Whole lot ta tweaking going on!

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 this dress instead of the underlining.  It has created a few sewing hiccups along the way.

All I have left to do now is sew seam binding around the neckline; hem the sleeves and dress.  Even with my sewing hiccups, it is exciting to know that I was able to sew this up fairly quick.

Photos to follow.

Underlining

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.

All but the snaps

The jacket is now complete except for sewing on the snaps.  I decided I wanted to try to cover them.  I need to practice this; so I need to pull up a couple of bookmarked blog postings that others have so nicely shared on how to do this. So for now taking breather.

Here are some photos of the completed jacket-front view

And front view with collar folded back-

And back view

Side view

with dart

 

 

 

 

This is inside front showing underlining.

My first jacket for 2011.  A nice and rather easy jacket to sew to start the Jacket a Month.

KS sewing update

Here is the bodice part of the KS 3760 dress. I love sewing with quality fabric. It makes a lot of difference. Upper left photo shows neckband attached, side seams not sewn yet. Upper right shows the underlining. Middle left shows how I attached the neckband and seams not finished; middle right shows serge finished seam. Bottom photo is a side view in the mirror of the bodice with side seam stitched. I also took a deeper bust seam from upper curve of the princess seam to about an inch above the waist.

Light sewing today

It was a gorgeous but very hot spring day, highs in upper '80's. So DH and I spent the morning riding on our motorcycle. We traveled to a local hole in the wall restaurant about 40 minutes from our home, thinking we were going to have a lunch of southern style vegetables. Only the restaurant serves breakfast only on Saturdays so we had a late breakfast. Very good one.

We then rode for about another hour enjoying the weather and our time together. After returning home, change clothes to shorts and sandals heading out to do some necessary shopping. Fast forward about 5 hours and arrived home after having an early bird dinner. After watching the Preakness, I finally made it to the sewing room where I got all machines set up and began working on the KS dress.

I had an idea percolating since I cut out the fabric. I want to try a pintuck idea for the waist insert. I have to say it is influenced by some of my sewing books as well as seeing some pintucking ideas on other's blogs. This required me to determine what color thread I should use.
After auditioning several embroidery threads, I made a decision to use a Sulky Ultratwist Thread. I believe it will blend with the various colors of the fabric's polka dots.

I decided I will underline the bodice and began the process of attaching the underlining to the bodice front and back pieces. I completed that for the back and then stitched the back darts.
I ended the sewing of the evening to watch a funny movie with DH.

Tomorrow will be a more focused sewing day.