Projects & Preoccupations: tailoring

This post is a bit of catch up and covers new work. I created a dress using Simplicity Pattern 4298, from 1962. I created a muslin first as this was my first dress project. I practiced the tough parts: the interfacing, skirt gathers, and putting together the bodice and the skirt. The skirt and bodice on the muslin version didn't match up, so I was really careful with working with the better fabric. I got great fabric from Peapod Fabrics on 18th Ave. at Irving in San Francisco.

The dress took me forever. I was petrified of doing something wrong and messing up the fabric, but finally, finally, I got it done except for the zipper.

I just couldn't get the damn thing in correctly. So wanting to stop the torture, I took the dress and zipper to my friendly neighborhood tailor/dry cleaning place, and they put the zipper in for $15. What a life saver! I thought I was going to have a melt down (I tried 5 times, I really tried).

Despite the pretty fabric and a pretty good job on the construction, the dress just looked, well, frumpy. So just last weekend, I got confident enough to try a bit of tailoring. I asked advice of a few friends, then experimented with the muslin version and came up with the solution to enlarge and extend the existing darts in the waist/back. It worked pretty great and with a much improved fit around the waist, it looks much more flattering I think. With that success, I had the confidence to try my first belt. It came out alright, it wasn't hard at all, except the end point of the belt (that goes through the buckle).

The directions here are so fabulously vague. Step 1, turn fabric over pointed end as shown, baste. Then voila! Somehow, through some mysterious steps, you get the perfect end point of the last illustration. Amazing!

So, I folded over, as per the directions....

And then what? I fold it back over and do what with all the extra fabric and how do I shape it into that perfect arrow shape. Sigh.

So then I just tried something different. I realize now that part of sewing is the confidence to play around and not follow the directions word-for-word. For some reason that's really hard for me...but getting easier.

I then tried to find a good vintage plastic belt buckle. I went to the fabric store in my area and then to my favorite vintage store La Rosa Vintage, but alas they didn't have exactly what I wanted (but I bought a couple gorgeous buckles for future use). Then I went to the thrift store and bought an ugly belt for $2.49; it had a pretty good shaped metal buckle. I was hoping I could figure out how to cover it. For some reason the belt buckle kits that come in two pieces, add fabric and snap the pieces together, no longer exists anywhere. I searched a long time on the web. Anyway, I tried a bunch of different methods and finally hit on a plan.