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

Challenging Pockets!

What's so challenging about a couple of big ole patch pockets? Matching them the way I wanted to! It was a bear.

First, I deviated from the pattern in that I wanted a slanted cuff on the pocket. I also wanted the pockets on the diagonal, bias pockets, so they would need an on grain lining to keep them from stretching out. Then the cuff needed to be bias as well but in the other direction. If I put it all going in the same direction you won't notice the cuff. So the cuff had to go the other way, That was the rub!

This is not as easy as it sounds. It took a lot of head scratching, flipping of fabric and pattern pieces to finally get it right. There are two pockets and they mirror image their bias design. I need to line the pocket and for the top 2 1/2 inches there would be ikat fabric that when folded down would go in the opposite and bias direction of the pocket, basically a faced edge to the lining. Then I had to do the reverse for the cuff on the other side. Confused?  Trust me, it took many tries to finally get it right. If anyone ever tries this the trick is to put wrong sides together and make sure the pattern flows continuously. You can see that with the green arrow above. If I cut that piece in this direction, it will work. I had to cut them wrong side up to make sure I got it right. I'm exhausted already.

Here the pieces are trimmed for a trial run and ready to get their lining. Don't want to mix anything up!

I got them sewn together tonight and they are ready for topstitching. I need to sample that out first. I've decided to topstitch in the darkest shade of the blue,  a trick I learned from smocking. An expert told me to pick out either the darkest color in the print or the lightest color when choosing smocking thread colors. We'll see how that works with this jacket! I may also use that triple stitch once again. I really like the look and this jacket could use some heavy topstitching to casual it up. So next stop is samples and then get those pockets on the front of the jacket. Till then..........    Bunny

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We woke up to this the other morning. Seems Rocky Raccoon thought the pickings inside our house were even better than what was outside and literally chewed through the screen and weather stripping. Nasty, huh? Do you know how many times on a hot summer day I leave this window open when I am not in this part of the house or out busy in the garden? Not any more!  I would have died if I woke up to a raccoon in the house in the middle of the night! At this point hubby and his Have a Heart trap have dealt with the issue and now we just need the window fixed! Rocky can go chew through someone else's kitchen window! Oh, he climbed up the porch rails, onto the grill and over to the window..,,life in the boonies!.....Bunny

I love Ikats!

I have always loved ikat patterns with their bold geometrics and dry brushed paint appeal. You can see lots here: Ikat images . These designs have been around for ages and while I haven't done any research lately other than shop for them, I remember something about them originally being hand woven by maybe Guatemalans or Bolivians. I have to look into that.

For some time I have wanted to make a summer jacket. Around here you still get 40-50 degree nights and 80-90 degree days so a good light jacket is necessary. I was really needy in that department. Last fall I entered the Threads Fall Jacket Challenge and the jacket that I  made for the contest is the same design I will be using for this jacket. It is Simplicity 2153.  It's a classic anorak and a very versatile.

 One of the really wonderful things about blogging is having a journal of your work. I knew I also wanted to flatline this jacket as I did on the original. This pattern also has all sorts of details like grommets and casings, yokes, etc. and it is great to have the resource of the previous post to refer back to.

Since I am still getting over my recent pattern matching fail I paid particular attention to what was going on with this design. The first thing I did was establish my bust point so I wouldn't have the ikats landing on my real estate in an awkward fashion. Then I set about cutting the first piece, the front bodice. All pieces were cut in singular layers. 

Once the first piece was cut, I laid it on top of the fabric, matching the design. Then I cut the second piece out using the first bodice as my pattern.

Now to match the side seams, NO! I got them perfectly matched and realized that I paid no attention to where the design laid out on the back bodice. It was then I realized that with a large motif like this you need to establish the lay of design on any pattern piece before attempting to match. In other words, I took the back bodice pattern piece and laid it out so the hemline area lined up with the front and the ikat was centered on my back, not off balance. Then the side seams were matched on the vertical as a perfect match on the horizontal would leave the motifs off balance on the back bodice. You have to make decisions with each piece on how to match. It's not always black and white, at least at first glance. When I got to the sleeves it was the same. I needed to establish the center of the column of ikats in line with the center of the sleeve where it starts at the shoulder seam. After that I proceeded to match the sleeve with the bodice. Whew, lots of words, lots of concentration but  think I did it ok this time. At this point all is cut out and ready to go.

A word about the fabric. It is a definite home dec print and I absolutely love it. I was looking for something with a blue jean coloration and when it arrived it looked even more so than it did online. I got it from Fabric.com, 22.99 a yard so not one of their bargains. It is really nice quality, for sure. I did serge the edges and machine wash and line dried it. The fabric softened nicely but still has that heavy linen look. I think with the flat lining it will work up to just the right weight.

I am going to "unit sew" this garment as much as I can. I like sewing that way, particularly on garments with varying details like this one.

I am still working on my friend's gown. I did a second muslin, which I think will be good and she will try that on this week. I sure hope this comes out nice.  My beading is continuing as well and I am such a feeble beginner, but I am determined. When I have something to show I will....Bunny