Show A Little Skin — Whither the Sexy Patterns?

Are sewers an especially modest lot? Or is there some other good reason why it's nearly impossible to find patterns that show a little skin?

While on a recent Mood shopping outing with Oonaballoona, we were talking about a certain independent pattern company that both of us found to be a bit....modest. That's the nice way to put it, I guess. Matronly would the not-so-nice way. But then I realized this company is not the only one. Of all the independent pattern companies I know of, I can't find many patterns that you could call sexy — except in the way that a buttoned-up blouse can be sexy by concealing the wild woman within.

Boat necks. Peter Pan collars. Lots of buttons and gathers, but not alot of sex appeal — that's what I see  out there.

Is there not enough mass appeal in plunging necklines or collarbone-baring details? Or is it a function of the fact that most of us are sewing with wovens, which pose fit problems when it comes to plunging necklines?

To that end, I think of Burdastyle.com's Cap Sleeve Dress, which I had to adjust to correct gaping at the neckline (a problem many others also seemed to have). The end result was a higher neckline (and no hope for a hint of cleavage):

Meanwhile this Simplicity dress (1872) I sewed a few versions of last year was way too modest, in my opinion. After the first version (on the left below) I chopped an inch and a half off the front overlapping neckline, (but then I had to add a hook-and-eye to keep it from collapsing and revealing all — still much more flattering, I think):

The one true sexy, skin-baring item I have sewn is Burdastyle's Bustier Dress with Draped detail, A.K.A. Gertie's Bombshell Dress. (On which I raised the sweetheart neckline by an inch, by the way!). It's not exactly every day wear though:

In the spirit of public service, I searched for a few skin-baring patterns. Burdastyle seemed to have the most:

Burdastyle.com's Stretch Sequin Dress:

Plus Size Off-the-Shoulder Dress

Among independents, there's Salme Patterns sundress (kind of bare, though I don't think you would have any cleavage showing):

And Grainline's Kat Strapless Dress, which is pretty bare through I think the sweetheart neckline and empire waist make it look more girly than sexy:

Hot Patterns has this Deco Vibe Dress, which has a plunging neckline (though they keep it modest with a turtleneck underneath! Ack! No!):

This is about as sexy as it gets at Simplicity:

Over at Vogue there are plenty of patterns with sex appeal, and a few with slightly more daring necklines. I think a higher ratio of patterns that are sewn in knits could be the reason why. I'm loving V1343, a Tracey Reese for Vogue pattern. It's not a lot of skin, but it's a start:

Meanwhile at McCalls, this is the only hint of cleavage I saw (M6560) and I would not say this dress is very sexy; it looks like an apron from the back — not exactly the message I want to send on a hot date with my husband:

Am I missing some major supplier of sexy patterns? (Or do those of you who like to slut it up just use your French curve to draw a deeper neckline and hope for the best?)

Finished: Lauren Moffat top (And how NOT to take photos of yourself!)

I finished my Lauren Moffat knock-off top before the holidays but have yet to blog it because I haven't made the time to take proper photos. (This past weekend I was planning on having my husband shoot me in this chartreuse silk top, but he was in a foul mood that didn't break until late Monday night. Even watching Obama's incredible speech at the inauguration couldn't cheer him. It was Blue Monday after all. At the best of times our photoshoots end in a squabble).  

Last weekend when I met up with Gingermakes, Oonabaloona, Nettie, and Peter, we talked about the challenges of self-shooting. I have a Canon digital SLR, which takes really amazing photos — except when I am trying to get off a few solo shots of myself. 

IN the mirror worked best for me this morning:

Rosy skintone!

The necklace I am wearing is by Native Clutter, Stephanie of Makesthethings.com handmade jewelry co. Before Christmas she sent it to me as a gift with a sweet note saying she thought my blog was funny. It made more than my day: I've worn it so much since then, it's amazing that I don't have a triangle-shaped indentation on my chest. I've been meaning to write about it and link to her — just as I've been meaning to blog about this top.

Sigh. This top:

Behold, the lovely back detail

I blame the lack of photos for not posting, but I've also been putting off writing about it because it was a bit of a failure. A particularly disheartening failure given how much time I put into making this. I made the pattern myself, ripping off the design of this top, a Lauren Moffat black silk tunic top I've had for years:  

 I muslined it, made changes, and was pretty happy with how it was turning out. But then, sweet heavenly grainlines, I forgot to cut the back pattern piece on the fold — a tragic error because I had just enough of this chartreuse silk left to eke out the pieces for this hip-skimming top. And because the back piece had some flare in it, having a seam run down the center back makes it look odd from behind. It just doesn't hang right. Of course I realized my fatal flaw immediately, but proceeded to sew it anyway in the hopes it would still be wearable:

Sigh. I haven't worn it. And here are a few more self-shot photos just to illustrate why it's worth testing the strength of your marriage to get quality pics of your bloggable garments:

Overexposed (and cut off at the shins)

Underexposed and badly composed

No head!

I need someone to tell me, "Stop doing that weird thing with your mouth!" 

So that's my confessional for today (and a reminder not to listen to particularly captivating episodes of "This American Life" while you are cutting your fabric. Double-tasking is asking for trouble when you have a pair of sharp scissors in hand).

Anybody have tips for successful self-shooting with a DSLR?

Making a Mess of Mood With My Fave Sewing Bloggers!

You know how on Project Runway they give the designers a half-hour to choose their fabrics at Mood in NYC's Garment District? 

Well yesterday it took four sewing bloggers four times that long to pick out a single print. (But, I believe, we had 10 times as much fun doing it). Witness:

In the end the consensus was on two prints, to be used together. I'm not revealing here what they were — this was not my challenge after all. Oonabaloona dared Gingermakes (both Mood Sewing Network bloggers, so they have the luxury of shopping monthly at this incredible, three-floor fabric store. Jealous much? Yeah, me too) to let her choose the fabric for her next project. If you know Oona's work, then you know she's a print-mixing Sewasaurus Rex. Put her in charge of your next project and you could just end up in this (please don't adjust your computer monitors):

We made quite a mess, and in the end I don't think Gingermakes was too apprehensive about the challenge. I can't wait to see what she does.

Nettie of Sown Brooklyn was also on hand to offer her honest critique of Oona's sometimes-very-out-there choices. It could have easily ended up too-many-cooks-in-the-kitchen, but civility reigned:

Peter of Male Pattern Boldness popped by to direct me to the lovely blue cotton flannel he used to make Michael a shirt a while back (I've been wanting to buy some ever since — for a shirt for Ryan). He ran away at some point because he prefers doing his fabric shopping in dives. But lucky for us, he made some time later for Color Me Beautiful consultations over lunch:

Meanwhile at home, my daughter was apparently playing "going fabric shopping and then sewing a dress to wear to a wedding" with her dad. Here's the garment she made, sent to me via BlackBerry (very avant garde, non?):

It was a wonderful day, and I came home with a bag full of goodies: the blue plaid cotton flannel and pearly snaps for Ryan's shirt; a bird-print cream and grayish-purple silk chiffon for a top for me (I already bought Pattern Runway's Pussy Bow Blouse pattern to use with it), and all the cheap poly satin, tulle and trimming I need to make my daughter a Cinderella dress.

(I should note when I showed it to her, she sighed deeply and said, "Well, I guess it's OK if you make me a Cinderella dress." WTF, my dear daughter? Apparently she's into the arrow-slinging Merida — from the Disney movie "Brave" — now. When will I ever learn?)

Hope you're all having an amazing weekend too!

It's All In The Seams, Baby

I raised the waist on Vogue 8771 and sewed a second version of this Dolman-sleeved top, this time in a rayon jersey from Metro Textiles on 37th Street in NYC's Garment District. This is my favorite color, and the drape of this fabric is to die for. It was only $6/yard and if I had the budget for it, I would go back and buy the whole damn bolt. I'd love dresses in this soft and stretchy green-verging-on-chartreuse fabric:

Raising the waist made a big difference. Now the shoulder seams sit on my actual shoulders, and there's little fabric pooling over my derriere:

While my photographer was at home, I got him to snap a couple pics of me in the first version I made, which I used tape and sponge painting to create a cool chevron design:

I love this pattern for one simple reason: the seam lines that slice the bust into a traditional princess shape before curving into the waistline at the side seam. It's a tiny thing, but as anyone who sews knows: seams make all the difference — not just from a visual perspective, in that they can trick the eye into creating flattering shapes atop the body, but they are also the key to shaping a garment so it fits our curves.

Princess seams are one of the first things you will learn to draft when studying pattern making. And for good reason: these seam lines allow you to forgo darts and pleats while still shaping the bust for a perfect fit. Also, they're so flattering to a woman's figure:

Like the above dress (from Modcloth.com; pretty, isn't it?), traditional princess seams curve into the armscye. But it looks just as good to send the seam up to the shoulder, like this dress below:

Other variations on the Princess seam, I'm not so sure about:

I was very interested in the princess seams on this Tracey Reese dress Michelle Obama wore during her speech at the Democratic National Convention last month:



Rather than curve through the "apex" of the bust (that's the fullest point of your bust, which is essentially at your nipple), the princess seams are placed at least an inch closer to center front, maybe more. It's a small thing, but consider how sporty this dress looks with this seaming. The neckline verges on halter, which adds to that, for sure. Plus, those arms. Those incredible arms....

BTW, I was watching this speech on Youtube with my four-year-old and had to run to the bathroom at one point. When I cam back, I asked Lucy what I missed. "Oh nothing," she said. "She was just talking about a pickle guy raising eggs."

"Like, a guy who makes pickles, but also raises eggs?"

"No, mom. A guy MADE of pickles."

If anyone saw the full speech and has the full details on this pickle guy, I would really appreciate it. Google has turned up nothing on the matter.

Anyway, do you have a favorite pattern or dress that features princess seams? Post links for further prinsperation!

Guest Post! Amy's Advice on Creating Your Own Print

I am soooooooo excited today to present Beau Baby's first ever guest poster, my friend Amy! This summer we worked together on creating the perfect dress for her to wear to a wedding-like event in Scotland this Fall. Amy created her own print using Spoonflower.com, which I used to sew a custom-fit bombshell dress. The results were amazing, and some of you wanted to hear more about how she turned a photo into a super special print. (Keep in mind, neither of us is sponsored by Spoonflower, though we wouldn't turn down free fabric if it's being offered!). Amy's tutorial below kinda blew my mind; now I know how easy it is to turn a photo into a completely unique print — that in no way resembles the original photo. I didn't think I had the skills to do something like this. But now I think we all do. So read on!

Greetings Beau Baby blog followers!  I offered to do a guest a post to discuss the design process for my fabric. Full disclosure: I pretty much have no idea what I'm doing when it comes to using Photoshop or Illustrator (I had been known to be slightly drunk during my graphics design class in my undergrad program), so my process here was somewhat inartful and crude. But the good news is that Spoonflower seems to be aware of that and has really simple and user-friendly tools to help inexperienced, somewhat lazy people like myself. Originally I wanted to do a solid color, and Sue suggested a print and keeping the design simple. Since her print choice on her dress looked great, I thought this was an excellent direction to go in. Picking a print would have been tricky and prolonged given the Atlantic between me and Sue; I could look for prints in London but would need to send her samples for her to okay the print size and the fabric type, or she would have looked in NY and then had to send things over to me to approve in terms of my tastes. I started looking at a million prints online to send her things that I was really into, and ended up at Spoonflower. I stumbled into the bit where you make your own design and immediately all the Project Runway HP design challenges flashed into my mind like some sort of dreamy Mondo-led montage. I really like making things as personal as possible, so I started looking at the photos I took in Prague, where Lewis and I met 5 years ago.

Here are the two photos that seemed to have some interesting design potential.

The first one is the astronomical clock, which is pretty famous in Prague and really beautiful. The other one is some church. 

Once you have a Spoonflower account, you can upload various file types.

Once uploaded, you can crop the photo in their embedded photo editor, Picmonkey. You can also crop it beforehand in picasa or whatever. It's good to play around with this because the larger the image file is, the more flexibility have in terms of size of the print later. PNG files are best. Spoonflower will stop letting you make the print size bigger when they know that blowing it up any more will make it look gross.

You can also play around with the colors a bit. I wanted the gold to be brighter and more orangey but the big risk for fall colors is looking like a pumpkin. 

I started with this:

and got it more like this:

Here's the main editor in Spoonflower:

On the right, you have choices on how to pattern the print. "Mirror" usually works best if it's a cropped photo. Otherwise, you need to line things up properly when you design them.

The thing I really like here is that you can abstract the image a bit using the color palette. Notice how there are 4 colors at the bottom of the screen. And in the menu to the left it says "CHANGE COLORS." You can make it only 2 colors, or up to 24 or something. This is nice because it makes it look like color blocking or paint. So it's more like a print and less like a photo that you scanned on a tee shirt. You can also totally alter the color scheme from what it is originally in the photo to match your aesthetic and season. 

Here were some of the runner-ups to the one I ultimately ended up choosing.

 Some parents use Spoonflower to take their kids' drawings and make clothing out of the prints they create. I think that's such a lovely way to showcase your kids' art and make them feels special beyond the magnets on your fridge. Spoonflower is also doing wallpaper now. Pretty neat.

Ordering and shipping was very easy. It's always recommended that you order a swatch first to check colors, etc. This really worked for me and Sue given our distance - I ordered it from London on my computer and had it shipped directly to her house!

Hope this helped. I'm happy to answer any questions in the comments section.

Fun With PhotoShop and a Dress Project

One of the perks of having my husband go back to school for advertising is we finally have a legit copy of Photoshop, which I recently (five minutes ago!) discovered can help with dress planning.

My friend Amy is having a special event next fall in Scotland, and she has asked me to make a dress for her. She really dug my Peacock-print Bombshell Dress, and wants something similar. And being an artsy gal herself, she's designing the fabric and having it printed via Spoonflower.com. Her designs are all based off of photos she took while on a trip with her sweetheart, and the event is a meet-the-parents, not-exactly-a-wedding type thing, so the personal print will make it super special.

Anyway, to help Amy make her decision, I was inspired by Mika of Savory Stitches' cool Photoshopped illustrations that combine the line drawing from a pattern with the fabric she intends to use for a particular garment. She helpfully pointed me toward this easy-to-follow tutorial at The Curious Kiwi,
which tells you step-by-step how to make a mock-up of your garment. Here are a few of the ones I made for Amy's dress:

This illustration combines the line drawing of the bodice for Burdastyle.com's Bustier Dress With Draped Detail and the Linda Skirt. Cool, right? I'm totally hooked now on this technological advance.

In other news, my crushing allergies seem somewhat abated by last night's rain, which is a relief. I've been so ill. I hate the Spring.

Designer patterns

Dear readers, I just finished hemming a secret project I undertook at the behest of a new website that has yet to launch. Actually, I'm not sure if it's super secret — they never expressly told me not to discuss it with my legion of readers — but if I pretend it is, it makes me feel a little special. Anyway, this latest project was sewn from this Cynthia Rowley pattern, which has me thinking about "designer" patterns. 

Cute, right?

 The concept of designer patterns is nothing new. Ladies like me who love fashion but can't afford Fifth Avenue pricetags have been making their own versions of designer's at least since the '60s:

Why yes, this IS Dior. Now leave me alone.

Today some of those patterns are a hot ticket item on eBay et al. Like Diane Von Fursternberg's wrap dress. A more contemporary version of this dress pattern is on eBay with a "buy it now" price of $150! Of course, there are no bids, so $150 could be the sucker price. You can buy a vintage DVF wrap dress for only a little more than that on Etsy.com.

Over at Vogue patterns, I do think some of the designer patterns are among the nicest the company offers. Like this DKNY dress, V1287. The details are sort of lost in this print they used for the sample, but it has very pretty pleating and draping through the front:

This Badgley Mischka for Vogue pattern is unusual and chic. Comparing this dress to the designer's line on sale at Saks.com, a Badgley Mischka dress like this would probably cost in the neighborhood of $500. Sequined fabric like that usually isn't cheap either, but the pattern calls for less than two yards of fabric (if cut from a 60-inch bolt), so even at, let's say, $25/yard, you're still looking at a price way less than you would pay at Century 21 in three years (and for a size XL).

Back to Cynthia Rowley. I still can't forgive her for how rude she was to Whitney, the "plus-sized contestant" on Top Model from Cycle 10, for being too big for any of her samples. But her patterns for Simplicity are cute and very wearable.

I LOVE this one, even though I don't get what the elbow slits are for. Are we lactating out of our elbows now? 

And did you know Leanne Marshal, Project Runway Season 5 winner, has a small line of patterns for Simplicity? They're much less wearable than Cynthia Rowley's separates, but let you try out a few of the design details that are her signature. 

Those ruffles could be hard to pull off for a pear-shaped lady like myself, but that printed dress in the middle is cute, right?

Alas, this is very Tinkerbell-goes-to-prom. Also, it requires about four yards of fabric, a lot for a misses dress that will only be puked on once.

So readers, what do you think? Are "designer" dress patterns overrated? Do you have any favorites in your collection?