Garment Sewing > amy a la mode

Summer Wardrobe Sewing Recap

Posted by Amy on September 19th, 2011

I feel like I have been doing terrible with my goals this year (remember that my New Year’s resolution was to learn to crochet? nope, haven’t done that yet), but my new summer wardrobe turned out pretty darn well, I have to say!

If you remember back on June 15, I posted some possible projects to help build up my rather sad wardrobe. Here’s how I did!

1. Vintage Dress, version 1
Version 1 was technically completed the week before, but I decided to include it here. Close enough! I got the pattern for free and bought the fabric on a whim after seeing it in a banner Susan Beal had brought with her when she did the book signing at Bobbin’s Nest. I was super excited that it worked out so well for this dress!

2. Vintage Dress, version 2
Guess I never got a shot of me wearing this one. Used the Jay McCarroll fabric I bought over my birthday weekend in Pacific Grove and a coordinating small print I got from Bobbin’s Nest. Same pattern as above that I got for free.

3. Lisette Market Skirt
No shots of me wearing this one either, but it has turned out to be great for kickin’ around. I got the pattern at a $1.99 sale and the fabric is left over from pants I made ages ago.

4. Shorts
It’s hard to play favorites, but I could seriously wear these out soon. Even despite the fact that it’s rarely been warm enough for shorts here this summer. LOVE THEM. Pattern is basically the pants pattern I’ve been using over and over again from the Sew U book, and the fabric is left over from the second version of the Sew U pants that I made. I think I might have bought a zipper.

5. Bias Cut Skirt
I didn’t really need another of these, but there you have it. I haven’t worn this one yet, but I’m sure it will make the rounds frequently as it gets cooler. The pattern is one I copied from a skirt my sister had, and I’ve had the fabric in my stash for ages.

6. Lisette Passport Dress
Also loving this to death. I can tell you now that this pattern will be worn out eventually. I purchased the pattern on the $1.99 sale and picked up the fabric on a trip to Vietnam a couple of years ago. Might have enough left to make one of those Market Skirts out of…

7. Liesl Sweater
Okay, I know this isn’t sewing, but I made it this summer and it was my first sweater ever, and I made it specifically to go with the dress I made early in the year. This sweater was bargain basement as well. The pattern was maybe $8 and, since I get a discount where I work, the yarn was super duper cheap as well. The whole thing probably cost me under $30.

The one project I attempted that I never had the patience to figure out what to do with was the Lisette Market blouse. The sleeves were so tight I basically couldn’t lift my arms. I’ve decided that if I want to make this, I’ll have to do some treatment with elastic.

That issue also deterred me from trying one of the other Lisette dress patterns that I bought, because it appeared to have basically the same sleeve.

And I’ve decided that I want to use the blue shirting and the last MoMo Wonderland in my stash to make another Passport dress. But in the spring. Definitely in the spring!

I’m really excited at how I was able to make so many garments with fabric and patterns I already had on hand. I ended up buying a number of zippers and possibly a little thread, but I used up all kinds of weird thread colors and grungy old fabric I had to do the muslins, so this turned out to be a very inexpensive new wardrobe – three dresses, two skirts, a pair of shorts, and a sweater! And another dress already lined up for the spring. Sweet.

I think it’s time to get back to quilts!!

Lisette Passport Dress

Posted by Amy on September 16th, 2011

I have so many things to catch up on with you guys that it’s really hard to decide where to start. But I am eager to show you the last of my Summer Wardrobe Sewing, so let’s do the Lisette Passport Dress, okay? Great!

I had another big win with this pattern, as far as I’m concerned. I love how this dress fits in the end and I think it would be great in all kinds of fabrics — I used the second piece of linen that I bought in Hanoi a couple years ago. But getting this to fit did take me three muslins, if I remember correctly.

But now, any time I want a quick new dress, this is definitely the go-to pattern.

I again had the help of my awesome friend and coworker, Dolin, with the fitting on this. It would never have turned out so fabulously without her help!

Here’s the rundown of alterations I had to do:

1. Shortened the waist (as usual).
2. Swayback adjustment to the back bodice (pretty much as usual as well).
3. Adjustments to the armholes in the front and back to keep them from gaping.
4. Took a touch out of the center back.
5. Moved the darts in the front a bit. So, this pattern has only a single set of dart lines for the front no matter what size you are cutting. This pattern seemed to run really small, so I was making a fairly big size, and the darts were way too far in. But these aren’t like normal darts, and the pattern piece is a VERY weird shape, so moving these was kind of fudge-y.
6. I did not sew the darts all the way up. In fact, with every muslin I did I sewed them up less and less. I just preferred this look to the all the way sewn up look.
7. The pattern had front and back facings, but they only went about half-way down the armholes and it called for finishing the armholes with bias tape. Yuck. Did not like that suggestion, so I redrew the facings to do all-in-one facings. SOOOO much more finished looking. Love this treatment. (If you are interested in this method, they’ve just done a detailed post about it over at Colette for a sew-along they are doing.) Because of that, I had to move the top of the zipper (which is on the left side) down an inch or two to keep it away from the facings.

Is that everything? I think so.

I think this is a lovely pattern overall, and love that the designer paid enough attention to line up the darts in the back bodice with the pleats in the back skirt. A very professional touch to the design.

I’m thinking in the spring I will do a two-fabric version of this dress using the tiny MoMo Wonderland print for the skirt and the blue shirting from Hanoi for the top. It would be so cute!

Summer Sewing Project 4 – Return of the Vintage Dress

Posted by Amy on July 22nd, 2011

I finally have some photos of the second vintage dress, even if it’s just on the hanger and not on me. This one is all kinds of crazy loud!!

The tiny print I used for the yoke and the pockets both tones it down and makes it crazier. That tiny print ended up being a little bit heavier fabric than the other fabric, or the fabric from the other dress. Because of that, the top of this one is a bit stiffer when I have it on, which isn’t great. But this is definitely a less fancy version of this dress compared to the other one, so I’m okay with that.

My main problem is that this dress does not look right without appropriate jewelry. It NEEDS a big, long, chunky wooden necklace. Something like this, maybe? The other dress could use that too, but I get around the problem by wearing that orange flower pin. I don’t have any alternatives for this dress. I’ve been looking around and haven’t found anything yet. Let me know if you see anything anywhere that would work!

Change of Pace

Posted by Amy on July 18th, 2011

I hope you all had a great weekend! We saw Harry Potter yesterday. Fun!

I have finished the second version of the vintage dress, but I don’t have any pictures of that, so that will be coming soon for you!

I also spent some more time working on the sleeves for the Lisette Market top. Thanks so much to everyone who made some suggestions to me on how to fix the fact that they are too tight. Unfortunately, nothing seemed to work.

I tried making them wider, but then they looked too big for my kind of scrawny arms. I tried making the outside longer, and that didn’t loosen things up enough. I’m considering trying out how this would look sleeveless, but I haven’t gotten up the energy for that yet. I think I’ll move on to one of the other two dress muslins I want to make from the other Lisette patterns.

In the meantime, I made a little sample for the shop on Sunday. It’s the lawn cosmetic bag from the 1, 2, 3 Sew book by Ellen Luckett Baker. This is a really cute book, and this was a pretty quick little project.

The lining is this cute fabric from Michael Miller. It’s called Toot Toot. I love that!

The top corners were a little bit fussy. They wouldn’t have been as fussy if I had installed the ribbon tabs the correct way initially. Whoops. But it all came out okay in the end.

In other exciting news, my father’s quilt is back from the Amish quilter and it looks BEAUTIFUL! I’ll try to get some photos of that for you soon as well. I have the binding made and will hopefully get it sewed onto the quilt so I can get going on hand-finishing that. I would LOVE to have that quilt done by the time my parents visit in the middle of August!

Summer Sewing – Return of the Bias Cut Skirt

Posted by Amy on July 15th, 2011

Now that I have my sewing machine back, I’m cookin’ on my new summer wardrobe project! I finished hand-stitching the hem on this skirt Wednesday night.

Yes, this skirt looks suspiciously like this one that I made about a year ago.

I like to think of the original one as the spring/summer version, and the new one as the fall/winter version.

The more I thought about the red piece of fabric that I still had in my stash, the more I thought that this skirt was the best use of that fabric. It wouldn’t make a good top, was probably too heavy for a dress and likely not enough of it for that anyhow. You wouldn’t make pants out of this. And I have gotten SOOOO many compliments on the original version, that I just thought, what they heck, I’ll just make another one of those.

And now I have.

Except that this time I put in an invisible zipper.