Ready for the Rain

I suddenly find myself in the unusual position of hoping for a few days of cool, rainy weather.  I finally finished my Amy Butler raincoat and now I want to wear it before summer arrives and it's too warm!

I had a hard time capturing all of the details with my crappy camera, but I must say that I'm pretty happy with how it turned out.

I'm still trying to figure out how to properly alter a pattern to fit my narrow shoulders. Taking a lesson from my past mishaps, I made a few muslins to get the fit right, but I'm still kind of struggling with getting a fit that's small enough in the shoulders but large enough in the bust.

Look at those shoulders.  See what I mean?  They're about 1.5-2 inches too wide so they just kind of droop.  The result is kind of a sloppy, hulking look in my upper body.  Not good.

I did, however, pick up a new fitting skill.  The sleeves on this thing were really narrow.  My arms are not exactly willowy and I especially want some extra ease in outerwear to accomodate whatever layers I may have on underneath. 

This is what my sleeve pattern ended up looking like when all was said and done.  I'd do a tutorial but I'm sure that someone with a lot more expertise than I have has already done one.  "Fit for Real People" was a great source for instructions, except when it came to increasing the armscye.  It just said something like, "true the sleeve head to the armscye."  Ummm, ok.  How much?  Do I take it off from part of the armscye or the whole thing?  How am I supposed to measure that?  Do I need one of those funky curved rulers?

I randomly hacked off a bit from my muslin and hoped that it worked.  Fortunately it did.

Finally, I'd like to point out something I didn't realize until halfway through the project:  This jacket is reversible!  The lining print is kind of busy, but I can see how it may just brighten up a gray, rainy day sometime soon.

Well, off to splash in some puddles! 

Treasure Hunting at the Salvation Army Fabric Fair

So yesterday was the annual Salvation Army Fabric Fair.  Picture a giant room filled with table after table piled high with donated fabrics, patterns, notions and other sewing accoutrement with really, really cheap price tags.  Yep.  It was pretty cool.  Now I'm going to be a bit self-indulgent and go over the highlights in glorious detail. 




My friend Mary Alice was game to get up first thing on a Saturday morning and head on over with me to the South Park fairgrounds and sift through piles and piles of vintage fabric -- all in the name of charity, of course.

Mary Alice headed first for the upholstery fabrics while I made a beeline for the patterns.  I wanted to get there early and comb through the stacks of 80s abominations and find the gems before someone else did.  At $5 for a box of patterns, I did pretty well.  And I found my most favoritest pattern EVER:  a Vogue Paris Original 1554 by Guy Laroche.

Factory folds.  Vogue Paris Original tag intact.  I swoon. 

Also giving me the vapors:  Vogue Paris Original 1951.  Also by Guy Laroche.

This one's been cut, but the sew-in tag is still in the envelope.

Like I said, it's $5 for as many patterns as you can fit into a box, so my pattern shopping didn't end there.  I've been saying for a long time that I want to take a crack at knits.  Well, now I have a whole collection of 1970s "Stretch-and-Sew" patterns to experiment with!

And in the extremely unlikely event that I want to try some 80s style smocking, there are these two gems.

I actually think the nightgown on the right is beautiful.  I'm not sure if I want to put forth that much handwork into something I'm going to sleep in.  But you never know.

I got a bunch of other 60s and 70s patterns.  If you've made it this far, you're no doubt tired of reading about my pattern purchases, so here are just a few highlights. 

Five bucks, people.  Five bucks.  Not bad. 

Then we get to the fabric.  It is a FABRIC fair after all.  Readers, I did some damage.  But keep in mind it's all for charity.  So it's ok.

I'm trying to sew more professional-looking clothes that I can wear to work.  I have to dress very conservatively for my job, so that means lots of black, navy and gray.  Rather than show you every boring piece of suiting I bought, here's another highlight reel:

I did manage to get a few casual cotton pieces, including this pink dotted swiss.

It's twee and girly and old-fashioned and I absolutely love it.

My last stop was the notions section, where I picked up a vintage hem marker and some hem tape.  I also snagged a singer buttonholer for $1, but it turns out it doesn't fit my Genie.  So I will fight another day in my quest for a way to make decent buttonholes. 

The day ended in a pact between me and Mary Alice to get together weekly and sew.  I don't really have many sewing friends, so I'm pretty excited about this idea.  We're considering doing a sew-along together of one of the 70s patterns I found: 





Simplicity 7522.  The jumpsuit version of course.  Who doesn't need a 1970s jumpsuit?

Now I'm brimming with inspiration and creative energy, so it's back to the sewing machine before the weekend is over!

Easter Dress 2012

Easter Dress!  No thanks to my procrastinating, I finished in record time.

I never did get it sized correctly in the shoulders.  It's much too large, but I didn't have time to go back and re-work it.

The pattern is Vogue 8728.

Vogue 8728

This is a re-issued vintage pattern from 1946 and I suppose the construction techniques are vintage as well.  The gathering at the top of the neckline was to be secured by stitching it to tear-away stabilizer until the bias-cut band was sewn to the neckline.

I've never used tear-away stabilizer before.  When I discovered it was about $15 a roll at Joann's (almost as much as I spent on the fabric) I decided there's got to be another option. 

You know what works really well as tear-away stabilizer?

I really am that cheap.

This fabric was rather translucent and I wasn't really sure how to lining would work with all of those bodice gathers.  I decided to take my first crack at underlining.  Ideally I would have used white cotton batiste.  But like I said, I'm really cheap.  So I used semi-sheer cotton-poly blend white curtains from the thrift store.  Success!

Things were proceeding swimmingly until I attached the skirt to the bodice.  The skirt was way to bulky and made my butt and midsection look ENORMOUS.  I hacked off about a foot and a half, re-gathered it, and sewed it back in.  Then I ripped the whole thing out a second time, hacked off some more, and re-attached.

The result was a slightly wonky seam at my waist.  Thank goodness for belts!  They can hide a world of sins!

Copious gathers are not a feature I associate with 1940s garmets, but I guess 1946 is close enough to the New Look era that things were starting to change.

Now I'm going to have to re-evaluate my plans to sew a 1950s sundress with a huge gathered skirt this summer. 

Hope you all had a wonderful and blessed Easter!

A Solemn Vow

I solemnly swear that the next time I make a dress I will take my time and MAKE A MUSLIN FIRST!

My Easter dress.  There are fitting issues.  But I'm almost done.  Almost.  Here's a preview.

More details later.  In the meantime, HAPPY EASTER!