Dress to Skirt - an Easy Refashion

I have such a hard time throwing out or even handing on clothes I've made *if* I love the fabric...

This particular dress had been hanging around for a lo-o-o-o-ng time, the cheery yellow fabric still making my heart sing but the crappy fit of the dress making me feel like such a poor sewist.  Over the past two years (gah! YES, it takes me that long to get around to simple alterations!) I've had a few goes at pinning the bodice to correct the fit on myself, but I simply haven't had the skills or patience to crack it, and of course I haven't been organised enough to get a fellow sewist's help. So finally last weekend, while my sewing mojo was running hot, I took to the dress with an unpicker and turned it into a skirt.

Sorry I look so unimpressed in most of these photos - it's hard to smile for the remote! Eventually my kids joined me outside and a smile started to appear... 

So as you've gathered, I made the original dress about two years ago. I sewed it from a combination of vintage Vogue 8811 for the skirt and modern Vogue 8815 for the top - and the two patterns didn't really come together very well for me. I made so many mistakes in making the dress - dodgy pattern hacking, a complete misunderstanding of grainline, poor fit -.but the fact that those mistakes now seem utterly obvious makes me glad; I must have improved over the years! 

The alteration was really easy once I got started, and it only took an afternoon and evening to get it all done, even with lots of interruptions for the usual family stuff (snacks, meals, cleaning up, calming people down... ).  

Here are the steps:

• Unpicked the side seams and waist seams, as well as the visible hem stitching, and removed the vintage zip (and hey, unpicking is actually quite fun when you've got a sturdy fabric to work with!).

• Re-sewed skirt side seams with a modern cream coloured invisible zip (I love invisible zips!) and a much wider seam allowance - the waist on this was always too big on me. When I originally sewed the dress I had the fabric selvedges showing on the skirt side seams, but I think that made it look quite clunky and home made.   

• For a waistband I scrounged around in my notions drawer and found some petersham-like ribbon that came tied around a present last year. I think this sort of a non-waistband is also supposed to be flattering if, like me, you suffer from a short waist section - and it was quicker than making a waistband!

• And then all that was left to do was a truckload of pressing and hemming. I knew if I didn't get the job done quickly it'd hang around for another few years, so the hem is just machine sewn. This time around I used a longer stitch length - about 3.0 - and sewed from the right side, like most people do most of the time! There are still puckers in there, though there are less than first time around, and they're concentrated in one side section on the front and another side section on the back - it seems obvious that the amount of puckering relates to the angle of the curve relative to the grainline, and with a wide skirt like this I think it's hard to avoid entirely. Having said that, if you have a method for avoiding puckering on a big curved hem I'd love to hear about it! The only one I can think of that would work with a machine stitched hem is to use a hem facing cut on the identical grain... 

If you look closely on the side seams you'll see there's still some puckering there too, though again, quite a bit less than first time around. This puckering belongs to "I thought I knew better than the pattern when I cut this skirt out but I didn't know much about grainline". I didn't have enough fabric for this dress, and I thought I was being clever by fitting the skirt pieces on the fabric at different angles to the grainline than the pattern indicated. Ha!

Yes, I did manage to get a whole dress out of the fabric when I probably should only have been able to get a skirt, but at each side seam I have one piece of fabric on the straight grain and one on the bias:

This skirt is not a work of perfection, but I'm not that fussy - I wear imperfect RTW, so why wouldn't I wear imperfect homemade garments? It's good enough for me!  These photos show how I think I'll wear the skirt to work - maybe with a cropped jacket on top. And as the weather starts to cool down I hope to wear it with this pale pink Undercover top (wow - I'm finally making garments that coordinate!).   

Now if you follow me on Instagram you'll know I was complaining last weekend that my blog-jo and photo-jo were both missing (yes, I've taken a while to report them as missing, but they left a few weeks ago, perhaps made nervous by the boldness of the Graphic Alert dress). And yet I blogged last week, and here I am blogging again! I was going to just wait for them to return but they've been gone so long that maybe they aren't coming back - maybe they've found a new home? - so I decided to press on without them! If writing cures writer's block, do you think blog posting cures blogger's block?


Thanks for reading this post :)

See you soon



- Gabrielle xx

The "Graphic Alert Dress

For ages now, I've been trying to avoid popping into fabric stores, because once in, my self-control disappears, despite the fact of my very plentiful stash.

This dress is not going to help the cause...

I'm sure many of you are familiar with the scenario: mid-project, you've run out of an essential sewing ingredient (white thread, or a black zip, for example), so you decide to pop into a fabric shop to get that boring little necessity. While you're there it seems it wouldn't hurt to look over the remnants table, and then peruse the latest offerings...

Ooh, now THAT is pretty (and isn't it similar to the fabric that {insert name of fellow sewist} used in that {insert garment} she wore/posted recently?).  I wonder how much is left? It's probably going to sell really fast now - if I wanted some I'd have to get it now... Hmm, well I'll just grab this bolt and think about it while I look around the shop a bit more. 

Oh, and that one's on sale! I'll bet that would be a perfect match with the {insert fabric type} I've got at home. The price isn't bad either, really... I'll just hold onto this one too while I look around. 

Soon enough your arms are full, and you find yourself at the counter, buying quite a bit more than intended - OOPS!

I do try to save my fabric shop visits for those times when I *have to* go, but restraint has always been a challenge...

A couple of weeks ago, in the middle of The Fabric Store's 30-50% off sale, and perhaps encouraged by Instagram reports from a few of the Sydney Spoolettes, I decided I should quickly pop in to check whether they had a very particular blue and white fabric I had in mind for a Capital Chic Martini dress. They didn't - when can you ever find exactly the fabric you have in mind? - but I found lots of other fabrics that it seemed only "sensible" to buy while the sale was on. 

There was one - just one! - fabric I loved and left behind. This fabric was a canvas, graphic and bold, and didn't look to have been very popular, as the bolt was nearly full. Unrolling it across the other bolts I could see it would be a challenge to cut for clothing - the panels of lines that converged and fanned out ran the risk of making odd shapes on the body - but I couldn't help but see it as a wild and beautiful dress. Sigh....  I took a couple of photos with my mobile phone, rolled the fabric up again and walked away.

Even as I drove home, I was regretting it, and wishing I'd bought some. The next couple of days were busy, with no time for fabric or sewing, and then finally it was the weekend. As early as sport and family commitments would allow I raced back to The Fabric Store and found my fabric - still there, thank goodness! Now half price? I'll have two of those large panels, please!

A quick wash and air dry later, and the fabric was spread out on my living room floor along with a bunch of Vogue patterns. The main idea I had in mind was to use the movement of the lines on the fabric to make a dress with a "V" shape in the bodice, and a big, flared skirt, but after a couple of rough sketches I also worked out that I wanted strong shoulders, a high neckline, cut-on kimono sleeves, and skirt without pleats or gathers.

I found an approximation to these shapes by shifting lots of pattern pieces all over the fabric, laid out across the living room floor, for an hour or so. The combination I came up with only just fit where I wanted it - some corners were lopped (only if within seam allowances, of course!) - and because I wanted to cut the dress in a single layer so I could keep an eye on symmetries, I ended up only roughly pinning pattern pieces in place but then drawing a cutting line around them in lead pencil. 

Here's the combination of patterns I used:

For the bodice, I started with the bodice pattern pieces of Vogue 9021 (previously made here),
then pinned the bodice pattern pieces of Vogue 8811 (previously made this dress here and here) on top to set the sleeve shape, side seam placement and bodice length,
then lengthened the sleeves as much as could fit on the fabric width without hitting skirt pattern pieces.

For the skirt I started with the skirt pattern pieces of Vogue 8811 (previously made as a skirt here), cut with grainline down CF and CB,
then pinned the skirt pattern pieces of Vogue 8993 on top to determine waist width and skirt length.

And so this ends up being mostly Vogue 8811, a vintage Vogue reissue, looking very modern due to the graphic fabric print, but I think I can still call this strike one in my vintage pattern pledge.


In these next couple of photos you can see how I positioned the print on the bodice and upper skirt.

I have a "sweetheart" effect on the front bodice, strong "gridiron" shoulder markings to make my shoulders look more impressive, and a modesty "fan" in the front (just because that amuses me) along with some other lines that flare outwards to emphasise the difference between waist and hips.  I tried to get the bodice arrows pointing upwards ending right on the neckline, but I couldn't quite manage this so the topmost arrow has its point chopped off.

Dress front, in the flat

On the back bodice I have more of those "gridiron" shoulder markings, and a crossover pattern emphasises my scapula. There's a white narrow "V" down the centre back to pretend there's no fabric there, and arrows come upwards from the skirt to the waist.

Dress back bodice, in the flat

The whole dress was cut with a little extra room in the side seams as I didn't want to risk ending up with something too tight, and my experience of the vintage Vogues is that they can be quite narrow in the waist compared to modern Vogue patterns in the same size.

After sewing the shoulder seams, and bodice front to skirt front, bodice back to skirt back, I got a bit excited at how the dress was taking shape and basted BOTH side seams together to try it on. Oops, classic late night sewing, how was I going to get the dress on? I had a go at slipping it on - stubborn! - and surprisingly, it slipped on fine! I am guessing that this is one largely unheralded benefit of being a classic pear shape? Anyway, the upshot of that discovery is that this finished dress has NO FASTENINGS and yet does have a bit of a waist shape :). Admittedly this is not the most fitted of waists, but it's fitted enough for a flare of skirt at the hips and a slight increase in width at the bust, it's comfortable, and I think it's absolutely good enough.

To finish the dress I used white cotton bias binding on the neckline and sleeves. Because this dress has a high neckline that I didn't want to lower, I left the top couple of inches of the CB seam open to let my head get through the neckline. The fabric is structured enough that at this stage it doesn't seem to need a button or other fastening to stay in place, but of course I'll add something later if needs be. The skirt hem is simply serged then folded over and stitched in place - I would have preferred to use some more white bias binding but I had nearly run out of bias binding (I couldn't risk another trip to the fabric shop!) and had got to the point where I just wanted to finish. 

You can see that with a thick fabric like a canvas, the kimono sleeves get some interesting folds - I expected this, and I like the look of the folds. To some extent perhaps these folds could be removed with darts, but I think you need that extra fabric with kimono sleeves.

So this time around I am VERY happy with what I've made - playing around with several patterns to get the graphic look I wanted absolutely worked, and I think it was well worth the extra pre-sewing time it needed to get the lines and curves exactly where I wanted them.  Looking at these photos, please assume a broad grin creeping over my face, because that's how I feel - this is one dress I would have paid good money to own even if I hadn't made it!

And now someone's got to finish tidying up this lawn, don't they....

Good luck with your unplanned fabric purchases, and see you soon!

- Gabrielle xx

To the Gallery: 1940s Cotton Dress

Ta da! Here's my TMS vintage effort for the month of September - and also my Fall for Cotton entry (is that a bit cheeky, or super efficient?!).



Not sure if you can see any details - it's quite a plain little dress; a very simple 1940 silhouette courtesy of Vogue 8811, - but we were having such a hot, bright Spring day that my outside photos were a bit washed out (I've darkened these significantly).

I originally made and blogged about this pattern last year (back here) as a crunchy, exciting pewter coloured taffeta, but that version only fits when I'm at my thinnest, which is not necessarily when I want to wear it. This version differs in more than fabric choice: I graded it up in the waist (necessity), left the neckline pretty close to the original pattern instead of scooping it out and adding a collar, and in the spirit of proper vintage sewing, made those shoulder pads myself from layers of cotton wadding with a darted fabric cover.

Can you guess where we took these photos? And by "we" I mean my kids... Well obviously it's a gallery, but this is the Art Gallery of NSW. Culture - and so much of it for free!



Naturally I wouldn't have had this smug expression on my face if I'd realised one shoulder pad was trying to break free... what a goose!

Ignoring the wayward shoulder pad, you may be able to see that the shoulder pads are pretty much just a reflection of my natural shoulder line.  I suspect now that they're supposed to give a slightly extended shoulder line - but I really don't know what's right for the 1940s.

I know I'm not showing you photos of all these details, but my back button is vintage, the press stud it's hiding is vintage, and the belt buckle is vintage (probably a different vintage, but it was the best match I had to hand). I have to say this is probably the worst belt I've ever made - I should've used something heavier than interfacing, I don't know what I was thinking. Maybe I'll make a new belt with some buckram inside it... And I don't know that this is a vintage feature or if I was just half asleep, but I didn't see instructions for any interfacing to be used apart from in the belt so that's the only place I used it - and of course in the belt it's completely insufficient.



The invisible zip which you really can't see in these photos IS pretty invisible and is modern, and the fabric is modern - Japanese quilting cotton from Lincraft, bought in a panic when I was trying to get this project done early. The fabric is (of course) cotton, and having pored over a bunch of 40s dresses on the internet and in books, I thought the floral pattern looked suitable for the period.  I've never sewn for myself with quilting cotton before, and I was worried that it would be too heavy or have poor drape. This particular cotton is lightweight and drapes well after a wash, but I don't know if it's going to have the longevity of a fashion fabric. I hope it does, because the dress feels lovely and breezy on a hot day, while still looking kind of smart.  

As you can probably tell, the weather was really hot - Aussie mid-Summer hot. Heaven help us if Summer is hotter than Spring this year; the bush fires have already started! 

So why did it take so long for me to make a simple cotton dress?

Well, the above dress is not the one I started out making.  I was originally trying to make this pattern:

click for source

I had the pattern in the right bust size, and I graded up for waist and hips. Then I made my muslin, and WOW the fit! It was absolutely appalling! There were a good 2 inches of what seemed like excess fabric in the front upper bodice, and another 2 in the back! Now I know I have narrow shoulders and a small bust, but surely the women of the 1940s didn't have such broad shoulders...

Without really knowing what 'good fit' was in the 1940s, I then spent a lot of time thinking instead of sewing. It was possible that the style of the time was for a lot of excess fabric around the shoulders and bust (hmmm maybe a bit of ease was considered stylish... but probably not this much), but another real possibility was that McCalls back then were known for their out-of-control vanity sizing (hey, maybe it was just as much of a hot topic then as now).

I pinned out the excess on my dress dummy, but then I got cold feet.

I've had this muslin on my dress dummy now for a few weeks, and I've decided that regardless of how authentic to the 1940s this fit is, I like it. I want to make it like this (but regular length) in a crepe or silk satin; something really drapey. 

My Yellow Dress is Just All Wrong

This week I finished a dress. Frankly, it's a disappointment!

This is a fake smile.

I made so many mistakes that I nearly made this post a "how not to" tutorial... but then I figured no, everyone makes mistakes.  But I made so many mistakes... OK, I accept I have puckering in my curved hem, but why do I even have puckering on the straight side seams - how did I do that????

Yes, that look expresses how I really feel about it. That's not a fake smile.

 There are a few details I'm happy with - like the nicely coordinated vintage metal invisible zip:

and the alignment of the side seams at the waist:

The top stitching isn't messy either.

But the mistakes!!!!!

Like fabric choice... oops. The stuff I bought is lovely but too heavy for a summery dress.

And considering the directional print, I didn't really buy enough for a dress!  Which leads to cutting out... oops again. What's grainline mean again?

I also mixed together two patterns without confirming their fit (my size has changed lately) or whether they would fit together. Double oops! Come ON, d'oh!

this skirt

this top, sleeves OFF, zip shifted to the side, peplum OFF

Vintage Vogue 8811 (a 1950s reissue, in vintage sizing) for the skirt + Vogue 8815 for the bodice (a current pattern, in modern-but-running-smaller-than-Vogue-designer-pattern sizing) - funnily enough they don't line up at the waist seam. So (oooooops) I added width to the bodice with narrow strips of fabric (have you ever heard of such a stupid idea?). And then the bodice was too big so I extended the front waist darts into princess seams to the shoulder - but it still doesn't fit nicely (can you believe it? after two clever ideas like that?).

***

So in the end it's a dress, but it's a let down. A dress that nearly became a skirt, then went back to being a dress - and that may yet become cushions.

Next up I'm working on a Sandra Betzina pencil skirt and one of the new Vogue pattern dresses. It's early days but I haven't done anything crazy with them yet :-).

Rustling Dress (V8811)

A new dress which I love.... if only, if only it wasn't so tight!



The fabric is a "poly" (that's what the label said; I guess that's poyester!) which I bought as a 2m remnant from Tessuti Fabrics a while back. It feels like paper taffeta... it's lightweight but quite crisp and structured. When it moves it rustles (love, love, love that) and it holds this sort of big skirt shape really well. There are some fold lines on the fabric but when you crumple it up then smooth it out again, no creases - yay! it's just the sort of fabric you shouldn't even bother TRYING to iron! 

I used Vogue 8811 for the dress, a reissue of a 1940 original design - advertised as looking like this:

Once I'd sewn the dress together it was obvious the high neck was going to annoy - it was even too high for my dress dummy! I also felt that the dress needed something dramatic at the neckline to balance out the pouf of the skirt. So I took out my bodice pattern pieces and traced them onto some tissue paper, and then I just drew a nice dramatic wide colllar with a much lower neckline. Because my collar is based on the original flat pattern pieces it fits the bodice well, but I also made it up initially just as facings to review the proportions on the dress. It seemed to look how I wanted, so then I cut it out another couple of times to make the collar - and hooray, it's just the dramatic look I wanted. Oh, if only the dress wasn't so tight!

 

My side zip is wonky looking - late night hand stitching, after the discovery that the dress was too tight:

My bust darts end way too high:

But I love the look and sound of this dress - the colour, the shape, the rustle - here's the full length view (easier to stand on the sofa to get a full length view than to work out a different place to put the camera):

Seriously, if it didn't FEEL way too tight and uncomfortable I would be drinking champagne right now. From the good glasses!

I'm not going to chuck it out. Who knows, the fabric may grow as it ages or something...

Sewing Stats:
I think this cost me around $47 all up.  I wish it fitted.


$28 for 2 metres of fabric.  About $5 for the pattern + part postage in one of those Vogue patterns sales.  Say $2 for the zipper, bought ages ago for something else.  About $4 for sewing needles. $0 for sewing machine thread (an already used reel), and  about $8 for overlocker threads.

If you've made this dress yourself or have sharp eyes you may have noticed I didn't quite finish it. I didn't make the belt (does it need a belt? wouldn't that accentuate the tightness?) and I've just overlocked the hem for now (I want a nice invisible hem finish but this fabric takes on puncture marks from needles so I need to think some more before hemming). And I made a couple of changes - the new collar as described earlier, which also meant I didn't need the back neck slit and somehow amazingly also didn't need the shoulder pads.

This is not a hard pattern - the cutting out and sewing were straightforward - but the total elapsed time for me to make this was around 2 weeks: 15 minutes here, 30 minutes there... mind you, we did have a party to organise last weekend too (happy birthday Master UpSewLate xxx), and I did seem to spend a lot of time thinking about this dress when I should have been making it. 

Hmm. There are many other patterns and fabrics tempting me, but I could always make this again in a larger size with my identical remnant of the same fabric.... (who buys two identical remnants??? you too?)