste.

Overall, I love this dress. It's one of those dresses that makes me feel good as soon as I put it on, and I know that it'll be worn a lot. And now I have a Cami dress for all seasons - hooray!

Pauline Alice Seda Dress - Take 2

Do you have any fabric that you love, but aren't sure what to do with? The main fabric in this project was a Christmas gift from my sister last year and, while I really like the print, whenever I held it up against myself while pondering what to make, I couldn't shake the feeling that the green and yellow in the print aren't very flattering colours for me. Recently I realised the solution was obvious - sew a Pauline Alice Seda dress with a contrast yoke.

After I'd had the idea, I wanted to get on with the sewing because the fabric had already been in my stash for quite a while by my standards. Thankfully it was easy to find a plain fabric to match the navy in the print, so after a quick trip to a local fabric shop I was ready to go.

I've already sewn one Seda dress this year and I was really happy with how that one turned out, so I did almost exactly the same for this one - with the exception of shortening the sleeves. I'm not sure why exactly, but this fabric just felt as if it should be made into a dress with short sleeves rather than three-quarter. Shortening the sleeves was obviously very easy, and I just used the sleeves from the Emery dress as a guide for the length.

In fact, while I'm calling this dress a Seda dress, it is very much a hybrid with the Emery dress because, like my first Seda, it also uses the skirt from the Emery. While the Seda skirt is also just a simple gathered skirt, the pieces were too wide for my 45" fabric so I couldn't use them. I still think that this is more a Seda dress than an Emery though, because the contrast yoke of the bodice is the distinctive feature of this version (view B) of the Seda pattern, and using the Emery skirt instead doesn't really alter the overall look of the dress.

I think the combination of the floral print with the plain navy yoke is really successful. With the two fabrics combined, the navy in the print is highlighted and the yellow and green which were originally bothering me don't seem as noticeable. Green and yellow are always slightly funny colours for me - I'm a fan of them on paper, but for me to wear them near my face they have to be just the right shade or they end up making me look ill. It's probably more in my head than anything anyone else would notice, but if I'm not happy with something then I won't wear it, and I didn't want that to be the fate of this fabric.

The navy yoke solved the problem in this case though, and I'm really happy with my finished Seda (or mostly Seda!) dress. I'm glad that this fabric has finally been sewn up so it can be worn instead of languishing on the shelf. Now I just need to find solutions for what to do with a couple of other long-term stash residents...

Pauline Alice Seda Dress

I've been interested in sewing the Pauline Alice Seda dress pretty much since it was released, but for some reason other patterns kept beating it to the top of my sewing queue. The sleeveless version of Seda was one of my options for a dress to wear to my brother's wedding last year, but it got pipped to the post by Simplicity 1418 instead. The Seda kept hovering in the background of my sewing plans though, so I decided to include it in my 2017 Make Nine list.

It's not really surprising that I was attracted to the Seda pattern; it's my favoured fit and flare silhouette, with the added interest of off-the-shoulder short sleeves, a hip yoke and gathered skirt in view A, and a contrast bodice yoke, elbow length sleeves and a simple gathered skirt in view B. You've probably already guessed from those descriptions and the photos that I chose to make view B.

At this point I should say that this isn't entirely a Seda dress - I actually ended up using the skirt pieces from the Emery dress. I did that because the Seda skirt pieces are wider and I was ever-so-slightly short of my main fabric and couldn't quite fit everything in with those wider pieces. Rather than mess about with the Seda pattern pieces, I decided to use the Emery skirt pattern - it's just that bit slimmer that it made it possible for me to get everything out of the fabric that I had. The final look of the two skirts is very similar though, so this isn't too far from a true Seda.

Another change I made was to extend the centre back zip up into the yoke section, whereas the pattern intends for the zip to finish at the top of the main bodice section and for the centre back of the yoke to be open, closing with a small button and loop/hook and eye set at the neckline. That's just a personal preference, mainly because I find neckline buttons/hooks & eyes slightly fiddly to do up.

In terms of sizing, I used a size 44 at the bust, grading out to a 46 at the waist (with my standard addition of 1 inch to the bodice length). In each case, that's a size up from the sizes that my measurements put me in, but when I made up a toile in my actual size it came out just-about-fitting but a bit too tight to be comfortable. In hindsight, this may or may not have been due to the fact that I made the toile on Easter Monday and it had been a bit of an indulgent weekend! As it turns out, the final dress is a little looser than most of my woven dresses, but I quite like the slightly relaxed fit so it's all good.

The main fabric is a very cute origami boat print chambray that I got from Guthrie & Ghani on a recent trip to Birmingham with some lovely fellow Bristol sewists. It's out of stock now (I got the last of it - hence having slightly less than I really needed!), but they have some other lovely chambrays. The yoke section is some white Swiss dot cotton left over from making my Granville shirt, and I underlined it with some plain white cotton lawn to reduce the sheerness. I really love the combination of the two fabrics together.

The pattern was fun to sew - the instructions are clear and easy to follow, and I'm pleased with the end result, so I'm glad that I finally got around to making the Seda dress. The fact that the print is slightly more muted than some of my other dresses also gives me a nice opportunity to wear my lovely Isa Duval brooch. I treated myself to it a couple of weeks ago and I love how it brightens up plainer outfits.

I'm also happy to be able to tick another item off my Make Nine list - I'm now 3 down (my Aldaia and needlecord dresses are the other two), with another 2 well underway. Have you got a Make Nine list? If you have, how's your progress going?

Pauline Alice Aldaia Dress

How are you this week? I'll admit, I've been better! Don't worry, there's nothing too horrendous happening but life has definitely been a little annoying recently. Thankfully a little bit of creativity will always cheer me up, and this project did just that. It's the latest instalment of my quest to make more knit dresses this year, and this time it's the turn of the Pauline Alice Aldaia dress.

The Aldaia pattern is for knit dresses and offers three options each for the bodice, sleeves and skirt which can all be mixed together giving a total of 27 possible combinations. Just to prove how well the different options work together, for this dress I used the bodice from view B (wrap style bodice), sleeves from view A (elbow length with bands) and skirt from view C (6 gore skirt).

I decided to make a size 44 - my bust should actually put me in a 42, but there's only an inch between the bust sizes for 44 and 42 and the 44 still gives me negative ease so I thought it would be fine. I made a toile of the bodice in some leftover jersey from my Christmas pyjama making marathon just to check, and it fitted nicely.

As usual, I had to lengthen the bodice by an inch - fairly standard for me. I also had to lengthen the skirt a lot to get the length I wanted, and in the end I added 5 inches (for reference, I'm somewhere around 5' 8"). Because I was lengthening it quite so much, I added the extra length to the bottom of the skirt pieces and continued the outward flare rather than using the lengthen/shorten line, because I think if I'd done that then I'd have lost a lot of the fullness (and you probably know by now that I love a twirly skirt).

Sewing the dress was a really enjoyable process. The instructions are perfectly clear, but aren't too hand-holdy. Obviously I had to skip around between the instructions for the three different views, but that was no problem. Part of me is still apprehensive about sewing knits in a way that I'm not with wovens, but there was no need to worry about sewing the Aldaia. Even my twin needle behaved perfectly (redeeming itself for playing up the other week).

My only slight quibble about how the dress turned out is that it seems to sit slightly oddly at the seam between the centre front piece and the front side piece where the lower layer of the 'wrap' is under the top one. I wonder whether that's because both the upper and bottom wrap pieces are pleated at the side, and whether it might be better to try to eliminate the pleats from the bottom wrap to reduce bulk a bit.

The fabric I used is a turquoise marl cotton/Lycra jersey from Maud's Fabric Finds - unfortunately it no longer seems to be in stock but there are lots of other lovely (non-marl) colours available. It's a really nice quality, was great to work with and I think is just the right weight to give the skirt enough body to twirl nicely without being too heavy.

Overall, I'm really happy with how my Aldaia dress turned out - it was a pleasure to sew and it's a joy to wear. I'll definitely be making more versions in the future, after all I have to try out some of the different combinations, don't I?!

Summery Pauline Alice Cami Dress

My tartan version of the Pauline Alice Camí dress that I made for the Autumn of 1000 Shirtdresses is undoubtedly one of my favourite creations from last year, and I wore it a lot when the weather was still all wintery. So it's no surprise that when spring arrived I started to get the urge to sew another more summery version - and here it is!

Truthfully, the seeds of this dress were planted some time around the beginning of the year when I found this dotty cotton half price in the John Lewis sale. It was part of their 150th anniversary collection that they released last year, and I'd already used a different print from the same collection to make a Lilou dress for my Mum, so I knew it would be great to work with. Throw in pretty dots, a lovely teal colour and the fact that it was a bargain and I was sold, and from that point on it was pretty much destined to become a Camí.

For version two, I stuck with exactly the same size and modifications that I used for my first version (size 44 with 1.5 inches added to the length of the bodice and 3 inches to the skirt, and an extra button due to the added bodice length). This version seems to be slightly closer fitting than my first one, which I think is because there's slightly more give in the tartain/plaid than this crisp cotton, but they both fit nicely so it's all good.

In this version, I had a slight problem when I was attaching the collar - somehow my collar stand was too long for the neckline. I don't remember that being an issue on my first version so I think I must have been slightly imprecise when I was cutting out my fabric or something. There wasn't a massive difference though, so with a lot of pins and easing, and some ever-so-slight reshaping of the ends of the collar stand, I made it work! 

As luck would have it, I had a piece of teal poplin left in my stash from one of my very first dressmaking projects (I've learnt a lot since then!) which was an exact match for the dots on this fabric. You could call this a happy coincidence, but I think it's more likely to be an indication that I'm repeatedly drawn towards the same colours! I'm not complaining about that though, because it meant I could use the poplin to make perfectly matching covered buttons and a cute little bow belt (using a combination of tutorials from Tilly and Lauren).

The eagle-eyed among you might have noticed that I don't have a button or button hole on the collar. I could claim that this was entirely intentional because I know I would never button the dress right up to the collar. That is partly true, but the main reason is because I only had 6 self-cover buttons left in my stash and I was too impatient to wait to get more! At some point I might get some more buttons and add one on the collar, but part of me thinks it isn't really necessary because it would never be used and I think the dress looks fine without it.

Given how much I liked my first version of the Camí, it's hardly surprising that I'm pretty pleased with this version too! At the moment I'm not convinced by the bow belt - I love how it looks but I think it might be a bit annoying to wear. I've still got some of the teal poplin left over though, so I might think about making another covered elastic belt instead. The dress itself is a definite success though, I'm looking forward to wearing it again! What have you been making recently?

Pauline Alice Cami & the Autumn of 1000 Shirtdresses

While I love a sewing challenge or sewalong, I've been trying to stick to my own (admittedly very vague) sewing plan recently without getting distracted by other temptations, but when I saw that Mary from Idle Fancy was hosting the Autumn of 1000 Shirtdresses I knew I wanted to join in as I'd been thinking of sewing myself a shirtdress for a while. I'd been admiring Mary's various iterations of McCall's 6696, but you'll probably notice that what I have to show you today is not that pattern. You see, I'd had my eye on the Pauline Alice Cami dress for a while, and I thought I'd prefer a shirtdress that only buttons halfway, so that's what I went with.

The Cami is a lovely pattern featuring a fitted button-front bodice (which also has a side zip) with a classic shirt collar, full gathered skirt, pockets and two different sleeve options (the 3/4 cuffed sleeve that I made or short sleeves).

Cami is rated 2 out of 3 for difficulty, which I think is probably accurate. Obviously a shirtdress has certain features such as a button band and collar which make it a little more tricky than a basic dress, but the most complicated bit about sewing Cami for me was entirely self-inflicted - my fabric choice. Not that there's anything wrong with the fabric itself, quite the contrary (it's a lovely cosy brushed cotton from Calico Laine), but trying to match up the tartan/plaid/check pattern on all the various pieces that a shirtdress entails did cause me a bit of a headache, and I think it probably took me about three times longer than usual to cut this dress out because I was being so careful about what I cut where! I also found that the layers of material where shifting a bit as I sewed, so I quickly hand basted most of the seams before sewing them, which helped keep things lined up nicely.

I'm glad I took the extra time to make sure everything lined up as I think it makes a massive difference on a project like this and I'm really happy with the end result. On that note, excuse any wrinkles in the photo above - I realised I'd forgotten to take any back shots when taking the rest of the photos but I'm pretty pleased with how the back collar lines up with the back bodice so I had to take this photo when I'd already been wearing the dress for most of the day.

In terms of fit, I made a straight size 44, which is the largest size in the pattern - so not it's not the biggest size range. It fits me nicely, with just the right amount of ease in the bodice for my liking. I don't like shirts or shirtdresses to be too tight or I get paranoid about gaping between the buttons, but I have no worries about that here.

I did add quite a bit of length to the pattern - about 1.5 inches in the bodice and 3 inches in the skirt, which isn't a massive surprise because Pauline Alice patterns are designed for an average height of 5 ft 5, and I'm 3-4 inches taller than that and have to lengthen almost all bodices. As I'd added extra length in the bodice, I also needed to adjust the button placement, and actually ended up adding in an extra button as that was the spacing that seemed best for me.

I toyed with various different button ideas, and spent quite a while one Saturday afternoon sat on the floor of my local wool shop comparing how different blue, red, white and green buttons of varying sizes looked on an offcut of my material, but in the end I opted for some small, plain navy buttons from my stash - sometimes simple is best, don't you think?

I really enjoyed sewing Cami - yes, I may have regretted my fabric choice slightly when I was in the middle of all the pattern matching, but the dress itself sewed up really nicely and the instructions are thorough, clear and easy to follow - and there's a great sewalong if you need a helping hand with any of the steps (I got a bit confused about how the collar was meant to be attached, but a quick consultation of the sewalong soon cleared that up). I think the finished result looks quite professional too, which is always nice!

I'm really pleased with how this one turned out, it was definitely worth the effort I put into the pattern-matching and the dress feels lovely to wear. Plus as an added bonus, it seems that there's a lot of tartan/plaid in the shops at the moment so I may have accidentally sewn something 'fashionable' as well as it being something I like! Now that Mary's extended the Autumn of 1000 Shirtdresses until January, I'm quite tempted to try to sew another Cami. Will you be joining in with the challenge?