Flower Child

This is the pattern I am using for the little smocked dress that has given me so much trouble. It is the Flower Child design:

I may or may not use a contrasting collar. At this point it depends on whether I have anything suitable in the fabric repository. This design is in this issue of Australian Smocking and Embroidery, No. 86:

 This is the fabric I am using, a soft as butter 100% cotton that is firmly woven yet still has a luscious softness. This one has lived in the repository so long I can't remember exactly where I got it.

And here is the smocked little devil so far. I cannot explain the trouble I have had with this little thing. I am still going to add more to it, maybe little bullions, maybe little buttons, just not sure yet. It is still talking to me. For the smocking I used DMC 155, 333, and 3815.

The smocking pattern itself is completely made up. After putting in a total of six rows, taking it out, putting them back in again, and taking them out once more, I realized that the second row had too many wave stitches.

I pondered (for 15 minutes, I tell ya) on whether or not to just cut the thing into teeny tiny little pieces with my giant scissors and then chew the whole mess up in the garbage disposal.

Then I decided that a little bitty dress was not going to defeat me. So I just left the wave stitches as they were and winged it.

So, there, little bitty dress, I will win in the end.

I hope.

More later.

At Last

I'm back. Been a while, hasn't it?

Busy today washing fabrics (8 pieces!) for little dresses for little girls....several of them hang around here......

Found a cute little dress in Australian Smocking and Embroidery, so I picked a freshly laundered fabric, pressed it, matched up three shades of DMC for the smocking portion with assistance from the Number One Son (who has really good taste, by the way), cut out the dress front, and then....

Six hours--6 hours--6 Total Hours--trying to get the durn thing pleated.

I managed to break ELEVEN smocking needles--ELEVEN!!!

After a serious round of really bad language I have called it a night. You know it's bad language when even the cat leaves the room.

Still unpleated little dress front.

Need to find extra needles for the pleater (here's hoping I have some, otherwise a road trip will be required).

Sewing is not supposed to be frustrating. Smocking is supposed to be fun. I am frustrated and not having any fun.

There's always tomorrow.

Any readers still out there? Let me know, if you will.

I'm off to charge up my camera.

Facing Reality

I have succumbed once again to Dress Fever. In particular, I want a simple, sophisticated, sleek looking dress, preferably in brown linen, in the luscious Coffee Liqueur shade on yesterday's Pantone Fall 2011 color chart.


On the cutting table, I have been busily hacking away on a muslin for this little number from Vogue:



This is Vogue 8682, a Very Easy Very Vogue design. Here's the line drawing for this one:

I am working on View A, the shorter length with the shorter sleeve length. So far the sleeves seem to be elbow length, which is a nice look for this.

Cutting this one out took a little bit of soul searching and a lot of Facing Reality.

Facing Reality #1:

I took early retirement from teaching two years ago. During that time I have been working in my own business. This business requires a lot of sitting time, both in front of the laptop and in a chair/recliner/sofa, etc.

Facing Reality #2:

Sitting doesn't use up a lot of calories.

Facing Reality #3:

My usual main form of exercise (heavy gardening work) is no longer available to me. (More on this in a future post.)

Facing Reality #4:

The best workout I currently get is from houseWORK. Not my favorite.
Second best current workout involves kitchen appliances. This is a favorite.
Third best current workout is fork lifting, the hands-down all time favorite.

Facing Reality #5:

A session with the tape measure indicated I needed a WAY BIG size in this dress. WAY BIGGER than anything I have ever made for myself. Or that I have made for anyone else, now that I think about it.....

Facing Reality #6:

I need to put on my Big Girl Pants and cut out the WAY BIG size.

Facing Reality #7:

The damn thing fits me.

Muslin 2, Advance 8524, Bodice Again

From the land of beautiful icicles and flickering electricity, I bring you the latest version of Muslin 2--the front, back, and side views of the bodice:

You have probably noticed a difference in the fit on the left and right sides. The fit on my left side is the best, and is the one I will go with. The side view is of the left side, where a zipper will be inserted.

Following Linda T and Robin's advice, I tackled the extra width and length in the upper bodice area first. After trying this on and pinning out excess in different areas, I decided the best method was to remove the extra width in the front by pinning it out along princess seam lines. This is the area where I had originally added two inches, so in effect I have now reduced this to one inch total.

This adjustment not only reduced the width, it somehow made the rest of the bodice "sit" where it is supposed to "sit." It also changed the angle of the shoulder seam, making that area better than before, but I still made a slight adjustment at the shoulder seam to move the shoulder seam into place. The side seams are good.

The only final concern I have is the bit of drag lines at the underarm, particularly in the back. I may need to lower the back armhole a bit, as well as scoop out the front armhole a tad. The original pattern has an extended shoulder line, if you remember (the white one):

Maybe it's just me, but I want to feed Miss White Dress a few biscuits and some cornbread.

So, please, kick in here with any suggestions. Should I leave it as it is and go shopping for fabric? Or tweak it a bit more?

It's nice to have an in-house photographer today, since schools are closed:

I think he wants me to turn up the heat.

Muslin 2, Advance 8524

I started over with Muslin 2 for Advance 8524. This time, I added another extra inch in bodice length and PLENTY of room for the side seams. Here it is, still needing more work:



In the above picture I have lowered the side darts 1 and 1/2 inches and shortened the waistline darts 1/2 inch.


In this photo you can see that I have too much room above the bust.

Way too much fabric. Like most women, my upper chest area is sort of concave. Not really concave, but you know what I mean.

And of course, I need to take in deeper side seams.

Another alteration I've already made to Muslin 2 that worked is back neckline darts about 2 inches long. So the back is fine.

At this point I think I need to remove about 1/2 inch in width from the shoulder to the bustline on each side of the bodice front. I also need to take in deeper side seams. I think the darts are working now, but I won't really be able to tell until I take in the side seams.

If you see anything I've missed, please leave a comment! Help!

Muslin 1, Part 3

I decided to add space to the waistline on each side of the center front (due to a bit of baby flab still holding on there after 17 years, oh well) so I marked the spots with pins:







I cut a split about 3 inches long at each mark, then added a bit of muslin scrap underneath. After basting those in place, I did another try-on:





This is better, but still not good. Even though I already added one inch to the bodice length, I think I still need another inch or so.



So my next step is start over with Muslin 2 for this dress. I will lengthen it plenty and add plenty of room at the waistline. Please point out any other problems I need to address!



More later, as I am back to the drawing board.

Part 2 Muslin, Advance 8524

Altering the bust dart, or in my case, lowering the entire underarm dart and shortening the waistline dart, is not really that difficult.

The first step is to decide where your bust needs to end. For me, I use the Red Pin Method, like this:

Put on a decent bra and the muslin and use a Red Pin to mark the spot about an inch and a half away from your bust point (the nipple). The dart should stop short of the nipple.

Okay, now that all the perverts are here, let's get on with it.

Here is the muslin laid flat. See the Red Pin?

Now I'm going to draw a line parallel to the existing dart. A see-thru quilting ruler comes in really handy.

Now I'm going to the inside and redraw the original dart in its new location.

Step 1, mark the same line on the inside:

Step 2, measure the width of the original dart and draw the newly located dart:

If you're working with an actual pattern instead of a fabric muslin, simply cut out the original dart on the pattern, move it, and tape it in place. Easy. Sew up your new dart, and admire.

Or maybe, don't admire. I still see problems. Do you?

More to come.

Muslin 1, Advance 8524

Full Warning: Shameless photos ahead. Okay, I warned you!

I put a pot roast in the crock pot and got right to it on Muslin 1 for Advance 8524. Here it is in all its hideous glory:





See all that saggy business above the boobs? See my muffin top? See how tight it is in the waist? On to photo 2:

I always do this when fitting because if I can't move in it and do normal stuff (like cook) I will be miserable wearing it and it will drive me NUTS. Since I live on the edge anyway, I do not need any extra nuttiness, thank you very much.

So, okay, I can raise my arms comfortably. But see all that pleating business going on above the bust? That tells me the bust darts are not pointing at my bust. They may be pointing at someone's boobs, just not mine. On to photo 3:

I see a drag line on the right shoulder. A photo like this will tell you lots of things. By looking at the drag lines I can see a difference in the shape of my two shoulders. The muscle at the very top of my right shoulder is more developed than the left shoulder. That's because I am right handed. This photo also shows the need for more width at the waistline. On to photo 4:

Yep, I can move in it, but I have a bit of a gap at the neckline. On to photo 5:

Obviously I have no shame (blush, blush). Now that we have ALL agreed on that, let's look at the bust area. The darts are obviously too high. But look at the side seam. See how it is pulled towards the front of the body at the waistline? But it is in the right spot at the underarm? This is because the FRONT of my body is larger than the back at the waistline.

This is actually important because it tells me I need to split the waistline and add a couple of inches to the front bodice at the waistline, but not to the back bodice.

I'm going to move darts! More later.

Dress 1--Altering The Bodice

I spent time this afternoon making adjustments to the bodice front and back of Advance 8524. First I made a copy of the original pattern with newspapers and after taking more measurements I decided that I needed to add seven inches around the body and one inch in torso length.

That is a lot of body circumference to add to a pattern so I know that these are the first of many adjustments. I split the seven inches between the front and back, and since I worked with half the bodice pieces, I needed to add 1 3/4" to each piece to get a total of seven inches. I divided this into two separate splits--the shoulder area between the darts and the neck area between the waist dart and the center front. Here is the bodice front. The pink lines show where I added width to the pattern, and the green lines are the bodice length adjustment.

You can see that the darts were minimally affected by these adjustments. I strongly suspect that I will need to lower the armhole and probably adjust the darts after the first muslin.

I matched up the bodice front and back at the shoulder and made the back adjustments in the same location as the front adjustments to help keep things aligned. Here is the back:



Instead of making the adjustments this way, I could have repeatedly graded this pattern up to get it closer to my size. After looking through my grading books I decided that adding to the bodice width by splitting and spreading might be a shortcut. Time will tell.

I'm getting right to work on the first muslin!

2011 Project--100 Dresses

Yes, that's right. I am going to make 100 Dresses. And no, I am not nuts. And no, I doubt I'll be finished by year's end. Maybe halfway. Maybe a quarter of the way. And no, they won't all be for me. We do have a gaggle of girls in this family.


At any rate, I'm jumping right in! I know that this will be a learning experience for me (and hopefully you all will follow along and offer pointers now and then) since I will try to choose patterns with dressmaker details. I also plan to do a little designing for girls as I go along, too. I already have a beautiful little volunteer who has requested a blue dress for school.

Here are the first 14 contenders, all vintage patterns:


And of this first group, this is the one I am starting with, Advance 8524, View 2:

And here's the back of the pattern envelope:

This pattern offers three entirely different bodices in one pattern and originally sold for 50 cents. Hard to imagine, isn't it? You certainly can't get that variety today. The skirt pattern is marked for deep pleats, but the pattern envelope indicates you could gather the skirt instead. (I'm going with the pleats.) I wish I could show you the instruction sheet but it is missing, along with the bodice pieces for the red dress (my favorite one, of course) and a back facing.


It calls for a 12 inch zipper in the left side, which is very exciting because I haven't done one of those yet. Views 2 and 3 have button closures and collars, and View 3 has split cuffs on dolman sleeves.


I had a hard time believing this was going to use up 5 yards of fabric until I saw the pattern pieces for View 2, the one I'm making. Here they are with the huge skirt piece underneath the bodice pieces. I'll have to cut 4 of these giant skirt pieces!



In addition to having no instruction sheet, another challenge is that this pattern is not my size. I will be adding about 7 inches in circumference to the bodice and probably about an inch in bodice length. I think this will be a fun dress to wear to Wal-Mart this summer.

When I decided in early December that I wanted to tackle 100 Dresses, my husband looked at me and said, "You're crazy." After a second or two he said "That means you'll have to buy fabric for 100 Dresses". And all I could do was SMILE.


So imagine my surprise when this was wrapped up under the tree for me on Christmas morning!

Yes, that is two bolts of muslin, thirty wonderful yards, and HE HIMSELF drove 45 miles to JoAnns and bought it for me!