Crepe Sew Along: The Finished Product

Here it is! I finally got some photos to share of my finished Crepe dress. They aren't the most glamorous photos, and the day is grey, but you can see how well the dress fits, at least.





I got lots of compliments on it today.

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Crepe Sew Along 7: Finished Dress

Here it is -- the finished dress.

I hope to get Scott to help me take some "photo shoot" photos later in the week, so I can show off how well it fits.

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Crepe Sew Along 6: Sewing the bodice

I have progressed a good deal on the bodice of my Crepe dress. As you can see above, I am getting close to being done with the bodice.

First, I sewed the darts . I was hoping that the inside would be as neat and lovely as the outside, but the dart step burst that bubble for me. I had to sew some seams twice because my lines weren't totally straight, or accidentally went inside of a basting stitch or two. Sewing a proper line for the dart was actually more difficult because the darts are shaped, so I couldn't use the trick from Threads magazine's video. Plus, I sometimes forgot to adjust my stitch length at the dart point, or to adjust it back before the next dart. Still, when I pressed it all out, it looked lovely on the outside.

Next, I sewed the shoulder seams, pinked and pressed them open. Gertie recommended pinking for this seam because it has less bulk.



Next, I added the sleeve facing. Finding the stitching line along the tight curve was difficult, so I marked it out ahead of time with tailor's chalk.



As you can see, the 5/8" seam generally went outside of the 1/2" bias silk organza strips I used for stabilization, so I will definitely make wider strips next time.

I then graded the sleeve seam allowances, clipped and notched the curves, pressed the facing under, and hand sewed the facing to the seam allowances to keep it from flipping out. I also pinked the outside edge of the facings.

Next, I sewed the side seams with the sleeve facing flipped up, so that when I flipped the facing down, all of the seams were finished. This seam was also pinked. Then the sleeve facings were flipped back down and tacked by hand to the seam allowances at the shoulder and side seam under the arms to keep them in place. Unfortunately, the facing still doesn't want to play nice at the tight curves where the sleeves transition to the body of the dress. I just read that Gertie had the same problem and she sewed them down to the underlining, which I will be doing today.

Next, I sewed tubes from the contrasting tie fabric and flipped them right side out. I then pinned them to the dress and tried it on to see how long I wanted them. I ended up not trimming them to the length in the pattern but leaving them as-is because I liked the extra length. I then basted them to the back of the bodice, giving the current state of the dress here:



The next step will finish the bodice, then I'll move on to the skirt. How long will it take me to finish? What are your bets?

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Crepe Sew Along 5: Ready to Sew

Today, I finally got to the point when I have everything set up on Gertie's "pre-sew checklist".

I used the silk organza strip method to stabilize the neckline, then tried the silk bias strips for the arms, like Gertie. You can see the tan strips that I hand basted at these openings. Remember, the light blue is my underlining, and the dark purple is the dress fabric. I think I prefer the bias strips, but maybe they should be wider. We'll see.

Next, I redrafted all of the facings to match my alterations. Then, I fused lightweight interfacing to the neckline facings. I had to go out to the fabric store to pick up the interfacing because I thought the organza replaced the need for interfacing. Oops! Well, it was a good excuse to drop by Haberman Fabrics on the way to pick Scott up at work when his car was out of commission. It's probably a good thing that I had to get him because all the wool fabrics were 40% off. As much as I might want to, I can't go and splurge for a new dress when I haven't even finished this one.

I also cut out my sash, which is made of a lovely batik fabric from Material Girls Quilts. Unfortunately, the amount of fabric I bought was not enough to cut the sash as a single piece, so I cut strips and spliced them together at an angle. I decided not to trim the final strip to length just yet, because I tend to like long ties.

It was nice to actually get my machine out for this. I am pretty tired of hand basting, even if it does keep the fabric lined up better. Plus, I am so enamored with my new machine. It's a joy to use.

Up next: sewing.

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Crepe Sew Along 4: Underlining and cutting

Last week, I cut out underlining for the bodice and skirt pieces of my Crepe dress, and marked the right side of the interlining using dressmaker's tracing paper. I traced all of the darts and dots. Then I basted those pieces to the back side of my main fabric. I started with the bodice, taking care to position it so that the flowers weren't *ahem* inappropriately placed. I also tried to make sure that my skirt pieces lined up so that the flowers wouldn't be offset vertically, even if I couldn't really figure out how to match the pattern at the front seam, which was my goal.



All of the pieces needed to be hand-basted for the most accuracy, according to Gertie, so this took me a while. The basting is about 1/2" from the edge of the fabric, so when I sew the pieces together, it will be within the 5/8" seam allowance. I finished up basting and cutting the last pieces today.

The underlining, sometimes called interlining, allows the dress to be less see-through, and is also providing me with a prettier garment interior. From here on out, I treat these two layers as one piece of fabric, unlike lining, which hangs free. See Gertie's post for more information.

As you can see, Hoser seems to really like it when I sew. He decided that my Japanese cotton print was really intended to be his new cat bed.

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Crepe Sew Along 3: Fitting the Muslin

As you may have guessed by my silence on the topic, I have totally neglected the Crepe Sew Along. Now that Gertie has completed her posts, I am finally catching up.

I will admit that I was totally intimidated by actually tackling fitting, especially doing it by myself, and I was reluctant to ask Scott to assist me with it. Sadly, when I did try to get some help from him the other day, that feeling didn't alleviate. One thing that helped tremendously was the book Fit for Real People. After my first muslin experience and the feedback I received, I decided to try going down a size. As the book recommended, I did a tissue fitting first. I made an adjustment to the pattern for a rounded back and for sloped shoulders, plus I added a little full bust adjustment because the finished size gave me no wearing ease. With these adjustments already completed, I made a muslin. The back was good, but the front was not quite on yet.



After adjusting the shape of the darts, I got rid of some of that extra fabric.



After that, I pinned out some excess fabric on the sides, but I don't have any good photos of that. With a little adjustment of the sleeve shape, that took care of it. Here is the marked up muslin.



I traced all of the new marks. Yes, those are tuna cans that I'm using as pattern weights. They work great, they're not too tall, and they're already in the house.



Clean new pattern fitted to me:



Once that was done, I moved to the next step, which I realized I could have done first! Since I had not pre-treated the fabric, I couldn't continue to cutting yet.



I stitched a zig-zag on all of the cut edges of my fabrics and tossed it in the machine on "hand wash", since that's what may happen to the dress if I am feeling a little lazy about hand washing. After all, it's cotton, not wool, mohair, or anything else prone to felting, nor is it lace. At the moment, I am waiting for the washer before I can continue.

The other thing I must point out is my beautiful new Janome 3160 QDC. I love it! A big thank you to my parents and my grandmother for this Christmas/birthday gift. It sews beautifully - miles above my old machine. Plus, it has many more stitches, from blind hem, to stretch, to automatic button holes and even a few totally decorative stitches with no specific structural use. (I say that because some of the special stitches are decorative even if they're meant to to something else, like smocking, faggoting, or shell edges.) Additionally, some of the other little things are very nice additions that make sewing easier, for example: a needle-threader. The bobbin is also considerably easier to put in, and what is more, it is easy to make sure you put it in right because there is a little diagram right there. The automatic thread cutter was not something I expected to use much, but I actually love it because I don't have to pull out big tails at the beginning of every seam because it holds the cut bobbin thread in place. Genius.

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Crepe Sew Along, Week 2: Sewing the Muslin

Sorry I haven't posted this week.  It isn't because I have done nothing or have nothing to show -- I just haven't taken the time to post.

One thing I did this week was to sew the muslin for the Crepe.

Here it is:







As you can see, the fit needs a bit of work.  I can actually tighten it a bit more if I let it ride up a bit:



I think that helps show just how much extra fabric there really is beneath the bust.  I haven't gotten to altering it, though.  I waited a while for the post about sewing it and this week I have been swamped with shopping.  Bleh.

There is extra fabric above and below the bust, the darts are a bit high.  I can actually move the bust area to the right spot, but then the shoulder seams are too far forward.  I may want to go down a size and add a full bust adjustment rather than simply changing the position and shape of the darts, but I fear that the sleeve will be restrictive if I do.  I fear there will be several more runs of muslin making in the next week or so.  I think I need some assistance in pinning things out first, though.

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Crepe Sew Along, Day 1: Cutting Out the Muslin

Today was the first day of the Crepe Sew Along, and I jumped off the starting line. My pattern had arrived from Colette Patterns on Saturday, and the pattern itself is very nice.



The pattern envelope is more like a booklet with a back pocket for the pattern itself. It also contains a full set of instructions and a glossary, plus a spot to write personal notes. The pattern also included sizes 0-18, and the sizes are pretty close to ready-to-wear sizes, rather than typical pattern sizing. I don't like to cut into my patterns any more, especially expensive ones; I prefer to trace the size I want onto some spare artist's tracing paper I have and then use that pattern on the fabric itself. One reason I do this is because I sometimes make mistakes about which size I should cut out. Also, a lot of fitting techniques involve cutting up your pattern, and I believe I will feel much more comfortable doing this on a traced part than the original. Plus, I can't loose the small pieces.



For my muslin, I used an old pink gingham sheet that was used for padding when I moved. This was my first time using dressmakers' tracing paper and a tracing wheel, which is pretty neat. I have always been reluctant to transfer markings, because I wasn't really sure what I was supposed to be doing. On my last project, I marked with thread, which worked well, but this was so much quicker.



Once the pattern was cut out and the markings were transferred, I did as Gertie directed and stitched along the seam lines so that I will be able to see where things will end when I do my fitting. In retrospect, I probably didn't need to stitch along the darts, but I just read wrong. Also, we are only making a muslin of the bodice, since the skirt is flared.

I'm all ready for step 2!

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Crepe Sew Along

Yesterday, the fabric arrived for the Crepe dress that I will be sewing as part of the sew along on Gertie's New Blog for Better Sewing, which I mentioned back in mid November. I did complete both of my in-progress sewing projects and the next one I had planned to sew before the end of the month, thus meeting my self-proscribed prerequisites for joining the sew-along. I made a silk sash, refashioned a t-shirt, and made a steampunk bustle, finishing the third project on Monday.

Tuesday, I went to Haberman Fabrics in Royal Oak, which I had heard has a reputation for good garment fabric selection. Boy do they ever! I have never been in such a nice store for garment sewing, with a huge selection of natural fibers and some of the fabric made specifically for high end ready-to-wear. Unfortunately, since it is cold weather here in Michigan, they had put away or not re-ordered much of their selection of cotton prints. Plus, I had really set my sights on several that I found at Aunt Bea's Fabric, thanks to the sew-along promotion, and anything I bought locally needed to match up to those gorgeous Japanese prints. I had narrowed it down to three, and I ended up ordering one from there. I am very pleased with the fabric, though the background is not as purple as I thought from the on-screen preview image. Now I just need to get the lining and notions.

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Joining In

This week included several big firsts for me, as I finally joined in some of the groups that I have been planning to join since before I moved.

First, on Monday night, I went to my first dance class in Michigan. For those few of you who do not know me personally, I will explain. I really love Scottish Country Dance. This is the traditional social dance of Scotland. You dance with a partner, interacting with a larger group, called a set. You don't have to bring a partner, though, as etiquette dictates that you dance with a new partner for every dance, so there is a lot of mingling and meeting new people. It is a lot of fun, and the people are very welcoming. There is a broad age range of dancers, and there are groups all over the world. I have been dancing since 1999, and I roped both my best friend and my mother into joining me. I had even taught class occasionally in Atlanta, so you can see how strange it was for me not to be dancing, even though there is class four nights a week within about 45 minutes of my house. I just kept putting off calling the contact people. I was so glad I went on Monday, though. The class and the room are both fairly small, but there is a wood floor and live music. The thing that was the most exciting, however, was that one of the dancers is an old college dance friend of mine. She was a freshman when I was a senior, but she had been dancing since she was a kid, and she attended two of the classes I attended each week. She and her sister and best friend all attend the class.

On Sunday, I went to the monthly meeting of the Spinner's Flock, which is a handspinners' group that meets west of Ann Arbor. There were about 100 spinners in attendance, and nine or ten vendors, mostly of fiber, but one sold handmade soaps. There was a program on Estonian lace knitting, and a special area where people were giving assistance to beginners. While the group is large and convivial, I did not feel like they were as welcoming as the Peachtree Handspinners Guild because the group was fragmented. Everyone was clustered around tables scattered throughout the room, whereas at PHG they form a big circle. Also, there was no way to go around the room and share introductions, news and knitting, though there were announcements made. Once I just picked a spot and introduced myself, everyone was very nice. I just found it relatively difficult to break the ice. Still, it seems like a good group with a whole lot of resources, and I met one girl that I may be joining for other knit nights and LYS excursions.



The next thing that I may be joining is the Crepe Sew Along over at Gertie's New Blog for Better Sewing. Gertie's blog started as a project to sew all of the patterns from the 1950's book Vogue's New Book for Better Sewing, but it has turned into much more. She has made it a forum for interesting discussion and a place to find great sewing information and tutorials. She is very inspirational, and she makes difficult things seem totally approachable. After watching her most recent sew along, I think I could tackle a custom fitted, hand tailored, fully interlined coat. Still, it's probably not a good idea for me to start there. Fortunately, her new sew-along is the beginner-friendly Crepe dress from Collette Patterns.



I have been an admirer of indie pattern company Collette Patterns since the first collection, when it was the owner Sarai's side venture, rather than her main employment. I can't quite remember whether I found it through Gertie or if I found Gertie though Sarai, but the designs are lovely, and from everything I have heard, the patterns are exceptionally well put together. The price is steep compared to what you pay for patterns a a chain store, but it sounds like what you get is higher quality, and you are supporting the livelihood of the designer. One main reason that I haven't purchased any of the patterns yet is that I haven't been sewing much, and I haven't used what I already own, so it is hard to justify buying new, especially given my employment situation.

Still, given the discounts available for the sew-along, and the rave reviews I have read recently, I have decided that if I can finish some of my existing sewing projects by the end of the month, then I can justify joining in, even if I'm a little late. I would check out local independent fabric shops first, but I found myself following Gertie's links to online retailers giving discounts, and I am finding the fabrics so inspiring.

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