Completion! Love New Dress!!

Happy dance!! New dress, new dress, la la la!!!

Clearly only dancing the happy dance in my head

So so excited! I finished my new dress in record time (2 months). I did little bits of the project here and there with a few long blocks of hours (wow, all the marking, the finishing of edges, the interfacing, the hems on sleeves and skirt, etc., etc....it's amazing to me how much time it all takes me).

The big challenge for me on this dress was setting and sewing the sleeves. I still don't completely understand how the easing is supposed to work with one edge so much longer than the other. The pattern explained how to gather the top half of the sleeves and then ease the edge of the sleeve in with the armhole. How you can have gathers, but are expected to not have folds in the final seam. Surprisingly, it didn't turned out too bad.

I had to open the seam up in two places and redo those sections. It was a bit rough, but once I pressed it thoroughly over my sloppy, make-shift tailor's ham (see figure 1 of a real ham...oh I've been working too much)...

Figure 1, image courtesy of BurdaStyle.com

...most of the folds and buckled fabric smoothed out like crazy freekin' magic! How, whaaa? I just found a great tutorial on how to make a tailor's ham on BurdaStyle.com... next project!

I just love the dress fabric. It is broadcloth barkcloth, but is only ever so slightly stiff and it is soft and comfy against the skin. It's vintage and I bought it from Urban Burp in the North Beach area of San Francisco. The owner Electra is really helpful and knowledgable -- great article on SFGate.

When I use this pattern the next time, I'll make the dart a little different, so the fit between the bust and waist is just a smidge tighter, but otherwise I am really happy with the fit, go pattern maker! Good old Simplicity 4298!

I did end up farming out the zipper work. I didn't want to get all cranky and sad, so I took it to the lovely lady down the street at Sherry Cleaners...she did an amazing job!! Despite her help, I have signed up for a zipper class at Stonemountain & Daughter Fabrics in Berkeley. Their calendar of classes look great! The co-owner, Suzan, who called to confirm my registration was super nice (I answered the phone all mean and stern as I picked up the phone on a crowded bus and then thought it was a spam call...she was so understanding when I gushed my apology).

Hip hip hooray...completion!

Inspiration and Zipper Anxiety!

I am almost complete with view 2 of a pattern I've used before, Simplicity 4298.

View 2 far left in orange, view 1 to its right

I've made view 1 previously with satisfying results...



...after some alteration...too big across the back.

For view 2, I have left to set the sleeves and make a hem. I am confident about these two steps. It is the zipper...oh the zipper... I am so nervous. I have put in short zippers successfully, but never the 22". I have sent it out once before, which cost $15. This cost seems definitely equal to the avoidance of the stress of putting in this zipper, but part of me wants to get past this hurdle. I haven't made up my mind.

That aside though, I saw some beautiful inspiration today in Louis Vuitton's fall/winter collection. As always, beautiful photos at TLo's blog.



Drool, drool! I am going home tonight and finishing my project! Okay, maybe not the zipper, but at least I'll make up my mind to do it myself or farm out the work/headache.

Vintage Pattern Project - Simplicity Pattern 4298

This post is a bit of catch up and covers new work. I created a dress using Simplicity Pattern 4298, from 1962. I created a muslin first as this was my first dress project. I practiced the tough parts: the interfacing, skirt gathers, and putting together the bodice and the skirt. The skirt and bodice on the muslin version didn't match up, so I was really careful with working with the better fabric. I got great fabric from Peapod Fabrics on 18th Ave. at Irving in San Francisco.

The dress took me forever. I was petrified of doing something wrong and messing up the fabric, but finally, finally, I got it done except for the zipper.

I just couldn't get the damn thing in correctly. So wanting to stop the torture, I took the dress and zipper to my friendly neighborhood tailor/dry cleaning place, and they put the zipper in for $15. What a life saver! I thought I was going to have a melt down (I tried 5 times, I really tried).

Despite the pretty fabric and a pretty good job on the construction, the dress just looked, well, frumpy. So just last weekend, I got confident enough to try a bit of tailoring. I asked advice of a few friends, then experimented with the muslin version and came up with the solution to enlarge and extend the existing darts in the waist/back. It worked pretty great and with a much improved fit around the waist, it looks much more flattering I think. With that success, I had the confidence to try my first belt. It came out alright, it wasn't hard at all, except the end point of the belt (that goes through the buckle).

The directions here are so fabulously vague. Step 1, turn fabric over pointed end as shown, baste. Then voila! Somehow, through some mysterious steps, you get the perfect end point of the last illustration. Amazing!

So, I folded over, as per the directions....
And then what? I fold it back over and do what with all the extra fabric and how do I shape it into that perfect arrow shape. Sigh.So then I just tried something different. I realize now that part of sewing is the confidence to play around and not follow the directions word-for-word. For some reason that's really hard for me...but getting easier. I then tried to find a good vintage plastic belt buckle. I went to the fabric store in my area and then to my favorite vintage store La Rosa Vintage, but alas they didn't have exactly what I wanted (but I bought a couple gorgeous buckles for future use). Then I went to the thrift store and bought an ugly belt for $2.49; it had a pretty good shaped metal buckle. I was hoping I could figure out how to cover it. For some reason the belt buckle kits that come in two pieces, add fabric and snap the pieces together, no longer exists anywhere. I searched a long time on the web. Anyway, I tried a bunch of different methods and finally hit on a plan.

After much trial and error, I got it!! Hooray!!!!!

The untailored version, sans belt...

Then a bit of tailoring and a belt...

And the final product!! Oh, why do I have to go to work?! I want to start a new project!!!! Ack!