Simplicity 6117

Hello again, friends! I'm back with a groovy shift dress, made from a few yards or gorgeous Nani Iro double gauze. This is Simplicity 6117, a one-piece shift dress from 1965 with a tie waist that gives some nice shape and pizzazz.

This double gauze is a dream. First off, I'm not sure I've ever worked with any fabric that was more accurately named. It literally is two layers of gauze. It's so soft, almost like a lightweight well-washed flannel, which makes it great for lots of seasons, especially here in Texas where tights with a short-sleeve shirt is about all we need even at this time of year. 

One of the many reasons I love sewing vintage patterns is I come across unusual construction details I don't often see. This one actually has a zip front, believe it or not! It's tucked away under that placket. This was an unexpected surprise, and one I've enjoyed wearing - not a worry about any gaping when you've got a dress-length zipper all down your front! 

The CF edges are finished with bias binding. The collar connects to the dress with a facing, which I then catch-stitched down. The pattern called for the hems to also be hand-stitched, but I chose to machine stitch them to match the top-stitching down CF. 

The patches of saturated plaid on the print, along with the collar and button detail from the pattern really make this shift for me.  It's also insanely comfortable. This is basically a fancy muumuu that is cinched with a belt!

It's been awhile since I've seen you guys, and my sporadic posting will likely continue, so I figured I better have an animated gif to keep the excitement up! A lot of my creative energy has been going towards a newfound passion for cooking, which has taken up a good deal of the time I used to use for sewing. 

Embroidered Halloween Monsters

Halloween greetings! October 31 approaches, and that means it's time for some creepy crafting. To add to my festive decorations this year, I stitched up six little monsters from the Sublime Stitching Zombies and Monsters pack. They're lined up all nice and tidy overlooking my breakfast room, although I think the Zombie is a little disappointed I don't dine on brains.

The Dracula

The Werewolf

The Frankenstein

The Mummy

The Zombie

The Witch

Aren't they fun?! I've got a Halloween-themed blouse planned this year, too, but I just discovered I'm short on fabric. So while I wait for that to come and cross my fingers it gets here in time, you can check out some of my previous haunts. 

• Vintage-style Halloween decorating
• Spiderweb Vogue 8811
• Hocus Pocus Sanderson Sisters Costumes

Blue Plaid Vogue 8811

It's October!! My most favorite month of the year, and the perfect time to use this lovely plaid linen I've been saving. I purchased it from a now out-of-business fabric shop in Austin (sadly), but it has the most wonderful hand. I stitched it up using Vogue 8811, a great little pattern with french darts and kimono sleeves.

I've made this pattern once before, two years ago in a spiderweb fabric for Halloween. We took those pumpkin patch photos the day my sister-in-law went into labor with my nephew! We snapped these at the Round Top Antique Fair - not nearly as exciting as the day my nephew was born, but a very nice day nevertheless. 

The waist was way too long for me on that version, so I shortened it a bit and did a swayback adjustment to account for some pooling I was getting at the back. I also lengthened the skirt slightly. I liked the length of my last version on me, but I felt like it ruined the vintage look to have it a little shorter. I love that dress, though, and am so happy to have a version that I can wear for more of the year. 

As with almost every garment I sew, my favorite part are the little details. The pocket on the bodice, the tie at the waist, and the back neck slit with thread loop are all excellent on this dress. 

The neckline has a facing, and the armholes actually call for a facing, too. I found that to be cumbersome on my last version, though. Despite tacking down, those facings would misbehave and flip out on me and just added a lot of extra bulk. So I just hemmed it this time, and I like it much better. 

Now, my only quibble with this version is that my dominant plaid stripe isn't running down CF. I remember thinking about it when I went to cut it out, but I was watching the Emmy's at the time and must have gotten distracted by all the fancy fashion and attractive men in tuxedos. I still ended up with a superb dress and another opportunity to perfect the craft on a future garment!

Liberty Moneta

I took a jaunt up to the Pacific Northwest for a family vacation last week and decided it was the perfect opportunity to sew myself another Colette Moneta. This is my third (one and two), although the first in a three-quarter sleeve length. I so like the plain, no frills version of this pattern because it's easy to wear a thousand different ways.

The fabric is a jersey from Liberty of London, and the first Liberty I've sewn with! I can't believe I started on a knit. I've got to finally use some of the cotton Liberty I've been saving in my stash!

It sewed very well, although I do notice I've got a bit of rippling and excess fabric at the CF neckline. For my second version, I did take out a small dart there, but I either needed to take out more, or I managed to stretch it a bit while I was sewing the neckline. I might try ripping that out and turning it into a lower scoop or a V-neck to fix it. 

The construction is pretty straightforward, and the same as the previous Monetas I've made. I serged the seams, coverstitched the hems, and added elastic at the waist and shoulders for extra support (and to create the gathers at the waist). I've still never fallen in love with sewing or wearing knits, but I do like to have a few of these in my wardrobe. I find they get good use, especially on trips. 

Since this is a pretty simple project, I had these grand ambitions of showing you gorgeous photos at the Multnomah Falls or rose gardens in Portland, but alas, the weather was not on my side! It was unseasonably cold during our visit. In fact, the locals said it felt more like late October/early November. Well that's pretty much dead of winter for us Texans, so I stuck to wearing pants. 

At any rate, I did manage to wear it one evening in Seattle for dinner when it warmed up a bit. Leo was waiting for me when we checked in, and he liked my new Moneta very much! Tehehehe.

My Couture Cocktail Dress: Simplicity 4697

This is, unquestionably, my favorite dress that I have ever made or worn. This sensational 1950s cocktail dress is the pattern I worked on at Susan Khalje's Couture Sewing School this August. I'm too excited to say anymore, so let's just get to those photos! 

Oh my goodness. Isn't it spectacular?! The pattern is Simplicity 4697, a wedding dress pattern from 1954. It features kimono sleeves, a peter pan collar, and a very full gathered skirt. My outer fabric is a cotton organdy from B&J in New York with embroidered roses. The under-dress fabric is a silk cotton sateen. 

I was actually just over a yard shy of the requirements for this pattern with my organdy fabric, but I brought it to class anyway and crossed my fingers we could sort something out. I was betting on the fact that I am short, about 5'3", and I knew that the cocktail length was beyond floor length for me just from putting the pattern up against me. Thankfully, in between my short stature and the magical wizardry of Susan Khalje, we made it all fit with barely a scrap to spare. I can't imagine this dress in any other fabric! 

Source

I wish I could tell you all the fit modifications we made, but one of the things I learned about couture is you are constantly fitting. We started by shortening the waist, lowering the bust dart, and removing the "v" dip at the front waist (a style choice I made because I thought it would be more comfortable). Over the course of the week, we made dozens of tiny tweaks, fitting it once or twice a day as I constructed. The end result is a party dress that fits me so well it feels like a day dress!

There are so many wonderful little details on this dress. Here are just a few: 

• French seams at the skirt.
• Bias-tape enclosed seams, fell-stitched down, from my fashion fabric at the side seam to accommodate the curve of the sleeve. 
• Bias tape finish at the collar. 
• Hand-sewn thread bar for the hook-and-eye. 

But my favorite of all of those details is the one we did at the back zipper. Since my fashion fabric is sheer, we didn't want the zipper tape to show. So I tea-dyed a strip of organanza and folded it over to enclose the seam, and hide my zipper tape. Genius! It was a clever little trick that Susan and I worked out ad-hoc, which apparently is oh-so couture. Ohh la la! 

There was one strange thing about the pattern - it didn't include pattern pieces for the camisole under the dress, and it wasn't just that they were missing. The back pattern envelope doesn't specify that they're included at all. So I brought a muslin of my sloper to class, and we made one up on the spot. 

That last photo looks so odd to me, like a deflated muppet without its pupeteer. It's such a full and lively dress it seems so strange to see it flat on the floor! 

We can't end on that, so here's a few more of those details. The hem is a narrow hem, where you use three rows of stitches to anchor it down. Threads has an excellent tutorial if you're looking to do something similar. 

This dress has already seen a thrilling night of dancing at a wedding I attended recently, and I am sure it will have many more unforgettable parties in its future. 

Hand-Embroidered Anna Dress

Oh gollies. This one is good. I've been embroidering away, bit by bit, over the last several months, and the moment I put in the last satin stitch, I boogied my booty to the sewing machine. I  am so glad that I was able to snap photos quickly to show you this one hot off the presses! This is the By Hand London Anna Dress, with the addition of a circle skirt and oodles of hand-embroidered leaves.

Now, let me back up and tell you the story of how this dress came to be. Upon concluding Me-Made-May this year, I realized I was itching to do another embroidery project on a dress like my cross stitch one. About that time, I happened upon this beautiful dress from Dethrose Vintage. I had also just started working on my first Anna dress, and zing!  I realized I could do a version of this lovely dress, but in my size, with the Anna v-neck. 

Falling Fern Dress on Dethrose Vintage

The original appears to be painted, but my medium of choice is always needle and thread, so I stocked up on black embroidery floss and put on some Netflix. I cut out my dress pattern pieces then free-hand drew the branches. Then I created a leaf pattern piece to trace around for the leaves. I backed each section in interfacing, and then used three strands of floss with the satin stitch for the actual embroidery. 

Once I finished the embroidery, I checked each piece against my pattern to see if it stretched out and I needed to adjust. Of course it had, and I was able to sort out most of it except for a wee bit of gaping on the neckline I couldn't control without throwing things wonky. Next time, I'll definitely do the embroidery on the fabric raw before cutting. 

I constructed the dress, per the instructions, and added a full lining in cotton voile to hide the big blocks of interfacing on the inside. My outer fabric is cotton linen chambray (so many good words all strung together!) by Robert Kaufman. Even with the addition of the lining, the linen and voile are so light and airy that this dress feels nice and cool. 

It turned out smashingly! My next big adventure is the Susan Khalje Couture Sewing School, a week-long workshop where you bring your own special project. I've got some beautiful cotton organdy and a Grace Kelly-inspired cocktail dress that I've been saving up for the occasion. I can't wait, but boy oh boy, that's going to be an undertaking!