An oldie but goodie

So while I was back in London, I used a tiny remnant of gorgeous striped silk jersey from my favourite fabric store ever, McCulloch and Wallis, to make this little top. Again, I used the yoke and bodice shapes from Vintage Vogue 1044. Problem is, that as I had very little fabric to work with, it ended up really quite short. But with my new high-waisted skirt, I could finally wear it without any unsightly belly-bits protruding. Win!

And here is a gratuitous covered-button and loop shot from that high-waisted skirt.

Duct-tape dress form

I've been wanting to make a dress form for ages, ever since reading a couple tutorials from people who had made their own forms, rather than shelling out $400+ for a store-bought, adjustable one. So this morning I set too it, or rather, Mike did as there was no way I could wrap myself neck-to-ass in duct tape.

All up, it took about 2 hrs and turned out really well. The measurements are spot on, after a bit of padding to compensate for the fair amount of squashing that the duct tape did to my boobs. (Me: Mike, does this seem right to you? Mike: *cup, cup* Add a bit more to the left one.)

The process is pretty basic. Put on an old t-shirt and cover hips with a tube a fabric (in my case an old tank top with the straps cut off). Wrap carefully in strips of duct tape, with the tape-er being careful to stay as close to the body as possible (e.g. minimal squishing - I am rather squishy after all - and no stretching across bits). The tape-ee's job is to stand as still and posture-perfect as possible. Tricky.

Once covered in 2-3 layers of tape, cut up the centre back, remove, tape back together and stuff. In my case I also had to bulk up the afore-mentioned squished boobs.

I've added a coat-hanger into the shoulders for now, which should let me use it for skirts, dresses, pants without needing a stand. It will definitely be used this week for the tweed version of my Peggy Olson dress.

Peggy Olson dress, high-waisted skirt, and covered-buttons all over the place

With the impending start of a new job bringing the end of my unemployed free time, I spent last week in a mad flurry of sewing activity. What resulted was, in addition to a few long-needed mendings and hemmings, three new pieces to hang in my closet. I have definitely found that my skills have improved over the last couple months, owing entirely to reading and planning and not actually sewing. Very cool.

All three pieces were from re-printed vintage patterns, though two were pretty significant modifications of.

First up, a muslin of Simplicity 3673 (view A), which turned out well enough to be wearable. I call it my Peggy Olson dress as it is spot-on her style (which I love). I absolutely love the clarity of instruction in Simplicity patterns, especially when compared with the sometimes esoteric ones in the Vogue patterns I've been sewing more recently. I did have to make a few alternations to the basic pattern tho.

• As suggested in quite a few reviews, I fully lined the dress (in bright orange!), instead of just the bodice. This made the final fit lovely to wear but was a major pain when I had to make a few alterations midway through.
• I narrowed the skirt at the hem by 1 1/2" on each side to enhance the shape of the pencil skirt.
• My usual dress fit alteration of cutting a size smaller on top and grading to a larger size through the hips didn't really work for the close-cut wriggle-skirt shape of this dress. I first thought it was because I had decided not to do my usual waist-lengthen adjustment too (didn't think it needed it after measuring) but it turned out to be more around where the hip was sitting as well as needing to adjust for a "sway back", or as I like to think of it, a small waist followed by a slightly protruding butt. Amazing how much you learn about your own figure when adjusting a very tailored dress like this.
• I also shortened the back at the centre only - basically took two darts out above the underbust band - as it just wanted to gape there.
• And I omitted the buckle in favour of two covered buttons. I currently have a thing for self-covered buttons.

I was very meticulous in transferring all these adjustments onto

the pattern pieces - not doing this is a very bad habit of mine - which I'd already backed with fusible. I do this with patterns I know I'm going to make again and again.

Things I'm not happy with and will fix in the next version:

• The gathering under the bust. Ack. I need to take out some bulk here or maybe change the gathers to darts and be done with it.
• Because of the alterations I made to the length of the bodice back, the zipper ended up really short and high. This means the dress only goes on over my head and with a bit of wriggling. Fun!
• Use a friggin' dress form! This would have made the fitting soooo much easier and the final result much cleaner. Of course, that means having a dress form, which is an adventure for later today I think....

Next, a little blouse made of a bit of leftover Liberty print jersey that had also arrived in the from-London pile of boxes. It is very loosely based on another vintage re-print, Vogue 1044. This one went fine, aside form it taking longer than I thought it would given I had to cut out pretty creatively as I had very little of this lovely fabric left over form another project. And yes, I added another self-covered button at the neckline, this time with a loop fastening as well.

And finally a heavy jersey skirt made using the same pattern as the Peggy Olson dress. I just made up the skirt pieces, cutting the front panels as a single piece instead of two, fit the hips perfectly this time, and lapped over 4" at the waist to form a facing. It look me less than two hours and I just love how it fits. It also let me

make even more refinements to the shaping of the skirt for my next attempt at this pattern. And I dealt with a bit of a gap at the top of the zipper with... yup, a self-covered button and loop fastening.

Things I've learned while not sewing

With the long-anticipated arrival of our boxes of stuff from London (including my sewing machine!), we spent most of Saturday unpacking and setting up the now-dubbed Craft Cave. I then spent most of Sunday sewing, Simplicity 3672 to be exact. Having not sewn a stitch since leaving the UK at the beginning of December, I was thrilled to find that I think I've actually improved. I owe this mostly to the amount of reading I've done on techniques etc while waiting for my machine to arrive. After a brief vacant moment when I seemed to have forgotten how to thread my machine, I stormed ahead on an awesome pattern and found that I now:

- Understood the reason for stay stitching and actually didn't ignore it.

- Have a better head for thinking in 3D which made it much easier to adapt a partially-lined dress pattern to fully-lined with minimal fuss. It was very satisfying to turn the who lot right-side out and find I had a perfectly lined dress.

- Am more patient when it comes to properly marking and notching when cutting out. This makes life sooo much easier during construction.

However, I still:

- Need to make a dress form. Its just too damn tricky to adjust a tailored fit without one. M is looking forward to wrapping me in duct tape for this.

- Need to remember to always lengthen the midsection of dresses by 1 - 1 1/2", no matter what. Just holding the pattern up to me and thinking it'd be right does not work. I must accept my long-waisted-ness and learn to love it. Fortunately, I've been able to lengthen the underbust band and all is not lost.

With our Craft Cave now in full operation, I'll be madly sewing again, especially for the next couple days before I finally go back to work. Hopefully with a few new pieces in my wardrobe.