Simplicity 1621-The dress

This is the dress I made from Simplicity 1621. (I also made the jacket, but obviously not to wear together!!) (Even if the two fabrics went together, I can't imagine wearing these two garments together, but that's just me.) As you can see, its got that high/low hem thing going on.
I really wanted to make it with some sort of large scale crepe print, but I had none. And neither did JoAnn's. It kills me how I can go to that particular store and not find that kind of fabric. Sure, they have lots of those silky prints, but they're just too thin--no body at all. So I chose this fabric from the Ethnic prints section. Its a tie-dye overprinted with gold Egyptian ladies. I've had a thing for gold and turquoise together ever since I had that vintage gold & turquoise brocade sofa back in college.

I did an FBA (adding 2 inches total) on the size medium in this pattern. I also shortened it 7 inches. I made my own bias tape to match. Its a very easy pattern to make and a nice dress for a really hot day.
If the right fabric comes along, this pattern and I will meet again.

Simplicity 1621-The jacket

This is a quick little jacket vest I whipped up this morning from some fabric I got from the free table. It was made even  easier by the fact that I didn't have enough fabric for the sleeves.  Amazingly, Miss Jane was silk screening t-shirts in my sewing room while I was sewing and not only did I finish it but we didn't kill each other either!

Next time, I'd like to make it longer and put the sleeves in it. It should be made with a reversible fabric because most of the time the neck edge/ruffle thing flips over when you're wearing it.

I also made the dress the other day, but out of a completely different fabric. I'll get to that later.

A skirt with sleeves

What!?


the skirt has nice movement in the breeze

I love cutting stuff up and rearranging the parts. I had an idea to have some fun and do a bit of freestyling with some men's shirts. At first I thought about doing some draping and making some sort of top or vest. As soon as I cut off the shirt sleeves and I could see what I should do: make a skirt. 

I cut open the underarm seams, then sewed three of the plackets shut and inserted a zipper in the fourth. Then I sewed the four panels together so that the cuffs became the waistband and the curved top part of the sleeve became the shaped hem. The gathering of the sleeve into the cuff became the gather at the hip into the waistband.  

it doesn't show too well, but there is a pinstripe in the black

Fun, huh?

  

Queen Victoria's Underpants

Miss Jane and I are back from our little road trip. Here we are taking our pictures in the reflection of the MOCA in Cleveland.





I'm wearing one of the skirts I just made with my coverstirch machine and
a Textile Studio Monaco Shell

 Cleveland is about a four hour drive from home. We had a really nice time there, but it was just a stopping off place for our real destination: the Kent State University Museum!
 
That's were we saw Queen Victoria's underpants and they were huge! I don't think she was that big but rather that the underpants were gathered quite a bit when worn. Unfortunately, photography is not allowed in the museum. Her drawers (that's actually what they called them) were part of an exhibition that showed how undergarments changed as silhouettes changed and how important the corsetry, etc. was in carrying off the prevailing fashion of the time.

The exhibit had examples from 1760 to current times including a number of lingerie pieces that had belonged to Katharine Hepburn.

There was another exhibit centered around the use of pleats in clothing. There were garments by Fortuny, de la Renta, Lagerfeld, Issey Miyake, Madame Gres, YSL & Dior. It was really fantastic!

The museum is small but very much worth the trip, as is the town of Kent. They have a thing for squirrels.




Same outfit, different materials

 



My new best friend

I was finally able to take some time getting to know my new coverstitch machine. Its a Janome 900 CPX. The owner's manual is a mess: it comes with lots of typos and with loose extra pages for the pertinent info they left out. Oddly, one of the most crucial things you'll want to know, how to end the stitching, is not in the manual. Thank God for the internet and Debbie Cook! I did get the hang of threading the machine very quickly. In fact its much easier than threading a serger.
I made these four skirts from some Sophia doubleknit from Vogue fabrics. I love that the orange is called "hot sauce" and the green is "spanish olive". The "sangria" is on backorder. Granted, its a pretty stable knit, but you can see the hem is quite nice. I did not use steam a seam, but never found it necessary with this fabric before. The real test with be with a jersey fabric.
That'll have to wait though, because my daughter and I are going on a sewing-related road trip tomorrow.

What's on my sewing table

New patterns and fabric I haven't had time for:

And even more sadly, a new coverstitch machine, also neglected!:

So sad!!



I've fallen into a well

But its okay! I am a free lancer and have more work at one time than anytime since this Great Recession began. I'm happy about that, but have had absolutely no time for sewing.



Vogue 1294



I think I actually made these shorts over a month ago. And I HAD to make them. I have Achilles tendinitis and have been going to see a podiatrist. You cannot wear a skirt to see a podiatrist!

 Stretch cotton sateen

(Blogger sure is acting weird today!)