Wednesday, May 30, 2012

Anna Sui dress for my daughter

My DD2 is graduating from her middle school and I made her a dress with Anna Sui Vogue pattern 1153.

























The fabric is crinkled silk chiffon from Sawyer Brook Fabrics, purchased a few years ago.  It turned out quite nice and both DD2 and I are happy with it.  The original have you finish skirt hem and neck ruffle with a serger, but I chose not to do so since the fabric had tiny pleat-like texture.  I thought the serged edges would be too stiff relative to the soft silk fabric.  Instead, I hand-rolled the skirt hems and added a continuous self-facing to the ruffles at the front neck line.  They worked very well.  She did not like the idea of gathered decorative trims affixed long the seam line between the upper and lower skirts.  Because of this omission of the trim and the fact I purchased some extra yardage, we could add an extra layer on the lower skirt with the upper layer 1/2 inch shorter than the one underneath.  I also added a skirt lining which was made by extending the upper skirt by 7" at the lower edge. 

The photo on the left shows the continuous self-facing added to the front neck line.  Although it did not have enough length along the edge of the self-facing, the section was to be gathered and I just winged it to fit.

Saturday, May 19, 2012

Yuri Kaneko's Retro Coat

My red retro coat was from this book:


And Ms. Kaneko's original version is:


Can you see the insets on the front?  That's the one I could not fit on my red silk noil version.  Since I love this coat so much, I am going to make another one, in red again, with the same lining.  I already have a beautiful red wool fabric, enough length.  I think I would like pockets along the inset seams. 

I love this book.  Ms. Kaneko's garments in this book have just the right amount of retro feel.  I hope to sew the black retro jacket and the white jacket below.

I am attracted to the collar of the black jacket.

I think I have the right fabric for this one.

Saturday, May 12, 2012

Red Retro Coat

Bright red retro coat with a twist inside. 

Outer fabric is a light weight silk noil and the lining is a cotton print, a Picasso like print.  The pattern is from Yuri Kaneko's book from 2006 (Bunka Shuppan).  I love the flat collar of this coat.  So perfectly formed thanks to the good pattern.  I did not have enough fabric and had to cut two front pattern pieces together.  Shame. 

I am on to the next project which is my DD2's dress.  What you see on the upper right corner is a test garment.