Long Time No Blog

Well hello! It's been a while.  I have no projects to show for my absence. Got really far on the Colette Patterns Crepe, but never finished it. The underlined pieces are still hanging up, but I don't think it's salvageable. Grrr.

So, here's what I'm working on now.  More than a year ago, I fell in love with ModCloth's Breakfast Epiphanies dress:

I'd decided on a cream bodice with a brown skirt. I was so serious, I purchased a 4-ply silk crepe remnant from Promenade Fabrics in New Orleans and wool crepe from Jo-Ann. You know I've always felt my sewing skills didn't warrant good fabric ;-)

I looked through my stash and decided  Vogue 8787 is close to the inspiration dress. Not quite the cowl I want, but it will do. This was quite a popular pattern when it was introduced. It has 25 reviews.

I purchased the fabric before reading through the pattern. The bodice front is self-lined. The 4-ply silk crepe is too heavy to double. I thought about this silk cotton voile from Fabric Mart. I love the way it looks with with the brown wool crepe. Unfortunately, the hand isn't right.

                                 

              

I have a silk twill remnant from Vogue that kind of looks like this. Not crazy about pink and brown.Don't get me wrong;I love the color combination. Pink is my favorite color; it just doesn't work with my current hair color. 

                                     

I have had the hardest time finding thread to match. Anyhoo. More about the pattern alts later.

Hot Dresses

I have been anxiously awaiting a sale so I can purchase these McCall's dresses!  Aren't they awesome?

How cute is 6553 from the new Fashion Star line? It happens to be the $2.99 Item of the Day on the McCall's site, in case you can't wait. Beware of the $4 S&H.


Honorable mention to 6552! It feels a little like KS3856, which is a knit, and S2031. This pattern is for knits and wovens!



6555 makes me swoon! The color blocking is wonderful. Talk about drama!



Next up is 6558. Hoping I'll be blessed with the ingenuity (skill and the spirit of completion) to turn it into something like this.



Last, but not least is 6557. Simply breezy.

Vogue 8723 -- In Progress

I've been working on this dress, V8723, forever. And by that I mean maybe an hour on some Saturdays :-) I was really excited at first. That streak of warm weather put a dress in my spirit. I picked this one because it already had cup sizes and it seemed really simple. I have since been reminded that sewing is not intuitive for me, so nothing is as simple as I first think it is. The warm streak has since passed ...

I still needed to adjust the bust and deepen the dart, which I muddled through using the pivot and slide method. What I found extremely hard was adding to the waist. I know you're thinking that the bust should have been the hard part. For some reason, that side dart kept throwing me off. I ended up using the seam method.

Working with the side bust dart has been quite an experience. I probably made four rounds of adjustments on tissue paper before I was confident enough to trace the pattern onto Swedish tracing paper. I still had to pin adjustments to both darts. I think I forgot to true the dart legs. I did have lots of fun sewing the Swedish tracing paper.

 Before cutting my fashion fabric, I want to make a muslin. I think I may need a round back adjustment, but I want to see how the fit in fabric before taking the plunge.

Updates to come!

A Fitting Tribute - Butterick 5454

I've been working on the adjustments for B5454 for two weekends in a row, maybe three. After tracing the bodice and skirt three times and two false starts with fabric, it's all starting to run together.  But, I think I can say the hard work has paid off - I have a correctly tissued-fitted paper pattern!!! There are two small tweaks I'd like to make, but I think I can do those in the muslin.

For the bodice, I tapered from a 14 to an 18. Then, I did the FFRP slightly round back alteration by adding a dart. I went ahead and raised the back shoulder seam 1/2" for my forward shoulders. That turned out to be a problem. Too much and I widened the top of the armhole too much.

It all started to slow down with the FBA.  First, I spent a lot of time digging around the internet for instructions on how to do an FBA on a wrap top. I found a couple of good sources here and here. I'm so special ed when it comes to sewing, I had to dig through the pattern stash and find M5974. I looked at the FBA lines on it and recreated them on my pattern.  The pattern was 2" from my CF, but  I added 1 1/2" based on the finished pattern measurements (See, I'm learning.)

I lowered the front should seam 1/2" too. After trying the pattern on, I realized two things:  how jacked the armholes were and my back shoulder dart needed to match the seam in the front tuck. Grrr...  I ended up taking a 1/4" out of the shoulder adjustment. In hindsight, I may have not needed the adjustment at all; that's one of the tweaks I want to make in the muslin. All of the lines on the altered tissue got confusing so I traced new front and back pieces from the altered ones.

On to the skirt. Let the fun begin! I consulted almost every fitting book I own, plus the internet. I tapered from the 18 to the 24. I knew I wanted this dress to be 7" longer. No biggie.  However, I also needed extra length for my rump's curve. I think 4", if I did my measuring correctly. How did I know how to measure and what to do? Click here! The file links on the page don't work, but you can access the files through the link to Yahoo Groups.

Let me pause for a sec to wax poetic about these Burda workshop files. Yes, I have all the major pattern fitting books. I'm excited about this info because it gives detailed instructions like take 1/8 hip width and add 1" etc. Thank you, Cidell!!

What the Burda docs lack is telling you the max adjustment you can make. I can't add all 4" to the skirt back by using their rising hem adjustment. Through trial and error, the most I could get was 2". I had to figure out how to add 7" to the front skirt for the length I wanted and decrease it by 2" for the rising hem (I think.)

Here's the back:

The odd angle of the hem at the side seam is killing me. That's the second tweak I want to make.

Here's the front in all of it's raggedy glory.  Adding 7" and subtracting 2" is all about where you do the adding and subtracting. I got confused during the process and decided to cheat by just taping some paper to the hemline, marking the length of the back skirt at the side seam and going from there.

My side seams were pulling backward, so I whipped out my newly-purchased Pattern Fitting with Confidence and used the pivot and slide method to add 1" to the hip line. Still not too sure about how the side seams look. Since pattern pieces were starting to fall apart from so much handling, I traced entirely new ones when I added the hip width.

The last thing I did was mark how much needed to be taken out of the skirt for my sway back. So what we have, as of now, is this:

Unfortunately, I made the mistake of attempting to re-pad Ruby a while back. The side seams swing forward on her, but not on me.We are now no longer doubles; she's bigger than me in the waist and back and I'm bigger than her in the bust. hips and butt. (I did do a pretty good job with shape of the rounded back.) I don't have the patience to pad her again right now. If I ever get serious about the weight loss, I'll make another attempt when I'm smaller.  

I am pretty dang happy with the tissue fitting. It's a good thing because I've run out of my oh-so-wonderful Swedish tracing paper! I ordered more last night. I love this stuff. I actually sewed the the bodice at the shoulders and side seam instead of pinning.

On last note on this part of the adventure. I consulted almost every fitting book I own for guidance. When it came down to the what and the how, there were clear winners and losers

Winners

• Fit For Real People
• Pattern Fitting with Confidence
• Fitting and Pattern Alteration
• Honorable mention goes to The Perfect Fit, although I didn't use any of its techniques for this project

Losers

• Fabulous Fit
• Fast Fit - I'll post a review here later this week.

I Did It! -- McCall’s 5893

Look!! I’m so proud! While this 1-Hour dress took me several days, it is worth the effort. Since it seems that fall has set in here in Chicago, I may not get to wear it for quite a while. No worries. I’ll be waiting for it next year!


As I mentioned in an earlier post, I had some difficulty along the way. What took me so long to make it were my inability to quickly select a stretch stitch I liked and not being able to sew a straight line afterward. Then I hemmed the bodice when I wasn’t supposed to and had to rip all those stitches out. (I knew I needed to finish a raw edge. I just didn’t check to make sure I was working with the right raw edge.)

I was afraid of using the stretch straight stitch. Thought I’d screw up the part about stretching the fabric as you sew. I’m getting better on the straight line part. Practice makes perfect. Maybe I should start putting stitching lines on the fabric.

I had to laugh at myself after sewing the seam that makes the elastic casing. I had to use the dreaded straight stretch stitch. I sewed the entire seam and realized I had to rip it out because it was crooked. (Do you know how long that takes?) I sat there thinking, “I wish there was some tool that would help me sew straight. Looked around and ran across the top stitching guide I’d purchased years ago! It helped a lot. I also need to remember to go slowly.

Because I didn’t sew the pockets (didn’t want to take the chance of adding anything to the hips), I have this long strip of fabric left over. It is the perfect size for a head wrap. That’s a nice bonus.

Well, on to the next project. I created that grand “to-so” list only to realize that the contests on Pattern Review determined what I’d sew! The next contest is the jacket one and it starts today. Here we go again ...