A blouse from 1937, Eva Dress 573

I finally got around to making one of the Eva Dress patterns that I won as the random prize winner in the Red Dress contest at Pattern Review. The final motivation came from, what else, another contest; the Vintage Pattern Contest 2016 at Pattern Review.

The pattern is #573 originally from 1937 and it is actually for a dress. I didn't have enough fabric for the whole dress (fooled again by a 45" width!), so I had to settle for a blouse this time.

This is the first time that I use a pattern from Eva Dress and I was very pleased with the quality of the pattern paper. It is heavy bond paper, none of that tissue paper so prone to ripping! You do need to cut out the pieces from a giant whole sheet of paper, but that is no different than for other pattern companies. The only thing that I found a bit difficult were the notch markings. For some reason each notched is marked not with one, but two parallel lines. Since there are multiple sizes printed together, the notches come often on top of each other. So to have twice as many lines as usual is really too much. Perhaps that is how they were in the original 1937 pattern? Anyway, that is the only thing I can find to complain about so I'm being a bit picky. For the rest the pattern pieces are very carefully and clearly marked.

Along with the pattern pieces you receive a leaflet that contains very clear copies of the original instructions. These include everything you need: the croquis of all the pattern pieces, the pattern layouts for the various sizes and fabric widths and then the step-by-step instructions clearly illustrated.

So the pattern was a pleasure to work with, but the fabric on the other hand... I used a silk georgette because I fell in love with the colorful print (what else is new!). But I had forgotten how tricky it is to sew with silk georgette. Give me a lovely wool any day! If I was ever so lucky as to work in a couture atelier I think tailleur would be the side for me, definitely not flou. But I complain too much. Careful handling of the fabric and sloooow sewing saw me through.

I sewed french seams throughout, and turned all hems over twice. The instructions say to finish the sleeve hems with a bias strip, but I skipped that and just turned them over as well, to the outside to "fake" the bias binding look. Please don't look to closely at my stitching... tailleur is my thing I tell you, not flou.

The pattern shape is lovely. It "hugs" the waist and creates a blousing effect at the back also.

I made size 18 which corresponds to a 36" bust and should be my size. The fit at the waist is good but I think the shoulders are too big, because the shoulder seam falls over my shoulder by a centimeter or two. This is not uncommon for me, as a pear shaped my shoulders are the smallest bit. For the next version I think I will try going one or two sizes down at the shoulders.

The sleeve has three tiny darts that shape it very nicely, so it is worth letting the shoulder line fall where it should.

The front of course is where the main action happens. There are two pieces for the waist, two side "flange" pieces that form the shoulder and armhole and the two scarves that make up the draped front before wrapping around the neck and back to hang at front.

I have to say that IRL there are not as many gathers and not as much fabric as is shown on the pattern drawing. The only thing that I changed on the front was sewing the two scarf fronts together rather than use loops and buttons. Too much work for this flou-handicapped seamstress. Plus I get the feeling they would have been too heavy for the georgette.

Still, I'm quite happy with my new silk blouse.

One thing though, before I think about making the full dress I'm going to wear this blouse a couple of times to see how the tied scarf feels and behaves when worn. The georgette is scratchy enough that the scarf doesn't quickly become loose, but I suspect that a silky satin would be more slippery.

And of course, I submitted the blouse to the Vintage Pattern Contest 2016 at Pattern Review.

First SWAP pair: Vogue 8751 pants and Vogue 7903 blouse

So here is the first outfit that I completed as part of my Stitchers' Guild 2014 SWAP plan. It's a silk blouse and wide leg trousers in a woolen herringbone.

The blouse is Vogue 7903 by Sandra Betzina and the trousers are Vogue 8751.

I have made this blouse before in the short sleeved version so I don't have anything new to say about the pattern. This time, my fabric is silk georgette and I didn't want it too fitted so I didn't make all six waist darts at front, I only made two. The only other change I made was bringing the shoulder point up by ±1cm (no change to the sleeve itself). Funny how different the same pattern looks when it is made in a totally different fabric!

The trousers, I first saw them on the lovely Ruth of Core Couture. After seeing hers, I immediately went and ordered this pattern, foolishly forgetting that she is much taller and leggier than I am. Once I was ready to start sewing them, I luckily realized that I needed to make a muslin to see how they fit my body type. Us pears, we cannot just wear any kind of trouser...

And indeed, from the muslin I decided that the pant legs were too wide for me. I tried on my favorite trousers for comparison and the legs are narrower by 8cm at the hem!

So that's what I did, tapered each side of each pant leg by 2cm giving me 8cm less all around and I do like the proportions better on my body shape.

Now here is the funny thing about this pattern. I typically have to make a 1.5cm swayback adjustment, but not with this pattern. I'm not sure why not, but the back looked perfect just "out of the box". I'm guessing that the yoke pattern pieces are somehow responsible, but I am not sure how exactly.

Anyway, I don't often wear pants because I haven't found many that fit, but this one does so it is a welcome addition to my wardrobe! Oh and my review of Vogue 8751 is here at Pattern Review.

White peplum blouse Vogue 1915 by Anne Klein

I still remember my promise to show you my first finished garment for the SG 2014 SWAP I'm just being my usual forget-to-blog self... But finally, without further ado:

The pattern is an oldie but goodie: Vogue 1915 by Anne Klein. As you can see in the technical drawing, the blouse is shaped with a triangular piece at the sides. The bottom third then flares out forming a peplum.

This is my second version of this blouse. My first version of this blouse fitted just fine but was ruined by a very, VERY poor choice of interfacing. Armed with this painful experience, I chose an embroidered cotton for this new version. The all-over embroidery gives the fabric quite a lot of body, so I skipped all interfacings this time. Avoiding the problem is also a way of resolving it, no?

The pattern calls for self lining, but that would just be silly with this fabric. Much too stiff and probably scratchy against the skin. Instead, my thrifty self immediately thought to re-use the lining of the first version. I looooved that soft cotton voile, so I'm very glad that I could rescue at least half of it to use it in this new version.

I have to tell you that at first I was worried that this re-use would break the rules of the SG 2014 SWAP. After all, the lining was already constructed some 10 years ago (eep!). But freeing the lining from the old blouse took soooo much time, removing all that topstitching and stitching and then carefully keeping all the clipped edges from fraying. Ugh! Let's just say more than once I thought to just forget it and make the lining from scratch. But I persevered and now I am very glad that I did. The soft voile is so silky against the body; My skin has no clue there is all that embroidery going on.

Just as with the first version, I shortened the peplum by a good 8cm to a length that I find more flattering on my pear body. Independent of how long you make the peplum however, this is definitely a blouse to wear with a high-waisted bottom since the peplum is shaped to open up beyond the lowest button. Yup, that's my belly button peeking through, sorry about that!

If I want to be really picky then I have to mention a mistake I made: because the blouse is not self-lined, at the neckline you can see the cotton voile just under the collar, when the revers open up a bit. I didn't think about this at all until the blouse was fully constructed. Sigh... so now it is just a feature. No-one else will notice, right?

My review of Vogue 1915 by Anne Klein is here at Pattern Review.

A gingham blouse, V7903 by Sandra Betzina

Hi, I am Lucia, I am a fabricholic.
I still buy and buy, but a sewn wardrobe is beginning to materialize, yay! Here is to keeping that up.

I have a largish backlog of pieces I've made in the past few months, but haven't yet blogged about. I think I'm going to pretend that I planned this all along since this backlog is now quite handy while I try to establish a blogging rythm. So without further ado: A fitted blouse in blue gingham.
The pattern is Vogue 7903 by Sandra Betzina. I really liked the multiple darts to showcase the waist and the sleeve cuffs. I've been thinking that I need more blouses to go with all the skirts I've been sewing lately, so I chose this pattern for my first try.

I love the look of a crisp, fitted shirt. So, in my delirium of Carolina Herrera-dom, I picked the crispest fabric I could find. This poly taffeta in a blue gingham print comes from the home-dec department and is clearly intended for puffy valances over a kitchen window. OK, see there, at least I can admit it now... Luckily there are plenty of good news. I am very pleased with the fit, and with such a crisp fabric I needed no interfacing at all which saved some time. I also love the cuffs. On the photo they are not so visible because of my obsessive stripe matching, but in person, with shadows and motion they do stand out as a very nice feature. Seeing how it is so crisp there was no chance that I would ever tuck it in, so I shortened the length a few centimeters to what I think is a more flattering length for me. With the many darts it looks a bit as if it has a peplum, which I find quite nice.

But the best of all are the buttons. I love, love, love, those tiny rectangular buttons. They are vintage, from a flea market in Annecy (France) and I was so pleased that they matched this shirt. So, despite the poor fabric choice, I do like this blouse and wore it a couple of times last summer, with white jeans as in the photo above or with my cobalt blue skirt which it matches perfectly. One of these days I'll get around to making another version in a more suitable fabric like cotton popelin.

My fourth pencil skirt!

I am Lucia, I am a fabricholic. I buy and I buy and I never make anything. Here is to changing that.

Oh dear, I am falling behind again on my blog-writing! My mantra needs to include "must blog once per week!" Anyway...

First up in the what-I-sewed-this-summer series: a cobalt blue pencil skirt and a short sleeved white cotton blouse. 

Skirt pattern Burda 01-2009-128 by Laurel and blouse pattern Vogue 1915 by Anne Klein

The skirt pattern is Burda 01-2009-128. This is one of their designer patterns, by a German company called Laurèl. I must admit I had never heard of this company before, but I loved the fit of this skirt so I went to the Laurel website and I did like a lot of what they make. This skirt pattern has a matching jacket, in raincoat style, which I also like a lot. Unfortunately I only had barely enough fabric for a skirt, so the full set will have to wait for another day. 

Skirt pattern Burda 01-2009-128 by Laurel

The skirt is relatively easy to sew: princess seams at front and back and a mock waist band. The curves of the mock waist band at front were a bit of a challenge because my fabric has a touch of lycra which invited waves any time I sewed at cross-grain.  But I practiced a bit on fabric scraps and I quickly improved my handling technique to minimize the waving. At the beginning I wondered if I would have to drop the topstitching, but my confidence grew with each seam and in the end I am very happy with how my topstitching came out. Of course most of the credit goes to my favorite new presser foot: a Bernina #10 edgestitch foot. A-mazing how easy it makes keeping your stitching parallel to the seam. 

Skirt pattern Burda 01-2009-128

My review of skirt pattern Burda 01-2009-128 is at Pattern Review but here I have to show you a photo of the skirt where you can see the mock waistband and the buttons. These buttons are "left overs" from the ones that my son chose himself for his 3-year old sweater. They are vintage glass buttons and they are a bit too heavy for his tiny sweater, but I couldn't say no to him. He chose them himself and carried the button card in his own hand the entire trip home from the flea market, plus he got the color spot on, good eye! So I was very happy when the two left over buttons matched perfectly the color of my skirt.

Now on to the blouse pattern, it is Vogue 1915 by Anne Klein from 1997 and now OOP. Mine is view A which has a peplum and a wonderfully angled side piece that flatters the waist. But now I have to make a confession. This blouse is a major disaster! I began sewing it sometime ca. 2001 and as happens too often with me, I was 95% done and then I stopped. I had forgotten why I had stopped but it was fairly obvious when I pulled it out of the box: I made it in the softest cotton voile but underlined it with an iron-on underlining that is too heavy. This resulted in a texture closer to popelin and, worse yet, the underlining shows through the thin voile... argh! This is why they always say to test first on a scrap!!!

Blouse pattern Vogue 1915 by Anne Klein

So yes, I thought quite a bit about whether to even bother finishing it. In the end I decided to do it just for the practice and to have the chance to model it for the blog, but it is not really wearable. I must say that I am quite happy for the extra practice, which I definitely needed. Since it is self-lined I topstitched all the edges which turned out very nice, even the sleeve hems and especially the peplum.  I must try to remember that self-lining blouses does provide a very nice finishing and is done (almost) all by machine!

As you can see in the photo the style of this blouse is quite flattering. I did shorten the peplum by a good 8cm as this is a more flattering length for my body shape. I am also happy to report that there is no gaping at all at the button closing and the flap underneath is wide enough for full modesty.
So despite my major screw-up, I loved the pattern and plan to make it again. My review of Vogue 1915 by Anne Klein is at Pattern Review.
Ah, glad to be back at blogging! Now I'll head over to see what you all have been busy with...