A Five Dollar Vogue

Hello all, I'm still here. It's all been a bit busy lately with one thing or another.

I've been promoted at work and it's been quite a steep learning curve. Although I finally feel as if I'm using my brain again, which surely is a good thing?

Also Christmas started early with getting $80 worth of cards and presents in the post back to friends and family in the UK - ouch!

On top of that I've had extra rehearsals for choir. We sang The Messiah at the Michael Fowler Centre here in Wellington with the NZSO (New Zealand Symphony Orchestra) last Saturday. It was a blast, we've had great reviews and the buzz in the choir green room after the concert was amazing.

Sewing and even blog reading has gone on the back burner. I manage to read blogs on the bus to and from work, but it's not easy to comment using my mobile. I'm here and reading you're blogs, honest, just not commenting.

Anyways, this is a post I should have written eons ago and never got round to it...

This dress I call my Five dollar Vogue. Simply because it's a Vogue pattern and the fabric cost me the princely sum of five bucks. To those of you reading this from the UK, that's about £2.50!! Not bad, eh? Oh, you want to know more...

Well this is my second go at Vogue 8789. The first I made in September when I made view A. For this second one, I thought I'd make view B with the slash neck top. Again I made this is a bit of a rush, I wanted to wear it for the Wellington Bloggers meet-up.

The fabric..., well it was a single duvet cover from the local op shop! I saw the cover and thought I had to have it. And at five dollars what could I loose? I actually saw it one day and decided no, but couldn't get it out of my head and so went back the next day and bought it!

View B for this pattern actually has buttoned shoulders. There should be three buttons on each shoulder with loops. As pretty as this may be, muggins as usual was in a hurry and I decided I didn't have time to make this feature and I just did shoulder seams as normal. Well, that's what I thought, until I realised the facing for the arms and neck were in one piece... I ended up sewing the facing so far, then opening it right out to sew the shoulder seam in one go. The rest of the facing was stitched by hand. Sounds complicated, but it was how I did the shoulder seams for Vogue 8020. I didn't take any photos unfortunately, sorry, will try to remember another time.

Once I'd made up the bodice I tried it on and thought, help, that slash neck is really high... I really wasn't convinced.

Is that neck to high? I'm not convinced...

But don't you love that pattern?

Anyways, not really having much time to do anything different, I decided to go with it and hope it turned out OK.

The main alterations were to lengthen the bodice by an inch. It may be a wee bit too much with this pattern, but it certainly is too short otherwise. I've also put a pocket in the side seam. Well you all know how useful pockets are...

I also decided that I didn't want the skirt gathered, I'd rather pleat it. The sheeting is perhaps a tad stiffer than dress-making cotton, although I have to admit, this is a very soft sheet! I spent ages trying to work out how to do the pleats. I'd cut the skirt pieces using the pattern placing them on the fold so there was no centre seam front and back. The trouble was, I had to calculate the pleats myself, as for the life of me I couldn't workout how big they should be (and I'm a mathematician!) After about the fifth go, just as I was about to give up, I managed to suss them out - hooray! The pleats may not be completely even inside, but they certainly look it from the outside, they are all exactly one inch!

So the final photos...

Not the best I'm afraid, they were taken in our rumpus room/my sewing room/book room downstairs. And I forgot to take the belt off to show the pleats!

 I look far too serious in this!

 Not my best side!

 The obligatory twirl!

I do have to say this dress is a success! I really love it. Because of the grey pattern with white flower it doesn't look completely summery. It's possibly a wee bit tighter than my previous version of this dress, but the bodice is cut on the bias with view A and so will give more.

Oh and the best thing - if it gets dirty, I can chuck it in the machine and wash it with my bedding :-) He he! A dress I can tumble dry and not wash on a delicates wash!

Spots before your eyes - well you do now!

I fell in love with this pattern ever since Cation Designs made it up earlier this year from a recycled sheet. With a lack of recycled sheets which have a suitable pattern on, I saw this dark navy blue spotty fabric in Arthur Toye and decided, yep, that's the one...I also had another reason for making it up - a fancy dress dinner as a conference! The theme was a Night at the Races and I decided this dress would be perfect with a a hat, etc.

Anyway, back to the matter in hand. The pattern is another Vogue pattern (that's two in a row, having never made them up before!) Go steady ol' girl :-) It's the reprinted Vogue 8789, my favourite shape, a fitted bodice and full skirt.

The fabric is a very fine cotton lawn, so I pre-washed it. Good job I did, the selvedge to selvedge width shrank by 6cm!! Help!

 

Not much spare here, this was the last skirt piece

I extended the bodice by an inch (yes, I use inches and centimetres at the same time and I'm still here!) I just know that an inch is the perfect extra length to add to a bodice. I cut a 16, even though the pattern said I should have cut a 22! Yeah, right, I know I need to lose some weight, but I have never been a size 22 and never will be! What are these pattern companies coming to?

I think it was about $12 a metre and the unfortunately the fabric wasn't printed exactly straight. I tried to match up the fabric on the bodice and skirt, but it didn't really happen. Also due to the shrinkage I ended up cutting some pieces upside down! Oops! Don't get me wrong I don't normally do this, but I kinda decided that it wouldn't show with polka dots!

The back doesn't look too bad (or is it the front?)

 Mm, perhaps I could have lined these better, but...

I was going to use my sewing machine to run the gathering stitches through the skirt. And there is a LOT of skirt here, loads of it. I just decided that I'd rather run them through by hand, so I did...

Are we nearly there yet?

Attaching the skirt to the bodice was interesting, there is so much skirt there. On the inside of the skirt the pattern asks for tape to be stitched to stop the waist stretching. I'm not sure I really attached this properly, so I may need to look at this again. In my hurry to finish the dress I also used the blind hem on my machine. I've not made the best job of this, there are bits where I caught too much of the fabric and bits which didn't catch the hem at all. Not the best bit of hemming I've ever done.

I finished it in time before going to the conference (the day before!) I made a mistake with the sleeve facings, I stitched them and then understitched them before clipping the seams. Lesson learned, my facings just don't stay flat. In fact they are a pain!

However, saying that, I actually love this dress, it's comfortable, it fits pretty well, although the waist may be a wee bit big. I love the length and I also love the way the sleeves are cap sleeves, not completely sleeveless. I'm sorely tempted to make another one, as long as I can find some fabric which doesn't cost the earth, seriously this dress takes lots of fabric and it's mainly the skirt! I think it takes about 5 metres or something like that.

I actually took my sewing machine up to the conference with me in order to make a petticoat. Well I kinda made one, but it really needs making again! It did not work and so I'm not showing a picture of it! :-)

Oh, I guess you now want to see the finished dress...

Like the little titfer?

And I can go spinning with the skirt!

It's amazing what a load of librarians get up to at conferences! :-)