Vogue 8663

I started a purple version of Vogue 8663 on 09/03/2013.

Modifications so far: skirt extended by three inches and I'm preparing to add a pocket, following the reinforcing information in the Cake Tiramisu pattern.

Warm

I'm in the process of trimming the threads on Simplicity 2482. I tend to get really cold, so I thought I might as well make a blanket that I could do chores in. (Yes, I have a snuggie/slanket, but I can't walk around and do laundry in it.)

This is rather different from my last sewn article, but it fulfills a purpose. I get cold really easily, and this helps a lot.

I'm surprised more people haven't made it.

Pattern Review review here.

Deadliest dress?

I'm making Butterick 4919, a retro formal dress, for my husband's cousin's wedding in September.

The silk arrived this morning, and I laid and cut the pattern while Deadliest Warrior Ninja versus Hoplite played in the background. The silk was 54" wide, and I had six yards, so I had to lay it out in a single layer. I still came up with about a quarter yard left over, even though my fabric was narrower than it was supposed to be.

Less than thrilling.

I should have known that this project was not destined for glory as soon as I saw this:

I cut this shirt, very thriftily, from the remnants I had left from the two pink dresses I made last summer. It required careful placing, but I thought I'd gotten it. Apparently, I hadn't. I recut another side back and seamed down the back. It seemed OK. Then, since the big conceit of this shirt is the elastic gathering, which is applied in channels on the outside, I zigzagged over the ends of the elastic:

The blouse ended up rather meh. I could tell that was happening, so it's not my best work, honestly. I may get rid of it; the elastic placement issn't a good look on me, and little puffed sleeves are never as cute on my arms as I think they will be.

Review here.

Happy Fabric

I'm working on Simplicity 4940, a 1960s or so shirtdress with a rounded collar, 3/4 sleeves, and a gathered skirt.

I get to wear full academic regalia to graduation, and the hood support needs a button to be hooked around. Last year, I wore a shirt and skirt, but this year I'm planning on making a dress.

This is indeed quilting cotton, with a design of knitting needles. Yes, I would buy a dress that had this as a pattern if I still bought dresses. This is a shirtdress, so I think that it will work nicely in a shirting weight cotton.

My First Burda!

I finished this back on February 20, 2010. I just hadn't gotten pictures; since this is a lycra blend wool, it doesn't iron well. I've been wearing it a lot, as well. I wrote a review at Patternreview. I'd been scared fo Burda for some strange reason, so this was a nice, simple intro. I have a shirtdress traced out for my next venture, and am casting my eyes at various trousers as well.

Circle Skirt PSA

If you're looking at a length of fabric and thinking there's on way that it will make a circle skirt as long as you want, then, no matter what the pattern drafting book implies, it won't. There appears to have been a typo. The skirt length should be measured from the end of the waist hole, not including the waist hole. So, pleats? A ruffle?

Finished!

The suit is finished, hemmed, pressed, and has its threads trimmed.

Shocking!

I'm making the jacket for my vintage suit (Simplicity 3081) for Easter. I made the skirt back for Christmas '06. It is the evening of Good Friday. I am sewing in the lining. Once this is done, I need to trim the threads, press it (and press the skirt), and do any hand finishing I find. I can't wait to find out what the upcoming spanner in the works will be!

A dress in a day!

True, I did iron, lay, and cut the pattern on Monday, but the pieces sat, rolled up, in a rocking chair until this morning. I edged the skirt panels and did everything up to the hand finishing, which I'm doing as I write. (The lining may not be entirely tacked down tomorrow. So what.) I really wanted to have this dress ready to wear for tomorrow, so I could do a test run of it at choir to make sure I could sing comfortably in it; I didn't want to check that for the first time at a long concert. True, I didn't line the dress, and the hem (it's a circle skirt!) is done by machine, but I didn't make any shortcuts I'll really regret. Only the bodice is lined, as per my usual practice. I'd meant to do all the edging in red thread, but missed one skirt panel and forgot about the sleeves. Rather than switch thread back, I did them in black. I still pressed every seam twice, although I did gang the seams so I'd press every non-intersecting seam on the bodice and then sew the ones that intersected. Ahh. Photos to come after there's light and I've trimmed stray threads.

Desperate Times Call for Desperate Measures

I. My concert is in two weeks. II. I drafted and set the sleeve. It's not right. III. I was reduced to getting out the copy of Vogue 8615 that I had picked up last weekend (purely for entertainment purposes!) and pinfitting it. It looked pretty good, so I had Caleb help me redraw the neckline. The skirt is long enough. The new neckline does not show everything. I will draft a dress someday. That someday is just not today.

Undermining me...

Lands' End is undermining my idea of making a lovely black concert dress with this.

Concert Dress

Part of the reason I haven't posted much since, well, October, is that I've been working on an epic project.

Sadly, it's not like the triumphant part of the epic: it's like the arming scenes that get repeated over and over again.

I want to make a nice, simple black dress to wear to concerts when I sing. I have the fabric and I have the requirements. Of course, instead of getting a pattern and knocking out the dress, I decided that I should draft the bodice block and make my own pattern for the dress.

I drafted a bodice block for myself incorrectly twice. It missed its first concert.

Our next concert is in mid-March. I have a workable bodice block now, and I'm about to draft a sleeve. Here's hoping this will work.

Finished nightie

I finished my new flannel nightie and reduced the old one with the worn flannel into shoepolishing rags. The PatternReview review is up.

I ended up sewing up most of the length of the very long front opening. There's a short slit, with a single snap at the base of my neck.

It's very comfortable; it's like my own private little flannel yurt.

Fixed waistband

I took in the front and back panel seams a quarter inch each, and the skirt feels rather nicer.

New skirt

I cut Folkwear 209 from the black wool I bought, and, even though I made the ankle version, had enough left over to cut a mid-calf six panel skirt.

(I'm twirling a little to overcome static.)

This was a fast sewing project. I couldn't find the pattern on Friday evening, so I drafted a new one. I used old measurements that I've used for another winter skirt in the past, but I think they were a touch bigger than I needed. The stretch of the fabric didn't help, so the skirt is a bit looser at the waist than I like.

Considering that my Italy trip notes are full of instructions about which gelateria to go to, this may not be a bad thing.

Thoughts

1. I am assuming, from reading in between the lines on the pattern discussion, that Garment Construction in Schools contains a seam allowance of about half an inch. (There is a strong aspect of wishful thinking in there, to be perfectly honest.)

1a. Even if I'm wrong, I have enough flannel to recut at least a little of it.

2. I cut the yokes, sleeves, front, and back and am pleating the body onto the yoke. Rather than gore, I decided to use the full width of the flannel. I like volume, and one never knows when a flannel tent will come in handy. Also, this does make things a little faster and easier for me.

3. I'm planning on pleating, rather than gathering, the body into the yoke. The fronts will be knife pleats facing in to the opening, and the back will have a box pleat at the center. I think eight pleats per side will be good on the fronts.

4. I still need to sit down and figure out to deal with the front placket opening.

Off the wagon

In the past two weeks, just about all the sewing that I've done has been making a case for my new iPod touch.

I did buy fabric, though. Wool suiting was $3.99 at Fabric.com, so I got enough for a black skirt and a gray one. (I don't have a knee-length gray wool skirt, nor an ankle-length black one, and those are staples.) I also got cotton sateen to make a less decollete performance dress; that was $4.98 a yard.

Because it's been so cold, I got out my winter clothes. The nightie that I made two years ago was never right; the sleeves were too big, the skirt was too skimpy, and the flannel was pretty low quality. So, when I discovered that the flannel had shredded at the sewn pleat in the front, I decided to take that as a sign. I'm now planning to make either the tucked nightdress or the Saddle Yoke nightdress from Garment Construction in Schools. Sadly, Jo-ann's only had three yards of the black flannel with electric guitars, so I ended up going for a quilting flannel in a blue sprigged print. This, after I spent a lot of time squinting at the backs of flannels, trying to determine how much they wanted to shred.

Getting to use the bolt cutters when I sew is a good thing.

I finished the Italy bag. It's got two zippers, a different kind of magnetic snap, and a bunch of pockets.

It's a nice bag, but, for some reason, it gave me a lot of trouble. I had to cut four different back panels; I rounded the wrong two corners on the first one, the second was uneven, and the third was half an inch too short.

I used the pocket tutorial at Sew Mama Sew. I managed to put the pocket in upside down, which, although it was silly, was no big deal. (It's on the inside of the lining, after all.) I also didn't check the length of my zipper until after I'd cut the window, so I had to put in little fillers on each end of it.

With all of that, it's no wonder I broke out the bolt cutters to trim the zipper on the top of the bag.

Still, it looks nice, and I didn't even break a needle.

Zowie!

As I write this, at 9:44 PM, I am wearing a new t-shirt.

I cut it out a while ago, and then dumped it in one of my active project bins. I started sewing it a little before eight, and it was definitely done and on me by 9:20. I wasn't sewing hard the whole time; I had a trashy medieval mystery novel that I was reading, so I took a couple of breaks.

True, the threads are untrimmed, but this is the first t-shirt I've made, I combined the directions for 2005 and 2805, and I bound the neck in a way that was completely new to me.

I really like this shirt. The fit is just about perfect; I'll cut the sleeves a half inch or so wider next time, but they work perfectly well as they are. The neckline treatment turned out well.

I shall definitely have to see what else fabric.com has in the way of knits.

Only one needle broken!

I've finished the sewing of Simplicity 2924, the bag I made to bring my music, folders, water, and everything else to Chorale meetings. Despite sewing through multiple layers of interfaced "canvas thick enough to bury a man at sea in," I only snapped one needle.

I enlarged the bottle pockets to fit a Nalgene or a thermal mug and put in a loop in a lining seam that I can use to hold my key carabiner. (Or I may put a key leash on it, once Joann's has another sale on hardware.)

It's a nice bag. The size is good, and the pocket construction was very clever.

The keeper of the keys...

I finished my black striped shirtdress, finally. I updated the Vintage Patterns Wiki page, and put up a review at PatternReview.

Building on my thoughts there, I have to say that I don't like the collar and facing in one; I prefer ones like on the pink dress, because it's easier to get a nice silhouette. This means I've been squinting at vintage pattern envelopes, seeing if they have the characteristic seam line that I now know I prefer.

I spent a chunk of time today going through my patterns. They're now all in magazine files or (in the case of the historical patterns) in a bin, labeled. I weeded out ones to give away, and put the rest in a Google Docs spreadsheet. My hope is that this will help me actually find things.

My bag, baby.

I was using a bag I'd gotten for free at a conference to tote my music and other things to rehearsals this past year, and it was slowly driving me nuts. I like my bags to have water holsters on the outside, where I can see them and where damage can be swiftly lessened.

So, since messenger bags like that are oddly hard to find, I decided to sew myself one. Patterns for bags with water bottle holsters on the size are oddly hard to find, so I went with the only one that Simplicity had: 2924.

Yes, that's not a standard music bag. However, it has good bones; there are the holsters, it requires little in the way of modifications (the interior and exterior pockets will be great for gloves, posters, programs, pencils, throat drops, and all those other things), and it requires very little in the way of strange notions.

I now see why sewing bags is so popular. I'm sewing my first, and, only nine steps in, it's obviously a bag. I increased the size of the bottle holsters so that I could fit my Nalgene in there, and am putting a reflective stripe on the flap alone. It's surprisingly straightforward.

One thing that I did that seems to have helped is to put on a movie and batch cut the fabric and interfacing for this, the Heart of Mary/Italy bag, and New Look 6858. I bagged up each project in a big bag, and my hope is that this will make them head along more smoothly.

Finished Simplicity 4010

I finished Simplicity 4010.

I put up a review of it at Pattern Review and updated the page at the Vintage Patterns wiki.

In the Little House books, one of Mary's dresses is described as "fitting like paint." In a dress of the 1880s, I'm sure that that was the goal and the end product was lovely. When I sewed this up and put it on, though, I discovered that it does not translate so well to the shirtdress look. I'd never seen my floating ribs so clearly.

I let the side seams out to 1/4" each, and that helped distinctly. I'd also forgotten that 'teen' sizing of the 1950s and 1960s has a shorter bodice, which, although I am vertically challenged, is no help because I carry my short in my legs.

These gripes aside, I really like the dress. I sewed the buttons on with the holes in an arrow pointing up to my face or to my hands, not the usual x or box. I'm planning on making a belt once I can find a good buckle.

I think that the 3/4 sleeve, full skirted shirtdress is a good look for me. It's comfortable, I can move, it's fast to put on when I'm running late, and it looks nicely put together.

(Mom: SWAP is Sewing With A Plan. You make interchangeable things that can be worn together.)

Sewing with a plan (no canal or Panama, though.)

So, I'm going to Italy in the fall. I've been wanting to do a SWAP for a while, and I've almost got my stash down to the point that I can get new fabric. (I want to have the whole stash fit into the wooden IKEA chest I have.)

I might do the mini wardrobe or I might try to do the whole shebang.

I do know that I need to make a bag for if I'm pocketless while touring. I'm planning on making this, since I like the two zippers and flap before access to my wallet.

Also, I have to say that I have no idea why white shirts are one of those wardrobe essentials on every list. I own one white shirt, in eyelet, which I wear open over a colored tank top in the summer. I used to dutifully own a white buttondown, but always hated it.

New nightie

I finished my purple nightie:

(My review of it on Pattern Review is here.)

It was a nice piece. It's definitely a modern nightie, even if the pattern tries to style it to look all froofy and Edwardian. I added in tucks at the bottom, flat felled all of the seams, and made my own bias. I should have made the bias wider.

It's really comfy. I tried to get another picture of the front:

Sadly, though, I'd washed it after I sewed it (I'd marked the tuck lines with pencil and had dripped some batter for Mexican Monkey Cake on it during the three days of handsewing down bindings), and the tucks are washed out in the photo, while every single wrinkle appears in loving highlight. On Friday, I bought McCall's 5191 and New Look 6858. I'm hoping to use some of the large quantity of very heavy gray twill to make 5191 (as well as a music bag).

Finished dress

I did end up getting the dress pattern and making it; the review is on Pattern Review here. .

Something about it in the picture really makes me think of an early 20th century gym suit or swimsuit. I've started on Butterick 5061 for a summer nightie. I'm leaving off the lace and making it in some lavender broadcloth that I got from Fabric.com on 8/30/2004. I suppose that the fabric has marinated for long enough.

V&A dress postponed

Well, I started laying out the dress pattern. What's wrong with this picture? I have a little less than the pattern calls for, and the fabric is indeed folded in half. However, two or three of those pieces need to becut double, and there are all the bodice pieces. I think the yardage they suggest may be a bit scant. My current thought is to try Simplicity 2588 after the next pattern sale.

Periwinkle blue

I didn't start a new project right after finishing the heinously pink dress because I needed to get some real progress in on my 1859 deadline dress. That just needs the pocket, the skirt setting, and sewing on the waistband, so I'm taking another break from it. I ironed about four yards of periwinkle blue linen that I've been hoarding for at least three years to make the Golden Age of Couture dress. I have large sheets of rolled paper with the pattern all ready, and am hoping to cut tomorrow. The goal for this one is nine a.m. on Sunday. There are 46 steps in the instruction pdf. Wish me luck!

Finished Object

I finished Simplicity 4298. I need to add in the underarm protectors and it could benefit from a severe pressing, but I wore it outside this morning. (It was raining very hard, as may be apparent from a close inspection of the skirt.) I like this pattern a lot. I completely ignored the construction details except for the well-written skirt pleating and gathering instructions; I have a sequence that I like for dresses like these that includes a lined bodice, an invisible zipper, and a right side pocket. I think that this will look really nice over a crinoline. I like how it looks as is; it's a little more formal than other dresses I've made recently. I'd even feel comfortable wearing it to work with a cardigan over it.

Railroad turned aside

I cut all but the skirt pieces for two dresses from vintage patterns today. The one I finished was Simplicity 4298, and I cut out the bodice of Simplicity 4010. (The skirt panels need to be laid on a single thickness three times, and my husband was making something for dinner that smelled really good, so I decided to do that later.) The fabric for both is a viciously pink cotton sateen that I got from Fabric.com a while back.

Maroon Sheer Dress

Well, last night, I hemmed this dress. I'd done the sewing construction a while back; it was either one summer or two summers ago. I was apparently in my double pocket phase. I do like this dress pattern. The V is a little low, but the back is very high, which I like. The fabric is gorgeous; it's a sheer maroon cotton embroidered with paisleys. The dress fits better than it seems; I was leaning forward too far. This is the third time I've finished a dress from this pattern.

After nearly a year, I'm starting sewing blogging again. My current big project (although I have been sewing a lot this year), is an 1859 ensemble. I got the hoopskirt kit for Past Patterns 712 from my parents for Christmas, and traced it off yesterday and cut it today. I ran into my first potential problem as I did that. There was a lovely cutting layout in the pattern, but, since my fabric was wider, I disregarded it. The good thing was that I got the whole skirt out of two or so yards of cotton pique that I got back when Denver Fabrics was changing hands. The bad thing was that I disregarded the fact that the pique has a right and wrong side. It will be covered in use, though. I also have enough left to do the whole flounce.

I see a weasel...

Well, I was pushing to get my purple silk suit done in time for a big family event. I'd gotten the skirt done in time for the trip home (and by 'gotten done,' I mean 'talked my mother into hemming it an hour before I wore it.') I was pushing to finish the jacket today, knowing I had to hit certain marks to get it wearable, thinking about the sacrifices I was going to make. Then, I walked into the study to have Caleb check the hem on the jacket, and he was less than enthused about the look. I realized I was also less than enthused, and so have put it aside to be finished in its own time as something to enjoy, not something to pound through. Instead, I think I'll work on the two dresses I have most of the way done, the late Christmas present, the pants that I've been needing, and maybe one of the vintage patterns I got recently. I shan't lack for things to do. (And the title? It's a joke on how I'm weaseling out of it and a Classical reference; an actor was saying 'I see a calm...' and misspoke slightly to say 'I see a weasel..')

I've been thinking, at least.

Further bodice notes: I'm thinking of this bodice back treatment. And then this same pattern of bottom trim on the skirt?

New project.

I have a new project. I'm making the Fantail Skirt (TV 225) and the Dinner Bodice (TV 422). Here are pictures of the muslin of the skirt:

Bustling along

The bustle is now finished, except for putting on a hook of some kind. I've got a petticoat cut out. It's inspired by this ad, so now I'm figuring out whether or not I should actually put a yoke on it and how best to get the drawstrings to work. I'm also taking the navy blue binding off of my Regency stays and replacing it with white so that I won't have embarrassing VSL (visible stays line). My mom and the people at Wooded Hamlet teased me for not thinking about this when I got the new binding at Maryland Sheep and Wool. I'm also putting in eyelets so I won't have to pin the busk in.