No sooner do I declare that I like a bit of edge in my clothing, than I make a bunch of things that are super sweet.
Butterick 6321 – Lisette
Butterick 6321 is a bonus project—a pattern featured in Fabricland’s current mailer, so available as an extra project if someone wants to do it. And it is seriously cute. And, pockets. But, I had a hard time settling into this project. Sometimes I feel a bit like a stereotype of myself as the girl who makes the pretty dresses. In the end, I like it more than I thought I might a lot of the way through, though.
I had a hard time picking the fabric. We have a lot of gorgeous rayons and some nice summer cottons in store right now, but I liked how the detailing looked on the solid version on the cover. Eventually I settled on this pretty and very light-weight stretch denim, and lace for the detailing. I do love this lace, and have been looking for an excuse to use it in a project since it came in.
Instant fuzz collector.
After checking the final garment measurements, and knowing I was using a stretch fabric, I opted to sew a size 10 throughout, rather than grading to a 12 for waist and hips. I am glad I did the 10 in the bottom half, but I could maybe have gone down to an 8 in the bust and shoulders. (Typing that terrified me. I have never in my sewing life been an actual pattern size 8, though I’ve tried once or twice with disastrous results.)
You can’t see it, but my swayback alteration was successful. No back wrinkles.
I made most of my usual alterations—swayback, square shoulder, and petiting along the designated lengthen-shorten line. What I skipped was additional petiting through the armscye. I figured, because of the construction with the seam there, I could adjust at that point later if necessary, and I overdid the petiting on a few projects last fall so I’m a bit gunshy now. Come to think of it, those were both McCall’s patterns, though.
Lightened. Nope, you still can’t see it.
Then I went and did my construction in such a way that it would be nearly impossible to adjust anything by the time I could actually try stuff on properly. In hindsight I could’ve left off the bodice facings and the sleeves until everything else was finished, tried on, and then fixed the shoulder height. Hindsight is so perfect, isn’t it? What I actually did was finish every damn thing on the bodice, beautifully, with plenty of seam grading and trimming to make things work in my heavy fabric, before I even had the skirt started.
A couple of construction notes: the pattern calls for self-lined shoulder pieces and cap sleeves. I substituted a navy stretch poplin for these pieces (as well as the pocket lining) because of my heavier fabric. I also went a bit off road on the construction, as I wasn’t completely fond of the method described. I am pretty happy with what all I did, even the moment when I had the entire bodice rolled up inside the little front “placket” so I could machine finish it. Just not with the fit. /sigh.
This is another side-zip dress. *headdesk* it’s not so much the physical insertion of a side zip that I dislike, as the difficulty they add to fitting as you go, and then the awkwardness of wearing them after. In this case, we were wary of using an invisible zipper because of the heaviness of the denim… So rather than struggle with the bulk of a conventional zipper or a lapped side zip, I basically went for the nuclear option. Exposed, chunky metal zip.
I’m not sure if this is the wisest style decision I’ve ever made, but I do like the flatness of it. It goes with the denim but seems a bit out of place with the lace. And the fancy pull is gigantic. Oh, well.
At my first try on, before the zip was in, I confess my heart sank. The shoulders were weirdly wide and the cap sleeves came too low under my arms, feeling extremely constricting. I had visions of ripping off the sleeves entirely for a sundress look. Or just throwing it all in a corner.
Too much room in the shoulders.
But, it’s a work project and so no UFOs allowed. Once I had the zip in, things looked a lot better. With the waist sitting where it should, the extra height above the bust is more apparent, but it also forces the bottom of the cap sleeve up to the right height under my arm, so the weird binding is down to manageable proportions. Meaning I won’t be turning cartwheels easily but I can comfortably put my hands on my hips and cross my arms. The shoulders are definitely a bit wide, but some of that might also be the extra height letting things slide around. I don’t have narrow shoulders, by the way.
Extra height makes folds at shoulders.
This pattern has a sweet, detailed upper bodice, and the skirt is fairly narrow with some interesting shirt-tail shaping at the hem (although it’s subtle, maybe a bit too subtle to be noticeable. On the other hand if it were more pronounced it would’ve been harder to get my wide lace to curve evenly to match the edge). I like them both—I’m just not convinced they go really well together. I’d love to pair the bodice with a fuller skirt (say, Sewaholic’s Hollyburn, which has the same kind of pockets) and/or the skirt with a little sundress bodice or even as a separate piece. In reality, though, I like the finished object more than I thought I might, and if I can bring myself to rework the shoulders I’ll probably be good with it as is.
It does look a bit like a Victorian bathing suit.
So imagine this pair but made of not-see-through aqua knit with the lace at the side rather than centre front. I wound up doing most of the construction as it was a bit more complex than was probably a good idea, but Syo cut it all out on her own. 
My 
Anyway, this completion happily coincided with a couple of things. With my most recent 
We bounced around the house, playing with the light.
Every room was different.
I may have had a bit too much fun with the editing process, making sepia and low-colour versions. Oh, well. They’re my photos and I’ll cheese ’em up if I want too. I also lost the cover off one of my fabric-covered buttons while getting dressed, so that had to be photoshopped out of a bunch of pics. I will warn you, I also took the liberty of some SERIOUS Photoshopping once or twice—so if you catch yourself wondering “is her waist really that small?” The answer is probably “no, not even in a corset.” PICTURES LIE!!!!
*you’ve seen my hair, right? Short of concocting a story about how I cut it off and sold it to buy a chain for my husband’s prize watch, which he sold to buy me a comb for my beautiful hair, we’re kinda stuck. I don’t have an appropriate wig, and I’m disinclined to go out and buy one at the moment. I also don’t have a period hat for the outdoor shots.
So a crummy thing happened last Friday. Not a tragedy, exactly, but a bummer. And I’m not mentioning it to condemn humanity, or even as a plea for sympathy (though I’ll take it), but just because this is my record of things to do with my sewing and nothing like this has actually happened with any of my sewing before.
So yeah. Kinda bummed. 😦 Which I already whined about thoroughly on Facebook, but anyway. One nice thing did happen since then—my management was approved to replace my materials, so I can make the dress again.
Plus they threw in a little bonus of comp goods of my choice as a partial comp for my time—so I was able to pick up some trims for my next Victorian costume. Because, y’know, priorities. 🙂
So a little while ago, I fell in love with a fabric at work. Because that doesn’t happen like every two seconds. This was a sweet rayon with a print that felt very vintage, in a soft green that is not at all my usual palette. And then we got this adorable embroidered net lace, and the pairing raised the delicate sweetness to soaring heights. Completely in love. But a little worried about making something from it that I actually want to wear. I generally like a wee bit of an edge to my sweetness, and lately I’ve been feeling that a bit more keenly. This rayon seemed like it wanted to be a drapey 30s or 40s style dress, which are sweet but not really edgy. 
And then I need to bite the bullet about trim. I have a ton of 5/8″ satin ribbon in the right red, some pleated, some not… But what, where, and how much is enough? Or too much. Is it possible to have too much of anything on a Victorian getup? I think we’re straying into “taste” territory again…
Especially once I discovered the fabric tag. Yup, this fabric was received at Fabricland on 06/05/85. Over thirty years in stash, people.
It felt like it took basically forever, though really I got it done in a week so that’s actually pretty fast.
Which brings me to the skirt. Um, yeah. I didn’t have quite enough of the striped suiting for the skirt, or at least not for the skirt plus whatever overskirt draping I might eventually want to do. So I ended up breaking my stashbusting streak and picking up a few metres of this rusy red “wool crepe” (allgedly 65% wool… I am dubious). It was cheap, though, so it’s ok? Anyway, right down to the wire I managed to get it cut into gored panels, mounted on some black broadcloth underlining (salvaged from the same curtain as 
I did have a teeny little bum pad I made last spring, fairly softly stuffed—probably perfect for an 1890s “figure enhancer,” but not what I was looking for here. I decided to amp it up with a bigger cousin to get something a little more satisfactory; I stuffed it with fabric scraps (serger offcuts work well as they’re so teeny) from the sewing room garbage bag and had to largely hand-stitch it to the other as I couldn’t get the seam allowances anywhere near the sewing machine’s presser foot. This is a much heavier and less convenient option than the collapsible wired bustle I made before (especially for driving) but it was definitely functional, and didn’t collapse much, which I’m a bit worried the wired one will.
Why yes, there’s a dress form beside my front door in half-Victorian costume.
I’m kinda tempted to leave it there all month.
somehow compared to that decorating the skirt doesn’t seem so intimidating…
Tanit-Isis Sews 