Vests and the next project

I don't think I posted a photo of the blue wool vest I made. I hadn't decided on the buttons, the last time I posted. I went with the same clear plastic button as I used on the jacket of the same fabric. I also made real welt pockets. I love wee, vest pockets! Here is the newest vest (waistcoat to my English readers), made from the beautiful but thick, orange Italian wool I got from Darrell's and from which I also made a jacket (but maybe didn't blog about - I can't find an appropriate entry anyway). In spite of loving vest pockets, I didn't make them on this one because the wool is too substantial and would only cause me more grief than they are worth. I used the fabulous printed lining from the pink raw silk jacket. I put in a piece of elastic at the back waist so the garment would have a bit of shape. Next, I have been wanting to make a fitted jacket with a peplum for some time, and I got this Vogue pattern because of the jacket. I believe I am too short/small to wear the full skirt, as much as I might like it. But the jacket appeals to me. I got a remnant of some plaid wool at Darrell's this summer but I may have been dreaming in technicolor to think that all the pieces of this jacket would fit onto the fabric, especially as the plaid is about 4 inches on a side! The extra fabric required for the peplum might sink using the plaid for this jacket pattern. I have to go back upstairs now to play around with it all.

Gala dress muslin creeps along

Here are the French seams.

First you have to sew the pieces together, wrong sides together, with a seam allowance of about 1/4 inch. Then you trim the raw edges down to less than 1/4 inch. Then you iron the seam and fold the pieces with the right sides together, encasing the raw edges.

Then you sew the seam again, at about 3/8 of an inch, so you get the full 5/8 seam allowance, with the right sides together, so you end up with the raw edges enclosed in the seam itself.

Here's what it looks like, finished and pressed, from the right and the wrong sides.

The bodice is gathered where it meets the midriff and from what I learned with the prom dresses, I now gather by hand. I simply sew a long, running stitch along the gather line and it is just easier to gather up than a machine sewn line.

The bodice also gathers into the yokes that form the shoulders. This is the back, which has a Vee where the yokes meet the gathered part of the bodice. I've got one of the yokes up and one down, just to show the construction a bit.

I am also noticing that I am going to have to be a lot more picky when I make the real gala dress. I put the ruler in the photo because the stitching line is supposed to be 5/8 inch (1.5 cm) from the end of this point on the yoke and from each edge and I am out of alignment. I think I will have to make accurate tailor tacks on the real dress, to ensure that the dots all line up.

This looks like a jumble of pieces (there are three) all coming together at one point.

Here is the bodice with the yokes coming together at the gathered parts from another angle. This time, I have got the yoke facings sew on as well, so now I have all sorts of pieces all converging.

I have sewn the yoke facings down by hand on the inside. This is what the bodice looks like, draping on the judy, from the back.

Here is the bodice from the front. It looks like the Vee in the front will be quite low. I am not sure if this will be too low. For this dress (muslin), should I wear it, I may have to put a triangle of fabric in the front, like a camisole - or just wear a camisole under it. I am now thinking of how I would alter the pattern to prevent this from happening when I make the real dress. I can't just hike it up at the shoulder seams because then the midriff will be too high. I want the seam line where the midriff meets the bodice to be right at the bra band line.

Starting something new (finally)

I have given up (for now, at least) on the blue coat.

I noticed that the front (interfaced) edges curled in. This made me avoid working on it, as I knew I was going to have to do something to fix it.

I decided to hem it, to see if this would help. I finished the raw edge with seam binding and sewed it up by hand. The lining hangs free all around the bottom.

I even sewed on a little bit of seam binding on the raw edge of the facing.

I hemmed up the sleeves and had to cut off several inches. When I hung it on my judy it became clear that the fabric was sagging. In this photo, I am holding up the waist seam and the curved-in fabric on that side corrects itself. I have therefore given up for now and won't continue to struggle with this. In fact, I wasn't so much struggling as avoiding. It seems a shame to put so much time into something and then pitch it. But it is a good lesson for me, not to buy mysterious cheap fabric. The clothes I have made recently that I wear a lot and love to wear are the ones I made with quality fabric or at least known quantities, like 100% cotton that I washed and dried and it survived.

So! In the meantime, I have become a volunteer member of the board of Breast Cancer Action and they have several fund raising events, one of which is a Gala in November. So I went looking for patterns!

After seeing the same dress over and over in other books, I got this pattern from Vogue (V1086). It is a designer (Tracy Reese) pattern but it seems quite straightforward. It has the things they keep mentioning on "What Not To Wear", such as a high midriff and a skirt that floats away from the body. Of course, I was seduced by how lovely this model looks and I will never be that thin, but it might still work well on me.
Her dress appears to be made of batiste and as such, it is not as "fancy" as a gala dress. But I wanted to go short, not long, and I had had enough of the red carpet type dress after my last creation! It may be, after I make the muslin, that I will think the pattern itself is not fancy enough but time will tell.

Now in spite of what I just wrote about mystery fabric, I got some $3/yard stuff in pure polyester but that is to make the muslin for this pattern. It is even possible that I might get a wear or two out of it, if it turns out to fit me and doesn't look too horrible. But the main goal is to fit the pattern properly.


In spite of the polyester pansies, this fabric actually doesn't feel too bad and the weight is probably good for whatever, better, fabric I end up buying. Which will probably be at
Darrell's.

I like the fact that it looks like there is a fair bit of detail in the dress, even though it should not be that difficult to sew. The bodice is gathered which is nice for ease and so is the skirt. The most fitted part will be the midriff and the shoulders, which are yokes. It has a side, invisible zipper so it does not pull over the head.

There's only one version of the dress, so I will be using all the pattern pieces, and there aren't that many of them.

The only interfacing is in the yoke, on the pieces that you have to cut four of, and the midriff, which is double thickness.

I have pinned the midriff to the judy and I think I will cut on the safe side, at size 14, and then take in where necessary. I have to say, it is a relief to have decided to move on to something else, even if it does violate my "Rule" about having no UFOs.

Prom dress continues, stuck at the zipper

Well, I thought I could fake the invisible zipper as I have done once before, without the proper invisible zipper foot, but I was wrong. sigh. Let's start where we left off last time.

I added the vertically quilted pieces to the back, where I needed a little extra width. They were quite a bit wider than I needed but I wanted to give myself wiggle room. I also noticed that putting the zipper in might be easier with the simply quilted piece, rather than trying to sew the zipper to all those layers of hair canvas interfacing, so I think that part turned out for the best.

I trimmed those pieces up a bit more and here, I am illustrating what it will look like once the zipper is in. I have been hoping this "fix" will look like a "design feature" and I think it will!

This is just one panel of how odd the construction of the skirt seemed, before I actually followed the instructions and sewed all four of the skirt pieces together.

Here is the dress, just hanging around the neck of my judy, which is why the skirt looks oddly wide (because it's not actually ON the judy). But it does look exactly like the pattern instructions.

Once the skirt is sewn onto the bodice, you have to press the seam allowance UP, into the bodice, so that it can get concealed by the lining. This is difficult because of the layers of interfacing that have to be folded up. So I decided to sew up the seam allowance by hand (instead of just pressing it up), taking some internal stitches here and there but also making pick stitches right through to the quilting on the outside. This is turning into a true couture garment, with all this hand sewing.

The instructions also called for understitching the top edge of the bodice as much as possible by machine, which I did. But it still tended to roll out so I pick stitched the entire thing around the inside, including the two "drape" pieces (the things that go around the neck to make the halter).

These pick stitches are all on the inside and never show on the outside.

So then it came time to put in the invisible zipper. I basted it all in by hand first (of course!). Then I tried cheating with a non-invisible zipper foot and couldn't get the zipper teeth to roll out far enough to give it the proper "invisible" effect. So now I have to call my sister (my niece's mother) and see if she has this foot attachment on her machine. If so, I can go over and first do a fitting and then sew it up. If not, I will have to go find one. But I'm almost done!

Prom dress almost finished

Into the home stretch!

First, I had to adjust the back, where I had added an inch extra width "just in case". Not only did I not need that inch, I had to take the back in by another half inch on both sides.

I sewed a new line of basting where the zipper will go and basted the raw edges together and then cut off an inch and a half on both ends of the back. Unfortunately, this made the tops of the two back pieces no longer line up, because they are not mirror images of each other.

I thought about taking the side that was higher all apart, which would include undoing the understitching and everything. Then I thought I would never get it lined up as well as if I just folded it over so that's what I did and sewed it down with tiny stitches. After I press it carefully, it should be invisible on the outside.

Now you can see how the top edges will line up properly once the zipper is in.

Next I hand basted the upper and lower edges of the bubble skirt, so that I could make the gathers evenly. That went surprisingly quickly.

I pinned the soon-to-be gathered skirt to the skirt lining.

And the gathers were remarkably easy to make too. I may have to consider hand basting all my gathers from now on. The thread is much looser than if it was machine basted and so it is easier to pull.

Here, I've sewn the skirt to the lining around the bottom and given that seam a bit of a press in anticipation of understitching the lining.

Here's the bubble skirt, sewed top and bottom to the shorter, narrower lining. I'm ready to attach the skirt to the midriff and the last step will be putting in the zipper!

Prom dress continues

Nobody panic! That's the lining attached to the bodice!

I wanted to be sure that the whole thing fit, as the lining is narrow in order to make the whole bubble skirt effect. I hand sewed it to the midriff with a loose running stitch so that when I do the fitting, I will be able to tell if I need to let out the back darts or not.
Next, I have to run a loose stitch through the bottom and the top of the silk outer skirt so I can gather it up when I sew it to the lining. I have decided to do that by hand so it will be looser than machine stitching and give me an easier gather. Also, my machine seems to be breaking the upper thread again and if cleaning out the bobbin case doesn't work, it will be easier to work with a hand sewn gathering stitch.

Prom dress progresses

Despite my lack of blogging (and responding to comments), I am here working away! To update the boob thing, I have only got three more radiation treatments to go, and then I am done! They are a walk in the park (or a ride on the bike in my case, as I am biking every day to the hospital for them - 17 kms round trip!) compared to chemo. In fact, I am saying these days, "if I can do chemo, I can do ANYTHING."

I worked on the blue coat for a while, before I got the prom dress fabric.

It could turn out okay, I guess. But it seems the sleeves are, like, a foot longer than they should be. In any event, I won't deal with this until I finish the dresses now.

In the meantime, my niece and I bought some turquoise silk charmeuse for the bubble dress. (In the above photo, it is greener than it really is. The next photo is more accurate.)

Beautiful! And as it is real silk, it is surprisingly easy to work with.

I also worked on making the bodice muslin for the Vogue dress so it more accurately represented the real bodice. It must have eleventeen layers! The midriff is quilted.

And there is draping on the outside. That is going to be a pile of work. In this photo, you can just see a glimpse of the magenta fabric she and her mother bought. So I decided to go with the bubble dress first.

Each bodice piece is only cut out once. Because it is asymmetrical, there is no duplication of the pieces.

And each silk piece is backed by the same piece in lining.


I ironed each and every piece first. I laid the lining piece on the ironing board and then laid the silk piece on top of it. Then I pinned them both to the board so that I would be sure they would lie perfectly flat against each other as I went around them and pinned them together. With a lot of pins. Then I sewed them all together.

The bodice gets an additional layer of lining. Here I am making sure that I am pinning the lining pieces together correctly, so that they will be sewed right when I attach the lining to the bodice, right sides together.

Here I am, making double sure they are sewed correctly, before I get them all sewed together. It's because the lining doesn't have a right and wrong side and because the bodice is asymmetrical that I went to this trouble. And you might note that I cut everything out with pinking shears, to prevent raveling and give a softened edge.

Once I sewed the lining to the bodice, I also understitched the lining to keep it from curling out.

(Extreme close up!) Then I had to turn the bodice right side out and attach the shoulder seams and hand stitch that opening closed.

Here it is, pinned onto my Judy. I added extra width to the back pieces, "just in case". I can trim them easily when I do the fitting and establish where the zipper should go. Next, sew the midriff to the bodice and the skirt to the midriff.