Shy and Retiring

Or may be not.

But who doesn't need another Vogue 1250?  This is my fourth - I wore one to work yesterday and wore this one today and the only person who knew the difference was Andrea, who not only has made V1250 but also bought this fabric for me at PR Weekend Chicago when my plane got in late and I had to meet the group halfway through the shopping day - and therefore miss buying this fabric at Mood myself.  Which I would have.  Absolutely.

And Andrea has the same fabric, in another colorway, which she hasn't used yet.  Not that I'm hinting or anything.

She's also only made one version of V1250.  Isn't that enough to have your sewing license taken away?

This version isn't much different than the others, except for one change which I've been meaning to make since version 1 - because I'm fairly short-waisted, I took an inch out of the back bodice piece and extended the back skirt piece upwards by an inch.  It's amazing what a difference an inch can make - usually I feel like the back seam is sitting just a bit too low and causing the fabric to pool on my lower back.  This is much better.  I'm glad I got the dress done, and really glad I finally made this alteration to the pattern.

So now I feel better - theater sewing done, a head-cleaning knit dress for me, and I found the denim for Mario's jeans, hidden in plain sight.  Perhaps if I didn't come home, change my clothes and deposit my work clothes on the hallway stair railing, I would have noticed 2 yards of pre-washed denim (along with another fabric) hanging on the rail before a few weeks had gone by.

I'm in cleaning mode - tidied up part of the sewing room, got a bag together for the thrift store, obviously hung up and/or washed clothes - and now I'm feeling ready to face a bigger project again.

Which obviously has to be men's jeans . . . but also maybe a new pair of work pants for me.  I found a really nice, restrained brown glen plaid  I forgot I had.  It needs to be pants.  Soon.  It's fall, finally.

The Afghan Farmer's Daughter

Sorry for the cryptic title; it's in honor of Kashi at Metro Textiles, who after he tried to tell me that these weren't poppies all over the fabric (I think poppies have some kind of negative drug connotations to him), then acknowledged they were and told me -- and I don't know if this is true, but it made for a good fabric story -- that Afghan poppy farmers receive their money from the drug lords before planting season, and then hope for the best.  When the crop is harvested, if he doesn't have enough to pay back his advance money, he has to hand over one of his daughters. 

I said that was horrible, and Kashi just spread his hands.  "They have a lot of daughters," he said, "but it's not good."

This has nothing at all to do with my fabric other than this story is going to be permanently stuck in my head whenever I wear this dress, so I've named it in honor of all those Afghan farmers' daughters, who, even if they were allowed to stay with dear old dad on the poppy farm, would never get to wear this dress.

The patternreview is here.  I love this dress way more than I expected to - I've had this pattern (V8633) since it came out, and wondered a few times since why I bought it.  At the time I remember liking the version with the straight skirt; when I started on it this time, it was the big skirt all the way.

Apparently some patterns, like fabrics, need to marinate in stash for a while until they're ready. 

I took my time on this one.  There's quite a bit of hand sewing inside the bodice, and because it's a circle skirt, I hemmed it by hand so I would have more control of the curve.  I don't know as I needed to do that much, but after working on the 1912 Project patterns for a while, I'm beginning to appreciate the meditative aspect of some hand sewing. 

Which is good, because the hem is the only meditative thing about this dress.  I think the loudness of my dress was the only thing keeping me awake this morning after my non-drowsy allergy meds kicked in.

Never too hot to sew

It was a hot Sunday afternoon.  Too hot to work in the garden; too hot to do laundry.  Too hot to do anything . . . except sew.

Due to the forecast of temps in the low 100s this week, we did finally put the AC in the bedroom window today, but we'll hold off using it until it's unbearable to sleep. 

Turns out I can sleep better in heat than I can sew.  The back of the house faces west, and it doesn't matter how I try to cover the windows, the afternoon sun beats in and turns the workroom into a sauna.  It's difficult to sew when you break into a full body sweat just by turning on the machine. 

So I turned on the AC instead, and got to work.  In the interests of the electric bill, and keeping it low, I made another version of V1250, both to work out a few kinks and because I only needed 90 minutes of cooling to do it.  And 90 minutes was taking my time.  Knowing where I was going this time made it go even faster.

I like the second version much better.  The knit is similar, but has a slightly better drape, and that matters a lot - for the sake of the drape.  Looking back at my last version, the side view shows the drape looking a little like it's hanging off a cliff.  Okay, I've got some boobage, but it made them look a little square and bulky.  This fabric curves and drapes off them and I LOVE the print.

The fabric is a Marc Jacobs remnant that I picked up at Jomar a few months back.  It was the first fabric I thought of when I decided to give in to the peer pressure and make this pattern, but I wasn't sure of the fit and I didn't want to use a fabric with a lighter color just in case it made me look thicker.  Turns out, the combination of the watercolor plaid and the strong vertical, plus the better drape, made a much better version of the dress. 

If I'd made this one first, I might not have bothered with a second one.  Photos of it on me at some point this week.  Today was just too sticky for photography.

Vogue 1250 - Pattern Review

Pattern Description: Close-fitting, draped neck dress.

Pattern Sizing: 6-20. I made size 12 and it was spot on. I don't sew that many Big 4 patterns anymore, so I was a little nervous and because of the oddly shaped pattern pieces, there's really not a lot of wiggle room to take it in or out.

Did it look like the photo/drawing on the pattern envelope once you were done sewing with it? Yes.

Were the instructions easy to follow? Extremely. When I got the envelope I thought something was missing - one little sheet of pattern paper and the instructions don't even take up both sides of the page!

What did you particularly like or dislike about the pattern? It's 3 pieces (including a band for the back of the neck), it takes minimal fabric and even less time. This is definitely a "whip it up this afternoon to wear tonight" kind of pattern.

Fabric Used: Stretch knit from Metro Textiles. I say it looks like olives - the dark and light green, and the (honestly) dark purply color. In my office under the fluorescent lights, it deadened down to charcoal gray - still pretty, but no olives.

Pattern alterations or any design changes you made: None, other than shortening it a bit so that it came right above the knee.

Would you sew it again? Would you recommend it to others? I think I'm the 26th review, so I'm not sure this pattern needs any more recommendations, but yes, I'd sew it again. Definitely.

Conclusion: I wasn't planning to make this dress. It's kind of like Harry Potter - when the entire world started reading the books, I decided that I didn't want to. I didn't want to read what everyone else was reading. If all those people were reading it, it probably wasn't that good. Right. That lasted until Book 3, and now I have tickets tonight for the 2nd night of the final movie.

Same deal here. This pattern came out, I thought it was cute, and then EVERYONE started making it, and I decided I didn't want to. It couldn't be THAT good of a pattern, even though it looked good on every body type, didn't take much fabric or time. It couldn't be that good.

Right. And here I am, planning my second version. Sometimes I'm contrary just to be that way, and it ends up biting me in the butt. Glad I got on the V1250 bandwagon before it left without me.

Dinner and a Movie

It rained yesterday, cold, gray dreary rain. All I wanted all day was to come home to my nice (hopefully) dry house and not have to go out again.

So when Mario emailed me mid-afternoon and said we were going out for dinner and then to the movies, I grumbled a bit. I went, but I grumbled -mainly because he said he'd already gotten the tickets and I like knowing what I'm going to beforehand.

Except.

He got tickets to the 7:25 showing of The September Issue.

Because it was such a gray, dreary day that he thought I needed perking up.

I have many thoughts on the movie, but first and foremost is that I enjoyed it more - far more - than I enjoyed the real September issue this year.

Second, I would like to see the world through Grace Coddington's eyes. And I wouldn't mind having her red hair, either.

Last purchases for 2008

I thought I was done. I said I was done. But austerity will begin anew tomorrow. I took advantage of the Vogue sale ($4.75 per pattern, you just have to wait until January 5 for them to ship) and I picked up OOP Butterick 3344 on Ebay after seeing it made up on Patternreview.

Can a girl have too many knit tops? I don't think so. And a pattern with that many variations is hard to resist. So I didn't. Especially since it was out of print.

The same explanation goes for Vogue 8536 - t-shirt, mock wrap, v-neck, sleeve variations. This one will be the basis for many other things.

I know, I know, my KwikSew T is my go-to T pattern, but it doesn't hurt to see what else is out there, right?

Then there's Vogue 8473, which I fell for when it was released last year. Mostly it's the jacket, but the more I look at the dress, the more I like it as well.


And last, but not least, another out-of-print pattern, McCall 5392 - the skinny jeans that Dei made with such success. I though I should snag them from Ebay when I saw them there in my size.

I feel only so bad about this small binge: two Vogue, $4.75 each; one OOP Butterick, $3.00 plus shipping; one McCall, $1.00 plus shipping. Basically, four patterns for under $20, including shipping costs.

Did I mention there was also free shipping with the Vogue pattern sale?

Just when I'm trying to behave myself,

Vogue is having a sale. I didn't join their BMV club, mainly because, to paraphrase Groucho Marx, I didn't want to belong to a club that would have me as a member. They would be more than happy to relieve me of my money, but no, thank you very much, I can live without that extra 10% off.

Most of the new patterns didn't do diddly for me - did everyone see the Michael Kors dress? what was he thinking? On the other hand, there were a few that I really liked. I've narrowed it down to one - which has the added draw of having several appropriate fabrics already in stash. I've decided I might need V8480 because (a) it's a jacket, and I have a massive weakness for jackets, and (b) in the most recent cleanout, I gave the thrift store all my old denim jackets. Face it, they weren't doing anything for my figure (being either men's or so generically cut that they might as well have been menswear, and after a certain age, a lady needs all the help she can get to remind herself and others that yes, there is a waist under those clothes). This could be made up in several fabrics, but I think it would be cute in denim, and I do need a generic throw-over-everything jacket that doesn't look like a candidate to be taken to the thrift store anytime soon.

There's also V8473, which once again I like for the jacket, though the dress is cute on its own. I love the collar on the jacket, and I think (once again) that I have several fabrics that would do it justice. I don't have enough to make the dress and jacket as a set, and that's the main reason I'm not buying the pattern right now - I'm afraid I'd click "buy" on 6 yards of something I don't need to make a dress I won't wear until warmer weather anyway. Maybe if I can sew down the stash and earn 6 yards of fabulous fabric, I'll treat myself to this pattern at the next sale. I have to remember that it's not like this is the last time Vogue will ever have a sale.

Also, fabric stores will never run out of fabric, buttons and zippers will not disappear off the face of the earth, and patterns won't stop being made anytime soon - especially since I have a Burda subscription. This thinking is how I've gotten into stash hell, and I've got to claw my way out somehow.

I'm Done!!!!

I don't usually use that many exclamation points, but that's just how glad I am that THE DRESS FROM HELL is finished.

Here's the story behind this project: My friend Adam is not a normal guy. He was raised by his mom, his grandmom and his aunt, and he is the man every woman wants - cute, well-mannered, responsible, employed, clothing-conscious and animal-loving. When he finally found the girl of his dreams (who is almost worthy of him), he decided that if they couldn't run away to Europe to get married, they had to have a formal wedding. The invitation said "black tie strongly encouraged." Adam says that too many of his friends go around dressed like homeless people, and he wanted to see them looking nice for once. Not surprisingly, almost everyone was into the idea. I started planning as soon as I found out what color the bridesmaids were wearing - I didn't want to inadvertently look like one of the bridal party.

Adam is getting married next Friday, therefore, I've known about this occasion for some time. I've even had the fabric for some time. (Okay, more than some time - I bought it in February). I waffled several times about what pattern to use and finally decided on McCall 4444, which is technically a sundress pattern, but when I made it back in July, it seemed like it had great potential as a dressier dress. And it did, thank all the sewing gods, who occasionally conspired against me and demanded more than their normal measure of blood, sweat and swearing.

For some reason, I decided that this outfit had to be perfect. That meant no short cuts and no ignoring mistakes just because non-sewers wouldn't notice them. Perfect, or at least done correctly, so I had to face a long-standing sewing fear and learn how to put in an invisible zipper. Once I got the hang of it, it wasn't difficult at all and now I want to put them in everything and I'm smacking myself for all the times I cheated and put in a regular zipper, and tried to ignore that it didn't look right.

The dress started out in a different color - I got a really pretty copper taffeta from fabric.com, but it turned out to be crackly taffeta, as in cheap prom dress crackly taffeta. When I went looking for replacement fabric, they had this cocoa silk shantung for not much more $$. Not only is it gorgeous but I don't sound like I'm wearing plastic grocery bags in this dress. It doesn't crackle, it rustles. Much better.

The jacket (Burda 7987) was an afterthought, actually - I bought 2 yards of this embroidered home dec fabric to match the original copper; then I decided I didn't like it; then I decided to use it as a jacket because it's a November wedding and I was wearing a backless dress. To me there's something very Elizabethan about it. Maybe it's the stand-up collar, or the richness of the fabric. The collar is great - it's got 10 small pleats from the side to the back of the neck to give it shape, and even though it was a bear to put together and iron into submission, the end result was worth it.

The dress took more patience than the jacket, somehow. This is supposed to be an unlined sundress. It's not, obviously. I ended up lining it, because I didn't think silk shantung would make it through a wedding mass without creasing. To give the bodice a bit more body, I ironed a light-weight interfacing to the lining. I was afraid to iron it to the fabric, just in case it showed. But once I'm in the dress, the fabric and the lining become one, and the interfacing adds just enough structure. The lining had to be sewn in by hand, because the silk shows every single stinking pin and needle mark, and if I'd managed to keep the exterior clean up to that point, I wasn't marring it because of a lining. So it's stitched along the zipper and along the top of the bodice, very carefully, on the seam allowance just below the seam so there was no possibility of stitches showing.

You know what? Doing everything right is freaking exhausting! I went to the pre-wedding serenade last night and told the bride and groom that they could, indeed, be married next Friday because I would not be attending the ceremony in my underwear. Instead, I'll be wearing this, complete with dyed-to-match shoes.

The shoes are beautiful, but somewhat of a sore point. When I picked them up, a customer complimented me on them and asked, "Are you the mother of the bride?" I almost choked. "No," I say. "Oh, mother of the groom. That's lovely."

Can't I just be an overdressed guest? Do I have to suddenly have a 20-something child? It took all my strength not to snap at the woman who, after all, didn't mean anything by her remark. I just generally choose to believe I don't look my age, and I don't look kindly on those who assume that I have children old enough to be married.

Lust / Stashing (Patterns)

What I'd like to find is a blouse pattern that looks like this Roland Mouret jacket, though I'm not sure how it would look on me, considering that my ribcage and my waist are much closer together than the tall young thin thing wearing the original. That's a project for a long, cold winter, drafting something of that magnitude.

I've tried to be good lately about the pattern thing. There are so many that I haven't tried, so many issues of BWOF that are calling out to be pillaged. So how is it that I ended up on Patternreview, ordering KS 3533 (a Duro-type dress out of knit fabric), Burda 7898, an almost exact replica of a dress they did in a BWOF issue last year, and New Look 6732, because I have almost no blouse patterns and I realize that my anti-blouse bias has always been because they don't fit properly. When I made my first Simplicity 7086, it was a revelation - the buttons didn't gap, it didn't ride up, it fit close to my body without being tight. I wanted more. I made another one, and refined the length and sleeves, and played with the buttons a little. More.

Thus NL 6732, which seems like a well-shaped basic - it has 4 collar options, 4 sleeve options (many more once I play with it a little), and it looks like it's a good length. At most it takes 1 3/4 yards, so I can probably scare up that much fabric. Easily.

Then, just when I thought it was safe, I got an email from Vogue. Bastards. Another $6.99 sale. And since their patterns are $25 - how did that happen? It's obscene - I had to buy a few. Two more Vintage Vogues, both dresses, and a Sandra Betzina blouse pattern, 7903, which to me has great faux-vintage potential with its series of 3 small darts in the front and two long, shaping darts in the back. I could actually do without the goofy cuffs on all variations of the shirt, but isn't that the joy of sewing? Looking at what the pattern company gives you and saying, "Nah, I don't think so."
As an example of that, the two dress patterns I mentioned above, are being done backward. The Burda bias cut dress, which is meant to be done in a woven (velvet in their photo and in my mind), is being made, albeit very carefully, in a copper brown stretch velvet. With an invisible zipper, hallelujah, now that I can put them in. And the KS Duro dress just doesn't do it for me in a knit when I have so many wovens that need taking care of. And because I truly hate hemming knits. It only requires a 25% stretch, so I'm thinking that if I cut one size larger than my usual, I should be able to make it work.

We'll see, won't we?