Jun

13

Finally starting Vogue 1048

Filed Under Rucci dress, sewing, wedding dress | 10 Comments

The quick and dirty muslins have been adjusted and revamped.  (Just to let you know if you are attempting this dress- I had to do alterations on 9 pattern pieces.  That was not including the lining which I still have to alter.  Oh my goodness- and I thought this was a nice “simple” dress!)

Tonight I finally had an evening alone and at home. 
Perfect, I thought to myself.  An hour or two and this baby will be cut out and ready to sew…That was at 7pm.  It is now past midnight and I am still not done!  I  know why this dress is rated advanced- your brain has to be at an advanced stage of atropy to think it is easy!!

 Pattern pieces- 28
Number of pieces needing underlining - 11
Total number of pieces one needs to cut out -I think 60

60!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

To add insult to injury, I got bored with all the cutting and handbasting underlining to fabric and thought I would run a few pieces through the machine. 

Umm…
UMMMMM…

My machine- a Husky which has not given me even one hiccup in 5 or so years of running continuously, won’t go.  Hey, I sound like a petulant 5 year old- “won’t go”!!!  I really hope the electrical storms that went though yesterday did not affect it.

I’m too tired to look at it anymore tonight…tomorrow is another day.

Today’s postscript…  
We are starting to think about a wedding dress for Daughter #1 - Erica.  She has given me these inspiration pictures.  The bodice is what we are really trying to create. I think!  It is actually a double bodice.   There is the regular bodice, then a shirred or pleated layer over top.  Finding a suitable base pattern may prove impossible.  Thank goodness I have 11 months 10 months.


Jun

4

I’m driving myself Cer-azzzzy!

Filed Under Rucci dress, Uncategorized, fabric, sewing | 7 Comments

Here’s the scenerio.  I am making that Vogue to-die-for Ralph Rucci dress. This one..

Let me tell you, I love the simplicity of this dress.  Take a basic shirt dress.  Slash here, cut here, insert here. 

Voila

A sharp- Very Sharp- little dress.  The basic dress is Easy.  It is the adornments that raise the bar of this one to an Advanced dress.

Fitting- I had a mini conniption fit when I tried it on.  I bought the smaller size range (up to a 12) and made the 12, but when I tried it on, I had major front bodice top wings and there was no way  the bodice would do up like it was s’pposed to!  I thought hard about throwing the whole thing away, but took a deep breath and laid it aside for a day.  Good thing too.  When I picked it up the next day, I realized that I had neglected to tack the upper back together.  That, of course would make gaposis a major issue.  After doing that, and retrying it on, it was evident that the only real alteration was going to be grading up a size.  That and giving it a 1/2 inch more for the waist length. 

The shape of the dress is definately tringular, giving me more hip than I am willing to admit to!  I just snagged a glance at the pattern envelope however, and it is decidedly meant for triangular and hourglass shapes!   I dunno. 

The big conundrum now is what fabric to use.  I don’t want to use white.  I don’t do white well!  I tend to spill, trip, sit on things…and beside white has already been done.  See up there on the pattern photo?!!

I was picturing a nice buttery yellow linen.  I found a nice buttery voile. I can’t get the colour to photograph well today, but picture this colour.
 It is really lovely, but my first mock up was in a pink cotton, and without any slubs or texture to the fabric it looks- well- like a uniform.  And voile doesn’t have any dimension to it either.    *sigh*

So off I went back to Fabricland for another look.  I came home with this green linen. 
 I dunno.  Texture yes, lovin’ it- no.   And it might be a bit heavy with underlining and lining too.  For the underlining I found some great cotton/bamboo/silk though.  It is the bright spot in my fabric hunt.   Even I I don’t end up using it for this project, it will make a great shirt.

 I shoulda picked up  one of these two fabrics.. from Gorgeous Fabrics when I ordered from Ann a couple of weeks ago.  What do you think?  
What would you do? 

Use the Yellow voile?  Use the Green Linen that I already have?  Or just go ahead and order again from Ann- knowing full well that I will not stop at just one fabric there?!! (although I just checked and I think both fabrics are not longer there) 
*double sigh*

Orrr

There is this orange- persimmon - linen blend I have too. 
It would work.  Unless it screams “Fall”

What to do, what to do, what to do!
See what I mean about crazy! 

Today’s postscript….  Off to my busy afternoon.  Bookclub first, where we are discussing MY favoutite book of all time “The Time Travellers Wife”  I’ve heard through the grapevine that I will have a lot of defending to do as it was not a fav with everyone!.  Following that is 9 holes of golf, followed by my weekly baseball game.  I’m tired already!

May

28

Fabric, patterns and fun. Whoo hoo!

Filed Under Jalie, Rucci dress, Uncategorized, fabric, sewing | 4 Comments

Yippee!

Friday I recieved my big box of GorgeousFabrics and this morning Mr Postman brought me my new Jalie patterns. Yup, 8 of them! Let me see if I can remember them off the top of my head. The three new ones- Tee, gathered tee, and empire tee- the sweatheart top that everyone at PR raves about, boxer shorts, undies, the longer coat, and, um um, um….oh yes- the multi sport skort ( I want to see if I can modify it for a cycling skirt).

There. That should keep me busy for a while.

Last night I was trying to decide what my next project should be.
I pulled out the Vogue Rucci dress pattern and thought that a muslin was in order. I HATE MUSLINS! Yes, I know that they are neccessary, but they seem to be so much of a time waster. Anyhow, I am slapping this baby together, and so far so good. All the basics are there- notches match, size looks good, yada yada. I haven’t gotten to fitting yet, and today is full to the brim with customers, pigs, golf, a ball game and a meeting, so sewing will have to wait. (it works trust me.)

The pigs have been dealt with and are all smoking cigarettes as I type, the customers are next. Um that looks wrong. What I mean is I am seeing customers next. No cigararettes involved! Golf is at 3:30- just 9 holes. The baseball game is at 7pm and the meeting is at 8:30. See-it is possible!

Today’s Postscript…

I looked out my back window yesterday afternoon and saw….. THIS!

Gosh, I even knew we were applying “natural, environmentally friendly” fertilizer too!  We always drop a letter to our neighbours when we spread -I  just forgot about myself. I should NOT have hung that laundry out!