Vogue 1586: the third time is the charm

I know that some people think that after sewing for as long as I have (I'm not going to go into how many years that is!), that I probably don't have much to learn.  LOL!  If that was the case, I would have been bored with sewing years ago.  I recently heard a woman on TV describing her husband, saying that he was better than perfect, because if he was perfect, he would always stay the same, but since he's not perfect, he becomes better every day.  I feel the same way about my sewing.  Luckily, every new project is a new challenge, and some more challenging than others.  There are the technically challenging things, like welt pockets and buttonholes which still elude me, and then there are the design challenging things, like picking the right fabric to go with the right style for the right body.  With this project, the latter was the challenge.

This is Vogue 1586, a recent release by Tracy Reese.  Isn't it beautiful on the model?  I really wasn't sure what fabric that they used for this version, as the fabric recommendations say "jacquard, crepe and matte jersey".   So, in reading that, I thought, well pretty much anything goes! 

My first version was from a stretch cotton poplin, and I cut out the size that matched my measurements.  I don't have pictures because it was a total disaster, both fit and fabric match.  The thing that you can't see unless you look very closely at the photo, is that the collar is a single layer and is narrow-hemmed.   This means that you need to choose a fabric that will lay back nicely when folded, look good from both sides, and look good narrow-hemmed.  The poplin was too stiff to fold back nicely, and it looked awful narrow hemmed.  The tie looked gigantic, and the overall size was okay, but the armholes were way too low and showed a lot of my bra.



No problem. I would choose a more drapable fabric for the next one, and found a striped polyester stretch woven.  In my head the stripes would look good placed on the bias in the side skirt piece, that you can see here in the line drawing.

Well, that worked out better in my head than in real life.  The stripes ended up being a hot mess where the pleats were. 

I knew that this fabric didn't look good on both sides, so I eliminated the fold over part of the collar, but you can still see the wrong side on the ties.  And, for fitting, I tried to solve the too-low armholes by hiking up the shoulders, which you can see the bust dart ending up far too high. Just a disaster all around.  I scrapped the dress, and came within inches of throwing the whole pattern away. 

So, what I learned at this point- I needed a fabric with drape, a fabric that was either a solid or a tone on tone print if I wanted the design lines to show up, and I needed to start with a smaller size and do a full bust adjustment, not just hike up the shoulders.  So, in my next Fabric Mart order, I got a heavyweight cotton gauze.  It had a great drape, interesting texture that looked the same on both sides.  But darn it, I only had 2-1/2 yards, and fabric requirement was 3-1/8. 

I decided to try to lay it out single layer, and it all fit, except for the ties. So, I reduced the width of the ties in half, and I had room to lengthen them, so that's what I did!

I did a full bust adjustment, lowered the dart point, and a sway back adjustment. 

I could have shortened the overall length.  If you are shorter than me (5'9"), you probably will want to shorten it!  And if you shorten it, you can probably get by with way less fabric than they are recommending too!

There is a side invisible zipper, and unfortunately, it's on the left where the extra bulk is because of the ties, which are pleated.  It makes it a little difficult to unzip.  If you don't mind the awkwardness of having a zipper on the right side, consider moving the zipper to the other side.

You can see the cool texture of the gauze here.  It was originally white, but I dyed it a pearl gray using RIT dye.

Will I make this pattern again?  Not in the near future, because there are so many other styles that I want to try.  But, I did enjoy the challenge and love my end result!

Have you ever had a pattern that took a few tries to get the right fabric match?

Happy Sewing!

Ann