Tardy Floral Skirt Vogue 1082 and a Red 1179

I'm back... Things were quite hazy the past couple of months but I recalled some skirt dramas, some quilting, really bad wrist pain probably of the carpal tunnel variety, a lot of tug of war and shouting matches with a 2-yr-old plus Bean, and thus culminating to an exasperated moi (and a lil depressed of the usual seasonal variety) decided to pack everything sewing related into the tiny sewing nook/closet and shut the door. Spent days and nights reading/escaping into tonnes of junk and otherwise on my phone (Kindle e-books) that made the hubby pretty worried - I was averaging 3 books per day at the very least and refused to go out other than the weekly grocery shopping with the familia.

As my wrist healed, and my reading frenzy finally cooled off, January 2013 is almost over! :) It felt like forever since the last time I sewed anything! So the best way to get back in the saddle is to cut my yummy red wool jersey (purchased during the local sewing meetup back in October) and made it into my most favorite but boring V1179 dress! :) I think it's my 5th iteration of the pattern, but why not???? At least I know for sure that this will be worn many many times (just as the other 4!), at least while it is still chilly, and it is going to be chilly for a few more months...

Red Wool Jersey: V1179 (no flash)

Red Wool Jersey: V1179 (with flash)

 I did made some adjustment on this version: added some room in the sleeves compared to my black ponte version, made a 3/4-ish roomy sleeves, and a tunic length. I haven't decided on the depth of the cowl I wanted, but now I'm thinking that due to the weight of the fabric (kinda heavy) I'm going to chop off the excess cowl and go with the pattern size as is and stitch it down then. 

The red V1179 done, it was then time to tackle the big elephant in the room: my tardy floral V 1082 skirt for the Carnival of Skirts Sew-a-long. [The piping were all done before I "paused" on the project for a breather and started to finish off a baby quilt for our newborn nephew (husband's side) and quilted placemats for the in laws (looking for pics of these projects, will put them up on the blog for Liz). Wrist pain intensified somewhere between these projects methinks.]

So probably on Friday I unpicked the topstitching I did on the skirt, inserted the invisible zipper (not my best one, but I'll live) and after a lot of basting, fitting, stitching, refitting and resizing a few times (whereby about 2 inches off each side were cut off) I'm finally okay with the skirt on me. I had to shorten the skirt to just covering my knee though and not like the pattern cover picture of mid-calf. Somehow in my head I fancied that I was taller and can carry a mid-calf length skirt, but I guess I'm not and with this floral fabric on my bottom half it further drives the point! :)

Front view: Floral V1082

Back view: Floral V1082

Tardy skirt project roundup:

Pattern: Vogue 1082 (Misses skirt straight or flared -made straight, View A-, mid-calf length -made knee length-, has shaped yoke with contour waist, side panel variations and invisible zipper. Optional piping trim -made with piping-. View A is a lined skirt with back vent. View B is unlined and has a faced yoke.

Fabric: Floral cotton purchased from my very much missed favorite thrift store back in Iowa...

Notions: Minty colored knit type lining material (also thrifted), 9" mustard zipper (thrifted), one 5/8" black square button (stash, purchased new), Talon basting tape (thrifted), black piping (purchased new and ready made from Joann's

To be honest, it is a pretty skirt (design-wise), and the instructions I found easy to follow enough eventhough I'm no pro. 

But I'm still struggling with fit issues, fitting my body shape that is, and making skirt and any type of bottoms will be the bane of my existence for years to come... So I would still recommend this pattern esp for those with fuller hips. For those with narrower hips (I have those :( ), I think the middle panel should be made smaller rather than taking off at the side seams. If you take off at the side seams like I did (because there's no way I'm unpicking the piping after all the work) and have a narrow hip, the piping might end up making you look straight and narrower  (which I didn't want). It might take a long time before I ever attempt to make another version of this skirt though... It is pretty involved...

But anyhow, I'm back in my sewing groove.... :) I might tackle a circle skirt next for the Carnival, since it is apparently the most basic skirt there is even though it's a fabric eater. I had my hubby make a fabric calculator for a circle skirt, and that was what he came out with. It's a work in progress right now, pretty much just as my sewing is!

So, more later!

V1179 - Silk Jersey

Finally, after making 3 versions of V1179 (one is as the pattern picture- kinda a wearable muslin, one I added my tapered sleeves and a deeper cowl, and one i cut into a top rather than a dress and with slimmer sleeves) I made this pattern in THE fabric I've put aside for it one fine day... 

 

Construction:

For this version of V1179, I made it sleeveless like the pattern shows. 

I just hemmed about 1.5 inches though instead of the 4 inches indicated by the instruction. 

Another change in the construction is the way I sew in the cowl collar. The instruction tells you to stitch the notched side of collar first then turn the other side in and then stitch on the right side. I didn't like the look of this on my first version that I decided to hand sew this down on the inside after stitching the notched side of collar onto the dress. This way it looks neater on the outside. I did this on all my previous versions, and is especially important for me on this silk jersey version.

Fabric:

Green block (as described) silk jersey purchased on FabricMart long time ago. Upon inspecting the selvage print when pinning the patterns, it is designed by Cynthia Steffe, and printed by Angel textile? Something like that. The colors are lime green, chartreuse and black.

(p/s: FabricMart is having their Mother's Day sale. 20% off entire website until Monday May 14th.)
 

 One thing I notice when putting this on is that:

1) Silk jersey feels so luxurious to wear

2) It clings on to your body - very unforgiving

So, if you have a woman's body and have to squeeze into your Spanx before putting your silk jersey dresses on, will it still feel buttery soft to wear? Or a slip? What do you think?

V1179: take 3

This is my 3rd top for the SATT-2012 challenge. I've made this pattern (Vogue 1179) twice before, and I think this is one of my favorite patterns so far. Maybe because I like the neckline and shape and it gave me the least trouble when adjusting pattern (because indeed the shape is roomy, hence forgiving...) Easy means you wanna make more, and the more you make the faster it comes together no? :)

For this version I just added long sleeves (like 2nd version), and shortened the length to upper part of the hip on me.

The fabric I got from FabricMart and I love it. It's still for sale on their website for cheap on clearance!

The features that I love about this pattern: cowl neck and pleated front:

The pattern instruction tells you to stitch in the ditch (the cowl neck), but I usually handstitch it down on the inside so that messiness will not show on the outside...
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This week is my wedding anniversary week. I will need to sew me a dress to celebrate, so I will have to take a pause on the challenge which ends on the 15th! But I reached my target of 3, so I'm happy with that, but I have a lotttt of tops I have in my mind that I want to make...

I haven't decided what to do yet... I know I am not going to use the brocade-y eggplant fabric I first earmarked for the anniversary dress - I think it is not season appropriate... So, do I make another V1179 dress in a silk jersey print fabric I've been holding on to, knowing that it will be faster to put together? Or do I make a summery cotton dress which means hassling with pattern adjustment and I might not finish in time for the day but probably get done by the weekend when we will go out for our family anniversary dinner (or not)?

We'll see...

Starting at the top challenge 2012 - Top #3

Gratifying sewing - V1179 part deux

After patchwork sewing for days on end I was super ready to sew clothes for me! Didn't want to mess with having to make muslin, I settled on V1179, a pattern I made before. It did took me the 3rd day to finish it though. Didn't do anything on the second day coz being hogged by the little Bean and was too tired. Sure glad to be able to work on it a lot yesterday.

I use my stash of black ponte de roma knit (still have probably 5-6 yards left! no problem,i have a lot of patterns to try and a girl needs lots of black outfits.. at least this one does since she (moi) is building her own handmade wardrobe from scratch...). I added a long tapered sleeves, and made sure that the inside is as neat as the outside as possible. A lot of topstitching. .

I also made the cowl collar thicker, i like the snood look. Also, i stitched down the pleat at the chest a little, i think I read that this was what Carolyn of Diary of a Sewing Fanatic did too? My first version i just basted and let em out as per pattern instruction/picture on packet, and i liked the look, decided to try stitching for this one, and liked it too.

Haven't worn it yet, so here's photo of it on hanger:

This V1179 is definitely a pattern that I can make more and more of! However, for the sake of learning, i will attempt other shapes... :) Another dress or 2 i think. After all it's the holiday season,hehehe...

Completed - DKNY Vogue 1179

me in silly hat

Hello! Here it is, my very first from-scratch knit dress all done, worn (trip to do our groceries and Goodwill - I lead such exciting life, yawn) and laundered.

I actually completed the dress very very early Tuesday morning (which is why the hemming is atrocious, but I can live with that for my very first knit attempt).

The pattern V1179 is very easy to follow, very beginner friendly (and just 3 pattern pieces) and I can see myself making more of this (I do have 10 yds of black ponte knit I bought from FabricMart.com recently!) in near future.

I first saw this dress on the Sewing Fanatic blog and thought that it looked great on the author, and subsequently saw a few other equally lovely versions around the blog world. So, when I stumbled across the recent BMV sale (i wasn't a member or anything, so I probably found this out from one of the blogs i read, or saw the ad somewhere) I had to have it (and 11 other patterns :( ) For someone who has only started, i have a huge stash of patterns (i haven't count them though, but believe me, it's a lot, like at least close to 50). Most of them I got for a quarter each at my favorite local thrift store (this is my favorite thing about US: thrift stores! we don't have them back in Malaysia).

Anyways, I think I follow the instructions okay, although I made some judgement call on the order of things. And I also added some stay tape on the neckline. I don't think the pattern ask you to, but i read that some others thought that it needed it and my heavy knit fabric sure does.

The fabric i used for this dress was from my stash. The color is very light yellow with bluish gray swirls, kinda look like lollipop i suppose, but it's not. I can't remember what type of knit it is (probably poly with lycra?) but it has a heavy drape. I did not fancy it as fabric when it arrived (bought this from Fabric.com a year ago along with lots of very very nice quilting cottons) and my thought was to use this as a muslin (since i never sewn knits before) but I like it okay as a finished garment. :D

Eventhough it is now fall and midwest winter is harsh, I can see me wearing it year round. I am all for layering anyways (unfortunately I still manage to feel a bit cold in the summer too!), and winter just means more layers for me.

So there. It took me days to finally put this up - the taking pictures part is my problem. But I did say i want to have a space to "document" my projects. I want to have a blog for a lot of reasons but i don't want people I know in real life to see it. That's silly i guess, what with Facebook and all the other social networking thing we got. But if I can, I'm keeping them separate.

Anyways, thing is, I have a bunch of projects going on in my head at a time, so once I'm done with one thing, I go straight into another. Right now I'm working on what I can consider as my winter staple: sweater dresses. I realise that when I was working, I practically live in the 2 sweater dresses that i had (but since I wore my down jacket even indoors at my desk in my office it didn't matter if i wear them everyweek), I know that this year I definitely have to make some. But that will be for another post.

Till then!