The 40's Dress!

Not only is this part of the "Great Vintage Sew-a-Long" it also keeps with my Spring Palette. I promise I will do a detailed construction post but this has been going on so long I just HAVE to get the photos up here now. Click to make them bigger!

Some of the modifications to the original pattern include piping, and a more of a flutter sleeve. I also whacked off six inches of length. I used a scalloped machine stitch to finish off the sleeves. My original inspiration had been from the below dress from the Ralph Lauren 2010 Spring Collection.



Also, don't forget to sign up for my Haberdash Give-a-Way. Tell all your sewing friends!

So. Close.

I have to be honest with you, I'm not sure I'm in love with it. If nothing else, I can say its been a huge learning experience both in fitting and in construction techniques. The shoulders may still drop a little too much. On the hanger it looks flat and lifeless, and it wrinkles like crazy.

But I am proud of how the piping turned out and once its completely done, hemmed, and styled it might look OK. I won't know until I get there. Other things I changed was doing cap sleeves, which are turning out to be more like tent sleeves, but thats OK cause I like those sort of sleeves. Maybe I'll use the little bit of red heart lace left over from my daughter's red circles skirt and gather it into that. Hmmm, that might work.

Left to do:

• other sleeve
• finishing off all unfinished seams
• hem
• sew on buttons

MAYBE I'll have pictures of it by this weekend? I don't know. Depends on if I can get Mom moved to the new nursing home or not (oh there's a book long rant...).

That's all for now, I'm up way past my bedtime.

Vintage Dress Update

I DID IT! I figured out how to get the piping in and I'm very proud of myself. I've stayed up way too late hand stitching the facings to the interlining. Since I've stabbed myself about three times I decided its time to give up the notion that I'll have it done before I go see Mom at the nursing home tomorrow. Oh well.

Also, a "What I did when I wasn't sewing" update. My kids got their green belts! I'm showing off, here's some pictures.

Posing to show off the new belts after the testing.

p.s. Happy Zombie Jesus Day Easter!

For the Vintage: Interlining

Hello! I see I have recently gained some new readers. Welcome to my little corner of the asylum world. See, I had signed up some time ago to be a part of the Great Vintage Sew-a-Long. Supposedly we were to have our project done by the end of February. HA! That was funny.

I did a good bit on fitting adjustments, I already had my fabric picked up and I had to do an interlining. I have another project in the works where I was going to help some long-distance friends sew there first dress. One of them mentioned the fabric being semi-sheer. I suggested interlining and so now I'm here to explain what that is.

As you can see, my fabric is a somewhat sheer cotton lawn. I decided to use a light weight cotton batiste* for the interlining.

First I cut the pattern out of the interlining. Then I placed that on top of my fashion fabric (or shell, whatever you want to call it). I know I could have been a bit more frugal in fabric placement, but in this case I wanted the design to line up a certain way.

In most instances one would hand-stitch the two pieces together in the seam allowance. However, that takes forever (and machine stitching makes the two pieces to bunch and not line up properly). So I took a page out of Gertie's book and used fabric glue in the seam allowance instead. Works like a charm! Also, I put all my markings on the interlining before gluing and cutting.

Now I just treat them like they are one piece of fabric and sew it together!

*Please note that the color of your interlining can effect the appearance of your fashion fabric. I highly recommend taking the fashion fabric with you and trying it over several different colors. One can also use silk organza or really any other similar/lighter weight fabric. It really depends on what you want the end result to look and feel like. I personally can't stand polyester anymore as all it does is stick to you in hot Georgia summers. And my skin complains by breaking out. Not fun.

Images of Spring

(Click to Embiggen)

This is my first Sunday off in... over six months! My schedule is changing to something like normal people have(but only for three months... work politics. OH GOODY). Which is good in that I have weekends off, bad that I don't get large chunks of time at once. So, today I am tweaking my muslin for the Great Vintage Sew-a-Long. I'll post more on that later. For now, enjoy this picture taken with my new camera. :)

Colette Patterns Spring Palette Challenge

So, after much consideration and thought, I have decided to join the Colette Spring Palette Challenge. I had already put together a "plan of action" of getting my wardrobe spring/summer work ready. I put together an "inspirational board" though I don't know how much it has in common with what I actually want to sew. I am fairly sure about the Bella Pant from Burdastyle, however. I will be using the dusty grey denim from my stash to make those, and probably steal some buttons from my mother-in-law's massive stash. But as you will see in the pictures below, I am embracing the "florals and prints" of this season.

So, in no particular order:

1)Bella Pant in dusty grey denim

2)Colette's Crepe in the blue/grey floral

4)Liz Blouse out of the shabby chic white/pink/blue floral

3)New Look cropped jacket out of the cream/honeysuckle floral (view D)

The gold fabric is a silk jersey and I already have it laid out to make another TNT 3/4 sleeve cowl neck. I'll have enough left to make a tank in View A

of the New Look pattern. And I've already cut that same cowl neck out of this crazy silk charmeuse, but with butterfly sleeves. I adore this print, its pretty wild, but working with it makes my eyes cross in weird ways(also, its slippery). Hopefully it will have the same distracting effect to others when I wear it.

In other news, I did try on muslin #3 and it fit fairly well except I still needed more room in the bust. Le Sigh. The dress itself works into the palette but I don't think I'm going to try and count it. I was getting sick of it so its been set aside so I can whip up these TNT shirts come my next day off.

So I think that's my plan. Make a couple of shirts out of the work horse patterns and then I will start tracing and modifying the other patterns I plan on sewing up over this 10 week period. In the mean time I should probably do some studying for that 'professional life' of mine. You know, the one that pays the bills? That part might be taking some exciting turns soon. I don't know, we'll see.

In the mean time, STAY FABULOUS!

I must be crazy.

I probably mentioned already, but I'm doing the Great Vintage Sew-a-Long of 2011. The pattern I chose is from the early 1940's and the inspiration was from a Ralph Lauren dress of Spring 2010. I can't tell you how many times I've altered this pattern but the copies I traced out now look something like Frankenstein's Monster. I'm about to do muslin #3 and it better damn well fit!

In other news, I need a needle board before I start on my cropped velvet jacket. Mom says she has one I can have, but that means driving 50 miles through Atlanta traffic. Which... I dunno, I find that drive stressful. But its really nice to have a Mom that has all these nifty tools. Though I have learned that using a thick terry cloth towel and having some natural bristle type brush to brush the pile after steaming and then finger pressing works too. Just, ya know, not quite as efficiently.

But aside from just being weird most of the time, I'm now considering joining Colette Patterns' Spring Palette Challenge. To quote one of my friends "wow... you are really into this". Everyone needs a hobby. Thing is, I have already started something like wardrobe planning and I want to get to it. I've pretty much given up on finishing my Lady Grey coat in any sort of timely fashion. I think the fitting/tailoring aspect is a little daunting. After this dress and the cropped jacket I think I'll be ready to tackle the coat. Maybe have it ready for next winter?

Hopefully my next post will have progress pictures and palette ideas for spring.

Cross - Post from Vintage-Sew-Along 2011

Also posted here.

Hi everyone! I am perplexed. I probably could have sewn this dress up as-is and had it mostly fit OK, except that I have large arms and bust. *sighs* This is for a 42" bust and I'm a 44. And in the light of full disclosure I'm 37" in the waist, 45" in the hips, and I'm 5'8" and a lot of that is in my torso (these are empirical[is that the right term?] measurements as I'm a USAnian).

So I've done a slight FBA, and I did a rounded shoulder adjustment (I work in the IT industry, slave away at a computer all day). I also did an adjustment for full arms. The sleeves themselves fit but the fall off the shoulder is just... weird. Also... excuse the construction issues I was sleep deprived when I put it together and it just didn't seem that important to have all the seams the right way on a test muslin. But honestly, I'm not sure what to do at this point. I need to add length, since the dress is suppose to belt at true-waist and there are half inch seam allowances. It falls about an inch above my belly-button so 1.5 inches added in length?

So here are some pictures. As you can tell I totally did my hair and makeup for these (not).

(Design on this calls for some gathering at the lower back into the skirt. See weirdness of shoulder and set-in sleeve.)

(exhibit A of need for more length in the torso)

(outside of the weird way the shoulder falls, I kind of think this looks OK here)

I swear my shoulders aren't that lopsided, it has to do with the only one sleeve.

I had to take out some gaping in the back bodice but wasn't sure how to take the volume out of the sleeve cap to match, especially considering I needed to make the sleeve wider for my sausage arms. Please help! Suggestions, point me toward some tutorials? I realized this is my first real foray into a woven top. All my tops have been knits so far because they are so much easier to fake good fit. The sad thing here is that despite all the issues it STILL fits better than RTW wovens. *sighs* I think that once I can get the top of this dress to fit I'd really only need a couple alterations to make it a plain shirt pattern as well. That would be awesome.

High Tech Blue

Do you remember when televisions used to have that black and white "snow" that was loud and static? And sometime in the 90's they started to have what I call "high tech blue". That's what color this dress is, I don't have any other description for it. Its another Vogue 8679, view C. This time I kept it at the full length and also lengthened the sleeves. Its a fairly stable wool knit, which had I been thinking I would have kept some of the ease. Since I did an FBA I decided to keep the bust darts. They were fine on my polkadot dress, but here they are almost parallel under my bust, which um... makes it weird. I'm certain that was a carelessness on my part as I cut this and a shirt out after being so thrilled with the results of the polkadot one. Then I sort of lost my steam and started daydreaming about summer projects. It might be that we got seven inches of snow here in North Georgia. That's all that white stuff at my feet that's kind of cold and wet. And cold. Did I mention its cold? Good thing I'm wearing wool.

And no, I have not lost my mind. I remembered my coat. (There's proof below. See?)What was I talking about again? Oh yeah, losing my steam on this project. Its a fairly simple dress and it only takes a few hours to put together. That is, when you feel motivated to do so and your sewing machine doesn't decide to be a cranky beotch. I think its time for a tune up, honestly. But I don't know if I can part with her for that long! Lord, I'm hopeless. Its not like I have a lack of sewing machines around here.

Speaking of summer projects, I got my fabric in for my Vintage Sew-A-Long. I was hoping for a smaller print but its just going to have to work. And along the way I picked up this pattern during at $3.99 sale on impulse and then promptly found the perfect fabric to order along with the one for the sew-a-long. How about that? Anyway, that's all from the peanut gallery for now. In the meantime, STAY FABULOUS!