I went through a phase where I made clothes that were "on trend," whatever the hell that means. I tried to go for only trends that suited my natural style, but even then, when you're sewing with any acknowledgement of trends, you will inevitably make something not practical for your lifestyle and/or fashion style. I can't tell you how many times I bought a fabric in the store only to get home and realize that it doesn't go with anything in my wardrobe. Like, not even my shoes.
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And then I get to a phase like where I'm in now, where I'm drawn once again to some clearly vintage silhouettes, like this one from Vogue 2402. I made the dress and belt only. Though that jacket is beautiful, right now I'm a cardigan person, so no jackets for this gal.
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| The angle and my questionable hip grading make the ease appear to be my shape. It isn't, but only by a little bit, teehee. |
Is this not the most glorious fabric you've ever seen? It's a print made of sewing machines. GENIUS.
The contrast bodice facing and belt fabric is from my stash, a print that I've actually used for nothing but accents in various garments. It's part of a skirt, the back of a kimono, another skirt, and now the facing and belt of this dress.
You will notice, though, that there are lime green sewing machines scattered throughout; there was extensive print placement planning needed to make sure there weren't "bullseyes" on certain umm...places.
Overall, this wasn't a difficult make, but the instructions weren't as clear as some of the newer Vogue patterns. [yeah, uhhhhhhhhhhh.....................what?] It seems like the dress should be lined, but it doesn't call for it, and I'm not in the mood to do that nowadays, anyways, so huzzah. I gave the allowances a quick zip stitch finish.
I really like the sleeve openings at the top of the shoulder. They mirror the openings at the skirt hem.
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| Thank you, husband, for helping me take photos. |
I made a muslin of the bodice, just because I anticipated potential problems in that area, particularly in the upper back. I'm glad I did that, as I ended up taking out almost an inch of upper back length and lengthening the darts.
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| And there's still extra length in the back! I can't believe it. |
There is a nice fit through the torso, at least I think so. I was conscious not to overfit the hips, as that's a habit of mine. With a midi-length skirt, I figure I need that wiggle room to take steps larger than an 8" stride. So, I left the extra room at the sides, though I don't love how it looks when I'm standing still. I read in one of my fitting books that in some ways we will never achieve a perfect fit because we have to move in our clothes. If we could choose to stand and not move, we could have perfect clothes, but the fact that we must function means that a certain amount of ease must exist somewhere. I read that Marilyn Monroe used to be sewn into some of her dresses and gowns, which explains alot. I always wondered what type of miraculously strong zippers her designers must have been using...
I digress.
I digress.
I bought this cute belt buckle at a local fabric shop downtown. Sadly, it's moving farther out, but it's still close by. I'm glad I can support a local business with my hobby. I love me some JoAnn's, but if I have a choice between them and the local business, I try to go local. I read somewhere that if each of us gave $100 more per year to local businesses it would add $3,000,000 into our local economies and create many more jobs. Yes, please.
I've had a good run with my recent vintage patterns; but, the next project is the Papercut Clover in some of the most beautifully saturated rayon challis I've ever seen. It shall be my birthday dress!!
