Winter coat 2019 and a new dress!

Living in Chicago  means I am never without a reason to make a new coat! This years coat is navy speckled wool underlined in silk organza and lined with kasha winter lining. This makes it a good winter coat but not one for a deep freeze. This quote was originally intended to come to Paris with me to wear on the colder days but I did not finish it in time and I did not want to rush the finishings. I finished it over Thanksgiving weekend.

Front and Back views of me in the coat

This is my own self drafted coat pattern and is a variation of the coat that I made last year. I slimmed the silhouette slightly and redrafted the collar and narrowed the lower sleeves. Overall the sleeves are big enough to accommodate layers of a sweater or even a French style jacket or a blazer.  

The inside pockets are a scrumptious splurge! They are made from a remnant of vicuña that I received a couple years ago. I had a small piece about 9 inches wide and just enough to cut for the inside pockets. They are positioned between the lining and facing and big enough to easily hold my cell phone and CTA card. I positioned them so that I could get my hand into the pocket while the coat is buttoned closed. In order to keep the breast pockets  from bunching up I attached a length of grosgrain ribbon from the bottom outside edge of the pocket to the side seam to hold them in place.

Oh dear.. a reverse Napoleon pose! LOL! Inner pockets on both sides and grosgrain ribbon to hold pocket bag in place.

The hem’s are interfaced with a strip of light weight bias faced canvas to hold its shape. There are 4 buttons and they are all that I had! So even thought I could have used 5, I had to make do with 4. The buttonholes were a different matter. Three of them are bound buttonholes made with faux leather lips and the 4th buttonhole, the second from the top, is an inseam buttonhole.  The corresponding buttonholes on the facing pieces were done as ‘Spanish snap’ buttonholes with 2x3 bias pieces of silk organza. These are then stitched on the top of the facing in the shape of a long flattened football or like a loaf of French bread. The hole is then cut open and the organza pushed through and snapped into place. The organza then forms the lips and this is then hand stitched to the back of the buttonholes with small invisible fell stitches. 

Bias horse hair canvas in hem. It sits in the hem and then I catch stitch the hem to it. Holds everything in place and gives the hem a nice shape on this winter coat.

Top are the Spanish snap button holes on the facing and the bottom shows the bound buttonhole plus the buttoned look with both inseam buttonhole and bound buttonhole.

I had a lot of fun creating this collar! It was a shape that I have been wanting to play with. A little bit retro. I knew that I really wanted the collar to hold the shape so instead of messing with a bunch of different interfacings I used a piece of men’s under collar that was already stitched to hair canvas and ready to be used. Thank you NYC tailoring shops! I figured the worst that could happen would be that I hated it and then would have to re-do it. I actually love it! The collar holds it’s shape quite smartly and when the coat is unbuttoned it still looks very good to me. Perfect for this quite simple rolled collar with a fantastic shape to it.

Collar views with the undercollar being cut out for men's pad stitched under collar navy felt.

I put my label on the lower facing across a seamed area that I had to piece together. I also added a strip of the faux leather that I used for the bound buttonholes as a hanging loop.

The outer pockets almost didn't happen! That was until I put the coat on and after looking in the mirror decided a winter coat with no external pockets whatsoever was just wrong. LOL! The problem was that I wanted a bigger pocket and a fun flap and I just did not have the fabric left to make that happen. So going to the extremely small pile of scraps left over I was able to eek out these 2 patch pockets. Basically I found the largest dimensions that I could with the fabric on grain and that was my pocket. I lined them with scraps of the fabric left over from the dress. So while I would have preferred slightly bigger patch pockets, these will have to do! Of course in hindsight I could have made a wonderful set of single welt pockets...

No pockets versus pockets! Pockets win every time!!

This was the incredibly small pile of scraps that I had to cut the pockets out of!

All in all I am quite happy with this new coat. It is warm enough for cold Chicago and for going from car or Uber into a building or for walking around as long as it is not too cold. Once it gets down into the 20’s and below walking around changes over to the down parka!!

Baby, it's cold outside!!

The dress that I am wearing in these pictures is from one of my own TNT patterns that I developed with the help of Sarah Veblen. I have made this pattern several times now over the past 4 years and I love the shape and design of it. This time I made it with 2  rayon/polyester woven plisse fabrics that are the same design in 2 different scales. I ordered these a while back from EmmaOneSock. It took me a while to decide exactly how to use them and I am very happy with the outcome! I must say that this was almost a giant fail!!! I have 2 copies of the pattern... One for wovens  and one for stretch wovens. I clearly did not label them very clearly and I made this with the one for stretch. Imagine my surprise when I went to try it on and could barely get the back zip up, let alone breath!!! Luckily enough I use 5/8 inch seam allowances and had not trimmed them down. So I was able to let the seam allowances out along the upper back portion of the zipper. Once I did this it fit perfect! Whew!! That was a close call! And a good reminder for me to always clearly label all of my patterns.

New 'corner' dress! I love this silhouette!!

It even has a nice twirl factor!

I took this dress to Paris and wore it several times. It is really quite comfortable, looks nice and I always get lovely compliments when wearing it. It always make me feel good when I get an unsolicited compliment when wearing a garment that I made and even more so when it is by a complete stranger. 

Christmas is almost upon us and some of my family is coming in to spend Christmas week. I spent all day rearranging my apartment and moving much of my sewing room aside to make way for visitors! I am very excited for this! My mom and dad are coming and they are staying with me. They have not yet seen my home since I moved downtown Chicago in spring of 2017. And my sister is coming too!! Very excited. She is coming first so I will have a couple days with her and then my parents. I am very much looking forward to having them here to celebrate Christmas! 

Princess V and I had a sleepover and decorated gingerbread houses to get ready for the Holidays!!
I really love spending time with her- makes my heart so happy!!

Happy Sewing and Happy Christmas time and Happy Holidays to all!

A pair of Corner dresses aka modified Vogue 1404

This project started way back in the spring. Something about the silhouette of this dress, Vogue 1404 Ralph Rucci dress,  really appealed to me. The nod to a sixties silhouette but with updated styling and details.

With mockup in hand I brought it to my mentor, Sarah Veblen, to assess the fit and help me make the necessary fitting changes. For this dress it was easier for me to start with a mock up of the pattern since I did not have any master pattern that was even close to this design. I did a full set of flat pattern measurements and made several adjustments from the start. The fit of the mock up was not too bad! My usual changes had to be made, including re shaping the entire armhole!

With the mockup of the dress on it was cute, it was an ok design but not the awesome amazing design that I wanted! Sarah took a sharpie and just started drawing right on the mock up. What if we did this? changed this? so with our heads two heads working together in collaboration we came up with a final design that still resembles the original Ralph Rucci silhouette but has really been changed to make it all mine!

In the photo below you can see the basic changes that were made to the design.

• Neckline changed to a square
• upper side front piece added, this lines up with the lower side pieces and creates a nice line. Also allowed for removal of the dart, acts as a princess seam.
• Changed the waist inset piece and removed the ties.
• changed the sleeve to either sleeveless or cap sleeve, also working on a 3/4 length sleeve for colder months.
• added back shoulder darts
• modified length.
• redrafted my own lower band pieces.

Original line drawing versus my design changes.

Here you can see my sketch of the design and my final product. The sketch still has a rounded neckline, as well as 2 different options for the cap sleeve.  I am very happy that I changed it to a square neckline! Works much better with the overall design of the dress.

 There are some differences between my own 2 versions. This was mostly due to the fabric choice.
The pink/floral dress is made from a floral print woven with some lycra along with the pink linen. I did not want to have so many seams or the topstitching on the lycra because as you know there can be some distortion and stretching with the lycra fabric.  Due to the lycra content the the pink/floral version I eliminated the front and back center seams using only a short side seam zipper for entry into the garment. I also eliminated all of the topstitching. Making these changes also made the construction of this garment much, much faster! The pink floral fabric was from Sawyer Brook fabrics (no longer available), the pink linen was from my stash possibly from fabricmart...

The pink/floral dress has a short side lapped zipper from above the waist inset detail to the underarm. 

The sneaker dress is made out of a japanese cotton twill and was oh so much fun to create!! Every single seam is topstitched using gold jeans thread. This meant I had to make quite a few needle and thread changes but it was so worth it! (of course in hindsight it would have been faster for me to just set up a second machine with the topstitching thread...) I used a 22 inch long invisible zipper down the center back seam. I tested several different colors and stitch types before deciding on the final top stitching. This fabric was from Louise Cutting that I purchased during the ASG National Conference.

Sneaker dress, in three views

The print of this fabric was so much fun to play with. I really took my time at my work table and thought about all of the components and how they work together and relate to each other prior to cutting out the pieces. Each piece was cut in a single layer so that I could place the pattern exactly where I wanted. On the pattern pieces I even lightly drew in the shape of some of the sneakers so that when I flipped the piece over I could make sure that things lined up properly. I am really glad that I purchased 4 yards of this fabric! I used up almost every bit.. I have some small scraps left and that's it! Instead of colorblocking on the this dress I did what I call print blocking. I used the directional print for the garment and in different areas I turned the direction of the print for more interest. In the photo below you can see the arrows pointing to different areas

• top Arrow: the side front piece print turned sideways so the sneakers come across my body.
• second arrow: main body of the dress and lower side panels, sneakers going up and down, print carefully cut to keep sneakers in pairs.
• third arrow: waist inset: sideways print so sneakers go across my waist
• forth arrow: pockets, sneakers cut sideways to add interest and break up the print on the side panel.
• bottom arrow: The bottom panel print cut off grain so that the center front has 2 pairs of sneakers lining up to face each other.

Print placements along the dress

What really made this dress challenging was the inset corners. There are 4 inset corners that have to be sewn. The rest of the corners are either faced or seamed. I practiced a bit on the inset corners before sewing them in my fashion fabric! I made 2 muslins of the dress, the original and then one with all the design changes. I also just cut out some scraps and tested my inset corners on my scraps before proceeding.To be succesful with my corners, I did several tests and I documented what I did with my tests so I could recreate the results! Having to pick out an inset corner in fashion fabric would have been a nightmare and the chances of getting a good result would have diminished exponentially! Practice allowed me to give my hands the feeling of what needed to be done so my brain could less worry about if I was doing it right. Hopefully that makes sense!!

The inset corners on the pink/floral dress were harder to do because the lycra content provides a measure of squishiness to the fabric that is not present in an all cotton woven. The corners below look real good to me. Not 100% perfect but that's OK!!

Detail of pink/floral dress inset corners.

Detail of inset corners and top stitching on the Sneaker dress

After construction of the pink/floral corner dress I did have to make a slight adjustment to the dress and the pattern. The armhole was just a tad too high. I wore the dress as constructed to a day long meeting and then when I got home I promptly re-cut the armhole lowering it by 3/8 of an inch. This made a big difference in comfort! I transferred these changes immediately to the master pattern so I would not forget them...The lower armhole is bias bound in the version with the cap sleeve and the entire armhole is bias bound for the sleeveless version. I used pre-purchased bias binding from my stash for both dresses.

Bias faced armholes on both dresses.

Both dresses are unlined and have serge finished seams for neatness. There are a couple small spots on the pink/floral dress that are just finished with pinking shears because I was in excited construction mode and forgot the serge finish them before the next step! I like having them unlined to wear in the hot humid weather however this does mean that I have to wear either a skirt slip or a pair of shorts slip like this one from Soma. It keeps the fabric from clinging to my tush and also removes any chance of thigh rubbing!

inside of the dresses, unlined and 3 thread overlock serge finished for neatness.

Here are some photos of me in my dresses! Unfortunately I don't have any real good ones of me in the pink.floral except for this hotel room selfie! It will have to do for now!.

Pink/floral corner dress with pink and orange leather flats. Perfect dress!

Photos of me being a tourist along the National mall. At the WWII monument and in front of the Holocaust museum. I have paired my Sneaker dress with a pair of yellow converse! I wore this dress ALL DAY and must have walked miles and miles in it and it was wonderful! Comfortable, cool and certainly unique. I received many compliments from strangers that day.   

Happy Sewing!

Cheers from Princess Victoria!!