Category: blue lace

Satin ‘n lace

~ velosews ~ 19 Comments
Here’s lace overlay dress I’ve been working on using White Tree Fabrics duchess satin and lace. McCalls 6028 seemed the best fit for the lace dress idea on my Pinterest board.
I do like this dress.
I enjoy working with lace and it seems to be everywhere these days. The duchess satin is firm enough and creates a defined shape without clinging to your body.

So the key to making this dress look great was to mirror the lace edges evenly, after getting a great dress fit.
This really shows how lovely lace is.
Balancing the curves is a key of this dress. The lace I used had a flower just inside the curve that I decided to use as the balance.

I’ve used blue lace on blue satin so it’s hard to see but it’s there.

Waistband and neckline
The waist band wasn’t my initial plan but I added the waistband so you can’t see the lace join. 
Before the waistband.
The waistband make the lace look consistent and continuous, especially for someone my height.
After adding the waistband and hand stitching the lace to the satin.
The neckline on the pattern is round so I’ve drafted it to a high v-neckline and adjusted the lining to suit is.

Sleeves
The sleeves were a small challenge too. A small change because I placed the lace flower on the same spot on both sleeves. 



I’ve used bias binding for the sleeve seams and then whip stitched them to the dress facing so from the outside you see more sleeve and less seam allowance.
Cutting the sleeve so the lace flowers mirror each other.
This lace is so impressive in real life. I think it deserves a light colour satin to really show the lace detailing. I’ll keep that in mind for the lace remnant I have.


I placed a sparkly buttons at the top of each sleeve, just for the effect.

Hand stitching
While this satin seams only needs overlocking, I did under stitch and hand stitch the neckline facing.


The sleeve seam is hand stitched to the bodice so you see more lace that seam allowance. The hems and sleeve seam allowances are bias bound.


I enjoyed the slow hand stitching of the skirt lace overlay to the skirt satin.
Basically I have a few formal dinners coming up and I now have a lovely dress I can wear and know it fits well.

Thank you White Tree Fabrics.

White Tree lace jumpsuit

~ velosews ~ 27 Comments
Functional and practical is what I’ve always strived for when I’ve sewn clothes for myself. The proportions have to be balanced and not swamp me because I’m short. Jumpsuits are really practical and if they’re made using a knit fabric, that’s the most comfortable option I can create and perfect for travelling.
White Tree fabrics asked me if I would be able to make something using this really open lace and I immediately thought ‘jumpsuit’ with a contrasting underlayer. This lace is really lovely to see and I wanted the lace circles to show up and not be hidden if I have used a matching blue under layer. #GBSB series 3 episode 5 featured lace in the semi final.

And here it is.

Ok, so you can’t really see this jumpsuit too well when I’m sitting under the Sydney Harbour Bridge. 

Here’s the close up view (McCalls 6969).

What about this view with the Sydney Opera House in the background.


Here’s a close up of the collar lace detail. It clearly shows how lovely this lace knit is. I’ve hand stitched the collar facing to the contrasting lining. The fabric doesn’t unravel so you could cut out the circles for other projects. 

The inside seams of the collar and lapel provide a strong blueness to emphasis these edges.

I’ve used satin bias binding to finish off the sleeve edges and on the back collar seam. Even the soft knit lining doesn’t unravel but I did overlock the seam edges.
lace binding on the back collar
We (Mr V and I) were having such a ball taking photos along the harbour foreshores we forgot to take a photo of the back of the jumpsuit.
All the circle matched up.

There was definitely a lot of work planning how to cut this fabric. 

Here’s an ‘on the hanger’ close up so you can see where the buttons were placed. 

The buttonholes are hand sewn because this fabric is quite textured and may have needed nerves of steel to machine sew them. This was the main hand sewing I needed to do.
So now you’ve seen my first White Tree Fabrics piece and you can certainly figure out how gorgeous Sydney’s Summer has been too.