Blackwater Park

Life...

...is a never-ending chain of pain and misery, i.e. we are putting our house here up for sale in the next week, going house hunting in a new city, and generally trying to get ourselves relocated to said city, which neither of us knows at all.  Buying a house 9 years ago was one of the most nerve-rattling things we ever did, but selling one & moving out of state is the true nightmare.  It's ghastly.*

Many, many whimpers are issuing forth from Blackwater Park these days, where we are covered in paint splotches, cuts, & bruises.  The Balmain dress, which was going swimmingly, & which we were actually having a lot of fun with, was most regretfully stowed away in a moving box, where it won't be seen for a couple of months.  Sigh. 

All this by way of saying there won't be any sewing or complaining about it for awhile; but I'll be back as soon as I get my stuff again.  I may check in once in awhile, time & hassle permitting, though that doesn't look too realistic.  So enjoy your time off.

Toodles!

P.S. by the way, you know the name of this blog has nothing to do with Haliburton, don't you?  Because it doesn't.  How I hate the name overlap with something so despicable, but I had it first.  Small comfort, but there it is.

Now I'm off to paint myself into further asphyxiation.

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*Among other things, the quotient of "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf" conversations between me & the husband has shot up alarmingly.  Just call me Liz.  Wince.

The Label Bandwagon

Like a lot of you, I'm ridiculously obsessed with getting a label I like, but either can't afford the really nice custom-made embroidered ones, or can't find a good cheaper one that'll give what I want. 

So I'm trying the print transfer route instead, using the method described by Elaray here.

The old labels I got from Heirloom Labels, just a name tag, really, & now I can't even find them:

They have some much nicer, affordable embroidered satin labels, but what I want on my labels, including the most important thing of all, "Blackwater Park," just doesn't fit in the space allowed in their templates.

So print transfer it is.

This is what I ended up with:

What I did differently: I went to Joann's (unpleasant; Hancock's was worse, though; these stores are so down-at-heel, & their zipper stock shockingly pathetic) and acquired a roll of 7/8" cream polyester satin ribbon.  I cut this ribbon into pieces about 2.5 times the length of the label, because I found you get a better looking label if you double the fabric up in back:

I tack the overlapping bits closed with needle and thread; you could glue, of course.  If you don't double, then the folded-under ends show through the front, & the label itself just looks kind of weak and anemic.  The cream satin ribbon does anyway. 

It's also easier to transfer the label onto a longer piece of ribbon, & it doesn't warp when you pull the paper off (I find it better to turn the label paper side down, hold the edge of the paper backing with the point of scissors or something, & peel the ribbon off the paper, instead of the paper off the ribbon.  The other way makes the ribbon get all out of shape, it being very hot and sticky from the transfer).

The downside:

The labels are plastic'y to the touch (they look better in pictures than in person, in my opinion), but beggars can't be choosers.  The doubling at least helps make them nicer. 

I use the ribbed back of the ribbon instead of the smooth polyestery side, which although it pretends to be satin, quickly becomes just vinyl if you transfer plastic onto it.  The ribbed side seems to mitigate this effect a bit.  But only a bit.  The directions do say they'll get softer if you wash them, but I washed an earlier try, & the color seemed to run a bit, so I don't know.

I wonder if a better quality ribbon would give a nicer result?

I'm also not sure what these feel like on the insides of clothes yet.

The doubling will probably make the labels too stiff & heavy for lighter clothing; so far, mine are only going in lined items.

To turn the ends, I press the ends very slightly over a piece of silicone baking mat the same size as the label.  The label still gets hot underneath & tries to stick to the cutting board, so you have to be careful with this.

Then I sew it on:

Here's the one for the plaid BWOF dress I made this Fall.  Note that I used a permanent marker to number it "2" because it was the 2nd project of the season.  I could have printed the 2, but I prefer to write it in instead.  It's somehow better that way.

I place the labels in discreet, secretive positions: on dresses, near the side waist or CB waist if there's a zip, as there is on the plaid dress.  On a jacket, by the breast pocket.  On the kimono coat, just to the front of the bottom of the armscye.  I don't think I would put any at the back neck unless I absolutely had to. 

I love knowing the label is there, hidden away like an Easter egg.

I'd have liked black labels with white print, but I tried one, & it didn't print well at all, so I'm doing classic cream and black.  If it was good enough for the old 20th-century couturiers, it's good enough for me.  Besides, I really like the graphic simplicity of those old labels best.  So clean and elegant.

Vanquishing the Inner Dowager

Finally, back online.

Natasha left a link to her site, which shows some of the vintage garments she's made, including a Vionnet from the Betty Kirke book (it has schematics for some of those glorious dresses); I completely enjoyed going through her projects, so take a look if you like the vintage stuff too.

Speaking of which:

The Mattli Jacket
It looks like I can supply the missing pieces using the Dictator Jacket pattern, the back of which is highly similar in drafting and sizing to the missing Mattli back.  But that will take muslining & fiddling, so I've put it away till after the move.

The Balmain dress
I'm well along on this & may just be able to squeak it in before I have to pack everything up.  It's an easy sew, but a complicated structure.

I've graded it up a full size:

Method: cut and spread, the only method I know.  In the picture, you can see the Threads article I use (Threads 101, June/July 2002, pp. 66-70).  It's not a complete treatise on grading by any means, but it gives you enough to go on, & it's all I've got.  Seems to work well enough.

The article has no advice for paneled structures like the ones in this dress, which are tricky because of all the seaming and darting; they make it difficult to ensure the grading grid is in the same place on all the pieces.  So in the absence of any guidance, I laid the entire pattern out flat on my gridded cutting mat, taping seams together where possible, but 1) always observing the darting & leaving it open, and 2) always, but always, keeping grain lines straight, even if this interfered with taping things together.  Working out where to place the grid is the most puzzling part (you also have to make sure you bypass darts and pockets, etc., which is no small task on a garment that has darts worked in everywhere); the rest is just boring labor: cutting the stupid thing apart, one by one, spreading it the right amount, adding new paper, and taping it all back up again.

Once it was graded, I remuslined and completely hunted down and eliminated whatever surplus wasn't being properly controlled by darts, altered the armholes, etc., & now the body of the dress is completely fitted--and nicely, in my opine--leaving only the sleeves to do (major overhaul, though). 

And not only did I fit it, but in service of modding it up, I tweaked the length (very dowager; trendy neither then or now), the a-line of the skirt, i.e. made sure it was a-line (oddly, it wasn't very, no matter what the illustration shows).  I also reworked the style line of the panel that goes under the arm. 

All dowager has now been eliminated.  Which is good.  I don't have an inner dowager, so why should my dress?  No reason at all that I can think of, & I hope one never darkens my doorstep.  If it does, I won't let it in, not now, not then.

N. Bray really helped me go into this dress and rework it knowledgeably and quickly, which was just beyond great.  No more trial and error tweaking & running back and forth from the wrinkle diagnosers.  And I can tell you one thing: I'm finally a lot more keen on muslins.  If it's just trial and error tweaking, why bother.  Big SA's on the real thing works just as well. But when you can start tracing the drafting decisions and reworking them in terms of rooting out the darts that aren't working properly so you can make them do their job, then muslins start to make a lot more sense.

I've ordered Bray's first book on dress pattern designing.  Again from England, which is apparently a paradise of cheap copies of Bray's books.  The one I got was only $1, though the shipping was a bit more, ahem.  Still, loads cheaper than the $50 the book costs here.  I decided to get it because Dress Fitting refers to things she talks about in Dress Designing, such as tight French sleeves, the mere mention of which drives me mad with curiosity.  I'll be a Katinka correspondent course graduate by the time I've finished (though whether I'll be a secret agent then too is still up in the air).

So.  I have the sleeves to rework, & then I should be able to put the thing together with a reasonable chance of success.  As usual, we shall see.
 

The Balmain Prelims

I've traced the Balmain pattern and laid it out for a preliminary assessment of how it's structured and, most importantly, where the darts are and what they're doing. 

This is my 2nd Vintage Vogue, & it shares features with the Fabiani dress,* chief among them that it seems to be drafted for a slope-shouldered person who takes armholes that hang down in a straight u.  We all vary in the degree to which we need the U rotated toward the front, but only a theoretical person is built like that.  Plus, their B cup isn't, and the front sleeve cap has the same line/scoop as the back sleeve cap.  Additionally, there's a lot of ease, so who knows what measurements the size 12 I've got will actually fit.   

I can tell already that I'm going to have to reroute the armscye to get it more anatomically correct for me, plus get rid of surplus fabric causing looseness and wrinkles around there, correct the bust darts and make the bust a true B, square the shoulder line, substantially change the sleeve cap, and who knows what else.  All those paneled seams contain hidden darts. I suspect it might also need its lines cleaned up so it doesn't look dowdy instead of smart.

It's also supposed to be underlined.  Now, the Fabiani dress was underlined too, and I duly went through the process of underlining that with china silk, only to think in the end that the underlining added too much weight.  These dresses (the Fabiani dress also dated c. 68-70) were quite architectural and with all that topstitching, seaming, and underlining, they were probably quite a bit stiffer and more hefty than we care for today--a lot of times, more like coat dresses than anything we'd wear.  I appreciate the past as the past, as a context and construct of its own, but I'm not trying to make a facsimile of an historical artifact.  I think we should borrow and adapt to suit ourselves and our present.

I'm seriously thinking of not underlining, though I might possibly line it.  I guess I actually prefer a separate lining in something like this, so that the dress is just lighter and floatier and has a more contemporary hang.  The trick will be attaching the lining at the zipper.  I have to make a muslin to see, but it doesn't look like a lining can be sewn in by machine.  In fact, the directions would have you sew the zipper in by hand--partly as a matter of finishing, but also because of the way the zipper area is constructed, since it has to lay under a fold of material that runs down the back over the zipper, then joins the back seam below the zipper.  I'll have to experiment.

If the wool double knit is anything like the polyester stuff I used on two dresses this year (well, I already know it's much nicer, but it might still share some qualities), I don't think a lining will be necessary, so I may not line it either.  Cut edges don't fray, and double knit doesn't particularly seem to cling.

The other thing about underlining is that you have to turn all the seams to one side, then top stitch over them, which means 6 layers of fabric top stitched down.  Now, grading will take care of some of the excess, but that's still a lot of fabric, and double knit is not silky thin to begin with.

Theoretically, I should grade this pattern up one size, but I flat measured it this morning, and although it's hard to be conclusive what with all the seaming and darting, the bust might actually measure 38 inches, because of all the ease.  This would be quite enough for me.  And if this amount of ease carried through to the hips, then I'll have plenty there too.   I also want to use a knit, which changes things.  I won't know anything without knowing exactly where I'm starting from, so the next step is to just muslin it up as is.

Which will be a fit/redrafting sort of muslin, more than anything.  I'm definitely approaching it with Bray in mind & will have the book by my side the whole time.  In fact, I don't know if I could really do this without Bray--not knowledgeably, anyway.

Vintage Vogues don't really live up to expectations; I guess my expectations are off.  I was hoping--but why, I don't know--that their older patterns would be drafted a bit more like BWOF.  Nope.  Not at all.  It's most tiresome.  Especially with these designer Vogues, which are not uncomplicated to begin with.  Not only is this dress structured up the wazoo at all those top stitched seams, but the back zipper is offset and hidden under a sort of fold of fabric.  Because of the zipper, the dress also closes at the back shoulder and neck via a slightly odd arrangement of hooks and thread bars.  As a glimpse of a vintage couturier dress, this is all very interesting.  But it leaves a lot of challenges from the viewpoint of actually having to concoct one to wear that won't look goofy.

So all this by way of saying this isn't going to be something I can run up in an afternoon.  It's going to take a lot of work instead.  I don't really know if I'll get any further than I did with the Fabiani dress, but I suppose that doesn't really matter.  It's hard when you're starting out with so many strikes against you.  The thing I love so much about BWOF is that they start you off on the right foot; it's as though they want you to succeed.

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*I don't much like my old posts, but I'll link anyway.  Just be warned that I've changed my mind about some of this since then; for one thing, I'm not nearly as cheerful about using these old patterns.  They're a definite pain in the butt because of the drafting decisions, but they still have an undeniable lure--I think it's the pattern photos.  I'm a sucker for them.  Sigh.