Tag: sewing

The Making of a Party Dress

The making of a party dress.

In February I turned 50. My family threw me a terrific party–the best birthday party of my life! But months before the party took shape, I decided I wanted a magical dress to wear to celebrate the turning of a new decade.

I had a vision. Not a terribly original vision, but it was mine. And I couldn’t find a pattern for it. But I found fabrics (on sale around the winter holidays, natch!), and Kirsten reassured me about the amounts to order. Here’s what I purchased: Silk noil, silk crepe de chine, half a million yards of black tulle, and the fabric that started it all– Zodiac embroidered tulle

So, I did what any self-respecting barely-intermediate sewing-ista (honestly, what word do we use? Sewer looks gross on the page, and do we like sewist? IDK!) would do: I mashed up what I (mostly) knew how to make.

With the guidance of dress doula Sarah of Hartford Stitch, I cropped and took in the bodice of Grainline Studio’s Uniform Tunic and drafted a circle skirt with help from this website (Sarah promised me she’d make a more detailed tutorial, which I’ll be sure to share when she’s got it ready.) There was machine sewing. There was serging. There was hand basting. There was installing an invisible zipper. There was hand stitching. There may still be hemming of the silk underskirt that didn’t get finished before party time, but let’s not talk about that.

This dress stretched my skills. I made mistakes that I won’t (knock wood) make again. I learned techniques I can’t wait to use over and over. This dress was pretty much what I wanted it to be. I felt like a magical creature in it, and I may have sat down way more than necessary just to feel the swoosh of all that tulle (7 layers) as I did.

Maybe you’ve heard of frosting sewing? Well, this was my first bit of frosting. I can’t wait to try my hand at it again!

Ethical Elegance: Summer Stitch Fest 2016

image-1Ever since Sonya announced it, I’ve been looking forward to Summer Stitch Fest! All summer long I’ve been working on my sewing skills, and now I have an entire (mostly) weekend booked just for stitching. Here are my (ambitious) plans, in a few different categories:

Sewing

  1. Sew Dress No. 1. I’m making a double-layered version, which I have cut and ready to sew.
  2. Cut and sew a Myrtle dress.
  3. Cut and sew a pair of Pants No. 1. I’m not sure the fabric I have picked is what I want to use, but I want to at least get a muslin made.

Finishing

  1. Finish sewing my blue Beverly dress. See how I’ve named the self-drafted dress I made with Cal earlier this year? This will be my third one in a blue seersucker-ish fabric. I’m adding red details–red bias binding, red C pockets, a little red embroidery.
  2. Sew the bias binding on a blue Sorbetto. Yup, it’s been waiting to be finished since June. Ahem.
  3. Finish the waistband on my Alabama Chanin swing skirt. It’s basted on and I need to stop being chicken about the stretch stitching!
  4. Finish my Alabama Chanin wrap skirt. I am so close to being done with this single-layer skirt. I think I’ll be wearing the heck out of it year round.

Knitting

  1. Knit my Joan Fuller sleeve No. 2. It is actually sleeve No. 3, but I messed up sleeve No. 1 by forgetting to switch to larger needles. #rookiemistake
  2. Rip back the yoke on my Stopover and re-knit it. I stitched merrily along before realizing it was all sorts of not right. May as well get it right, right?

I’ll report back next week and let you know how I make out. How about you? Do you have Summer Stitch Fest plans? Tell me about them!

Ethical Elegance: Drafting Patterns

shift dressJust about this time last year, I took a pattern drafting class with Cal Patch. While I learned a lot from the class, when I made my muslin at home, I didn’t quite know how to make adjustments to the muslin or pattern. Cal had explained it, but I longed for some hands-on guidance. So when I saw that she was teaching a two-day version of the class at Drop Forge and Tool, I jumped on it. On the first day of class, we drafted our patterns and made muslins. On day two, Cal helped us each adjust the muslin and pattern, and then we sewed beautiful shift dresses! I had to leave for home before I could finish mine, and with the end-of-semester crunch followed by a week-long road trip, it took until this week before I did finish.

I learned so much from this class, and as is often the case for me, going through the pattern drafting part of it a second time really helped me understand the process. I’m a slow learner, and luckily, Cal is a patient teacher!

Tomorrow I’ll wear my new dress for the first time as part of #MeMadeMay and, you know, as part of my habit of wearing new clothes I’ve made. I’m looking forward to adding more garments I love to my closet and transitioning the worn RTW garments out of it.

Interested in drafting your own patterns? Peruse Cal’s website–she’s got an awesome book, links to her terrific Creativebug classes (I refer to them all the time!), and details about her upcoming week-long Handmade Wardrobe workshop at A Gathering of Stitches.

As I gear up for my summer sewing frenzy, tell me about your stitching projects. What are you planning to make?

Ethical Elegance: Sewing Skills

fabricOne of my few regrets is not having been a better student in Home Economics. I was in middle school and not much interested in such things. Goodness, I set a potholder on fire (not on purpose!) in the Home Ec kitchen. And even though I’m sure part of me craved sewing skills, I was in no mental or emotional place to develop them during those tumultuous years.

Things are different now. I learned a little about sewing clothes in my early 20s, but my garments never had polish nor did they fit right. After taking Cal’s pattern drafting class at Brooklyn General, my excitement about sewing has increased every week. My plan is to build my sewing skills this summer as a way to build my ethical, elegant wardrobe.

I confess to a bit of a pattern-buying frenzy. Here are some of the pieces I plan to make:

Anna Maria Horner’s Painted Portrait Dress. I’m following the Alabama Chanin adaptations.

Colette Sorbetto top. This pattern is free, and I’ll be using the gray and blue fabrics pictured above.

Factory Dress by Merchant and Mills. I ordered my pattern from Clementine, and if you call, lovely Leah will also help you pick out just the right fabric. I’m using the red pictured above.

Wiksten Tank. I haven’t selected a fabric for this yet. I think it will be a good top to wear with my skinny jeans.

Everyday skirt from Liesl & Co. I wear skirts all the time. In fact, I rarely wear pants to work, and almost never wear shorts in the summer. It’s all dresses and skirts all the time around here. I am hoping this may be one I can master and make in casual and work-appropriate fabrics.

A-frame skirt from Blueprint Patterns. The shape of this is so smart. Can’t you see it with boots and a big sweater in the winter?

I made one of Sonya’s 100 Acts of Sewing Skirt No. 1, and I love the fit of the pattern, and Sonya’s instructions are easy to follow. In fact, I was so smitten with the skirt, I dug through my back issues of Taproot and made her tunic in issue 8.

As so much of the wardrobe I’ve nursed through years of minimalish dressing starts to look shabby, I’m excited to replace it with garments I construct myself.  I’m eager to build my sewing skills, and I’ll be relying a lot on the Clementine Pinterest boards. I fully intend to make up for those middle school years!

What are you stitching this summer? Any sewing patterns you think I should see?

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