D&G Sundress: Vogue 8974

There was an icy wind blowing down the street the other night as I walked home from the station, trying very hard to imagine being warm. Despite the sunshine in these photos, Sydney weather has turned the corner, and the evenings have a bite to them.

I thought about this summer dress, waiting to be blogged, but frankly it didn't warm me up at all...

...all it did was remind me I needed to get cracking and write the blog post!!

The dress is Vogue 8974 which I imagine you've already seen blogged here and here, or in one of its many other blogged incarnations.  I started sewing this dress back in 2015 (!!), tweaking a muslin till the fit was perfect, but when I applied my adjusted pattern to the good fabric (Dolce & Gabbana textured cotton from Tessuti Fabrics - and no, pretty sure they don't have any more of it), the fit was completely off, and much looser than in my muslin.

I focused on aligning the centre front and back chevrons, then put the dress aside till the following summer.

In 2016 I got thinner, and when I came back to this dress the fit was even looser.

I sewed the main seams, set in an invisible zip in lieu of side snaps, moved the shoulder straps to line up the stripes (oops, a cutting out misalignment) and then spent hours and hours pinning and re-pinning the dress to take in all the saggy areas.

And then I put it aside again, wary of committing to so many adjustments.

I got it out AGAIN a few months ago, and hooray, I'd gained lots of weight and the dress now fit me perfectly!  #silverlining

Unfortunately by the time I'd finished up all the hand stitching on the inside of the dress (sewing opened seams flat, attaching facings to seams,sewing up the hem... ) I'd gained yet more weight, so in these photos you are not seeing that wonderful moment of perfect fit; you're seeing my "this is slightly too tight but I'm smiling anyway" version of fit :(.  Bugger.  

At this rate though I am hopeful it could fit brilliantly next summer ... or the one after?

Pattern

Vogue 8974 is a nice little pattern - the dress has interesting lines, a fit and flare profile that's a bit different from the usual, and I think it looks good on a variety of figures. It's a fun one to use with a striped fabric, and it's not super hard to sew.  The pattern includes instructions for side snaps to fasten the left side of the dress, but this is easily swapped for a zip, and you can also omit the belt if you don't happen to have belt-making paraphernalia to hand.

I haven't tried the little unlined jacket pattern that comes with the dress but I think it looks pretty sweet too. I was originally thinking to make a matching jacket with the piece of fabric I have left over from the dress, but then that might just be stripe overkill.

If I make the jacket, or make the dress again, there is one point I'd like to change: I'd add interfacing. How modern, right?  The pattern only shows the belt being interfaced, and while I noticed this vintage feature in time to retrospectively interface the dress facings, the upper edges of the bodice and the side seams, I wish I'd noticed before sewing the strap tubes.

Fit / Size

Arghh. Well, fit is the real challenge with this dress pattern. I found it was a bit of work to adjust the bodice to fit nicely, with darts in the right place, straps laying flat (I didn't quite achieve that - I needed a fitting friend for the back) AND side bodice not too low or high under the arms. You might be lucky and the dress might fit you out of the envelope, but I think it'd be realistic to go into sewing this dress expecting lots of try-ons and adjustments as you go.  For the record my dress is mostly a size 12-14, but ranges from size 10 above the bust to size 18 at the waist.

Modifications

I made a few "modernification" modifications to the pattern:

• An invisible zip instead of side snaps - I'm too lazy for side snaps! 

• Front straps without buttons (couldn't think of what sort of buttons I'd want)

• Moved the front straps to align the stripes (they shouldn't be set back from the "V" but should continue its line), and next time I'd angle the back straps to make them sit flush against my back

• Used my overlocker instead of turning under and stitching down seam allowances on the facings

• Used interfacing on bodice edges, side seams and facings

• Added height to the bodice as when the dart was in the right place the bodice cut looked too low 

• Skipped the belt in favour of showing off the chevrons at the waistline

From memory I think I also changed the grainlines of the pattern - I really, really wanted those chevrons down the front and back, but that meant cutting the centre front (CF) and centre back (CB) seams on the bias.  I intended for the chevrons from the bodice and the skirt to meet at the waist in a double ended point, but I mustn't have measured carefully enough when I was cutting out, and that double point doesn't quite work out.

MIA

On a completely different topic, in case you were wondering where I went between February and April... I went nowhere; life just got crazily stressful, both at work and at home.

The full time job I mentioned towards the end of this post grew a couple of months ago when my colleague in the team left the company for an amazing overseas role, and I've been stretched trying to cover both our roles ever since.  We've recently been interviewing to fill the position, which was going to report to me (yay, a manager job!), and I was hopeful we'd be making a job offer in the next few days, but on Thursday night I was given the bad news that my Department has decided to save money by not filling any vacant positions for the rest of this FY.   I'm not sure what I'm going to do now, but I know I'm not prepared to kill myself for another 6+ months doing two jobs.

On the home front things are going nicely at the moment, but that's after a couple of pretty intense months with my daughter spending a few weeks in hospital, my son starting high school, the cat developing severe allergies, and my dad and his partner both in and out of hospital for surgery and tests. My daughter is hopefully having a preventative operation in a few weeks, and dad's having more surgery next week, but hopefully after that the health worries will ease off.

So - that's why I was MIA! I used to think sewing was my form of relaxation, a contrast to the frustrations and stresses of work and family life, but it turns out that when the stress is ramped up I just don't have the mental bandwidth to sew.


#VintagePledge2017

And back to the sewing... Marie of A Stitching Odyssey has been running the Vintage Pattern Pledge since 2014, and I joined in last year (somewhat unsuccessfully, you could argue) and the year before.

Here's all I managed last year against my vintage pledge:

Vintage Vogue skirt

Vintage DVF dress

This year I'll be having another go at pushing myself to sew from my vintage patterns - and I'm delighted that after three attempts this dress finally counts towards my pledge!

During 2017, I, Gabrielle of Up Sew Late, will sew up or finish sewing at least four of my vintage or reproduction sewing patterns. 

I'll try to blog again soon - I've got swimmers, frocktails dresses and a couple more tops to share with you as soon as I can get my photos in order :).

Happy sewing

Gabrielle xx

Carnations and Polka Dots

What comes first, the fabric or the pattern?

It's not always clear, but this time around the answer is obvious, isn't it:

On Frocktails weekend last year, Sarah introduced me to Darn Cheap Fabrics in person, and I discovered that many of their fabrics are not at all cheap looking.  Many of them looked surprisingly like Dolce & Gabbana fabrics - this fabric is one I recognised immediately.





For me this was one of the more memorable prints from D&G's Spring 2015 RTW collection.  And post catwalk, all kinds of lovely uses for the print were turning up: shirts and dresses in the damask-style fabric that I've used, dresses in a summery poplin version of the print, luxurious silk chiffon dresses for children and adults, swimmers, handbags...

In an effort to restrain myself I only bought 1.5 metres of this fabric - what a fool!  I felt like kicking myself later when I realised 1.5 metres was going to be nowhere near enough for the long sleeved fitted dress I'd been imagining :(.   Top tip for future Gabrielle: check fabric widths vs daydreams. 

Of necessity, I've ended up with this - a simplified version of Vogue 1120; a sleeveless dress which is perfect for summer and perfect for work:  

My mum took these lovely photos for me last Sunday - what a star!  I normally end up having to take a hundred or more remote control photos of myself to get a few that look OK, but mum's photos were ALL great and the process was a lot less embarrassing than usual :). And for a change, the location isn't my garden! Obviously my garden is incredibly convenient, but I feel like the neighbours must be rolling their eyes and shaking their heads in unison at my ongoing narcissism by now, and that's even more embarrassing that taking photos in public places. 

By the way, if you recognise the location, please don't spill the beans - I want to go back there for future blog photos! 

My previous version of this dress, a party frock, was made back in 2011.  That version was true to the pattern, pleats and bow included, but was a bit wide in the neckline and slightly loose. This time around I raised the neckline all around by about an inch, and used the lining pattern pieces for the outer dress, skipping the pleats and bow of the original.  I also left off the lining - the fabric is beefy enough not to need lining - and cut all-in-one facings for the dress front and back (well one piece for the front, and a piece each for the two sides of the dress back).  The only other modification I made was to lengthen the dress as much as I could, about 5 centimetres of extra fabric I think, and to then make as narrow a hem as possible using bias binding so as to eke out a little more length.

I forgot to get a photo of the inside of the dress for you, but I hand stitched the hem using a lovely contrasting satin bias binding - it's shiny and black, and I love the way it looks against the matt white underside of the dress. 

The dress does up very simply with an invisible zip in centre back - and yes, my waist seam aligns properly on either side of the zip :). 

If you skip the pleats and bow and use the lining pattern pieces, Vogue 1270 is quite a streamlined garment.  The shoulder shaping gives a small capped sleeve, which I really like, and I think it goes very well with the curve of the neckline.  If you don't have particularly wide shoulders, raising the neckline an inch all round ensures bra strap coverage without losing the pretty curve. The front bodice lining includes bust darts and waist darts, and the although the skirt shape is straight, it has enough width for walking ease without a vent.  

There are a couple of small issues with my dress - three actually - but they don't bother me much! 

One issue is that I didn't take turn of cloth into account when I cut out and sewed the facings in place. The result is that the dress looks to have piping around the neckline and armholes where you see the facing fabric :). I should probably have used a lighter fabric instead too. 

The second issue is that the dress is a bit on the loose side. I didn't read my own 2011 blog post about my earlier version of the dress, and when I cut this out I just automatically cut it out as a size 12 in the bodice, and a size 14 from the waist down (my usual Vogue designer pattern sizes, though I often downsize the upper bust / shoulders to a size 10).  I don't know that the looseness is particularly noticeable to others, and it certainly keeps the dress comfortable in the heat, but if I make this pattern again I really should size down throughout. 

Oh and the third issue - well does anything about the print annoy you when you look at this dress? I expected the polka dots to be printed parallel to the grain of the fabric - they're not!  To me, the dots look as though they should align with the hemline, perhaps with a nice clear diagonal line running across the print too. They don't! 

You'd probably already noticed those three issues, and perhaps they'd annoy you, but they don't bother me.  I'm not aiming for perfection these days; I'm simply aiming for clothes I want to wear, and this dress definitely fits the bill - I wore it to work the day after taking these pictures, and I'm planning on wearing it at least once a week for as long as the weather is warm enough. 

Thanks for reading, and I hope you're all having lots of success with your sewing machines!

See you soon

- Gabrielle x