New Vogue Sewing Patterns - Fall 2010

Oooooh.... thanks to Erica for the link to the new Vogues!



DKNY Vogue 1194: I will absolutely be making this! I have a 3/4 sleeve black knit Ann Taylor dress which has similar lines that I wear to work quite a bit, and I was thinking recently how to make myself a copy. Here we go.




Tracy Reese Vogue 1190: I love the back of this dress. Not sure about the front shoulder ruffles, but they might be easy to skip, depending on the pattern piece shapes.

Voile 1950s dress in action and a new sundress

Words do not describe how grateful I am that I decided to make that vintage dress last month out of the Anna Maria Horner voile. The day of Dan's change of command ceremony was 104 F, so I decided to wear the lightest dress I possibly could. Even in this really light fabric, it was hot and sticky and rather uncomfortable outside in the midday sun and the heat, but we survived. Here we are in front of his new ship in Bayonne. I think the ship looks beautiful all decked out in the pennants for the ceremony.



Next up, I made up Simplicity 3744 in a light red and white cotton-silk from Paron's, but the dress is too wide at the top so the armholes gape quite a bit. I think I can pinch it in at the sideseam, essentially taking in a dart from the armhole down to the waist, but that will take a bit of tweaking. In the meantime, here it is on a hanger.



It has princess seams that run down the bodice into the skirt, and since the fabric is so light and thin the skirt was kind of bowing in at those seams no matter how much I pressed. When I stitched on the lace it seems to have sort of stabilized the seams, and the skirt doesn't bow in as much any more. So that was a quick hack to counter my choice of material! I think that really an A-line sundress like this needs a material with a bit of body, but it's been roasting hot here so I wanted something very light to wear.

Happy 4th!

I hope all the US folks are having a wonderful long weekend!

We did a bit of home dec work this morning- my grandmother gave us some dining chairs, but the chair covers, which were originally ivory, were not in such great shape. So we recovered them this morning. Let me tell you- I thought it would take 5 minutes per chair. It did not! By the last one, it took about 15 minutes per chair, but the first two were a bit painful. The chair back is woven cane, so I picked a Kaufman home dec weight print that would echo that.



And, fitting for the 4th, I'm sewing patches onto a few more uniform shirts before he leaves for a few months. Here they are heat-and-bonded (pins just bend trying to go through all the layers of thick ripstop), waiting to be sewn down. This is another job that looks like it would take 10 minutes but is sloooooooow going!! For one, you have to be incredibly precise. And my machine is not a straight stitch industrial, so I have a little trouble with all the thick layers and keeping everything lined up in a straight line. Slow and steady is the way to go.



So who is going to watch fireworks tonight, or heading out on picnics? :)