The grey plaid skirt

This cartoon reminded me...I still haven't mentioned the skirt I made!

That's right...I recently sewed a skirt for myself! I know...will wonders never cease?

I have had this fabric for a while (ok, not 'years' but 'months'!) and I decided it was perfect for a holiday skirt.

I had a December wedding to attend and thought a sparkly grey skirt might be just the ticket!

Plus, the theme of our December sewing guild meeting was 'SKIRTING THE ISSUE' and we were supposed to make/bring some type of skirt. It could be a table skirt, bed skirt, flared skirt, whatever. So I decided that was incentive enough to make a skirt for my body!

I used PMB. I have not made many skirts with PMB so I was not certain what settings I should choose.

Turns out I need ZERO waist drops...the level waist fits me best. The perfect amount of ease is still a bit fuzzy, because I had to take this one in. I made it 24" long, and used a facing at the waist and a back, (almost!) invisible zipper. :)

The fabric is a poly/rayon blend with a little silver metalic thread in the plaid. For the lining, I used black Ambience (Bemberg Rayon) that I purchased through a fabric coop.







Here is the back of the skirt with the zipper open and the vent exposed.

With the skirt inside out, you can see the lining and facings and vent (oh my!).

Here is a close-up of the vent lining. I always have to pull out my instructions to remember how to do this, since I do it so seldom.

I created a template to use with PMB to cut away the lining on one side of the vent. It saves me the trouble of figuring it out every time I do this!

BTW, the lining hem is even in real life...I should have straightened it up on the table before taking this picture!

I love this Bemberg Rayon...it is so luscious against the skin!

WEll, I guess I have skirted THIS issue, eh?

Navy Dress Part 2

I have been trying to update my progress on this dress, but have failed miserably! It HAS been finished and even worn...twice now! But it was not an easy project! This thing has almost kicked my butt!!! Everything has been more complicated that it should be!

I spent time researching how to do the facing at cb when there is a zipper there...in the end, it was easy, but I *thought* it would be hard so was apprehensive. Basically, I have made everything harder than it needed to be, which *is* my Modus Operandi!



But let me back up a bit...

Since I didn't want to compromise the 'breathability' of this fabric, I chose NOT to underline the dress, as I DID plan to line it. So I fused strips of interfacing above the hem area, so that my hem stitches could catch something other than just the fabric, and hopefully, be invisible. More on this later.

I inserted an invisible zipper...hadn't done one in a while...and my stitching was not quite as close to the zipper teeth as it needed to be to remain 'invisible'...so I stitched each side again a bit closer. Then I zipped it closed. Ackkkk! The cut edges of the neck were not aligned...I had allowed one side of the zipper to shift! I had to rip out one side of the zipper...which had been sewn TWICE!!! And in black thread...on a black zipper. I had to go sit outside on the deck in order to see well enough to rip!

I had taken lots of pictures during the construction of this dress, but DH accidently deleted them before I could upload them to my computer. sigh. He was putting them onto my computer in anticipation of his taking the camera with him to his parents house, and he was doing this while I was very busy and unable to supervise where all my pics were on the memory card and where they should go on my computer. Some were deleted, some were not. sigh.


Next was the French pleat at the back hem. This kick pleat is the slit with underlap kind...oh why did I have to do a French vent? A simple slit would have looked just as nice, even showed a bit of leg! But I planned this without regard for that. And lining a French vent is tricky if you haven't done it in along time, epsecially if you have never been the one to make the pattern! Anytime I have done this in the past, the pattern was made by a professional patternmaker and a template was provided to 'adjust' the lining. Well, this time, I had to make my own pattern and figure out my own 'template' for adjusting the lining!!! And of course, I did it wrong at first...allowed too much seam allowance on the lining edge, so that when the edge of the lining was sewn to the edge of the vent flap, there was excess lining width. Had to rip and resew. Then realized I should have HEMMED the lining before sewing it to this edge of the vent flap. Rip again, then hem and resew. Sheesh! of course...my pictures detailing the steps are gone. sigh. I can show the end result.

Once the zipper was in and the princess and side seams were sewn, I tried the dress on. It was 'roomy' to say the least! I had allowed 5" of hip ease and 2" waist ease...apparently that was too much. I took in the sideseams from above waist to the hem to remove 1" circumference...better.

There was still a fullness above the bust, especially on one side. I decided this was because I really needed a bit more length in the front bodice above the underarm level, which made the front bust level a bit too high. I need an additional 3/8" front length....which also would draft a larger bust dart...but that is for next time! I decided I couldn't fix the Bust Height problem in this dress so I moved on.

I had not yet set the sleeves, but the depth of the armholes was bothering me. I was afraid I had drafted the armholes too deep. I do have square shoulders and often need to raise the AH depth, but had failed to do that. duh. Then I realized that the AHs had stretched....why hadn't I staystitched? duh. I put the pattern on the ironing board and aligned the garment onto its pattern and steamed the AHs back to size and shape, then used some fusible tape to keep them stable...sorry, that picture was deleted. sigh. I'll take one of the fusible product I used to 'fix' the AHs.

Now on to the sleeves: The first set of sleeves were bad (cap height was too low, and I had not allowed enough cap ease), so I redrafted, created and cut new sleeves. This time, I basted the sleeves in! Still not perfect, but usable, once I rotated them a little to look/hang better.

But before I made those new sleeves, though, I wanted to address that b-AH. I was considering trimming out the back armhole, as if removing the 3 clicks outward that had I added during drafting by using the AH Shape tool. I felt like the back was too wide, but I sure did hate to try this, as once cut, this alteration could not be undone! Finally, I did it. And the new sleeves went in nicely!

When cutting out the sleeve lining, I forgot to cut the front underarm area a bit higher than the pattern (to allow extra fabric so the lining will have room to go over the underarm seam allowance)...so I figured I might as well NOT cut the back higher either....so then I had to decide HOW to do the sleeves. In the end, I just sewed the lining's armhole to the garment's armhole...to treat them as one. Then I lined the sleeves separately...then inserted the garment sleeves into the dress by machine, and sewed the lining sleeves to the lining AH by hand. Not my preferred way to do it, but it worked!

The dress feels wonderful as I put it on. I lined it with Bemberg rayon...my first time to use this. I really like the way it feels! I had some issues sewing it, though. I didn't change needles between the shell and the lining, and after sewing nearly ALL the lining seams, I realized I had 'loops' on the bobbin side every now and them...and had to go back and reinforce some of the stitching. I don't know what would cause this, unless it was the needle size.

Then I wore the dress to the wedding. It wore well...was comfortable and allowed adequate mobility. However, I felt like I looked like my grandmother. I was NOT happy.

Navy Dress Part 1

I'm still working on the dress, but at least I am in the sewing stage! Today, I will finish cutting out the lining and begin assembling and inserting it into the already sewn dress. Well, the dress's sleeves have not been inserted, but other than that, it is 'already sewn'.

I decided to go with a shoulder princess-seamed version; Vneck; with 3/4 length sleeves (the cap sleeves I was considering just didn't do my body any favors); vent/kick pleat in the back seam. I am making it 'just-below-the-knee' length...I chose 43" as my finished back length. I also made this straight (as in, no flare) but again, I am not sure that was the best choice either! Those 'hams' just under my back waistline (on each side) are trying their best to be the star of the show!

The fabric is a navy poly/rayon blend, and it is either a jacquard or a matelassee...I have no idea how to spell that, and am not even sure of the pronounciation! I goofed when I cut out the center back piece...I was on the phone while cutting, so my attention was diverted when I layed that piece onto the fabric after cutting the other 3 pieces--front, side/front, and side/back---which all fit nicely across the width of the fabric. I cut those 3 pieces, then pulled more fabric onto the cutting mat to lay out and cut the CB, sleeve, facings, etc...and, well, I was distracted and forgot to consider the pattern repeat! In this picture, you can see how that CB and Side/Back would have related to each other...I had to slide the back piece upward, as in the right side, to align the design repeat. So I cut a new CB piece that DID keep the fabric's repeat aligned! Thank Goodness I had extra fabric!

Regarding the pattern...

• I found that I needed to draft with 2" extra hip ease than desired, because the long front dart extensions need to remove a full inch on each side...for a 2" reduction in front.


• And it turns out that using a Side/Hip placement of (+0.5..moving the SS/hip backwards) gives me mirrored sideseams, which is desirable to me! Although this initially makes the front pattern WIDER than the back pattern at hip level, after I sew out the long front waist darts, the back becomes wider than the front...which is more logical, since there is a bum back there!

I think I might have to tweak my CFL measurement just slightly (for next time) to provide a bit more front length to make garments better conform to my shape...that is, I need MORE than just 'adequate' front length if I want the garment to sit closer to the rib cage under the bust, as opposed to falling straight toward waist.

I drafted this with 7" of hip ease , thinking that after I sewed out the front waist darts, I would have 5" ease. Well, 5" turned out to be too much. I ended up sewing out an inch at both waist and hip...all the way to hem. So 4" hip ease and 1" waist ease turned out to be good for me on this dress. My choice of bust ease was 1.5". More on drafting this later...