design observed :: day 2

Excellent suggestions!

So here's where we are:

We've pretty much decided that A-line is our silhouette of choice for this project.  Long sleeves, I think, are appropriate for this time of year.  As for length, my personal opinion is that on a child over about age two or three, A-line styles are best kept short.  I think we'll keep this one right at knee length. 

So, what we know is:

-A-line

-Long sleeves

What we do not know, and need to decide, is this:

1) Will we have a collar?  There are two styles shown in our sketch above, but that doesn't mean we need to use a collar, or use either of those. 

2) For that matter, what shape do we want the neckline?

3) The two sleeves I've drawn above are, again, only two possibles.  We can use a gigot-type sleeve, as at left, which is essentially a long, straight, wide sleeve with one (or more) rows of elastic gathers creating one (or more) puffs.  Or we can use a long bell sleeve for more of a sort of flower-child look.  Or neither.

4) Heather suggested a vintage coat for this style, and I'm thinking, what if we use that idea without actually making a coat?  A two-button tab over a pleated panel inserted in the front and/or back will add some kicky sweetness and give us the tailored coat feel.  We'll need to decide whether to do that only on the front, only on the back, on both, and where (vertically) that should begin. 

Those are my ideas on our project today.  Yours?

~Erin~

design observed :: day 1

Just joining us?  Please read design observed.

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Our corduroy is such a rich, vibrant color that it's a little tough to match.  It's Christmas green.  Grass green. 

I'll start by pulling out anything I have that might match.

I have 1 1/4 yards of this slippery-crisp light fabric, which must be polyester. 

I have just shy of a yard of this gray-striped, rust, green, and mustard fabric.  Cotton-poly broadcloth weight. 

This little piece of trim matches that fabric nicely.  Got 1.5 yards of that.  It is a one-way print, remember.

I have about 4 yards of this gold-embroidered gold window scarf.

A little bit of deep ecru lace (almost 5 yards), a gold satin ribbon...

and about four yards of this heavy crocheted lace, which is about 3" wide. 

Also a little hank of mismatched mother-of-pearl buttons.

We can use any/all/none of it. 

Questions we have to answer before going forward are these:

1) What will the silhouette of our dress be?  We can choose A-line, Princess, or Yoke. 

2) What fabrics and/or trims will we use?

We'll start with those and go forward from there.

Thanks!

~Erin~

design observed

In my younger days I had a sweet little business sewing ready-to-smock items while my (one) toddler slept.  Almost every vestige of that business is long gone now, except for this:  

Oh, such pretty fabric.  Softest, tiniest-wale cotton corduroy.  It begs for you to pet it.  Does it ever make lovely back-to-school smocked jumpers.  But one little girl can only use so many green jumpers, and so I put it away, along with my pleater, when I closed up that business.  

My daughter hasn't worn anything kelly green in years now, and this bolt of fabric has been carefully wrapped up in plastic in a dark closet, waiting.  But fall is here, a time when sewers' fancies lightly turn to corduroy, and this bolt is begging to fit the bill.

So here's the game.  I'm going to turn the design process inside out for you, in all its messy, creative glory.  You and I are going to create a dress with this green goodness.  We're going to put our heads together over our virtual sewing table here, and come up with something fantastic.  I'll post, you comment, I'll sew, pin, fiddle, and post again...you get the idea.

When we reach the end, and the final photos are posted, I'll select the most useful comment from all those proffered over the course of our collaboration, and send 2.5 yards of prettiest green featherwale corduroy to the winner.

You game?  We'll start Monday, Oct. 19.  See you then!

~Erin~

inheritance

I inherited this book from my grandmother.  It's a wonderful glimpse into what sewing was 40 years ago.  It's tabbed and ring-bound just like the BHG cookbook, which all by itself hints at a different approach to the craft.  Today it's an art form, a creative outlet, then it was as everyday as making dinner.

(The fact that it's ring-bound means that the pages can be easily removed and pinned up to a bulletin board somewhere.  Which is where I expect the pages on "cuffing men's pants" have gone...)

In particular, I love Chapter 14, "Sewing for Children".  Here are a couple of pages from that chapter:

I love that they tell you, hey, there are really only three dress silhouettes.  So you don't need to buy bunches of expensive patterns.  I love that they talk about where to find inspiration, and I love where they say, "Assemble patterns for each of these types and keep them on hand as you style school and party dresses for your little girl." 

I really love the simple, happy expressions on their drawings of little girls who are thrilled to wear the dresses you've created for them.  Sometimes I wish I could draw a smile on my model.

I love this book for a lot of reasons, but mostly because it offers a lot of "why" that doesn't seem to be in newer sewing books.  If you can get your hands on one, I recommend it.  A cookbook for sewing.  Sounds like a good recipe!

~Erin~

pretty maids

There's a moment in the process of everything that I sew, where I'm sitting with this ball of frayed edges and sticking-out strings in my lap, and I'm fed up with it and I just want to throw the whole thing in a corner and give up.  But every time, I sew just a couple more seams, clip, turn, press, shake it out, and oh! the thing becomes a dress.  Or the pants I was envisioning.  Or a shirt...

That moment.  That's why I sew.  The moment when the parts I cut out of flat fabric come together, stand up on their own, and become something more than bits of fabric joined by seams. 

This week I've finished three baby dresses for my three (!) nieces being born this fall.

And since I've already talked about the back placket and the puffed sleeve, now let's go through the process of sewing a basic yoke dress, shall we?

These dresses have a mid-height yoke seam, puffed, bias-bound sleeves, a straight gathered skirt, and a lined bodice.

Here are the pieces you'll need: 

(2) Bodice back and lining: The bodice back is cut in one piece with the lining.  There will be a center back opening, with buttons, and the bodice back will wrap right around and become the lining. 

(2) Skirt:  The skirt should be two rectangles, with the length being the desired dress length minus the bodice length, and then with hem and yoke seam allowances added. 

(2) Bodice front:  One of these will be the bodice front lining.

(2) Sleeve:  Puffed sleeves.

(1) Placket:  A straight-grain rectangle, twice the length of the desired finished placket, the width to be two seam allowances + two finished widths.  Mine was 1 1/2".

(2) Sleeve binding:  Bias-cut rectangles, seven times the desired finished width, length = child's upper arm measurement +1 1/2".

Here's what to do:

Skirt:

-Skirt side seams-Sew one skirt side seam.  Turn up the hem.  Mine was a 3" deep hem with 1/2" to turn under at the top.  Blindstitch this, or if you plan to cover the stitching with embellishment, straight stitch along the folded edge.

-Add skirt embellishment-Pintucks, ruffles, ruching...whatever you can come up with makes for skirt-hem fun.  My ruching (on the purple dress) is bias-cut strips 1" wide, ruffled down the middle with a shirring foot and then sewn to the skirt along the gathering thread. 

-When you've added any embellishment, sew the other skirt side seam, catching the raw edges of the embellishment in the seam. 

-Add a continuous bound placket in the center top back of the skirt.

-Loosen the sewing machine tension and sew two gathering threads along the top of the skirt.  One of these should be at your proposed seamline, the other halfway between the seamline and raw, upper skirt edge. 

Now hang the skirt up somewhere where you can see it while you work on the top of the dress. 

Bodice:

Sew the shoulder seams: Sew each bodice front shoulder seam to a bodice back shoulder seam.  The finished piece should be a circle like this:

Sew the neckline: Fold each bodice back in half along the center back, right sides together.  Match shoulder seams and center fronts.  Pin the neckline:

and sew from the back edge to the back edge.  Press this, clip the seam allowance to, but not through, the stitching, and turn the bodice right side out.  Press the neckline again.  Don't use steam here or the fabric may shape itself to the spaces you clipped in the seam allowance.  Just kinda looks funny.

Sew the side seams, making sure to match lining to lining, and bodice front to bodice back.

 

Place a pin at the point where the bodice back becomes the bodice lining:

Take the skirt down from the hanger and pin the bodice lining to the wrong side of the skirt.  Match those pins you just put in the back of the bodice to the edges of the placket.  Also match the bodice lining side seams to the skirt side seams.  Match the center front of the skirt to the center front of the bodice lining as well.

 Sew the bodice lining to the skirt. 

Now wrap the bodice around one side of the placket and pin the waist seam as far as you can go.  Match the bodice side seam to the lining side seam.  Wrong sides together. The bodice and lining sandwich the gathered skirt edge between them.

Sew this seam as far as you can, then press it, turn it right side out, and repeat for the other side.

You'll be left with a little opening on the outside like this:

Fold the seam allowance in and pin.

Beginning at the left upper side of the placket, topstitch very close to the edge of the waist seam, on the bodice fabric:

around the waist-

up the center back and around the neckline, then down the other back edge to where you began.  Make sure, as you sew, that there are no folds of the lining caught in your stitching.

Pin the bodice armholes to the bodice armhole lining and baste the armholes together.

Make a puffed sleeve.

Turn the dress inside out.  Pin the sleeve, right side out, in the armhole.  Match the center top of the sleeve to the shoulder seam, the underarm seam to the bodice side seam.  Place a pin at each end of the gathering threads. 

Pull the bobbin threads until the sleeve fits the armhole.  Adjust the gathers so they're distributed around the armhole.  Wrap the bobbin threads around the pin.

Stitch the sleeve into the armhole.  Press and finish the sleeve seam.

Turn the whole thing right side out and press it a little wherever it needs it. 

Put horizontal buttonholes where the arrows show you, one about 1/4" below the neckline, one at the top of the placket, and the third halfway between.

Sew on sweet little buttons and you're done.

Excuse me while I go find pink tissue paper and bows...