BWOF 04-2008-128

This dress is part of my (still ongoing) blue and red wardrobe for Spring. Though this is a bright sky blue rather than a navy, it still matches the red shoes I bought to go with the wardrobe. I announced this project in April and as you can see, I made it long enough ago that I wore it in Paris! The photo was taken at Montmartre by Karen! I have projects even older than this still to review.

The April 2008 issue of BWOF has a lot of good stuff, but one of my favorites was plus size design 128. I like that the collar gives the opportunity to use a contrast fabric (of course!) and I also just liked the shape of it. Unfortunately, I am not so sure it works on my body. I feel like all I am is belly in this dress and I never wear it. This is partly me being overly self-conscious about my disproportionate belly, but it really does show, as you can see in this picture taken after I'd eaten a lot of delicious Ethiopian food.

Sizing was going to be an issue, but then I recalled that Burda had done a similar style top in my size range at some point. Sure enough, I found it in 08-2007-105. I even liked the little puffy sleeves better. Perfect.

So I traced out the body of the top (lengthening the bodice to be a dress and cutting it into princess-seamed shapes) and the collar of the dress and set to work. I found the directions for dress 128 impossible to decipher so I figured it out on my own.

Step 1:



Sew CB seam and front to back at shoulders. Then pin the collar to the neck edge, right sides together and matching centers. Sew, stopping an inch before center front, leaving the neck edge free of the collar there. Fold back this inch of the neck and sew the collar, right sides together, for about an inch and a half (between the pin markings) to finish the edge for the twist; do this to both sides of the collar, though I only have one illustrated here. Turn the collar right side out through that inch and half.

Step 2:



Stitch the center front of the bodice together, using a 1/2 inch seam allowance. This takes up half of the inch you left free at center front, leaving a small bit of the upper neckline free of the collar. Stitch this down.

Step 3:



At this point I found it helpful to turn under the raw edge of the inner edge of the neckline portion of the collar and pin in place on the inside. This will later be finished by hand-sewing in place. It was good to have everything in its proper place. Now make the double twist. I found it a little bulky, but a single twist was not interesting enough. My collar fabric had a fair amount of body with its eyelet-like texture and rough-ish hand. In a smoother fabric I don't think the bulk would be a problem.

Step 4:



Keeping the twist tight and in its place, fold the collar in half *wrong* sides together and pin as one to the lower edge of the bodice. You can baste here, or if you're lazy like me you can sew the seams of the lower front and pin lower front to upper front, right sides together, with the collar sandwiched in between.

Step 5:



Whether you basted first or not, stitch the upper front to the lower front, sandwiching the collar in place. Sew from each side toward the center, getting as close to the center as you can. When you sew the side seams, make sure the collar edge is turned down.

Very easy with a lot of impact! It looked strange with only the collar as a contrast fabric, so I added to sleeve cuffs and hem band.

Wardrobe Plan

I don't plan to enter the August wardrobe contest as I have been sewing so slowly lately! But I do have some ideas for Fall clothes. I feel like I should try to incorporate more tailored, professional looking items into my wardrobe. Now that I am obsessed with blouses I'm getting closer.

The thing is, a generic suit makes me want to vomit. I HATE wearing a suit. I gave a speech yesterday and practically begged to be able to wear a dress (this one) with a blazer. Permission granted. Honestly, for speaking gigs my insistence on looking like myself is to my benefit for the most part. Especially because I am petite and look young, people way underestimate me, and the clothes factor into that too--though I must say the dress looked very respectable with the blazer, not unprofessional at all...just not a suit. Then when I give a dynamite presentation that blows all the other speakers out of the water the impact is all the greater. She said modestly. Heh. I will grudgingly wear a suit for depositions (a funkier suit) and court (a very traditional suit), but for anything short of formal legal proceedings I think they're unnecessary.

So I tried to come up with a collection of tasteful, professional clothes that don't make me want to vomit. I think I succeeded. They're even in neutral colors and I don't hate them!



Now, I am in no way committing to these projects. In fact, I'm already second-guessing my use of the gray pinstripe wool. Now I'm obsessed with the idea of a moderately high-waisted pencil skirt with a corset-type, possibly double-breasted belt that looks like part of the skirt but is separate so that if the style gets tired I don't have to ditch the otherwise classic skirt. I thought BWOF had given a pattern for such a belt, but I must have been thinking of the pants on the right, 08-2007-103; the "belt" is an attached waistband. It wouldn't be too hard to design the belt, but it would be easier just to use a pattern! But on the other hand, I definitely want to make that Simplicity jumper out of a wool. We'll see.

Tomorrow is my day off (yay!) and I hope to finish the Mondrian Dress. It will be so insane. In a good way. It needs some buttons and I wasn't finding any that inspired me. I found some cute yellow shanks, but they are going on red and I thought it looked too ketchup and mustard. So last night during Project Runway I painted some white satin fabric-covered buttons traded with Cidell from one of her 4 pound Fabric Mart button lots.



Could you just die?

Stashoholism Confessional and Random Projects

I am working on a Mondrian Dress and it is going to be SO CUTE. Except my stomach might be too big for it. And my butt. (Note: the problem is not that I made the dress too small.) I bought 5 yards of ribbon for it and wanted to add just 8 more inches. I could have lived without it, but I would always have regretted those 8 inches. I had a baby shower to go to on Sunday in the far wilds of Maryland, so I got dropped at a Red line station on the way back and metroed out to White Flint so I could hit up the G Street. I walked through the store chanting, "Only ribbon, only ribbon, only ribbon, and maybe a zipper" but of course they put the $2.97/yd table right at the entrance to ribbons and trims so I couldn't help but glance at it and then get drawn irresistably toward it.

I didn't do *so* horribly, though I fear the green knit print was a mistake. I love the motif and I like the colors, but I think the motif is too small and won't read as anything but stripes from a distance. For some reason, I don't wear a lot by way of stripes. I don't know why. So I feel weird when I do wear them.



I have BWOF 06-2008-128 in mind for the satin version of the print on the left. The hemline looks fairly straight to take advantage of the border print, and the drape of poly satin will work well with the style. Yes, I bought poly. The sheer will be part of the awesome Halloween costumes Cidell and I are making. Are you ready? Wait for it, wait for it, are you ready? Retro Air Hostesses. OMG we will be so cute.

I bought the green print to be a winter work top, even though I don't wear print tops I made one recently that makes me think it can be done, with the right print and the right pattern. But now I think it might need to be a dress. Perhaps the Tippi Hedren Dress from BWOF 02-2008-103? But I kind of have the aqua and white floral from this post in mind for that dress and I don't know as I'll want two.

The purple print I just loved (though after washing it I discovered there are ink stains all along one side about 4 inches in from the selvage; they are not too noticeable with the busy print, and it was $2.97/yd, but still). I have no ideas. It's a rayon, judging by the way it felt wet, and drapes like a cotton jersey. I never have enough patterns for knits and now that I don't have access to a Joann for cheap patterns I'm not sure what to do! Anyone have any dress suggestions for this fabric?

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I also ordered, a while back, another yard and a half of yellow stretch twill from Fashion Fabrics Club, which has already been turned into this shrug (with bonus sneak peek at maxi dress). I am going to rant a little bit about FFC. When I made my order, ITY knits were on sale so I ordered some to bring me up to five yards, because there's no point in paying shipping for more yards than you ordered and it's flat rate up to five yards. First of all, they took an entire week to process my order. Second of all, by the time they processed my order all the knits I had ordered were out of stock. Which is annoying; is a reasonably real-time inventory count on the website too much to ask? The week delay makes me feel that they didn't process the orders in the sequence they were made so I could have lost out to someone who placed their order after me, but I'm willing to believe they were swamped and that didn't happen. But what is even more annoying is that they did not notify me that the knits were out of stock, just shipped my order with only the twill at the full five yard shipping price. Had I known the knits were gone I probably would have ordered a few yards of basics. So not only did they make me mad and waste my shipping money, they lost some sales. But the shrug is supercute.



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My next pattern review will be for McCall 5426. I got the fabric in My Tho, Vietnam in the Mekong Delta. I didn't bargain for this one; I was with my work colleagues and our translator arranged the purchase for me (you can read about it here). How much do we love the orange shoes? I was lusting after them on 6pm.com for months and finally had to give in.

Angled Seams

A fellow sewist wrote to me and asked if I had any advice on getting the angled seam in Vogue 2988 to lie flat, as she was not looking for pouchiness at the hip.




I told her to staystitch the corner and then clip all the way to the stitching, pivot with the needle in the fabric at the precisely marked corner, and press the lower seam open and the upper seam to the side. This is all pure guesswork on my part, as I have not attempted something like this precisely for that reason. Though having looked at the line drawing of 2988 I am suddenly in lust.

Then it occurred to me that I could do better for her than hazarding a guess, I could ask the (much more knowledgeable) sewing community if they have advice. Thoughts for her?

Two Part Pocket with Piping

The recent disclaimer regarding the offering of opinions was not completely out of the blue. You might recall me asking for opinions on pocket configurations for a vintage dress I was working on; I couldn't decide if it was Saucy Seventies or Mod Maid. The overwhelming response was in favor of no pockets. Erm, I went with pockets. Well, a pocket.



The reasons are many-fold. First, the pockets were the whole reason I loved this pattern. Second, Most people who recommended no pockets noted that it made for a more elegant dress. Unfortunately, elegant I am not. I am 5'1.5" and on a good day "cute" is the best I can do. Since I will never be tall, graceful, and elegant, I play up the cute thing. Also, I have a bit of a Peter Pan complex and I don't want to grow up (at least not until I get grown up things like a husband and kids). Third, I was feeling very "What Would Erin of Dress a Day Do?" I love her love of pockets and I felt she would somehow be sad if I didn't use any, just because there would be fewer pockets in the universe. I don't want to make Erin sad. Fourth, I have to wear an ID badge at work. I refuse to wear the necklace kind because it will ruin my outfit, so I wear the belt clip kind. Dresses and belt clips can be hard to reconcile, but if the dress happens to have a large pocket--problem solved. Fifth, I didn't think the little bits of polka dot fabric at the collar and cuffs made sense without the pocket; they are too small and also the dress *is* more elegant without pockets, but the polka dots aren't elegant at all so there was just a style problem. And finally, in addition to all this, I am just a contrarian sometimes. Many years ago I dated this really great guy. He was super sweet and I liked him a lot. When I was having a hard time deciding what to wear (often!) I'd ask him to choose between two outfits. Invariably, once he chose one of the outfits I'd realize I wanted to wear the other one. Invariably. I hope he didn't take it personally.

Anyway, enough rationalizing. When I was making the pockets, I wanted to find a way to make them more interesting than just giant pockets. The pattern is designed with a lower pocket and then a band across the top. I considered making the band black or white or trying to find a different black and white print to contrast with the polka dots, but eventually I decided that a little bit of white piping was what I wanted to make it pop. Here's how I made them.

1. Make the lower pocket. I think it is so much easier to get a nice lower curve by lining the pocket in batiste than attempting to turn under raw edges.



2. Cut the upper pocket pieces. Make a strip of your piping fabric finished width + seam allowance x 2 and fold it in half, wrong sides together. Raw edges together, sew to one end of your upper pocket piece. Then fold the upper pocket piece in half, right sides together, and sew the side seams (better illustrated here). Turn right side out.



3. Right sides together, sew the outer-facing sides of the upper and lower pockets together. Make sure not to catch in your piping.



4. Turn under the seam allowance of the inner edge of the upper pocket and hand-stitch in place.



I hand-stitched the pocket to the dress so it will be easily removable if I suddenly wake up elegant one day.

Sadly, this is not one of the projects I had Cidell photograph. The photo was taken by a friend who was staying with me. I made her sing for her supper. Heh. Unfortunately, even though she has a super fancy mega DSLR camera, it obviously doesn't take indoor pictures better than my little point and shoot! But rather than wait for perfect pics, I'll just do the blog post and review with what I have. All the photos are here.