Danvillegirl Sewing Diary

I fell in love with this peplum top pattern after reading A Sewing Life's blog and post on Pattern Review.













When I read the following from her review at PR, I knew that I wanted to try this pattern:
"The peplum portion of the top flares only at the sides, keeping the front and back panels straight. Since I consider my front-to-back depth to be more of an issue than my side-to-side width, I thought this type of peplum might work better for my figure than those which have a flare that goes all the way around the body."
So of course, I went to Jo Ann's to buy the pattern and they did not have it in my size.  I also liked this NewLook pattern.


Of course, they did not have this in the drawer.  So I ordered from Simplicity website paying a little more than I would have at Jo Ann's but less than full price.
Since I am on a top sewing jag at this time I plan to make the peplum top next.    I have a lightweight, faux leather fabric from Mood that I plan to try.  

I have fallen off the wagon on buying fabric.  Probably due to change of season and not really liking anything particular in my stash.  Here is collage of the fabric I purchased this month.
Top right is silver metallic boucle fabric.  This was not what I expected and I will have to ponder on what type jacket I will use to make this.  More glitzy than I thought it would be.  The left top, second and third from left top are free fabrics from Fabric Mart.  The second from right top is a cotton suiting fabric in lemon, white and gray.  The iris/orchid floral print is rayon challis.  The bottom right fabric has been sold on various websites and I finally bought it.  I have seen dresses and skirts made from this fabric; my thought was dress.  The bottom left is teal, gold floral rayon challis.

My top is complete!  It is really a comfortable top to wear and think that I will make another version of it before vacay in June.

Here are a few shots I took this afternoon after grocery shopping--

Tomorrow is Good Friday and a holiday for me!!!  So looking forward to time off and I am taking Monday as PTO.   I have plans to sew!

I have Coverstitch machine set up and ready to hem the Vogue top.  I ordered some fabric which arrived yesterday.  Ordered from Fabric Mart, my fabric bundle was a practical bundle, some lining fabric and a nice feeling knit fabric.  Photos tomorrow.

More later.

My first top for the Top Sew Along is Vogue 1306.   I tried it on and I really like it.  I plan to take a vacay to the beach this summer and I see this as a loose fitting top for beachwear.

Here are a few shots of the top on a hanger; my Sunday appearance is not for picture taking of garments on me.
It still needs hemming as do the sleeves.  The back is longer than the front and this is not seen on the model wearing this version.  I like though.
















This is the back view.


















Here is a close up of the placket.  This was the most challenging part for me and coupled with fiddly fabric it became a real issue.  It is OK but need to learn how to do this better.

Final shot is the inside view of the fuse and gather tape.  It is a pretty good product to use as an alternative way of making gathers.  You lay the tape down so the blue thread is on top, the white thread is fusible thread.  You tie off one end of the blue threads and then pull the other end to make the gathers.

I think my next top is a r…

I got some sewing time in yesterday off and on. For a simple top, or I should say, I thought it was going to be simple top it is proving to be a little more time consuming than I had anticipated.

Thought the fabric is lovely, and thank you to all who commented about the fabric, it is a little fiddly to sew.  The biggest challenge was the placket.  I don't sew plackets much and actually can not remember the last time I did.  The pattern instructions, IMHO, left out a step or two; Vogue truly seemed to think that everyone knows what to do to get the placket overlapped and turned perfectly.  After many looks at the illustrations, I came up with what appears to be the final step.  Let's say what I did was the final step.  The instructions have you double stitch around the edges and that made my placket look much better and held everything in place.

For the waist dart gathers, I tried out a new product to me from Nancy's Notions.  You fuse the strip to the area you want to gat…

This is to be my first top for the 2013 Top Sew-Along.  The pattern also qualifies for the Pattern Stash contest on Pattern Review.  The fabric has been washed and ready to go.

I also made some pattern adjustments with a few more to go.  Here is the FBA I made and will ease the side dart created by the adjustment instead of actually sewing the dart.

The fabric is a rayon knit I purchased sometime last year.

I mentioned a few posts back that I had purchased some fabric and thought I would share those with you.
From Vogue Fabrics, I purchased the following pieces.  The solid is a suiting fabric and the other two pieces were swatches together with this suiting and both are knits.





This fabric I recently purchased from Nancy's Notions; it is a cotton lightweight for a blouse or top of some sort. Floral prints seem to be every where so thought I will make up a few floral garments.

I have basically completed the dress but still tweaking.  My expectation for this dress and the outcome are not quite in sync.  
The dress has cutting lines for 14-16 and for 18-20 (or 22); not for 14, 16, 18 and 20.  I am not sure if that is a factor or not but this dress has, on me anyway,  a lot of ease!  I took even deeper seams at the waistline on the side seams and took deeper seams below bust stopping at  waist, then below tummy, I took deeper seams to hem line.   
Once I inserted the sleeves on the dropped shoulder, it had a different look and unfortunately not one I think I like.  I may try inserting a raglan/dropped shoulder pad, not very thick to see if this helps the drape of the sleeve.
The only thing left to do is hem it and sew hook and eye for back closure.  I am somewhat disappointed with the dress as the drawing on the model gave me a different idea on who this dress was going to look.  Photos later.
Next up is tops as I want to participate in Faye's top sew alon…

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I made numerous tweaks to the Vogue dress taking deeper seams below bust down on front princess seams as well as taking deeper seams in upper back to back waist line.  I also took deeper side seams using 7/8 inch instead of 5/8.

The pattern has cutting lines for 14/16 and then separate cutting line for 18-22.    With the deeper seams taken I almost think I could have used a 12 except at the bust area. 

I only need to stitch bias tape around neckline, hem sleeves, dress and attach fastener at the back neckline and I will have a new dress to wear next week.

My next project may be a faux leather skirt.  I also want to make another Vogue dress pattern,

I have fabric washed and ready to go.  Fabric is from EOS and is a print.


 I plan to make the one with sleeves but change the length to ballet or 3/4 length.

This morning while reading pattern reviews at PR, I went to a new blog and wanted to subscribe to this blog.  When I attempted to save to Google Reader, I got a message that this reader will be retiring July 1.

Perhaps you dear reader knew this.  My question is what other reader resources are available that you may currently use? Ease of use? etc.

Dress in progress.

I was able to cut out the fabric yesterday and sewed all the front and side front pieces together along with the back and side back pieces.  Yokes were basted to both front and back pieces with sides and shoulders still to be basted for fitting.

This is a real easy to sew dress and the fabric I am using is easy to sew as well.  This is fabric I acquired from Vogue Fabrics last year.  It has a look of fall to it; though I think we will get a few more cooler days between now and April.










I made a Magic Pencil skirt from the same fabric in a different colorway.  I chose to line the skirt but did not line this dress fabric, hoping I made the right decision about this.   I have another fabric piece I am considering using to make another dress from this pattern.

More later.

I  finalized the fit of this pattern so I can cut out the fabric.  I made my usual adjustments-swayback, forward shoulder, 1.5 inch FBA, 3/8 horizontal tuck in upper chest and back.  The serger and sewing machine are set to sew.  I only need to cut out the fabric.

I had great sewing plans for this afternoon and then I did a stupid thing backing out of my driveway this AM, doing some minor (feels like major) damage to bottom edge of front fender.  I turned too much and hit the a low rock wall that runs along the edge of the driveway.   I am not a good backing out the driveway driver at all.  It is fixable without major work but still---.  I kept stewing over it and just cold not put it aside to start sewing the dress.

I did complete some UFO's that needed small fixes.  One was to hem the sleeves on the Burda top and now that is wearable.  I made a blue skirt several months ago but needed to tack the lining at the front split, now that is done and will finally wear this.  My faux re…

I have to say that the outcome for this top was disappointing.  When I tested the ruffles on this before I sewed it I thought that it was going to show up well.  The photos clearly show that they really get lost in the design of the fabric.  I have at least perfected the fit of the top for me so I may try a solid color in the future, not near future though.  Too many other things I want to work on.

Without further ado, here are some photos of the top.  This is after coming home from work and did not touch up the makeup nor did much to the hair, the wind was rough on it today.

This is the back and front of the ruffled sleeves.  This is about the only way you can see them.

Here I am wearing it with the sleeves at full length before hemming.

Here are the sleeves at the right length.
As you can tell I raised the neckline and perhaps I could have kept some of the depth.  Again some thoughts for another top for the future.

The Burda top is complete except for hemming the sleeves.  Gosh they are long!!!!  Even reducing the length they are still very long.  I understand from reading PR reviews for this top that the hem width is wide so you can turn back the sleeve and have a cuff.  

I did not get that from the instructions (surprise!!!) and when you look at the model's version you might guess that and then you might not.    The top is really more of tunic and I took about about 1.5 inches when drafting the pattern.  There were two lengths to choose from and I ended up choosing the shorter length and it was still long on me.  I cut off another 1.5 inches before actually hemming the top.

The ruffles on my top are somewhat hidden when I have it own and I think that is because of the print of the knit.  When you look at it laying on table, you can see the ruffles better.  I will take photos to post later.

My next project is


I cut out the pattern pieces and made many of my usual adjustments.  I need to pi…

I took opportunities during the week to work on the second version of the Burda top after incorporating all the changes discussed in this post.  They were the right ones to do.  The only thing left is to add the neck line binding.

I tried on the top last night and I have a gap at the center back.  I could probably make too little tucks on each side of the center back before attaching the neck band.  Or take deeper seam at the back shoulder area of the raglan sleeve.   Because of the ruffles on the sleeves, taking a deeper seam there may affect those.

Once I complete this, I plan to pin fit several patterns in my pattern line up so I can then proceed with next projects.  One will be this dress that I keep seeing pop up on several blogs as well as PR.

I have a lovely print knit purchased from EOS sometime late last year that I plan to use.  It is washed and ready to go.  It definitely matches up to the stretch test on the pattern envelope.

Another pattern on my to sew list is Vogue 878…