Dressform, Geneva blouse, 'mending'

 Current projects include a dressform for Australia-daughter, and the Liesl & Co. Geneva blouse. I also have some fixes to do on some tops I have made recently, and I have been giving some thought to the Waffle Arare anorak.

dressform shell

The dressform (by Bootstrap) is coming along nicely. The instructions are good, with some holes, but since I have made it before I can work through them easily. I was very excited to get the hardware for this before I started: a coat rack  that someone was discarding, (which I don't have to saw in half becaue two parts screw together) and a heavy duty cardboard tube. The body is being made from a never-used sheet purchased from an estate sale.

dress form hardware

I got all the way to the inner support (which has a sleeve to slip onto the tube, and two pieces that keep the front and the back from separating more than they should). Then I tried the sleeve on the tube and realized my tube is too wide. 😢Fortunately there is a length of PVC piping in the garage that fits, and which I will have to incorporate into the planning!

muslin too short now

tissue-fitting... looong

The Geneva blouse has been a big disappointment to me. It started on a bit of a sour note: I bought two patterns from Liesl & co., and was invited to purchase a third pattern for a small discount. Since I had kind of had my eye on this blouse for a while, and I thought I could make one for Australia daughter if the sewing plans go well, I added it to the cart. 

  

When I got the credit card bill I saw that these three patterns ended up costing me $75CAD!!! Ouch. (And I still had to pay to print them out!)

So imagine my irritation when I tissue-fitted the blouse and saw that it was WAY too long - like a tunic. I am not short. The photo on the website suggests a much shorter fit, although the finished measurements were exact. So I took off about six inches and made a muslin. The rest of the fit was fine. I had had a hard time deciding on which of the cup sizes to use, since I was on the cusp (exactly 2 inch difference between high bust and full bust: between 1 and 2 inches = A/B cup; 3 inches = C cup...). I went with the B-cup, and the fit is okay, but possibly a bit snug. I thought of using a bigger back piece but I had not printed that size, so just went with what I had.  

The muslin was a bit short, so I re-added one inch.

I have made it with some polyester georgette (?) that I purchased on impulse at a very good price over a year ago. It is actually not too bad to handle. A bit shifty, but it has some weight, so it stays put.

However, the final product looks lousy. The fit is pretty poor, even though the muslin fit was fine.  Although the bust-dart was perfectly placed on the muslin, it has ridden up on the poly georgette. Is it because it is too light? Is it sticking to my undergarments? 

excess sleeve cap

Very frustrating, because I really did a nice job on the sewing... French seams, even at the sleeves caps. But don't get me started about sleeve caps! As usual for me I had to shave fabric off the top of the sleeve cap in order to get it to fit without pleats or puckering. The end result is therefore kind of flat! (see photos for the amount I reduced.

more excess!

I frankly don't know if it looks lousy because the fabric was too drapey, and so just kind of hangs. The photography isn't stellar, my live-in photographer is not very experienced. 

If I come back to this pattern in the future I will start at square zero. Either do the next size, or the next bust-cup size, or both. I would make the muslin up in the original length and get a better sense of the ideal length from that before cutting the pattern. I think one part of the problem is that the hem curve, although lovely, is too pronounced, making the front and back too long OR the curve too high. 

 

 

 

 

Recently-made knit tops have been a bit of a problem. 

First I made the Jalie 2805 with a wool remnant from my long johns, and some matching knt for the sleeves. (Here) It was great, and then it was washed. YES I had prewashed the fabric... so not sure what happened but it shrunk and was felted. (Well the body, not the sleeves, obsiously!). I tried wearing it a couple of times and it was terribly uncomfortable, a bit short at the waist. SO I too some of the scraps remaining and sewed on a band. It looks shabby (this fabric is NOT felted!), BUT it works. It is comfortable and warm, and will be great as a base layer. So, not the top I wanted, but I don't think it ever would have been with the odd sleeves.

Then I used the Jalie Marie-Claude raglan sleeved top for the linen blend I got at Our Social Fabric in Vancouver. The first one I made (with the olive and navy knit, which, inexplicably I have never photographed) fits well. I guess the fabric also determines the look. The first one looks like a traditional baseball shirt; this version looks sloppy. So my plan is to just cut the Jalie 2805 from it, BUT I will have to keep some of the seams...

Hopefully that will be ready for my next post... along with the dress form, and something else!

Shapeless :(

still shapeless in back, too!