Vogue 8870, High-Low Hem Surplice Birthday Dress

It takes me a long time to warm up to a trendy trend, like the high-low hem.  At first I hate it.  Then I am skeptical.  Then I see some cute examples.  Then I am ready. This process can take years. 

After seeing several cute iterations of this pattern on PR, I decided I could take the plunge with the high-low trend (I may be willing to do the trend, but I am not willing to butcher the English language by calling it "hi-lo") using Vogue 8870, sized XS-XXL.  I even went bold with double trending by using this ombre silk, one of the gorgeous pieces BadMomGoodMom picked up for me for a song.

After I had the dress almost done I saw this Lela Rose for Fall 2013.  It looks like my trends should last through at least next season!









I did my usual adjustments, including a broad back.  I should have been more aggressive with the broad back.  I didn't want the hassle of bringing the adjustment into the raglan sleeve, so I just did it on the bodice piece, and I don't have as much movement through the back and shoulders as I would like.



There was universal praise for this pattern among those who have sewn it, but I had an *awful* time with it.  I think the flowing silk charmeuse added a level of complexity the pattern could not take.



I had a little gaping at the back neck, which is not unusual for me.  I added a tiny dart, which took care of it.

My main issue, though was the length of the bodice.  The side seams drooped a full two inches lower than the center front and back.  I sewed it to the skirt like that thinking that once the waist was elasticized there would be some sort of miracle transformation.

There was not.

So I put the dress on inside out and tied elastic around my waist and snugged it even with the lower edge of the center front and back of the bodice, then marked on the side seams where the elastic lay, which was two inches shorter.  Then I ripped the skirt off (poor silk!), reinforced the stitch line with strips of interfacing, trimmed the sides of the bodice at my markings, and sewed it back together with the shortened side seams.  Much, much improved.

The side seams of the front bodice are cut on the bias because of the grain direction, so I assumed the problem was my carelessness in letting the seam stretch out (though the back side seam is pretty close to straight grain).  But comparing the pattern piece to the finished dress, the side seam was as drafted.  I really don't know what happened.



Part of the problem may have come in with my Small Bust Adjustment of shortening the front bodice crossover.  I probably could have shortened it half as much and not had gaping; this is *very* unusual for a Big 4 pattern.  Anyway, the front pulls up a little and it's hard to keep the shoulder seams exactly square on my shoulders.  (I did nothing to the length of the back bodice, though, and it had the same length problem there with a very high center back and the drooping side seams.)




Experimenting with the elastic in the "waist" casing, it looked best if it started and ended about 3 inches in from the side seam on the front, with the center front completely flat and unelasticized and the majority of the gathering in the back. 

It still isn't great, so I went for the universal solution to a bad waist:  the sash.  Without the sash it is just bad.

However, the Bust Pleats to Nowhere I will not take credit for.  I don't know if they are angled wrong, or too close to the center front (and I overlapped the fronts about an extra 3/4" from the design) or what.  But they do not create flattering draping over the bust.  They just create a bubble of fabric above the waistline.

Speaking of which, the waistline is way high!  It is dangerously close to empire, and I swore off empire last year, no matter how much I am tempted, because it is very of a moment for 2011 and the expiration date approacheth.

I like the raglan sleeves, though they are a tad restrictive.  The downward slope of the shoulder is pretty severe.



I finished the neckline with bias tape rather than a facing.  I used the leftover bit of white fabric from below where I cut the front skirt to make the bias tape and then dyed it using a mix of Teal (mostly), Aquamarine (a little), and Navy (just a few drops) liquid Rit dye.  I managed to get an almost perfect match for the turquoise in the fabric, much to my surprise.  In the photo at right, the dyed bias strip is above and the original fabric is below.  (Alas, an attempt to dye cotton in the same dye bath did not have good results.)




After sewing the bias tape to the right side of the neckline, I stitched the raw inside edge of the bias tape over the neckline seam allowance before pressing under.  It is kept in place by strategic hand stitches at the sleeve seams.

I cut the back skirt on the fold rather than with a CB seam, as did most everyone who made the pattern.  It required ignoring the grainline, but a seam would have interfered with the smooth ombre look of the skirt.

I lined the skirt only with silk/cotton Elegance from Martha Pullen.  This stuff is a dream for lining!  I drafted a straight across hem for the lining, rather than making it high-low as well.  It shines through a little, so maybe that was a mistake.  My pet peeve for patterns with "specialty" hemlines like this is when they do not come with a "regular" hemline marked as well.  It limits the versatility of the pattern.



It's frustrating that this dress turned out kind of meh.  I put a lot of work into it; I sewed it while my serger was in the shop so it has gorgeous French seams for everything but the waist.  It's a luscious silk.  And it will have to be my birthday dress (tomorrow!) because I had only 3 weeks to sew for the Greek islands instead of a month and a half.








When it is all dressed up with accessories, it passes for a cute dress.  But it definitely cannot stand on its own.

I like the idea of this pattern but I'm not sure I'll give it another try.  Definitely not the crossover bodice.  If the mood strikes I would try to draft a plain bodice with sleeves based on the spaghetti strap version.  I like the spaghetti strap version as is but seriously, bra.  Strapless bras are horrible.  I would recommend a stable but lightweight cotton as the best fabric; a good quality lawn would be perfect.  I think this could also work in a knit.

All photos are here and the pattern review is here.

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Trip sewing continues apace!  So far I have made:
-3 bikinis
-shorts
-yoga/hiking capris

-nightie

I have a knit dress done except for the hem, and a knit top about halfway done.  The last two pieces on my list are a little sweater and another knit top.  Though this is a long weekend, it will be full of birthday festivities so we'll see.

Burda Classics 2012, #0003 3/4 Circle Skirt with a Heaping Helping of FAIL

I didn't order the Burda Classics magazine from GLP--never got around to it--but while in Porto, Portugal I saw it--in French--in the window of a tiny newsstand on a little side street.  Apparently, Burda is not pronounced anything like "Burda" in Portuguese, because it took a bit of gesturing and explaining to indicate which magazine I wanted to buy (the window copy was the only one), but eventually it was mine, all mine!

I was happy to see a simple 3/4 circle skirt in the magazine.  I am just too lazy to draft my own pattern, and I had been wanting one as a bike-friendly alternative to an A line.  I thought I'd start with a silk chiffon version--it goes with a bunch of tops already in my closet and would work year round.

Well, who knew a freaking two piece skirt could be so much trouble?  I cannot even begin to describe how much fail went into this.



Fail #1:  Cutting.  This is totally, completely my fault.  The chiffon was not wide enough when doubled to accommodate the width of the skirt.  So rather than waste nearly half the width of the chiffon for each of the four pieces (two layers, front and back), I decided to just shorten the skirt.  Which might have been all good and well had I actually, you know, created a pattern that was shortened.  Because with a circle skirt you cannot mess around about length.  I have a good eye, but there is no way I can eyeball an even reduction in length across a circular hemline.  Oh, and have I mentioned I was cutting silk chiffon, which is impossible?  But yeah, I just eyeballed it.

The skirt was doomed from the start.  Behold the HORROR that is the hemline on those chiffon layers.  The HORROR.  (Note:  I did let the skirt hang before hemming and tried to even it out.  This is just bad cutting.)

Fail #2:  Fabric.  The lining layer of this is a silk/rayon from the Vera Wang collection Fabric.com acquired a couple years ago.  It was too stiff.  The 3/4 circle skirt of the Butterick 5315 Peter Pan Collar Shirtdress I made over the summer is cut in 4 pieces with a seam at center front and center back, so that the grain is bias at CF/CB rather than straight.  I think that is a better cutting layout for my body, as a straight grain at CF with extreme bias at the side seams can stick out at the hips rather than flow over them.




Fail #3:  Cutting a Piece Out of an Existing Piece.  Judging from the blooper threads on PR, accidentally cutting a piece of a pattern out of a large "scrap"--which turns out, of course, to be another piece--is a common misfortune.  However, I generally lay out an entire pattern, then cut it in one fell swoop so I'd never fallen prey to this particular heartbreak.  Until now.  I decided to do a waistband, and though I had only tiny scraps left of my purple silk/rayon I found a nice selvage piece for cutting it. Except that this turned out to be one of my skirt pieces!!!!  Ugh!



I fused a strip of interfacing to the wrong side, carefully butting the cut edges together.  Then I zigzagged it from the right side, making sure the "zig" was on one side of the cut and the "zag" was on the other.  The resulting fix is not at all invisible.  Luckily, the two chiffon layers cover it up so it wasn't a tragedy, but boy was it annoying.

Fail #4:  Waist Measurement Fail.  I am a fanatical tryer-on-er during the sewing process.  Not because I am so fanatical about fit (although I am, a little), but because I'm so impatient to see what the finished product will look like.  I can waste a lot of time with this, and so I guess for this project I was like, "OMG, no!  Don't try the skirt on and twirl around after putting in the zipper but before putting on the waistband!  The waistband will take like 30 minutes, max!  Just do it!"

Before I put the zipper in, I sort of draped the skirt around my waist and it seemed kind of big.  So I put a line of ease-stitching across the top and gently pulled the ease stitching--nothing at all like gathering, just slightly reducing the waistband.

In which reduced waistline I could not, subsequently, breathe.

I think I would do well in a zombie apocalypse, because I jut don't know when to quit.



So I ripped off the $*(@(& waistband.  This time I decided to finish the waist with petersham ribbon, which I had purchased at PA Fabrics Outlet.  I used the iron to press it into a curve.  I couldn't find any information on using petersham to finish a waist without a waistband, so I had to make it up.








I put in a (non-ease) line of stitching in a contrast color 1/4" from the top of the skirt's waist, then used this as a guide for placing the petersham against the right side of the skirt.  Rather than line up the edges, I offset the petersham, so that when folded to the inside I would have only one layer of ribbon.

This actually created a really nice waist finish.  Though I am not certain it would not have stretched out.  Does petersham stretch out?

Now I finally really did try on the skirt, and OMG!!!  So terrible!!!!  The unevenness of the chiffon layers is bad enough, but it was way too short.  It looked ridiculous on me.  The shortness made the side-seam-sticking-out worse and the skirt is about 30 years too young for me.  I was so disappointed--what a waste of this beautiful silk chiffon from the Carol Collection!



The frustrating thing about this was the effort I put into doing *some* things right.  Like the zipper.  I cut the skirt lining with a CB seam, so I could put the zipper in the center back.  I have had enough stiff, sticky-outy side zips that I go to the center back whenever possible.  I didn't want to cut my chiffon layers with CB seams and interrupt the flow, so I created an opening for the zipper.

First, I pinned my two layers together and marked the center back opening line.

I stitched barely on either side of the line by first clicking the needle to the left and running the center of the foot down the line, then turning around at the bottom of the marked line and doing the same thing on the other side.






I clipped down the marked line, fray checked the cut edges, and zigzagged them when the fray check dried.









Finally, I rolled the edges under in the narrowest possible hem, and pressed well.












The resulting opening is really nice looking.














After thinking about this fail of a skirt for a while, and realizing there was absolutely no way to save it, I was like, "Wait a minute, 30 years too young for me?  I think I know someone more than 30 years younger than me..."  So I ripped of the petersham waistband (yes, three different waist treatments on this FAIL of a skirt), and turned the skirt down at the waist to create a casing.  Inserted a drawstring with chiffon ends and elastic in the middle, and sent it off to my niece.

While her hair is purple she has requested to be called "Violet."  Violet does not mind the unevenness of the chiffon hems, and the skirt is plenty long on her.  And the twirl factor is much appreciated.  So this fail was snatched from the jaws of defeat, but I am still licking my wounds. Seriously, of all the complicated, difficult things I've made, a simple SKIRT is my undoing?  

As far as I know, the actual pattern is fine.  But I am having a hard time making myself give it another try!

All photos are here and the pattern review is here.


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A word of warning to Apple users who use Flickr for their photos:

I usually use the Flickr uploader, but occasionally it acts up.  So once in a while I upload directly to flickr through iPhoto.  Well, I was cleaning up my iPhoto folders a while back and deleted the Flickr folders; deleting a folder doesn't delete the photos and I don't need them in two places.

It turns out that when you delete a Flickr folder in iPhoto it deletes the live Flickr album!!!!  No warning or by your leave, just poof.  I figured this out when I went to my Butterick 5315 blog post to get the link and all the photos were missing.  So I clicked on the link to the Flickr set and it had disappeared.  And the Catch-22 is that because deleting a folder doesn't delete the photos, the Flickr set wasn't available to just restore from trash--the only thing trashed was an overlay of organization.  Ugh!

I had to re-upload the set and then extremely tediously replace all the URLs in the post with the new URLs and then do the same thing for the PR review.  What a useless way to spend an hour.  I can't remember what other sets I had uploaded using iPhoto; if you run across post from me with all the photos missing please let me know.

Pants. This is Why I Do Not Make Them.

Although I prefer skirts and dresses, there are times in the winter where I wish I had a pair of nice-looking, professional, trouser-y pants.  I am SO glad to have discovered Levi's 512s, which fit my body perfectly, so I don't need to worry about jeans.  But dress pants?  They do not exist.

Everyone loves the Burda crotch, and Burda fits me well in general, so I figured how hard could it be?  I traced off 02-2010-102 and blithely set to it.

V.1 Front

V.1 Back

V.1  Out of the envelope (with larger SAs, to increase size to about 40 at the hip).  There was no way I was going to document the original front fit before I let out the CF seam and cut open the front waistband at CF to release it.  Horrible.  I do not have a pants body.  Smile does not even begin to describe it.  More like grimace.

The back is a wrinkled mess.

V.2 Front

V.2 Back

V.2  Saddlebag width increase; lengthen back crotch by 3/8"; add more room at CF seam for belly; knock knee adjustment to square off inseam from crotch as shown on Debbie Cook's blog.  Front smile lines continue and little appreciable change to back--the wrinkles may be slightly less deep but they are the same shape.  It is odd how doing a HUGE adjustment with the knock knee (in the case of the back crotch, moving the inseam 2 inches toward the inside) can have no effect whatsoever.

V.2 Front on V.3 Back

V.3 Back on V.2 Front

V.3.0  Added huge wedge to back by cutting from knee up through dart and spreading; same front as V.2.  The additional booty room does allow the wrinkles to relax a bit, but the much larger back is folding over the front at the inseam.

V.3 Front

V.3 Back

V.3.1, in addition to back wedge, increased front crotch length slightly; shortened waistline by 1/2" at CF, tapering to nothing at side seam.  This helps eliminate the front smile lines.  No appreciable effect on back.

V.3.2 Back

V.3.2:  took up the back crotch by taking a horizontal dart, which lifted out the diagonal wrinkling on the legs

V.4 Front

V.4 Back

V.4  Further increase to front crotch length; removed back width wedge; shortened back crotch seam at about mid-butt; kept original length of CF crotch (too high to be attractive, I think).  Some wrinkling is reappearing at center front.  (I had eaten some cookies by this point, I'm not gonna lie.)

V.4.1 Back

V.4.1:  even more length pinned out of back crotch.  It seems to help but the center back waist is now pulled down and there is still some wad of kleenex at the back crotch.  In addition, the more the back is shortened, the more the smile reappears at the front crotch.

At this point I was SO FRUSTRATED.  I decided to approach it from another angle and tried on all the pants in my closet.  All but one had the smile line at the bottom of the front crotch. 

RTW Pants 1 Front

RTW Pants 1 Back

The best fitting crotch is on a hideous, unflattering pair of pants.  I think it has to do with the high waist and narrowish legs, but they are awful pants.  However, no smile.  Interestingly, the crotch intersection is way, way up front, slightly more than two inches below the zipper--totally the opposite of what I've been doing to the pants pattern (shortening the back crotch and extending the front).  There are some strange folds on the front inseam right at the crotch, though, that appear to be a bit...how to put delicately?... a la Georgia O'Keeffe.  This may be a result of the forward crotch.  Because of the shape, I think they are worse than a smile. (Sorry the photo is so terrible, they are a rich, matte black and I do not have enough photo wizardry to make them very visible.)

The back fit exhibits the diagonal folds present on all my pants coming from upper outseam and heading toward lower inseam.

 

RTW Pants 2 Front

RTW Pants 2 Front with "lengthened" front crotch

The other pants have the smile line at the bottom of front crotch.  Tugging the center front upward eliminates the smile (indicating more length needed on front crotch???).

RTW Pants 2 Back

RTW Pants 2 Back with fisheye dart under booty

Back view shows the same diagonal folding from upper outer thigh toward lower inner thigh.  Pinching out a fish-eye dart under the booty straightens out the leg wrinkles. 

The whole mess can be seen here.

I think I may have to give pants a rest.  I have 3 decent-looking pairs in the closet (got rid of the rest, except the hideous ones with the fitting crotch as a curiousity), though they are not the classy trousers I envision but fitted at the booty, as you can see in these examples.  They are not wool and are not lined, but they are better than my muslin, which does not necessarily seem to be getting better, only different. 

Pants!  Ugh!

McCall 6279 Trench dress

I fell in love with McCall 6279 as soon as it came out. Although I bought the Butterick 5598 Suzi Chin trench dress when it came out a couple of months later, I like the McCall better and when I found this seersucker-esque fabric on the $2.97/yd table at G Street I couldn't wait to make it.

I cut my usual size in the pattern, 8 at the shoulder and bust, 10/12 (somewhere in between) at the waist, and 12/14 at the hip. As usual for a princess seam, I flattened the bust curve on the side front for a small bust adjustment. Once it was put together it was still a little loose at the bust and waist, so I took in the side seam on the front only to fine tune the fit.

In addition to the SBA, I did a swayback adjustment similar to this as per usual. I have a hard time fitting dresses without a waist seam--to get a true fit would require so much distortion that it would change the grainline and alter the hang of the fabric. So you can see there is still some swayback bunching. I would be hesitant to take it in more, however, because it could use a smidge more room along the back princess seams for the booty. It is not tight, but it is more fitted in that area than the rest of the dress and I'd like just another inch of ease. If I tried to take more width out at the swayback, the curve back there would become too extreme and would point and pooch over the booty. I guess this is what is meant by over-fitting.

I have not made too many items with a back yoke and a collar, so I can't recall how the neckline is usually finished (I probably should have looked it up). The directions for this dress have you tuck the neckline's raw edges into the collar sandwich. With my fairly thick fabric, I thought that would look sloppy, so I created a back neck facing. This was not a perfect solution as it added bulk to an already bulky seam (two layers of collar plus inner and outer yoke), but it did give a neat finish to the neckline. I will have to research this issue before I make the pattern again.

I thought the tiny pinstripes of this fabric would work better with the pieces, creating fun directional stripes effects, but instead it just looks sloppy (and I forgot to cut the back yoke on crossgrain, boo). I tried to rescue it with some topstitching, but that just made it worse, as you can see at right.

I never use the marked button placement on a pattern; because I am short and have a very specific preference on where the top buttoned button is placed (about 1/2" above the center hook of my bra--I have no cleavage, so I can totally get away with this for work) the marked placement never works. But although I actually carefully marked the two rows of buttonholes on the dress, using a ruler and everything, they came out so uneven!!! I couldn't really tell until I had cut open the buttonholes and sewn on the buttons, so nothing to be done.

I really love the look of this pattern, but this dress is a fail for me. When I got it to a point of try-on-ability, I realized to my horror that this seersucker stripe of white, charcoal, and red resolves into the color of chewed up gum at a distance of more than 12 inches. The bluish-pink color is the same hue--though a different shade--than my skin, as you can see in this photo. Wearing it as a jumper with the red shirt makes it a little better, but it is just too disappointing. I also don't like the armscye finish; the bias tape kind of sticks out and doesn't lay well.

I wore the dress one time--the day I took the photos--and then gave it to a co-worker who is almost the exact same size and shape as me, but with long dark hair and a rosier complexion (no blue undertones). She reports that it fits like a glove and the color looks fine on her. I hope she wears it to work one day!

Although this project was a fail, the pattern definitely is not. I spent 6 months on the hunt for the right fabric earlier this year and now I have to go on it again! I'm still contemplating the copper denim I got in New York, but still thinking it would be too much.

All photos are here and the pattern review is here.

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Brenda asked about the bra strap keepers I bought at Steinlauf & Stoller. They do not seem to appear on the S&S website (I've looked before and also just confirmed). Dritz calls them "shoulder strap guards", I call them bra strap keepers. When I described what I was looking for to the guy working the counter--a little length of ribbon with snaps on each end that you sew into the shoulder seam to keep your bra strap in place--he figured out what I was talking about. They are in bins at the front of the store. Your best bet is to call or email asking for the name of them and whether they'll sell them by mail. They come in black, white, and beige, and are 90 cents per pair (at least in-store they are). These little things are invaluable! I hope you can get some.

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Still haven't heard from Abby or Lydia re: the stash purge I have up for grabs.  Neither of you left any contact information. If you're still interested, please leave a comment on this post with an email address where I can reach you. Don't write out the full email address to avoid spam harvesters--write it something like "example at yahoo."  (Anyone else in the DC area is welcome to respond as well--you come pick up the fabric, and you must take the whole lot.)  Will be listing it on Freecycle soon.

Simplicity 2615, Prison Matron Chic

Pattern Review is having its Knock-Off Contest, which is one I always enjoy so I wanted to get in on the action. I chose this Derek Lam dress as my inspiration. When I first looked at the Derek Lam, it appeared to be a match for Simplicity 2615. However, when I went back to look at it, I saw that it is actually a wrap dress (at least to the waist), though Saks erroneously described it as "V neck." Further, the neckline is created by bands and the dress is gathered into the bands. However, at that point I had already cut out the Simplicity Pattern and wasn't in the mood to do a complicated knockoff so I just stuck with what I had.

The pattern is designed with a center front seam, which is left unsewn to the neck opening. I don't much care for the look of a center front seam, so I cut the CF on the fold. I thread traced the centers front of the facing and the dress, then lined up the centers and sewed a V to create the front opening. It took me a couple of tries to get it perfectly placed, but in the end I am happy with the opening. The fabric is very lightweight and I did not interface the neck opening on the dress, which was a mistake. I had to retrofit some interfacing into the corners on the dress.

As with my 1946 dress, I used Beth of Sunny Gal Studios' clean finish technique for the facing. It involves sewing the interfacing to the facing, right sides together, along the outer edge. Then you flip the interfacing to the wrong side and fuse in place. This time I sewed the shoulder seams of the facing and interfacing separately. I trimmed the interfacing shoulder seam to within 1/8 inch of the seamline. It creates such a neat finish! If you have to have a facing (and I hate them for their floppy ways), this eases the pain a little.

This dress is truly a bust. I like the pockets, but that's about it. The combination of gray color, the pattern forming a horizontal stripe, and the unfitted style all add up to Prison Matron Chic.

I tried to add a little interest to the sleeves by adding epaulet tabs. The tabs have lace on them and I sewed a decorative button at the top (the tabs are permanently sewn on). But maybe the military reference just makes the prison matron look even more pronounced.

Dressing it up with a colorful obi and statement necklaces likewise fizzles.

I do not finish 100% of the projects I start, but UFOs are not a problem for me. In this case, I wish I could have been able to just call it on this project and throw it away. But I felt compelled to finish it and spent way too long futzing with it, trying to make it wearable. I'm not sure I will even wear it once. I think it will just go directly into the Goodwill pile. Alas. But now that it's done I can finally move on to something else!

I was really drawn to this pattern, but I'm not sure I will give it another try. I think it might be more suited to a top than a dress and in a crisper fabric than I used. But do I want to risk another cut of fabric on this? I'm not sure.

All photos are here and the pattern review is here