Finishing off 2021 to report on a very involved project that I worked on a little bit each day over several weeks – I made my dream coat! I have learnt loads making it and I’m really quite proud of it (as anyone who has spoke to me recently will have heard!). It brightens up a grey day, is comfortable, warm, has plenty of room for wearing a jumper with it, has pockets, and I can even cycle in it. I’ve got a lot to say about making this so read on to find out more. Apart from some little things here and there that could be neater, overall, I’m really pleased with the finish. The pattern Th ..read more

I’m really happy with this dress as I worked slowly and carefully on drafting the pattern over several weeks. I had an idea in my mind of what I wanted and I used up plenty fabric scraps and muslin to test out different modifications. I knew I wanted to embrace the square neckline and puff sleeves trend in a dress that has a nice balance of looking fitted but feeling casual to wear. The front bodice is built around princess seams but the upper bodice side panels are separate pattern pieces (which you can’t really see in this fabric). The skirt is a gored slight tulip shaped skirt that continu ..read more

Earlier this year, my lovely friend Ciara asked me to help her change a wrap-around dress of hers into a jumpsuit. I’m not particularly good at alterations and modifications, but I was up for a fun lockdown challenge! In the end I did a not-so-fantastic job on the transformation (sorry, Ciara!), but I did become a bit fascinated with the dress-come-jumpsuit’s construction, particularly the way the pockets were incorporated into the belt. So I rubbed off the blouse part, modified it a bit to my liking, drafted some shorts to add to it and this is the result! I was so pleased with the process ..read more

I’ve written before about my love for the Teahouse Dress pattern from Sew House Seven Patterns, and you can see the dresses I’ve made from it here and here. I had been wanting to sew up this tartan fabric for a while now and the notion took me to use it to make a short version of the Teahouse Dress. Really pleased with the result, even thought the front facing is slightly pulling on the princess seams in so they don’t sit as fully flat as I would like. After some unpicking I got it to sit a bit better. I think it looks really nice with the black waist ties. I also did that thing of diving int ..read more

I made this dress in 2019 and I never really wore it much. I always found it a bit tight in the armpits! I had some of the fabric left over so this summer I used it to start working on a new bodice style. Then I decided to take the skirt off the original dress and add it to the bodice. And jazz it up with these buttons! I still don’t looove it so I wonder what this dress will be transformed into in a few years time? From this… …to this! The post Upcycling my own sewing appeared first on Belgian Seams ..read more

These two dresses I made in springtime this year and they are both made using the Myosotis dress pattern from Deer and Doe patterns which I added a bishop sleeve to. I love the purple one so much! The fabric comes from Passion Tissus in Saint-Gilles, Brussels where I seem to have made pretty much all of my recent fabric purchases, which I suppose is hardly surprising given that for much of the last 18 months I’ve been mostly in Saint-Gilles and perusing fabric shops was not illegal. The blue fabric comes from Goldhawk Road which I bought in February 2020 when I went to London just before the ..read more

Sometimes you just need to make something, ANYTHING! I took a bunch of random fabrics I wasn’t that fussed about but have been cohabitating with for many years and used them to test out some pattern drafting/adapting, the result was this dress. And I actually quite like it.  But more importantly it got me out of a sewing fear rut. Here are some silly pictures of me wearing the final result.                 The zip looks a but rubbish but that’s fine, it’s just a test! Jazz hands! The post Make something! appeared first on Belgian Seams ..read more

Over the past few months I’ve made three different versions of the Shelby dress from True Bias. I can’t really remember when I made them all specifically as, of course, looking back on the last few months memories are a bit mixed up. But, that’s not what matters here (or ‘peu importe’ as they say in French), the most important thing I want to say is that I love love this sewing pattern! When I first saw versions of this pattern popping up online I really fell for it: a 1990s princess seam slouchy cut that I feel would also be a good basis for making a 1940s tea-dress style. So from the 1940s ..read more

I spent some lovely days this summer sewing another version of the Myosotis dress from Deer and Doe! After making two shorter versions during the lockdown sans ruffles, I was curious to make a dress version that fully embraces the ruffle trend that seems to be big both in and out of the sewing world at the moment! I didn’t have that much of this fabric so I spent a long time deciding how to best place the pattern pieces and how big to make the skirt pieces and the sleeve and skirt ruffles. It’s so fun when you only have a limited amount of fabric as it forces you to be creative and methodical ..read more

Let me introduce you to my industrial hand press for setting snaps! After a few frustrating adventures with hand held snap pliers and good-for-nothing cheapo plastic snaps, I started researching different ways of snap setting. This incredibly useful blog post from Closet Core Patterns on how to install snaps and the different types of snaps spurred me on to buy my own hand press and some good quality spring snaps. I found it really hard to find where to buy one from though! I wanted to find a seller as close to Belgium as possible but in the end I bought one from the Laughing Lizard Store on ..read more