Evolution to my ultimate Athleisure dress; Variations of V1336

One of my absolute favorite parts about the entire process of sewing is being able to customize the garments that I sew for me. I can not only make fitting changes to a pattern that I may like or that inspires me but I can change fabric type, design details and in this post you can see that I have really changed the pattern from where it started from to what I have made it into! Its a fun process to take something and re-make it into different versions. I can wear 2 different versions of this dress on back to back days and no one would even be able to tell that they were from the same base pattern.

My latest 3 versions of Vogue 1336
Left: Ponte color blocking with 2 prints
Middle: Sweater knit muslin with hood
Right: Final product! 

You can find the pattern here and the link to my previous blog post on this dress here from December 2015

I have probably shortened this dress by at least 5 inches. The model on the pattern front must by 6 feet tall! The pattern front shows this dress coming to the knee. When I made this pattern the first time it came to lower calf length and I am 5'5". So beware of the length if you decide to make this.

My first iteration on this go around was strictly to get fit correct and to get a dress that I could wear for work meetings/dinner obligations etc. I based the fit of this dress off of one of the old dresses that I had taken in.It is not perfect but for a ponte dress it certainly works well! The fabric I used is from my collection and is from an online source. I have had it for several years so most likely it is going to be a mostly polyester ponte which means that eventually there will be pilling and wear on the fabric. I'm ok with that since in my mind this is a wearable muslin.

 I made several changes from my original dresses. I changed the neckline back into a V, still different then the original dress. I just felt that I had to for 2 reasons. The first was that this fabric is all angles and a V neck suited it better and the second was that I knew I wanted a V-neck to play with attaching a hood for my final version. I also took quite a bit in at the side seams and 1/2 inch off of the middle lower color blocked seams to keep the basic perspective of the color blocking intact.

Such serious looks on my face! LOL!

Once I got the fit pretty close with the ponte version I moved to a mock up of the athleisure version that I had sketched. I choose a sweater knit from my collection that was purchased from one of JoAnn's super sales. It was in the clearance section and it was 50% off that price. It was pretty much the closest thing that I could find to my real fabric that I wouldn't care about if it was a total fail! The fabric is cute but not a high quality at all. FOr this version I opted to overlay the top portions and the bottom portions so that I essentially only have a waist seam, side seams and the lower band. No need to use the color blocking layout on this one.

To draft the hood I pulled a hoodie pattern from my collection and used that basic shape. On this version I have the hood attaching half way down the V with the lower V finished off with a small band. It is not bad... not good either! The hood was way too big all over and the placement on the V made it so that it just didn't feel right. The hood kept feeling like it was pulling the entire dress back and that as the day wore on I feel like it creeps up my neck towards my throat. 

Wearable mock-up of the dress with hood down.

Wearable mockup with the hood up... Hood is way too big and wide!

In the final version, at least for now, I redrafted the hood to have less volume overall and so that it attached at the center of the V neck. Oh! I like this version so much better!!! To highlight the seaming I made a flat piping of the green knit and inserted it in all the blocking seams. 

Knowing that my final knit fabric was likely to stretch slightly in length just due to it's properties I folded out an additional one inch in length. Ideally I would have liked it about another inch shorter. The best thing about this adventure is that in the end this is exactly what I had in mind!

Hood down. The dark grey multi color flecked sweater knit is from Emma One Sock and the green is a bamboo knit end cut from Smugglers Daughter.

Hood up :) Of course I should have looked in the mirror first to make sure my hood was on perfect but... oh well!

Hood in progress sitting on my hat form. I cut the grey knit to the size I wanted and the green bamboo knit to be 1.25 inches larger at the face edge so that I could sew it right sides together and then wrap the lightweight green bamboo knit around and make this nice 5/8 inch edging. I then stitched in the ditch along this edges to make it a permanent feature.

In this comparison photo you can really see the difference in the hoods. The top left shows how the V neck is being pulled back by the hood since it only attaches partway down the V.  Top right shows how I attached the hood directly into the lowest part of the V. Much more stable application and does not pull the neckline back.
The bottom photos show how much I reduced the overall hood size as well as reshaped the front. The hood on the left is very baggy with too much fabric and when it is all the way on the front portion comes down quite a bit resembling more of a Jedi hood than my cool athleisure look!you can see on the right the hood is on all the way and the look is much more streamlined!

So, the question remains as to whether I will make this dress again... probably, maybe at some time. It can always be made without the sleeves for a summer version. The only additional changes I may make to this pattern is to move the shoulder line forward a bit. But let's be realistic, that is being nitpicky! I could always chop off about a foot or so and turn it into a tunic top as well.

Happy Sewing!

2 happy versions of Vogue 1336!

Vogue 1336 a super fun dress!!!

This dress started as my dress for the Chicago Haute Couture Club November challenge of Modernize your Mondrian. In this challenge we needed to update the look of the original YSL Mondrian dress and give it our own spin. The only stipulation was that it had to have the black lines and these could be done by any means that we wanted.

The black version of this dress started out as the muslin. However, I loved it so much that after I made my fitting changes I recut the pieces that needed to be changed and added the orange border and sleeves and just love this dress! 

Let me talk about how I decided to update the look of the original YSL Mondrian. 

- update the fabrics by going with rayon blend ponte knits

- updated the color palate from the original primary colors

- color placement to flatter my figure. Darker colors around the waist and hips with brighter colors at bust and face and bottom panel. 

- used narrow strips of black ponte as flat piping for updated narrow black strips. 

The pattern, vogue 1336, Is a Sandra Betzina Todays Fit pattern. It already included some of the pattern pieces for the color blocking. I just took it a step further. When I made the black muslin for fitting I used HBLs or horizontal balance lines to make sure that the dress was hanging properly on my frame. As suspected, I tuck a wedge tuck from the back and added an open wedge to the front. I also adjusted the side seams. I played with the idea of adding some sort of darts to the bust area but the way the sleeves and side seams were shaped it would have meant reengineering the entire pattern and then would lose the look I liked. Some I left it alone. I also changed the overall length of the pattern. Removing a total of 5 or 6 inches. This was done by shortening the overall length of the bottom panel. It just felt too long and the proportions were off to my eye. I also removed from length to the skirt front and back panels. These changes took the dress from looking like a big sack to something fun and fashionable! The new length makes it a perfect pairing with fall/winter boots! 

The orange infinity scarf I made last winter is a perfect addition to this outfit!

With the black ponte version muslin end and recut for a great dress I got to work on the color blocked version for then HCCC challenge. 

I used cross grain cuts of ponte cut at 1 3/4 inch strips which gave me 1/4" flat piping.  The biggest challenge was how was the piping going to work with all those seams??? I did a lot of samples and tests to see if it was going to be doable. 

In the end with a little work it all came together. In seams were piping crossed I made sure to trim out as much as possible, I used my server which amazingly went through all those layers like butter! And, as you can see in the photo above, I even took to a hammer to flatten down some of the seams. My dogs didn't particularly like that part! LOL!!

All in all I think it worked out fairly well. The seams are ever so slightly stiff when compared to the black version but nothing terrible. 

Some other ideas I played with for the black lines was to piece them. This would have required drafting an entirely new pattern. I also played with using a black jersey knit but it just felt more wonky to me. I was able to get very nice consistent seams using the ponte. 

The biggest version between the 2 dresses is on the back. The upper back panels on the black version all meet together. This was just a nightmare to try and do with the the piping! Too many layers!!! So I changed them so that they didn't all meet together. 

Details lightened up so you can see them!

This was a fun project and I will enjoy wearing the black version this winter. The color blocked will remain safely tucked in my closet until after the April Haute Couture Club of Chicago fashion show! With my luck I would spill something on it and ruin it and I don't want to remake it before the fashion show!

Happy Sewing! 

I'm looking forward to spending some time with my granddaughter this weekend! :) and maybe working on a couple of Appleton dresses... I couldn't make up my mind on which fabric, so I making two!