Field Notes on Sewing with Double Knits

Readers, I have a new fabric crush: double knits. I finished my Background Dress in a deep purple double knit, and promptly sewed the Christina Hendricks-inspired cutout sheath dress in a lovely black double knit. (I'm wearing it to an event tonight - pictures to come soon!) And then, to top it all off, I spent yesterday's lunch break shopping for a red double knit for some summer basics. I'm obsessed! There's just something so perfect about this fabric: it has the flattering drape and comfort of a knit but the stability to act like a woven. I've definitely found double knits to be a very good choice for vintage looks. Plus they're easy to sew and they don't require any seam finishing. What could be better? Come along and join me in my fabric crush!

I Defeated the Background Dress of Doom!

Why am I smiling in this picture? Because I have vanquished the Background Dress! Gertie prevails! This sucker is DONE, folks! Lots of self-indulgent pictures after the jump.

There Has Got to Be a Better Way to Do This

I find myself in dark, uncharted territory right now, readers: I am questioning the wisdom of Vogue's New Book for Better Sewing. You see, the Background Dress is finished (!) and I'm working on its accessories: the link buttons and the scarf. (You may recall that the Background Dress has several different ways to wear the neckline, which incorporate these accoutrements.) My current problem is the link buttons, as illustrated above. What the heck are link buttons, you ask?

This little accessory is quite neat, really - just two buttons linked together, much like cuff links. And they can then be worn through the bound buttonholes at the collar of the dress, as illustrated by the gal with half a head on the upper right of this envelope:

Aren't they cute? I just wish mine would go together easily. VoNBBS instructs us to thread the buttons with four strands of buttonhole twist, and then cover the strands with blanket stitches.

Here's the full instructions. Click to enlarge!

Now, here's what happened to me. It was going fairly well, and then: Major knottage! Also, I'm just not loving the look of it.

On the left side, where the blanket stitches are not all tangled up - doesn't it look kind of cheesy and amateurish? Is this my fault or the fault of the method, do you think? It just seems like there must be a more professional-looking way to do this. I'm thinking perhaps something involving a strand of jewelry chain and some pliers. But I'm no jewelry maker. And so I come to you crafty, clever readers for help!

What do you think? Should I go back to square one with the buttonhole twist? Or do you have any brilliant suggestions for how to make this work better? Any and all help is appreciated!

And then it's on to the next accessory: a bias cut scarf made of pale blue silk chiffon with white polka dots. That will have a hand-rolled hem, no less! Hmm, something's making me think that the dress was only half the battle with this project . . .

Why Hello, Handsome!

Readers, I am totally geeking out over how awesome I think this bound buttonhole looks. I used a new method, and this was my FIRST TRY at it. I learned the technique in a new book I bought called The Sewing Bible (which by the way, is proving to be a totally worthwhile purchase), and it's very similar to this fabulous welt pocket technique. You face the buttonhole with a patch of silk organza and then position the "lips" behind it and attach them with a couple fancy moves. It's so completely rad that I'm going to make a video this weekend to show you the method in action.

You might notice that this fabric is the purple doubleknit I chose for my background dress. Which means YES, the Background Dress of Doom is underway! It's kind of a funny story. May I share?
So remember how I mentioned I was on muslin number three for this project and just couldn't get the fit right? Well, this is going to sound horribly careless, but I finally decided to just cut the original pattern with a bit of an extra seam allowance and hope for the best. I did a basted fitting. And guess what? THE FREAKING DRESS FIT PERFECTLY WITH NO ALTERATIONS.

All I can really do at this point is laugh at myself and hopefully learn from the situation. Basically, a few things were at play.

1. The pattern I had was a size 34" and I was convinced there was no way it would fit. I started adding a lot to the side seams without really checking. Bad Gertie.
   
2. I also reshaped the skirt without making it up as the pattern called for first. I was hoping for a curvier look, so I used the silhouette of my Jenny skirt pattern - my tried and true pencil skirt - to get a new look. I seriously distorted the pattern this way without even realizing it, as the skirt is meant to be a bit more voluminous in the front than in back, and I completely threw off the balance. And the more tweaking I did, the worse I made it. I'll say it again: Bad Gertie!
   
3. Lastly, I made my muslin in well, muslin, but I'm using a doubleknit for the dress. Doubleknits can stand in for wovens as they're a very stable knit, BUT: this particular doubleknit has a fair amount of two way horizontal stretch, allowing the fit of this dress to be more formfitting rather than tailored. So I had more wiggle room in the pattern than I thought.
   

So there you have it! Lesson (hopefully) learned. The very hard way.

Here's an in-process shot of the collar interfacing. VoNBBS calls for muslin interfacing to be basted to the actual dress collar, and then bound buttonholes are made at the neckline, after which the facing (with no interfacing) is applied to the collar.

Below is the side zipper in progress. (Look how different the purple looks in each of these photos! It's such a tricky color to capture.) VoNBBS and other vintage patterns often use a strip of fabric as a placket at the front side of the lapped zipper, creating a sort of facing. Let me know if you're interested in learning more about this method - I took all sorts of photos for a potential tutorial.

And thus the Background Dress of Doom marches on in its heretofore troubled journey towards fruition. May it be smooth sailing from now on!

Fat and Sassy

It's been a long time since I've done a Tidbits from VoNBBS post! If you're unfamiliar, this is where I share funny little literary morsels from our favorite vintage sewing book, Vogue's New Book for Better Sewing. The writers of VoNBBS so often amuse me with their quaint little sayings, and this one is no exception. You'll never guess they're calling "fat and sassy" . . .

Tailors' tacks! Here's the little tidbit of fabulous text:

[Click to see larger]

No dears, do not fret if your tailor's tacks "are not so fat and sassy as ours shown here." The ladies at Vogue Pattern Service (who were responsible for preparing VoNBBS) seem very sweet to me - they don't want you to feel your tailor's tacks are anemic! So before your tacks have a body image crisis, assure them that they "look exactly as tailors' tacks should."

Speaking of VoNBBS, actual work on the Background Dress is under way! I've taken to calling it "The Background Dress of Doom," so that should give you a clear picture of how we've been getting along. I did three muslins, and then had to wipe the slate clean and go back to the original pattern. I'm taking advantage of the natural stretchiness of the doubleknit I'm using and allowing this to be a snugger fit, more like a knit garment than a tailored one. Which fits the spirit of the image below, certainly.

My goal is to have it completed by next week. It's been looming too long, friends!

I hope you had a productive weekend of sewing, whether you were going whack-whack into your fabric or making (not so) fat and sassy tailors' tacks!

Further Thoughts on the Background Dress (with Swatches!)

Thank you all so much for your fantastic feedback on my Background Dress post! Since I've decided that this will be my next Vogue's New Book for Better Sewing project, I spent some time this weekend making very preliminary headway into tracing the pattern and re-sizing it. As I studied the pattern pieces and thought over all your advice, this dress really started to take better shape in my imagination.

First, let's talk about the silhouette. I didn't realize that this dress actually has a very pronounced a-line skirt. Who would've thunk it from this photograph in VoNBBS?

(See, the damn pattern companies have always been trying to trick us with these sneaky and misleading photographs! Ha!)

In reality, the skirt pattern is definitely FLARED. Which is fine, but let's call a spade a spade. I had originally foreseen myself modeling this skirt after my super-slim tapered Jenny skirt, but that's definitely not the intended silhouette of the pattern.

It's interesting to think what this silhouette tells us of the time period. This particular pattern was published in 1950, two years before VoNBBS itself was published. So this silhouette must have been heavily influenced by the a-line skirts of the 40s, rather than the tight wiggle dresses of the mid-50s. Isn't it telling that by the time they shot the photos for VoNBBS, the stylist was already trying to update the dress to a more current or forward-thinking silhouette? I can just see the back of that skirt clipped back with a bunch of laundry pins!

Now, onto fabric and color. Many of you gently helped me realize that my initial fabric choice (a $1.95/yard Vera Wang navy cotton-rayon faille) was all kinds of wrong. The hand was too stiff and the color was just too conservative for me to really get excited about sewing it.

Also, an aside related to color: one of you asked why VoNBBS called this the "Background Dress." I believe the answer is that this dress is meant to be a background for accessories, a sort of blank slate. It has two buttonholes around the neckline through which you can wrap a scarf (or perhaps pin some vintage sweater guards?). So, in keeping with this spirit I didn't think that the color should be too shocking, but perhaps my version of a neutral. I loved that a couple of you brought up the idea of purple. So, with purple visions swimming in my mind, I made a quick lunchtime swatch reconnaissance mission yesterday.

I looked at crepes.

Gabardines and suitings.
And, last but not least, double knits.
Lots of lovelies to choose from, eh? All in all, I'm very much digging this smoky blue-purple double knit.
I think it's still understated enough to embody the spirit of the background dress, but with a little kick. Plus, I'm loving the way it looks with my coloring and some red lipstick.

What do you think?

P.S. Readers, did you know that as a community, you are overwhelmingly pro-three quarter sleeves? I think you should run a campaign to instate three quarter sleeves on all dresses; you're a very convincing bunch! I'm happy to report that I'm taking your advice on the matter.

It's Time! (Back to VoNBBS)

So remember this little book called Vogue's New Book for Better Sewing? And how I'm supposedly on a journey of making all 14 fashions from it? Well, the journey took a little detour, but I've decided that it's time to get back on track!

So here's my plan to shake things up. I think I'm going to skip forward a couple patterns to the background dress. Mostly because it's a long-sleeved dress and it's the dead of winter here. And I have the pattern in a 34" bust size, which isn't too hard for me to size up to fit me.

So I'm TEMPORARILY skipping over the little girl's party dress (which I've decided is boring because apparently I'm a selfish seamstress - like some other people - and I don't feel like making clothing that isn't for me).

I'm also skipping (for now) the full-skirted dress which I LOVE but is more spring-like and I unfortunately could only find in a bust size 32" which sounds impossibly tiny to me. I know I'll have to do some pattern grading, and I'd like to put that off as long as possible.

So the background dress it is! It's a lovely frock on the model, though I do worry about a potential dowdiness factor in real life. Here's the pattern:

What do you think? Any tips for fitting and styling this so it's not too dowdy?

VoNBBS includes directions for making the coordinating scarf, as well as the little double button doohickey that you see the on the upper righthand illustration. (Jeez, those poor ladies on the perimeter only have half a head each!) VoNBBS suggesting making this in a navy silk faille, so when I saw that the Vera Wang navy faille was $1.95 a yard on Fabric.com, I snapped it up. It's rayon and cotton - not silk - but who can pass up a bargain like that?!

BUT. Is navy a mistake with this dress, do you think? Is that a one-way ticket to Dowdsville? Should I think about a jewel tone instead? Help!

I'll be making a muslin this weekend. Woo hoo! Feels good to be back on track.