Maternity Shirt Design Off

J! and I had an impromptu Maternity Shirt Design Off last night. My entry:

A crossover V-neck, with ruching along the right side seam to allow for greater expansion as M's tummy fills out.

His entry:

Leeloo's 5th Element outfit for preggos?

I win!


Anyway, this maternity shirt is slightly modified from Version C/D of New Look 6470, which I also used for my knock-off of Shirin's Project Runway maternity dress (albeit, with quite a few more modifications). This is a really perfect pattern to alter for maternity, since the side ruching allows for plenty of expansion, but the rest of the top is tight fitting enough that it (hopefully) won't make M look like a giant blueberry. Not that she wouldn't make a beautiful blueberry, of course. I left off the tie, but instead turned it into a band at the bottom of the shirt. That will keep the bottom more form-fitting and hopefully give M a bit more support along her lower belly. The only bit I'm worried about is that a.) this shirt is sleeveless (which my sister dislikes a bit) and b.) that the bottom crossover piece won't have as much stretch as the top, ruched piece. I'm not sure there's a good fix for that, unfortunately, since ruching both sides will lead to some unsightly wrinkling. Still, this is a super stretchy knit, so I think she should be okay. I hope she likes this type of top, because it is really easy to make (and alter) and even better she can wear it as a nursing top. I tried it on without out my tie-on pregnancy bump, and it still looked good since the ruching causes the excess fabric to fall quite nicely. And the cross-over V-neck will make it easy to nurse in, I think.

Burda, you win again [fist shake]!

A few months back I was browsing through the archives for the Burda magazine and stumbled across this gorgeous sheath dress and jacket from the March 2006 issue.

Lovely, no? The fabric has such a lustrous sheen that I kind of can't imagine making this dress in anything but pearl white. It's the design of the dress and jacket, though, that totally grabs me. The cut is so different. I love how the piping comes down the front and turns into the ties that close the dress. The cuffs curve up just a little bit, for a really elegant touch. And the three-quarter sleeves are perfect for a fancy dress---with this length you could wear the jacket in any season (and by that I mean any California season. Sorry crazy people who live in snowy places). The technical drawing for the front of the dress and jacket shows the "bib" more clearly--the back of the dress and coat use a similar construction:

I was completely smitten and started stalking eBay for the March 2006 issue. Imagine my joy when I found a listing, albeit one paired with January 2001. Ouch. Still, the price of 2 Burda magazines for a single pattern was worth it.

Then, last week, I searched for "burda" on etsy and darned if a pattern for that same exact sheath dress didn't come up! An envelope pattern! With readable instructions! And it's evidently available all over the place! Well, shooty. So I bought it. Still, now I'm wondering, is there a catalogue that will tell me which patterns from the magazines become Burda envelope patterns? Because that would be sooooo helpful. Also, it would save me from having to buy more of these:

I'm curious just how versatile this blouse really is . . .
call me crazy, but it seems like there aren't that many
occasions that call for a pastel color-blocked overshirt.

Green Polka Dots!

I went on my annual fabric spree this summer at Osgood's Fabrics in Springfield, MA. What a wonderful place. Here's a shot of just one of the aisles:


And there are lots and lots of aisles, just like this one, with bolts of fabric that are all probably from the 70s. Polyester Paradise. And this is after they cleaned up the place when they moved locations a few years ago.

Anyway, while poking around I found a bolt of a polyester dress material--white with grass green polka dots! Heaven! And the best part was that the polka dots aren't regular, but slightly askew. I got three yards, but honestly I should have gotten five because I love polka dots and I love green. We had to go to a wedding reception in the middle of our trip, so the polka dots got used for Simplicity 2640.

It's a cute dress pattern and it goes together really easily. The back is also quite nice--a little low cut, but you can still wear a bra with it. I like the pleat detailing, but I will say, that the dress fits a bit oddly.To begin with, I had to take it in considerably in the back because otherwise it made me look quite pregnant when viewed from the side. It may partially have been my fabric choice, but I think the main problem is that the pleats in the back hit quite high. Say, about 2 or 3 inches below the bra. That seems really weird to me, because of course you don't want the pleats flaring out that high on your back. I wish I had noticed this before I cut the fabric, because I'd definitely have fixed it so that the back bodice would extend down further and thus position the pleats closer to my lower back. This would make the pleats open the fabric up over the hips, where most of us need the extra width, as opposed to over my natural waist, where I need less width. I like the dress style enough that it would be worth redrafting a new back. The pleats are quite lovely and they fancy up what is otherwise a very simple pattern.

I was trying to figure out why Simplicity would have drafted the pleats at a point where they aren't particularly necessary, and I think it may be because Versions B and C of the dress have open-backs. I wasn't crazy about that, so I just used the back from Version A, but the bodice from Version C. I'm realizing now that this may be why the pleats hit so far up the back--if they were lower, this would be a pretty revealing open-backed dress. Particularly for the 16 year old prom girl on the envelope cover. She obviously made the open-backed version against her mother's wishes and now is having to stand with her back against a wall all night just so it doesn't show in any of the pictures.

Green shoulder straps!
Sadly, the center front seam is pretty visible when wearing polka dots.
Bummer.

And a cute green sweater!

Sorry, the back pleats aren't very visible in this picture.
Instead it just looks kind of rumpled. Oops.

Anyway, it is a pretty dress and comfortable to wear. Plus, green polka dots. Really, I need to go more places in green polka dots, I think.

Optic Blossom Shirt

Sadly, I made this shirt so long ago that I don't even really remember which pattern I used. I'm pretty sure that at least part of it is the back and bottom of New Look 6669.

I'm pretty sure I also used the sleeves, come to think of it. But the crossover bodice is from Butterick 4444 and not from the New Look pattern. I like the Butterick crossover better because it is pleated, rather than gathered. I also really like that I didn't have to insert a side or back zipper for this shirt--it just pulls over. The quilting cotton is a bit stiff, but the pattern is so lovely I couldn't resist. The only part I dislike is that I accidentally cut the bodice so that the repeat is visible. Oh well. Still a nice shirt.

Burda Back Issue Wish List: August 2007

Well, sadly I'm not one of those girls who can't get away with looking incredible in a man's tuxedo shirt. That really seems to be reserved for those of us over 5'4". But even the cabaret lady on the cover straightening her bow tie doesn't make the August 2007 Burda less appealing. Practically every section in this issue has something I'd make and I'm especially in love with this black jersey dress:


Finally, a dress I can do yoga in while at work. Even better, you can turn it into a casual top.


But I really want this issue because of this gorgeous maternity dress. So lovely. And it looks super comfortable too. My sister is tall enough to pull this dress off no problem, and it is neither too fancy nor too casual for her to wear to work. Perfect.


Someone please list this issue on eBay stat!! I've only got three more months before M's adorable belly disappears (er, evacuates?) and I don't know any other pregnant ladies!

Burda Romance

Let me just say that I love my Burda subscription. It's like Christmas once a month. The magazine even comes wrapped, like a wonderful papery present!

I'm not crazy about the patterns this month, though. I'm not really into folksy, although I honestly think it is awesome that they provide patterns for folk-style garments (way to keep the leiderhosen alive, Burda!) . I'm also not too crazy about bright red, so that cuts out all the glamorous red dresses in the first section. Those gowns are either ginormous (not so good when you are 5'4") or skin tight (hello underwear lines!). And, I'll be honest, I just don't go to that many glam events. In my next life, when I become an industry executive (and yet still sew my own clothes) things will be different, obviously. But in this life, grad school has yet to materialize black tie events.

Anyway. I do like this jacket.

I've wanted a velvet jacket for a while and this one has nice clean lines and no puffy shoulder seams (ugh, I look so dumb in them). I don't know if I'd do the decorative hand-stitched embroidery . . . maybe, but my guess is that my stitches wouldn't be terribly even and so it would be less stunningly decorative and more horribly distracting. I've never sewn velvet before, but it can't be that bad. Ha.

I'm not crazy about the camel of the jacket in the photo, mostly because it is so boring. I'd rather do this jacket in a mauve, I think.

I also really like this polo shirt, with the combination of the jersey with the poplin placket and sleeve cuffs. I don't have any patterns that combine jersey with a woven fabric, so I really want to try this and see how it looks. I bet the shirt would be really pretty if I replaced the poplin with satin, for a more dressed up look. And got rid of the pocket.

I think that's it. The chemises are cute too. Really cute, actually. I think I'll wait until next spring to make them, though, since in November it is less lacy chemise weather and more flannel pajama weather.

In terms of patterns, then, slim pickings for me this month. Burda made up for it, though, with the delightfully awkward clothing descriptions to accompany the "love story" section.

The caption for this photo reads: "Sometimes you can hardly wait to be alone together! Until you get there, this calf-length coat in wool velour with trenchcoat leanings will keep you nice and warm."

More apt, I think, would have been: "Sometimes you can hardly wait to be alone together! Until then, keep him guessing by dressing like an eggplant that robbed a leather goods store!"

This poor man. He finally got rid of that coat, only to discover yet another eggplant outfit underneath. Will it never end?? Evidently not, because the caption for this photo claims that "When you've just fallen in love you can't bear to be apart, even for five minutes. This also applies to our silky blouse with neck pleats secured by the collar seam--you really won't want to take it off!"

It's pretty clear that the Mr. Right couldn't hack the purple, since by the third photo the romance has ended: "On Your Own Again. Even though breaking up is hard to do, it's sometimes the only way to start something new. For example, the deliberate style clash between blouse with boyfriend's waistcoat and your goatskin-suede riding breeches." Frankly, I don't blame this girl for running off with the man's waistcoat as an outerwear replacement for that purple coat. It's definitely a step up. I'm not really sure that wearing her boyfriend's waistcoat is the best way to start something new, though.

Project Runway Maternity Dress

I totally fell in love with Shirin's maternity dress for Project Runway this season. I liked it so much that I decided to make one for my sister---well, a simplified version, anyway.


That one's Shirin's. Lovely! It is in silk jersey, has a low cut back (down to the waist), and a straight, but draped neck. I made a few changes to the design:

• Since my sister hardly ever goes to parties, I raised the back to the neckline so that the dress would be more work (and bra!) friendly. As much as I love the low cut back--and it looks really stunning, I think, in the original version--it would make wearing a bra almost impossible. I don't know too many pregnant women who would want to go braless, no matter what they do when they aren't pregnant. Of course, at the moment I only know one pregnant woman, so maybe I'm way off base about the whole bra thing.
  
• Since the back of the dress is pretty plain without the low cut and gathering, I extended the smocking all the way around the waist. This gives the back some detailing and helps curve the shape of the dress around the hips.
• I also decided to lower the neckline a bit because although Shirin's version has quite a bit of drape, that particular neckline wouldn't have looked as good on my sister as it does on the model. Instead, I used a basic cowl neck.
• The armscyes (uh, is that how you do a plural for armscye?) are cut pretty far in on Shirin's version. I don't know if that was on purpose or simply that the dress didn't quite fit the model. It looks a little odd to me, so I cut them a bit closer to the arm on my version. Seems to work better with the cowl neck, anyway.
• I used rayon jersey instead of silk jersey. She's only got three months to go before the baby arrives and silk jersey is way more expensive than rayon ;)
  

The dress itself was pretty easy, actually. I used New Look 6470 (view b) for the cowl neck.


Essentially, I just winged it by extending the shirt into a dress. The only tricky bit has to do with the smocking, which I learned how to do using this tutorial. This dress has only one line of smocking, so I simply placed a grid of three lines of dots across the front and back pieces, just underneath the bust area; the first line of dots was about three inches down from the top of the side seam. The dots were spaced two inches apart and each new row of dots was spaced two inches below the previous row.

This the grid marked on the inside of the front piece of the muslin. I marked them in thread, since my invisible marker didn't show up too well on the black knit. I placed the grid about an inch or two below the empire waist on the dress.

To make sure that I had enough lateral room to complete the line of smocking, I added a "flap" of fabric to each side seam of both the front and back pieces when I cut them. This was pretty important, because otherwise the dress would have been much too narrow along the smocking line. Below you can see the "flap" of fabric (helpfully pointed out with the pen) on the muslin. I actually made the flap both larger and more rectangular on the finished version. I cut along the pattern line until I reached the point where I wanted the first row of dots. Then I cut away from the pattern line for three inches, down four inches, and then back in to the pattern line. That gave me plenty of additional fabric to work with. The rayon I used had a lot of stretch, so if I make this again in a less flexible fabric I would probably cut the flap longer and maybe even a bit wider.

The flap on the right side of the dress. I didn't make the flap large enough on this muslin (it looks kind of like a lump off to one side, here), so I enlarged it when I cut the final pieces.

While I really like New Look patterns, I wasn't crazy about the design of the cowl look for this pattern. There simply isn't much additional fabric at the neckline--basically you just fold over a little bit along the seam and hope the cowl falls so that the inside of the fabric isn't too visible. Seems kind of dumb for a cowl neck with a lot of drape. So, I ignored the instructions and instead cut the inside drape of the cowl much longer.

Not much of an overlay, right?

I don't have a pic of the inside of the cowl neck for the finished dress, but basically I extended the inner drape of the cowl neck all the way to below the bust (I marked the point with the pen in the photo below). This is nice because you can either a.) incorporate the drape into the smocking when you sew it, so that the inner and outer cowl neck will stretch together across the bust or b.) smock only the outside layer and then cover the smocking on the inside (to protect it) with the inner drape of the cowl neck. I ended up incorporating the inner fabric into the smocking.

For the final pieces, I cut the inner drape of the cowl neck all the way down to below the bust, following the pattern lines for the shoulders and armscyes. Since I incorporated the inner drape into the smocking, I also made sure to cut the "flaps" on the inner drape, as well as the outer drape.

I extended the back piece the same way--elongating it and adding in the flaps of fabric on the side for the smocking. After that the dress is super simple. I smocked the front and back pieces separately, based the seams together at the smocking and then more or less serged it all together. I fininshed the armscye seams with my serger and topstitched the back of the armscyes with my sewing machine and handsewed the front. This means there is no topstitching on the front of the dress. I finished the hem of the dress with my serger, doing a lettuce edge so that the hem would be nice and ripply.

On the whole it turned out pretty well. On the dress dummy, I'm afraid it looks a little lumpy and the smocking collapses a bit. That's because my pregnancy bump for the dummy isn't as smooth and gradual as my sister's belly is. I was worried that the cowl neck would hide the smocking, but the smocking is actually really visible and much tighter on my sister than on the dummy. So I guess it worked out well!

Close-up of the back smocking.

The finished dress.