Old Pattern, New Dress - Vogue 1634

I'm so happy with my most recent make, Vogue 1634.

When I started this project I couldn't remember when I had purchase the pattern, I only knew it was "some time ago."  A Google search led me to The Vintage Cache, which dates this pattern to 1995!  Way to sew up those patterns, chica!  As far as the pattern goes, it's well drafted and a great timeless (to me anyway) design.  

I love the sleeves!

I've made it of a beautiful wool jersey that may have been lurking in my stash as long as the pattern has.  I purchased it back when I lived in San Francisco from Britex at, I believe, one of their remnant sales. 

The wool had just a few minor, tiny holes in it that were very easy to cut around.  It's fairly stable, so I didn't even re-enforce the shoulder seams, as I often do when sewing knits.  This wool was super easy to sew, and it's even easier to wear.  

One thing I did differently from the instructions is the inside belt which pulls one side of the dress to the other, internally.  The instructions want you to make a belt from ties that you cut from lining fabric and feed through elastic.  I had a length of petersham ribbon on hand from a previous project, and decided to use that instead.  I'm so pleased with the result because it was much faster than sewing a tube of fabric, turning it, and then inserting elastic.  Plus, the inside is really comfortable.  I'm often weary of wrap dresses because that inside belt can be a little uncomfortable after a while.  Because petersham is flexible and soft, the belt moves with me while still holding everything in securely.  I'm going to keep this in mind when sewing wrap dresses in the future.

Because winter finally made its arrival here in NYC, it has become my favorite theater going dress.  I feel like I'm dressed up enough but also warm, especially since I need to wear a silk undershirt beneath.  I can almost handle the itch factor of the wool, but with the silk underneath, it's perfect.

I'd even like to try and make the other views since they seam even "easier" as concerns dressing.  The other two styles are both pull over, as opposed to this wrap version.

Since some folks are a little fraidy fraidy of sewing knits, I've included some of techniques I use for sewing with knits.  I find knits to be great for quick projects - no need to finish seams, and the fit is often forgiving :)

Sew Chica Sews Knits:

• When I layout my fabric, I hold the selvages together and adjust them until I see that the fold is "on grain," i.e. there isn't a ripple near the fold at the bottom.  When I can't tell if I'm "on grain," I cut the pattern pieces in a single layout.
• Make sure the fabric does not hang off your workspace.  This is true for any fabric you cut to sew, but it's especially true for knits.  You don't want to have any stretch going on while you're cutting your pattern. 
• I use my regular machine with a small zigzag stitch.  Even though I have a serger, I find my regular machine set with a small zigzag works best for sewing knits.
• I often don't finish my seams with the serger.  Since knits don't ravel, I just trim my seams and I'm done.
• I sometimes re-enforce the shoulder seams with clear elastic if the knit is loose or it appears that it may stretch.  I just zigzag it over the seam line.
• Hems - If the knit I'm sewing is not very stable, I interface the hem with stretch interfacing.  To sew the hem I often use a stretch twin needle.  I never knew stretch twin needles existed until just a couple of years ago, but I noticed a huge difference when sewing with the stretch twin needle on knit fabrics.  The fabric doesn't bunch up under the presser foot but rather feeds through smoothly.  Also, I may use different hem techniques on a single item.  For example, with this make, I used my stretch twin needle to sew the hem along the bottom of the dress but because I didn't want the double row of stitches along the front and most visible part of the garment, I hemmed each side of the dress by hand.  I like the smooth and almost invisible finish of the hand stitches.

That's it!  Do you like sewing with knits?  Do you have any knit sewing projects in your 2016 sewing queue?

Hasta pronto!