Vogue 1351: what would you do?

Somehow this combo of silver sparkly belt and turquoise/teal reminds me of Christmas.

So I went through a little angst about what to wear to the McCalls Pattern Company tour for PR Day.  I mean, my favorite dress of theirs is the Vogue 1351 that I made last year, but I have worn that to several sewing events (ASE last year, PR weekend *and* MPB Day this year).  The red Vogue 8571 that I made this summer?  I wore that to the ASE this year.  The black McCalls 6518 ruffle dress?  I wore that to the ASE focus group last year.  How about Butterick 5559?  I wore that to PR weekend in 2012.  Do I need a spreadsheet to keep track of all this?  Ha!

So, with not a lot of time,  I sewed a second Vogue 1351 the weekend before the tour.  I already had the fitting issues and had saved all the changes I had made on the pattern itelsf.

I have been calling this color turquoise but Peter was right in calling it teal.  So this is my third turquoise/teal dress in a row.  The fabric is probably an acrylic sweater knit from Kashi, purchased during my visit with ATP in September of this year, and I have a little left over, maybe I'll try that Muse cardi.  I'm not a fan of the concept of digital patterns and all that taping, but if something is special I could be swayed, and how many pieces of paper could that pattern take?  Cough cough.

Back (it was windy)

Side

Front with cardi and unfortunate shadows

Front with cream cardi


Neckline

Another view of the neckline

The tag, handstitched by me.

Without the belt

Side view without the belt


Back without the belt



Blind hem is mostly blind.

I serge the raw edge, mark the hem, press with the Elna press, and blind stitch it.

What did I learn the second time around?
So the first time I sewed this dress, it was a woven.  The armholes were a little higher than I like them to be.  This time, it's a sweater knit and the armholes wound up being low.

Both times I sewed the shoulder seam basically the way the instructions are written, which as Deepika and I discussed at PR Day, is a crazy way of sewing a shoulder seam.  Next time I think I will try this method. 


The lining is attached to the cowl which keeps the cowl from flipping out, clever!

But what about the lining?
This dress is lined and originally I tried a thin knit but the fabric was not slippery enough and the fabric was getting caught on the slip. So I took out that test lining....

Then I used the fabric from Gertie's slip kit.  That was the slipperiest fabric in my fabric stash and I merrily finished the dress.  The fabric and lining were not sticking together, but I wasn't wearing tights that day either.  It turns out the lining fabric is polyester and so it sticks to my tights which then creates lines on the outside of my dress which I, a crusader for a wrinkle-free world, do not like, and it also does not feel pleasant to have the lining sticking to my tights.  Secret revealed:  I carried a can of Static Guard with me during PR Day.  I wore the dress to work again yesterday but this time with a nylon half slip between the lining and my tights and that helped a bit.

Honestly, I am tempted to remove the skirt part (and just the skirt part) of the lining and replace it with stretch silk charmeuse that I bought at Kashi's last weekend or nylon tricot that I bought on sewsassy.com earlier this week.


Oops

What would you do???
A.  Leave it.
B.  Replace the skirt portion of the lining with stretch silk charmeuse
C.  Replace the skirt portion of the lining with nylon tricot.

Be well!