Vogue 1440 - White cotton tunic w/ back yoke detail

I'm taking a break from making silk blouses to add some cotton to my wardrobe. It's much easier to wear here in the summer and doesn't stick to sweaty skin as easily. I used Vogue 1440, a separates pattern by Donna Karan. Now this is a great pattern! You get three designer pieces that are very wearable for the price of one. The blouse was what called my name first, but I do plan to make both the jacket and the pants at some point.

What I loved about this design was the armhole bands and interesting back yoke feature. It calls for a solid color to show off those areas, and I picked a crisp white cotton shirting from Mood fabrics. This is a nice medium weight fabric that holds its shape well. Good quality cottons are always fun to sew with as they press well and don't slip around on you.

I really deliberated about what size to cut. Usually I cut a 12 for Vogue patterns but the bust measurements printed on the pattern were really big. My measurements put me at an 6 but I never wear that small of a size so I went for the 10 just to be safe. I'm so glad I did as the bust measurements are just plain wrong. The size 10, for example, is suppose to be 37.5" around, which I would be swimming in. As you can see, it is pretty fitted. If you decide to make this blouse, I advise actually measuring the pattern for yourself to determine which size to cut. I folded 1.5" out of each front pattern piece between the dart and the center front before I cut into the fabric. I wanted an easy-fitting blouse but it is really voluminous as drafted. This pattern could easily be used for maternity wear!

I just adore the back!!! Anyone with a muscular back or shoulders should make this top. I have neither but still think it's flattering. I'm seeing lots of RTW with that back slit detail which is another nice feature.

After I got the blouse to a stage where I could try it on but didn't yet have the collar attached, I noticed that the front neckline was really high. And then I really got to looking at the blouses others have made from this pattern and noticed how those collars folded over past the armbands. I think it's drafted that way on purpose to give it more of a relaxed look, and I can't tell if the original is like that or not. However, I wanted more of a traditional collar look for my blouse. I cut the center fronts down by 1" and used the collar and collar stand from another Vogue pattern. If I make this pattern again I will raise the center back neckline a little as I think it's pulling the collar down in the back. Weird. The front was too high and the back is too low.

Does anyone else get excited about reading pattern directions? I couldn't wait to get my hands on this pattern so I could figure out how that back band was attached. It's so unique. I did change the order of stitching the bands to the fabric in order to avoid lumpy shoulders. Being precise while topstitching is always fun to me so I enjoyed those parts a lot.

More dressform pictures:

The concealed button closure has no interfacing called for. This made me a little nervous but it turned out fine in the end and isn't floppy at all. If using a fabric that is lighter weight you may want to add interfacing to this area.

Something else I love about this pattern are the beautifully finished insides included in the directions. All fabric edges are enclosed in some manner and there's no overlocking needed. There is a bias hem facing pattern piece which I was super excited about. Wow, that made making the hem SO MUCH EASIER then the usual double folded hem that puckers and never will lay completely flat. I am using a bias hem facing for all shaped hems from now on.

This was such a fun project to work on! I think I might use the top part of this blouse again and make more of a fitted/shorter garment just for some variety. It's too lovely of a design not to make a second time.

Note: This fabric was purchased with my Mood Fabrics monthly allowance, as part of my participation in the Mood Sewing Network.

Butterick 6185 - Black whimsical print sleeveless silk blouse w/ double collar

I always enjoy watching Anna Sui’s fashion shows. Her designs are playful and fun but not toddler like and twee. The fabrics she uses are usually prints and are often mixed together in interesting ways. When I saw this “Famous Designer Conversational Satin Faced Silk Chiffon” on Moodfabrics.com, I was pretty sure it was hers even though it wasn’t titled as such. I just adored the cats sitting on chairs, the red apples, the little scrolled frames and the texture, and snapped some up a few months back thinking it would certainly sell out quickly. (There is only a little left as of this writing. If you like it I would purchase some quickly.) When it arrived in the mail, the selvages were printed with her name, so I had been right about it’s origins.

I knew I wanted a blouse of some sort and I knew it had to be a simple design as to not cut up the print too much. Long sleeve printed blouses have a way of looking like something my grandma would wear, so I opted for a sleeveless version. I wanted it to be playful and fun to honor Anna’s aesthetic and chose Butterick 6185. This is kind of a sleeper of a pattern IMO. The envelope has all the garments rendered in fun colors and prints, but they’re just elastic-waisted separates and an unlined jacket, which I am not into. (No offense if you are.) However, the simple V-neck blouse or dress with the double collar I found super cute. I briefly thought about doing the under collar of my blouse in white but dismissed it for possibly looking too young.

The collar was cut from some black wool crepe left over from this dress and is also from Mood but has long since sold out. Ideally I would have used a lighter cotton-type fabric since this is a warm weather top, but I didn’t have enough of any on hand and those collars are fabric hogs. I find silk rather warm anyway and don’t wear it too much in the summer, so will probably wear this in spring or fall or when I plan to be mostly indoors. I pre-washed both the print fabric and the lining to make them better fit into my wash-and-wear lifestyle. As long as I don’t forget to drip dry my blouse and shrink the collars in the dryer, it should be easily laundered.

I cut a size 12 through the shoulders and a size 10 from the bust down and got a really good fit. The envelope picture looked a little strange around the front armholes and for me was drafted with too much fabric in that area. I used another sleeveless shirt pattern to guide me while carving out the front armhole and cutting the shoulders in a good 1 inch. I’ve started really examining pattern envelope pictures for possible issues I may have. It’s a good habit to get into to avoid surprises. That or make a muslin of course.

I like the slightly cropped nature of this top, but after viewing these pictures I don’t think it looks very good proportionally with pants on my body. It’s a little short. Keep that in mind if you have a long torso like I do. If I make this again to wear with pants I will lengthen it 2 inches. This one I will wear with skirts. There is a CB seam down the back and I tried to cut the fabric to look as pleasing as possible at that seam. It’s a good thing I had some extra fabric because the first backs I cut had some awful twinning.

This collar was fun and easy to do and is sandwiched in between the print and the lining. There is a facing included with the pattern that I only used to cut interfacing for the lining with. If a lining is not needed for decency, I would probably use some bias tape or a bias binding to finish off the neckline. I always like to avoid facings if at all possible. I put a dab of Fraycheck right at the center of the V to avoid any threads raveling out.

Dressform pictures:

When you look closely at this fabric you can see some textural leaf elements. Those are the sheer bits of this fabric and are really very cool. Since the collar needed a bit more support then just a thin chiffon to hold it up, I decided to line it. The lining I added is a black stretch silk georgette also from Mood. It has a lovely amount of stretch to it that I bought for another project but opted to use for this instead. It did dull a little when washed but I didn’t mind since I was using it for lining. Instead of making the 5/8″ narrow hem at the armhole (anyone else HATE the look of that?!), I finished them off with some bias bindings cut from the lining fabric.

I sewed all the seams but the neckline with French seams. Whenever I use that type of finish on lined garments, I make sure to press the seams in opposite directions to avoid bulk. The hemline was a simple double fold narrow hem that was actually really trying and took a whole evening to accomplish.

I like most of the stuff I make but I am completely smitten with this blouse. It turned out looking exactly like what I had in my mind’s eye and that’s always so rewarding. Also, I have another silk blouse to add to my collection! There’s no such thing as too many silk blouses in my closet!

Note: All of these fabrics were purchased with my Mood Fabrics monthly allowance, as part of my participation in the Mood Sewing Network.

Vogue 1352 (again!) in blue jersey + a lesson in pre-washing

Here is the knee-length version of Vogue 1352 that I had cut out when I posted the June maxi version. I finished it up about two days after that. It really is a simple dress once you get the hugeness figured out.

The solid color shows the neckline gathers off nicely whereas they were lost somewhat in the print. And while I do love to wear solid colors, I find that I really don't like to sew with them much. Anyone else feel the same? I'm not sure why this is. Maybe my eyes get tired of looking at the same color all the time.

I made the same exact modifications to this dress as the previous one. The only change I made was to fold out a good bit of length to make it shorter.

This fabric is some sort of mystery polyester that I've had in my stash forever and have no idea where it came from. I rarely wash polyester knits because they don't shrink and I'm often too impatient to get on with the cutting out stage. So I didn't wash this fabric and went about stitching it up. It's quite a bit heavier then the ITY knit I'd used before and when completed the dress was really loose on the top and the armholes drooped. Oh brother, here we go again! I pitched it in my laundry basket thinking maybe if I washed it the neckline would tighten up. Imagine my surprise a week later when it came out of the dryer 5" shorter then it had been! The neckline sure didn't gap but the waistline was now really high on me and so was the hemline. I'll wear it as a bathing suit cover up I told myself. And just today when I went to put it on to shoot these pictures I find that it has stretched back to it's original length! In all my years of sewing I've never had this happen.

I guess it's a good thing I didn't wash it first??? Then I would have cut it out in it's shrunken state and it would have grown and grown after I'd finished the garment.