Vogue 2984 - 2

I have finished the Vogue 2984 skirt and am wearing it today. The photos taken this morning are a bit dodgy so will re shoot when I get home. (I am posting at the office after work as we have exceeded out broadband for the month and it is on go slow).


I thought I would share my Hong Kong finish on my hem. I am sure a lot of you are familiar with this technique, but it maybe useful to someone. First, cut some bias strips from your lining fabric and sew them to the bottom of your skirt - right sides together. Press



Then turn the bias strip over and stitch in the ditch. Press again
Turn up the hem to length wanted. Baste close to the bottom edge (I just used pins for this). Hand catch stitch the hem. If you are careful with the stitching it will be invisible from both the outside and inside. When doing your final press make sure you only press the bottom edge and not go over the top edge of the hem. This will prevent any ridges showing.
Now doesn't this look good?
And here is the finished skirt front and back.

Now a question if I may....how do you finish your seams when you have to clip them for a curve? Do you serge after the seam is sewn, clipped and pressed? Or do you serge before construction and then just clip through the serging? And if you were going to bind the seam, how does that work with a curve? With this skirt I serged after sewing and clipping the seams. But I am not a fan of serging afterwards as it can pull the seam a bit. Love to hear from you!

Vogue 8409 2 and new shoes no 4

I finished the dress last night and wore it to work today. I decided to go bias on the band and stabilised it with interfacing (thanks Summerset!). As the checks are not squares, I needed to make a centre seam at the front to ensure the checks looked balanced. One think I did not do but I recommend others do is to stay stitch the bodice front side seams. They grew! To fix this I just ease stitched them before attaching to the bodice back.

I did not follow the patterns method of construction. Vogue has you make the bodice and then attach to the skirt. I prefer to make the whole front and the back and do the full side seams at the end. This makes it much easier to make that final fitting. And also any weight changes can be more easily altered for.

I need some more work on invisible zips!! This zip is not so invisible! This was my first go at inserting the zip with the seam already sewn, a la the Sewing Divas. Well I am not a diva yet! I will practice to get it even closer and go back and resew the zip closer. I should be able to do this without taking it out. Previous zips have been with the seam open and I have had better results. But with this I was also conscious of making sure the checks matched up.

Loved the way the lining is sewn to the zip tape! This is also a first for me and I am pretty happy how that turned out. Thank you Marji :) And of course the shoes...........

Vogue 8409

Work has started on Vogue 8409. I have only gotten as far as the bodice section so far as the cutting out took much longer than I expected.

The fabric is very light and the checks are a pain!

First I had to decide where to put the sway back adjustment. I decided to split it up and put a bit on the bodice and some more on the skirt.

Next, I cut out the fabric in one layer. I cut out one piece and then lay it over the fabric to make sure the other side matched up perfectly. I haven't cut out the band in the middle yet as I am not sure whether to cut it out on the grain or on the bias. I won't be able to match it with either the bodice (on the bias but with pleats) or the skirt (on the grain but with darts). I think the back will be more interesting with the band on the bias (the back bodice and skirt are both on the grain) but the front may be better on the grain. Can I cut the back one way and the front another? Oh decisions, decisions......

I decided to eliminate facings and line the dress to the edge as described by Marji over at Pattern Review. I stabilised the neck and armhole edges by sewing on some selvage to the seams. I am using a designer lining I bought from Artextile on Friday. It has a logo and the word Preview on it. I didn't find anything helpful while googling. Has anyone heard of this designer or has seen this before? I would really like to get this finished today, but it is Father's day here in Australia, so maybe it might be pushing it!

Artextile

In Melbourne, we are lucky enough to have a fabric shop that imports European designer fabrics. The fabrics are excess fabrics ordered by the designers. The purchaser goes to Europe (mainly Italy) to purchase these directly from the mills. And today was the final day of their winter sale - all fabric 50% off!! So what previously cost up to $75 a metre is now more affordable.

The only thing I have bought previously at Artextile was a Brione lining that I used for my green jacket. Oh how I have coveted the fine wools, silks and linens! But now I am the proud owner of 2 metres of a beautiful Versace wool/metal fabric. The metal gives it a crisper feel than just the wool. I also bought a gorgeous two faced wool - charcoal on one side and brown on the other. And a couple of skirt lengths - green and purple - oh so soft! Absolutely beautiful. And a couple of linings as well. Lucky me! (The linings are not in the photo)
I worked only briefly on my Vogue skirt today. I took the side seams in to reduce the curve in the hip.
I think I will put it aside for the weekend to start on my new project - a jumper/pinafore. I want this finished by Monday, so I will give it priority! I will be using the Vogue dress pattern but exclude the sleeves. I may need to scoop out the armhole to give me more room. We'll see.

I have finished for tonight as I have a glass of bubbly and well....sewing and bubbly do not mix!

New shoes no 3

These shoes are an eggplant colour. The shape is very similar to my red shoes. I wore the shoes with a suit I had made in Hong Kong together with another KS3338 top. The photo is not very good - too early in the morning! The fabric is a very stretchy poly knit from MAD fabrics. About $3 a metre I think. I have a teal version still in the stash! The trim is a mesh. I think a darker mesh colour would have worked better as the pink is a bit too close to my skin colour - so it lacks definition. Oh well, you live and learn.
Here is the outfit with the jacket. I have had 3 suits made in Hong Kong. They are beautifully made ( I will show some of the details in another post) but they seem to overwhelm my small frame. The shoulders fit but there seems to be too much fabric through the body.
It looks like I am dressed for winter, but it was a beautiful 25 degrees here today in Melbourne.....Spring is definitely on its way! I work in an air conditioned office and I drive to work, so I can dress pretty much the same all year round. Thursday is my last work day for the week, so tomorrow I will get back to the Vogue skirt and maybe something else to wear with shoes no 4.

Vogue 2984

Today I have been working on the skirt from Vogue 2984. It has a nice back view. I am using a fabric I got from the Western Market in Hong Kong. I was hoping to finish by tomorrow to show you with the 3rd pair of new shoes. Unfortunately that won't happen! I will show the shoes but with another outfit.

The skirt has been a disappointment. First of all the fabric that I thought was a tropical weight wool turns out to be poly (at least I think).

I bought it with several other offcuts of suiting fabric. They all have writing on the selvage. Some say English, Cashmere, 120 count etc. I haven't tested them all but this one failed the natural fibre test. It is however still a lovely fabric but does not mould as well as wool, and the seams pucker slightly.

The pattern too is a disappointment. Notches on two occasions do not match up! I thought I had made a mistake but no, going back to the pattern I can see Vogue are the ones who made the mistakes. There are mistakes in the instructions too! And in the end, the skirt is too big and the side curves are in the wrong place. Sigh! All fixable, but not tonight Josephine!

So if you have this pattern, beware. If there are this many mistakes in the skirt, how many in the jacket?

Again thankyou for all your nice comments on previous posts!

Isabelle said "...I don't know if you know the blog "What I wore today" (http://whatiwore2day.blogspot.com/). I discovered it recently. Your blog is turning into this, with an even more interesting twist: with you, it's "what I made myself AND wore today" :) ". Thanks Isabelle, but I must confess I found Kasmira's blog awhile ago and enjoy it very much! I thought it would be fun to combine what she does with what we do - sew. So rather than just show a finished garment I will show it in an outfit as well.

Nancy said "I like the ensemble too. The black lace hem on pinstripe is a nice look that I'll need to "borrow" one of these days". Again I must confess to borrowing from someone else. Kathryn (fxzdoc at Stitches Guild) has made a couple of outfits in grey with black lace. Here is a link to one of them. Kathryn's whole album is eye candy!

So it is off to bed for me. Hopefully Friday will bring better sewing joy.

Shiny, shiny black shoes

My second pair of shoes purchased over the weekend were these... They bear a remarkable resemblance to Carolyn's shoes!

These are my first pair of black patent shoes. Sofie my youngest daughter always had to have a pair of "shiny, shiny, black shoes". Whenever she grew out of one pair she would need a new pair to replace them. So these are my very own shiny, shiny, black shoes!

Today I wore them to work with a couple more wardrobe items made prior to having this blog. The twin set was made from KS3338. A review on how I made the twin set can be seen over at Patternreview. The skirt's review is here.

I only have one more work day this week and I have earmarked the eggplant shoes/boots for Thursday. The teal shoes are for next week. I will see what I can find (or make) for those!