Tag Archives: Vogue 2858

LBD, and a giveaway

12/10/2011 3:50 am \ 43 Comments \ Carolyn

It’s my blog-iversary! It has been two years since I started up this funny lil ol’ blog, and I’m marking the (sorta) occasion with a giveaway.
About six months ago, the lovely Gail sent me this pattern and I don’t mind admitting it has been something of my “prize”. A pattern that I have taken out to look lovingly at every now and again before tucking it back safely into my pattern box. One of those patterns with the totally lovely pen-and-watercolour illustrations on the cover of willow-y, supremely elegant, immaculately coiffured ladies of yesteryear gazing world-wearily off into the middle distance. Probably on their way to some impossibly glamorous soiree, or about to hop into the limo to meet up with Clark Gable, or some such. One can but aspire, right? But procrastination does not elegance bring…
so ta da!
Finally… I made a LBD. Hehe, obviously not the Little Black Dress kind of a LBD… let me explain…. there is a very very silly show on TV here called Beauty and the Geek, which of course I never watch being of a far more serious bent 😉 Anyway one week a geek had to answer a pop-quiz on fashion. And one of the questions was “what is a LBD?” And the geek answered “Long Black Dress” And they marked him wrong, whereas for me his answer was like a stroke of idiot savant genius and he should have been given a big “yeees!” for fashion insight, because Long Black Dress is as pretty darn good answer I reckon, and it is a rare lady who goes through her life without the need for the simple elegance of a long black dress at some point. And I have now filled that (hypothetical) need. With vintage-ly panache too, hehe.
And now I am passing on the love, and offering this pattern to another seamstress/seamster. It is Vogue 2858, an Original 1944 Design (or Dessin Original de 1944, if you want to get really chic about it :))
It has some rather unusual-for-an-evening-gown seaming techniques that I am assuming were normal for 1944…. I made a few “modern” changes to mine, although in a pathetically small nod to authenticity the raw edges of the seam allowances have been pinked :).
For a start, well the superior invisible zip has been invented, people! I made use of one.
I also left off the shoulder pads. I did start out making them, but left them off the final version. I’m afraid shoulder pads are just Too Dreadful on me…

This pattern is a size 12-16, and all the sizes still there marked out. If you’re wondering; I traced it off so I could grade to my own size… yup, it is still a bit of a wrench to be parting with the original, but I can do it knowing I still have my own traced out version should the need arise for a LWD (long white dress). Or a LRD (long red dress) Etc etc etc…

If you would like this pattern for your very own piece of 1944 elegance, just leave a comment on this post. Of course, if you would still like to say something nice about my new dress but don’t want to be entered into the draw, then please feel free to do so… 🙂 I do love nice comments too!
This offer is open to anyone and for two weeks, so on 26 October I will put everyone’s names into a hat, those who say they want to enter, and draw one out.
No, I agree that is a very questionably low-tech method and doesn’t have quite the panache of that random number generator thingy, but frankly my dear I just don’t give a damn. *

Details:
Dress; Vogue 2858, black crepe
Sandals; Micam by Joanne Mercer, from Hobbs shoes

* the obligatory Rhett-ism… couldn’t resist, hehe

Posted in: Uncategorized \ Tagged: ballgown, evening wear, giveaway, Vogue 2858

Cargo pockets, and a lovely surprise

14/04/2011 8:16 am \ 8 Comments \ Carolyn

When I went to my letterbox yesterday inside was a most delightful surprise, this wonderful pattern from Gail of My Fabrication. Pure class and elegance, no? Thank you so much Gail!! I already know exactly what I am going to make out of this one, and am pretty excited to give it a try. But first…
Thank you so much everybody who commented yesterday, with such kind words expressing touching faith in my ability to not make a complete and utter hash of my Japanese fabric; I will endeavour to sew up to those expectations. Not that there is any more or less pressure or anything, hehe. The lighter caramel side has a landslide of admirers, and it is therefore fortuitous that my own preferences have been swaying more and more in that direction too. But before hacking merrily away into that wool and silk gorgeousness that I carted for thousands of kilometres over land, rail and sea all the way home from the land of the rising sun (see, no pressure…) I am going to take a short sartorial breather…
A few quick and satisfying projects are now just what the doctor ordered, after a week of couture stuff. I have an immediate need for a pair of hiking pants. The cargoes I was wearing last year have gone into my refashioning-possibly-charity-bin pile. The few photos I have of myself in those things were pretty eye-openingly awful, and incidentally I am now horrified that I actually put some photos on the blog here, yikes! Now I look back on some of those earlier photos and shudder, toy with vague ideas of deleting some of the more unflattering shots. But the blog is a journey, and the progression has been an honest one. Keeping a sometime personal style diary has done wonders for my natural tendency towards dag-dom. I am a lot more careful how I look now before I sally forth on my daily adventures. We all heartily agree that appearances aren’t everything, right?, only because we don’t want to appear shallow, but secretly we all want to put our best foot forward nonetheless… because we are human after all.
Anyhoo, I am making my new, hopefully cute, hiking pants using a pattern that doesn’t have enough pockets, so I am adding some cargo pockets and took a few progress shots to illustrate…
Cargo pockets are not just squares/rectangles, but must form a little “bag”, so start with a piece that has box sides to three of its edges like so (don’t worry that those sides of those sticky-outy box edges are wider than the bottom box edge… minor detail)

Hem the top edge of the pocket like normal…

Sew up the two short edges of the boxy sides at the bottom of the pocket piece (yes, my side pieces are still longer and do stick out a bit, don’t worry about this for now)

Right sides together, and upside down on the finished outside leg seam of your pants, sew the bottom edge of the pocket in place. Because I want these pockets to be extra sturdy, strong enough to hold things like guide books, cameras, hats and sunnies, etc, anything that will be needed regularly, I sewed this seam in triplicate, for triple the strength. Strength is more important than beauty here, remember these are hiking pants…

Now flip the pocket piece up and turn in those side edge seam allowances. Now I folded in that extra width of the side edges at the bottom to be part of the seam allowance and tapered this down at the top so the box sides of the bag are wider at the top than they are at the bottom… If this doesn’t make a lot of sense don’t worry too much about this bit. Dimensions are not really drastically important. These are hiking pants, remember… Topstitch down close to the fold. Again with the triple lot of stitching. The width at the top edge of the pocket between the two side seams you’ve just sewn should be the same width as the bottom seam.

Now, flatten the pocket down at the top and sew the top down vertically through all layers directly over the side seams you have just sewn, but just for a few cm. Do this at least in triplicate again. I just did a mad burst of forward and reverse stitching and lost count of the number of seams here, this just needs to be real sturdy. This will just hold the top edge down securely and stop it from flapping about and letting your treasures spill out while you are walking…

Flaps; just sewn as normal, two pieces, right sides together, sewn around three edges, turned out and topstitched, finished width about 1.5cm wider than the top edge of your pocket… Note the violation of couture tailoring here, no tamed seam allowances but the corners have been trimmed, (horrified gasp!) Meh… hiking pants…!

And sewn to the pants just above the top of the pocket…. right sides together, again as normal…

Aaaand folded down and topstitched in place… I don’t know why I took so many photos actually. This is hardly rocket science. Probably would have been more exciting if I had tamed those seam allowances, hmmm?

And there it is, a useful and cute little bag stuck on the side of the hiking pants. If you want you could put a snap or a button on for extra safe-keeping, but in my experience these don’t ever get closed up anyway and the flap is enough to keep things safely inside. I’m sure I will be really grateful for these extra pockets out on the trail.

Posted in: Uncategorized \ Tagged: own design, pocket, tutorial, Vogue 2858