Black and White and Worn All Over...

So after my last post, I went ahead and sewed up a few things, enjoyed wearing them, but never posted.

I think every sewer gets to that point when you realize you have all the pretty dresses and brightly colored items, you need and don't have any me mades of the kind of clothes you wear daily.  It becomes especially apparent when you try to participate in MeMadeMay and as happened before I gave up in the second week.

Now that's not been a big issue for me.  For my general work wear I source basic pieces from Banana Republic and J Crew, often on the sale rack or the outlet stores, but I decided it was time to sew for this category of my wardrobe.

 The print is my last purchase at the now gone Paron's, a store I'd been shopping at for over 30 years. I still have a shopping bag from when they, and all the good fabric stores, were on 57th St.

There are 2 lovely darts in the neckline.  On this printed silk charmeuse, I choose to leave them as unstitched pleats:

The top is my first competed Burda Style garment.  I was nice to finally tackle one.  When I made the muslin, it was way to big but the neck and shoulder lines were nice and all it needed was a major take in down the side seems.  1" per seam for a total of 4".  That left me with a perfectly fitting armhole and I still have plenty of ease.

Lately I've been thinking a lot about having less items in my wardrobe that don't get a lot of wear.  Now when I purge, the question I've been asking is "Is this something I could be happy wearing once a week?"

I am keeping less of those, "oh I'll wear it sometime items".

I had bought a nice piece of black poly crepe from Kashi at Metro Textiles with the idea of making another cold shoulder dress.  I realized that while lovely and fashionable, it would not get an awful lot of wear.  So instead I made a pair of culottes.   Perfectly good for work wear for me.  The patten is   McCalls 7445.   The outcome is just okay. I you really look closely three are some unwanted folds in the fabric.  It may have been a the weight of the fabric in combo with the zipper weight or it may be a crotch curve issue. While the not quite perfect fit it doesn't really show at all.  Hey its black.

There was quite a bit of fabric let, so I cut the Burda Top out in the solid black too!  Only change was this time I sewed and then topstitched the darts.

On both tops, I used the facing the facings method that Peter describes here. 

A nice, and very useful 3 piece capsule.

Stay turned for some much more ambitious projects with excellent results.