Bubble Pocket

Liivimekko

What to make and what fabric to use

I've been planning to make some sort of dress from my dark blue linen for sometime, just haven't managed to decide on the pattern to use. My mother got some ready-cut patterns from her coworker, for number 7 pattern from Ottobre Design 5/2011 in size 36. The name of this pattern is "Bubble Pocket" due to the shape of the pockets. In Finnish this sort of dress is called "liivimekko", hence what I use as the Finnish name of the project. Literal translation is vest dress, but I don't know if that is actually used.

Mother made one of these for my sister in muted green cotton-linen fabric. It fits me too, and I got loaned both it and the patterns for the summer. She made some modifications to the dress: left out the rubber band at the hem and instead of fully lining the upper part, she just added ~2cm wide strips (with buckram) on the inside of arm holes and the neck of the dress.

Cotton-linen seems to work nicely for this pattern, and I actually had (off)white cotton-linen I haven't used for anything, so I figured I'll use that in mine. Also my other option, pure linen is quite dark blue and dark colors are generally not the best in summer time (too hot). I already have one white dress and I really do not want another, so I decided to dye the fabric. Turquoise of course. Got some Dylon fabric dye in Bahama Blue from Prisma and cheap regular salt from Lidl. It turned up quite nice shade of turquoise, matches my Vans shoes! I also have a light blue invisible zipper in exactly the right length (50cm). It doesn't quite match the color of the dyed fabric, but is close enough that I don' think it matters since it shouldn't show too much anyway.

Mods?

I think the dress is too wide for me in the shoulders, it annoys me that they don't stay as far apart as they should and as a result the dress bulges in the back. I will try to modify the cut so that the shoulders are a bit closer together.

The instructions call for full lining with buckram all around in the upper part. My mother used strips with buckram on the edges: armholes and neck. I am thinking of doing the full lining, but skipping the buckram. One more option would be to add some bias binding in the arm holes and neck. Will have to think on this...

Cutting parts

The amount of fabric is quite accurate: I needed about 160cm, when the instructions said 170cm. Some patterns have really silly amounts vs what I end up needing, parts way more spread out than they have to be. I could have maybe gotten away with a bit less, but I chose to cut all the pieces same way.

I decided to do the lining. I've noticed the strips on the inside of the shoulders chafe a bit when carrying a shoulder bag, which I usually do. Full lining will be smoother on the inside with no zigzagged edges. Also I don't need to go buy any extra materials this way. I still think I will skip the buckram, the cotton-linen is sturdy enough without it.

Got 130cm of pretty turquoise cotton-linen left too, that is enough to actually make something else from it too... :)

Putting parts together

I actually did not cut the neckline yet, going to do that after I have the parts more together and I have a better idea how it will look. Instructions say to first do the pockets, but they looked scary, so I attached the middle back pieces to the side back pieces first. I did the stitching on top of too, but only one and not double. Double would probably look good in denim with contrast stitching, but this didn't seem like it needed double.

Pockets turned out both less and more annoying than I expected: less because I only needed one go, and more because half the alignment marks were missing from the patterns I had and since I did not have the original magazine, there was nothing I could do about it... In any case once I had all the layers of the pockets aligned and pinned, I hand stitched them so they would not move when actually sewing the seam with the machine. I did both stitches from top to bottom and this is how I am going to do the side seams (which also have the pockets between them) too.

Next in line were the shoulder and side seams. I want shoulder straps to go closer to my neck rather than towards the arms. Easiest way to do this is to just widen the straps in the neck side a bit. I did an initial version and modified it further after shoulder and side seams were done and I could try the dress on and actually see the fit. I can pull the green version over my head without ever opening the zipper, so I just used safety pins to pin the back side all the way up. No blood sacrifices in this project so far. x)

Zipper was next and I did the rest of the back seam right after it. Then I deviated from the instructions: I just can't get the top of the zipper neat enough sewing the lining next to the zipper from the back-side like instructed. So I first sew the neck of the dress and the lining together. Then I did the armholes, which was bit tricky: after turning the neck right-side up, had to sew the arm holes from the wrong-side starting from the armpit. First to the front towards shoulder as far as possible. Then again starting from armpit and this time towards shoulder from the back. Sorry no pics, forgot to take them.

Next I sew the lining to the middle back next to the zipper. I pinned it and sew from the right-side of the lining fabric, which means inside of the dress. I continued the seam all the way down and then did the other side. I like the results, looks quite neat and the zipper is well hidden.

Final steps were the hem, I turned it about 1cm and sew from the right-side. And then some small stitches to keep the lining in place. The lining is bit weird length, it ends right at the widest point of my breasts... I think this dress is meant for grapes, not melons. Doesn't really matter, I don't think it shows unless you know what you are looking for. Over all I am very happy with the result. Thanks to the shoulder adjustment it fits better than the green version. It is also a bit smaller, I think because I sew 1cm from the seam instead of presser foot width (~0,7cm).

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