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In Progress

Revisiting pattern drafting and the vintage tab dress muslin

Remember the vintage dress pattern I graded down to my size a few weeks ago?

Well, I made up a muslin with my grading changes in place, and though I didn’t get any photos of it on me, I did get some on Susan. I realise that diagnosing fit issues on a dressmaker’s dummy is particularly futile, though, so you’ll just need to take my word for it!

On first glance, the worst issue is that there is way too much fabric in the upper back, but also I think I may need to raise the waist seam by an inch, and narrow the shoulders by an inch or so, too.

The skirt length is d-o-w-d-y so I’ll need to shorten all those panels, too (happily I’ve got a “lengthen or shorten here” line on both the bodice and skirt pieces).

While the sleeves themselves fit nicely, there is an unholy amount of excess ease in those sleeve caps, omg. So I’ll need to shave down those caps to take a good few inches out of there.

It wasn’t necessarily the list above that made me lose enthusiasm for this dress, but I can’t really put my finger on what it was. But it turned out that doing all the boring grading reawakened in me a desire to conquer pattern drafting, which I dabbled in when I received “Metric Pattern Cutting” by Winifred Aldrich last year, but didn’t get far.

Article

The silk chrysanthemum blouse

As I discussed in my post on “pedestal fabrics” last week, I’ve had a ridiculously gorgeous silver and black chrysanthemum print silk in my stash ever since AllisonC gifted it to me two years ago when I was about to go into hospital.

But I’d brought it out again recently and thought about how I’d best like to wear it and I decided that I love and wear my silk blouses so much (and my birthday blouse in particular!) that I should sew this into a blouse to get the most wear and love out of this “pedestal fabric”!

In this case I chose to use the same pattern as my birthday blouse, Manequim Feb 2011 #158, because it fits great, I love the style, and I knew it worked well with a drapey silk.

You know what? I am so happy I took the plunge and cut into this fabric, because I just adore this blouse!

Inspiration, Magazine

Manequim June 2011

If you’re reading this and sweating, then you may wish to imagine yourself instead in chilly Rio de Janeiro for the latest instalment of Manequim magazine. Brrrr along with me now…

First up is a rather useful two-page spread on how to customise your accessories with fur. I quite like the idea of adding fur to existing gloves, though the way they’ve added it to a dress here seems strange. Surely it’s better to create a detachable fur collar, a’la this coat tutorial?

I really like the dress on the left, with its cool peplum side panels and the wide, cross back straps:

Inspiration, Magazine

KnipMode July 2011

Once again I’ve been a bit slow in reviewing this month’s KnipMode and Manequim magazines, but I’m only just now emerging from beneath the pile of pattern magazines. I got a bit overwhelmed there with my haul from France and my friend’s haul from Brazil, and I think I’m going to keep my pattern buying to the bare minimum for a few months so I can process through what I’ve got. So you’ll continue to see my monthly KnipModes and Manequims since I subscribe to those (I also still subscribe to Burda, but they’re less exciting and already heavily posted about online anyway) but I’m going to try not to buy anything more until the Fall Patrones issues emerge in a few months.

But KnipMode are still very much in the height of summer, and this is the vacation issue…

Ooh a swimsuit! It’s a bit more basic than the designer one featured last summer, but it’s still very wearable, and with the separate cups, it’d be very adjustable for larger busts.

Inspiration

How to buy Lekala patterns

First of all, congratulations to #9 Rebecca, #13 Olga, #17 RuthieK, #14 Clair McLaughlin, and #20 NancyK who were the winners in last week’s Lekala contest! I picked these using Random.org but you’ll just have to trust me that I did so without any favouritism (Seriously, if I was faking it I would’ve picked a few numbers from the beginning and the end of the list, too. Funny how all the picks were in the middle this time around…)! Each of these ladies received a Lekala code good for 2 credits, so if you’re one of the winners, skip ahead to step two below to activate the code I just emailed you.

Since Lekala use an ordering system different to what any other site uses, and the English isn’t 100% perfect, I thought it might be good to go through the steps on how to purchase patterns on their site. Please note that I do not work at Lekala, nor do I have any affiliation with them, nor have I been paid in any way for this post! If you need help from Lekala, please email Lekala customer support.

If you just want to try their custom sized patterns without buying anything you can enter in your measurements on the limited set of free patterns here. Or if you happen to be their special example size (165h/84b/74ub/64w/92h in cm) , you can download all their patterns for free in those set measurements by clicking the pdf link next to “FREE DOWNLOAD Pattern on fixed size” anywhere on the site (so if you’re a total grading wizz then I suppose you could always grade that size to match your own, though it’d be a fair amount of work!).

Step One – Buy a code

Before you decide which pattern to purchase, you first need to purchase a code. The idea is kinda like those Pay As You Go mobile phone cards, or top-up mass transit tickets – you purchase the code, which contain credits, and with each pattern, credits are deducted from your code. So you only need to purchase the code, not the individual patterns.

Gallery

A drapey colourblock top

I’m a big fan of the occasional “quick knit top”, but this time around, I wanted a knit top with a more challenging design to give my brain more of a 3-D spatial workout.

I was really intrigued by the pieces for KnipMode June 2011 #15 when I first saw the magazine, and even after tracing it out and laying the paper pieces together, I still wasn’t 100% sure how they were going to fit together.

I thought it best to make this up using scrap fabrics (just in case!), so I pulled out a couple of those awkward, less than 1m offcut fabrics from my stash:

To be honest, while I enjoyed the challenge of constructing the design, I wasn’t so sure about how the design would look on me throughout the entire construction. But as soon as I tried it on for the first time, I was struck by how well my colourblocking worked, and how nicely Jonathan Saunders the look is!

I get to tick three separate SS11 trends here – colourblocking, muted hues, AND volume! All in one top!

Inspiration

Lowering the Pedestal

Can we take a moment to talk about “pedestal fabrics”? You know the ones – you saw it in a shop, it was too gorgeous to not buy, but now it’s too gorgeous to cut into? And now that you’ve put it up on that pedestal, it just sits in your stash, making you sigh with its beauty but ashamed that you haven’t used it yet…

I don’t often have this problem, but I have recognised that I’ve done this with a particular silk in my stash, a ridiculously gorgeous silk in a silver and black chrysanthemum print. It was a gift from AllisonC when I was about to go into hospital, and I initially didn’t cut into it because I’d gained some weight from my illness and I didn’t want to waste it on something that wouldn’t fit in a few months.

But I’ve been back to my usual size for a good year now, and it continued to sit in my stash, until I finally cut into it this weekend. It took some doing, but here’s some thoughts that helped me overcome this:

  • In what form will I wear this most? In my case, this was a good 2m of silk, so I kept thinking for ages that it had to be a dress, so I’d use the whole yardage. But then it occurred to me that I don’t often wear my silk dress because it’s so formal, and it’d be a shame to sew this silk only to not wear it very much. I thought about what I wear most often in similar fabrics, and it’s definitely blouses. So even though a blouse won’t use the whole yardage, I’ll wear it much more often than a dress, and I can always make something else with the rest.
  • It doesn’t have to be ground-breaking. You’ve already got fabric you love – that’s half the battle in a successful garment, so you don’t have to do a new, experimental, or technically challenging new pattern to interest you. Use a pattern you already know you love and fits you well, and then you don’t even have to do a muslin, either. Since it’s already a tested pattern, your chances of failure are greatly diminished.
Inspiration, Magazine

Figurino Moldes magazine

This is the last of the three Brazilian pattern magazines that my friend very kindly brought back from Brazil for me. I’d love to say that I saved the best for last, but, err, no. To be perfectly honest, I struggled to find anything in this magazine to scan. I don’t really want to make anything in here, and most of it isn’t really bad enough to mock, either. But I’ll do my best with what’s here.

I have no idea what month or year this issue is (or judging by the design, which decade!), but the cover says “Anno 1, Numero 8”. I even did some eBay searches to try and determine what number the latest issues are, but there seem to be a million different types of “Figurino” magazines and no consistent numbering….

Here’s a really unflattering and dated-looking lime green jumpsuit, for formal occasions where you want your skin to appear neon orange!

My first thought on seeing this was “Why is that Brazilian woman wearing an NHS nurse’s uniform?” (UK readers, you know what I mean, right??)

In Progress

Lekala cowl top instructions and giveaway

You’ve seen my version of this fantastic cowl top, now’s your chance to make your own and show me yours!

As you’ll recall, the above is made using Lekala 4020, but I’ve created sleeve bands on the back to echo the ones on the front, so our first step is to alter the pattern for this.

Here’s the (unaltered) tech drawing:

Lekala give full pattern pieces rather than placing some patterns on the fold, so the first thing I like to do is fold the front and the back in half. If you’re altering the back like me, then cut the back piece in half along this foldline (at the CB).

To echo the sleeve bands/yokes on the back, first lay the front sleeve band/yoke piece onto the back, and mark the corresponding widths at the back shoulder and the back side seam, so the two bands will align nicely when sewn together. Then, using the front yoke piece as a guide, draw a nice curve to join the two points, trying to keep the width of the yoke even. Lastly, draw a double notch somewhere in the lower half across the line, so you’ve got the notches on both the back piece and your new back band piece. Then cut along the line and treat as two pieces.

You’ll end up with something like this:

Gallery

Silver silk jersey Lekala cowl top

I feel like I made this top so long ago, but the delay in showing it to you really wasn’t my fault! First it got delayed for a week while I went and bought more grey topstitching thread for the shoulder bands (and then immediately afterwards I found my other spool inside the case of my vintage hand crank Singer machine! Isn’t that always the way??), and then I had another week delay in taking photos while we waited for a break in the awful weather (mid-50sF and rainy for the past week, guh).

But cast your mind back with me and you’ll recall that I chose Lekala 4020, only I opted to create echoing sleeve bands on the back to decrease the “coffin back” look:

I’ve got full instructions on this pattern alteration and my order of construction coming shortly (honestly, they’re ready to go – I made the wise decision to write them right after making mine), so if you like the design and you’re roughly a Burda size 44, you may want to snap up this pattern while size 44s are free on Lekala’s site for another few days….

I made this top using some more offcuts of silver silk jersey, either leftover from Gez’s bridesmaid dress or from my sister-in-law’s LMB tunic, I’m not entirely sure which. But this stuff is so lush and drapey and easy to wear that I just can’t bear to let a single scrap go to waste! And the cowl neck here definitely benefits from a nice, drapey fabric, too.