My Little Red Dress

                 Just in time for National Heart Month, I finished my little red dress. 

I used Vogue 1432, a pattern by Kay Unger. 

This pattern can be a little intimidating at first glance. There are 22 pattern pieces and 14 of those are dedicated to the assembly of the front bodice alone. A look at the line drawing above gives the impression one has to carefully plan and figure out the placement of fabric pieces especially when doing color or print blocking. However, upon closer inspection, each pattern piece is labeled to make it easier.

Here is a simplified breakdown:

1. The bodice front is divided into three sections: 

Right top front--pieces 1-4

Left front--pieces 10-14

Right bottom front--pieces 5-9

              

           2.  If you decide to color block, pieces 1-4 will coordinate 

                            with pieces 10-13; pieces 5-9 will coordinate with pieces 10-14.

*In my case I used only four different fabrics instead of 5 and just repeated the cycle for the fifth one. 

                              

See how the pattern pieces are marked "right 1," "left 2," and so forth? That makes matching the fabric pieces less confusing.

After figuring that out, everything else is pretty straightforward. The instructions are clear and well illustrated. 

Now that we have gotten the front bodice out of the way, here are some more tips which I hope will be helpful:

1. All the front bodice pattern pieces are cut on a single layer of fabric with the right side facing up. 

2. Choose the fabrics carefully. Plan ahead of time:

    Pieces 1 & 10 will eventually make up the keyhole so it is ideal to use a fabric that presses well so     one will have a nice flat edge. 

I used a solid red polyester shantung.

View from the inside.

     Pieces 3 and 12 will form part of the shoulders. In my case I used the jacquard fabric.

3. If using fabrics of different types, try to make them of similar weight. If not, try interfacing the really lightweight ones. This will help the bodice lay out nicely. 

I used a fusible Pro-Weft interfacing on my shantung and Duchess satin pieces. I did not interface the jacquard and the embroidered pieces. The latter was already thick enough because of the stabilizer sewn on the wrong side.

4. Trim and press as instructed after every piece is sewn, no matter how tedious it sounds. HOWEVER, press gently. For my first attempt, I was too zealous with my pressing and treated my delicate fabrics like cotton. It's not like strip piecing in quilting. Just press down gently without having to open up the seams all the way. This will prevent the fabrics from becoming deformed out of shape,

A look at the "assembly process."

5. There are many markings but the ones that must not be skipped are the markings for the center front on the lowermost portion of the bodice front, in other words pieces 4 and 9. These markings will be important when it's time to attach the skirt. For the others, I got by with the notches. 

Center front marking using tailor's tack.

View of the inside after bodice and skirt were sewn together. 

6. I serged all side seams after front and back were sewn together. I also serged the free edges at the back opening before attaching the zipper. Since the garment was to be lined, I did not serge the seams of the bodice front pieces as I didn't want to add any more bulk.

7. During skirt and bodice assembly, I ensured intersecting seams aligned by basting them first. I also used walking foot for even feeding. 

8. Prior to sewing the invisible zipper, I stabilized the bodice back which was made of jacquard with a strip of tricot interfacing. My skirt was underlined with organza so there was no need to stabilize it. 

9. To make sure the back seams align, I "keyed" the zipper during attachment. 

Here are more inside views of the dress:

Enough of the construction process. The most fun part was choosing the fabrics for the dress. I was able to use leftover fabrics from my previous projects and this made my dress really special.

Fabric 1: dupioni from stash

Fabric 2: embroidered fabric from an old pillowcase

Fabric 3: jacquard used to sew my Christmas dress here. I also sewed the same dress for my beloved sister.

Fabric 4: Duchess satin used to sew my daughter's Pepper dress which can be seen here.

Fabric for skirt: crepe back satin used to sew my daughter's Prom dress seen here.

This was such a fun project made all the more special by the memories it evokes!

Exercising in Style!

One of my favorite items to sew is activewear. Maybe it's because I have found my tried and tested patterns in Jalie. My latest project is a lightweight jacket meant to function as a warm-up piece during the first few minutes of fitness class. Jalie 2679 is a pattern for a soft shell jacket. The recommended fabrics are polar fleece or heavyweight knit. I used a performance fabric made of nylon/spandex and it is more lightweight so I went down one size as far as the pattern pieces were concerned. 

The black fabric is a high performance ATY nylon from Spandex World. I don't know what ATY means but the fabric feels like the ones used in Zella leggings. It is not shiny, feels like cotton, but works like Supplex. It is completely opaque so it's perfect for workout bottoms, too. It weighs  6.78 oz/sq yard, 230 G/sw meter, 310 G/yard. I use the weight as a basis of comparison when buying activewear fabrics online. To add a bit of interest and to save some of the precious black fabric, I used some print blocking. The animal print fabric also from Spandex World is lighter weight but still with the same four way stretch so combining the two fabrics in one outfit was okay. 

Here is the back view.

Close-up of the collar.

My unexpected pop of color in the pockets' zippers.

View of the inside.

And now some construction notes:

This pattern was pretty straightforward and easy to sew. But that does not mean it's a quick project. Areas which required a little bit more attention and care included the pocket construction and zipper attachment. Since I used lightweight nylon zippers on the pockets, it wasn't as tricky. I've sewn another version for someone else using sports zipper and the larger more bulky zipper stop proved to be challenging and took some trial and error. Aligning the intersecting seams at the front opening edges was easily achieved by marking both sides of the zipper where there were intersecting seams and basting them first. 

Another tip is to reinforce any edge where zipper was sewn by using strips of tricot interfacing shown below alongside the zipper.

Front edge opening.

Taking a cue from the pop of pink provided by the zippers, I decided to sew another workout top using my TNT pattern Jalie 2444. I have sewn several tops using this pattern before and some of them can be seen in one of my earlier blog posts here.

I had to go up one size as my fabric had less stretch than usual and I also added 2' to the hem, not that I've grown some but I found the earlier ones I've sewn to be a tad short. 

I plan to sew more using both of these patterns. Now I'm off to tweak some workout leggings that I couldn't seem to get right.