lady skater lovin'

Unless you've been living under a rock for the last few years, you've likely heard of or made yourself a Kitschy Coo Lady Skater dress. I bought the pattern early on last year and I am utterly ashamed that it took me a whole year to sew as it has kick started a complete love affair with sewing jersey.

My absolute favourite thing about sewing with jersey is that it is so forgiving regarding fit. I have spent the past two or three years labouring over woven bodices and feeling increasingly frustrated with things not fitting comfortably. I love how this all disappears with jersey. "Got big, awkward shoulders? No problem, I'll stretch over that." THANK YOU, JERSEY!

 This is my triumphant "I am an unstoppable jersey dress making machine" pose.

For my first Lady Skater I chose a navy blue, medium weight jersey from Girl Charlee as I wanted to sew a replacement for an old shop bought dress which gradually shrunk to the point of looking indecent. This jersey is lovely and soft to wear and my only complaint is that it loves to pick up any bit of fluff or hair - but that's navy fabric for you I guess.

For this dress I cut a size 4 according to my high bust measurement. The only changes I made to the pattern were grading out to the width of size 5 for the armhole to account for my broad shoulders and lengthening the skirt by 3 inches as I'm tall(ish) at 5ft 7 1/2.

I usually need to lengthen bodices by at least 1/2 inch but I had read comments that the Lady Skater bodice is long so I didn't change it. If anything, it came out slightly too long on me(!) but not annoying enough to unpick. Essentially, this dress was a toile but I'm delighted with how it turned out and I have worn it loads. It turns out that a plain, navy dress was definitely missing from my wardrobe.

Spurred on by the success of the first dress I immediately set out on my second. Shock horror, I picked another plain fabric! This time I used a deep green jersey purchased from My Fabrics. It's feels a little bit lighter in weight to the first one and not quite as soft/cotton-y to touch, but still a nice jersey. Although I like the little cap sleeves on the navy dress I fancied something different so I copied the length of my Tilly and the Buttons Agnes t-shirt and twin needled the hems. My only other change was shortening the bodice by 1/4 inch.

 My "WOOH, this dress has longer sleeves" pose.

I'm really happy with how this dress turned out as well, although I probably wear the navy dress more.

Tidy insides.

For my third Lady Skater, I finally felt ready to cut into my "posh" fabric which I purchased from Kitschy Coo at the same time as the dress pattern. It's a medium weight jersey (organic cotton, I think) and feels gorgeous to handle and wear - really soft and weighty. It's worth paying a little bit more sometimes for quality fabric, especially if it has a ridiculously cool print. This fabric is covered in sewing paraphenalia - how cute is that?!

I had forgotten that I could only get hold of 1.3m of this fabric so I was worried there wouldn't be enough for a dress. Thankfully I *just* managed to squeak it out. YAY! This dress makes me so happy.

Actually, all three of my Lady Skater dresses make me ridiculously happy. I genuinely feel like I've turned a corner with my sewing. I'm producing clothes that I want to wear all the time, not some of the time, and are continually in the washing basket. I had it stuck in my head for so long that I wanted to wear woven cotton dresses when actually what I wear most, and love wearing, is jersey. I think I even enjoy sewing jersey more! There's a weird satisfaction in sewing a nice neckband or twin needling a hem.

I have since moved onto making Colette Patterns' Moneta Dress, another lovely jersey pattern, but I definitely see more Lady Skaters in my future. They hit that perfect balance of being incredibly comfortable yet flattering and potentially quite smart.

Apologies for the headless photography throughout this post. I'm not photogenic at the best of times, but I really didn't feel like having my face in shot when I took these photographs in the summer. I did daft poses to make up for it though!