Sewing Vloggers

Saturday, May 9, 2015

Vogue 8630


This is the view as I look straight down at my toes while wearing my muslin. See that toe peeking out? The muslin came out surprisingly good and I am sure having the various cup sizes made it work. The "C" fit perfectly except for my usual excess between apex and shoulder and that was easily fixed by deepening the shoulder seam.

The big issue, and really only other issue was what you see in the picture above. This happens to me a lot in dresses. I have wide hips. I have a relatively small waist. This means a big dart in the front of the garment whenever one is specified. But this is where it gets weird. I have a short front crotch rise. My lower tummy has always been very flat, almost concave. Is that a tilted pelvis? I think it could be from what I've read. I have made darts in pants that are probably half the length that you would normally use. The dart ends so that the end of it is filled out by my mature tummy fluff. But it can look weird doing that sometimes and it looked weird with that fix on the muslin. In the pic you can see the long dart puffs out beyond my tummy and has tons of dead air underneath. Its all very weird. I've run into this many times over the years and my solution is to turn the dart into a pleat. The fullness gets released softly and falls straight down instead of puffing out like the dart.   I don't have this problem in the back because my booty generously fills out the back darts in the skirt. So that point lump has been converted to a pleat and it looks better.

Here's something I learned from Sandra Betzina. If you fold the pleats outward, your tummy will look flatter and your hips wider. If you fold the pleats toward center front, your hips will look narrower and your tummy more fluffy. I folded them toward center front. I also pegged the skirt. Short women with wide hips can look pretty dumpy with the side seams hanging straight toward the floor. But pegging a skirt can make those wide hips look even wider. Think of an inverted triangle. I go easy on the pegging tapering in to 3/8ths of an inch at the side seams. Any more is not good but this small amount really helps.


I was all set to do some brilliant matching for you but turns out I am not that brilliant, or this print is barely matchable. The horizontal repeats once and that repeat is  only a quarter of the pattern. The length repeat is 24 inches. While I had a fair amount of extra fabric, I would have needed a huge amount to make it work. I tried, I really tried. As close as I got had me with two giant flowers with big dark centers either right on my boobs, right under them or on the hills of my buttocks. To use the less defined fabric for those areas did not work with the limited horizontal matching I could do because of the one  and a quarter repeat horizontally. SWhat you see above is the beginning of the game. An hour and a half later is was decision time. It was either ignore the print completely or try to get the flowers off the boobs and find a "rough match" that would not glaringly stick out. I think 've made it work with the second option and hope the print is camouflage enough to look OK. I think it is.


One thing I really like about this pattern is the shaping. Above you see the center back  and how it curves in toward the waist on the left instead of just being a vertical line. Nice on that one, Vogue. The center back of the skirt is also curved in so this would work well for those swaybacks. I did not have to do any swayback adjustment and that really surprised me. 


At this point all is cut out. There are three layers in the skirt only, fashion fabric, the net layer and the batiste underling. The bodice is fashion fabric and underlining only. Seams all have the Honk Kong finish added where they can be. I like to do that seam finish as much as possible before construction of the garment. It is so much easier that way. Don't you love that antique gold color charmeuse for the binding? If you are interested there is a tutorial on doing the Hong Kong seam finish here. 


Why no muslin pics? Well, Mr. Avedon did a poor job  of them , taking them from way too high at a weird angle.  Given that he was cleaning every window and screen in the house, a chore we always share, and I was in the studio all day, I was not in a position to complain. I thanked him very much, tried to do some mirror pics of my own but that is not something I've ever been good at. At least you got to see my bulging tummy darts. I am going to hit this again big time tomorrow so I can get it out of the way. Still waiting for my hat to arrive...................Bunny

22 comments:

  1. Oh gosh that fabric is gorgeous and the binding is STUNNING!!!

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  2. I really love the colour of that binding.

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  3. Have you tried turning the front of your skirt into three pieces so that you have seams instead of darts? This might allow you to do more shaping without the puffiness where the dart ends.

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    1. That's a great idea. I will give it a try on the next opportunity. Thanks, Chris.

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  4. Hi, I've been following your blog for quite some time and I enjoy it very much, though I have never commented before.

    I prefer to do all my blog reading in Feedly as it presents everything in a nice consistent format that is easy on the eye. For some reason, however, I am only able to see, at most, a paragraph of posts from your blog in Feedly and have to come to your blog to read the whole article, where the italic font is not so easy to read, especially if I am reading on the small screen of my tablet.

    Is this a conscious choice on your part or is there some switch or button you could easily flip or click to enable full functionality in Feedly? If there is, I would very much appreciate it and I would be able to keep up with your postings wherever I am instead of having to save them up to read on my large screen.

    Thanks in advance - Kate

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    1. I am not aware of anything I can do on my end to make your Feedly connection function better. Perhaps another reader might be able to add something.

      I have found that what I write does not always come out the way I want it to look and it seems to depend on the computer. Sometimes it looks totally out of joint to me but others tell me it is fine and just the way I published it. Perhaps that's a browser issue for those reading, not sure.. I use blogger and bloglovin' for the blogs I follow and have had no problem as you describe. I have not had this complaint from anyone else throughout my blogging years. I am sorry you are having a difficult time following and I really appreciate that you do and I thank you.

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    2. "I have not had this complaint from anyone else throughout my blogging years.". Just wanted to add that I said this only to make the point that it could be something unique to your browsing situation. Sorry if it sounded otherwise.

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    3. My feedly does the same with some of my blogs, but some not. It is always consistent within each blog, however.

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    4. Hi Bunny, thanks for your comments. It's the same whichever computer/browser, etc I use, and all other blogs I follow in Feedly come through fully as intended. I tried Bloglovin' and I didn't like the format.

      I did encounter the same Feedly problem temporarily with another blog I follow (which i had previously been able to read ok in Feedly) when she had to make some changes to her blog. When I notified her of the problem, she had her son make some changes her end and that fixed things. I don't know what it was that was adjusted, though. ~ Kate

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    5. Hi Bunny, I've been doing a bit of investigating and it seems that you may need to alter the RSS feed settings in blogger:

      quote:/ The control for your blog's RSS feed is either within your blog platform's settings or your web feed manager's controls. Below you will find the settings for three popular services.

      Blogger: Settings > Other > Site feed /unquote.

      That's, of course, assuming that you're happy for people to read your posts fully in a reader rather than coming to your site. ~Kate

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  5. I,too, love your fabric and binding choice. Can't wait to see some pictures. Karen

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  6. I am absolutely horrendous at matching irregular prints. It's more hit and miss even when I spend a lot of time at it. You've done a great job here.
    I have a very short rise due to a tilted front waist and my darts are really pretty tiny but like you I have to have them since I've got a small waist in comparison to my hips. I find, but of course I am not thin, that moving them further to the sides works better for me.

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    1. Thanks, Nancy. I did move the pleats out a bit as they actually did not line up with the above waist darts. I will have to write in my notebook all these great suggestions. thanks.

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  7. There is much to admire in this post and a tip I will keep - the great tip from Sandra Betzina regarding pleats. Thank you from another short, though curvy, woman. YOur fabric is fantastic and the binding equally fantastic.

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    1. I have to say the fabric, 100% rayon, has been a dream to sew. It is in a linen weave but not unravelling like you might think. It has been quite cooperative.

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  8. Hi Bunny, Yay! Whatever you did, it's worked. Thank you so much for taking the time and trouble to do this. I really appreciate it. :)

    And I must comment and say that I am in love with this gorgeous fabric, though sadly I can't wear brown as it makes me look kinda flat. I can't wait to see the finished garment. ~Kate

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    1. I can't do brown either unless it is really dark like the brown here, like my eyes which are almost black. This one seems to work, but autumn colors generally do nothing for me.

      I went in my blogger settings and found something to change. I am glad it worked for you. I haven't toyed with my reading settings since this blog was set up in 2007 when the need to be read on phones was not an issue. Times change and thanks for bringing it to my attention.

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    2. Maybe I could do a very dark brown, too, as my eyes are also dark brown.

      I glad you were able to find a setting to alter and I thank you for changing it. ~Kate

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  9. Maybe by reducing the width of the darts by half and moving the other half to the side seams and adjust with the side seam you will not have that pointed feature. The more you take at the top of the dart, it just does not have enough time to reduce itself down and lie flat in that short of a space. Looking down from the top it looks like a bust dart so think of it as too big of a dart for a flat chested girl. You charm us with your fabric choices, Bunny!

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    1. That is a great idea and I think will work really well. Yes, it looked just like an empty bust dart and I love your analogy!

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