PATTERNS and some other photos

Let's call this a catch-up post. :-) I'm busy baking chocolate chip cookies for the guys on my sailor's ship who have to work on Thanksgiving, so this might be a disjointed while I move cookie sheets in & out of the oven!

Faye asked recently about how to create boiled wool. I started with some very heavyweight 100% wool jersey, and ran it through a cycle of hot-washer-hot-dryer about three times. I know some people zigzag the edges first, but I didn't, so I did get some distortion. However, I started with 3 yards and I was only making a size 7 jacket, so it was OK.

Next, here are a few patterns I purchased recently. Now I need to get over the sore throat, and find some time to sew them up. (I'm actually not a super dedicated seamstress, sewing while super sick... this is more of a "wow I don't feel great" sore throat so the quilting projects were good to keep my mind off it.)

Vogue 1156.... I love this one. Need to make a muslin soon!



And a really cute little dress that I may or may not ever get to, but which I love looking at anyway. If I didn't go to work in sneakers and jeans everyday, this is what I'd wear.



And finally, some finished photos of the Thanksgiving table runner I made:





I used the "snowflake" stitch from my Viking to quilt the lines.

Have a wonderful Thanksgiving!

dress muslins

I hate to admit it, but I'm starting to feel a smidge jealous of the girls on Say Yes to the Dress! (OK, yes, I watch it occasionally. It has gorgeous gowns on it! (; ) Anytime I want to try on a new potential wedding dress, I have to unwrap a bolt of muslin, lay it out on the floor, de-wrinkle a 50 year old pattern, pin it, cut it out, stitch it up and THEN I can try it on, in plain muslin, while I imagine it in a fancy silk. Yeah. Not that I'd do this any other way but there's a lot of work to try out one dress.

So here we have a very rough muslin for my sister's dress. My mom is pin fitting the princess seams on her. I'm so grateful she can help with this.



And here's a muslin I made this evening. With, of course, silly face from trying to instruct the sailor to turn on the flash on my SLR! (No front view at the moment, it came out super weird looking)



I really like this pattern. Here's the original pattern envelope, Simplicity 7177

On the road

Good morning blog world!

I haven't shown any vintage wedding dress patterns here in a while, so here is my latest purchase, Simplicity 8640. Isn't the bodice shape interesting? I don't know how I feel about actually pulling that off in a white silk, with that inverted point front and center. I worry it would come out uneven, or not pointy, or just wonky looking. Which in a solid light colored dress would be super obvious. However, it's really cute to look at!




Here is how the move is going so far.

We said good morning to the ducks on the Elizabeth river....



And rounded up the last pieces in the apartment (you can see I'm still in love with my new L2 bag. it holds everything!)




And set off on the road. Here is some of DC's legendary traffic- it was rush hour by the time we were driving through here.



That was fun. But we made it through in the end, and it gave me a new perspective on Jersey traffic (bad, but not usually *that* bad).

Vogue 2253 again

Well, I traced the front, back, and sleeve patterns:


Then I added the 1" in length to the bodice, and increased the arm pattern:


And straightened out the new sleeve curve:



Here's a blurry closeup of the front:


I feel like I need to raise the bottom of the armhole up again, since now it hits too low- but the bust dart hits a little better place. I didn't pinch out the dart at the inner corners of the neckline since I wanted to see just the extra length. I'm wondering if maybe an inch was too much to add and I should fold out a half inch. Hmmmm.




The back definitely needs a swayback fix.



My brain is kind of mush so I'll keep this short, but there we are- muslin #2 of vogue 2253. ;-)

Another muslin...

Here's muslin #2, from Vogue 2253. First I marked the bias grainline on the skirt pattern pieces using a quilting ruler that had a 45 degree line marked on it. I lined that 45 degree line up on the original grain line, then used a marker to draw in a new grainline. In order to cut the skirt pieces out of the muslin, I cut about 6 feet off the bolt for each piece, unfolded it, then folded it perpendicular to the way it had been folded on the bolt. I was then able to cut the skirt pieces out. The front, back, and sleeves were cut out from the extra fabric around the skirt pieces.

When I attached the skirt to the bodice I had to ease stitch around the waistline of the skirt- something I rather expected I'd have to do, since the bias relaxed a little bit while I was sewing. This skirt has a nice little dip at the hem in the very back- sort of a hint of a train- which is really cute, but not long enough that I'd trip over it. It's just enough to sort of pool a little bit on the floor when you're standing still.

Here is the muslin hanging up by my sewing machine with the fitting notes on it- this one is definitely worth tweaking and trying again! I tried it on with my wedding shoes and twirled around the kitchen for a minute. :-D



The fitting notes are:

1. Increase size of arm pattern. I have chubby biceps. ;-) I'll do a slash-and-spread from the base of the arm pattern up to almost the top
2. Add about an inch just below the shoulder- this adjustment my mom always has to make for herself, and she thinks the bodice will look better with that extra space
3. pinch out a dart, in the pattern, at the lower corners of the neckline to bring the shoulders in a little bit. The neckline and armhole need to be "narrowed" to fit me better.

Once those are done, we'll re-examine the bust darts. They looked weird, but it's no use adjusting them before I make the other changes.

I'll likely take out the waist seam and reuse the skirt pattern pieces for muslin #2... I should have written the fit notes on the bodice instead of the skirt piece, but there you go!

Merideth asked how many bolts of muslin I have.... a few! I'm using kona muslin, which is fantastic soft drapey stuff that I always use for quiltbacks. For one, I want the dresses I try on to have a somewhat similar hand to the real fabric, and this muslin is sooooooo nice! I have a special project in mind so I'm saving all the largeish muslin scraps from cutting out these dresses for it. And last, Kate (who is no stranger to muslins- I make them for some of her little dresses to check length sometimes) has asked if she can have the muslins for the patterns I don't end up choosing to play dress up with. She wants to paint & embellish them into princess dresses for dressup. Yeah, they'll be huge on her, but she loves playing with long fancy dresses and these will perfect for her to goof around with.

Carolyn asked what I'm doing with the dress patterns once I've picked one out- besides the one I pick, I'll probably keep a few of the ones with shorter dress options, and then- I have no idea what to do with the rest. Most of them I bought for the directions, which I won't need anymore once the real dress is done. And I really don't have the time to sell them back on ebay, so there will probably be a big dress pattern giveaway here next May or something. I don't want to keep them hidden away in a box forever, so stay tuned! ;-)

2 more vintage wedding dress patterns....

We'll see if I can steal a break from work this weekend and sew up another muslin, because I have a fantastic new pattern. It's *very* simple, but it shows a lot of promise. :-) May I present vogue 2253....



Empire waist, check. Sleeves and scoopneck, check. (I'll shorten them to short sleeves I think). Very simple lines, 1960s-ish, check. And Vogue, which my mom still thinks will fit bette on top. I'm tempted to cut the skirt on the bias to see how it hangs since it's not gathered at the waist.

And its new friend, butterick 5284 which I might make up as just a simple summer dress someday when I have more time to sew. ;-)

Some dress action!

Well then. I'm still unburying myself from christmas work, but I snuck in the first wedding dress muslin this afternoon!

McCall 8635, an Alicyn design. Empire waist, front princess seams, back darts, gathered back skirt.



You know what the one bad thing about making a dress rather than buying one might be? If you want to try on a style, you have to put a few hours of work in first. ;-) On the bright side, there will be no big ugly "Say yes to the dress" clips wielded around here to hold a dress in place.

This afternoon I finally got a minute of peace so I put on a movie, cut open my bolt of muslin, and got to work....




Tada!




Wait, you want to see it on me not on a hanger? ;-) You have to ignore the silly faces I'm making for that.





It looks OK, but the bodice fit is terrible. I can't raise my arms because the armhole begins so low on my chest. If I pinch out about an inch at the shoulders, the armhole settles into place and I can lift my arm.... I've got a ton more patterns to try, though, so I'll do those first before I perform major surgery on this one. But this is the general look I'm going for, so it was very nice to get to how it looks!

Some more vintage wedding patterns....

Bride Chic blog has a post today about some gorgeous vintage wedding patterns. Just in case, you know, you haven't gotten enough vintage wedding dress pattern overload from here. ;)