Abject Failure March 2, 2008

It’s been  while since I’ve made a wadder, and maybe my sewing room needs one of those signs you see on construction sites: “This Job Site Has Gone _____ Days Without An Accident”. 

 So when I have one, as you can see below, it’s a doozy.  This thing looks like:

• A Girl Scout leader uniform
• I’m seriously channeling the 70’s, but not in a good way
• I’m on St. Patrick’s Day overload

Even with some styling, things don’t improve much:

This is the HotPatterns Plain and Simple Shirtdress, and my orginal version is one of my all time favorite garments.  The great thing about a great dress is that all you need to do put it on; you don’t need to think about coordinating other pieces  as with seaprates and there are no worries about having to constantly tuck in a top.  A dress just is.

Live and learn.  Wadders are part of sewing, and I just need to let go and toss this in the trash.

Paris Calling, Circa 1957 February 9, 2008

Now that I have a proper dress form, I can show you one of my prize pieces of fashion.  This coat belonged to my grandmother; she bought it from a department store called Pomeroy’s in Wilkes-Barre Pennsylvania sometime in the late 1950’s.  The coat has a Pomeroy’s store label, and the fabric label reads Cashmere “400″, 100% Virgin Cashmere, Country Tweeds” and is ink-stamped with a 6-digit registration number.

During the 50’s better department stores had made-to-order clothing departments, and I think that’s where this coat came from.  It’s really beautiful and has many interesting features that I thought you’d like to see. The lining is mushroom grey beige silk crepe.  The coat wraps across the front and closes with a large self fabric button on the front and ties with a matching petersham ribbon on the inside.

Much to my delight, a while ago I found the inspiration for this coat: the back of the coat, and especially the gathered detail on the yoke, is identical to a Balenciaga dress from 1957 found on page 542 of Fashion: A History from the 18th to th 20th Century.  Interestingly, the Balenciaga dress originally came with a matching coat according to the caption, and evidently, like my coat, the front of the dress wraps across the front and attaches with a self fabric button as well.

I wear this coat a few times a year and it fits me perfectly.  It’s in excellent condition too, which is a testament to its fine construction. They really don’t make them like this anymore do they?

Alternative for real buttons, part 2 December 23, 2007

I found some more pictures I took from the blouse flower “buttons”. The underside (bottom) is shaped into a small square about 1/2 inch wide.

The bottom is attached to the blouse center front at two spots, this way the loops stay put on them.

It makes sense that the loops although they are tiny are edge-stitched too so they will keep their shape by the weight of the flowers.

Holiday 2007 - Interior Work December 2, 2007

I must admit to losing ground due to being knocked out for most of this week by the worst virus I’ve had in years!   But I made some progress this weekend.

This style is really simple; it’s just a basic sheath with kimono sleeves.  The instructions say to sew the skirt, and then attach the upper bodice.  Instead, I plan to sew both front and back together with one long side seam from the hem right to the end of each sleeve - just like a knit shirt.  One reason for this change is that it makes it easier to get the necklines to meet perfectly in the center both front and back, and the zipper would be much easier to  install and finish.  I also had to modify the construction for the upcoming applique seam

So here’s where I am - this is the interior back of the dress with the finished invisible zipper, installed with Els’ method of course.  The edges of the zipper tape and the seams are finished with rayon seam binding machine stitched to the seam allowance and hand fell stitched to the organza underlining.

Els also recommended that I stabilize the neckline, which I did with a piece of seam binding stitched just inside the seam allowance..  So here is the back interior, from top to bottom:

 

This is the back neckline.  There will be a fashion fabric facing hand fell stitched to the organza.

This is the middle - I used a small piece of leather to hide the cut end of the zipper. 

And this is the finished seam at the back slit.

 The hard parts are over; the front is simpler than the back. The party is December 14; so far so good, deadline-wise!

Holiday 2007 - Vouge 8313, Preparing the Pieces November 25, 2007

This is probably the least interesting part of the construction process.   The pattern has been thread traced onto fabric blocks, and each piece will be cut as I need it to keep raveling down to a minimum.  The seam allowances will also be cut extra wide and trimmed to deal with the raveling. The photo on the left is a back skirt piece from the right side, and the right side photo shows the same piece with a partially basted underlining.  In my mind I went back and forth over whether or not to also add a lining, and then decided the organza underlining would add enough structure, and I would still be able to see and enjoy the reverse side of this brocade, which is just a beautiful as the side I chose.  The silk organza looks much more opaque than it really is because I didn’t use a flash for this photo.

The crystal beads arrived yesterday, so I mocked up the crystal picot edging.  After some experimentation with thread, it turns out that the best one for this application is a double strand of Guterman silk (sold on the blue spool you see below.)  I tried Nymo, a beading thread, but it was too stiff, and a single strand of Guterman was not strong enough to hold the beads upright along the edge of the fabric, which is on a slight bias for the  upper bodice.  However, a double strand of Guterman silk is perfect.  The needle is a sharp with a small eye.  The Swarovski crystals are size 2mm; about the same size as a seed bead.

 

If I can get all of the pieces pinned and then thread basted to the underlining I’ll be making good progess for today.

Who is that man in the mirror? July 29, 2007

The most dangerous man I know! Kashi at Metro Textile on 37th St. in New York City. Since his move a few months ago, Kashi has increased his selection of ‘fine fabrics for nearly nothing’. Seriously, I try to avoid going there, but like a moth to the flame I am drawn. I have already exceeded my Stash Accumulation Beyond Life Expectancy, by a whole lot. But as always, after a trip to Metro, I find that I just have to acquire a few new pieces.

As I was drawn towards 8th Ave, heading towards Metro Textile, I got sidetracked into Pacific Trimming at 218 W. 38th St. What a great addition to the street! It’s very like a Hong Kong trim supplier you might find in Kowloon, with a vast selection of belt, buckle, and purse hardware, alongside ribbons and buttons, cords, and ?? A great selection, and the ablility to buy in bulk, should you have a need for that.

I had a ’story board’ of fabrics pinned to a big sheet of 11 x 17 paper, so I was able to hone in on some things I was missing - colored silk organzas, solid silk charmeuse, novelties that worked in with my color story of shades of charcoal, black and grey with shots of hot pink and silver metallic. Hopefully I can make some serious inroads in to my planned wardrobe. As shoemakers’ wives go barefoot, designers often have nothing to wear. I have a closet full of rejected samples, and often never get a piece out of production of the items I really like. My resolution is to do something about that this year. Loooove the pink lame leopard!! I must make a cropped trench from that, and soon!

Here’s my pile in the photo below, sitting on the chair at Metro. Kashi will ship it to the studio, so I don’t have to carry anything. Oh the sweet anticipation! I didn’t get swatches of everything, as there were several other ladies in the shop, so I have to rely on memory for a few days. Kashi told us not to worry, he has no problem helping a lot of customers simultaneously. “Sometimes I have 20 ladies at one time!” he said gleefully. I told you he was dangerous…

Summer Snoop Shopping June 16, 2007

This summer I’ve been wearing a-line floaty skirts in hot weather, and I find them to be a really comfortable and fun alternative to capris. Last week I found this no-name RTW skirt at Filene’s Basement here in Boston - it’s not a work of art by any means, but it has a few ideas worth stealing.  The fabric is a really pretty poly chiffon with a slighty vintage-looking pattern of green-black-white hydrangeas, and the style is a simple 12 gore falling from a contour waistband with additional triangular gores set in between. The hem is edged with a strip of raw edge white netting and it’s attached to the skirt with a simple roll hem turned to the outside. The lining is a cream poly chiffon.

This breezy skirt would be very easy to replicate with Simplicity 4188, Vogue 8297 or McCall’s 5331. This year you can find some lovely silk and synthetic chiffon prints at Gorgeous Fabrics, Thai Silks, and Fashion Fabrics Club. I think I might need to whip up a few of these because I have some nice brown netting in my stash.  If you can’t locate netting you could use a netted embroidered lace, a venise lace, or even bridal tulle.

Add a cap sleeve t-shirt or an eyelet blouse and it’s a very cute weekend look!

New Look 6429 - The Perfect Summer Dress June 3, 2007

Diva Ann inspired me to do this dress.  Notice Ann’s version (scroll down a tad on her blog) has black-white-turquoise-orange zizag points going up on the center front panel, whereas mine are going down - does this mean anything? I have no clue.  But that’s what I love about sewing; two sewists can use the same fabric, and the same pattern, and do two completely different things with it. 

I know I’m really late to the party with this pattern - there are 25+ reviews on Pattern Review - but now that I’ve made it I really have to say that you should run right out and buy it; it’s a classic.  The drafting is excellent and the style is universally flattering; my only quible (which I repeated on PR - Big 4, R U listening?) is that I wish pattern companies would mark the waist on every pattern piece - it’s SO annoying - changing the waist length is the most basic of all pattern alterations (especially for a petite like me) and I hated having to plot the waist on a style like this that has four bodice pattern pieces.

The fabric is a polyester knit from Gorgeous Fabrics, it’s light as a feather and skims the body perfectly.  This is the black-white-brown-green-yellow colorway and I love it because it reminds me of mint chocolate chip ice cream (my favorite!)   I’ll be taking this dress with me when we go on our vacation later this sumer - it doesn’t wrinkle, and the rolls up into a shape so small it fits in my hand.

The lines of this style provide a fun opportunity to play with the intersecting pattern pieces on a directional printed fabric such as this, but because of the way the pattern is designed, I knew I’d never get the pieces perfectly matched matched all the way around the dress.

 

So I had to make a decision to use the fabric design to either showcase the back or the front. I chose the back, and as for the front - all I did there was decide how I wanted the zigzag of the fabric to fall down the center panel from the waist down.  I didn’t worry about the upper front bodice. As you can also see, the gathered side drape will cause the upper bodice to be off-grain, so the design emphasis was all in the back and the lower part of the front panel.

Tomorrow is supposed to be rainy and cold, but hopefully I can wear this to work sometime this week!

The (Sewing) Revolution Will Not Be Televised May 28, 2007

I just got back from reading a post on Pattern Review about Wal-Mart scaling back fabric departments and Hancock’s Chapter 11 filing (I know, this is not news from either company and the sewing forums have been buzzing about this for months.)

It’s fascinating to see that while interest in sewing is increasing, the traditional retail outlets for patterns and fabrics are decreasing. What does this mean? Is this really a result of retailers either speaking only to shareholders (Wal-Mart), or being unable to manage their business(Hancocks)?

Personally - I think the internet has a lot to do with it. Most of my favorite fabric stores are now virtual and internet based, and the best internet fabric sources work because of the expertise, trust and personality the owners communicate to their customers. And I suspect that as soon as pattern companies figure out how to deliver downloadable patterns in a way that won’t require me to tape together 48 sheets of 8.5 x 11 inch paper we might see where retail pattern trends are headed.

In the end I really believe that access to fabric and patterns is not going away - we’re just in the midst of a sewing revolution right now, and the future state is still out there.

I think this is an exciting time to be sewing!

It’s Not Super Triple Secret Any Longer April 26, 2007

I haven’t been posting much lately because of work loads and things competing for my time. But I did just get a notice that the project, which I have been calling the “Super Triple Secret Project” has just been put out for public consumption at Threads Magazine. You can see it in the current issue of Threads, and it is online (without all the photos) here.

The article started thanks to the striped dress, which I made for myself last year for a summer dress. The pattern is New Look 6557. I changed the waistband pattern, as well as the grain alignments on several of the pattern pieces. I love this dress, and in warm weather I wear it frequently. Of course, I’m sure they had to safety pin it to within an inch of it’s life to fit the model, but it looks pretty good, I think.

The “fun” part of the project, and the Super Triple Secret part that had me tearing my hair out, was the white jacket. Now, that is one gorgeous, gorgeous jacket! I based it on a D-Squared look from the spring 2006 RTW line. I used a McCalls pattern as the basis, and you can see the process I went through to convert the pattern on my blog. It’s made from two silk fabrics, a duppioni that has nubby 1 inch wide stripes woven into it, and a novelty silk ottoman-type, that was woven in such a way that it had a quilted effect. The fabric was double faced with uneven horizontal stripes woven through it. And there was silk batting between the layers. When I opened the package from Threads containing the fabrics, I gasped in surprise and pleasure, they were that lovely.

Sewing with them? Hmmmmm, that was another issue. The duppioni was just fine. I love duppioni because it sews up well and is very easy to manipulate. The quilted silk, on the other hand, was an unmitigated rhymes-with-witch. I have two sewing machines in my sewing room. One is a Pfaff with differential feed, the other is an industrial Juki. I decided right out of the gate that the Juki would not work with this fabric. So first I tried sewing a seam with the Pfaff. Because of the horizontal quilting, I was super, super careful cutting the fabric so the lines would match across the seams of this princess style pattern. When dealing with a fabric like this, always, always cut out your pattern pieces in a single-layer layout. I did so, and it gave me control over the placement of the design and grain lines.

Under the presser foot, though, this fabric took on a Bad Diva personality. It loved to shift and move around, even with the differential feed turned on. I hand basted all the seams, and I even ended up recutting some pattern pieces to compensate for the shifting. Gah! It still didn’t want to cooperate! I did finally beat it into submission, but it cost me dearly in the number of gray hairs I got from it.

Finally, I did finish the jacket, after crying “Uncle!” to my editor, Jennifer Sauer. You can see the front view of the jacket in the magazine article (not online). But for your previewing pleasure, here’s a picture of the jacket as it sat on my dress form before I sent it off (and before I did the final press):

Happy sewing!