Eyelet Experimentation and a New Way of Underlining

I love eyelet fabrics. They are fascinating - the way they are constructed and held together, and there are some really beautiful ones available. I've been wanting to make something from eyelet and had thought that maybe I would make a fitted dress for Frocktails out of it. But I wanted to experiment first.

So I bought this MASSIVE eyelet from Gertie's Shop.

I admit, I didn't really pay attention to the measurement of the eyelet in the shop description and the circles are a lot larger than I had envisioned. Oh well, you learn I guess! I still like them a lot, but thought they would look weird in a fitted dress. I was worried a dart might end with a large circle, pointing right at my nipple. So I thought for a bit and made my sewing stalwart, Gabby.

I know this isn't really a sewing challenge for me, but I wear my Gabby dresses all the time, and I figured sewing something tried and true would give me the freedom to sew the eyelet really beautifully.

I wanted this dress to be trans-seasonal, so I underlined it in lawn from Spotlight.

I underlined in a different manner to usual. Instead of cutting the pattern pieces twice, once in eyelet, once in lawn, I cut them in the eyelet, then laid the eyelet on top of the uncut lawn. I then pinned the two layers together thoroughly and stitched them together about 1cm from the edge of the eyelet. I then trimmed around the eyelet - and voila! I had my underlined pattern pieces.

I have to say, this method works much better than the other method. I don't have any weird flopping where the underlining fabric is shorter/longer than the fashion fabric, and it just flows beautifully. It is so much more accurate.

For this Gabby, I used shop-bought satin bias binding for the neck edge. I accidentally threw out my leftover bits of lawn!

So there you have it. My first experimentation into eyelet. I have decided, after all this, not to make an eyelet frock for Frocktails. Instead I bought the most divine stretch cotton to make a Belladone dress. Gotta get my skates on though - if you're going to Frocktails, what are you making?

A Very Swanky Sorbetto

I've recently jumped on the Sorbetto bandwagon - have you? It is such a cute and easy pattern and is free!

I made this in a beautiful black eyelet from Tessuti that I bought two weeks after Little M was born. I needed to line it, so I used some magenta chiffon from my stash. The binding is the same gorgeous Mokuba wool binding I used for my NY Cape.

I didn't have quite enough of the eyelet to make the full pleat at the front, so I decreased it by approximately 1.5cm. I also stitched the pleat down as the thickness of the eyelet, and the double layer made it stand out from the body too much. I basted the eyelet and chiffon together and treated it as one piece of fabric - I thought about doing a separate lining but thought it would look funny through the eyelet. I made a straight size 6 with no alterations bar decreasing the pleat and stitching it down - though I did hand-stitch on the binding so it looked neat.

Next time I was thinking about lowering the neckline a smidge -what do you think? I really like the Sorbetto top - so easy and cute - I think I'll be making more - perhaps in cotton though so it is more airy for this crazy heat we've been having!