Not sewing this weekend

I had to travel for business the latter part of this week, so progress on the Vogue dress came to standstill.  I just got back home about two hours ago.

I did attach the yoke and yoke lining earlier this week.  I used a technique from this book "Sewing Secrets from the Fashion Industry".  I have had this book for many years.  I wanted to sew the yoke and yoke lining without doing any hand stitching and though I have done this numerous times, I just was not remembering the exact sequence.  This book spelled it out very nicely.

I took a photo of the completed yoke using my phone and need to transfer this over to computer.

I am taking a day off tomorrow to do several household chores I normally do on the weekend.  I hope I may find a few moments to spend sewing some more on this dress.

Updates later.

Work in progress for May 2013

I made a lot of progress on my new dress project, V8027.  I cut it all cut out.  Interestingly there are no interfaced pieces, basically cut and sew.  I did have one hiccup.  Because I cut the front facing with draping collar reversed, I had to reverse all the front pieces.  I am so happy that I caught that when I did or I would have ruined good fabric.

I ran into an issue with the collar area and had to go back and redo that area.  I ran out of time at that point as DH and I had dinner plans for Mother's Day.

Here are two photos of the work in progress.  The lighting/flash on camera washes out the pretty color of this fabric.

More later.

What I wore today-V8742

My DH was home this AM when I was getting ready for work.  I was thrilled when he saw my new dress and he was very complimentary.  He actually said "Alma would be so proud of you and this dress".  Alma was my grandmother from whom I got the sewing gene.

He took photos of the dress using his phone-so as promised before here are two shots of the front of the dress, wish I had gotten him to take a picture of the back as this was a great fit for me.

I know you can not see the ruching (gathers) in these photos.  I got lots of compliments at work today and what was noticed was the ruching.  I already have another knit fabric washed and ready to make a second version of this dress.

Fabric for wrap dress and my Mood fabric

I forgot to post a photo of my fabric for the wrap dress.

I purchased this sometime in 2009 or 2010.  I think it may wrinkle some, but hoping not too much. It seems to be the right weight for a draped collar and for dress that wraps.  

Here is a photo of the navy blue lace fabric I purchased from Mood.  This is the perfect navy color I have seen in a long time.  I just had to have this fabric after seeing it here on Goodbye Valentino blog.  She also made skirt for her daughter from this lovely fabric.  

Sew long!

One Vogue dress complete, one Vogue dress started

I was surprised to see that I had not posted anything since last week; bad blogger!

I have been sewing sporadically this past week.  Inserting a sleeve one day, inserting the other one another day.  Setting up cover stitch machine to hem sleeves and dress, completed that task yesterday and V8742 is now complete.  I plan to wear it next week and will take photos.  I will be making another dress from this pattern.  I love the fit of this one and with all the tweaks with this one the second one should about sew itself!

This AM I started fabric and pattern prep for my next Vogue dress.  I have not made a wrap style dress in years.  I know that there was a lot of wrap style dresses made from a few favored patterns. I like this pattern because of the draped collar and particularly the asymmetrical  version; though I have not intentions of making that long version.

The fabric I am using is one I purchased several years ago from Les Fabrique in Charlottesville, VA.  It is a rayon blend and for the past few spring/summers I have pulled this out to make "something" and it never materialized.  When I decided to make V8827 I decided that this would be the fabric I would use.  I even have a linen blend fabric that matches the background color of this fabric and I am considering a light weight simple jacket for those days where the a/c is just too much and you need a little something on your arms.

The pattern prep was not as much as it sometimes can be.  Based on the finished measurements on the pattern, I did not need to do a FBA and could possibly eliminate some of the width of the skirt portion of the dress, that can be done during the sewing process.  I did make my forward shoulder adjustments and that was really it.

The fabric was pressed and steamed as I wanted to make sure that fold lines had not left fabric faded in that area.  Next step is to cut out the fabric.

Due to continued issues with neck and shoulder I had to stop for a while and I hope that I will be able to cut out at least a few pieces if not all pieces later this evening.

New Vogue Patterns

Several bloggers posted about the new Vogue patterns.  Everyone must have been visiting the site as it came to a crawl last night.  Then this afternoon, it was back to normal.

And yes, I said I was going on a Pattern diet; yet there were several patterns that kept calling my name.  When I went to buy, two of the four I wanted were out of stock!!!  Wow, I don't recall ever seeing that on Vogue.  I decided I would just wait until another time to buy any patterns.  I will be on the lookout locally for these two; however I don't think they will show up at JoAnn's anytime real soon.  But I will be checking!

Why didn't I make this dress before?

Let me say that I had planned to make this dress soon after I purchased the pattern, which was in 2012.  I kept putting it off and making other garments.  I am truly happy with the fit of my new dress that is almost complete.

The FBA I made was perfect.  Because this is a multi-sized pattern and I was able to cut larger then take in, the fit through the waist and hips was an easy fix to make.

My fabric met the stretch-ability test for this project; it was some very fiddly knit though.  My serger did not like this knit very much and sewing on the sewing machine required very taut sewing in front of and behind the sewing foot.

I still have to insert the sleeves and attach bias binding to the neckline.  Of course, hem the dress also.  I am debating on the front neckline.  Several reviewers at PR indicated that they shaved off a little at the front neckline as it is very close fitting at the front neck.

Here is a shot of the dress in progress hanging:

And here are a few shots of the front gathers:

Gathers are a little difficult to see when hanging because of the print fabric.  When wearing the gathers show up nicely with the print.  I like this dress so much that I will be making another one soon.

I did shorten the sleeves as I did not want long sleeves for the upcoming warm weather; and my arms are just not pretty for sleeveless.  Though I would make one sleeveless along with a short jacket/cardi so that the gathers would still be noticeable.

Updates later.

Sewing now and then

I have made a little progress on the Vogue knit dress. This has been a busy week at work and by the time both DH and I get home there is not a lot of energy to go around.

Most of the progress has been on serge finishing edges and affixing stay tape to front piece.  I plan to begin the gathering of the side front pieces this evening.  I plan to have the dress completed and started onto another project this weekend.

I did buy one new pattern and some fabric from Mood this week.  I am placing myself on a pattern/fabric diet now.  I have plenty to work with/on at this time.  I don't keep up with how much yardage of fabric I have and how much I have used; I can visualize that I have a lot!! and even get moments of surprises when I find a piece of fabric I had forgotten about.

TGIF!  More later.