In Progress: The Muppets Dress Pt 3

What a lovely, lazy weekend!  It rained mostly, so I stayed in and did warm snuggly crafty things.  And napped.  I might have napped.

First up, dress progress:  I played with pattern adjustments, worried about losing the entire vintage pattern in the process, and realized something super obvious:  I already have a pattern EXTREMELY close to the inspiration dress in my stash!  In the words of Homer, Doh.

Inspiration Dress:

And...Vogue  9668:

Here's the line drawing:

And the sleeves from Vogue 8554 are also a perfect tulip match (the dress is cute too):

So at this point, I'm trying to decide whether I want to do more tweaks to my New York pattern tissue, or start from scratch with the Vogue.  I'm leaning toward trying the Vogue.  I love the neckline and the midriff band, and the circle skirt is already present.  And the sleeves!  I'll use those sleeves regardless.

I did pre-wash my seersucker fabric though!  In case you're just joining me, I have the stripe in Espresso:

Now it's Monday again and back to work!  But I have Spring Break next week, so my plan is to make real progress.

I leave you with the cutest pincushion ever:

Isn't it awesome in it's tiny bird basket glory?  And my flower head pins look so happy here.  I got it from Beth's Bagz on etsy.  It was REALLY hard to pick just one, but I love birds, and the little basket won (over a poodle who was seriously calling my name). 

Happy  monday!

In Progress: The Muppets Dress Pt 2

Quick update on my vintage seersucker dress!

This weekend I was able to grade up my pattern piece and muslin the bodice.   I started out with a pattern size of 34" but I need a 38" bust (with a 1-1/2" FBA).

I usually use the pivot/slide method of grading, but since I needed to add more than 2 inches to the full bust, I did this in increments. I added a 1" pivot/slide adjustment and then used that pattern piece to add another 1" pivot slide.  This isn't technically the correct way...and an incremental slash/spread would probably be better.

The pivot/slide is pretty quick, and that quickness seduced me. 

Long story short...after grading up 2", I decided to go ahead and do an FBA to add a bust dart.  I decided not to rotate this into the front bust gathers, because I usually get a much better fit with a bust dart.

And here's what we end up with...

 

Can't see much, huh??  Well, you could click the photo and see it larger.  It's not huge, but you can definitely see more detail.  I guess I should have chosen a solid for my muslin fabric, huh??  The darts ARE on the outside.  I typically sew them on the "right side" so I can see changes better, when I do a muslin.

Here's a closeup of the midriff band:

That's a crease in the center of the midriff, not a seam.  I didn't bother pressing anything at this point.

And here's my goof, the neckline/center front ruching:

That's a fairly high neckline, huh?  I was confused at first.  Here's the pattern envelope again:

Being a 1940s pattern, the tissue is unmarked.  I've used lots of unmarked vintage patterns before; once you get the hang of "reading" the dots and perforations, it's pretty simply.  Where I goofed was not realizing some of those dots on the bodice piece were placement dots to cut the square neckline.  Whoops.

Once I figured that out, it looks pretty good though.  The neckline is higher than I expected, even considering I was doing the more "modest" view. 

As for fit...it's close.  The back is a smidge too tight, so I'll be doing a broad back adjustment (sigh).  The bust, armscye and back neck all need lowering by about 3/4".  Pivoting/Sliding doesn't change the shoulder height of a pattern, so before I lower anything or add to the bottom anywhere, I'm going to add 1/2 to 3/4" to the shoulder and re-do a quick muslin.  That may solve all my fit issues right there! (And had I graded it "correctly" to begin with, I would have added that height anyway). 

Obviously I'm cheating again by just adding in that one place (lazy!) BUT in my defense, since I typically petite bodices anyway, I will probably find success just adding to the shoulder seam.  If I added that incrementally throughout the bodice, I would likely end up with too much length in some places.

A parting shot...still terribly hard to see anything.  Muslin Two to come later this week! 

In Progress: The Muppets Seersucker Dress

A few weeks ago the very sweet Lisa from Online Fabric Shop emailed and asked if I might be interested in doing a blog project with them.  Of course any time someone wants to send me pretty fabric (with a hefty dose of blogflattery) I'm in!

I was asked to choose a piece from the new Robert Kaufman seersucker fabric line (which you can view here).  I chose this one, the Espresso stripe:

Probably not what you expected from me, huh?  I'm branching out.  Ha.  I love seersucker, especially in warm weather.  And as much as I love bright, summery colors, I thought the deep brown and white of the Espresso colorway was a little more sophisticated than the bright turquoise or lime that originally caught my eye.

Although I reserve the right to use bright turquoise or lime or hot pink seersucker in the near future.

The fabric arrived about 10 days ago and since then I've been poring over my vintage patterns and Modcloth and Etsy and Flickr and Pinterest... well, you get the picture.

My criteria was...

• I want to make a dress
• Vintage pattern or vintage styled
• Fitted bodice, fuller skirt (i.e. not pencil, but gathered, a-line or circle are all fine)
• Plays well with Stripes
• Interesting detail.  Vague, no?  Usually a vintage pattern has some amazing detail that "makes" a basic dress pattern special.  Pleats, tucks, trim, rick-rack, flounce, embroidery, tabs, button detailing, interesting gathered treatment...  

Ok.  So...  These four dresses were favorited and gazed at enough to save the images:

Modcloth

Erin, Dress a Day

Anthro?

Stop Staring

 And that last one.  Wowza.  It has all the features I'm looking for...striped seersucker inspiration already in place for visualizing the finished product (heh), fabulous "interesting detail" in the form of gorgeous bodice, piping, buttons.  Bonus features: V-neckline, good for busty folk, AND midriff band, good for those of us who need the illusion of a smaller midsection.

The slim skirt, while adorable and ooh-la-la was not for this particular project, so I envisioned it with an a-line or circle skirt.  And immediately remembered this:

Oh dear vintagey Muppets wardrobe, how could I forget you??  This dress has been in my mind's "to-do" list since last spring when I first spotted pictures of it online!  And it's simply perfect.  I spent a great deal of time last summer trying to find a pattern to knock it off too.

I never did find a pattern that has ALL the features of this gorgeous dress, but New Look 6886 has a similar feel in View A, gathered front bodice, cap sleeve (the original has a tulip sleeve), and circle skirt:

 Not crazy about the angle of the cap sleeve though, I can see bra-strap issues.

`Then I found this vintage New York 662 on ebay (terrible photo, but apparently it's NOWHERE online):

 The bodice is correct, and I even get the addition of my flattering midriff band.  I like the square neckline, but a "sweetheart" modification would be easy to alter too, like the original Muppets dress.  The sleeve would be easy to adjust to tulip.  And the skirt could be swapped out for a circle skirt (from the NL pattern!)  I think we have a winner!

Downside is grading the vintage pattern to fit, but that's just boring "work", not an impossible task.

So that's where we are today...grading up this vintage New York pattern bodice, and slamming together a quick muslin.  I'm not very excited about the grading part, but I'm excited about everything else!

Stay tuned. :)