Making a Retro Dress – Butterick B6318

In February, my mom and I made a (retro) dress for the first time. (ﾉ^∇^)ﾉ

Friday

My workplace had closed because of a snowstorm (on a Friday!) so I was able to return home for the weekend in the morning instead of after work. This unexpected day off gave us half of a day more to work on the dress. In the afternoon, my mom and I went to the fabric store to buy the fabric and the notions (my mom had already bought the pattern). I wanted to take a picture of all the material together, but I forgot.

Here's a closeup of the pattern I chose:

It's very light cotton with little purple flowers. I wanted a light fabric for the pleats to fall nicely. I was advised to choose a pattern that was very cheap (on sale) since I had never sewn before (as for my mom, although she regularly repairs clothing in our household and even sewed a bit when I was younger, she had never made a dress). I followed the advice not without feeling some disappointment, but I ended up not regretting my decision. I can always make this dress again with better quality fabric anyway.

Back at home, I started to cut each piece of the pattern. For info, we chose to make a size 8 of the dress. Cutting the pattern was longer than I thought. Definitely not my favourite part in making a dress!

Saturday

In the morning, I cut the fabric. We had some difficulties figuring out how to place the pattern pieces on the fabric correctly, but my mom eventually recalled the meaning of "Cut 1" and "Cut 2" pieces, and so I was able to cut each piece successfully.

Some patterns had little "triangles" or "zigzags" that I didn't cut in the fabric because I didn't know their use (yet). We eventually learned that they serve as references when you patch pieces together (eg. sewing the two tie ends at the right places on the bodice).

And then the more concrete, sewing-related stuff arrived, at last. I had been patiently waiting for this moment during all the previous steps. There's definitely more preparation "pre-sewing" than I expected.
I sewed the bodice, made the two tie ends, made the collar and sewed it onto the bodice. This all seems quick and simple, but it took a while because you need to stick needles in the fabric to ensure you sew nice lines, iron the fabric pre or post-sewing, and refer to the instructions and try to understand what they say (let's not forget my mom and I had never made a dress before.)

This was my first time sewing since 2011 where I had toyed with the sewing machine to make an oversized tee smaller. I found that sewing in itself is pretty mechanical. Not that this is a bad thing, I just noticed I was very focused when sewing and I felt my mind empty of thoughts. The hard part is pretty much before sewing, so as to say when you're struggling to put the pieces together the right way.

I was pretty satisfied with the progress we had made by noon, but then I was struck by a (TOTM) stomach ache and didn't feel well enough to continue. I felt quite sad to have lost a whole afternoon.

Sunday

Because I wanted to make up for the lost time, we resumed our work early in the morning. If I remember well, that day, we sewed the two tie ends on the bodice, I hemmed the sleeves (I found that long and tedious), I sewed the skirt and we created the pleats on the skirt. The last one was a real challenge... but my mom looked up videos on YouTube and found a technique that really helped us.

After a failed attempt at sewing the pleats, I let my mom take my place...

My mom also sewed the skirt with the bodice.

Unfortunately, our project had to be paused since I had to return to Montreal, but I was really satisfied with that productive day.

Next Saturday

Our progress last weekend, and especially last Sunday, had been such that there were few things left to do at that moment. Only the zip, the skirt hem and other finishing touches.

Sewing the lace ribbon at the bottom of the skirt to make the hem

We tackled the zip afterwards. Putting on the zip was a challenge, just like the pleats... Again, my mom went on YouTube and found a useful video to help us positioning the zip and finish the dress.

The sleeves were a bit bell-shaped and we didn't really like it, so my mom changed it a little.

I'm still mad at myself for this, but I managed to make a hole in the sleeve

when cutting off the extra thread after sewing.

Luckily for me, my mom arranged this.

This is one of the reasons I'm glad I opted for a cheaper fabric.

Final result

I love the dress. The length is perfect and the pleats fall beautifully.

I tie two knots at the back instead of only one to cinch the waist better.

I'm very happy with how the dress turned out. If I had to reflect on this first serious sewing experience, I'd first say that reading a pattern is hard. The words and the illustrations were hard to comprehend for the newbie that I am. I was lucky that my mom was there to help me because I couldn't decipher most of the instructions.
Additionally, there's so much to think of when making a dress. This pattern was labelled for beginners, but there were still lots of details to consider. I wrongly thought that making a dress was about the top and the skirt and other visible stuff or accessories, but there's also a lot of work that goes unseen (making the inside-collar and finishing it, hemming the sleeves, folding 2x each of the two tie ends' edges, etc...). The amount of material needed also surprised me, as sewing doesn't only ask for a sewing machine, but also lots of needles, a steam iron and enough space in the room.
In short, I supposed sewing required work, but not to this extent. The great thing is that my mom and I weren't rushed into making the dress, so we enjoyed taking our time through each step (hence why it took us a couple of days). And I really liked that every piece sewn brought us closer to the dress in one complete piece. This first sewing project makes me optimistic for future ones. ✨

Trying Garnier Fructis 1 Minute Hair Mask (Damage Reparing)

Last weekend, I got to try Garnier Fructis' 1 Minute hair mask in papaya. I had mentioned it for the first time in my post on trying the mask in banana and coconut. Since I already talked a bit about these masks in my first post (see aforementioned link), I'm gonna jump right into using the mask.

As with the other two masks, I applied roughly half of the jar after the shampoo and rinsed out the mask after washing my body. My hair didn't feel tangled at that point, so there was no need to add conditioner, although it didn't feel smooth either. This may be because of the Tresemme shampoo I'm using right now. It's the Clean & Replenish one (blue bottle) and it gives my hair a strange texture. My fingers don't glide easily on my hair following the shampoo and even conditioner can't fix this. Thankfully, this weird feeling disappears after the shower, once I unwrap my wet hair from my cotton shirt. I don't really understand it because I've bought this shampoo before and I don't recall having this problem. Anyway, I'll make sure to not buy it again.

Following the shower, I wrapped my hair in my cotton shirt and waited a while before unwrapping it. Then I applied Moroccanoil on my roots and my ends. I normally wouldn't apply Moroccanoil after a hair mask to avoid greasiness, but my hair didn't feel fully detangled and I didn't want to risk breakage and snaps.
I felt a bit sad to suppress some of the papaya scent with the Moroccanoil because it smells wonderful. I don't usually buy hair products with a "fruit" aroma, but this one has just enough sweetness.

..

My hair fully dried after having been brushed

I love the state of my hair in the pictures above. Unfortunately, as I mentioned before, the thickness and fluffiness doesn't stay for long and using this mask made no exception.

This was my hair in the evening (day mostly spent doing errands and cooking):

Hair strands gathering together giving the appearance of oily ends

Digressing briefly since it's been a while I've made an update on my hair. When I wrote the review about Garnier's 1 Minute hair masks in October, I mentioned I had been recovering from an important hair shed. Around the time I posted the review, the hair shed resurfaced and thinned mostly the ends of my hair. You can actually notice the difference in thickness with the pictures taken in October vs the picture above here. I'm thinking causes might be stress from work, no trimming and hair knots (I had tried to part myself from using Moroccanoil at that time, and I remember my hair being more tangled after showering.) This relapse made me go back to using Moroccanoil again and I'm still using it today. I think the hair shed is not so bad right now...

Back to the hair mask. At the end of the day, I did notice my hair being a little oilier than usual, but that was expected since I applied the mask from my roots to my ends. I'd imagine you need to use this mask regularly to see any results, and since this is only my first time using it, I can't say much about it in terms of repair. But overall, I'm not impressed by this papaya hair mask. Although I wasn't expecting a repair miracle, it would have been great for it to at least make my hair smooth and silky, especially after that shampoo. I really don't know whether this mask has a positive impact on my hair (other than the smell), but to me, it's not worth buying it again to gauge the effects long-term.