Notions Of Fabric

After making the toile of the Calvin top which I posted last week, I dove straight in to the actual planned dress! This make was actually totally inspired - you know that feeling you get when you are just idly browsing an online fabric store (The Village Haberdashery, in my case), and you see a fabric - and instantly you know that you NEED it in your life and EXACTLY what to make with it. This is what happened with this Mind the Maker Leo print viscose - I knew as soon as I saw it that it needed to be a True Bias Calvin dress. It is gorgeous - and I've been trying to bring more green into my wardrobe, to great success! I made the size 10 again, the same as my toile. In the making process, I ended up taking 1cm off each underarm. I also took 8" off the hem (pardon my mixing imperial/metric, I work in strange ways, apparently) because it was really long on me! It is a big departure from my usual style, with the lack of a waistband and the wrap, but every time I've worn it I ...

Now, if anyone has stuck around and read most of these blog posts, they have probably learned a few things about me. One of them would be that I rarely make a toile - and if I do, it's a wearable one not a real toile. This garment is a wearable toile. The only reason I tend to make a wearable toile is because it's a style I don't usually wear - and boy is this different from my usual style! Before this top, there was precisely nothing that wrapped in my wardrobe. I always worried that because I am bigger than average on top, that it wouldn't suit me. But one of the things I love about sewing at the moment is trying things that are a little out of my comfort zone, so off I went! This is the True Bias Calvin, made up as a top. I realised when I finished my 'Shelby Rip-Off' dress that I had an awful lot of fabric left, and given it was a rayon (I think, it was from the Birmingham Rag Market in 2019 so I don't exactly remember now!) it was the right amount of dr...