Medicinal Print jsk Project, part 1

So I ordered this custom printed fabric via spoonflower during their free shipping promotion. I bought 3 yards. And yep, I designed this fabric myself.

This photo is taken after I washed, dried and ironed it. The red is a little deeper in person, but still photograps a pleasant color. And the in real life color is exactly what I was wanting.

As you can see, I have this fabric folded over a bunch. I was pretty careful in the process, as this is going to be the skirt portion of my dress. And I wanted to line it up as well as I could. I used a self healing mat, ruler and rotary cutter to cut the skirt fabric from the rest of the fabric. I find that the whole project looks nicer and is much easier to work with when I do that. I normally cut my skirt panels at 22 inches, or about 56cm in length. I cut this at 21.5 inches from where my print begins on the fabric. I'm going to use 1/2 an inch approximately of the white border when I hem the skirt portion.

I then lined up the edges of the print, folded over the seem allowance and ironed it. The fold from the iron is going to be my sewing line for attempting to line the print up at the side of the skirt.

After ironing, I made marks where my pocket is going to go.

I sew pockets in at about 6 inches from the top of the skirt panel. I used a bit of blue tailor's chalk to mark where not to sew.

I pinned the right sides together, using 2 pins as an additional mark of where to stop sewing. Then I stitched the side seem.

There's where the pocket will go. I still need to serge the raw edges of the fabric. I'll do that before I sew the pockets on. I'm going to serge each side rather than serging them together. 

The slit for the pocket is looking pretty decent. I wish I'd lined up the print a little more precice. But matching diagonal stripes is rather hard.

It doesn't seem like much as of yet. But I have made some progress on this piece. I am waiting for some of the lace I intend to use on this project.


I do make a small comission from sales of this fabric.
https://www.spoonflower.com/designs/8276172-medicinal-stripes-red-by-espressobug

It appears they no longer have the Kona Cotton. The other less expensive option is the Cotton Poplin. Although the Organic Cotton Sateen Ultra is a better choice in my opinion. (But a fair amount more expensive) 3 yards of fabric is usually about what you need for a standard size lolita jsk. Additional fabric may be needed for larger sizes or extra bows/ruffles, ect.

Basic skirt is finished

I was digging through some scrap/leftover fabric. And I decided to throw together a simple skirt that can be used in lolita. It's more of a casual lolita skirt though. But hey, it has a pocket. It isn't the best choice of fabric print wise. But it isn't the worst either, especially given that I used some extra material I had lying around.

Macaron Candy Shop Dress

I've been sewing again lately. And as the sewist that I am, I decided to use the fabric I designed. I had it printed out via spoonflower, on cotton poplin. It probably isn't the best choice, but it's alright. It wrinkles more than the Kona cotton. And it isn't as smooth and pretty as the cotton sateen. The cotton sateen is my favorite. Although I have heard good things about their chiffon. Anyway, I don't have a good photo before washing it.

But I did take a photo soon after starting my project!

This is after about 4 hours of work, cutting and ironing the fabric, and gathering and sewing the lace at the hem in. I'm not actually a big fan of the lace I used. And I'll likely change it out some time.

And of course I made a bodice. Then I sewed the skirt into it.

I love the heart shape of the front. It's often the little things that make me happy.

I did add innerfacing before sewing the bodice together. Just a quick fyi. And then I added some lining. I only lined the bodice because I'm about out of lining fabric right now. And that's all I had enough for. I don't enjoy working with lining anyway. So it's not a big loss to me.

Of course, I made the shoulder straps after. So that means I had to unpick part of the bodice. Don't stay awake till 4am sewing kids. It leads to silly errors. 😅

I did like the way that the shoulder straps turned out. Although I will construct them slightly differently next time in order to reduce bulk. My sewing machine, which is supposed to be able to handle bulk, was dropping stitches over the thicker bits. Makes me kinda mad to be honest. It's supposed to be able to do quilts and the like. 

I did some top stitching, added some elastic for the back shirring, tacked the lining down fully on the inside, ect...

Then I was off to add more decoration. I made one waist bow I didn't like. Then I made one I liked much better. Although the innerfacing on the new bow didn't secure as nicely as I would have liked. And that means the bow has some wrinkling to it that it shouldn't. But it's all the border fabric I had left. So I'm working with what I have.

The pink bow leads to much better color balance! 💖

I then tried to come up with a few finishing touches. I had a bit of hand tatted lace laying around. So I put that at the bodice. And I had some pink ribbon of good quality. I also had some decent pearl style beads. I got them from a place called shipwreck beads. Their quality of beads is much better than you would get at most craft stores.

And here is a photo of me trying on the finished dress. Well, almost finished. I still plan to eventually add a pocket in and probably swap out the lace at the hem. I'm wearing a Bodyline blouse with this just to show how it looks with a blouse on. I need to make some minor adjustments to the pattern so that the straps are a little closer together in the back for me. But it's mostly a nitpick pattern wise. 

I hope seeing part of the process of this project brought you joy!

This is a link to my spoonflower page where the fabric I used is available for purchase. I do make a small comission from sales of this fabric.

https://www.spoonflower.com/designs/4499581-macaron-candy-shop-mint-by-espressobug

Intro

Welcome to this lolita fashion blog! I mostly sew and occasionally buy things. So here I am, again, attempting to blog!