Two Weddings and...an Update

No, you're not seeing things...We are back!

It’s been a crazy nine months, and I’m afraid that my mother and I have been very bad bloggers having not updated you in quite a while. Being in school (just a few weeks until Graduation! Yay!), things are still crazy, but I have many new sewing projects in various stages of “gestation,” if you will, and a great many things to share with you! 

Christmas in July: I hate having to come up with ideas for Christmas presents, so for a dear friend of mine and another dear friend/former boss, I decided to make coupons entitling them each to one garment sewn by me! Melissa, my former boss has been in the market for a new dress (I think she wants something in black. When she reads this, she can correct me if I’m wrong). She admires both versions of Vogue 8413 that my mother and I have made up for ourselves (pictures to come!) as well as my mother’s version of Vogue 8305 (one of my favorites!), so perhaps one of those will be in my boss’s future! My other friend, Emma, was making noises early this winter about needing a new coat for the cold weather. She ended up getting one over the Christmas break, but I’m going to make one for her for next winter.

Emma and I at school. Photo credit to Natalie Brown.

A new dress for every occasion: This semester, I was able to squeeze two dresses out for two very special occasions. For the American Heart Association’s Heart Ball, I made up view D of Simplicity 3774 (which I had made before and will never make again!) in silk dupioni I ordered from Vogue Fabrics. Besides some fitting problems in the bodice, it went together well.

I also made a red peachskin dress for the Go Red for Women luncheon this February from McCall’s 6433. As you can see from the link, it has dozens of pleats, which were a headache to mark on the fabric, but I was able to get it done. The only problem I had with it involved a zipper. It’s a long story that I will share with you all later, but the main lesson from this experience was never use a zipper  with plastic teeth that’s older than you are.

My boss and I at the Go Red for Women luncheon. You can't tell, but I'm wearing my red under the coat! Photo Credit: Melissa Thrasher

 Super-secret projects: Last year, I believe I made reference to a secret project that had been under my presser foot, which was a baby quilt for a co-worker who had been expecting a little boy in February. Well, with February having come and gone, Shelley has welcomed her little bundle of joy and hopefully has wrapped him up in my quilt! Hopefully, I’ll have a picture for you all soon.

I now have a new top-secret project for yet another former co-worker. I can’t say much except that I started it last semester and I’m about one-third of the way done with it now.

It’s wedding season!: According to a friend of mine, we (meaning we college students) are reaching an age when we’ll be having a lot of weddings to go to. As much as I don’t want to think about it, she’s got a point.

This summer, I have two weddings to go to, one in August and one in September and, therefore, at least two dresses to make. Seeing that I don’t yet have a job to occupy my time for the rest of my life after I graduate from college on the 27^th, my very first job out of college may very well be making a wedding dress for the August bride rather than working in public relations.

I just found out about this yesterday (apparently, the bride, my godmother, had a terrible run-in with bridal consultants at a few dress shops) and am extremely excited! She wants something very simple and I have already found a pattern or two that may interest her!

My dress for September. Read on below!

As for the September wedding, I’ve spent the better part of the start of this semester finding an appropriate dress pattern for yet another former co-worker’s peacock-themed wedding. At the suggestion of my friend Emma, I looked for a pattern with a full skirt (saves me the trouble of having to make my usual ridiculously large hip adjustment!) and finally found a Vogue pattern circa 1955, which I plan on making up in a bright blue silk dupioni (also from Vogue Fabrics). 

However, I’ve found a new pattern that I may or may not use instead. What do you all think?

-Christina

            

Popped Seams: Of Machine and Hand-Sewn Zippers for Vogue 8409



Vogue 8409. The drawing doesn't look like
 much, but the pattern is well-drafted.

 I had high hopes for this one.  I really did.

Well, I did after seeing it here. The drawing doesn't appealed to me, but it looks really good after it has been made up.

I started this in April, using a dark brown polyester/rayon/spandex (I believe) ponte roma double knit from Haberman Fabrics. I love ponte roma, which, for those who don't know is a very stable knit with a very small amount of stretch, and was excited to use it. The dress came out well and I put it aside for a long time until last week.

This is the partially finished product. You can't see
much detail, but it came out well.

Last Friday, after debating whether or not to install the zipper by hand or by machine, I attempted to machine sew the zipper into the dress.

Big mistake.

Now, I know how to put both standard and invisible zippers into a garment; neither are that hard. In fact, I prefer invisible zippers if you're planning to use a machine to install them. But this zipper installation went very wrong very quickly. Everything was going well, until I came to a very thick seam and then my needle veered off to the right. See the picture below.

Detail of the zipper at the back waist.

You can't tell in this picture, because I'm not the best photographer in the world (sorry!) but there is a seam going down the center of the back. To the right of that seam at the bottom is where I was sewing the zipper in place, but if you look up, you see alot of puckering and an uneven seam to the right of the center seam. Why? Because at that point, I was stitching through six, then four, and then six layers of double knit because the midriff piece (that part in the middle) that you see has a facing, or a sort of cover to keep the yucky raw edges under wraps, on the inside of the dress. So that means alot of fabric piled up, which creates a hump that is very difficult for the needle to work with.

A sort of perfectionist, I wasn't pleased with this and attempted to take the zipper out, but because the fabric is so thick, it is impossible to see the stiches and pop them without damaging the fabric.

You win some, you lose some. This one, I had to take a loss on all because of the zipper, which is very sad because it's a nice, easy-to-use pattern and I'm sure that it fits well. I might give it to my cat or my dad's kittens to use as a mattress or something. That's just about all it's good for now.

On the bright side, now I have more time to work on another Vogue dress. This time, I'm hand-picking the gosh darned zipper. 

-Christina