Some (rather racy) panties
Remember how I had flu for 3 weeks earlier this month? Well lucky freakin me, because I got ill again on the first day of my holidays. I’ve essentially felt like crap since two days before Thanksgiving, arrrrgh. So on Christmas Day, I did a little bit of comfort sewing, in the form of some crazy, racy, leopard print and black lace panties.
Avert your eyes now if you’re of a gentle disposition!
I’d never buy leopard print of my own free will, but I’d bought a lingerie grab bag for a pound a while back, and this came from there, and I added some scrap black stretch lace to the sides. Nobody need know what my tastefully dressed exterior conceals…
Burda December cover dress muslin
The big project I wanted to tackle over the holidays is the Burda December cover dress (Burda Dec 2012 #112).
The final version will be sewn in pale pink viscose from Stone Fabrics, but because I needed to make some alterations on this, I wanted to do a muslin version first, this time in a flowy, lightweight crepe fabric I was gifted (for muslining!).
This pattern (which also has a longer hem length with long sleeves) has the illustrated instructions for this issue, and man do you need them! It reminded me of one of those Vogue designer patterns where it doesn’t actually look like a dress until the very last step. And because it’s asymmetric, it’s a single-layer fabric layout, meaning I had to cut this on the floor, boo.
Oh, and it’s in Tall sizing, so I had to take out the extra vertical space in the bodice to bring it back to normal sizing.
Here’s some shots of my muslin:
My only real problem with it is the sleeve – it’s way to tight in the armscye, and the long sleeve from pattern #113 is just awful – way too long even after de-Tall-ing it, and it’s tight in strange places, and it has waaaaay too much sleeve cap ease. You can see on the right (my Left) my prototype new sleeve, but ignore that it’s wrong-side out and only 3/4 length here. I fixed the small armscyce issue after these photos, too.
I’d really wanted to make this earlier in the month, but even now, I had to stop and go lie down twice during the making of this muslin! But I’m super inspired after seeing all the finished versions by Russian sewers (thanks, lakaribane!).
Vintage Couture Tailoring
And finally, I received two sewing-related gifts this Christmas – iTunes vouchers to subscribe to the iPad version of Threads magazine (the print versions cost too much in shipping, take up too much room, and I hate Taunton’s overly-aggressive renewal tactics), and Vintage Couture Tailoring.
I’d specifically asked for it after reading some reviews online, but after my initial flips through, I’m actually kinda disappointed in the book, and I feel kinda bad even saying that aloud, because the information in the book looks very good and very well thought-out.
But it only covers tailored jackets like the one on the cover. That’s it.
So if you want to sew your own jacket using fantastic, vintage techniques, you could use this book cover-to-cover as you went along, and have your very own, mini-couture course. But I don’t really wear tailored jackets/blazers, and I was expecting this book to contain a lot wider variety of techniques, more like Claire Schaeffer’s excellent Couture Sewing Techniques. I guess I was expecting info on skirts, trousers, dresses, outerwear, maybe even some millinery or embellishments, but it’s really only just about jackets.
I’m going to delve further in at my leisure with a mind to apply some of these techniques to my next coat (especially since they cover the different uses for horsehair and lambswool padding rather extensively), but it’s not really what I’d expected.