🍂 Autumn Sewing Tutorial 🍂 Making a cozy wool layering dress

As winter approaches, I find myself in need of some warm layering pieces, so I took a few days and made myself a jumper dress from a heavyweight wool in nice earth tones. Today I'm going to break down the process of patterning and sewing the jumper for you, along with the new construction methods I experimented with and the lessons I learned. This jumper project was inspired by two YouTubers. For one, Bernadette's Lady Sherlock costume, but specifically the fan skirt and the waistcoat pieces. I think the fan skirt pattern and shape is really cool, and I've been wanting to try it out basically since Bernadette's channel was a thing. And I love the v-shapes of her waistcoat. I just find it so flattering, and I love the effect of the neckline layered over different types of shirts. However, there are two reasons I never got around to trying them out. For one, in Bernadette's video on making a hip pad, she showed the downside of a modernized adaption of the fan skirt, in how the shifted bulk adds weight to the back of the skirt, and drags the waistband down if you aren't wearing proper historical structuring pieces. And for the waistcoat, I just don't really like vests on myself, aesthetically, and I feel like I wouldn't end up wearing it. However, everything came together, literally, when I thought to make them as one piece. Take the elements I love about the waistcoat, which are basically the v-shapes and the layering effect, but make it as the bodice of a jumper dress. That way the skirt would be stabilized as well, but without adding a hip pad. The other YouTuber I've drawn inspiration from with this project is The Closet Historian. She has a fantastic series on block patterns and sloper patterns, and I learned so much from binging her channel recently. It was a major penny drop moment, because I realized that I'd basically been trying to fumble my way through figuring out block patterns for years, and it turns out that it was a real thing this whole time, with a name, and people who go to fashion college know these things. So with this project, I wanted to fit and test out a basic block pattern. To make my basic block, I bought a sloper pattern from Bootstrap Patterns, and inserted all of my measurements to have it customized for myself. I mostly was curious about how accurate it would be, and you can do that if you want. I know some countries have a lot less access to patterns, so maybe that's a good option for you. However, if you do have access to local big box patterns with periodic $2 sales, I would recommend that. The Bootstrap Pattern was okay, but I still had to do a ton of adjustments, and I don't feel like the customization really saved me much work. Also, when I bought it they were $10, but since then the price has gone up to $17, which I feel like is too much. To start out, the only thing I did was shift the front dart from vertical to horizontal, because I feel like horizontal bust darts are more discreet. To shift the dart, I loosely followed the closet historian's guide, which I will link below. I made my first mockup without any other adjustments, to see how well the customized pattern did. The waist was definitely too long, and the neck was tighter than I like. But the arm size felt right, and the fit was a bit loose, but pretty good overall. I tried out some adjustments on my mockup first. I trimmed down the neckline. I tucked in an inch from the waist length. I also took in the sides a bit, eyeballing it to bring in some of the loose excess from my first mockup. After I implemented those changes, my pattern looked like this. Then I made a second mockup, and it was much, much better. However, there was one big issue. I couldn't pin it closed at the bust. I mean, I could force it, but like, it was tight. The waist fit perfectly, and above the bust was right, but there was almost a 2 inch gap over the bust when I let it sit how it wanted. This was driving me crazy, because it didn't seem like as simple a fix as just adding back to the side seams. The back didn't need any extra, and I was worried that if I tried just sloping out the bust at the front, I'd wind up with a super weird pattern, like this one from my last jumper dress. Eventually, I figured it out, based off of the closet historian again. She mentioned in one video that she prefers two bust darts, because she just has a curvy, hourglassy figure, and she needs that second dart to distribute the fullness better. I assumed I could get away with one dart because I'm not that hourglassy, and because my favorite dresses all have just the one horizontal bust dart. But then I realized that my complaint with all of those dresses is that they are all too tight in the bust. So, my new theory was, people don't always see their own bodies accurately, and apparently I am curvy enough to need that second bust dart. To make another dart, I drew a crooked line from the neck down to the waist, making sure that they met at the neck and were split apart by 1 inch at the bust. I measured the split at the base of these pieces, and turned that excess into the new vertical dart. I was making this up as I go, but somebody on Discord told me that the technical term is a full bust adjustment, so you can look that up for more concise instructions. Again, these are things that people who have actual fashion design education know, and the rest of us just have to piece them together. So here's the final bodice pattern for this project. I decided to just go with it and skip a third mockup. For the fan skirt, I had a pattern that I drafted a year or two ago from the diagram in the Keystone Guide. This was very mathy and I had fun with it, but I understand that not all people enjoy these sorts of puzzles. However, I think that you could really easily adapt a fitted pencil skirt for the job. You'd just have to add an extension to the center back. The more you add at the top, the fuller your gathers or pleats will be. The more you add at the base, the fuller the hem will be. For my pattern, the fullness was a bit out of my hands. My fabric was 60 inches wide, so I just folded my pattern so that the flare just barely fit within that folded width. And for a final piece, I've decided to finally update my go-to pocket pattern. This is my current pattern. It's pretty standard, I just extended it so that the top edge is sewn up into the waistband to avoid the lumpy pocket effect when it isn't stabilized. I know Bernadette's Victorian pocket patterns use a tape for this purpose, but I just kept using my own pattern because it seemed easier. I changed my mind recently because I realized a very important thing. When you sew it like I do, you wind up with double and triple the bulk getting sewn up into the waistband. I've dealt with this recently as I sew with more thick wools by making the pocket from a much lighter weight fabric. But then the problem is that the pocket is thin and weak. If you do it Victorian style, the bulk is completely removed from the waist and all you have left is a tiny bit of tape. So I referenced the pockets in Patterns of Fashion 2, but in the end I just altered my existing pocket, making it a bit bigger, cutting it shorter, and straightening out the side corner. So there you have it, patterns ready to go. For my fabrics, I have three. This is a dense wool coating fabric from Mood. It's currently sold out, but here's what the original page looked like. For the lining, I do have some chocolate brown silk, but I decided to just go cheap and use a lightweight cotton from Joann's instead. And then for the facing pieces, I want something a little stronger, so I pulled this olive cotton twill from my stash. The first thing to sew are the darts. Then, because the wool is thick but loosely woven, I decided that the neckline probably needed some stay stitching. Then I ironed all of the darts. Oh, by the way, in my last project with heavy wool, I really, really struggled with the ironing. A ton of people in the comments suggested getting a clapper, which I did, and 100% can confirm it made a world of difference. I bought mine off of Amazon for about $16, but it's really just a piece of wood, so if you've got access to a friend or relative's wood scraps, or your own, I'd really advise digging through and salvaging yourself a super useful sewing tool. After the bodices were pieced, I lined them up, wrong sides together, and pinned around the neckline and the arm size. I'm experimenting with a mix of modern and Victorian in this project. This isn't exactly flatlining, because I don't want to have to finish the side seams, but it's not a modern bagged lining either. It's somewhere in between. I wanted to leave the neckline and arm size raw for as long as possible, because I wanted to leave myself the option of adjusting them later. And I did end up adjusting the neckline later, so I'm glad I did. Now that the bodice was in one piece, it was time to move on to the skirt. I stitched the lining first, since it was easier. Just the side seams and the back, leaving a slit at the top for the closure. Then for the outer skirt, I need to get the pockets in. Oh, something I should mention, my fan skirt pattern has darts at the side front and side back waistline. I didn't stitch these yet, because I wanted to line them up with the darts of the bodice. However, once I actually compared the two, I realized that I didn't even need those darts. Two reasons, I think. For one, the waistband of the bodice has a bit more ease than the fitted skirt I originally drafted. And two, the way I modernized this fan skirt, I'm not wearing it with a corset or padding, so I don't have as dramatic of a waist-hip ratio. So maybe you would need darts, maybe not, this is just how it worked out for me. Back to what I was doing. I need to insert the pockets. How I did this was by lining them up four inches from the top of the skirt. This was a little low, and next time I'll probably do three or three and a half. But I pinned and stitched them down, then folded them out and ironed them. Then I lined up the side seams and pinned them together, leaving a six inch opening in the pocket. I stitched those side seams, back tacking at the top and bottom of the opening. Then I folded the side seams back and pinned all around the pocket, adding a strip of tape to the top corner. I stitched around the pocket, and the way I stitched it really reinforced that tape. Honestly, between the tape and the twill, this is one pocket that I will never worry about ripping out. I have a weird anxiety about pockets ripping, and I think I can trace it all the way back to third grade reading when Laura Ingalls' pocket ripped out because she'd picked up too many pretty rocks, and apparently that made her greedy. Then I stitched up the back seam, just like I did with the center back of the lining. And now the skirts can be layered together. I'm doing these wrong sides together as well, and pinning all around the waistband. Now here, I should have drawn that pocket tape up between the layers, which would have finished the pockets off. But I didn't, because at this time I still thought that the skirt darts were going to happen, and so the tape should be tucked up afterwards. Then I just forgot about the tape and had to go back and fix it later. You'll see. With the skirt and bodice ready to attach, but me not ready to attach them, I called it quits for the night. I think I have figured out a clever way to attach the skirt to the bodice, because this peak is a little bit of a problem. What I think I'm going to do, I'm going to line up the pattern piece and find where it would have ended before I added the peak, and I'm going to trim just the lining layer down to a straight across edge, and then I'm going to stitch the skirt to the lining layer with the seam folded to the inside, and then on the outside, I can turn this bottom edge in and then just hand stitch it down to the so I pulled up the skirt lining and smoothed out the pockets, pinning the tape up against the waist seam. I just had to hand stitch that down, which really wasn't that big of a deal, but if I just put them in right, it would have been such a smooth, gratifying pocket insertion. Next time. Now it's time to add my closure, which I've decided to do as an invisible zipper. I just personally find invisible zippers to be the simplest and nicest looking closures. Important thing to note, when I was attaching the skirt, I left that last inch and a half unstitched. This was because of the weird way I attached the skirt to the bodice layers and how it would have interfered with the zipper. But basically, I started by turning one half of the zipper in towards the dress and lined up the edge with the back seam allowance. I basted it in place, which I usually skip, but really shouldn't. Then I zipped the two halves and lined up the waistline. I also lined up the top of the neckline. Then I unzipped it and pinned in between, basting that half as well. Then I stitched it on my modern machine, which is very easy to do. You just need a special invisible zipper foot, which will help unfold the zipper as you go. After the zipper was in, I took out the unnecessary basting stitches and tested out the zip, making sure I didn't stitch too close to the teeth anywhere and create a sticking point. Then I can turn the edges of the lining to the inside and begin stitching it down. And with that, the zipper is in and all that's left are the finishings. All right, time to get this done. Um, I'm basically just down to finishings. So I've got the neckline and the arm size and then I've got the hem to do. And then this thing will be done. I have this handy tool for marking hems that blows a puff of shock where you want, but you can just use a yardstick and pins. I left it hanging on the dress form overnight and let the hem stretch and settle itself since the wool is pretty loosely woven and the back seam was cut on a bias. I traced around it, then trimmed the wool level. Then I lifted the overskirt and pinned it out of the way and repeated the chalk marking and trimming with the lining layer. This looked pretty even when the skirt was hanging, but then when I spread it out on a flat surface, it still wasn't quite right. And when I pinned it, the lining was overlong in places. It was overall pretty frustrating and something you don't have to deal with if you do flatline the skirt, but I figured it was good enough and started on the twill facing pieces. I lined up the side seams and stitched them together, then lined the facing up with the base of the skirt, pinning all three layers. I stitched around the skirt at about a quarter of an inch, then opened up that facing, turning all of the raw edges towards the twill and topstitching. This is all basically the Victorian hem facing method from Bernadette's two skirts, but done with a few modern cut corners. Then at the ironing board, I turned in a quarter inch of the facing edge, then folded up the facing so there was a half inch overhang of the skirt. I pinned it up and I did have to tuck the edges up into a few folds. It kind of stretched out weirdly and I'm not sure why, but it didn't make any visible difference in the end. I finished that hem by felling the upper edge to the lining layer. I checked myself every few stitches and did manage to keep from catching the outer skirt layer, which is nice and will help it flow and stay smooth and seamless. Okay, now that the hem is done, I can move on to the arm's eye facings. To make these, I marked a line in around the arm size of my pattern pieces. Then I traced those markings and the edges and cut the pieces out. I decided to eliminate the shoulder seam, mostly because I can, but also because this jumper is really, really thick. When mood says coating fabric, they mean it. But I cut the armhole facings out of the twill. I pinned the underarms together and stitched them. Then I turned in the outer edge, eyeballing a quarter of an inch. Then it was ready to attach to the jumper, and I lined up that inner edge around the arm's eye. Then I stitched it, trimmed it, clipped it, and turned it, pinning the edges smooth. I had planned on understitching the facing pieces, but because I decided that these layers were so very thick, I wanted to just do some topstitching. But the wool was so mottled and textured that my running stitches didn't turn out visible at all. Then I pinned down the outer edge of that facing and felled it exactly like I did the skirt hem. Only one thing left, the neckline For the neckline, I decided to lower it a bit and widen it, giving it a little slope. When I traced these facing pieces, I also wanted to get rid of that shoulder seam. I cut it on the fold, but it just barely didn't fit the fabric correctly. It ended up working out alright, but I thought I'd show you. The process here is basically the same as the arm's eyes. Pinned the facing around the neckline. It came down a lot lower than the original neckline because I had trimmed that edge on the pattern. I just smoothed it down to where it wanted to sit naturally, pinned it in place, stitched it, and trimmed away that excess from the front V. Clipped the edges, turned the facing to the inside, pinned it down. Topstitched, pinned down the outer edge, fell, and turned under the edges in the back, reinforcing the area where my fabric was too short to fold under. Then, finally, eat your reward candy that's been staring at you for four days. However, it turns out that was a little premature. When I tried the jumper on, my opinions were mostly positive, with one major exception. I really didn't like the V-shaped waistline. Without boning or structure, I just did not find it flattering. However, because of the way that I'd constructed the bodice, I realized that it would actually be super easy, barely an inconvenience, to level it out. I just seam ripped the front lower edge, lined it up with my pattern pieces to find the correct edge, trimmed it, folded it back under, and felled it back down again. Now the jumper is done. Okay, so I have a lot of little details about this jumper that I love, and a lot of nitpicky things that I don't like. But the important thing is, none of the things I dislike ruin the jumper for me, which happens way more often than you'd expect. I have been wearing it, and it's fine. But these are the things I noticed. One, the fit of the bodice is pretty great, but it's not quite perfect. The waist looks like it's still just a tiny bit too long, with the way it wrinkles up at the sides and the back. Also, the bust darts are a little funky. This one took me several wears and a lot of just staring at myself in the mirror before I finally figured out what I did wrong. Basically, the apex is slightly off. It's too high and too wide, which is why the fullest point of the bust is like, just a little bit too close to my armpit. I already adjusted these on my basic block, so that I have a fresh, improved pattern for next time. Number two, I love the pockets. Next time I'll actually sew them right, and not forget about the tape inside, but this is definitely my new go-to pocket pattern. Number three, I'm iffy about the lining method I used. There were pros and cons. The biggest pro is the freedom to adjust the arm's eyes and the neckline until the very end, but the con is that they took a lot more hand stitching than I expected. The whole project took like a full workday longer than I planned because of all the hand stitching. With the skirt, I liked that the lining covered up all the pocket edges, so I didn't need to worry about finishing any of that. The con is that the hemming was much messier and more complicated than I wanted. So I'll hold skirt linings as a loose option for the future. Also, because the lining is cotton instead of silk, it catches and drags on whatever I'm wearing beneath the jumper, so I really need to wear a silk slip with it to avoid that. But I mean like, you really only have three options there. Either wear a slip, use real expensive silk, or use cheap poly. So, four. With the Victorian fan skirts, I'm really glad that I tried it out, but I actually don't love the shape. That's probably mostly personal. My hips are not the part of my body that I love most, and I really don't like fitted skirts that emphasize them. I think I'll mostly stick with flared and pleated skirts in the future. Five. This one is a real nitpicky thing, but. With the side seam, my skirt front is on the bias, and the back is cut straight. I really wish those matched. It would have been really satisfying, and I figured out after finishing how easily I could have matched those up. All I would have had to do is line up the side seams of my pattern pieces, then trace the fold line of the front piece onto the back piece and use that mark as my grain line. Then they would have matched. But I didn't think of it until afterwards, so like, it's okay. It's fine. So yes, those are the things that I would have done differently a second time, which I feel like are useful to mention. But none of those things will keep me from wearing the jumper. It's very thick, very warm, and basically exactly what I wanted in my wardrobe. I'm overall really happy with it, and even more importantly, I'm really happy with my basic bodice pattern, and I'm excited to use it again very soon. So, I hope you enjoyed this video. If you'd like to see more of my work, you can subscribe to me here on YouTube and follow my Instagram. The pattern for this jumper dress will be going up on my Patreon, and I also have another YouTube channel just for worldbuilding, and another Instagram for that. See ya. And a special thanks to Amber Aldrich, Demeester Mehta, Erin Wishart, Charlotte R, Shia Thompson, Hayley Martin, Jesse Bryant, Shannon, Leisha Slaughter, Mackenzie D, and Stella Sapient. Thank you so much for your support of this channel.