Summer Gingham Check Dress Vogue 1236

Just  a little run around dress, with two side seam pockets (I love pockets), to wear with a summer sweater.

  The tucks were reconfigured on my dress to look more like the pattern envelope.  

It will be residing under my linen sweater for summer.

I am taking a much closer look at pattern envelopes these days, as many times the photo's don't match exactly to the pattern inside.  I was really surprised that this being such a simple dress was no exception.

The tucks on the front neckline show varying angles on the photograph.  The line drawing comes a bit closer to how the tucks are configured on the pattern, which is one dart, and three parallel tucks on either side.

It may be difficult to see here but it is clearer on the actual envelope.

I added waistline tucks on my version to give me more vertical lines, that are supposed to be slimming.



I like how the adjusted tucks shape themselves around the bust.

How Dress Forms are Made

Finding it difficult to sew today... so I'm still on the How Stuff Works website and found a great video on how a dress form is constructed. (there's a 20 second commercial before it starts, mine was Toyota).

Wolf Dress Forms

1980's Designers

Geoffrey Beene

Christian Lacroix  Lesange Embroidery

Donna Karan

DK

Chanel

Thierry Mugler

Gianfranco Ferre

Patrick Kelly

De Ribes

Escada

Anne Klein (Donna Karan & Louis delOlio)

Mary Ann Restivo

Ralph Lauren

Calvin Klein

Norma Kamali

Lagerfeld & Ungaro

Bill Blass

Vogue 1170 - Rachel Comey

The front of this shirt is cut on the bias and the back on the straight grain. You can see the bias creates lovely rolling folds at the knotted areas. The fabric is a polyester crepe de chine suitable for this design.

This pattern has a lot narrow hemming, "reinforce and clip" areas (8 in all), and french seams so if you need to practice these techniques it's the perfect pattern.

Here is the reinforced and clipped area and just beneath it, the first line of stitching for the narrow hemming.

2) fold fabric at stitch line (having stitch line at edge to stabilize), and turn and stitch.

Trim this area.

3) To complete the narrow hem, you still need to turn it and stitch one last time.

I can only tell you that without a straight stitch foot and feed dog plate with a small needle opening, this is difficult to do because the feed dogs on the zigzag feet and plate have a tendency to push down into the bobbin area, and don't feed the fabric evenly. I am using a Singer Featherweight but it's not the only one with this feature, so if you were ever wondering why you would use that tiny foot and plate this is it.

French seams

Here is the first pass of the french seam 1/8" on the edge with wrong sides together, so the right side has the seam allowances.

You then press open.

Those little double motifs will disappear soon.

You fold the pieces, now right sides together, encasing the seam allowance and run another row of stitching.

And that's it, a perfectly clean seam treatment, and that double motif is tucked in the seam.

The pattern gives detailed instructions at the beginning for the narrow hem, but doesn't reprint the instruction every time you run across it later in the pattern.

Bias and lingerie Kwik Sew 2325 pantie

Kwik Sew 2325 has a pantie pattern made from woven fabric. You could miss it if you blink, after some pattern alteration however you can create a nice fitting pattern which can be used time and time again.

The pantie is cut on the bias front and back, made from silk scraps they are very thin and comfortable to wear.



Here are some of the alterations made to the pattern after the muslin.