Monday 2 December 2013

An ode to 6824

So this post is dedicated to what has become my best friend in the sewingroom. 
New Look Pattern 6824

Package looking a little worse for wear, but only a little! 

So, New Look 6824 is one of those brilliant patterns where you can pick and choose the bits you want, to make differently shaped dresses. It has a lined bodice, which I had never attempted before, and now that I have I do a lined bodice on everything I make - it is so easy and so much tidier and easier for me than hemming!

 I originally bought it to go with this brilliant monstrosity of a fabric:
I think I was half asleep when I bought this as a dress fabric. It's adorable, granted, but it is a little...over the top? 

At any rate, 6824 managed to turn it into a rather gorgeous dress in the end.

Having made my crazy picnic blanket fabric into a dress, I had assumed 6824 would go into a drawer never to be seen again. But oh no, this pattern had other ideas. I now have 5 dresses made from this pattern, with a 6th, 7th and 8th already in the works. I just adore it.

Here are my other dresses which came to life through 6824:
 An ever-so-slightly too short floral gingham dress, made from a recycled duvet cover. The lining you can see in the bodice is the other side of the duvet cover, which at some point will get it's own 6824.

Looney Tunes! You can not understand how much joy I felt finding this 'fabric' (as with probably 90% of my home made dresses, this was a couple of vintage sheets). It is just gorgeous. And has a Warner Bros. copyright logo on it labelled as 1993. In that case, I was probably 3 or 4 when this fabric was first sold. 
I gave this dress a cross-over V neckline, which I'll admit I'm not absolutely happy with without a belt, but with a belt it looks great. 


This I call my Icecream Sunday dress as I made the entire thing on a Sunday morning and wore it that afternoon, and also because this kind of colour palette reminds me of the colours of icecream. I'm especially proud of the neckline here, I think the sweetheart style really adds a bit of interest. (This was bedding in it's first life as well - a duvet this time though!)

This is the latest of my 6824 dresses that I've finished, and it's the only one with a full-circle skirt. Mainly because the fabric didn't have a directional pattern, and also because I hadn't made a circle skirted dress in a long time. And while I do like it....I am also not sure I adore it as much as I do the gathered oblong dresses shown above. But, either way, it is still gorgeous! (And, you guessed it, more bedding! Duvet again.)

If you're looking for a good all round pattern, I more than recommend New Look 6824. The only issue I had with it was with putting the capped sleeves in a lined bodice, as I didn't find the instructions were as well written as they could have been. But a frantic call to Mum of "Help I can't work out a pattern!" solved that pretty quick. The lined bodice is lovely, and the princess seams sit perfectly - and aren't as terrifying as you'd expect!

 I expect I will use this pattern dozens of times, until the point where the pieces are so ragged I have to treat them like some prized antique, it is seriously that gorgeous. And yep, most of them are probably going to be made from bedding. 

On that note, does anyone else recycle bedsheets and duvets for fabric for their clothes? There's a $3 clothing warehouse in my city, where everything inside is $3. I've gotten actual clothes and shoes there a few times, but my favourite section is the bedding area. There are always gorgeous curtains, sheets and duvets, and I can never quite leave them behind. They're also always pretty soft and drape wonderfully, cause they've been washed a lot of times in their life. I know some people might find it icky to use someone's cast off bedding as clothing, but I can't ever pass up a print that I either can't get in fabric, or would cost me a fortune to. 

What's your most loved fabric find? Was it at an actual fabric store, or did you find a bargain elsewhere?

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