Dresses Vogue 1353, some catching up on unposted sewing

In times of sewing scarcity, I have a number of default habits, the most serious of which is "sew a dress", which is unfortunately usually in direct opposition to my most urgent wardrobe needs at any given moment. However, sewing is not merely a way of filling one's wardrobe requirements.

So, one of my favourite things to sew is a pretty dress that I already know fits. A recipe for satisfaction and success with some practical gains. So here are a couple of versions of Vogue 1353. I have previously outlined the construction of dresses from this pattern here, here and here.

 

I have mixed feelings about this dress. I like it very much, for itself, and the construction was very soothing to me at the time, but I sewed it whilst staying at my mother's house in the wake of a death in our family and I am reminded of this period whenever I wear it. I threw out a different hand made dress  that I wore to the funeral as it was clear to me that this was a bad association, but this particular dress reminds me of family closeness in a time of difficulty. Clearly I invest far too much emotion in my clothing!

The fabric is a quilting cotton with a dark brown background.

I added sleeves to the pattern, self drafted, and piping to the neckline as I have done in previous versions for a neat finish.

I also knit a cardigan, a variation of a Jo Sharp pattern from Knit 3, the eyelet cardigan. I altered the neckline so that it would nicely frame the neckline of my two new dresses and did some short row shaping for bust room. The yarn is 4ply Alpaca Silk Georgette, which is now discontinued, hence my 3/4 lenth sleeves :).

 

Oops, I almost forgot the other Vogue 1353, in white/cream seersucker.

 I don't usually wear white, as I don't feel that the colour suits me, but was invited to a White Christmas Party, where the  instructions were to wear white clothing. My initial thoughts about these instructions were not particularly gracious but I got over this sense of mild affront at being told what to wear (when I didn't already have anything in that colour) by thinking of it as a costume party, and in fact have worn the dress quite frequently since, and it looks very good with my burnt orange and my red cardigans. I was very pleased to be able to adapt the instructions to a more flattering shade by using a cream/white stripe fabric and I must admit also that the visual effect at the party was terrific. It was held at a newly decorated beach house, with blue and white furnishings and white Christmas decorations, and with all the guests in white the party scene looked like an advertising feature. Perhaps this colour themeing is a response to putting photos of social events on social media?

You can see that I find this pattern easy to sew, and the dress comfortable and easy to wear. in fact I have another version hanging in my sewing room waiting for hemming.

V1353 in batik printed cotton.

Badmomgoodmom raised the question of whether it was better for souvenir fabric to turn in to a wadder, or to remain languishing in the fabric collection, which I find a very pertinent issue. Personally, I feel that, provided there was effort involved in the wadder, not simple carelessness for which it is just to blame oneself, it is better for the fabric to be used, even unsuccessfully. I like to expand my skills, and this is not possible without the occasional less than successful project. As I often buy souvenir fabric, there is enough of it in my collection to allow me to risk it!
  However. I believe that some fabrics do a better job as stimulus for the sewing imagination than they could ever do as a mere garment.

 

 This particular fabric does not fall into that category. I can date precisely to my 2011 trip to Wellington, NA, but although it has pleasant associations, its not fabric that I am at all concerned about using. Its a pleasingly crisp cotton, printed using a batik technique,  but its not at all traditional in print. I admit that it it has been several imaginary dresses during its time spent the fabric cupboard stage, but they were all everyday garments (a blouse, a sundress...). Now it is an even more successful version of V1353 than the last one, having slightly deeper armscyes, a very pleasing teal green minipiping and a better invisible zip insertion.

I've been wearing it a lot, and it co-ordinates with all my shoes, which is one great advantage of a print with so many colours included.

I do not have much to say about the construction, having written about this in my last post. Its a useful pattern, having a pleasing shape,  relatively easy fitting, and requiring no adjustments to cover regular underwear.

Vogue 1353 Kay Unger dress, with cheery red flowers

So what do you do when you've just made a really big mess of your silk chiffon. Sew with woven cotton of course!

In order to restore my shaken sewing self esteem, I made a very simple dress, from a purse soothing fabric I bought for $4 a metre in a Spotlight quilting fabric sale some years ago.

 I think that I may have originally intended that this fabric be for an apron, but I needed cheering up, so red flowers were just the thing for a bit of mood lightening. The lining of the bodice is a lovely cotton repurposed from a Sheraton cotton pillow case that no longer has matching sheets. Naturally, with so little financial input and no sentiment at stake, this project went perfectly.

I carefully read Beth from Sunnygal Studio's detailed post about her construction of this dress, and benefited greatly from her FBA technique, which I slavishly copied (eliminate the dart in the princess seam, lengthen the centre piece of the bodice by the width of the dart), as this is much more speedy than my usual method of cut, pivot and slide. Thanks Beth! I agree with Beth that you really need a non fusible interfacing for the neckline pleats, and I used cotton organdie, wanting to keep the dress as cool to wear as possible.
(I note that although Beth was not overly impressed with her first version of the dress, she later made another one)

Despite this FBA alteration, and a small square shoulder adjustment, I found the armscyes a little tight. My other, normal for Vogue, alterations were to narrow the waist and to narrow the centre back, otherwise this fit rather nicely if I do say so myself. I do love a nice full skirt, it saves so much work on alterations :). Unfortunately, the pleats in the skirt did not meet the darts or seam lines in the bodice in the size I made without considerable tweaking, but in a print, this is not terribly noticeable, just a drafting hiccup that is unfortunately common in big 4 patterns. You may be able to see that I was not terribly dedicated with my tweaking.....
My other construction alteration was to use the outer pattern pieces for the lining, gathering instead of pleating the neckline.

My reason for doing this was pure laziness. I did not want to make another FBA on the darted lining front, particularly as would have to use a different alteration method, which would put me at risk of enlarging the lining a different amount to the outer bodice. I was not keen for this possibility of giving myself an interesting engineering problem.

I emphasised the pleasing neckline with minipiping, and also used this on the armscyes, after trimming off a little seam allowance.

Outcome: A very useful, cheery dress for late summer into autumn, perfect for our warm climate and very good for the sewing mojo.
In fact I liked this pattern so much that I straight away made another dress from it. I'll post about that another time.