November 29, 2019


This is Thanksgiving Week (duh! - like you didn't know that) and the onslaught of the Christmas season.  I'm doing a lot of sewing for spring classes, and especially two new classes.  As well, I like to put these up in the Resource Library, and although it's not the same as taking a class from me, it's close, and more than anything it gives you a base from which to work. 

I'm also wanting to start something really great for the coming year, which I will have more on later, but it will be reaching out further from my personal classes, and something I hope that will become a regular.  I'm always working on trying to reach out through the wires of the internet to be an inspiration and push to encourage you into new areas of creativity and sewing. 

Because I'm working with two new classes (The Hoodie - which is NOT like your mother's hoodie), and the Dress, which is the hottest new item for the last year or so on the runway, and this means you need to get into thinking about a dress, that I wanted to do a quickie lead up to that.
 

The Dress

Here's the thing that a lot of us have forgotten and many of us have never experienced:  the dress.  This garment has been so absent from our wardrobes that if it has been included, it's been as an accessory more than a stand-alone garment in our wardrobes
  This is the sort of dress that we've been used to - it's purposely not pretty, not feminine (where's the waist or fit?), and it's definitely not anything that's dressy.  The less dressy, feminine and pretty the better.

That's not true of today's dresses.

These are positively fairy-like they are so feminine, frilly and pretty-esque.

With this new style comes a new way of thinking about dressing.  The minute you put on the dress when you're doing your fitting, you're going to feel, uh-oh, something's wrong because this is a completely different way of feeling. 

As a matter of fact, I was doing a fitting on myself for the muslin pattern (in a really pretty rayon print - with flowers), and my client arrived early, and the first thing she said, was, OMG, you are so dressed up. 

And that's the most remarkable thing you're going to feel - is dressed up as if you're on your way to have tea with the Queen or something.  The real true fact is that this is the difference that this garment and movement makes.

Feeling different

You are going to feel different
You are going to feel strange
You are going to feel more dressed up and that's the point - it's a change in how you feel.

I'm going to encourage you to go with it and acknowlege that you will feel strange in a dress and go ahead and make it, fit it, finish it and wear it!  It's almost revolutionary how it will make you feel.
 

Getting down to brass tacks

This means fitting and styling this may be a little different, but let's go back to some basics here and that's what I want to get to in class. 
 

Fit

Here are some of my top priorities on the dress to keep it looking right and modern
 

1. Remember to keep that waist a little higher - that's between 1" to 1½" above your natural or real waist.  And remember your waist is not at your belly button.  That is your lower waist and what you've been used to as "your waist".  Now you may like things to fit you at that belly-button waist, but you need to know that a pattern is fitting you at your real natural waist, so that means when you're fitting your pattern, your pattern will figure at your natural waist (which is between your lowest rib and the highest part of your side hip bone - you'll note that is not at your belly button).  The reason all this is important it because if you are acting like the waist line on your dress pattern is at your belly button - you're going to have a problem fitting (the waist will most likely be too long).
2. Keep the fit on your bodice with the minimal ease.  This is going to be a little different than what you're used to, but a blouson look around the bodice is not what we're looking for - in the video below you can see what I mean
3. Keep the hem pretty, that means a long hem is probably not going to be the best look for this "pretty new look" .  A pretty hem length is someplace around the knee - if you have a pretty knee make it mid-knee or upper mid-knee. 
4. Keep to a style skirt that fits you well and looks good for you - you might like something gathered, pleated or simply an A line.  Keep the style that works best on your figure shape.
5. Seriously consider a belt.  This is something we're not used to seeing on clothes but can be a real nice look.  Belts are something that's a little hard to get, so if you have an older belt that looks old, or worn out - this is not good now, consider replacing the belt part itself with a fabric over belting that is the width of the buckle - it can match the fabric of the dress, although I'd rather have you do something that it a bit more brave - like a solid color, but if you want to make it the fabric of the dress that's OK.  It simply limits you as to what you can wear that belt with and believe me you're going to want a lot of belts.

 

The Videos

So toward that end, here are a couple of videos that I did.  What I really wanted to impress here is that I've been sewing for over 50 years (sewing my own clothes for over 45 years) and I've sewn a lot of dresses.  But this is the first time in almost 20 years I've sewn a pretty dress for myself - a day dress.  And I had to do some refining.  OK, I had to do a lot of refining on this dress to make it work, and I wanted to share that process with you. 

The very first problem I had was working with a new pattern from a new company that takes measurements in a completely different way and marks up their pattern measurements in a completely different way.  That means that I had to work through which size to cut out.  The pattern was designed for more generous cut, which is something the Big 4 (and some of the European patterns) don't do.  Although I do like Burda, Knipmode, and some independents have this fuller more generous cut.  So that meant I was on my 4th tissue fit before I got to a size that was even close to what I needed for my figure - watch me as I go through these to see what to do. 

I wanted you to see this process because it's fraught with mistakes and problems that need to be solved. 

I also wanted you to see that a pro deals with the issues daily, and with a new style coming in, there are a whole new set of problems to be solved, and how I went about doing that. 
 





 

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