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Lucinda August 13, 2012

Pattern Review: McCall’s 4868 [Promaballoona!]

Sparkly shoes!

Pattern: McCall’s 4868 (OOP)
Fabric: Cotton, Metro Textile in NYC
Size: 8-10-12

Shoes: Capparos
Necklace: gift from my sister (when I was in her wedding)
Clutch: Stila

If you haven’t read the fabulous blog Oona Balloona, do yourself a favor and get over there now. I’ll wait.

When Oona posted her idea to have a “Promaballoona” in honor of her birthday this year (how rad), it was the perfect excuse to make a fancy dress and getted dolled up. Plus, the timing was right spot on with a wedding that I was planning on going to this summer. Since Promaballoona and the wedding fell right smack dab in the sticky heat of early August, the key ideas were to keep the dress cool and breezy. When I stumbled across this fabric in NYC recently I knew what to make – it screamed “retro halter dress.” Perfect!

So a little backstory about me and prom…I never went. I always planned on what dress I wanted to wear (this one as a matter of fact. I sewed costumes for the spring play during my senior year of high school and made this dress for a few chorus girls), what color it would be, etc. but never got up the courage to ask someone (because everyone knows boys are chicken at that age. Most don’t grow out of it either. Le sigh.). It’s just as well, I ended up coming down with a cold that weekend and did some knitting instead. Looking back eight years later, I’m pretty sure I didn’t miss a thing. Except maybe some stupid drama that always seemed to happen at high school dances…yeah no thanks.

The Pattern

I went digging through my stash and since I was short on time to make this dress, I picked a pattern I made seven years ago, remembering that it went together fairly easily. I knew based on the original dress, I needed to make some alterations to the bodice pattern since it fit really loosely now.

Um…I had to use three different sizes to get the bodice to fit. Wowzers, I think that speaks volumes to the fact that muslins are a non-negotiable when it comes to sewing. It involved making a size 10 for the bodice, trying it on, pinning it where it was loose and letting it out where it was tight, and redrawing the stitching lines. When I laid the pattern pieces on top of my fitted muslin, I discovered that it was an 8 at the top, went out to a 10 for most of the bodice, and then to a 12 at the waist. But sewing is all about getting the garment to fit the body and not the body to fit the garment, that’s what I love about it.

And the laws of science also apply to sewing: for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. By my altering of the bodice pieces, I had to change just about every other pattern piece except for the skirt. Surprisingly, it wasn’t as hard as it sounds even though at the time it was terrifying.

Showing off my mani

After all of the adjustments to the bodice, I thought I had a perfect fit, except for the fact that the band on the top of the bodice would gape out. I’d try and tie the dress higher up or lower, but it still didn’t fix the gape-age. I blame this on my lack of boobage, whatevs, but it triggered a memory as to why I made small tucks on the original dress bodice: the pattern did this the first time I made this as well. So as you can see in the picture above, I hand-stitched some tucks in place and it blends in just fine, also repeating the tucks in the back. No free show, thank you!

The Fabric

The fabric is a designer lightweight cotton with a weave that made it sheer like a voile. There’s also this really cool jaquard polka dot pattern woven throughout the fabric that looks neat when it catches the light, like in this picture of the fabric on my mom’s cutting table. I purchased a very thin white cotton to fully line the dress, attaching the lining to the top of the bodice band and hand stitching it to the invisible zipper and back bodice bands. It was a much better choice than a synthetic lining – it kept me nice and cool (relatively speaking) that muggy afternoon and felt better to wear.

Towards the end of the night. I opted for flip flops by that time.

I had a blast that night! It made me wish that we got dressed up like this more often, but then again, how often do you need to wear a tux and fancy dress? And while heels are great and all, they don’t lend themselves well to dancing after a few drinks.

Or kissing your date.

Hope you all had a great Promaballoona! Let’s do this again next year!

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Lucinda July 17, 2012

Sewcation 2012: Days 1 and 2

Ahhhh….a whole week on vacation, visiting my family, and nothing to do but sew! I figured this would be the week to tackle all of the summer sewing that I still have left to do, because come next month, I’ll be wrapping up all of the cute sundresses and skirts and moving on to Halloween sewing and fall dresses. It feels like summer is only a minute in New England.

This is round two on a halter dress that I made about seven years ago. It fit me fine then, but taking it out of my closet recently, I discovered it was quite big all around. I knew going into this that I would have to make a muslin and start completely from scratch on this one.

Well. I did get it to fit.

This muslin uses 3 sizes (!!) to get the right fit. I tweaked everything on this puppy! Took the sides in, let them out, added some width to the center back seam, cut part of the bust one size and the rest of it another. It ranges from a 8 up top all the way to a 12 where the waist starts. I don’t think I’ve sewn a single garment as crazy-all-over-the-place as this one. No wonder I have a hard time finding ready-to-wear dresses that fit me. Ah, but that’s why we sew, right? We get the garment to fit our bodies and not the other way around.

Don’t you love that fabric? It’s a cotton I scored last week at Metro Textile in NY while I was coming back from a business trip. It has a retro feel to it, which lends itself well to a halter-style dress. It’s also pretty sheer, like a voile, so I’m lining it with a thin white cotton. I need to get this done this week to wear to a wedding I’m going to in about two weeks. Plus, when I get back to MA, it’s all about packing and getting ready to move to my new apartment. I can’t wait!

So today is Day 3 of Sewcation 2012 and I’m stitching this baby up, plus also (possibly) starting a muslin on a easy-peasy empire waist sundress. I don’t think the muslin is going to be that involved and all I’ll need to do is move the bust dart up slightly. If I get these two dresses done, plus all of the cutting out/fusing/serging for two other projects, it’ll be mission accomplished this week.

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Lucinda July 2, 2012

Pattern Review: Vogue 8723 [Fit and Flare Dress]

Warning: twirly poofy skirt pictures ahead. And lots of cheesiness. Of course.

Pattern: Vogue 8723
Fabric: Cotton twill-like fabric from Metro Textile in NYC
Size: 10 bodice, 12 skirt

I don’t think I believed everyone who said that this is a huge skirt. Even the drawings on the envelope and the model on the Vogue Patterns website didn’t quite illustrate the poof-factor of this dress. But I’m in love with it and that’s all the matters, right??

1) The Pattern

Can I just say, I am so glad that Custom Fit exists now and that pattern developers are realizing that even if you follow their measurements for different sizes, it’s still a challenge to get garments to fit correctly. It really is the best thing ever for ladies like moi who are “bust challenged” and avoid tops with darts like the plague. If you’re not familiar with Custom Fit, the pattern comes with different size pattern pieces to fit different bra sizes ranging from A-B-C-D. Every time I make a top with darts I always have to do a SBA and move the dart up because my cup does not runneth over and there’s always too much fabric for my chest. Not the case with Custom Fit! I picked the pattern piece for an A cup and didn’t have to do a single modification at all. It fit perfectly!!

I’m sure this also a great thing for you ladies who need to do a FBA…

2) The Fabric(s)

The dress called for something a little bit lighter than what I chose, like cotton shirting or gingham, something with not a lot of heft. I’m sure my using a heavier cotton with a twill weave explains why I got more of a poofy skirt than the pattern drawings. Another thing: patterned fabric is your friend. It hides mistakes very well…

I was surprised to find out the the dress is completely lined, which would explain why I needed to buy so much lining fabric of course! I probably didn’t need the skirt to be lined and would omit it in the future, but I got super confused how to add in an invisible zipper with the skirt lining. I left the entire back seam open, since that’s what you do with invisible zips, but I couldn’t have the skirt lining seam sewn the correct way with the seam allowances facing the wrong side of the dress fabric. I guess that’s something I should have looked up before I installed the zipper.

The graffiti in the picture adds to my street cred.

3) The Skirt

Ooooboy, what a skirt it is! The front and back are essentially two huge rectangles that are gathered along the top and attached to the bodice. Everyone was right about one thing: it’s really difficult to gather the skirt up using two rows of basting stitches. I originally intended to sew a wide zig-zag stitch over a length of cord and gather up the skirt that way, but I discovered that I could only adjust the length and not the width of the zig-zag stitch on my trusty Bernina 1005. So of course I did what everyone else did and suffered through pulling on basting stitches and sliding gathers across the skirt one by one. That part was easily, hands down, the most difficult part of this dress. At least the hemming was pretty simple.

Now where am I going to wear this thing? I feel so fancy in it, probably due to the poofy skirt. My boyfriend joked about it and asked me who I was taking to the square dance….boys are stupid.

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Lucinda June 26, 2012

On My Cutting Table: Vogue 8723 [Fit and Flare Dress]

This dress is going to be a winner, I can feel it.

I immediately jumped onto this project Saturday night after my fail at a Vogue DKNY dress and did a tissue fit of the pattern. Seriously, why didn’t “Custom Fit” patterns exist years ago?? They’re freaking brilliant! I selected the bodice pattern that fit my bust size (the smallest one, obvs), pinned all of the darts, side seam, and shoulder strap into place and voila: a perfect fit, unheard of for me with patterns with bust darts. Just to make sure it wasn’t a fluke, I cut out the lining for the bodice and stitched it up to test the fit. Again, spot on.

My only hesitation with this pattern is the skirt. I read some reviews on Pattern Review that the skirt is wicked full and difficult to gather, especially with heavier fabric like the cotton that I’m using. I’m going to try sewing a wide zig zag stitch over a length of cord or floss to gather up the skirt instead of sewing two rows of basting stitches; the basting is more than likely to break with all of the pulling and tugging. I’ll also try the skirt on myself before I attach it to the bodice – I have a feeling, with the body and fullness of this cotton, that it is going to be one super poofy skirt and may need some trimming down. Which should be easy, since the skirt panels are just wide rectangles.

The fabric is from Metro Textile in NYC – look for a post this week about my shopping adventures and what I found!

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Lucinda May 29, 2012

McCall 6559 – Swirly Ruffled Sundress

Pattern: McCall 6559, altered
Fabric: rayon poly jersey from Gorgeous Fabrics
Size: 8-10?

Wedges: Born Concept
Sunnies: Rayban

This dress originally started out as a maxi dress, but now, as you can tell, it looks nothing like the dress on the pattern envelope. Why? Call it a happy accident: I cut out the dress thinking it would fit me just fine (I mean come on, it’s a simple knit tank dress) and when I finally tried it on, the neckline was indecently too low. Like, my-bra-peeking-out-can’t-cover-it-up too low.

Hmm. What to do.

That’s when I got the brainstorm for this cute little ruffled number! You could use any simple maxi dress pattern, but here’s how I altered mine:

1 – After I sewed the side seams (and took them in quite a bit…the 10, which is usually what I cut, wasn’t as tight as I liked it), I chopped off the top of the dress right underneath the armholes. This gave me a long, tubular dress shape.

2 – Then, I cut about 5″ off of bottom of the dress and set that fabric aside for the bust ruffle. Since there was going to be a lot of skin showing up top, I opted to make the hem a modest knee length.

3 – Taking the reserved bottom of the dress I just cut off, I turned a narrow hem at the widest end (the bottom) and ran gathering stitches around the top (narrower than the bottom). With the wrong side of the ruffle facing the right side of the dress, I then eased the gathers of the ruffle around the top of the dress and stitched it in place using a 5/8″ seam.

4 – I turned the raw edges of the top of the dress to the inside and stitched a 1/2″ wide elastic casing. I cut the elastic snugly and threaded it into the casing and stitched the casing shut. Also, stitching in the ditch is your best friend when it comes to elastic!

5 – I made long, narrow tubes of fabric for the halter straps and attached them to the front of the dress where I thought they looked best.

It’s as easy as that! I’m really happy with how this dress turned out – it could have been a disaster if I hadn’t come up with a solution to my poorly fitting maxi dress, and a waste of such nice fabric.