First Sundress of the Season

 I managed to finish up Simplicity 1620.  Boy do I like wearing full gathered skirts.  I do not, however, like attaching them to a bodice or hemming them!  What is worse is when your camera disappears for days so you cannot document the finished product.  Found the camera and here I am.

Love the piping.

Without petticoat

Attaching the skirt was problematic magnified by my lovely piping.  Getting the skirt to lay nicely after being sewn required a couple of tries.  I did not use a waist stay because the selvedges are at the waist.  There should be no stretching of the waist.

I used an invisible zipper because that is what I had on hand.  Went in easily, by hand.

Hemming the skirt was another matter entirely.  I expect putting in the zipper to be a slow process because I need to make sure everything turns out lined up.  However, hemming should be quick and easy.  What with measuring, pinning, ironing and actually sewing, I must have spent no less than 3 hours on the skirt hem.  Probably more.  Just the sewing of the hem took over an hour and a half.  Yuppers, I timed myself and I felt as if I was sewing rather fast.

Self timer catches me in action.
Here you can see there is quite a bit
of ease through the lower part of the
bodice even without the FBA.

Once I found the camera, I tried the self timer function to get pictures of the dress being worn.  Wow was that something.  It turned out better than I thought….though the first couple of tries did not include full bodies.  I found a place in my front yard where I could achieve that.

Yes, there is a street light in my front yard.
It was put there by a previous owner
and it is kinda goofy and kinda cool.

I am wearing the dress with a petticoat but not a very full petticoat.  It should look better with the fuller petticoat.  Note to self: make bigger petticoat.  Oh, yeah, I have one half finished.  Better get on that!

My thoughts on this Simplicity pattern - nice and easy.  I had read some horror stories about vintage Simplicity patterns and I did not have a problem with the pattern or fitting.

Piiping

I wanted to do something to set off this dress and finish it nicely.  So I thought contrasting corded piping.  That might have worked if my brown was even close to the color brown in the print.  It would have been smart to have checked before making the piping.  Nope, I just whipped up a load of brown piping which will have to be used for something else!

Front view.  See the facing
bunching up?

So, same fabric piping here we come.

Close up of piping.

I have piped the armholes and neckline.  My distaste of facings raised its head again.  The neckline facing was not laying correctly.  Then it hit me…duh….I forgot to clip and trim the seam allowance.  No wonder it was all bunchy!  I used bias binding to finish the armhole area.

Back view.  How do I get everything
so very wrinkled as I sew?

I like the piping and plan to put it in the waist seam as well.

Tacos and Sewing for Cinco de Mayo

Back bodice with patch.

Any excuse to have Mexican food and margaritas..... and Cinco de Mayo is a good one IMHO.  Being full from my large meal, this will be a short post so I can go to sleep.  I didn’t actually have tacos but a plate of camerones de ajo….yum!

I decided to go with option number 2 to fix the back bodice – make a small patch.  Since I plan to pipe the waist, it should not be too noticeable.

Front.. but look over there....

Hey, wait...this is the back.  See the same!

I just noticed my back and front bodice are have the same pattern placement.

The One Where There is a Cutting Failure

After about another hour or so measuring my fabric, I determined that I had enough yardage to make the dress as patterned but only if I cut everything on the cross grain.  I would end up with a shorter skirt but since I am shorter than average, a shorter skirt was not something I was worried about.

I traced the front bodice onto the fabric in an effort to cut down on inappropriate flower placement.  I really did not want  a boob bull’s-eye!  I cut out the front bodice with no problem.

It is not even!

It was the back bodice that became the problem.  I do not know how or why this was a problem.  I tried to trace the pattern and I could never get it to line up.  So I folded over the fabric, no bull’s-eyes issues for the back and cut it out.

Whoops…….

Can you see the problem?  

One side is shorter than the other, not by a lot but enough to make back bodice not work.  

How did this happen?

I know it wouldn’t work because I tried.  I sewed it together and it twisted and was too short.  I tried reducing the seam allowance on the shoulders, no help.  Is the print off grain?  I really have no idea.

Having just enough fabric to cut out another back bodice, I was finding that I had the same problem.  I could not get it even.  So what to do???

After thinking about this for a long time, I figure I have only 2 options. 

1.  Move the zipper to a back zipper and slice the bodice up the back.  Keep the good side and get another side to work.

2.  Make a small patch for the problem area.

Changing Gears

Yum! Turquoise and brown - perfect
for a sun dress.

Because the 1940’s skirt was giving me a headache, I decided to work on something a little more fun.  I wanted to use this fabric.

But what pattern.   Trolling through my patterns and pulling out a few maybes, I finally went with View 2 of Simplicity 1620.  I only had a couple of yards of fabric and thought not only will I be able to get this dress out of the yardage I had but also it would show off this Hawaiian print.  As you have probably already noticed, I love a Hawaiian print.  Note, this is the FIRST Simplicity pattern I have attempted.

This scan if from the vintage
pattern wikia.  Mine has a
32 bust and a ripped envelope.

I traced off the pattern and then started measuring my yardage. I measured and measured and measured some more.  I had barely enough fabric to make this dress.  Granted, I could make the skirt less full but what is the fun in that?

So to be a little different and because of the lack of excess fabric, I made a muslin of the bodice….actually, I made 2 muslins of the bodice.  First muslin included a FBA.  It was HUGE!!  I showed sewing friends who confirmed it was way too big for me.  So, I quickly whipped up another muslin.  Second muslin did not have an FBA and it fit perfectly per the consensus of the group!

What is happening here?  This is the second mid-1950’s dress that did not require an FBA.  Hmmmm …..does this mean I should only wear clothes from this era?  Were patterns built for a C cup?  Interesting development and totally taking me by surprise.  Has anyone else found this to be true?