Did You Make That?
Yep!
I 'm pretty pleased with this new
periwinkle blue cotton knit dress I sewed,
using one of the many patterns included in my recently purchased
Famous Frocks: The Little Black Dress: Patterns for 20 Garments Inspired by Fashion Icons. I'm pretty
cautious about buying books with included patterns (
what if I only like one?) , but I find the entire book very inspirational, and I'm envisioning sewing several of the other dresses.
This
romantically styled frock is the "
Anjelica Jolie" dress. I used the
darts and no-sleeve styling from the top variation, and the straight of grain and cotton knit from the dress version. I tried wearing a narrow belt at the true waist, but it looked awful on me - it just didn't suit my
H-shaped figure. Also I think, maybe, it's too blousy at the top to suit a woman with more bust if it's belted too low. Emphasizing the bosom with a wide belt worn just below the bust line looks better. Sometimes I just have to try every belt and waistline in my wardrobe to get it right. This is the
belt I created for my
peaches and cream shirtwaist dress. It's 3 inch wide black elastic with a simple slider no-tongue belt buckle.
I felt very Cinderlla-ish wearing this dress to the
San Francisco Legion of Honor museum this last week, especially since I was going to see a fashion exhibit,
High Style, The Broklyn Museum Costume Collection. I got a nice compliment from the young woman who rented the audio head set. She liked it that I had dressed up for the exhibit. I enjoyed that being dressed up feeling, and I was really comfortable too. I'm thinking this light frock will be nice for
travel, what do you think?
Yes, this book is inspiring me to make more. I've already begun making a muslin for the
princess-seamed Princess Diana sheath dress and I have my eyes on the
Grace Kelly dress, based on one she wore, and I loved, in the classic Alfred Hitchcock movie,
Rear Window. Do you remember the scene towards the end, where Lisa (Grace) hides her Vogue magazine inside a very studious looking hardback book to fake Jimmy Stewart into thinking she's getting serious about important issues?
If I sew each of these, that's three patterns. I interested in trying the variations on them as well - some of which aren't typical of what you'd find in a pattern envelope. I'm going to try the top variation for this Anjelica pattern (in a woven) as well. I'm attracted to a couple of the other patterns, particularly the
Coco Channel jersey dress, in the sleeveless variation. My guess is that I'll be sewing at least half the patterns in the book, if not more.
One thing I found great about using patterns from this book,versus buying an individual pattern, is that there is an extensive part of the book that covers
sewing techniques. These are different than just following directions from a pattern instruction sheet, because they help me to better develop my overall sewing skills, and I'm not blindly following steps that I might not understand. Once I've used two or three of these patterns, the
cost of the book compares favorably with the purchase of the same number of pattern (even with pattern discounts), and the educational
sewing skill-building advantage makes it worth more to me, than buying those individual patterns.
