New Look 6843 as yet another stretch A-line skirt

Last week's fall color

Hey, so the PR Sewing Bee contest is going on right now, and if I were participating, I would totally make my favorite A-line skirt (week 1 challenge), which is New Look 6843, meant for a woven.  It meets all the requirements of the contest out of the envelope except the lining--and it is relatively easy to pop one of those in.

I've been making this skirt lately as a stretch knit with an exposed elastic waistband.

Black with white scallops knit skirt sewn in May
Purple stretch lace skirt sewn in August

I sewed the latest incarnation two weekends ago on my brand new serger, yay!    This gave me a chance to practice changing the thread and try something new-to-me, which is sewing a rolled hem on a serger.

This fabric is from Paron's.  I bought it in Sept with ATP during her NYC visit.

1.  For this knit, I cut the front and back out separately.  I actually used the front and back pieces with darts folded out, unlike last two times where I used the front for both the front and the back.  

2.  Since the fabric is striped?  chevron? I basted the side seams using my walking foot to try to prevent shifting.  I love the clackity-clackity-clackity sound my walking foot makes.

3.  Futzed with the stripe/chevron alignment.  Decided it wasn't worth it to try to perfectly match it but just make sure the white stripes were aligned with white, gray with gray, black with black.

4.  Serged with my new serger and pressed with my Elna Press (that press is a Miracle Worker, I tell you).

5.  Zig zagged the waistband (I am loving Pamela's Fantastic Elastic--high quality stuff and you can cut it down to any width you want without it fraying).

6.  Divided the skirt and waistband into eighths.  Serged the waistband on

7.  Ironed interfacing to the bottom 2.5 inches of the skirt.  Originally thought I'd use my rotary cutter to cut along the chevron and call that a hem like I did on the black and white scalloped skirt...but it looked terrible!!!

So then it was like, what to do?  I could hem it with a blind hem but I would lose length and it was the perfect length already.  I abandoned that idea and used the rolled hem feature on my serger to hem it.  This was my first ever rolled hem on a serger.

8.  Wore with pride!



Dressform shots:

Front

Back

Side stripe "matching"

I have a lot of this fabric left over--would it be too crazy to make a whole dress out of this fabric???

Be well!

New Look 6071, Part 2: the modesty panel and the rest of the dress

So yes, I made two turquoise dresses in a row!

First was NL 6071, which I never finished blogging about.  I wrote part 1 here about the back of the dress here.  Then I made that S1314 quilted dressed which I blogged about in a few posts, the last of which is here.

So today I'd like to finish blogging about NL 6071.  I made it all in a 14.  Next time I will go back to making the back in a 14 and the front in a 12.  It is just a little big in the front, methinks.

I made a detachable modesty panel for it.  Two, in fact.  The first one felt a tad too low when I sit down at work.  So I made this one recently and sewed the snaps on it last night.  I am loving the idea of the modesty panel instead of a half-cami.  Less bulk....and bulk is definitely noticeable with light colors like turquoise.

These super-small, super-adorable square snaps are from Daytona Trimming in NYC.  They're right next to the register and they don't seem to have them in any other size except super-small.  I first saw them during PR weekend 2012 and they have been lingering in the back of my brain ever since, but part of me was like, when am I ever going to use snaps that tiny?

I bought them during MPB Day with Tomasa this past August and she succumbed to their charms and bought a pack too.  (Have you seen her nascent blog btw?  She has taken classes at FIT and is sharing oodles of construction info--check out her awesome black and white gingham shirt too!)

Still I was thinking, when am I ever going to use snaps that small?

For a detachable modesty panel, of course.

Tiny square snaps


Here's what the inside looked like with the first modesty panel snaps sewn in.

Perfect with one of my favorite necklaces, a turquoise & silver turtle.

My coworker and I tried for fall color, but this was the best tree we could find.

Of note, the turquoise ponte knits were not the same ponte knits.  Both were from my November 2013 trip to San Diego and LA.   The quilted dress ponte was from Michael Levine Loft, and was actually on a roll where I cut off a length of it myself.  The ponte knit for the crossover dress was from the San Diego Swap Meet, where the fabric is in heaps on the ground, and you pick out the piece that you want for $2 a yard.  This was the sticker on the piece I chose

Also you can see my new system for labeling fabrics--a post it that I then pin on to the fabric, with fabric source, if I've washed and dried it, and the 4" sample square I washed and dried for shrinkage.    I wash my pontes in the washer but I only dry them in the dryer once--as a shrinkage test when it's just fabric and also just in case the final garment ever accidentally gets thrown in the dryer. Then I air dry the final garment with each washing...unless it accidentally hits the dryer.

The bindings inside

The twin needle stitching on the hem.

Serged inside with my old serger

On my dressform

The tag inside, handstitched by me.

With a cardi

Back

Side

Front, with the lower modesty panel.  Those last few pix were taken over a month ago, in mid-Sept.

My flower farmer said last Thursday that it would be his last week at the PFM for this year.  I snagged these dahlias.  So pretty and delicate!  I know I slacked on taking flower pix this summer.  I endeavor to do better next summer!

Be well!

Simplicity 1314: done!

The fall colors at Princeton

Soooo....thank you for all of your comments regarding the post in which I asked "am I done or not done with S1314?"  You all agreed, call it a dress.  And so I did.    I have worn it to work twice now.  The first time was with dark brown stockings and brown Mary Janes but my coworker felt the brown was too dark for the dress and was pulling the eye downward too much--but I didn't take a picture.

Yesterday I wore it with medium-gray stockings and black Mary Janes, and a long light gray cardi.

Here's a closer shot.

without the cardi


And here's the back.  I'm letting my quest for back perfection go with this one.  :)


And this is a "note to self" in case I make this dress again--Deborah from Simplicity showed me how to sew this seam in her booth at the ASE as I was totally clueless with what to do with the seam allowance here.    As for the points in the front of the dress, she offered some tips that will be in her CreativeBug class on how to sew this dress.  Honestly I struggled with the points as I wound up with a 4 seam juncture because of the way I cut the waist seam completely all the way across.  I think I will buy the class when it becomes available (she estimated November) because I'm interested in seeing how to sew those points perfectly!


And here's the inside of the dress...you can see on the lower right side of the photo, how there's a bit of the cream flannel middle layer peeking out.  This is because I'm not a quilter and couldn't keep the three layers from shifting somewhat while quilting it.   Somehow I find that to be a fun secret on the inside of my dress and not an "I don't know what I'm doing" annoyance.

I'm just realizing I never sewed a tag for this dress--hmmmmm...

Be well!!!