In The Sketchbook-March 2018

Welcome to In the Sketchbook, a monthly look at fashion design sketches that we are working on for ourselves. Sketching garments on a personal croquis is a great way for the individual couture enthusiast to move beyond the use of commercial patterns and into a world of personalized design! It can be intimidating at first, but with a little bit of practice it becomes something you look forward to. Join us for a look of what we have going on In the Sketchbook! Brought to you by Wendy Grossman of Couture Counsellor and Steph King from Siouxzeegirl Designs.



A little bit of deviation this month. Instead of garment detail I have focused on sketches of using 2 fabrics. A blue silk charmeuse and a guipure lace in different color blues and white flowers.
These were originally sketched as inspirations for an outfit for a spring wedding that I am attending. However, that date is rapidly approaching and I haven't even started! The second part of this challenge is that nice guipure lace is expensive and I only have 1 yard of this lace. It is wide enough to be cut in half lengthwise so could maybe eek out an all lace dress. Maybe... but then that is an expected use! I have plenty of the navy silk charmeuse.

The 'challenge' for the ASG- Chicago chapter annual luncheon and fashion show is Lace. This will fit right into that challenge!

I have included ALL of the sketches that I did... even the ones that I don't like. Sketching for a design is a process and that design process also includes things that make you raise your eyebrows and go no, nooo, nooooo! Sometimes you sketch something and you think wow! I would have never thought I would like that and you really do.
For each sketch I have just added a comment of YES, NO or Maybe which indicates my like/dislike for each sketch.

The guipure lace, silk charmeuse is under it and really makes the lighter blues and whites pop!.

Sketch 1: Maybe

Sketch 2: NO, NO, NO

Sketch 3: YES

Sketch 4: YES

Sketch 5: Strong Maybe...
 Needs some work to look less like a cheap party sash across the chest.

Sketch 6: YES

Sketch 7: No, too expected

Sketch 8: doesn't really count since I never got to adding in the lace
 because I really fell in love with the simplicity and clean lines of silk culottes and a bias drape top!

Make sure to stop by Wendy Grossman of Couture Counsellor to see what lovely sketches and ideas she is working on. Please feel free to share your sketches and ideas with us.

Happy Sketching!!

Not quite a Little Black Dress!

Little black...uhm, little black and red dress! Well actually more like red and black dress!

I keep thinking that I need to make myself a little black dress. I even picked up some fabric last year when I was in NYC to make my little black dress. Somehow, every time I go to make my little black dress I somehow end up with a not black little black dress. Sigh... I can’t help it, I really like color!

After little black dresses are very, very, well very black. In my head black is for bad moods, funerals and mourning and for those morose years when the world is out to get you. My closest to an all black ensemble is my car wash skirt and French jacket. I do have an old black knit dress that I seldom wear. I occasionally use it as a bathing suit coverup. Now don't get me wrong... there are some very beautiful black dresses and I know many people that just rock a great LBD and I actually have worn one or two in my lifetime. It's just that right now, I prefer to wear more color :) 

This version of my little black/red dress is made with a soft brocade fabric that I purchased 2013 from a shop in Chicago suburbs that used to carry a small section of garment fabrics. It’s original purpose was to become a dress for my daughters Chicago wedding reception. We decided the fabric was a bit too serious for her idea of dress. So, it sat and marinated in the fabric collection for a while. When I pulled Fabrics for my envisioned little black dress this fabric just kept jumping up and down and yelling pick me, pick me!!! And so I know have a fun new dress.

The pattern is from my master princess sheath dress. I changed the neckline to a scoop neck, gave more waist definition at the side seams, added a slit to the right side front seam and shortened the length just a bit. The facings are of the brocade and the rest of the lining is black ambiance. The bottom flounces are an under layer of the brocade and an upper layer of red silk georgette. The sleeve flounce are red silk georgette with a facing of red silk organza.

This was the first time I have made flounces by cutting circles. I used the Roberta Carr- Couture, The Art of Fine Sewing book to help figure out the size and number of circles that I would need for my circular flounces. The hem on the flounces at the dress hemline are done with a 3 thread rolled hem with black thread. The brocade hem was easy and I almost was going to to do a second round on top of the first one because there are some pokies. In the end I decided not to because it is at the dress hem and the bottom layer and it took a long time to hem that entire length! The georgette was a bit trickier to do a rolled hem on, I had to go much slower and make sure that the fabric did not slip away from the needles after passing the knife blade. Again this was fine for the hem of a dress.

Close ups of the flounce and front thigh slit details

For the sleeve I really needed to make sure the hem on the georgette was clean and well done since it on the sleeve and pretty much at eye level. To figure out the size of the flounce I draped some fabric on my dress form with the main portion of the dress completed and decided that I wanted to go from halfway up the front to halfway down the block. I measured this length and then made sure to cut the flounce with the same length plus seam allowances for the facing. I cut both the georgette and the organza the same size seamed them along the outer edges, flipped, pressed and sewed to the dress.

My initial thought was to make the flounces as a removable ornamentation with small snaps. However, once I pinned them on I really just loved them and decided that the dress needed to have flounces! This made the end of the construction much easier since I would have needed to sew on dozens of little snaps.

 

22 inch invisible zip! These long zips make it so easy to get and out of my dresses.

On the dress from inside out. Here you can see that I used the last bits of the soft brocade for facings and black ambiance lining. I hand sewed the lining to the zipper tape and used a jump hem at the bottom and sewed the lining to cover the edge of the flounce to keep everything neat and tidy inside.

The armhole is finished with a bias facing and the sleeve flounce was sewn on and the seam allowances hand tacked to the bias facing. This could have been done a bit different however since I had originally thought to make these removable I had already finished the armholes. This means the inside is not as clean as I would have liked but that is just fine!

Something very interesting happened with the sleeve flounces... I really love, like love LOVE them on the dress when it is on the dressform. I really like them when I am moving around but I really DISLIKE them in the photo's when I am just standing still and it is a static image. I knew in myhead that this may be an 'issue' and is all bout my head trash and body image. the flounce sleeves draw attention to my chubby white upper arms. Sounds silly as I write it but it is true. I actually played around with lengths and when I draped them on my arm at a longer length I started having 1990's flashbacks and that was so not a good feeling! LOL!! 

So... I think I will just have to get over my head trash and move on. maybe also do some exercise to firm up those jiggles! 

The slit on the right front shows enough leg to be fun but not indecent :), the Chubby arm is just who I am so I am getting over it and most important the bend over test passed with flying colors and I dont have to worry about inadvertently flashing the boobs!

I have a wedding to go to in April and I think this dress fits the bill perfectly.

Maybe one day, I will finally get around to actually making a real Little Black Dress!

Happy Sewing!

Princess Victoria and I enjoyed a morning at the Garfield Park Conservatory in Chicago!

Pink draped dress

One of the sketches that I had done for In The Sketchbook was done from an idea that came to me when I draped some of my fabric on my dress form.

It all started when my lovely friend Wendy from Couture Counsellor gave me 2 sets of opera gloves for Christmas. A beautiful hot pink stretch satin pair and a black lace pair. The pink was the most perfect shade of pink for me, it was MY color!!

Wendy and I at the Lyric Opera House

I took those gloves home and went right to my fabric closet and ran those pink gloves up against my hanging fabric and BAM!  Hot pink silk dupioni and hot pink and black lace on  netting jumped out at me. I really had no idea what I wanted to do with them just that I wanted to use them.

My new opera gloves along with several options of fabrics that I pulled from my fabric collection.

 So I draped them on my dress form and let them take their time in talking to me. Thinking about the free form draping workshop that I did with Sarah Veblen, I was inspired to look over my notes and photos from that workshop. Then I decided to just let my fingers play with the lace fabric. No right, no wrong, no  judgement, just playing. I ended up with the lace draped as one single long piece, with tucks around the body from front to back on each side, I then wrapped the silk around the top to simulate a bodice.

My fabric choices draped on my dress form in a loose idea of what I was 'seeing' in my head.

Leaving that on my dressform, I took some photos and then decided to make a couple of sketches to fill in the details. My first idea was that it would be a knee length sleeveless dress with a defined waistband with the lace attached to the waistband and a bolero type jacket/topper. I spent some time thinking about the silhouette and realized that I had a dress pattern already that I could use as a starting point. In fact, I still had the muslin. This was from the black/red/later cut scuba dress that I made last year. I quickly tried on the muslin and in the mirror drew some changes on the muslin in sharpie. I took the muslin off, snipped here and there and pinned some other muslin on. From here I transferred the changes From the muslin to a newly traced pattern and made a new muslin. With this second muslin I took a piece of muslin that was the exact measurements of the piece of lace. I marked it up with the grain lines and pinned this to the muslin in several ways until I came up with the perfect size of pleats to make a symmetrical drape. The drape was originally inspired by how Balenciaga used and constructed Fabrics in his dresses my brain made the leap to draping and from there it is all history.

Muslin on the dress form. You can see the grid ,arks that I drew on the muslin prior to draping.

Back to my process, I made the changes to the pattern for the princess dress. specifically to the neckline and the amount of ease. I wanted something that was slightly more relaxed so I wouldn’t have to wear shaper wear underneath ( I don’t mind a smoother to smooth out the appearance of the.. ahem, rolls..but , I really don’t like wearing spanx or. Similar garments!) with these changes I took the dress muslin and literally cut it in half at a high waist level, sewed in the giant piece of pleated fabric and sewed the dress back together and that was the muslin.

Final iteration of the muslin in the fitting and design stages.

Making that muslin really helped with a couple of things. I was able to know exactly how the ace fabric would attach and I was able to work out the construction method. In order to make this lace insert the easiest or more practically, the method with the most control was to construct the top of the dress. Each piece of dupioni was underlined in silk organza and lined in a deep purple ambiance lining. Wit the top constructed, I moved to the bottom half of the dress. Thee were also underlined in organza, however not all the way to the hemline. I only did it that way because I didn’t have enough silk organza and since the bottom of the dress was going to have the lace overlay, I wasn’t too worried about it!

Dress details: sweetheart neckline shape, view of the purple Ambiance lining (this helped keep a strong pink color). Bottom 2 photos show detail of the skirt front. I was careful to keep the front panel flat with the pleats not starting until the side front. This minimized some of the bulk at the front.

Once the bottom was constructed I basted the pleased lace to the it and then sandwiched the top over it and sewed it all together. With some trimming and pressing everything laid quite nicely. The zipper was next to go in. I had a 22 inch invisible pink zipper that I installed by hand with a small back stitch. I was originally a little nervous about putting an invisible zipper in by hand! There was NO need for that nervousness, putting that zipper in by hand was so easy and afforded me much more control.

The dress in a final try on prior to adding the hooks/eyes and snaps for the bustle. I am just holding it up in these pictures with my hands. 

The lining was sewed together at the neckline, clipped, graded and  under-stitched and the pressed the neckline. I’m not 100% happy with the neckline. The shape is gorgeous but for some reason the lining wants to peek out. I pressed again and realy let is set and this seems to have helped. The lining was attached to the zipper by hand and for the armhole I tried a different technique. I trimmed the lining back to the seam-line and then hand rolled the fashion fabric around to the inside and hand stitched it down. I really like how it looks and the lack of bulk.

The invisible zipper was set in by hand, such amazing control when done this way! The lining was then hand stitched to the zipper tape. My label and bra strap keepers were added as the final details.

With the dress lined and all the finishes done the last thing I needed to do was to figure out how to bustle the lace. This gave it the distinctive shape that I was looking for with the deep draped sides. Playing with pins, I figured that I needed 4 hooks and thread bars. 2 on each side of the zipper with the thread bars being just at the level of where the lace attached into the dress. After my first wearing I realized that this was not going to work… unlike were a wedding dress is bustled which is usually at the butt level or below, this was at my high waist so every time I sat down the fabric would push up and come right out of the thread bars. I had to carefully smooth the fabric down before sitting and that was a bit better. The next day I added 2 clear plastic snaps. One on each side just above the outer most thread bars and this helped greatly to give it just the extra security it needed to keep the hooks in.

Close ups of the bustle hardware. the top shows the 4 thread bars and the 2 plastic snaps at the back of the dress on either side of the zipper. (double click on the photo to see it in a larger view) The bottom photos show the hooks sewn on to the lace. I used tiny bits of silk organza under the hooks to give them a little bit of stabilization.

I didn’t make the bolero topper. 2 reasons. 1- I tried on one that I made for a different project, different fabric but just to see how it would look. Not good. Remember I used a high waist to attach the lace drape and it would have had to be so very short and look fairly ridiculous and with the regular bolero length it was way to much. Pleated fabric all around my waist and then a bolero. Took away any shape that I had. The second reason that I was secretly happy about the bolero was not good was a time factor, I was just about out of time!

Close up of the shawl. the top shows the fussy cut portion. I only tacked down the lace in several areas and caught it in the side seam. This left the bottom scalloped edges free and the fussy cut portion just tacked.

With the bolero out I went and got a one of my shawls and this was a much better option! I had enough silk dupioni left to makes long shawl and just enough lace to fussy cut and add it to the ends of the shawl. I love it!,

The dress and shawl hanging. I am leaving the bustle down while hanging to minimize the pull on the hooks/eyes and snaps.

The final dress on my dress form. Top show front and back. Bottom photo shows side front and side.

The entire outfit along with the elbow length hot pink gloves looks amazing! I wore this dress to the opera on a Saturday night. I am just loving living downtown Chicago, so close to so many of the things that I have always wanted to be a part of.

At intermission during the opera.

One of the nicest things was that several other opera goers had commented on how nice my dress was! It really felt nice to bring this cool garment to life!!

Some fun candid shots!!

Special thanks to Wendy for the hot pink gloves, Sarah Veblen for the draping knowledge and to Balenciaga for the inspiration. 😊

Happy Sewing!!

Kisses from my girls!!