V1207
I do plan to follow up on the continuing personal series, and other interesting topics, including some totally new fashion items I can’t wait to show you, but for now, given the Easter smackdown crunch, I want to share some tips preparing this Vogue dress my daughter likes.
It flatters her H shape.
Here’s a photo of a technique I call thread marking of the pleats on the front bodice.
thread marking pleats on the front bodice
It’s easy to line up the thread marked pleats and pin.
front bodice pinned
Charmeuse is very slippery. In the above shot I tried lining up the thread marked points and pinning, but I didn’t get a perfect edge, as you can see.
In working on the sleeve pleats, I came up with a far better technique.
new sleeve thread mark & pull technique!
Instead of knotting each end of the thread mark as I’d done for the front bodice, I left the left edge of each pleat unknotted on the sleeve but left a generous thread trail.
That way, I was able to pull the left-side (unknotted) thread trail to define the pleat, then pin. Kind of like pulling the sails up inside a bottle!
Above, I show the result. Look at that nice edge.
(A Detail re: thread marking — you need to orient each pin vertically to get a good mark.)
sleeve zoom out
sleeve close up
sleeve close up
It’s a labor of love!
{ 22 comments… read them below or add one }
Wow! Lucky her!
Hello my leprechaun one! I guess she’ll be lucky if I don’t wreck the dress. They should do a project runway called “Say Wreck to the Dress” for the losers!
Can’t wait to see it–that is very beautiful fabric, and I love the shape.
Thank you Hannah. I will post photos as I go!
It looks pretty damn aligned to me. Excellent work!
Thank you Kristin! The extra time for hand sewing is worth it I think, to get the best of the intended design features.
Somehow that dress reminds me of the one you’re wearing in your sidebar:).
Hilarious!
I completely forgot about that old dress (that sidebar photo randomly changes — a wordpress thing). You’re right in that both dresses flatter the H-Shape, in part because of the design drawing attention away from the boring H core and over to some spiffy sleeve action.
Like a typical engineer/techie, I may have to get fashion from the inside out!
Oh, this reminds me of the care my mother took in the sewing she did for me. Good luck completing it on time.
Hi Terri, it’s a Summer dress, so hopefully it will be done before it’s officially Summer :-).
Love the back of the dress and great choice on the fabric! Wish I could get back to my machine….dont know what happened…
Hi Paula,
It’s hard to make time for sewing. I’m motivated, because of fit issues.
That’s a very pretty dress, Susan. I bet she’ll look absolutely beautiful in it.
I’m thinking you need to change the name of your blog. :)
Happy Easter to you and your love.
Thank you Angie, and Happy Easter to you and your loves too. I saw your new post — meant to read and comment, but today got away from me, with the early choir call for Easter vigil. We’re singing at both services tomorrow, so tomorrow is shot too, but I’ll be visiting soon!
You’re right I should probably change the blog name, but then again, this one has the whole chain of story, if you know what I mean.
Wow, Susan. You have serious skills, as my brother-in-law would say. ;) I am so glad that you’re reviving them and enjoying creating these wearable works of art. Happy Easter!
Hi Meredith, thank you. Now if I can just get my point-and-shoot camera to take photos as lovely as yours I’ll be all set. Happy Easter to you too!
My goodness Susan, this is a labor of love, i see a lot of pins and threads and strings…I love the dress! BTW, I am getting excited about our visit in Claremont! xoxo
Hi Mona, yes there are a lot of pins and threads :-). I’ll check with Martin and get back to you via email re: a possible place/time to meet in Claremont — thank you for being will to drive there as our schedule is a bit constrained.
How ambitious and adventuresome you are with these fairly complicated patterns. My biggest rule during my sewing days was that the pattern had to be super simple. One nice thing about those days was the absence of waists. Making shift dresses was a snap and once you did the first one and checked the fit, the following dresses could be zipped out in no time.
And whatever happened to that blog break you were going to take?
Pat
Hi Pat, yes it is a bit ambitious working on a pattern like this after not sewing for so many years, but it’s definitely giving me a chance to review the major skill challenges.
I know what you mean about shifts — I used to love them. Now they look like a box on me.
It does look a little like the black dress.
I really like the material. I hope your daughter enjoys it.
Thank you Rose. I’ve almost got the lining pinned to the bodice. Once that’s basted it will be ready for Miss R. to try on. The proof is in the pudding in terms of the fit — I added a back extension to accommodate her broad back, and if that works, the bodice should fit like a dream and I can declare victory since the skirt just drapes down from the bodice.