Month: July 2013

The Hundred Dresses: Day 39

Erin13 Comments

Another Vogue 8460! I bought this very cheerful fabric in Japan back in 2007:

sunflower Vogue 8460

I forgot to point out yesterday the really elegant double darts in the bodice front — they’re one of my favorite features of this pattern, even though they are slightly tricky to sew:

sunflower Vogue 8460 darts

Here’s the zipper — I’m very pleased with this one, as well:

Sunflower Vogue 8460 zipper

And the back:

sunflower Vogue 8460 back

You might have noticed that this dress is longer than yesterday’s, because, well, it is. The first time I wore yesterday’s dress I was biking, and the dress was slightly too long and got caught in the back wheel between the wheel and the fender, and the accumulated city crud on my fender left an ugly black smear. So I washed it and shortened it by about three inches, so that I wouldn’t worry about it getting caught on the bike. I think this one I will leave long, though, since it’s more of a dinner-out dress than a “hop on my bike” dress.

What fabrics would you make this dress in?

The Hundred Dresses: Day 38

Erin14 Comments

This is a totally new pattern! Well, new as in “I haven’t sewn it before/posted it before” not new as in “produced in this century.”

This is Vogue 8460, and I lurrrrrrve it:

Vogue 8460

(sorry for the fuzzy image, click on the pic to see it bigger)

I know on the pattern envelope it looks like a party dress, but I have enough party dresses … Here’s what I made with it, shown with belt (purchased):

stripe Vogue 8460 with belt

This is a nice shirting fabric I bought online sometime last year. Here it is sans belt:
stripe Vogue 8460 front 2

Of course, the pleasure in this dress is in matching those rainbow stripes!
stripe Vogue 8460 front stripes

They don’t match at the waistline, but that’s okay, the chevron effect on the skirt is what I was going for:
stripe Vogue 8460 front waist seam

This zipper? This is probably the best zipper I’ve made in AGES. B+!
stripe Vogue 8460 zipper

And the back stripe matchup:
stripe Vogue 8460 stripe matching

I hemmed it with bright vintage hem facing, which I love. It’s getting harder and harder to find bright hem facing these days. (Also, I’m going to fewer yard sales.)
stripe Vogue 8460 hem facing

The shoulder stripes … you can see the facing rolling a little there, I probably should have understitched it:

stripe Vogue 8460 shoulder

Here’s a glimpse of the neckline facing. I zigzag finish my facings on the inside (and I also didn’t press this one very well):
stripe Vogue 8460 facing

And the back (the skirt’s not properly positioned in this one, sorry!):
stripe Vogue 8460 back

I’ve made this pattern twice more since this one, and I really love it. It’s super-simple to wear (and yes there are pockets in all these dresses)!

The Hundred Dresses: Day 37

Erin8 Comments

Let’s take a quick break from Vogue 9929 for a blast from the past: Simplicity 5232!

This one was the first one I made, and I still take it out every once in a while, even though it doesn’t fit quite right (I shortened the bodice too much, so the waistline is a bit high):

gray Simplicity 5232 front

I used some rickrack on the collar (don’t worry I still have plenty left):

gray Simplicity 5232 collar

Here’s the back, I really like the yoke although of course it’s like five “extra” steps (when compared to a yokeless dress):

gray Simplicity 5232 back bodice

Slightly closer look at collar/yoke:

gray Simplicity 5232 back collar

 

I put cording in the front seam, for no good reason other than because I felt like it:
gray Simplicity 5232 front piping

And the full-length back:

gray Simplicity 5232 back

This was part of my fabric haul from Japan. I still have several pieces from that haul I haven’t even sewn up yet … and one I just used a couple of weeks ago.

Looking at this dress again makes me want to make another Simplicity 5232 … it’s going on the list.

 

 

The Hundred Dresses: Day 36

Erin5 Comments

Another 9929! This is the first Vogue 9929 I ever made — here’s the post about it.

pink floral Vogue 9929 front

There are only a few things “wrong” with it, unusual for a first-draft dress. One that you can’t see is that the pockets are too low and too small. (I could conceivably fix this; practically the chances are nil.) The other is that I didn’t plan out the piecing of the bias binding for the neck correctly, and so there’s a big fat seam right in front, like so:

pink floral Vogue 9929 neck closeup

Somehow I didn’t manage to take a picture of the back of this dress, but the zipper isn’t too bad. A C.

pink floral Vogue 9929 side zipper

I really love this fabric so much — huge scale florals make me happy, bright color + gray makes me happy, and this fabric in particular has a lovely silky hand that (you guessed it) makes me happy. I hope you’re wearing something that makes you happy today, too.

PS I took a ton of new pictures yesterday … shirtdresses are coming soon, including two NEW ones from this pattern.

The Hundred Dresses: Day 35

Erin9 Comments

And … another Vogue 9929. You’ve seen this one before, too, from when I was in Florida last year.

Liberty Mim Vogue 9929 front

It’s Liberty Mim, probably one of my favorite Liberty prints. (I mentioned it in this blog post, too.)

Liberty Mim Vogue 9929 bodice

I haven’t seen any for sale recently, but it turns up on Ebay/Etsy more often than you might think. It seems to be used a lot for children’s clothing (uh, I wonder why …) so those manufacturers sometimes have leftovers.

I had some of this in a darker colorway, too, and it turned into a Duro (whose picture I can’t find) and then a pen exploded on it and that was the end of that. The moral of this story is always use pencils instead.

Here’s the zip, not too bad, C:

Liberty Mim Vogue 9929 zipper

Did you know there’s a free Craftsy video class on zippers? I’ve enrolled and will report back. Never too late to learn something new!

And here’s the back. Probably my favorite thing about this colorway of Mim is the blue/teal and the pink/orange juxtapositions, and then those big candy.jpgnk clouds … so much to be happy about.

Liberty Mim Vogue 9929 back

The Hundred Dresses: Day 34

Erin2 Comments

Hey, did everyone see the nice piece in the Chronicle about The Hundred Dresses (the book)?

Today’s dress is also mentioned in the ur-9929 post. Here it is, semi-styled, with an actual accessory:
turquoise 9929, belt view

I really like the combo of that turquoise blue and red. Here’s a bodice view:
turquoise Vogue 9929 front

A back view:
turquoise Vogue 9929 back

And … the zipper, which is showing strain that I will blame on not having my dress form adjusted properly:

turquoise Vogue 9929 zipper

I would love to find more of this printed corded cotton … I have a sneaking suspicion it’s mostly used for upholstery, but it’s so nice to wear! Keeps its shape and stays cool at the same time … which is more than you can say for me, some days.

The Hundred Dresses: Day 33

Erin4 Comments

I think this dress is the first Vogue 9929 I posted about:

seersucker stripe Vogue 9929

Here’s a less-blurry view of the fabric:
seersucker stripe Vogue 9929 bodice

The zipper here is doing its best. I somehow mis-adjusted my dress form while wrestling all these dresses off and onto it, and didn’t notice for a couple of dresses’ worth of photos … things in your browser may be looser than they appear.
seersucker stripe Vogue 9929 side zip

And the back:
seersucker stripe Vogue 9929 back

This one gets worn with a white cardigan (when necessary — it’s a hot-weather dress, for sure) and those red Keds again. (I like the red Keds since they are one of the colors Keds makes in the wider width, which is more comfortable. Seriously, Keds, when are you going to call me? I have all SORTS of ideas for you, and I’ll work for shoes.) I’ve also tried this with a green cardigan, to match the green stripe, but that overall effect is much too “Christmas in July!” for me.

 

The Hundred Dresses: Day 32

Erin10 Comments

Happy Fourth of July/Independence Day, for those of you who celebrate it! I celebrate it, because today is also my wedding anniversary. (Happy 20th to my dear husband, hope you can put up with me for twenty more years …)

Here is a thematically-appropriate Vogue 9929:
dots Vogue 9929 front

This dress was a bit of a pain to put together, but it’s been really fun to wear. (I like to match it with a pale-blue cardigan and red Keds.)

dots Vogue 9929 bodice closeup

This zipper is pretty decent, maybe a B- (you may have figured out by now that I’m a harsh grader when it comes to zippers. But I really really prefer invisible zippers, so, goshdarnit, I’m gonna keep working until I get them all perfect. Or at least to B+ level.)
dots Vogue 9929 zipper

Here’s another bodice view — I wavered back and forth between thinking I wanted to center the bodice between rows of dots or on a single row of dots, and eventually went for between. I think maybe I should have gone single-row.
dots Vogue 9929 bodice 2

And the back:
dots Vogue 9929 back

I posted about this dress last year, too. Happy Fourth!

The Hundred Dresses: Day 31

Erin2 Comments

This is another Vogue 9929 — I’ve posted a picture of me wearing it before.

This gingham one, in particular, is really easy to wear. It goes with just about everything (ok maybe not everything, but quite a lot of things).
black gingham Vogue 9929 front

That front view was a little out of focus, try the bodice view here:
black gingham Vogue 9929 bodice

Another C+ zipper:
black gingham Vogue 9929 zipper

And the back:
black gingham Vogue 9929 back

Every time I wear this dress I think, “man, I love gingham, I wish I had a gingham dress in every color.” I once had a beautiful brown-and-cream silk gingham dress made in this pattern, which was equally wearable. I think that gingham dress finally died when a pen exploded in my pocket. (Took me a long time to figure out that some of those early ink rollerballs didn’t combine well with pressurized airplane cabins … there were many casualties.)

This one is still going strong! Maybe I’ll wear it today …

The Hundred Dresses: Day 30

Erin17 Comments

The key to this dress is … keys:
key print Vogue 9929 front

I posted about this one last October, and I’ve worn it tons since the beginning of warm weather this year:

key print Vogue 9929 bodice

I’m entranced by antique keys lately — and I’m not the only one. (I saw a really interesting dress in the windows of Columbia College weighted down with thirty pounds of keys — PDF here.) This fabric is still available in lots of places … this coral/peach colorway is nice, and this more ditsy/antiquey key print is nice, too.

The zipper here is slightly out of focus, but I think it’s about a B-:
key print Vogue 9929 zipper

And here’s the back:
Key print Vogue 9929 back

This is a fun dress to wear — it feels very summery, and the green is really bright. (Also, it goes nicely with my favorite gray Keds …) When I first made this dress I thought that the dark teal color in the print would make it work for cooler weather, but that really didn’t happen. This is definitely a hot-day dress (for me, at least).

Now that we’re a third of the way through (almost) the hundred dresses — how are people liking this series? Anything you’d like to see more (or less) of? Do you like a lot of the same dress pattern in a row, or would you like me to mix it up more? More detail? Less detail? Please let me know in the comments … and if you’ve read The Hundred Dresses-the-book and have an opinion, please feel free to review it on your favorite bookseller’s site …