My sewing moto has stalled lately, after a few sewing dissapointments in the wrap dress area (but more on this later). For the moment I need a quick, highly satisfactory project and this SisterMini by Vanessa Pouzet perfectly worked as such.

I am not a huge mini skirt person but I am all into the chunky sweater + dressy skirt combination this winter, and when I stumbled upon this beauty at COS, I immediately wanted to wear it with a mini skirt. I would have bought this corduroy one from the same brand but the pinks did not match. Thankfully I had the perfect fabric in my wardrobe, a beautiful pink and gold brocart fabric from Bennytex. And jumping to conclusions, here is the outfit, which is exactly what I was looking for!

In terms of sewing, the Sister Mini is a wonderful experience: in mimimum time you achieve a highly rewarding make, which is as pretty on the inside as it is on the outside. I have sewn three Vanessa Pouzet patterns up to now (including TheCape for my daughter, reviewed here) and I am extremely impressed by their quality: the number of pages to print from the PDF is tiny, the explanations are crystal-clear and full of humour, the finish is impecable and the sizing spot-on.

As for the skirt itself, it is a very short mini skirt – my key rule is never to wear it when I have to take the Tube! Rule number 2 is to drop the heals and wear trainers, not something I’m used to at all…

There is a fully-detachable zip at the front, which is a key element of the skirt. I looked for ages on E-Bay to find the right one, with a pink gold zipper on a beige background, perfectly matching my fabric.

The skirt is fully lined, in such a way that the inside is trully pretty – come on, have a look!

And joy, it also matches another of my recently bought jumpers, hurrah! – what do you mean, yet another blush item in my wardrobe?

In summary :

• Pattern: SisterMini skirt by Vanessa Pouzet, an absolute must in my view after a mini skirt, such an easy make with a really professional finish. I picked size 36 (my shopping size) after trying a way too large 38 with my muslin.
• Fabric pink and gold brocart fabric from Bennytex, this specific one is not available anymore but they still have a wide selection here.
• Sewing level: you absolutely need to make a muslin to check the size, which can be a bit boring; and you need to be precise when positionning the zip – but it is exposed so not as fiddly as a concealed zip. Otherwise very straightforward as the explanantions are so good.
• Love level: suprisingly for a mini skirt and my difficult relationship with my legs, I absolutely adore it!

Not a really sexy title but I just can’t hide – I just adore wearing jersey dresses in the winter mainly because that are just so comfortable, a bit like a chich version of pyjamas. That’s probably why I’ve sawn so many in the past! – not far from 10… Just a small sample below:

I started my search for a nice jersey dress pattern about three years ago and at the time there weren’t many available. I tried Moneta by Colette Patterns, which ticked many boxed: fitted top, plunging neckling but not overly so, swirling skirt. Unfortunately Moneta never worked for me: no matter what size I took, the shoulders were far too wide. No picture to record this failure I’m afraid, it ended up very quickly in the bin…

And then I stumbled accross this dress on Les Lubies de Louise blog and it was love at first sight! Louise had the clever idea to combine the Ondée cropper sweater with the Zéphyr skirt, both by Deer&Doe, to make a dress. Absolute genius!!! It is actually very easy to make, as the patterns combine perfectly with each other. The adjustments I made are the following:

• Top: I adjusted it to make it as fitted as possible. The amount of fitting required actually depends on the elasticity of the fabric used, so I’ve got my adjusted fitted pattern and sometime I need to readjust on the dress, sometimes not.
• Sleeves: I love the long version with a narrow wrist, but the three-quarter is a better match with my cropped cardis and jackets. I’ve never tried the short sleeves as I don’t really wear jersey dresses in hot weather.
• Neckline: on most of my makes I’ve actually used the neckline of a third Deer&Doe pattern, the Plantain tee-shirt (free), because it is a bit lower that the Ondee one. I’ve also used the V-neck of the Zephyr dress but definitely not my best technical achievement, oh well…
• Sewing technics: after years of sewing jersey with my sewing machine, I tried with an ovelocker and it’s just heaven!!! So so so much quicker! I still make all hems with a double-needle on the sewing machine though, and it takes me ages…

My latest version of the dress was sawn last week and I am in love again!!! After bad experiences with Ponte Roma, with has a perfect weight for this dress but which turns rather flimsy after a few washes, I went for this cotton jersey from The Sweet Mercercie, which I hope will look nice for longer – wait and see… The colour is pinky plum, exactly what I adore this season.

Appart from how comfortable these jersey dresses are, I love their versatility: they can be worn on their own but also with belts, cardis, jumpers, jackets. Mix and match is the order of play. Here are a few pictures of those different combinations – the cropped a cardis are from Boden and the jackets are Bernadette from Republique du Chiffon.

Belted:

With a cropped cardi:

With a matching Bernadette jacket:

Endless possibilities! (well, especially if you’ve sewn the same dress in all colours ot the rainbow).

In summary:

• Pattern: a combination of the Ondée cropper sweater, the Zéphyr skirt the Plantain tee-shirt neckline, all by Deer&Doe
• Fabric: any mid-weight jersey will do, my latest plum version is in this cotton jersey from The Sweet Mercercie. I’ve done many version in Ponte Roma but have been very disppointed by the quality after a few washes.
• Sewing difficulty: very easy, the hardest part for me is the double-needle hemming. This dress definitely convinced me of the usefulness of an overlocker though, it saves an immense amount of time!
• How much do I love it? Do you need to ask?

Although I wanted to sew something else, I just didn’t manage… I am definitely having a love affair with ruffles this year. I spent all summer adding them at the bottom of my dresses (as can be seen here), and all autumn at the top. Compulsive obsessive?

This time I tried to at least change the pattern used, instead of sewing yet another V-collar ruffled dresses (which I discussed here). I therefore got my Magellan blouse pattern out… and then neverthless reverted to my favourite… Oh well… Here it is: after the black and the pink versions, here come the blue one!

But enough is enough, let’s move to Magellan now! I ordered the pattern this spring, with the firm intention to sew (and wear) more separates, instead of focussing obsessively on dresses! After sewing two great Delphine & Morrissette blouses which were nevertheless never worn, I decided to give up. That is, until I realised that a blouse pattern is very easily convertible into a dress! Yes I know it took all this time…

I made the following changes to the Magellan pattern, to make it suit my taste:

• I doubled the width of the ruffle, to make it…well, ruffly! I definitely prefer large ruflfles to small ones;
• I made the shape of the blouse more triangular;
• I lenghtened the blouse to 65cm below the armpit, this results in quite a short dress (on my strandard) but given the shape I think it needs to be short;

And that’s it! Nothing hugely complicated.

The pattern itself is quite straightforward, you just need to be patient while ruffling as there is a lot to be done. The method indicated by Marie is the one I always use but I’m not sure it’s the quickest – sewing two line on a long stich and pulling on them. Any suggestions welcome!

Fabric-wise, more powder-pink I’m afraid. This one is a scuba crepe from The Sweet Mercerie (here), beautiful and which does not fray so no overcasting required, hurrah!

And here is the dress, all angles covered.

In Summary:

• Pattern: Aime Comme Magellan byAime Comme Marie
• Fabric: scuba crepe from The Sweet Mercerie
  
• How difficult? Very easy but you need to be VERY patient ruffling the ruffle… 
• Love factor? I live it a lot but not as much as the V-collar ruffle dress!

I saw this dress quite a few times on Instagram (and so did you if you’re as addicted as me) before being able to sew it: the famous swing dress with a V-ruffle! It had to be mine!!! After hesitating for months on which pattern to hack, I eventually made up my mind and saw two dresses in one go – how typical…

I first came accross this dress on the Instagram account of @madeinestel, whom I  admire immensly for her perfect dress sense and her amazing ability to transcribe her  ideas into self-drafted clothes. As an extra quality, Estelle loves sharing, so thanks to her I discovered @ma-minimoi’s version of this dress – and the indication she had used the Delphine&Morrissette La Brune blouse pattern as the basis for her dress. A Godsend! – I had the pattern in my stock, all ready to go as already used to make a blouse. No picture of this one though, as despite my efforts to sew separate, I can’t help wearing mostly dresses…

I therefore went back to my La Brune pattern and made the following changes:

• I lenghtened the blouse into a trapeze shape, to achieve an above-the-knee lenght;
•  I added a V cut to insert my ruffles at the front, following the existing shoulder inserts of the initial pattern;
• I lenghtened the ruffles for them to follow the V-shape, with a ruffling ratio of about 1.5x.

And here is the first dress, in a reasonably thick black scuba fabric from Bennytex. This was supposed to be my muslin but it is fully wearable in my view – hurrah!

The big downside of this dress is its back – far too much fabric there! I tried to fix it without having to unstitch the all thing but I’m not very happy with what I did. Let’s say that I can’t see the back when I wear it…

After this rather promising first attempt (except for the back that is!), I decided to use my latest purchase, a beautiful powder pink crepe, bought very recently from my favourite fabric shop in London, Fabrics Galore. Did I not tell you then thousand times – I LOVE powder pink, I am so physically attracted to it that it’s borderline psychotic…I reduced the width at the back of my pattern before cutting,to have less volume; and then all went well!

Still not perfect at the back (and pictures with my face but without sunglasses are definitely a no no now!) but much better – and the great lesson is that I should have used a swing dress pattern as a base!

In summary:

• Pattern: La Brune blouse by Delphine & Morissette, with all the canged detailed above
•  Fabric: thick black scuba from Bennytex; light poweder pink crepe from Fabrics Galore