Understated Fan Attire -- or Evolution of a Design

(could be a number of different teams with these colors)

My daughter wanted me to make her a simple little A-Line dress from some cute fabric for a game she was attending (so working to a deadline...)  

First of all, she went on a massive pattern hunt.  She did not find anything online that was exactly what she wanted.  She kept describing it to me, and what she really wanted was a late '60's or early '70's dress.  None of the patterns we found were compatible with the fabric, or exactly what she wanted.  I began designing it in my mind and trying to formulate exactly what was required to make it come out the way she wanted--knowing all the while that the final result would not be EXACTLY what she had in mind.

We had a stroke of luck (I thought) when I asked where the pattern had gone for a favorite dress I made her in the '90's from some lovely "koi" fabric she found.  It was not as curvaceous as she had in mind, and she wanted a square neck as well.  With the pattern in hand, I started looking at how to make a new one that would do the job.

I told her she should go to my "stash" and find a piece of fabric to make a "test" case in.  Keeping in mind that the dress is made from cotton, you may be as amazed as I was when she picked velveteen for the "test" case!  

After measuring, changing, and fiddling, I cut the dress and basted in the darts.  (Her pattern only had side bust darts, but I needed to make back darts at least, to achieve some of the curves.)  You can see where I adjusted the angle of the darts to make the placement accurate for her shape.  Also my initial attempt at the square neck she described.  (It wasn't right--she wanted it MORE square--no angle to the shoulders.)

I tried it on her and and saw that we needed not only the back darts, but diagonal (in this case "curved") darts from the hip to the bust, and also needed to move the change the side bust darts to accommodate the new darts.  You can see the new darts here:

Then it was back to the drawing board to create a pattern.  In order to get the new darts and changed side bust darts cut accurately, I marked it all on muslin and did not cut the sides until I stitched it up following the correct lines.  Here is the way it looked at this point.  As you can tell, I did not curve the darts for this fabric.  (She may have been happier if I had, but I was rather overwhelmed at this point and decided she would have to live with straight-line darts.)

I basted in the darts and cut the side.  Then I removed the basting and used the muslin as my pattern.

I thought I was ready to begin, but she got up the next morning and told me she had decided she wanted the dress to be lined, so we had another delay while getting the lining, then washing and drying it.  Finally I could cut everything out.  The last seams were the side seams so I could adjust the fit.  (As I mentioned, she is not entirely happy with the final fit.)

I'm pretty happy with the pattern matching at the back zipper.

The side seams are not absolutely perfect, but that's not so very surprising.  Of course with a tapered seam, they won't look like the center back.

This one shows how I stitched down the seam allowance and lining across the front of the square neck to prevent the lining from rolling to the outside.

This view includes the squared front neck and the lining hand stitched down the sides of the zipper.

Front darts from the inside

Back darts - lining; showing 1-1/2" opening in the lining below the bottom of the zipper to allow lining to drape well at the hips.

I used 3-thread serging to make the strings to hold the lining in place at the hem without attaching it to the dress.

The final outcome just looks like a big rectangle without her in it.  It's pretty neat, but still does not fit just as she wants.  Perhaps next time...

Perhaps one day I will get to take a photo of her wearing the dress.  (My attempt to steal one of her mobile ones failed.

Another One I Cut Out LAST Summer

Getting into my unfinished projects...

A sweet little eyelet top for hot summer days

Then Of Course, There are Days When Insanity is Not in Question--'cause it's for sure!

In class, I have learned some heirloom serging techniques and I wanted to make my granddaughter something and utilize some of what I had learned.

When I was in Tennessee last summer I picked up some beautiful voiles done by a local designer.  I chose this one for my heirloom "practice".  

I started with a "Project Runway" pattern that I could tell was not going to be exactly what I wanted, but it gave me some lines for tucks, so that's where I started.  I have probably NEVER been so topsy turvy while trying to work my way through a project.  I thought I would make a dress and repeat the effects around the hem, but it turned into a top as I bowed not-so-gracefully out of the bigger project.

I decided to run the lace and tucks all the way across one piece of fabric and put in the tucks as well before cutting--knowing that one panel was not sufficient for the entire project, so I would have to match what I had done on some more fabric.

I had to figure out which end would be the "top" and which the "bottom" so I could place my lace and tucks. I finally decided where to begin and then life got REALLY crazy.  

After stitching the tiny insertion strip to the lace on each side I then attached the lace to the fabric using a TINY zig zag stitch so it would not overwhelm the delicate lace.  (I could not find any "insertion" lace, to I could not serge the lace to the fabric, but I did serge the lace to the tiny insertion strip.)  I pressed the tiny seams aside and then attached it to the fabric.  

I then took it to my cutting table to begin the next phase and in the better light discovered the the tiny seams were on the OUTSIDE of the fabric!

I then spent about 5 hours removing two 45-in. wide rows of teeny tiny zig zag stitches.  (I estimated I had removed about 2,250 stitches!)  It has to be done stitch by stitch and VERY carefully or the lace would have been mutiliated. 

I then re-attached the strip to the fabric, marked the tucks, and stitched them using embroidery thread to emphasize the unavoidable row of stitches.  It looked really nice.  I had also discovered that the tucks should not be symmetrically spaced with the lace.  One side had to be deeper than the other so that when the tucks were in place they would be spaced properly with the lace strip.

About this time I abandoned the idea of making a dress, partly because I thought she would get more wear out of a top than a delicate dress that could not go to the playground, and partly because I decided it would take way too long to figure out where to place the bottom strip and tucks.  This caused me to "turn around" where I was going to begin cutting.  The result of that was that both rows of tucks had to be re-done so they would be running the opposite direction from where I had placed them.  Fortunately the straight row of 2.5 stitches was fairly quickly removed, then I worked out where each tuck had to move to and re-stitched them!

NOW I was ready to place the pattern pieces on the fabric and work on the second section of insertion and tucks.

This is a section of the heirloom detail with everything in the right place and going the correct direction at long last!

Bodice close-up

I forced myself to use the hemming foot on my sewing machine for the hem, as my regular method simply wasn't going to "fly" on an heirloom project.  I could have hand stitched it and it would have been less obvious, but I decided I simply MUST master the hemming foot.

Finished top (and it may be the first AND the last such project I ever do....)

201

When she first tried it on, she touched the lace and said, "I can see my SKIN!"  (I think she was asking if that was ok. :-)  She and her mommie love it.

Wishing I had a real Embroidery Machine sometimes

The 5-yr old has legs as long as most 7-yr olds, so it's time to get busy again and figure out what pattern to use now.  

I got this denim-looking, but VERY light weight blend for play clothes because it's cool enough for summer and tough enough for the playground.

I decided to play with the decorative stitches on my machine to create the illusion of a flower garden.  I like that I have the one that looks like grass.

A little "flower garden" on each leg

The pants are made from fabric that is really too light for these stitches (which I was pretty sure about before I started), but it was a good one to play around with to see how it would work--now I know--use heavier fabric!

Plain shorts

Now that I have her new size nailed down, I can go make the "real" stuff.

'Shrooms and Gnomes

I made this last Fall, but it is still waiting to go to my friend.  (I need to do the things for her kids to go with it.)