House of Pinheiro Brasilia dress, version 2 in cotton sateen and some info on ribbon

To my great surprise a lot of you commented on my previous post - adding your voice in the debate between ruffle or trim. And the vote was fairly evenly split with perhaps a slight majority for ruffle. Which really surprised me - I didn't think anyone would like that at all.

Speaking of voting - it's a long way until November with only a brief interlude of the Olympics to distract us. Please distract us!!! Thank goodness for the Olympics, I love them. The hunky swimmers, the amazing gymnasts, the split second drama on the track and so many other great contests. The broadcast does have a lot to get through but I do wish they would show a bit more of some of the less well known sports. Like synchronized swimming. Weird but fascinating. What sport do you like to watch?

OK back to sewing. This is another item that I sewed in order to illustrate the topic for a Craftsy Sewing blog post. And a pattern repeat. When I first sewed this dress I did plan to come back to it and it has taken me 2 years but here it is.

This is the Brasilia dress by House of Pinheiro, also know as Rachel, if you read her blog. I made this in 2014 and did a lot of pattern fitting. Here is the link to my fitting post and then the finished dress post is here. It is only available in one size but it is not all that difficult to fit, plus it has that interesting seaming in the front.




I used this slightly juvenile cotton sateen with 2% spandex. Which has been marinating in my stash for a while because I could only envision it as a children's dress. But one day I decided the flowers were hibiscus, which is tropical, which is just my style. Kind of a Tori Richard look (my favorite Hawaiian designer - their fabrics are so gorgeous). Plus I had the right color of ribbon in my ribbon box - purchased for something else but nice for this project. That is how my Craftsy blog posts go - either I am making something already and use that for a post or I want to do a post and then rummage around for the raw materials among stuff I already have.



Here is the dress form pic so you can see the actual colors. I did make one change which was to lower the front neckline about 1/2 inch, since I felt the original was a bit high for my comfort, and then I decided to add the V neckline detail, which is super easy as there is the center front seam.




In case you can't tell - my post for Craftsy was about sewing with ribbon. I have a lot of ribbon which I always think I will use but so far not so much. The occasional ribbon sash or something like that but doing this post got me thinking about it and I have some ideas for incorporating a ribbon accent into a shirt.






I read a post by Nakisha recently and she was commenting on the type of ribbon found on a ready to wear skirt that she had. I am pretty sure it is petersham ribbon which is quite different from grosgrain in how it behaves. You can shape petersham ribbon with the iron as you can see in the photo above, you could not do it with grosgrain. It is kind of hard to find petersham in chain type fabric stores but I am lucky that Stone Mountain has lots, plus I think you can find it at various places on line. Be sure to get petersham if you want to do this treatment.

On the left, mint green is the petersham - see how the edge is not finished. The grosgrain (light blue) on the right has that distinctive ridge and you could not bend or shape that no matter how hard you try.






Other than adding the ribbon this was a very straightforward project - my pattern was all fitted and I just had to sew it up. I put an all-in-one neckline and armhole facing of white cotton which I sewed, pulled the dress through the shoulder seams to have a clean finish and then under stitched where possible. I am a big believer in under stitching, never skip that. I sewed the ribbon on the neck edge first and thought that would do it, thinking maybe some on the hemline. But once it all finished but the hem I thought it needed the ribbon around the armholes as well. So that is sewn through the facing. Not that it makes any difference. And no ribbon on the hemline - just didn't need it. I do a lot of evaluating as I sew - sometimes walk away from things or leave them on the dress form so I see them as I walk by and get ideas for changes in proportion or shaping that way. In any case - I rarely sew up a pattern as is so those ideas need a little time to percolate:)

Back view, it is a simple sheath dress with waist darts. I did tighten up the center back seam about an inch at the very top as the first version gaped a bit there.



This is such a perfect summer daytime dress for me - great for hot weather which we are supposed to have plenty of this weekend. I tried to make it a bit more fitted, sometimes I think I make things a bit too loose as I have a mania about stuff that is too tight, so like Goldilocks says - this one is just right.



Just to prove that now and then I do like a ruffle, and that I am no stranger to wild tropical print cotton sateen, here is a link to a previous summer dress. Which I really like but every time I think of wearing it I feel that I will be dazzling people with the bright colors. So what, right?

Sports. Ribbon. Wild tropical fabrics. All over the map in this post. As I said I have more ideas for using ribbon - as embellishment and also to create a lattice detail. Not sure if I will get to them but it's good to have those ideas swirling around.

Happy Summer weekend - unless you are in the southern hemisphere, (talking to you Australia) where I have a sneaking suspicion that your winter is a lot like ours here in the bay area. In the sense that you can sew and wear a cute coat and get those gloves and scarves out, more for fashion than anything else but don't have to worry about frostbite or the polar express. Or maybe I have that all wrong. Anyway - we are heading in to the 100's ˚F so I plan to float in the pool and maybe catch up on some novels.

Beth