Danvillegirl Sewing Diary

This is the front of the dress.  I still need to take up the side seams a little more through the waist area to have a little essence of waist.  This is really a shift (sack) dress.  I still need to add the bias binding at the neck, hem the sleeves and the dress.
Here is a shot of the back of the dress and will need to add hook and eye.

V8805 is progressing nicely.  I attached all front and back pieces and then basted shoulder and side seams for my first fitting. Let me say that this dress has a potential of being a sack. That is not the look I am going for.  By doing this fitting I realized that  I failed to take a horizontal tuck across the upper chest and upper back pattern pieces; I had taken a 3/8 vertical tuck as for my petite frame this drop shoulder can look pretty droopy without doing this.  To remedy the failed crosswise tuck, I took an additional 1/2 inch seam allowance at the shoulder seam.  This worked well.

I decided I needed to taking a deeper side seam just below the bust dart and stopping right at the hip line.  I needed some essence of waist with this dress.  With my second fitting, I decided I could still take a deeper waist area seam.

I was able to get the side seams to lineup well.  Will show this later in some photos.  As I mentioned in a previous post, I wish I had just sewed a lining for thi…

Yesterday I took a vacation day to spend some time with DH who has been having some health issues and doctor had him out of work for needed rest.  After getting my hair cut, we went to one of our favorite restaurants for a light lunch; then grocery shopping and then home.

The next few hours were spent basting the underlining fabric to the crepe fabric.  With 20/20 hindsight I wish I had just sewed a lining and attached at the neckline.  The process I used, though I thought would be quicker has proven to be tedious as the crepe fabric can be somewhat difficult to handle along with the slippery lining fabric.  Nonetheless, all the top and middle fabric pieces have been underlined now.  As I mentioned in a previous post, the bottom piece is thicker crepe fabric than the cream and pink so I am not underlining that piece.

Next will be to attach the front pieces together; then the back pieces and then attach front to back.  That is not how the pattern instructions would have you do it but I…

Today I finally decided to wear the Vogue peplum top and the McCall’s skirt.  I received numerous compliments about the colors and the summery floral print.
As to wear ability—let me say that I will wear this again but there are a few things that I will adjust when making the next peplum top.
First, I will shortened the width of the shoulders.  It felt large.

Second, I will lengthen the bodice by an inch to 1 1/2 inches.  It feels short-waisted but that appears to be how it looks on the pattern envelope.  I felt myself pulling the top down after I had sat in my office chair for awhile.

Third, I had folded out about a 1/2 inch in the upper chest and upper back to bring the underarm seam up for a petite.  I still felt the underarms were low.

Other than that, I did like the top and skirt together.  The skirt felt a little loose in the waist but not too much, actually it proved to be more comfortable as they day went on.

Here are the photos I took before leaving to go to work:

I cut out underlinings for the cream fabric and attached.  I also cut out underlining for the pink fabric but have not attached.  I was so fortunate that I had this in my fabric stash. 

I decided to use an off white, somewhat cream colored thread on the serger.  I did not want to thread and rethread the serger using threads that matched each section.  I started to use each color but felt that pink and lavender may be seen through the cream fabric even with it underlined.

More later.

I pin fitted the dress pattern yesterday and determined I needed 1/2 inch FBA.  That was an easy fix.  I also had to make my usual upper round 5/8 inch adjustment, forward shoulder, shorten hip length, add back 1 inch to the hemline due to shortening hip length (I tend to forget to do that, as I usually take out about 2 inches) and swayback adjustment.  Because of the dropped sleeves and my petite size, I folded out 3/8 inch at the shoulder for the front and back pieces.   I completed all of this last night, taking about 2 hours from pin fitting to actual adjustments.

The dress is now cut out and basically ready to sew.  The cream colored crepe is very "see through" as the crepe fabric is on the thin side so I plan to underline with cream colored lining fabric.  The pink fabric too was thin and will underline that also.

I had some real issues cutting out the pink fabric; fortunately for me I normally buy more fabric online than a pattern calls for "just in case".  …

Normally before I start to sew a certain pattern, I read through the instructions to get a feel for how it goes together versus how I thought it was going to be sewn.  I then think about their method and my method if different.  Many times I have chosen to prepare the garment using the instructions and other times I don't.

I pulled out the pattern instructions for the upcoming 3 color block dress and was thrilled to see that the pattern has B, C, and D cup sizes.  Whoohoo!!! I either did not pay any attention to that when I purchased the pattern or just simply forgot about it.  That makes pattern fitting so much easier.

I have decided I am going to use the cream, pale pink and lavender fabric for this dress When I purchased these fabric pieces I bought more of the cream fabric as I wanted to make two versions of this dress.  Yet if I decide not to do that, I have it for something else.

For now I am off to CURVES.  I am so happy that my neck and shoulder pain has pretty much gone a…

I have been on a fabric diet of late.  I keep seeing so many fabrics in my sewing room stash just waiting for my attention that I have forced stopped myself from clicking on the cart purchase at various fabric sites.

I really liked the look of this pattern as soon as it became available, so of course I purchased it.  I thought about using some double knit fabric but I have not found the color combo I wanted in double knit, so decided to acquire some crepe fabric and took advantage of a sale at Fashion Fabrics.  Here are the fabrics I acquired because I could not make up my mind as to the combo I wanted besides wanting to use a cream color for the top piece.



I am not sure what combo I will use.  This will be my next project.

Yeah! my skirt is finally complete. I used this technique to attach the lining to the zipper; a different way of attaching from how I normally do.  I then attached the facings to the skirt and then tacked the facings at various seams to the lining fabric.

Just a few shots of the skirt
I plan to wear this to work this week and will take the "wearing" photos then.

As previously posted, the power outage interrupted my previous sewing momentum.  After being home finally after a week in a hotel and getting food restocked and some resumption of normal life, my sewing mojo somewhat disappeared.

This past Monday I traveled to Richmond for a state government committee meeting in the late afternoon getting caught up in heavy duty rain, driving through areas where roadwork slowed down traffic to a crawl along with the rain; coming up on a wreck which slowed traffic some more and getting caught in a heavy evening commute, my usual 2.5 to 3 hour trip took me 4 hours.  By the time I got checked into the hotel, I was too tired to go to Hancock's Fabric as is my habit or even Short Pump Mall.  I went to dinner and then returned to my room to do some work that needed my attention via the computer.

Tuesday's business meeting went well but long.  After a quick trip to Nordstroms, I drove back to Roanoke without all the travel woes I had traveling to Ri…

Last Friday, I was so excited that I could spend the weekend completing my McCall's skirt.  DH was late getting home and I had gone grocery shopping after work so that would reduce my time to do that chore on Saturday.  Once DH was home, we ate a light dinner (supper) and watched a little TV.  He decided it was time to take a shower as it was close to 9 PM.

While watching TV, the floor lamp light near where I set, flickered a few times and I thought then I really needed to get some new light bulbs.  When DH went to take a shower, the power went out, then came back on, then out again, on again and finally out for the night.  We were able to sleep through the night in spite of the high temperatures. Saturday was suppose to be close to 100 degrees.

Saturday AM-still no power.  We decide to go out for breakfast.  Let me say that power surges and outages are somewhat typical for our neighborhood; no rhyme or reason to be given to us from APCo for this in the 9 years that we have lived …