Saturday, April 5, 2014

Pretty poppies

Lots of photos ahead; if you don't like poppy prints, look away now.

In mid-March, my husband and I made a quick weekend trip to New York. (Digression: I love our house in the woods of New Hampshire, but I lived in NYC from 1986 to 1992 and have never really gotten over it. At least once a week I have a sweet dream in which I find myself living there again. Visiting every now and then makes me very happy.) We packed a lot into a day and a half: the Trend-ology and Fashions of the 1930s exhibits at FIT, Charles Marville's photographs of Paris at the Met, a Broadway play in previews, gallery hopping in Chelsea, an absinthe at a tavern on St. Mark's Place, some real Chinese food, and . . . a trip to Mood Fabrics, of course.

My plan was to find a soft cotton print, maybe a floral, for Vogue 1350. I looked with no special color or print in mind, thinking I would just know it when I found it, and then, bam, there it was. I could feel the tag tucked way down inside the tube and got my husband with his long fingers to fish it out. Turned out that was the wrong end of the tube—no price or content information, just a small brown piece of paper with Oscar de la Renta printed on it.




So later, at home, I searched for Oscar de la Renta poppy print online and found my exact fabric made up into dresses.




Well, maybe not my exact fabric. The red print dress is in cotton stretch, and the yellow is silk twill. My fabric is a cotton/silk blend, no stretch. With the information that these dresses were from 2012, I looked up de la Renta's spring 2012 fashion show, and there was my exact fabric again.





Okay, again, not so exact, but it's the same general idea. Let's take a closer look:




Can you see that the leaves are appliqued/embroidered, and the poppies have frills sticking out around the edges? What I bought seems to be one of several "flat" versions of this gorgeously intricate three-dimensional fabric. I'll take it!

I cut a square and gently, gently squeezed some mildly sudsy water through to see how it would react. It didn't shrink, but look at the fraying on those edges. Since it is such a lovely fabric, I will call it fragile rather than flimsy.



My muslin of V1350 came out nicely but on the snug side. (I usually go down a size in Vogue because of the large amount of wearing ease but didn't do so this time; when they say "close-fitting bodice" they mean it.) I've decided to save this pattern for a sturdier fabric that can hold me in where I need to be held in, haha! Seriously, I thought the poppy fabric would work better in a dress with more flow to the skirt, so I'm going instead with #124 from the April 2014 Burda magazine.



My version will omit the batting, piping, lace edging, and the shirring on the sleeves, as ruffles and frills just do not look right on me. I'm still agonizing over experimenting with replacements for the sleeves. Same pattern piece but droopy instead of shirred? Little half-moon cap sleeves? Two-piece short sleeves cadged from another pattern? Leave the sleeves off altogether? I'll need to tone up and tan my arms; fortunately my last post worked and spring has showed up.


A nature/garden note:
This snap out my sewing room window shows why we will have very few flowers this spring. The azaleas and rhododendrons have lost all their tips; even the crocuses are just nibbled stubs poking from the ground. I haven't been able to bring myself to shoo this group of three does and two teenage deer away often enough (especially because one of the does has only three legs), and they have taken up residence. Disaster for the garden.



10 comments:

  1. Totally jealous of your trip to NYC. How was that 30s exhibit at FIT? I might have to check it out.
    Love that fabric, and the dress pattern is very cute. It's looks kind of 40s, so you could put it into the "Sew for Victory" Sew-along. I'm supposedly working on something for that but the weather and housework have done me in so far.

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    1. The Thirties exhibit is excellent, Julie, but it closes on April 19 so hurry up! If you do manage to get down there, leave plenty of time for the Trend-ology exhibit, too. It features 100 iconic items from FIT's collection, including a Claire McCardell, and I just could not get enough.

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  2. I love that floral fabric - it's so beautiful and the colors look so vibrant! I want to sew with more florals, because I'm always attracted to floral garments when shopping, but I have the hardest time picking out flowery fabrics and matching to a pattern. Can't wait to see how it turns out!

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    1. Thanks, Carrie. I can totally see you in florals.

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  3. I absolutely love this fabric! And I think it will be perfect for the Burda dress. My vote for the sleeve conundrum is half-moon cap sleeve, but sleeveless would also work I think. I can't wait to see this dress done, it will be fantastic!

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    1. Thanks for your thoughts, Maggie. I think I'm going to go with sleeveless, even though small cap sleeves do provide more coverage. I have an invisible zipper foot on the way (finally found one to work with my very old Bernina), but I still have to find the right fabric for the underdress. I bought some white silk habotai at Portsmouth Fabrics, but it's just too lightweight and sheer (you can see through both layers quite easily), so will need to find something else. The underdress and dress are constructed together, so can't really proceed until I find a fabric for the underdress. I hope you're getting some time to sew.

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  4. That is lovely fabric, but I would go for the yellow as that is more "me"! I think that I need to be braver with my fabric buying as I usually just go to either the cheapo shop (£5 per metre) or John Lewis (lovely middle class department store, no commoners allowed!) where the selection is limited.... I'm a bit wary about buying online as I like to feel before I buy.

    From a better look at those sleeves [a]http://www.burdastyle.com/pattern_store/patterns/empire-waist-dress-with-buttons-042014[/a] I reckon you should avoid the ruffling - it'll get lost in the fabric and given that the rest of the dress will be quite simple, the gathered sleeve caps will look odd. As you and Maggie have said, half moon sleeve caps would look good.

    The Vogue 1350 looks good - I seem to have missed this dress somehow when looking through mu magazines/websites. I think it would work quite well in a silky/satiny type fabric.... Will you go for a cotton or something? Is it lined, or will you need to work that out yourself (if you want lining, that is)?

    The big exhibition that I am going to go to see (again) this year is the wedding dress collection at the V&A. We saw it when it was in Wellington (New Zealand) on our honeymoon, but this time I will go without the hubby and with a friend so we can go ooooh and ahhhh and the pretty dresses. Whenever I have been to fashion exhibitions there has always been a bench or two by the entrance full of bored looking blokes playing on thier phones....

    My inlaws have deer that visit thier garden. They have nothing good to say about them and (fighting thier inner hippy) wished that they owned a shotgun. Hmmmmm, venison. Our nature news - we have frogspawn and the fish are eating this along with the newt. We probbaly have more than one newt, but they are very good at hiding. Squirrels are busy digging for nuts/bulbs/anything that we plant.

    From reading other sewing blogs, I see that there have been adverts about a new TV programme with you - the Sewing Bee. It's the final of the British version tomorrow (series 2) and I can't wait! There are no sewing progs on the telly here and it is lovely to spend an hour watching some very talented ladies (and the odd bloke, and no, not odd as in "odd"!!) making some very good garments in a short amount of time. I'd never enter myself (do I fancy making a coat in 7 hours.... Er, no), but it's jolly good entertainment!

    Take care,
    Claire

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    1. I agree that the yellow version of the fabric is very pretty, Claire, though any yellow makes me look absolutely sickly. As for Vogue 1350, take a look at the June 28, 2013, post on Aventuras de Costuras, the blog of Merche Martinez. Talented seamstress, beautiful dress. We are more angry at our deer than ever; it has finally turned to spring around here, and all we have is stubs of bushes around the house. It's not just us, it's our neighbors too. My husband thinks venison is the solution, but I still feel somewhat soft-hearted toward the dears. Oops, deer. I have yet to see any of the second season of the British Sewing Bee, but I'm looking forward to it.

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  5. Oh wow! I ADORE the fabric, and equally I ADORE the pattern you have chosen for it! This is going to be the perfect summer dress!

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    1. Thank you, Carolyn! I will try to do the fabric and the pattern justice ;-)

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