Here's a teaser picture of a work in progress:
Not sure how well you can see it, but it has 3 sets of 3 pintucks and some swirly stitches from my sewing machine on each side of the pintuck groupings. More later on!
Showing posts with label Simplicity 2497. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Simplicity 2497. Show all posts
Saturday, July 24, 2010
A Teaser Picture
Not sure how well you can see it, but it has 3 sets of 3 pintucks and some swirly stitches from my sewing machine on each side of the pintuck groupings. More later on!
Friday, July 23, 2010
The Purple Plum -- Simplicity 2497
It's done, it's done! And I'm excited beyond words about how well it turned out. I'm sure you've seen Simplicity 2497 on other blogs--I know it caught my eye.
The pattern was pretty easy--except for that darn ruffle! I went to extremes and did all the machine basting and handbasted it to the dress, then machine stitched it on. It meant I had a ton of basting to pick out, but I didn't want to worry about those ruffles shifting while machine stitching it onto the dress. There's nothing more annoying than having ruffle wrinkles! When I make it again (and I think I will! I can see it as the long version in red for Christmas!), I will pull out my ruffler foot and figure out the gathering ratio rather than going through all that machine basting. I'll confess I've used that ruffler foot a lot lately--I gathered the bottom of the top as well as the skirt on this dress. The ruffler was handy on McCall 6123, too. It provides nice stability, no gathers shifting up and down the gathering thread which I like.
Now that you've waded through that paragraph, here's the dress!
I don't think the camera does it justice. Plus I think it's picked up wrinkles where there aren't any--or maybe it's a poor pressing job. Anyway, it really is like a Purple Plum--it has that plum color about it but because of the mauve warp, it also has a little bit of the mauve highlight that plums have. Hence, I named it! haha! Some of the other bloggers named theirs, too. Kinda fun, don't you think? I had some fabric left, but you'll have to wait until a later post to see what became of it.
Alterations:
-Forward shoulder adjustment
-Slight round back adjustment (dart at shoulder seam)
-Dart at bust (the armhole was gaping and this seemed to fix it!)
Now, onto the real work! Give me a simple project and I do believe I know how to make extra work out of it!
Other pattern changes:
-FULLY lined!
-Topstitched neckline prior to putting on ruffle
That's right, I went nuts and fully lined the thing. That slowed me down quite a bit, but I was a little lazy and used my wavy rotary cutter on the seams to prevent fraying. The silk dupioni had all seams serged due to its fraying capabilities! That was the very first step after cutting it out. Anyway, it feels wonderful to have the Ambiance rayon lining against my skin so I think it was worthwhile.
No construction photos since I was a woman on a mission! Don't you love special occasions?
The pattern was pretty easy--except for that darn ruffle! I went to extremes and did all the machine basting and handbasted it to the dress, then machine stitched it on. It meant I had a ton of basting to pick out, but I didn't want to worry about those ruffles shifting while machine stitching it onto the dress. There's nothing more annoying than having ruffle wrinkles! When I make it again (and I think I will! I can see it as the long version in red for Christmas!), I will pull out my ruffler foot and figure out the gathering ratio rather than going through all that machine basting. I'll confess I've used that ruffler foot a lot lately--I gathered the bottom of the top as well as the skirt on this dress. The ruffler was handy on McCall 6123, too. It provides nice stability, no gathers shifting up and down the gathering thread which I like.
Now that you've waded through that paragraph, here's the dress!
I don't think the camera does it justice. Plus I think it's picked up wrinkles where there aren't any--or maybe it's a poor pressing job. Anyway, it really is like a Purple Plum--it has that plum color about it but because of the mauve warp, it also has a little bit of the mauve highlight that plums have. Hence, I named it! haha! Some of the other bloggers named theirs, too. Kinda fun, don't you think? I had some fabric left, but you'll have to wait until a later post to see what became of it.
Alterations:
-Forward shoulder adjustment
-Slight round back adjustment (dart at shoulder seam)
-Dart at bust (the armhole was gaping and this seemed to fix it!)
Now, onto the real work! Give me a simple project and I do believe I know how to make extra work out of it!
Other pattern changes:
-FULLY lined!
-Topstitched neckline prior to putting on ruffle
That's right, I went nuts and fully lined the thing. That slowed me down quite a bit, but I was a little lazy and used my wavy rotary cutter on the seams to prevent fraying. The silk dupioni had all seams serged due to its fraying capabilities! That was the very first step after cutting it out. Anyway, it feels wonderful to have the Ambiance rayon lining against my skin so I think it was worthwhile.
No construction photos since I was a woman on a mission! Don't you love special occasions?
Tuesday, July 6, 2010
It came!
Well, I am so excited that the fabrics I ordered for the Simplicity 2497 dress came AND that they're beautiful! Living in an area devoid of fabric shopping, except for quilt shops and Joann's, makes mail order the way to go...sorta. I mean, you really don't know what you're getting until you get it or want to buy a swatch (or get the swatch and the sale is over or get the swatch and the fabric is sold out!).
Anyway, I ordered from Vogue Fabrics this time. I seem to be trying out as many places as possible. I bought silk dupioni. It's called 'Risk' which is totally unhelpful. The web site says it is "...Woven with a mauve warp & a denim-blue weft." The picture looked good and it was a choice between this and another purpley looking one whose coordinating Ambiance lining seemed to be out of stock or an aqua (one of my favorite colors, but maybe a little too light and bright for evening wear--who am I kidding? It would not matter since I just ordered a deep lavender/periwinkle!)
I think this is darker in real life, but I really like it! yippee! And it is so much heavier than what I was seeing at Joann's. I almost broke down and bought one of their limited selection of silk dupioni--white, black, reddish, or brown. Glad I didn't. This is so much nicer and I have some nice Ambiance lining to coordinate.
I needed some rayon for one of the classes at the sewing guild's national conference, so I bought this:
Anyway, I ordered from Vogue Fabrics this time. I seem to be trying out as many places as possible. I bought silk dupioni. It's called 'Risk' which is totally unhelpful. The web site says it is "...Woven with a mauve warp & a denim-blue weft." The picture looked good and it was a choice between this and another purpley looking one whose coordinating Ambiance lining seemed to be out of stock or an aqua (one of my favorite colors, but maybe a little too light and bright for evening wear--who am I kidding? It would not matter since I just ordered a deep lavender/periwinkle!)
I think this is darker in real life, but I really like it! yippee! And it is so much heavier than what I was seeing at Joann's. I almost broke down and bought one of their limited selection of silk dupioni--white, black, reddish, or brown. Glad I didn't. This is so much nicer and I have some nice Ambiance lining to coordinate.
I needed some rayon for one of the classes at the sewing guild's national conference, so I bought this:
I think it's darker than the picture, too. Even better though, I love it! I only need a little bit of it for the class and I can see a blouse or casual shirt using the rest of it. Good weight and very soft! $2.99/yard which made it even better!
The quest for fabric for Simplicity 2497 is over, so I had best finish up the floral A-line dress, McCall 6123, so I can get busy on that great silk!
Monday, June 21, 2010
Dress #2, but not Plan B
I've been hard at work over the weekend on my second dress muslin. It struck my eye as soon as I saw other bloggers making it up. It was a little bit different because of the neck ruffle and I loved the fabric that everyone used--silk dupionni! I don't really know why I love the stuff, but I do. It can be aggravating to work on because it ravels like crazy, but I love the crispness, the slubs and the colors! The first time I used it was a long time ago to make ds's christening gown. How many opportunities do you get to really dress up a son? That was my only one so he got a really long silk dupioni gown with quite a bit of hand embroidery using silk floss which was wonderful, too!
But, I digress. It will be no surprise that I'm using the Simplicity 2497 Cynthia Rowley pattern for my second dress. The fabric for it hasn't been ordered yet. After my last pattern flop, I wanted to make sure I liked this pattern!
I really wanted to make 2 dressy dresses for the occasional special occasion so I'm relieved at least one of my choices worked. Finding a replacement for Vogue 7642 (out of print) has proved challenging though. There were a few other Vogue patterns that I liked, but probably not enough to rush out and buy them and make them up. Besides, most of them seem to have millions of pattern pieces and I just don't feel like fiddling with that many pieces! Some of the Marfy patterns look interesting, but they are expensive! It's hard to justify that much money for something I'll make only once. Here are a couple of the Vogue patterns I like, but since they have lots of pieces I'll pass on them.
Vogue 1152 and Vogue 1157
Besides, I think those are for the younger set! Another eye-catching option was this one:
Vogue 1162
The neckline and shoulders really make this dress, don't you think? But while I could find the dress fabric, finding a matching fabric for the contrast flower thingys would be tough.
Not nearly as eye catching, but very pretty, were these two:
Vogue 1182
Vogue 1108
Patterns from the other major pattern companies didn't strike my eye either. The small independent pattern companies seem to do mostly casual wear, which makes sense. And, so far, my new Burda Style magazine has left me unimpressed and uninspired. I've only gotten one issue so far, so maybe there's still hope. In the meantime, I'm still looking for Plan B so I can use all that wonderful silk crepe I bought!
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