High Quality Blogs: Back in the saddle

Monday 5 April 2010

Back in the saddle

So I sewed yesterday!

I finally cut my fabric for Simplicity 3873, my two-piece dress from 1941, and started putting this puppy together. I decided to do the whole thing in the YELLOW cotton-poly sheet I'd found at the Salvation Army a few weeks ago.

I enjoy the challenge of working in a color I ~~despise~~ would not normally choose, and there are some great complementary colors (at least I think they're complementary) like purple that will find their way into the finished outfit, no doubt, and play down the YELLOW. I may even find a way to use this:

Putting together the eleven-panel skirt was challenging, but I'm getting used to working with pattern pieces that have no printed markings.

What's amazing is that all the little holes and V-shaped cuts still make sense after all these years. So far this seems like a splendidly drafted pattern.

While the individual panels look symmetrical, they are not, so I had to pay close attention to fitting each piece correctly to its neighbor. A dirty little secret (I have a lot of those) is that normally I don't mark anything unless I have to, but rather just eyeball what lines up with what. That wasn't possible here.

Today I'll attach the waistband and insert an approximately 8" invisible zipper. Here's the skirt on the pattern envelope:

And here's mine, from the inside. Did I mention that the eleven panels are five different sizes (i.e., two of each pattern piece, with one additional piece)?

I've been pressing the dickens out of this skirt because cotton-poly doesn't "give" the way cotton does. I don't want puckers.

It fits me, so it should fit Cathy too if she hasn't put on weight since I saw her last. She's shooting a pilot out in L.A. -- would you believe they're re-making "It's a Living?"