Today’s Boston Globe has a very amusing story about the Birkin, a handbag whose legendary exclusiveness is firmly quashed in the story.
And if you like Posh’s Roland Mouret dress Burda WOF did a pretty good knock-off.
Erica’s version is really hot!
Man, sewing blogs and forums are on fire over the two Chado Ralph Rucci patterns added by Vogue last week!
I got mine yesterday, and the instruction sheet reveals this pattern to be even more interesting than I imagined. The embellishment is beautiful, and it’s typical Rucci; he has often used self-fabric braid and bullion stitches in his couture collections.
In the example above bullions are used to connect the irregular pattern pieces.
On Vogue 1048 bullion stitches attach the braid to the hem of the dress; and I can say from experience that this is a stitch you should definitely practice in a hoop before you try it free hand. It’s considered an advanced hand embroidery stitch, and like all hand embroidery sucess relies on thread tension and consistency. Also, on a technical note, a bullion stitch is impossible to do neatly with anything other than a milliner needle.
Milliner needles have very small eyes and are the same diameter all along the length; they don’t taper much at the point. They are hard to thread, so I always use a threader. Milliners come in different sizes, a thicker one will make a fatter bullion.
The small eye makes it much easier to pull the wrapped threads off of the needle and onto the inner supporting thread when forming the bullion, and you should make the exact same number of wraps for each bullion. Here’s a link to a bullion stitch tutorial that is much more thorough than the one in the pattern instructions. You’ll see how to form the stitch correctly, and there are examples of bullion stitches done incorrectly. However there is one glaring mistake to note: the wrong type of needle is shown in the tutorial! They show a tapestry needle (note the long and wide eye) - trust me, if you try to use a tapestry needle, or any needle other than a milliner for a bullion you won’t be able to pull the thread wraps off the needle.
I have one other major disagreement with the instruction sheet, which implies that buttonhole twist is a good thread for bullions. It’s fine to use that for the topstiching, but the best looking bullions are made from a single strand, non-divisible thread such as floche. Regular six strand floss can be substituted, but use three strands instead of six. Nordic Needle is a good source for floche and milliner needles.
On the braid, 2mm cord or rattail might be a substitute for the fashion fabric bias tubes if the thought of cranking out yards and yards of hand made bias tubing is a little daunting to you (it is to me!)
I’m still thinking about how my version will look; I think this dress in a dark wash denim with jute topstitching, ball buttons and braid would be great. Rucci rarely uses prints, but I can see this in seersucker with white topstitching, ball buttons and braid (Ann has a great green and white seersucker on Gorgeous Fabrics). Rattail cord has a shiney surface so there I’d stick with a polished cotton or a linen for contrast and tone-on-tone color between the embellishment and the fashion fabric.
This design is really beautiful and I hope it’s a sign that Vogue has finally got their mojo back for the designer pattern collection.
My daughter Emma has a weekly percussion lesson so I hang out at the library to catch up on fashion mags. This month’s Vanity Fair has a wonderful in-depth article on Calvin Klein. In addition to the story, the VF website has a great video of Calvin showcasing his best designs from the past 40 years while he candidly discusses his design philosophy, color, sewing, design school and a whole lot more.
He’s charming, modest, handsome as ever and of course his clothes are exquisite!
My dear daughter’s high school is holding another fashion show this year. The kids are big fans of Project Runway. This is the 3rd year they are putting it on, and fundraising with the proceeds. Since DD was away at Oxbow in the Fall, she didn’t get started until January. She was told that there had to be minimum 8 outfits to participate, not 3 like she did last year. Panicked, we decided that the only way to get thru the project was to use commercial patterns, as last year all of her patterns were created for each of her 3 garments. Since her sewing skills are limited I promised to be her samplemaker when I could. I promised myself not to influence. It’s her designs and fabric choices, I have just been expediting. It’s been crazy since January as we try to move forward on her 8 ensembles.
We combed the pattern boxes to try to match her sketches to existing patterns, and shopped the stash for 97% of the fabrics she picked. Other than buying a few buttons and trims, she managed to find everything in the studio here. That’s the advantage of having a stash the size of Rhode Island. As she told her designing friends at school “My mom collects fabric like other people collect action figures”.
The show is next week, but I thought you might like a preview of one of the styles. It’s based on this pattern from 1935.
Check out the back
We didnt use the exact pattern, as the center of the back pattern had been cut away. The fabric is older than DD, an ignoble poly taffeta that loves to pucker. I have to say that I have never attempted to make anything like it. A high peaked double breasted lapel? Never! But it did come out OK, and I credit the excellent though sparse instruction included in the pattern.
I will post pics from the show after next week. We are all excited to see how it all comes together, with elbow gloves and a big hat off of eBay and belts and jewelry from local thrift shops. Here’s the envelope back for your delectation.
Our good friend from Barcelona, Paco Peralta, sent me this photo of the Balenciaga dress that inspired my vintage cashmere coat.
I’m sure like most of you; I’m not a huge fan of bubble skirts for a host of obvious reasons. But the spring 2008 Armani Prive collection has several that are a tad different from what we usually see, and I think they are also much more flattering. Here are my faves:
One thing interesting about this skirt on all three designs is the separate hem band along the bottom, and of course I had to see if I could replicate it! The first step was to find some detail photos, and these two of the pinstripe design were really helpful:
Notice the side seam, and also the pinstripes tell us that this skirt is bias cut. So we know for this style there are two side seams on both the skirt and the hem band. I drafted a quick pattern for my daughters 18 inch doll dress form:
Nothing fancy, just a basic A-line shape. I drafted the skirt on the straight grain, although most in the Armani collection appear to be on the bias. There are also a few tulip skirt shapes here and there. The hem bands appear to have fashion fabric facings on the tailored designs, and I’m beginning to think there are also fashion fabric hem band facings on the dress silks.
Oh and I think Mary 9821 is perfect for the jacket on the tweed suit - all you need to do is change the center front closure to the Armani curved lapped front, lower the neckline, add the petal edges at the bottom of the princess seams, flair the sleeves at the wrist, and build out those classic YSL-style shoulders.
This Armani collection is inspiring and very beautiful, so definitely check it out on Style.com and also see the video on The Thoughtful Dresser. It’s an utterly wearable collection that any of us could see in our wardrobes (well, maybe without the funky embellishment!)
Here on Sewing Divas, we are big fans of Paco Peralta, a fashion designer based in Barcelona. Paco is a master of his art, and his designs embody that wonderful Spanish flair for tailoring we all know from modern masters such as Balenciaga.
A rich history of Spanish court dress, ecclesiastical clothing, and matador costume is infused into Paco’s work, along with modern influences from Armani and Ralph Rucci. The end result is truly special. On his blog Paco shares his work and technique; he is generous with his knowledge and I have learned much from him in a very short time. His vidoes even have a musical soundtrack! His blog is in Spanish, but he has thoughtfully added a handy Google translator that works in several languages. His sister Isabel does his fabulous photpgraphy and videos, and we sewists can learn a lot from her as well when it comes to lighting and styling our projects.
We have a link to Paco on our blogroll, and if you have not yet checked him out please do so!
In a recent raid on Barnes and Noble I found a new publication called “Sew Somerset” - found in with the sewing, quilting, and craft magazines. It was like a window on a whole new world…The cover tag line says ‘the art of creative sewing with mixed-media’. There is a whole slew of ways of mixing paper and fabric and bits of stuff into art, which I have really never explored. It definitely got me thinking, as you can probably guess I do have lots of bits and pieces of cloth, buttons, lace, and trinkets. It closely resembles collage, but goes beyond that into book making, Artist Trading Cards, etc…
I have done a bit of patchwork and appliqué over the years, like this top with the front pieced together with stretch velvet swatches…
Or this patchworked cardigan made from printed stretch velvet swatches…
I have even embellished cardigans with bits of lace and ribbon like this piece.
But nothing like the sewn bits of memory and fancy I found in this magazine. There is a Somerset Studio website, mainly geared towards selling their main product: rubber stamps (there’s a reason the parent company is called Stampington) They produce the magazine Belle Armoire and have a new publication called Altered Couture coming out this month, with lots of tips and tricks for re-fashioning already made garments. Their web page with rules for art submission gives the background on all of their publications for those interested. I am looking forward to seeing what Altered Couture looks like.
I particularly loved the “Sewing Book” on pg 30 of the Sew Somerset magazine: an altered book by Caterina Giglio. She started with an Eddie Bauer catalog and glued and gessoed the pages to make a book. She then proceeded to sew and glue images, buttons, lace, fabric scraps, pattern pieces to make a highly evocative and personal piece of art to express her relationship to sewing and to honor her grandmothers who taught her so much. She is part of a group called Creative Underground in Ft. Collins CO. I found their website and see they have many books and useful products for sale. Well worth a visit!
I made a covered folder a few years ago that reminds me of this kind of sewn mixed media. Covered in stretch lace and embellished with ribbons and scraps of stretch velvet, I felt like I should transfer the technique to a jacket or some other garment. This sewn mixed media magazine got me to thinking that maybe I could play with the scraps and bits for its own sake, and it never need be applied to a garment at all. Hmmm
Some of you may recognize this dress, published in Threads as an illustration for my article on snoop shopping. What you probably don’t know is that this dress was a joint Sewing Divas effort. I made the pattern, Diva Emeritus Ann sewed it, and Phyllis did the embellishing. All of this was done by phone and e-mail, a great collaborative dress!
I started with a sketch based on a top purchased at retail. There was to be no embellishing around the neck, just some lace trim and an organza rosette at the center front waist. 
However, in the way that sketches have of changing as they begin to take shape in RL (Real Life), the original concept had to shift with the requirements of the situation. What happened? First of all, I had to get the sample made FAST - I could not send off to China to get the sample made. Second, BB (Big Boss) wanted the sample to be in chocolate brown silk chiffon. No chance of dyed to match trim….so I went to the trim stash to see what I could come up with, and purchased a couple of other things to toss in there. I sent all of the disparate elements to Phyllis and she made it into a lyrical cohesive embellishment that added enormously to the final allure of the dress. 
Here’s what I sent her, and just see how she put it together in the final dress above! The tea-dying of all the elements took away some of the white icing on the cupcake look that we struggled with (hence the dress’ nickname).
Phyllis’ hand made silk rose at the waistband was the real icing though, with her strands of beads cascading down, far better than the tacky ivory flower pin I sent her, or the organza roses with the trailing ends seen in the photo from the shop in Hong Kong. Phyllis’ embellishment is what made this cupcake dress so yummy!
TECHNICAL DRAWING?
I recently had a few promos from the Big 4 pattern companies in my in-box. You probably got them too, if you have ever clicked on to a pattern company’s website. I love looking at patterns online, whether checking out the current crop of vintage on eBay, or the newest additions at the Big 4 or the Independants.
One of the ways pattern companies attempt to differentiate themselves is by the look of the envelope. Fashion drawings, photos, line drawings, stylized drawings, often you can tell at a glance who’s who and what’s what by the look of the envelope.
Here’s a quiz: quick, do you know what a Built-By-Wendy envelope drawing looks like? Simplicity, on their website, shows photos, but click on the item and you are taken to view of the envelope.
How about Loes Hinse and her ubiquitous model? (Is that her daughter?) What about Folkwear? I bet you can recognize that anywhere. And we have all heard the complaints about KwikSew’s uninspiring drawings. Fortunately for us, most companies include a line drawing somewhere on the envelope to help understand the style.
Face it, to make an informed decision about a pattern purchase, we all want the maximum amount of visuals, along with the lowdown on body measurements, fit info, yardage requirements, suggested fabrics. In the day of the $15-20 pattern, a bad pattern choice can be very annoying. The less information available, the less likely I am going to buy that pattern.
OR ILLUSTRATION?
With so many choices available now on where to buy patterns, and what pattern to select, how to discern what to buy? There’s a minimum that I expect, but you know what? I bought a Marfy pattern from Italy, paid serious money for it, and not only are there no markings on the pattern tissue, and no seam allowances, there is not even a picture of any description on the envelope. For that I had to download and print out the drawing from the website. I guess in Italy, you would have purchased that season’s catalog. (I’ll post my Marfy pattern sewing experience another day)
Contrast my Marfy experience, where I was well informed what to expect before ordering, with recent experiences, well-documented, with HotPatterns. There was a lot of ranting in on-line forums about inadequate sewing instructions, with no pictures, not to mention issues with fitting that most had with the early releases of that pattern line. Mixed in with those complaints were the comments about the disconnect between the drawings and the final sewn product. Somehow, those fashion illustrations, even though accompanied by a technical drawing of sorts, were not enough of an indication of what the envelope contained.
It seems though, that sewing enthusiasts are being heard. Kayla Kennington recently updated her website with of garments made with her patterns. There are some beautiful examples of the pattern in different fabrics. I like to think of these as ’serving suggestions’ - sew it up the same way, or get inspired to make it your own way.
Technical drawing? or illustration? photo? or all 3? Which is most important for you in your pattern purchase decision?
PHOTO
Shout out to my Dear Daughter for her fashion illustration. (Mostly she is into Japanese manga and anime, but I got her to help out on a project recently.) Thanks to Irena for her Adobe Illustrator line drawing.
