Thursday 21 January 2016

January dress - pattern progress

I've not yet reached the cutting out stage, but I did locate the fabric in storage and pre-shrink it.  I also discovered that I'd catalogued it as being 150cm wide, when it's only 112cm wide. Thankfully I still have plenty of fabric, but there won't be enough left over to make a blouse or shirt from it too.

I've started copying the original pieces. The 7 smaller pieces were traced onto sandwich paper, and I need to set up a larger work area to trace the wider pieces onto my architect tracing paper. So glad that I bought it, after I decided life was too short to stick longer pieces of sandwich paper together when I could buy a 45metre roll in a choice of widths. 

I'd like to cut the mock up out tomorrow night, so that means tonight I need to finish tracing off the pattern pieces, and raid the mockup stash. I'm wondering if I can get away with a full bust adjustment, and there's only one way to find out.  Though I will also need to do the height adjustment on the bodice pieces.

Tuesday 19 January 2016

Needing a non dress-a-month 1920s dress



Last night I got my January dress fabric out of storage and pre-shrunk it. I also discovered that it's only 112cm wide, not the 150cm. I'd thought for the past 6 years.  Thankfully I have enough fabric for the pattern, though there won't be enough for a dress and blouse.

My Dress-A-Month plan is external to any costume sewing I have to do, so the Australia Day weekend I'll be making another dress to wear early in February.

The Roaring 20s festival is on next month in the Blue Mountains and I've nothing suitable in either my real life or costume wardrobes (yes I have one for each).  To be honest I'm so not a flapper era shape. What I am is a bit of a nerd/geek/dork who cares about being well dressed.  So I also scoped my 1920s suitable fabrics, and with a lot of flip-flopping on decisions I'm going to use some silk/cotton voile I bought near the end of 2007.  It's seafoam, a colour that isn't out of period and angular enough a floral to be art deco.  I don't think I'll ever get around to using it as a sheer crinoline era dress - my original vision - but I can get use from the fabric now. I still might have 10metres left at the end so we'll see if I can have my cake and eat it too.

I'm borrowing a pattern - mainly cos I refuse to have bare arms as my shoulders are narrow and my arms and bust are not. It makes me feel uncomfortable and I can't quite see this fabric in the dress pattern I have (Past Patterns 3212, a 1925-26 dress) or maybe I should.  I'm borrowing a Vintage Vogue pattern 2535 from Desir Brulant, which has a capelet to cover my upper arms.

Now I'm flip flopping on the pattern to use.  I'm not usually so indecisive, so it shows that i can't see myself in this era.



Monday 18 January 2016

picking my fabric and dress pattern for January

I had chosen a 1930s pattern for this fabric, but it's been impossible to find a dark contrast for the collar.  I definitely don't want white, as white makes me look unwell and I've looked for at least 5 years to find a suitable match. Time to use update my thinking for the fabric and chose another pattern.


I looked at my vintage patterns, and fabrics and have picked this Home Journal pattern as being most likely to work with the swiss cotton fabric. The instructions will be hilariously brief on the back of this envelope, so thankfully I've sewn from original unprinted patterns since I was in my very late teens.
























Friday 15 January 2016

Returning from an unplanned hiatus (aka blogging break)

2015 wasn't the best year ever, and some of those reasons lead to me taking an unplanned break from writing any posts ... even when I had things to share. I'm putting notes in a 2016 happiness jar so that on the less pleasant days I can look back at the good things of this year.
I'm motivated to do some non-costume related sewing - I have existing deadlines for costumes and seem to leave real life clothing on the side burner.
I really prefer wearing dresses in summer - and some wrap dresses in winter too. Plus I have plenty of fabric and patterns.  I look back and remember wearing dresses all the time, and can't quite figure out why I stopped making them for so long. 
So I'm hoping to keep myself productive and motivated by setting my own challenge for the year - making a new real life dress each month this year.
First up was going to be my new strawberry print fabric, which I thought will be made in a 70s retro pattern I bought on ebay about 3 years ago. BUT yesterday the eternal magpie within within spotted another 50s mail order pattern on The Ebay so bid for it and won it today. Now I'll have to wait for it to fly across the pacific to my grabby hands before I can use it for the strawbs print.
So, now I have to select another fabric and pattern for January.
 ummmm.

ummmmmm, I need to put my thinking hat on.