Tag Archives: work in progress

cranberry wool dress – muslin stage

30 Nov

hi everyone, i finished my coat over the long weekend!

then i discovered my camera is jacked up, the flash doesn’t work, and it’s been gross and rainy and gray. soo no pictures, sry sux 2 b u, etc etc.
i’ll get some up as soon as i can!

in the meantime, i’m working on my newest dress – vogue 9668.

i cut a 6 for the bust size and an 8 for the waist and hip. spent most of my saturday chopping the tissue up to allow for a full bust adjustment. i would link y’all to an online tutorial, since FBAs really are a lifesaver (and they are kinda fun, if you are into chopping up pattern tissue and retaping it a zillion times), but it looks like my favorite one was deleted 😦 i consulted my copies of fit for real people (aka the book my roommate saw laying on the counter and laughed at me for buying it, bc the clothes on the front are so awful) and the perfect fit (bc… idk, i guess i like having multiple fitting books or something).

this is what my pattern piece looks like now:
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i need to shorten that side dart just a pinch, but i wasn’t in the mood.

my muslin is finished and it fits perfectly!
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i only made a muslin of the bodice bc, honestly, the bottom is a bias circle skirt and that doesn’t really require fitting.
oh, and that’s not really muslin, it’s some horrible 60s green and white polyester monstrosity. and it is wrong-side-out, bc i drew my pattern markings (IN SHARPIE HEH HEH goddd i’m such a rule breaker) on the right side and just flipped the pieces over and ughh whatever have another picture:
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looks good, y/y?

i’m waiting to cut out my fabric pieces. i need to stay the neckline with silk organza, but the tutorial i am following says it needs to be done before i actually cut out the bodice.

in the meantime, i went to the store on my lunch break and bought a bunch of skinny headbands, so i’m gonna spend my (possibly snowy? ew)evening making some cute little bow headbands a la casey brown.

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lining the lady grey, part 1

22 Nov

i was able to get a good bit of sewing in over the weekend… we are in for the home stretch at this point! yay!

i would have started the lining sooner, but i am highly intelligent and managed to cut my weft interfacing for the wrong side of the jacket facing 😡 so i had to go back to the fabric store and buy more weft. now i just realized i also should have bought more thread. i can’t believe how much thread i’ve gone through at this point – an entire spool of silk, nearly 2 spools of the blue, and almost a full spool of the silver. it’s not like i’m sitting here sewing and ripping out seams over and over, either. ugh!

anyway, i’m about halfway done with the lining. it is in, so pretty much all that’s left at this point is a bunch of handsewing and working on the details.

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help me choose a tag for my coat

17 Nov

as if i didn’t already have enough handsewing on my plate (and sewing in general, ew those christmas gifts ain’t gonna sew themselves), i decided yesterday that my coat needed a pretty embroidered tag for the inside, where i will put the tiny chain you use to hang one’s coat on a hook (speaking of which, where do you buy those things, anyway? the hardware store? the jewelry crafting aisle? i don’t think i’ve ever seen them at my fabric store). my pfaff actually has an embroidery unit – like, not those dinky little monograms you can make that are all of 1/2″ tall, but a legit hooks-onto-your-machine-and-you-buy-embroidery-cards kinda deal – but i don’t really care for machine embroidery. i like the texture of hand embroidery. so pretty!

here were the designs i found at needle’n’thread:
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more under the cut!
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pockets & sleeves – my coat is starting to look like a coat

15 Nov

YOU GUYS
MY COAT IS FINALLY STARTING TO LOOK LIKE A COAT!!

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tailoring the lady grey, v2.0

8 Nov

i recently had a bit of downtime in-between working and sew-working (and, god, i just realized i need to start christmas present makin’ asap!) and i managed to finish the padstitching on my coat 🙂

i don’t know how i feel about padstitching. i want to like it – i love hand-stitching, and i love being able to sit on the couch (not that i don’t love my beautiful sewing room!) and i love that it is quiet so i can hold a conversation while i am sewing. but the shaping that is involved with padstitching, ugh, i could do with the hand cramps and the constant peeking under the bottom to make sure my stitches are sorta-kinda-not-really-hidden-whatever-it’s-the-bottom-and-no-one-is-gonna-look-there-anyway.

but it’s done! well. the lapels are done. the collar padstitching is my next big coat project, but baby steps, y’all.

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living up to my name: tailoring the lady grey

26 Oct

been slowing plodding along on my lady grey! i have a tendency to rush through sewing projects, just to get them “done,” and i never really enjoy the sewing process itself. i am trying to slow down and take my time; get everything done right and learn as much as i can!

but man, it is taking forever! and yes, i am SUPER far behind haha!
and padstitching? ugh, if i’m lucky, i’ll be done by christmas.

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bound buttonholes – my first, second, and third attempt

6 Oct

i haven’t been updating much on the lady grey progress, mostly because i’ve been slogging through the boring stuff.

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i cut out my pattern pieces…

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serged all the edges…

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and marked each one with a small note so i would know which piece was which (since i need all the help i can get!).

i am actually not finished with the cutting yet… i still have to cut the pieces for my interlining (lightweight flannel) and i have more interfacing and hair canvas that needs to be cut. cutting is the worst!

last night i worked on bound buttonholes for the first time.
ARE YOU READY FOR SOME BUTTONHOLE PRON????
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lady grey sew-along!

23 Aug

just popping in to let everyone know i will be participating in the 2010 lady grey sew-long, as instructed by gertie’s new blog for better sewing. i couldn’t be more excited – i was thinking about taking the plunge into coatmaking/tailoring, but a little apprehensive. plus, i am in loove with this pattern:

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aren’t you in love, too? 🙂

anyone who wants to participate is welcome to join! you can follow along at gertie’s blog, or just click the badge in my sidebar.
for a limited time, colette patterns is offering 20% off the lady grey pattern for anyone who wants to make their own! use the code GERTIE20 (it is case sensitive) to take advantage of the discount. code expires on september 30, 2010.

NOW. what color should i make mine? turquoise? yellow? pink? deep purple?
ooh the decisions!

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vogue 1161 – work in progress – + flea market finds

28 Jun

so i started trying to hammer out this vogue pattern over the weekend:
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vogue 1161
i know it doesn’t really look like much, but there are a lot of neat design lines (WHY would you style the dress with leopard print fabric that hides the seaming and details? WHY?) that i thought would make a hot little cocktail dress. you know, for all those cocktail parties i don’t go to.

anyway, the fabric calls for something slinky and silky, so i went with this rich orange silk:
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also, btw y’all, i hate sewing silk and i really am going to swear it off soon.
reasons why i hate silk:
– it unravels worse than anything i’ve ever seen before. just during the process of cutting and marking my fabric pieces, i have probably lost over 1/2″ on all seam allowances due to the silk unraveling and being a bitch. this dress prob won’t even freakin’ fit by the time i am done with it AUGHHH!!
– it is a bitch to cut – it shifts and slides and hates on me. i tried cutting on paper, i tried cutting one layer, i tried pinning the everloving hell out of it… it must be some kind of shape-shifter because it would NOT stay in place. the only thing i didn’t try was my rotary cutter – because, 1. i hate my rotary cutter; 2. the blades are dull; and 3. i hate my rotary cutter bc i don’t actually know how to use it – but my scissors are pretty freakin’ sharp soo i don’t know. anyway. cutting sux, y’all.
– ironing makes me sad. i learned very quickly that, even though my rowenta has a “silk” setting, it wrinkles and puckers the crap out of my silk and apparently i need to use a press cloth. whoops! the iron isn’t hot enough to totally flatten those dang seams, which is a bummer because i am an seam-pressing fiend every other day of the week.
– i had to buy a marking pen because my wax ~tailor’s pencil~ was too hard and bore a tiny hole in the fabric, crap.

but you know what? at least it is a pretty silk.

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work in progress: vogue 1174

17 Jun

sooo i have no idea who cynthia steffe is, but apparently she is a big-shot designer who sells her digs @ nordstrom’s for like $345:
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and then sells the rights to vogue for pattern-making!
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vogue 1174- fortunately, the took a hint with that michael kors styling disaster and this one actually looks really nice.

i have been working on this pattern since monday and i’m pretty close to being finished. i don’t even know why i have been making this pattern – i look awful in strapless dresses. at any rate, there are several techniques here that i wanted to try out – boning, inner foundation (like, a lightweight corset), piping, etc – so here i am. the pattern is not nearly as advanced as i expected it to be, although i am about to start working on the inner guts (aka the foundation and boning) tonight, so i may end up changing my mind 😉 at any rate, the instructions are fairly straight-forward. the only problem i’ve been having is with the fitting. even with a muslin, the fitting has been a total bear 😦

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