Simplicity 1805, Silk Dolman Tee

One of the things I've been meaning to get into my wardrobe is a pullover top with a cut on sleeve.  It's a dolman top, so how hard can it be?  But I've been too lazy to draft my own, so when Joann had Simplicity at 5 for $5, I picked up Simplicity 1805.  Had it been $2 I wouldn't have gotten it.

Zooey Deschanel in Derek Lam

It turned out to be fortuitous because I got a haircut the next day, which is a whole other conversation, and while I was waiting I picked up the Lucky magazine they had out and was instantly enchanted with this dolman top on Zooey Deschanel.  It's Derek Lam, and I just love how the simplicity lets the fabric be the star, and the perfect proportions.  And I already had the pattern!  The "Eh, it's only a dollar, it's ok if I end up giving it away" pattern was muslined and earmarked for a fabulous silk within 24 hours!

This has been a popular style with designers for several years.  There are plenty more examples out there, like this Michael Kors satin top ($542) and this Rachel Comey from Fall/Winter 2012.  The silhouette seems simple, but if you make it in a high-end fabric it drips luxury.



Before cutting, I used my TNT pullover woven top pattern to determine the side seams, add a center back seam, and add darts in the back.

The back neckline was seriously, seriously wide.  Here is my final pattern laid over the drafted pattern.  And keep in mind that my final pattern has a center back seam, so the cut edge of the tissue is not even the seam line!  I normally have to narrow the back neckline of commercial patterns a bit, so I didn't think too much of it other than remarking at how ridiculously wide it was drafted.








I actually muslined this *gasp.*  Although it is a wearable muslin.  When I sewed up the muslin I realized I should have had an inkling there was something going on with the front neckline too.  There was *serious* gaping at the front neckline.












As a slapdash fix to the muslin, I took up 2 1/4" inches total in an inverted pleat at the center front neck.  I swear they rotated the bust darts to the neckline but then forgot to remove the excess width.  I don't see how this would work for anybody.






You can see the dramatic change in my final front pattern where I folded out that gape!


After my muslin, the additional changes I made were to increase the width of the sleeve opening to match my inspiration, cut it to the length of the TNT (the tunic length just doesn't work for me), add a keyhole opening at the center back neck, and correct for sloping shoulders by shaving a slight amount off the shoulder edge from a few inches out from the neckline.  The muslin was sticking up a little at the neck edge of the shoulders.

When I was done getting all the information I needed from the muslin I chopped the sleeves short.

This is an airy cotton batiste ($3/yd on our Pilgrimage to Fabric Mart) that will be nice to wear in summer.  

And designers haven't left the short dolman sleeved top in the cold--check out this Reiss silk top for $210.

With the pattern altered and it being two fairly unshaped pieces, the silk version was...not a breeze.  I was using a silk charmeuse from Paron, puchased last November; it was $15/yd, but with a Groupon I ended up paying an average of $5/yd for several silks.  A steal!  As beautiful as it is, though, silk charmeuse is just fussy to sew with.





I used French seams, which makes for a lovely inside, but I am severely disappointed with the puckery back seam.  For some reason, although it has perfect tension on regular seams, my machine cranks up the tension when I sew the second pass of a French seam.  I honestly have no idea how the machine can "tell" that's what I'm doing, but I have to actively stretch the fabric from both sides of the presser foot to get a smooth seam and I clearly didn't stretch enough for the CB seam.  I am loath to unpick it because silk does not recover from needle holes and I'd rather live with a puckered seam than a shredded one.  Does anyone know why this happens?




For the back keyhole opening I first cut a shaped keyhole and staystitched it.

Next, I stitched self bias tape on the wrong side, right side of bias tape to wrong side of blouse.






Once the first pass with the bias tape was sewn, I pressed the bias tape over to the right side and pressed under the remaining raw edge.




Next I topstitched that folded under edge in place, and steamed steamed steamed to get it as flat as possible.


Finally I hand tacked the neck edges together to complete the keyhole--this is just decorative, I did not need a slit to get it over my head.  Then I bound the neck in a continuous bias piece.




Before binding the keyhole I made two tiny horizontal darts.  Because of my "forward head" (aka bad posture), I sometimes get gaping at back slit openings and I didn't want that.  I don't know that the darts were totally necessary, but they made me feel better.








Marking the hem on silk is a pain because pin holes.  I have a couple of packs of hair clips for millinery and was like, duh, use clips to mark the hem!  It wasn't quite as easy as using pins, but I got a reasonably straight hem considering I am working with silk charmeuse here.









I decided to do a regular stitched hem for the sleeves and the lower hem.  I normally do a blind hem or a twin-needle hem, but somehow the stitched hem seemed right for the style.  I think it works.











All the care taken on this simple top was worth it for the end result (other than that stupid center back seam, ugh).  It is as luxe and classy looking as I'd hoped, and looks and feels high end.  I have some dressy events coming up and I feel pretty confident this will be making an appearance at least once in the next couple of weeks.

All photos are here and the pattern review is here.

Simplicity 1798, 40s Inspired Surplice Dress with Single Collar

Simplicity 1798 is a Project Runway pattern, so it has all kinds of crazy options, but one of the illustrations shows the surplice bodice with a collar only on the outer half of the bodice.  Pleasing asymmetry is ridiculously difficult for me to envision, but since they had done the work for me it caught my eye. I used a wool from The Carol Collection and accented it with one of the Vera Wang silk/rayon blends from Fabric.com's $1.99/yd blowout in January 2010.  Coupled with my $1.99/yd Fabric Mart lining, this dress is a lot of bang for very little buck.

I started the alterations by shortening the skirt 2 inches, and still had a very generous two inch hem allowance.  I've shortened it another 3/4" for the next time.



The side front bodice is *very* shaped.  I shaved off a bit of the curve for my small bust before sewing and it fit fine around the curve of the bust.  However, it was quite puffy above the bust.  I mean, I'm not saying they're where they were when I was 18, but they are not that low.  So beware that the fullest part of the pattern may not be at the fullest part of your bust.  I resewed the seam 1/4" deeper (for a total of 1/2"removed) from the fullness of my bust, tapering to nothing at the armscye.  The bust is still a squidge generous for me, but it is not noticeable to even a close observer.  I also shortened the front crossover for my small bust to prevent gaping.






So as not to narrow the midriff, I split the swayback adjustment between the bodice and the skirt.  I ended up with a really nice fit.

The fabric is really interesting.  On one side the weave shows horizontal stripes, and on the other side it shows vertical stripes.  I suspect that the horizontal stripes is the "right" side, but I preferred the vertical stripes for elongation.  I used the horizontal striped side of the fabric for the midriff, to increase the hourglass illusion.  It's quite subtle, though--I doubt anyone will ever notice!

The only thing I don't like about a surplice bodice dress is that you can't line it in the traditional way.  The neckline must be finished and the bodice before attaching to the midriff/skirt, as the front bodice pieces overlap.  Normally, I just treat the bodice lining as flatlining at the center back zipper in this instance.  It's not beautiful but it works.  But this wool is somewhat scratchy, as it's more of a jacket texture than a dress texture, and I didn't want to risk having it irritate my skin.

I started by constructing and lining the bodice, stitching the lining to the neckline.  I had cut facings out of my fashion fabric, but decided that with the bulk and scratchiness I would just line to the edge.  I pressed it so that the fashion fabric overlays the lining by a good 1/8".



Sewing the lining and zipper presented some challenges.  First, this fabric is almost coat weight (and is certainly jacket weight).  I strongly prefer invisible zippers, but thick seams are a challenge for them to get through.  I severely graded my seam allowances at the midriff bodice and skirt seams.  Thank goodness it worked!




Then came the challenge of lining. 
When sewing the bodice to the midriff, I layered as per usual:  The finished bodice with the fashion fabric and lining wrong sides together, midriff fashion fabric right sides with bodice fashion fabric, and midriff lining right sides with bodice lining.  I sewed this 4 layer sandwich to within 2 inches of the center back.  Then I separated the lining layers from the fashion fabric layers, and stitched the fashion fabric seam all the way to the end of the fabric at center back.



Then I separately completed the seam on the lining.  I turned the zipper opening edges of the lining in at the 5/8" seam allowance.  So the last two inches or so of the lining is free from the midriff seam allowance, but mostly the lining and bodice are sewn as one at the waist seam.

The skirt/midriff seam is sewn completely separately for the fashion fabric and the lining so that the lining hangs free.





After the dress was fully constructed, I turned the lining under at the center back seam, pinned over the zipper, and hand-stitched in place.  It looks like a real lining, even though it isn't (in the sense of not being an entirely separate dress joined only at the outer edges).





I wanted to bring the satin accent in somewhere else, in addition to the collar, so I added cuffs.

To keep the sleeve lining in place, I hand stitched the sleeve lining to the cuff seam allowance.











I'm not sure this dress photographs as well as it looks (or at least as well as it feels), but it is sensational.  I love the vintage vibe, the single collar is a great detail I never would have thought of had Simplicity not illustrated it on the envelope, and the fit is incredibly spot on.  I can hardly believe this is a Big 4 pattern given how well it fits.  I feel very confident when I wear this for professional occasions--it is both totally my style and appropriately dressy, which is a hard combination to find.

All photos are here and the pattern review is here.

Simplicity 1736, Cloche for Tweed Ride

Rather than use my rather embarrassingly large amount of millinery supplies, I went the easy route for Tweed Ride and sewed my hat.  Once again, Simplicity shoots itself in the foot with its pattern photo for Simplicity 1736.  Why did they have Natalie Portman (truly, the likeness is striking) model the least distinctive and attractive hat in the envelope?  How does a shapeless blob in a novelty fleece print make the cut over the 20s cloche and the 40s fedora?  Are they deliberately cultivating the frumpy label?  So many questions.  I only bought this pattern after seeing someone else make the cloche.


With my burgundy and deep teal plaid jacket, turquoise skirt, and mustard tights I was running out of colors!  Even after making a jacket I still have a ton of this Vera Wang wool left from Fabric.com's legendary $1.99 blowout, but the original magenta color was too close--but not close enough--to the burgundy in the plaid.  Enter some orange Rit dye and a magical transformation to a luscious rust/copper color that coordinated with the outfit but wasn't too matchy-matchy.  I was so pleased!



The pattern is well drafted--all the pieces fit together nicely and easily and it was true to size for my small head.  My only gripe is that the crown is taller than my head, so it is a bit puffy and lumpy rather than totally sleek as a traditional cloche is meant to be.  

It uses 3/8" seam allowances (a fact for which you have to dig a bit, which is annoying).  The crown is made of four pieces, and the three seam allowances come together at the sides.  It takes a lot of steaming and pounding to get them flat, but in my wool I was pleased with the effect.  The pattern is recommended for fleece and I think it would be harder to get the seam allowances looking nice, though fleece doesn't ravel so you don't get the bulk from finishing the seam allowances and it can be trimmed very close.

You can see that I couldn't get the serger into all the seam allowances and had to zigzag.  For the second half I just went straight to zigzag, as it was much easier.



When I put on the constructed crown to get a preview of what the hat would look like, I was a bit disappointed that the seam lines were lost in my fabric.  The pattern is designed to have the crown seams piped.  I don't know how you handle all that bulk where the seams come together, but I think something has to be done to emphasize those lovely lines.

I used a twin-needle to topstitch the seams with jeans topstitching thread.  I'm not sure I made the absolute best color choice, but I was working with what I had (I have only two colors of topstitching thread, denim gold and the original magenta color of the wool).




I interfaced the brim for stability.  Again, my wool performed beautifully under the iron with crisp corners and nice body.  The pattern does not call for interfacing, but I think even fleece will benefit from it--though you might have to experiment a bit to find an iron setting that fuses the interfacing without melting the fleece.




As drafted, the pattern is unlined and the raw lower edge between the ends of the brim is meant to be finished with hem tape.  I was not into such an unfinished look, so I lined it with leftover tie silk from lining my jacket.

I constructed a crown of the silk, leaving an opening in one of the seams for turning.  To put it together you layer the right side of the fashion fabric crown to the brim and then sandwich the brim with the right side of the lining.  Stitch all the way around the circle.








Then turn it right side out through the opening in the lining and close the lining with hand stitching.








It results in a lovely hat both inside and out and really doesn't add much time to the construction.  The hat uses so little fabric it's a nice way to use of scraps of silk too small for anything else.









For every day wear, the hat as drafted is very cute and actually quite practical for winter as it covers the ears.  But for Tweed Ride, cute and practical are definitely not the values we're going for!









I dug into my millinery stash and came up with orange netting and some feathers, along with a vintage brooch.  I *love* sparkle pins and buy them at just about every antique store I visit.  I just gathered the netting into a semi-circle with hand stitching, and then hand stitched it to the hat, with the edge hidden by the brim.








The feathers I gathered into a bundle and secured with floral tape, then hand stitched the bundle to the hat (again, the join hidden by the brim) and then took a few hand stitches to splay the feathers into the netting the way I wanted them to look.  Up close you can see the stitches, but they disappear at about 12 inches away.  Normally you would use glue for this, but I wanted the embellishment removeable so I could use the components again and have the option of using the hat plain for just a regular winter hat.





Asymmetry is usually more flattering to my face than symmetry--I'm not sure what that says about me--so I wore the hat with one "side" at the side of my forehead.  Theoretically, it was supposed to swoop down as I have it arranged here on the head form, but in actuality the weight of pin made it sit pretty much straight across my forehead.











It ended up being the perfect crowning glory for my outfit and I received many compliments on it.  It was another one of those simple projects that only takes a few hours but makes a big impact when you wear it.  It also helped that it was toasty warm!

All photos are here and the pattern review is here.

Simplicity 1796, Crossover Dress with Elastic Waist

Why does Simplicity choose such heinous fabrics for their envelope pictures?  Case in point, Simplicity 1796.  They made two dresses for the envelope, and they are both out of some sort of horrible undrapeable poly blend broadcloth.  You can practically smell the artificial fiber fumes coming off the photo.  I paid no attention to this pattern whatsoever until I saw it reviewed, and suddenly noticed the nice details:  the shoulder yokes, the pleated bodice, the cinched waist.  I appreciate that solids are the best choice for an envelope, but how about some high quality fabrics?  Yuck.  On the plus side, this pattern comes in a huge range of sizes:  10-28W.  I graded down to an 8 at the shoulders and bust.

I used the silk/wool I got at Paron last November for the absolute steal of $6/yd using a Groupon and shopping in the 50% off section.  In the end, I'm glad I got a bargain because the pink ran in pre-treatment.  :(  The fabric is still useable, but it is slightly less awesome with pink patches in the white areas.  Fancy fabric is generally meant to be dry cleaned, but I'm just not going to do it and I'd rather sacrifice some fabric at the pre-treat stage than lose a garment after sewing it.



It's a lightweight fabric so I lined it to give it body and opacity, using an Ikea Knoppa sheet for the bodice and a rayon satin for the skirt (but somehow got confused when sewing the whole thing together and put the satin face toward the fashion fabric and the matte face toward the body).






To keep the neckline from stretching out during sewing, I fused strips of interfacing in place along the stitch line of both the fashion fabric and lining.  Since the yoke supports a lot of fabric, particularly as the bodice is pleated into it, I interfaced the entire yoke.









To get good turn of cloth, I trimmed 1/4" from the neckline edge of the lining before sewing it in place.








I also reinforced the pocket opening edges with interfacing.  I sewed the fashion fabric using French seams as it is somewhat delicate, and followed my tutorial for sewing the pockets in (even though I'm the one who made the tutorial, I still have to look at it every time!).  The fabric presses so beautifully, I think these are the most attractive French seam pockets I've made.





To line the dress, I constructed and lined the bodice and then constructed the skirt and its lining.  Then i matched up the bodice center front and stitched the fashion fabric skirt to the right side of the fabric and the lining skirt to the wrong side.  When you flip everything right side down, the skirt's seam allowance is enclosed between the fashion fabric and the lining.

I pressed this down and then stitched the waist casing through both the fashion fabric and lining of the skirt.  This turned out to be somewhat of a mistake as the casing was SO INCREDIBLY THICK that pulling the elastic through it was absolute torture on the hands.  I think it took me 3 days to do because I could only handle doing it for a small mount of time.   Anyway, to get the width of the casing (with which I should have been much more generous!), I lined up the elastic with my waistline seam and then stitched a little below it. This would work on a casing that does not have so many thick layers, I promise.



As drafted, this dress has a serious drop shoulder.  It's a great width for the sleeveless version, but would have looked terrible had I set in the sleeves there.  I trimmed it back to my normal shoulder width.




I think it was at Pennsylvania Fabric Outlet that I bought a large Guterman spool that I knew would match some wool I had at home.  Somehow I didn't notice until I got it home that it was topstitching thread, not sewing thread.  So now I have this giant spool of magenta topstitching thread.  I decided to use some of it on this project.  I topstitched the yoke, neckline, waist casing, and did two rows of stitching on the hem.







I liked the tab detail on the sleeves, though I didn't use the instructions.  I just made some tabs, placed them in an aesthetically pleasing place on the sleeves, and stitched them in place using a decorative button.  I got a whole tube of these at a vintage store a couple years ago--I was glad to finally use a couple.





I was a bit skeptical of the elastic waist on this, thinking it might look cheap and lowbrow, but I think it works with the style.  It certainly made fit easy!  The belt in the thumbnail photo was misguided (or at least I should have tightened it a notch), but outdoor photos are so much nicer!  That is at the National Gallery of Art in DC, which has glass pyramids like those of the Louvre, though not quite as majestic.  It's much better without the belt.

The only thing I don't like about the pattern is the pleats in the bodice at the shoulder yoke.  They look terrible on the pattern envelope, and even in my drapier fabric--it is about voile weight--still don't look awesome.  I'd like to make this again converting the pleats to gathers (folding out some of the width), maybe for summer to take advantage of that wide shoulder.  It's a pattern that requires a careful fabric choice.  I'll have to be on the lookout for a lightweight cotton or cotton/rayon.  Rayon challis would be ideal but I just hate how non-durable rayon challis generally is.  I had a RTW rayon skirt that was a workhorse in my wardrobe for a good 7 years until I got sick of it--and it still looked great.  But I've never found that quality rayon in yard goods.  My lightweight woven rayons generally shred at the seams after a couple of years.

All photos are here and the pattern review is here.