Vogue 1270 Preview - and a Clarification

Vogue 1270

I am sooo close to finishing this dress it's not funny - and even less amusing is the fact that it's been really close for over a week!All I need to do now is decide if I want to take it in a bit at the waist (what would you choose: leave it loose in case an opportunity to gorge yourself arises while wearing the dress OR take it in for an illusion of waist?) and do the hems and a spot of handstitching.

This profile photo on the left shows the bagginess on the dressmaker's dummy's waist (although she has become a little slimmer than me recently). The dress is made from a piece of red/pink shantung silk, with a bright red lining. I picked up the silk in a second hand store - a rare lucky find for me as usually I just find really ugly curtains and polyester quilt covers (does anyone else in Australia ever find nice fabric in an op shop?)

 






Even though I'm not quite ready to show you the completed dress, I thought I could show you a sneek peak and document a tip for the pattern.

I read over here that Cindy was having a problem figuring out the bow on this dress, and I guess other people might have a problem with it too.... because there is an ERROR in the instructions. The picture for step #14 is misleading - this is not where the bottom part of the bow will fit. The top part of the bow comes out through a gap in a slash in the bust dart (step #1 is the slash, step # 12 is the upper bow coming out through this gap), and the bottom part of the bow stays on the inside of the dress until step #19, at which point it comes out in a gap in the seam between bodice and skirt. There are guidelines on the pattern pieces for how far the bow is supposed to come out, but basically it is taut enough on the inside to prevent the bodice pleats from falling open.

Yes, this needs to be pressed!

There is one other point about the bow that doesn't seem to be mentioned in the instructions, and that is how the top part stays up. The upper bow will flop down - we can call it gravity, but it's not serious. My solution was to sew a couple of tiny stitches on the underside of the upper bow attaching it to the dart seam - this makes the upper bow stay up without any visible means of support. 



I am hoping to be able to post the finished dress by the end of the weekend - BUT I have the flu and the weather is really miserable (rainy and grey).  My excuse is ready.





Photos of Kids?

My partner read my last post and was very dissatisfied that I didn't explain my viewpoint clearly, and that the pictures of my daughter said something that my words didn't. So I think I should clarify what I've decided (for now) about posting photos of kids. I've decided that - given my small place on the web and my reasonably low volume of kid photos - the photos I do post are probably at a rather low risk of whatever it is that could happen. That's why I did post a photo that included my daughter's face, but why only one of the photos shows her face (the other photos were cropped). Having said that I am still mindful that low risk doesn't mean zero risk. Today I went and deleted my (few) kid photos that were on flickr, and deleted a whole album on pinterest because it had too many personal photos in it - those two sites get a lot of traffic! I may also go back through this blog and recrop some / all of the kid photos (you will still be getting my mug though).

And speaking of blogging and sewing, I found this post about the sewing blog social hierarchy very interesting - I found myself agreeing with much of it...

Have a great weekend!