Second Birthday Dress: BWOF 12-2007-109

Thank you, everyone, for your kind comments on my birthday dress! I am overwhelmed!



I had to travel for work on my birthday, and not the good kind of travel, either. I was off to Las Vegas for a week for some particularly painful depositions and knew I'd be working like crazy. However, I was determined to do *something* to celebrate my birthday, hopefully a nice dinner out on the town in between working before and after. I didn't know how silk jersey would travel, and plus the casinos are always so smoky and you have to walk through them to get to the restaurants, so I didn't want to bring my "real" birthday dress. Time to come up with a quick backup!

I flipped through my BWOFs and came across 12-2007-109, which looks sophisticated but is made up in a knit. That deep inverted front pleat is great for tummy disguising and I loved the shawl effect of the sleeves. Because this is a knit, it was super-quick to trace out and sew.

I sewed it up in a subtly metallic jersey from stash (purchased way back when from the $2.97/yd table at G Street). Unfortunately, because I was in a hurry I didn't spend much time with the fabric in doing the cutting layout, and didn't realize it has a bit of a nap. I cut everything out in the same direction, but it is a little rough-feeling if you run your hand down the dress, and smooth if you run your hand up the dress. It would be nicer had I run the texture the other way, but it isn't uncomfortable to wear as the bodice and strap are lined with a softer poly knit.

Although the description of the sleeves says "The wide straps of this gown are tied in front before being attached to the back, creating not just a pretty neckline but also cap sleeves," this is not true in any way. There is no tying. The sleeve is sewn as a continuous line after threading through the keyhole, with the seam hidden inside the tab at center back. Nothing complicated there.

So it's not any kind of actual twist, just a keyhole opening that you thread the strap through. The keyhole opening is drafted to be quite long. I shortened it some, but even still my bra shows through the opening a little (a flesh-tone bra helps).

The sleeves, alas, don't work as advertised. My metallicized fabric has a bit less stretch than your typical jersey, and is a bit stiffer, so I'm sure that has something to do with it. But unless you stand perfectly still without moving your arms the shawl sleeves are going to push up onto your shoulders. This makes the look a little less sophisticated and a little more Betty Rubble, but since this was for Vegas the less classy/more trashy thing was fine.

I just left the hem raw. I love that this is an option with jersey.

Despite working until midnight most nights, we did manage to take one night off and have a lovely dinner at Circo in the Bellagio. We had a smidge of a view of the fountains and the food was fantastic. I think there is more metallic clothing per capita on the Strip than anywhere else in the world (including a couple I saw in which the girl was wearing gold metallic leggings and the guy was wearing one of those tacky Ed Hardy shirts on which every line was limned in gold), so I fit right in.

This is another project photographed by Cidell, so there are some great photos! The pattern review is here.

Birthday Dress 2009, Drape Drape #5

Well, my birthday was a long time ago now (August 31). I was working like crazy at the time (and in fact had to travel for work on my actual birthday) but I made time for a birthday dress!



You may recall that I had a lust for avocado jersey when I went to NYC in June. I didn't find any, but Elizabeth (eword10), with whom we met up for shopping, had my back and when she found some avocado silk jersey for $5.99/yd she snapped it up for me! I was so excited.

When I went to Japan, of course I had to check out the sewing books and absolutely fell in love with Drape Drape. It has a lot of cool very Japanese designs that are conceptual and intellectual more than they are sexy, for the most part. Drape Drape Dress #5 is an exception with its very low cut front and back. The text is entirely in Japanese (although the numerals are Arabic, thank goodness). I am guessing this is intended to be made in a woven, judging by the zipper, but I thought it would look fab in a knit.

Unlike Stylebook, Drape Drape comes with a full set of patterns, each in four sizes. I traced a Small, which has a bust of about 30.5 inches; the waist is 23 inches and the hip is 33 inches--sizes I haven't been since approximately middle school--but because it is an empire line with a ton of ease at the waist/hip it didn't matter. If you think Patrones pattern sheets are confusing though, ugh, wait until you see this. All the designs on a pattern sheet are printed in the same color. This is frustrating because the design sheets are printed in green on one side and black on the other, so it's not that they saved money by printing only in one color! It took me a good hour just to find all of my lines, which I marked in purple pencil so that I could find them with the tissue paper over it. Intellectual, drapey designs take up a *lot* of fabric. I couldn't quite fit the skirt piece onto my yardage so I had to narrow it a few inches from the way it was drafted, and shorten it a few inches as well. Luckily, the design didn't suffer.

It was very interesting to sew. Although the directions are in Japanese, it was easy to figure out which piece was which and there are a few diagrams to help you put them together. Some of the less intuitive pieces in the book are beyond me, because I can't even figure out which pieces go where, but this one was easy.

I have been loving the look of the side skirt drape for some time, as in the Cynthia Steffe Paige Dress, DKNYC Cascading Ruffles Dress, and DVF Epana Dress I posted about back in June, and was so excited to find out how it's done. I cut it out, marked the pleats, sewed the pleats and was still entirely mystified until I was like, "Wait a minute, are they blowing my mind? Yes, they are. There is no side seam, the seams are in the front and the back." That doesn't sound so mind blowing written down but seriously, it blew my mind. Having made it, I love the draping even more; I am going to have to figure out how to make a skirt out of this pattern.

I feel like I should have more to say, but really, it went together pretty easily and I loooooove it. I felt so sexy and sophisticated on my birthday in this dress.

This is another of the looks that Cidell photographed for me, so there are a ton of great photos! The pattern review is here.

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Unfortunately, the only source I have found for this book is amazon.co.jp. I just impulsively ordered a hat book from amazon.jp, so I can offer my experience.

First, go to the website and look way up in the right hand corner. There is a little "In English" link. You can find the book by searching "Drape Drape." The book itself is very reasonable--around $18 USD. Shipping is an eye-popping $35, however. It comes FedEx. I have not yet received my book, and won't for several days because I assumed they would send through the post office and had the book sent to my house. Alas, I cannot receive FedEx at my house so I had to contact amazon.jp (they offer customer service in English) and ask them to change the delivery address and heaven knows if I will ever actually receive the book. But had I not gone through this rigamarole I think it would have arrived very quickly. So you get good service for your $35, but it's a little painful (and I wish I'd done the research to order a couple more books to make the shipping worth it).

**EDIT TO ADD** Thank you to all the commenters who had helpful suggestions for finding this book!

It appears to be available on Yes Asia for $29.49 with free shipping.

Marie-Christine recommends this eBay store for Japanese books.

Megan recommends eBay and Etsy seller pomadour24 for Japanese books.

McCall 5880, Hilary Duff Negligee Dress

I don't mean negligee as a disparagement of McCall 5880, just a descriptor. I think it's fun and has a little retro kick.

Cidell came to DC recently so there are some lovely outdoor project photos to look forward to. My new camera has a feature where it will take 3 shots in a row on the self-timer so it's a lot easier to do self portraits now (except that I can't get it to do a red-eye reducing flash and the red-eye feature on iPhoto keeps putting black spots in my hair and leaving my eyes red), but nothing is nicer than having a patient photographer who makes both the clothes *and* me look pretty. I end up with nice shots like the one at right.

While getting ready for Spain I crammed in as much sewing as I possibly could. I am forever lamenting the dearth of non-work appropriate clothes in my closet (it makes me feel old and boring that I could meet with my boss in just about every dress I own), and a vacation seemed like a good time to throw a flirty little dress in the mix. I had a flash of inspiration to make up the silk chiffon I got in Hong Kong with AllisonC into this pattern and just *had* to get it done.

And now, the public service portion of this blog post, by which I mean the public service you can do for me:

The next time I think that the only reason I don't like sewing with silk chiffon is that it has to be lined or underlined for opacity, somebody please slap me upside the head. The awfulness of sewing silk chiffon is inversely proportional to how lovely and luxurious it is to wear. Let's start with cutting. You lay it out aligned on grain and the slightest whisper blows it out of place. You pin down the pattern and carefully cut. When you lift your carefully cut piece up, it turns out to have been haphazardly hacked out by a blindfolded kindergartner almost directly on the bias. When you sew the threads snag, even when you are using the finest sharp/microtex needle in your collection, and of course that goes double when you're putting in French seams. And did I mention the seam puckering? Which goes double because you have to sew French seams? Seriously, sewing this stuff is an unfun experience.

But then! You put it on! And you decide you can live with the puckered seams and pulled threads and crookedness because look how it flows! Feel how soft! I think I am suddenly a Rich Lady Who Lunches! Who else gets to wear such fabulous fabric?

The pattern is cute and easy (just one instruction sheet), perfect to knock out for something to wear on a Saturday night. The pattern is actually designed to be lined, which is great.

The skirt is cut in princess lines, which adds little to the design if you don't plan to topstitch. Since I was working with silk chiffon I considered combining the pieces into a single front and back. While I was sewing my puckering, wonky seams I definitely wished I had, although there is such volume and flow that (hopefully) my bad seams don't show.

The bodice and skirt are separate pieces and the seam serves as the elastic casing for the empire waist. At first I thought this could be a little tacky looking, and in a heavier fabric it could be but in this fabric the final appearance is not much different than gathering would have been. However, as the pattern illustration suggests, this absolutely must have some sort of decoration at that line. I went with a ribbon tie, tacked on at the center back and sides.

The back is designed to have a short zip that stops a couple of inches above the waistline. I changed it because (1) there was no way I was putting a zipper into silk chiffon, and (2) I liked the idea of a split back more--it fits with the style of the bodice front and is a little flirtier. I just sewed the back as for the front and gathered it into the neck binding. I closed the binding with two hooks and eyes because with just one set the ends rotated. I may go in and replace these with snaps because the hooks and eyes are forever coming undone. I put a button on top for decoration.

This was a fab dress for Spain. It looks cute with leggings and a denim jacket for slightly cooler temperatures, and is very comfortable when it's hot. I feel fun and flirty in it--perfect for Saturday nights at home once vacation ends. (Although those Saturday nights are many months away in a warmer future.)

All photos are here and the Pattern Review is here.

Butterick 5130, Muse Grecian Dress

My backlog of summer dress reviews don't make *quite* as much sense now that it is in the 40s (Farenheit) outside--I really hope this is a blip and we return to our regularly scheduled October weather soon--but I guess they might help for dreaming for next year and, of course, our friends Down Under.



This Butterick 5130 style was all over RTW and I was pleased to see it in the Butterick catalog. A few people on Pattern Review made it and I was totally sold.

I had a vision of actually making this (*gasp*) in a solid, specifically, an avocado colored solid. I was on the hunt for such a fabric the last time I went to NYC, but couldn't find any such color at Spandex House (they tend more toward primary colors) but then I found this print on the street-level floor and fell in love. It was $8/yd, which is steep for me, but I had to have it and knew it was specifically for this dress.

The bodice is designed in several parts and the seam allowances are used for the elastic casings, which is a nice, easy way of doing things. I would quibble a bit with the design/construction order, as you insert the lower elastic into the bodice back and construct the dress before creating the back neckline/raglan sleeve casing, and I found it difficult to keep my fabric flat and create an even casing with all that elastic ruching already in place. However, after completing it I tried to figure a way around doing this (the lower elastic ends are caught in the armscye seam) and couldn't come up with one so maybe it's unavoidable.

They do that annoying thing where instead of publishing a chart in the instructions to tell you what length to cut the elastic they have tissue pieces that you are supposed to use as guides. I really do not understand this. I totally understand including pattern pieces even for things that are simple squares like belt loops--unlike BWOF, which gives you the dimensions and has you draft it yourself--because they are aiming at both beginning and experienced sewists. But the elastic guides do not fall in this category. So I have attempted to create my own. I couldn't find a WYSIWYG application in Blogger for tables, so excuse me if I have bad code. (I cannot for the life of me figure out how to get rid of the huge space--I don't see it in the code.)

	Size 8	Size 10	Size 12	Size 14
Piece 9 (bodice upper and middle front)	13 3/4	14 1/4	14 1/2	15
Piece 10 (boduce back)	14 3/4	15 1/4	15 1/2	16
Piece 11 (waist)	28	29	30 1/2	32
Piece 14 (back and sleeve neckline)	22	22 1/2	23	23.5

I cut the elastic for size 8.

For the bodice upper front, I shortened the elastic 2 1/2 inches

For the bodice sleeve/upper back, I shortened 4 inches.

I expected the waist elastic be too big, but it fit surprisingly well. Perhaps having something to do with the fact that it was up on top of my boobs instead of under them.


So I added another row of elastic *under* the bust, using the selvage as my casing and my duct tape double to get it approximately parallel to the floor. I don't know how well I succeeded, but with all the elastication and gathering a little crookedness isn't noticeable.





I wondered if my boobs had suddenly dropped and I was now low-busted (quite a feat with an AA cup), but just about everyone on Pattern Review had the same problem and added another level of casing as well. I was a little surprised by this problem, as the pattern was otherwise well thought out, well-drafted, and well-designed, and my problem with the Big Three is the drafting for huge, low boobs that requires me to do massive SBAs. Odd.

The instructions for the sleeve are for a regular casing at the hem, but I decided to echo the topmost front bodice casing, which is stitched about 3/8" and 5/8" down from the top to create a little bit of a ruffle above the casing. I took about a 1 inch hem in the sleeve, and stitched two lines for the casing at 3/8" and 5/8" and I like the way it picks up that bodice ruffle.

This summer one of my comfort-zone departures was to make shorter dresses, so I shortened this one 1.5" in cutting. Because of my height, if I cut things as drafted they are massively long so 1.5" seemed very conservative. But perhaps having to do with my additional casing I felt that it ended up *too* short. I wore it unhemmed once, but was just unhappy with the length. So I thought about it and decided to add a band at the hem and topstitch with a twin needle to make it look like a design feature. It doesn't really show much in person or in pictures because of the busy print, but you can sort of see it here. When I wore this in Hong Kong (site of the thumbnail harbor photo and the walk at the peak on the right) AllisonC noticed the hem band, but thought it was an intentional design feature so I'm satisfied.

This was a great dress for summer. I took it with me to Asia and to Spain where it worked with footless tights for cool days. The shoulders are very wide set so I had to wear clear bra straps and make sure they were tucked away inside the sleeves, but other than that it is not fussy or uncomfortable to wear as the elastic need only be fitted, not tight. I hope it's still in style next summer!

All photos are here and the pattern review is here.

Snoop Shopping for Fall/Winter Tops

Every single Fall/Winter I find myself (1) not having any long sleeve tops and (2) hating the ones that I technically don't even have because I have no long sleeve tops. Two years ago I embarked on "Two Weeks of Winter Work Tops" and I STILL have no long sleeve tops. Ugh!!!! While I wear dresses almost exclusively in summer, for some reason I turn more to separates in winter.

So, I decided it was time to look for some inspiration at Bloomingdale's and Nordstrom. It turns out that nobody has any good ideas for winter work tops, so at least I'm in good company. There were a lot of basic t-shirts and basic blouses, but we all know that I don't do basic.

I found a handful of inspiration pieces (and if you haven't seen SewBeDo's FABULOUS bow t-shirt variation of the BurdaStyle Lydia, check it out and encourage her to do that tutorial!).

The twist top is still popular, as shown by the 3.1 Phillip Lim Twist Front Cashmere Pullover - Nordstrom $495 and Nic + Zoe Twist Front Top - Nordstrom $63.90 on sale variations.


The Nic + Zoe I could easily pull off, as it just appears to be a twist overlay and at this point the cat is out of the bag on how to do twists. I can fantasize about somehow modifying Butterick 5079 (one of my unreviewed projects) for the 3.1 Phillip Lim, but I know there's no way I'd figure that puzzle out.


I love this Kate Spade blouse ($275, Bloomingdale's) from the front *and* the back.


The website doesn't mention a closure, so it appears that it just pulls over the head. This makes me wonder if it is clipped in the photos, because that cut looks too slim to comfortably wriggle over the shoulders, but of course if I made it I could always put an invisible zip in the side. Love the ruffles, the non-exaggerated sleeve, and the tame looking collar in front that ties in a bow in back. This is the kind of mood I am in for blouses this Fall--soft and feminine, not a traditional shirt-tailored kind of piece.


The peasant blouse still lives--here are some from Michael Kors ($64.90, Nordstrom) and a t-shirt version by Cameo Appearance ($48, Nordstrom)




I like the sleeve shape on the Kors version--that rounded opening appeals to me, and is a little different than the normal balloon with more fullness on the lower half of the sleeve than the upper--does anyone know what this style of sleeve is called? That style sleeve first came to my attention in relation to a DVF copycat controversy. I like the open sleeve on the tee, it's more laid back. The jury is still out on whether I can wear this style that balloons over an elasticated hip, though. I like my Simplicity 4020 top, so maybe.





LOVE this Tadashi Shoji blouse (Nordstrom, $238). The faux wrap and the peplum with the coordinating pleats is so cute, and the collar is excellent, so much more fun than a traditional shirt collar but not over the top.


I could live without the beading. I could also live without the zip all the way down the back (???--I don't get it), but I'd move it to under the arm.

I have Vogue 7998, a wrap top pattern that might be adaptable. (That I have all these ideas that could be done does not, by any stretch, mean that any of them will get done, of course.)





It also turned out I am ahead of the trend with some stuff I made for *last* Fall/Winter: the Knip Mode twist top I was so obsessed with and a BWOF dress.



The BWOF 10-2008-115 dress isn't identical because the Bloomingdale's dress has a surplice/faux wrap neckline and no gathering in the skirt. I like the BWOF version better, actually. This dress isn't really for work, though, and I already have a million ideas for dresses anyway.
The Knip Mode 04-2008-13 twist top, as far as I can tell, is an exact match for the TWO different variations at Nordstrom. I need to make one or two more of those!


I found a few more ideas for ruffles and bows and more ruffles (though I would make that last one a blouse, not a cardi) but honestly it was slim pickings. You can check out the whole set here. Please pass on all your good ideas and inspiration!