dress – Nikki Nicole Sew

Ralph Lauren Inspired Shirt Dress

April 29, 2024April 30, 2024by Kesha NicoleLeave a Comment

Since my last post at the end of January, I swung from no sewjo to creative overwhelm. I wanted to sew all the things all at once. The end result is that I didn’t sew anything, frozen for the longest in indecision. I cycled through pattern prepping a number of patterns and fabrics that I ultimately set aside, because while everything was calling me, nothing was giving me that energetic hit that comes when I’m sewing a project I’m excited about. I did this wash, rinse and repeat more than a few times before I found myself literally saying: “Get back to basics”! Once I begin thinking about the basics, then the idea of creating some classic wardrobe staples, the timeless pieces that hold up in any woman’s rotation of go-to clothing pieces. Suddenly all of my sewing ideas narrowed down immediately to the classic shirt dress. It’s no secret that Ralph Lauren is one of my favorite designers. For me Ralph Lauren has always represented the essence of American quiet luxury; well-tailored but timeless silhouettes that you own forever. He is one of the few designers whom I will drop money on to add investment pieces to my closet. I also gladly buy Ralph Lauren second hand when I find it at consignment shops. That’s the true mark of classic tailoring: it never goes out of style. So in that train of thought, came the Ralph Lauren inspired look button-down shirt dress, because while I love the look of Ralph Lauren, my pocketbook doesn’t (laughing).

PROJECT DETAILS:

Ralph Lauren Inspired Shirt Dress: McCall’s 7351, View D. This is the quintessential simple shirt dress pattern. It has a bit of a 90’s shirt dress feel to it, which seems like all the craze right now. I’d had this pattern in sewing queue for about as long as it’s been out, which was 2016. Quite frankly it’s a big part of my creative overwhelm recently. I have an obscene amount of patterns and fabric and I want to sew everything, but the indecision that comes with too many choices can be just as debilitating. To create the classic look I had in mind, I wanted the dress to be midi. That was the only modifications I made to this pattern. I increased the length of the skirt by a whopping eight inches. The reason why I added so much length, was because I knew I was going to use at least two inches on the hem alone, and while the original pattern length is great, I wanted to be able to get maximum twirl potential. This is often a wonderful but dangerous fabric thing to do when you’re dealing with a circle skirt, not to mention the math and calculating adding length while keeping the circumference accurate. Thankfully one of the benefits of cutting a circle skirt is the ability to cut it on a cross fold which gives you the maximum length that you will never get on a regular selvage fabric fold (please bear with me any non-sewing people who just chewed through all of that sew talk, ha ha!).

FABRIC – The real MVP of this project was the fabric. This heavy draped 100% Tencel twill is the stuff of fabric dreams. I found it at one of my handful of beloved shops that I frequent in the LA Fashion District. On this particular trip at one such place an employee pointed out this roll of white fabric and declared it had my name written all over it. He’d been hoping I’d stop in before it was sold out. I promptly bought the last of the roll at $2 a yard. This is easily a $30 plus a yard fabric. It washes, sews and pretty much behaves like a dream. While sewing with it, I did run into a bit of a delicacy to the fabric that is not typical, which indicated to me that this particular deadstock fabric was pretty old and had been sitting for some time somewhere before the shop bought it, because it had a little bit of dry rot damage that only showed up if you snagged the fabric in just the wrong way. Even with that minor inconvenience, this fabric by far exceeded my expectations for this project. Tencel twill has the most luscious drape. To me it combines the best of all worlds fabric wise. You get the drape of a silk/satin, but the stability and weight of a woven twill.

STYLE – I had on a pair of dark curry mustard yellow colored silk Sam Edelman Yaro sandal heels, which they no longer make since these were a limited edition seasonal color. I had on my usual gold hoop earrings with my now vintage Anne Klein gold watch.

Dresses

Sewjo Death and A New Dress

January 23, 2024by Kesha NicoleLeave a Comment

2024 has been off to a great start, but for the last few months I’ve been drowning in a sort of lethargic no where’s land when it came to sewing. What do you do when your sewjo is hopelessly lost and dead, but you have all the free time in the world to sew for once? This was the prospect I’d been faced with the last few months. I was in-between jobs, having decided to take a few months off after my last job moved to Tennessee. With time and plenty of money to trick off on fabric, I just could not find the creativity I needed to get to sewing on anything that seemed to make me excited. I eventually simply stopped trying to create. I focused instead on decluttering the house and truly resting my mind, hoping that that too might spark something. The reset didn’t happen until right as the New Year was coming in and I found myself mentally having a funeral for my sewjo. I pictured myself dressed in the most theatrical black dress like a grieving widow and even pictured the casket being lowered in the ground. Morbid in a sense I know, but visualizing things are a form of manifestation that is extremely powerful. I use this practice in all areas of my life as you have to visual what you want in order to manifest it

PROJECT DETAILS:

Sweater Dress with an Evening Dress Influence: Self-Drafted pattern. Once I had the mental funeral for my lost creativity, the ideas began to flow and majorly. What arrived was the idea of an evening gown, but as a sweater dress. I wanted the lines of an evening gown, but with the ease and wearability of a sweater dress. This is one of the beauties of being able to sew and create garments. If you can think it and draft it, you can create it. I’m not a pattern maker by a stretch, but it’s something I’ve been building my skillset slowly in, since you have to be able to understand the premise of pattern making in order to create original designs from scratch. One of the things I have learned over the years, is that you can fudge this skillset a bit, if you understand pattern construction and basic pattern blocks. It’s one of the easiest ways to begin pattern drafting. Begin with patterns, commercial, indie or otherwise as your base, or you can create your own slopers based off your body measurements that serve as your pattern base and create pieces from those. I use a combination of all the above when it comes to pattern drafting. I start with base pattern pieces and then modify them to fit my needs. I’ve found a couple of great pattern making textbooks from fashion school curriculums over the years that has helped tremendously. Most importantly you have to be willing to make as many muslins as needed until you get your pattern fit and design just right.

FABRIC – This fabric is surprisingly heavy, but is one of the best quality ponte knits I’ve ever run across. I’ve seen this fabric go for $35 or more a yard online, but thanks to the Los Angeles Fashion District, I snagged it for $2 a yard and so I bought myself 10 yards of it, since it was only 45” wide. With the circle dress piece of this dress, I knew I would have to be creative, since circle skirts always eat up a ton of fabric. With only a couple of mishaps (Two sets of sleeves later) along the way to creation, I used almost all 10 yards. I believe I was left with maybe a yard and some change once I was one cutting out everything.

STYLE – I wearing my favorite lipstick with a pair of earrings that I found in a flea market in Fiji during my last birthday trip with a pair Sam Edelman burgundy red colored platform sandal heels. It was wash day, so my hair shrank and fro’d it’s way to this crowning glory, and I just let it be as is, though my attempt to wrangle it some with a hair band went unnoticed since my hair decided to eat that too lol.

Dresses

A Cute Maxi Dress with Issues

April 25, 2022June 16, 2022by Kesha Nicole2 Comments

This month I have had the worst sewing ADD possible. I honestly didn’t think I would actually complete a project this month due to my indecisiveness regarding patterns, fabrics, and a general sense of frustration with pattern mishaps lately. Simplicity released their new spring 2022 patterns and the New Look 6718 captivated me. I immediately went to the store and bought it the same day. I honestly can’t remember the last time a Big 4 pattern has gotten me absolutely gaga. I for one love a great maxi dress, and spend much of my summer months in big flowy sundresses for the heat and comfort. The fact that it was a humid 87 degrees yesterday in Long Beach was just enough of an excuse I needed to put on my new dress and twirl around.

PROJECT DETAILS:

Maxi Dress: New Look 6718. So first and foremost, the design of this pattern is absolutely dreamy. I had been looking to actually draft a dress similar, as I’d been eyeing some runway pieces that felt very similar in design. I did view A with view B length. Now to the not so pretty parts about this pattern. The biggest issue, is the fabric specifications on this pattern are absolutely incorrect. I made the size 20 (of course not normal clothing sizes for my non-sewing folks). My busty self couldn’t do any other size if I wanted to, but also because that’s the max of their sizing chart for New Look Patterns (serious side eye on that one McCall Pattern company!). Per the pattern I would need about 4 ½ yards of 60” wide fabric. I actually used 6 yards of 60’ wide fabric, and boy was I grateful that I actually had all of that available to use thanks to my fabric hording self over buying when I bought this fabric. This is a huge difference in fabric yardage! The center waist piece was drafted 2 and ½ inches short of the length that it needed to be in order for the waist piece to wrap all the way around and connect properly in the back. The result was me having to shave off fabric on either side in the back to cover this drafting mistake. The Front lower skirt should have also been increased by 2 and 1/4^th inches in width in order to line up with the top half of the body of this dress. That I was also able to hide when I shaved off the back for the other drafting mistake. Honestly these type of drafting mistakes in this pattern from such a large pattern company is more than a bit of an epic fail, but they could have rendered this pattern a disaster. For a beginning sewist, I’m sure it would be. I had to get creative in order to compensate for these issues, which ultimately left me with a back that does not line up perfectly. So the back of this dress is my least favorite thing to look at, but even with that all of that said, I still really like this dress and the pattern. Armed with what I now know, I will make sure my next version has taken all of these issues into account. So my biggest takeaway advice for this pattern is make a muslin/toile, buy more yardage than you think you will need, and be prepared to make pattern adjustments to account for the front lower skirt and the middle waist facing issues. Also be sure to interface the neckline along with the facing for this pattern. I got a weird kind of floppy fabric thing around the neckline due to my rayon challis fabric being so light.

FABRIC – I used this beautiful rayon challis from my stash that I’d purchased from Fabric Merchants Outlet. I saw this in their store during one of my trips there and bought everything they had left, which was six yards. Fabric Merchant Outlet is one of my hidden gem stores of the LA fashion district. It’s on the outskirts of the fashion district in an area that’s solely commercial and manufacturing. I discovered their store while I was consulting for a fashion company that was within walking distance to their store. Needless to say I spent a lot of money there on my lunch breaks. This rayon challis proved to be more on the silky side and behaved like a silk fabric in that it was very slippery. The next time I make this dress I will use a more solid woven like a tencel twill or drapery cotton blend fabric.

STYLE – Prescription sunglasses from Zenni. Watch from Anne Klein that I’ve owned for forever along with my favorite neutral platform sandals from Nine West.