Vogue 1351 Archives - Handmade by Carolyn

mother of the groom

19/03/2023 6:08 pm \ 11 Comments \ Carolyn

Hello!

Finally, I can share the outfit I made for myself for our son Sam’s wedding to the lovely Lainey…

I was too overwhelmed after making her dress to even think of trying out any new patterns for myself so just went with some tried-and-trues in the end…

the fabric pretty special though! It is a particularly luscious and silk velvet that I bought in Paris during a holiday many years ago; probably like about a decade ago, if I’m honest! It’s beautiful stuff, and I’ve been saving it for a special occasion. and what could be more special, than my child’s wedding?!

Patterns; the dress is V1351, and the little jacket is V2894, an old Oscar de la Renta for Vogue patterns that I’ve made once before. The dress pattern is one I’ve used quite a bit; four times, to be precise! it’s a real goodie! I made the jacket because I often feel cold in the evening, even during summer so thought it a good idea to have one just in case. As it turned out I wore it most of the time so thank goodness I had enough fabric!

Both jacket and dress are fully lined with a super pretty pink silk that I bought recently from Fabulous Fabrics. I did look at green lining fabrics but nothing looked right so went with a contrasting colour. Very happy that I did because I really love it.

I added a single welt pocket into the lining of the jacket, under the right sleeve, just big enough for my phone. The top of the pocket is stitched to the sleeve seam inside, so it’s well supported and stable. Even though I did take an evening bag, it was still really good having a pocket. Makes me feel illogically good when I have a pocket in my outfit 🙂

I have very little else to say about this outfit, other than I felt really good and comfortable in it on the day, and am so happy I finally found a good use for this ultra-beautiful fabric.

Posted in: Uncategorized \ Tagged: dress, jacket, Vogue 1351, Vogue 2894, wedding

snowy white dress

03/09/2020 9:23 pm \ 10 Comments \ Carolyn

It’s a bit sad that this dress looks like a white-out and doesn’t photograph as “exciting” because it’s a thing that’s been on my sewing bucket list for YONKSSS, and I absolutely love it! I think it’s elegant and beautiful and, excuse me for saying so, but I think perfect also … and I’m gonna wear this to death!!

Cassie gave this piece of soft ivory crepe to me for Christmas one year… quite a few years ago actually. I feel a little terrible that it’s taken me such a long time to getting around to making it up, but I also don’t! because I really wanted its outcome to be perfect. Ok ok, to be as close to perfect as possible… and I’m so very happy with how it did turn out that at the same time that I’m relieved I waited til I was really ready.

The crepe is from Fabulous Fabrics, as is the lovely, light beige lining fabric. It’s actually leftovers from my mother of the bride dress, for Cassie’s wedding, and beautiful quality too.

Ordinarily I wouldn’t put one of my labels into the back of a delicate dress like this, but I’m determined to use these labels as often as I can, because they’re such fun! and it gives me such a kick to see them in my clothes.

For the hem, I used this triple-stitched method, which makes a really nice, beautifully clean finish. The only thing to be careful of, especially in a slightly “sponge-y” fabric like crepe, is to just slightly stretch the fabric as it goes through the machine… if you don’t I find the fabric bunches up just a bit, draws in the hemline. Stretching it doesn’t give the expected lettuce leaf finish but instead gives a beautifully smooth hem.

This is my eighth thing in my #maketwelve this year, from my twelve selected designs and fabrics… hmmm what should I possibly make next?!! I wonder!

Posted in: sewing, Uncategorized \ Tagged: Clara, dress, Vogue 1351

poppy dress

26/11/2018 10:44 pm \ 11 Comments \ Carolyn

I’ve made this new dress #surprise! This beautiful poppy printed silk chiffon was a birthday present from my lovely thoughtful Mum… we were browsing together in Fabulous Fabrics and oohing and aahing over it, and she suddenly announced “I’d like to get that for you for your birthday!” And she even chose the pattern I was to use, which is of course Vogue 1351, anyone who has read this blog for even a short amount of time will know how much I LOVE this Donna Karan pattern since I’ve used it a few times. Actually four times before, to be exact; here, here, here and here. To my mind its silhouette has a perfect simplicity, or should that be that it is simply perfect? Either or!

The poppy chiffon is very delicate and sheer. The background is actually pure white, however I chose to line my dress with a off-white polyacetate lining fabric. I chose the off-white over pure white, because it was noticeable softer, the overall effect of the pure white was surprisingly harsh. I’m not really at my best in pure, pure white, even though I love it; a softer ivory-white is a lot better for me.

invisible zip in left side seam; this is always my preferred zip placement!

I’ve worn it several times already, the first time on Remembrance Day, when Mum, Dad, Craig and I went to visit the RSL poppy tribute at Kings Park. I chose to wear it a) because of Remembrance Day, of course! and b) because Mum and Dad were staying with us and I wanted to show them the lovely birthday present they had given to me!

Wait, the poppy tribute? Well, this year, 61,513 hand-knitted and crocheted poppies were made and “planted” by RSL volunteers, one poppy for each Australian lost at WW1. Seeing them and walking through the exhibit; the sheer number of them, was such a very sobering, very humbling and very moving experience. Speaking, um “craft-ily”, as it were; so much care and love and thought had obviously gone in to each and every poppy too, some had buttons, that we read were often included for their significance to the family in some way, like from a uniform or something. The exhibit was only on for four days, so we felt very fortunate we thought about it and went, and I was also very pleased to hear that the exhibit will be returning again in future years.

I did think about getting a picture of my dress at the exhibit, but once we got there I felt that would be disrespectful. I mean, while the poppies themselves were beautiful and spectacular and a visual treat to behold, of course I realised how very wrong it would be to treat them like a photo backdrop to my dress. Though a few ladies passing by did comment that my dress was “perfect for the day” which was very nice.

I did take a picture of Mum and Dad though…

I next wore the dress just recently, we had a gorgeously warm, but windy! weekend and we went for a lovely long afternoon walk at the beach, and I grabbed the opportunity to take some pictures… does Clara look incredibly wet and sandy in this picture? Well, that’s because she is!! I was wondering if she was going to jump up on me, or shake sopping sand all over me with one of those doggy full-body shakes.

Actually caught her partway through one said full-body shake below… and thank goodness she’s waaaaaaaay way over there! Normally she’ll come right up to you before letting loose, and I’m telling you, this is one ultra-fluffy hairy doggy, and she can carry a heckuvva lot of water and sand in that there gorgeous coat of hers!

plus bonus random bird! hey birdie!

Aaaaand there’s my husband, being very polite and keeping well out of the way while I take my pictures, ahem. Well, that’s what he’s supposed to be doing!! Man!

Fun fact; in this picture he’s wearing this blue jumper, that I made for him last Christmas. You have to scroll riiiiiiiiiight to the end of the post to find it though, I just checked and it’s a MONSTER post with about a million items in it. Well, that’s what it felt like, when I was making them I mean. Ha!

Details:

Dress; Vogue 1351, poppy print silk hiffon
Red cardi, in beach pics; my own design variation on the Nettie bodysuit, but Closet Case patterns, details here
Sandals; Zomp, from Zomp boutique

Posted in: Uncategorized \ Tagged: Clara, Craig, Dad, daily outfit, dress, Mum, Vogue 1351

purdy dress…

26/02/2018 10:08 am \ 18 Comments \ Carolyn

I’ve made a new dress! Every year, my group of lovely friends gives me a gift voucher to Fabulous Fabrics for my birthday… basically my ideal pressie, and I get to go in and choose something yummy… this year I chose this utterly divine silk charmeuse printed with an unusual fractured design. It almost looks like a watercolour/hazy kinda of an abstract , that has been cut and laid in random, uneven ribbons across a pearly ivory ground and then printed like that. You can’t really “see” much of anything in the print when looked at as a whole, but if you look closely you can see areas which look like the topstitching on old levi’s, and a brown leather belt with a brass buckle… you’d never think of it to look at it!

I used Vogue 1351, and managed to eke out of my voucher allowance a length of ivory silk habotai to line it… this is so divine to wear against the skin! so it’s worth it for a slithery slippery little number like this.

… I showed off the lining briefly in my action video below… in which I am obviously totally upstaged by my little production assistant, and honestly I’m not in the habit of lifting up the dress to show off ma underpinnings generally, but I know sewing peeps would understand. Apologies for the crashingly bad quality btw, I’m still learning how to do these videos! editing is kinda tricky and I’m still in the stage where it’s super lucky if I get any clips in there at all, let alone in the right order, and well, forget about continuity. Hopefully I’ll get better at this over time!

I left in the turning off the camera bit at the end too, just because during editing I realised it showed off the cowl neck quite nicely and you can see how the bodice lining doesn’t flip out at all, but sits hugging your torso quite securely and nicely. One of the things about a cowl neck is how they can be too exposing if not done well, and I have a few of these in my own wardrobe that I need to be really careful with! but this pattern is not one of them. The cowl is supported beautifully by the lining in a very modest way. It’s one of my favourite patterns for this reason… this is my fourth time making the pattern, my previous versions are here, here and here. I still wear all of them pretty frequently, except for the green wool one, which came to a heartbreakingly tragic early demise thanks to a too hot wash cycle. I could have cried when I pulled out this mangled, felted little thing from the depths of the washing machine. We were still in the honeymoon phase and I was so excited to think I’d be wearing it a million times yet. *sigh* A moment’s silence please…

And a couple of commenters mentioned after my previous video, and thanks for the positive response! I’m so pleased it’s a feature that people might like! anyway, a few wanted to see more, particularly what things look like when you sit down, so I dashed out to quickly film and tack on an extra bit with that too, which also happens to show off the dress closure by invisible zip in the left hand side seam. I really like dresses that close in this way, much easier to do up than a centre back zip and makes for a nice seamless look.

Details:

Dress; Vogue 1351, silk charmeuse lined with silk habotai
Shoes, in the video; Pedro Miralles

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Posted in: Uncategorized \ Tagged: Clara, daily outfit, dress, Vogue 1351

little floral dress; donna karan for vogue

19/06/2017 5:37 pm \ 24 Comments \ Carolyn

I’ve made this new dress! every year my dear friends give me a Fabulous Fabrics voucher for my birthday… it’s taken me a little while but I finally got around to spending it and making my birthday dress!

Pattern; Vogue 1351, this is my third version of this pattern, my first one is here and my second here. This time I cut the skirt a bit more flared and actually it was going to be a lot longer to start with too, it was going to be a midi-ankle length dress, but when I tried it on for hemming I decided this particular small-scale floral was not right for a midi-length. It felt like a big walking cliche, to be honest, as if it was the “before” dress in an op-shop refashion challenge, and I was about to lop a foot off the bottom and go “TA DA!!” LOOK HOW AMAZING IS THIS REFASHION GUYS!!! FRUMP TO FAB IN JUST FIVE MINUTES!!!

Actually, I think the longer the length of a dress, the bigger the scale and more overblown the print needs to be… and a smaller scale print really looks best in a shorter dress. Also Craig gave a big thumbs up to the shorter length, although that is pretty much ALWAYS his response, so much so that I don’t know why I bother asking… Anyway, I preferred the shorter length too, which I should say is of course the “right” length!

Fabric; floral chiffon, lined with a warm, peachy/pale-pink crepe, both from Fabulous Fabrics. I’d tried a few different colours underneath the floral – because it is completely sheer the colour of the lining made a huge difference; white, ivory, and even cream were all too “cold”… I almost went for pale yellow which was quite warm and nice but in the end I settled on this lovely pale peachy-pink. Pink gave an rosy warm glowing light to it; just exactly what I want for winter 🙂 I know a chiffon dress seems a strange thing to make for winter, but this dark rich floral just seemed to my mind to be very right for the season, and is what I want to wear right now.

I stitched French seams on all areas of the chiffon, and the seam allowances of the pink crepe lining are overlocked to finish…

triple-stitched baby-hems for both the shell and the lining… as described in my tutorial here

… the only difficult bit I had was putting the pale pink invisible zip into the chiffon. It is tissue thin, and so wouldn’t be able to provide any support for the zip, so I applied thin strips of iron-on interfacing along the stitching lines of the zip, extending it by about an inch either end and was super careful when stitching.

I thought I’d show my lining slip-stitched to the zip tape inside… I always stay-stitch a three-sided “box” at the lower edge of the seam where it will be sewn to the lower edge of the zip, snip into the corners, press the seam allowances under, and stitch along the stitches… this is something the patterns NEVER tell you, but I think they really should, because it’s so much better. The lining sits a lot flatter and smoother, the stay-stitching gives a little bit of reinforcement to the area, and the squared-off slit really does make a visible difference to how invisibly the zip seam appears in the finished garment, especially in a very thin fabric like this. Haha, I know that “visible difference to how invisibly etc” sounds like an oxymoron, but you know what I mean!

I wore it for the first time today! along with my scarlet Miette cardigan, to show it to my lovely girlfriends who had given me the voucher… 🙂

Details:

Dress; Vogue 1351, floral chiffon, crepe lining
Cardigan; the free Miette pattern by Andi Satterlund, all details on my yarn and alterations to the pattern here
Tights; voodoo
Shoes; Vitullimoda, bought in Melbourne during my holiday over there with Mum and Cassie 🙂

location; Kings Park, Perth, Western Australia

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Posted in: sewing \ Tagged: daily outfit, dress, tip, Vogue 1351

greenery

27/03/2017 2:20 pm \ 30 Comments \ Carolyn

… and the colour of the year for 2017 is….!!

hehe, it’s kinda silly, but in early January I love looking up what the fashion Colour for the Year is going to be, even if I then forget about it and don’t add any of it to my wardrobe! This year it is Greenery, and serendipitous news, I had bought a length of this lovely summer weight wool pashmina fabric from Spotlight, in a colour that is well, not too far off. I love being inadvertently fashionable!

So I made a little dress. The wool is woven in a twill pattern, and is very light, practically sheer, so I lined fully with a springy yellowy-green polyacetate lining fabric. It was absolutely amazing to discover invisible zips in Spotlight, in exactly the right colour too. This is so rare, especially with more out-there colours like this one!

I used Vogue 1351, which I have previously made up once before, here. This time I followed the pattern to the letter and cut the skirts and bodice front on the bias like you’re supposed to. I let it hang for a few weeks for the bias to drop before hemming… why so long, do I hear you ask? well not for anything in mindfulness to the outcome of this dress, NO! but because like a ravenous wild beast my Zora Queen Comic Con costume has been demanding and devouring every scrap of my creativity to the exclusion of all else. AAAAAAAGH!!

Anyway! It’s finished now! This dress, I mean; not the costume. Although that is too, hip hip hooray. Slowly getting back to normal making. Well, normal for me, anyway 😉

It’s funny; the vibrant colour of this dress might make it seem kinda frivolous and not like a “basic” or a very core wardrobe staple, but it is a very plain dress really, and I actually think it’s going to be an extremely useful mix and match item in my wardrobe. The kind of thing that can either command attention in an outfit thanks to its colour, or also play nicely with other items in an outfit, thanks to its lack of detail. A useful little stayer. The lightweight wool is just the right warmth and breeziness for our current mild and just starting to get cooler autumn days, and I think I’m going to enjoy mixing it up in winter too, with black tights and boots too, and a dark leather jacket or coat. The bright green is going to look great with all my bright and colourful cardigans, and will also add a nice splash of colour to more neutrally neutrals too. I love it and am really excited about its possibilities!

Details

Dress; Vogue 1351, light green wool pashmina on a roll
Cardigan (below); my own design, based upon the Nettie by closet case.patterns, details here, paprika stretch
Shoes: sandals designed and made by me, details here

Location: Pt Walter beach, Attadale. I joined friends at the cafe there this morning for morning tea; it was pure delight!! I love these early autumn days!

Posted in: sewing \ Tagged: daily outfit, dress, Vogue 1351

pink/navy DKNY dress

13/01/2017 7:38 am \ 53 Comments \ Carolyn

Terrible post title, I know. Every now and then, inspiration strikes and a fabulously perfect Word that describes my new “thing” to a T springs to mind instantly. Other times I just plump for the obvious. Today, inspiration was like a wispy breathe of smoke in a dark shadow of the night. Barely present, fleeting and rapidly lost amongst the dusty cobwebs in ye olde brain.
But, enough of that… wot abart the dress eh??

Pattern; Vogue 1351; bought aaaaaaaages ago. With the intention of making it up immediately, funnily enough! but more on that later…

Fabric; a slightly stretchy crepe from Fabulous Fabrics. Also bought aaaaaaaages ago with the intention of making it up immediately, sigh. The aqua and indigo, sorta-floral/sorta-galaxy border print runs along one selvedge of the fabric, so to retain that I cut out the pieces across the grain, rather than on the bias as recommended in the pattern. I just really love the colours in this fabric… but! I know pink doesn’t suit me, in fact I’m already anticipating that my Mum will have A Few Words to Say just as soon as she sets eyes on me in this sick-making, blemish-enhancing shade of pink. What can I say? I agree, but sometimes I just can’t help myself, I just LOOOOOOVVVEEE pink and navy together, and like a lemming I occasionally toss myself over that cliff. It’s one of my favourite colour combinations, with a lovely and natural yin/yang balance. Frivolous and girly; pitched against sombre and slightly masculine. Like a perfect summer sunrise over the ocean. It speaks to me.

Anyway, no doubt drawn to that; at some point about mumblemumble years ago I spotted it, oohed and aahed, and naughtily bought some. And cut out the pieces for Vogue 1351 that I’d recently bought in a club bmv sale. Honestly, I barely remember doing any of these things, but obviously I did and it’s been folded up and tucked neatly away in my fabric cupboard ever since. Then about a week ago I “found” it, and just set to, whipped it up. Whipped it, I say! Kt-chaaaaaaaaa! … that’s a whip-cracking sound effect there by the way, just in case it’s not immediately obvious, hehe.

Alterations; downsized the bodice. Hey, it’s Vogue, and something of this kind is an always-requirement for me in Vogue. Their patterns are designed for a more busty lady than I; but you know, I still want to use their patterns! Often I handle this by shaving something off princess seam curves, or doing some other variation of small bust adjustment. In this case, the bodice is one-piece with that draped neckline being the only feature, actually it’s the only feature of the whole dress…! So to avoid having to diddle around with that and possibly lose something essential to the neckline, the easiest thing to do is simply downsize.

I lined my dress fully with pale pink, polyacetate lining fabric, also from Fabulous Fabrics. The design of the lining is quite clever, the way it’s a little fitted around the décolletage and with a nice smooth joining seams still allows the drape to spill out over the top. It’s impossible for the lining to flip up or peek out in any way. Very clever. I love Donna Karan’s aesthetic, and am quite sad that we will no longer see her designs for Vogue patterns. She really knows how to flatter a woman.

Also! can I just say with regards to the issue of those of us with Autumnal colouring wearing Pink = A Really Bad Idea thing… see below how I’ve deviously dealt with it, by wearing it with my little teal cardigan. Whammo! instantly counteracting and negating the death-warmed-up effect. I think the pink actually looks quite OK on me like this!

Details: