Giveaway Winner! (Now if only the post office would open)

The sun came out this morning, for the first time since Hurricane Sandy sent us indoors many days ago.

So, as promised, I had my Lucy help draw for the dress I'd promised to giveaway in the midst of the storm:

From a HAT — Old school!

Congrats Justsewsew! I'll dig up your contact info through your Wordpress blog. The post office may not open for a few more days though. So be patient. Things are slowly getting back to normal here in NYC.

As you can see, it's quite beautiful out now:

Which is good news for Lucy, who will get to wear her Twilight Sparkle costume out trick-or-treating tonight after all:

I actually threw together a costume for myself the other day. And the great thing about being so last-minute is I got to be totally topical:

Get it? I'm a tourist who didn't get the memo about the hurricane. I made the camera from cardboard, hot glue and electrical tape, and the strap from a wire coat hanger and nylon strapping. The shirt was stencilled using freezer paper. And the Playbill was from the show I just saw on Broadway. It's hard to see my hair, but I used a half-can of hairspray to get it up pretty high.

So happy Halloween, everybody!

Hurricane Giveaway! Last day to enter

I hope you're all well following the destructive hurricane that blew in last night. We are lucky to live on high ground in the Bronx, so we didn't suffer any flooding or power outages. But we were up late because the wind was so loud no one could sleep (my four-year-old included). Trees are down on our street, and we're likely spending the day at home again today since school is cancelled, and subway and bus service has yet to be restored.

My only tragedy during Hurricane Sandy was the fact I never actually got any time to sew. My husband had to work from home, so I was on entertaining-a-stir-crazy-kid duty all day and night. Too bad, since I'm working on something I'm very excited about.

It's still raining and a little windy here, so the storm has not yet fully passed — which means you still have time to enter my Hurricane Giveaway! I promised I would accept entries until the sun shone again, so leave a comment on this entry to win this dress I made (which has never been worn, except during this photo shoot):

Enjoy your day off, New Yorkers! I hope your cars didn't get crushed or float away last night.

Giveaway! My Hurricane Pain, Your Gain!

We're preparing for Hurricane Sandy to hit NYC sometime in the next 24 hours, and like all of us in the city, I'm having a few flashbacks to Hurricane Irene (except I haven't heard anyone advise putting big tape X's on your windows, like they did in August 2011. If they did, all the lazy people in the Bronx would be super stoked that they never bothered to take theirs down in the 13 months since the last hurricane to hit NYC).

We have water, enough food, and some new craft projects on hand to prevent boredom in our kid. All that's left to get today is a box of wine (this thing might last three days, after all!).

Anyway, now seems like a good time to hold a giveaway. I contemplated giving this dress away after I made it for Kollabora.com last spring. The fabric is a gorgeous olive silk crepe de chine from Mood. It was $17/yard, and was just a dream to work with. In fact, that's the reason I'm giving this away.

I have just enough of that lovely fabric to make a new minidress, which I will be working on during the hurricane this week. This dress here, sewn from Simplicity 1872 is a little on the modest side for me (when it comes to evening wear anyway). I never really thought I'd wear it, but was torn because I love the fabric so. However, now that I am making something else out of crepe de chine,  I finally feel ready to give this dress away:

I'm 5-foot-3 and think this dress would look great on someone my height or several inches taller. My waist is 30 inches, but there's a ton of ease in this, so even someone a few sizes up could easily wear this (Or if you're smaller, cinch it). I'm a very average B/sometimes C cup, and there's a lot of room through the bust, plus it's a wrap front, so you could always go with a camisole underneath if your chest is so big (bless your heart) that it actually fills out this generously cut top:

A gust of wind made it flare out like that!

In short, this dress is very forgiving. It's not at all fitted, so it could fit quite a range in sizes. Or you could go as Sexy Big Bird for Halloween in this. I won't be offended:

The color would make it great for a holiday party, or other special event.

To enter, just comment and tell me what would be in your hurricane preparedness kit. I'll accept entries up until the storm breaks, cutting it off and drawing a name at random when the sun finally shines again.

For a second entry, follow my blog (there's a little button thingie on the right of the page). Or if you're already a follower, just comment to tell me you are, and you get two entries too. I don't play favorites (except when it comes to boxes of wine).

Stay safe everyone, and happy hurricane sewing!

Back With a Finished Project! Spoonflower Print Simplicity 1872

Ladies (and gentleman), I've been regretting every day how little I have contributed to the online sewing community in recent months. As Peter so aptly noted in his post yesterday about Lost Bloggers, sometimes life just gets in the way, and we have to juggle our priorities. My little community of three needed me these past few months, and though I have been sewing, I haven't had the time to document, discuss, or leave doting comments on those of you whose blogs I also adore. But my husband has almost certainly found himself a job (knock on virtual wood that he won't be gone 16 hours a day throughout the fall like he had been during the summer months), and my kid is in daily pre-Kindergarten now, which leaves me a little more time. I'm working from home, but only am taking on enough assignments to leave me mildly concerned for my deadlines and not thoroughly consumed with anxiety. 

I do miss blogging — and reading others' blogs (which I find to be an important part of blogging). I don't have any close friends who sew, and though I've met a few New Yorkers who make their own clothes (thanks to Peter, again, with his meet-ups!), I don't see them regularly. So when I drop off the virtual map, I can feel like I am sewing in a vacuum. 

Anyway, on to the sewing projects! 

Finished Project: Simplicity 1872 with Sleeves and a Dirndl Skirt

After complaining profusely in my last post, I should tell you I do feel human again. It's a wonderful thing to enjoy going outside outside again after weeks of praying for rain to wash the pollen away (FYI: complaining is praying for secular people).

Sometime this Spring I sewed this lovely little dress, though I have yet to wear it truly. I plan on wearing it to dinner at X20 on the Hudson with my husband when we celebrate our 5th anniversary in mid-June (turns out five wedded years years = wooden anniversary, which will be appropriate because on our actual anniversary we will be in the deep wilderness in British Columbia visiting my dad at the totally inaccesible-by-road property where he lives. My dad has had to shoot two bears there already this Spring (not for fun or sport — for protection), so wearing a little number like this is out of the question there: I'd look delicious to a bear in this, sort of blood-splattered, wouldn't you say?) 

Anyway, the bodice and sleeves of this dress are Simplicity 1872, which is a Cynthia Rowley pattern I was given by the Team at Kollabora.com, a new website in development that will be both an online community of crafters posting their projects and sharing skills and a marketplace where you can buy the stuff needed to make a project you see there. I already made one version of this dress. I'll show you both and tell you what I did to make this one better than the first. 

This version, which I do believe I'll wear a lot, is sewn from a lightweight silk (from Metro Textile Corp. on 37th Street in New York's Garment District). It was quite sheer, so I lined the bodice and sleeves with white silk, and made a white slip to wear on the bottom (incidentally, sewn from a silk maternity top that I had ruined somehow with a stain). The skirt is just two gathered rectangles because I wanted something simpler and less twirly than the original skirt, which is very flirty, as you can see here:

If you're thinking I look flat-chested and big-hipped in this pose, it's probably because I am. Also, this dress ended up too big, which doesn't help. I love the colour and shine of this cotton sateen and think it would make a very cute holiday frock — for someone with a bigger bust than me. And maybe a few inches taller.  I'm thinking of giving it away on my blog. If I had bigger closets I would just save it for my daughter. She's probably going to be taller and have a bigger chest than me in a couple years, damn her.

For my second version, I cut the smallest size (even though I feared not being able to pull it over my head — there are no closures in this dress, which makes it easy for beginners). I also cut over an inch from the long straight edge of the front wrap pieces. The original was a little too modest for me. I like a little cleavage. But then, of course, I ran into the problem of the front wrap pieces gaping, so I added a hook-and-eye closure right at my bust and it works beautifully:

Instant slut-but-not-too-much

I also added an elastic at the waist to make the shape a little more defined. The skirt weighs down the original version, and I think it would have done the same here with the dirndl skirt. But with the elastic, it keeps the skirt up in place, and allows for a little more of a natural drape through the bodice, which is less flattening. I really dig it. Love the colour, love what it does for me:

As always, I got photobombed a lot:

Better to just embrace it:

One thing I learned in sewing the first version of Cynthia Rowley's Simplicity 1872 was how easy it is to make thread belt loops — and how they really keep a belt in its place. (Since sewing the first I went back and added thread belt loops to every dress I have ever sewn that requires being belted!). My husband was on a three-week break from ad school while I worked on that chartreuse dress and post, and so he volunteered to help me make a little video on how to make thread belt loops. They're one of those things that is ultra easy to do, but (for me anyway) really hard to figure out from a diagram in a book. SO I thought I'd preach it here with a link to my video. Enjoy!

A Few Questions and Some Fabric Porn

That's right: I'm sewing for a man again. This shirt above, modelled by my husband Ryan (who favours the neck-scratch pose for the striking effect it has on one's jaw line; he gives good face, right?), is McCall's 6044. I'm hoping with a few adjustments it can become a good go-to pattern when Ryan needs a new button-up (or snap-up, as it were). Lucky guy, right? That, and I make coffee everyday.

Anyway, I made him try it on this morning though I had yet to add closures. Then I dragged my kid  to the hardware store and bought a $5 rubber mallet so we could take turns hammering on the pearly snaps — because it just wouldn't be a western-style shirt without them. Three-year-olds have very good work ethic when it comes to smashing things. She also helped me paint a wall this weekend. That's how we do, as my friend Lizzi would say.

My husband, he says the shirt is too big. I sewed a large, which is the size he wears in vintage Wrangler western shirts. I guess large in the 1970s was a little smaller than 2012 large. The next one I make will be a medium. He's a good man though, so I know he will wear this anyway:

My question is this: why do commercial patterns add 5/8-inch seam allowances, and then make you trim off 2/8s of an inch — even on collars, collar stands and plackets? It makes no sense. It demands more effort of you, but for what? In my patternmaking classes, we added 3/8-inch seam allowance to necklines, collars, collar stands, pockets, plackets, cuffs, and the like. Everywhere else got 1/2-inch. Why 5/8, McCall's?? Why? Are they in cahoots with fabric distributors and figure forcing you to add an extra couple eighths of an inch in every direction will multiply the yardage you need for any given project? 

Also, this patterns instructs you do to a ridiculous amount of basting. Again, why??

McCall's 6044

I bought that brown and mauve plaid cotton shirting at Metro Textile (do I ever go anywhere else? Only if I can't find what I need for $5 there first). While I was there, Emmet from Project Runway come in. (Remember him? He was sweet and kind of dazed...and they made him don a hot pink skating outfit at one point. Poor guy.) I'm much too self-concious to ever announce to a famous person I know who they are...or ask for a picture. But he did recommend Chinese herbs to me for my seasonal allergies as Kashi and I were lamenting the high pollen count. I live and die by the pollen count in Spring. 

I also splurged on a few yards of this lovely silk printed with poppies (for myself!): 

 There's a signature "Milly" on this print, which left me wondering what designer's end roll this came from. I'm guessing it's this Milly. Though I can't find any garments made using the print I bought, I can see she knows how to make good use of of patterns (and likes red):

My plan for this print is to make the long-sleeved option of Cynthia Rowley's Simplicity 1872. It's going to be very girly:

But that man pictured above may need to thank me for sewing him such a splendid new shirt, and this dress would be just right for anywhere with creme brulee on the menu, oui?

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?