Touchdown Anna

                            
Deadlines are my best sewing motivator.  I had 8 days till an Atlanta bar mitzvah celebration and no options I was jazzed about in my closet.  So, what's a Goodbye Valentino RTW Faster to do?  I cleared out my weeknights and hunkered down to make a dress, of course!

The sports-themed invite specified a dress code of Club Level Attire.   I had to ask my husband what "Club Level" was even referring to!  (Sports-fanatic I am NOT.)

I chose to "play it safe" with another By Hand London Anna.  This is my third Anna of the summer (see here and here) and I think I finally scored a touchdown on both fit and construction!

Yup...i finished the hem on the plane.  

                   
Fabric:

The fabric is from Metro.  It boasts an overlay of decorative straight stitching that creates a nubby texture.  According to my instructor Sharon, this is a sign of higher quality.   Cheaper fabrics would just uses a chemical solution to approximate a similar textured look.

I underlined the bodice with silk organza and fully lined the dress with cotton batiste. I chose cotton batiste for its breathability. (It is August in "HOTlanta," after all.)  Cotton batiste is known for stretching, so I stay stitched immediately.

Pattern Modifications:

With the Andover Anna, I felt that the back gaped a little, causing the bodice to feel like it was slipping off my shoulders.  To address this, I added back in 1 inch along each shoulder seam piece and blended it back into the original deep V at the juncture of the bodice back and skirt back.  For a more fitted look, I took out another 1/2 inch from the bodice side seams on each side (1/4 inch on each pattern piece). Finally, I cut the front of the skirt as one piece.  (The skirt front of my original "Show(er) Me Anna" was 3 panels and the "Andover Anna" was 2.)

Construction:

The pattern does not provide instructions for a full lining--only for fussy facings.   My instructor Sharon taught me this RTW lining method for the bodice, which I have used on all three Annas:

1. Sew the pleats on the fashion fabric bodice front and darts on fashion fabric bodice back.  Repeat for lining.

I had basted the pleats and darts before sewing by machine.

2.  Sew the fashion fabric bodice back to fashion fabric bodice front at the shoulder seams with right sides together.  Repeat for lining.  Attach the lining to the fashion fabric with right sides together, sewing continuously along the neckline and back V.  Clip corners.

3.  With right sides together (lining to fashion fabric), sew the sleeve hems continuously from back sleeve to front sleeve in the flat.

4. Edgestitch the neckline, back pieces, and sleeves.

Edge stitched!

5. With right sides together, match the side seams of the fashion fabric and side seams of the lining and sew up the bodice side seams continuously from fashion fabric bottom to lining bottom.

All pinned and ready to sew up the side seams.  

Area of Improvement

• My skirt lining didn't seem to match perfectly with the bodice lining.  I had excess skirt in the lining and had to make a few small pleats in the skirt lining to remove the excess.  What happened?   At first I questioned whether it was bad cutting (i don't think so)? Or did the skirt lining pieces stretch (doubtful because I stay-stitched immediately)?  But, then I realized that I had taken more than the 5/8 inch seam allowance for the zipper enclosure--more like 1.5 inches.  I did this so that the zipper would match right at the Deep V juncture of the 2 bodice back seams.  Since I forgot to take out an equal amount of the skirt lining, the skirt lining circumference was greater than the fashion fabric skirt circumference. When I went to fell stitch the lining skirt to lining bodice, I had excess skirt lining.  
• In spite of my additional modifications, the back pieces are still gaping a bit.  
• The top of the invisible zipper is visible and I need to fix it before i wear the dress again! 

Invisible zipper needs some help!  

I am so glad I gave this pattern a 3rd try and FINALLY experienced a stress-free sew! I think it's time to retire the Anna to the TNT Hall of Fame, bring out the muslin bolt, and start on something new.

Andover Anna

I am still coming off a high from last weekend's wedding festivities on Nantucket!  I really wanted this dress to be extra special since the weekend was also as a mini boarding school reunion.  Lirra, the bride and fellow "Eaton Cottage Girl," married Dave, a friend and classmate from our neighboring dorm.   (Yes, New England boarding schools are as incestuous as you always suspected!)  I was so happy to spend a weekend with my besties giggling, catching up and celebrating one of our own.

Before I get into the dress details, I'd like to share a special knitting project from the wedding weekend: the "Eaton Garter."  I knit the Eaton Garter back in 2011 with the idea that all 6 of the "Eaton Cottage Girls" would wear it on our respective wedding days.  Meryl wore it first (Florida, 2011), followed by Mari (Hawaii, 2013), me (North Carolina, 2014), and now Lirra (Nantucket, 2015).  Aneesa and Molly are the only two left!  I'm pretty sentimental about this little piece and the beautiful friendships it represents.

Now, on to the dress!



Pattern:  By Hand London's Anna Dress, which I had previously made as a wearable muslin for Lirra's bridal shower.

Fabric:  I picked up the silk crepe de chine and blue re-embroidered lace on a shopping trip to Metro with Carol of Make it Anywear.

Construction:

To prepare the silk for cutting, I first checked that it was on grain using this Threads tutorial.  I knew that I needed to stabilize the fabric before cutting and sewing.  I considered trying the gelatin method, until Sharon--my purist instructor-- encouraged me to just sew the silk to medical paper with large basting stitches.

Slowly sewing the silk to the medical paper

I used up an ENTIRE spool of green silk thread + some for the basting.



I made a few tweaks to the pattern pieces.  Since any skirt seams would disappear in the busy lace, I modified the skirt into 4 panels as opposed to the original seven.  As with the wearable muslin, I converted the back into a deep-v.

              

In preparation for cutting the silk, I was sure to leave huge margins on the paper pattern pieces so that the silk would be sandwiched entirely between 2 sheets of medical paper. Thus, I actually cut the paper pattern pieces out as I cut the silk.  If you look closely in the photo below you can see a skirt pattern piece traced onto the medical paper.

Cutting the silk in a medical paper sandwich! 

Once cut, I immediately stay-stitched all the silk pieces.  After cutting the lace, I stitched the lace and silk underlining together as one.  This was pretty slow going, as I wasn't too comfortable working with that slippery silk!

The actual construction was relatively quick and painless.  I saved time by not doing french seams, but did take the extra time to hand baste most seams before I stitched them by machine. Somehow, every pattern piece matched up as it was intended to!  (No small miracle for me!)

To sew the skirt seams, I folded the medical paper back and pinned it.  The medical paper provided extra structure to keep the silk from slipping.

Just before attaching the bodice to the skirt, I had a eureka moment and decided to convert the pleats into darts. I think the darts looks much nicer and more streamlined with the lace!

Pleats on the left and darts on the right.

I have no regrets with this dress and just one "Note to File" for the future: I wish I had splurged on higher quality fabric. I thought the lace looked nice in the finished dress but I was a little disappointed that the scalloped selvedge was too cheap looking to use as an accent along the neckline and back.  Next time I have a lace project, I intend to go to Fabrics Garden.  Fabrics Garden has a nice selection of mid-priced laces ($30-$40/yard).  As for the silk crepe de chine, it was a real pain to work with and I suspect that its low quality ($5/yard) had something to do with it.

Please excuse my sunburned back--was having too much fun in the sun!  

Posing outside our rental home with Nantucket's favorite flower:  the hydrangea.  

I am relieved to have this special project behind me, but also looking forward to tweaking the fit for one final Anna.  Third time's the charm, right?

Show(er) Me Anna!

I had originally planned to wear By Hand London's Anna dress to our first wedding of the season outside of Atlanta.  Life happened (do I sound like a broken record yet?) and the dress didn't get finished in time.

It turned out to be perfect for my first bridal shower (ever!).  Admittedly, I felt a little sheepish attending a city chic event in $4/yard poly from Kashi's treasure chest.  Sheepishness turned to pure pride when the discriminating hostess complimented me on my dress.  Quite the ego boost, thank you very much.

With the bride!

I selected the round neckline and opted for no leg slit.  I changed the back pattern pieces to a deep V.  The bodice is underlined in silk organza and fully lined in a coordinating hot pink bemberg. All skirt pieces are french seamed.  That's 14 maxi length french seams to be exact.  28 if you count the first botched attempt to line up the bodice pleats with the skirt seams.  (Not that anyone is counting!)

                                               

This dress was NOT an easy sew for me.  There were several 2 am sessions with my trusty seam ripper due to a domino effect of mistakes. I won't go into it...Ain't NOBODY got time for THAT!  

In spite of making a perfect fitting muslin beforehand, the dress is still too large in the bodice. While disappointing, I am happy I figured this out at this wearable muslin stage.

Deep V back.  

I tried the following new (to me) techniques on the Show(er) Me Anna:

• Narrow hem on bemberg lining
• fell stitch to attach bodice lining to bodice skirt from the right side
• Inserting a zipper into a french seam

Note on the narrow hem:  I stitched a guiding line 1/8 inch from the cut edge all around the dress.  I never removed this guiding line.  Using that guiding line, I folded the fabric on itself 2x (double-folded edge) so that the raw edge was encased in the hem and the original 1/8 stitching line was now along the upper fold of the hem.  Ultimately, this made for a 1/4 inch hem, though it looks like only 1/8 from the outside.  From there I sewed the hem in place. It turned out perfect!

My biggest takeaway from the "Show(er) Me Anna" is to make a wearable muslin before cutting into nice fabric! Stay tuned for the improved blue lace "Andover Anna," which I wore to the wedding this past weekend.    

Dining Around the City

Several goodies since the start of summer:

La Mirabelle is pure nostalgie for me and it happens to be a stone's throw from our apartment.    The menu includes many of the French classics that my Mom made for dinner parties in the 90s (coquilles St. Jacques, oeufs a la neige) and adapted into healthier versions for weeknight family dinners (poulet a l'estragon, creme caramel).  All of the servers are 70+ and don't hesitate to offer unsolicited opinions as all (old) French ladies do.  If you want Julia Childs' cooking and don't want to clean the dishes or hop on a plane, this is the place to go!

Gotham West Market
This grown up food court recently opened on the ground floor of one of the high rise apartment buildings on 11th avenue. It markets itself to tenants as an alternative to grocery shopping.  (???) With a large party of 7 and more on the way, this was perfect for a casual Saturday dinner.  I selected a cold ramen soup from Ivan's Ramen Shop  and finished off with some fabulous Ample Hills ice cream for dessert.  Gotham West is a bit in no-man's land out on 11th ave, but I would go again!

Maialino
When my parents are in town I always look for a continental restaurant in Gramercy/West Village. These are my Dad's "old stomping grounds" and he loves to go back. Maialino fit the bill for Dad-approved location and food.  Situated on the ground floor of the Gramercy Park Hotel, this Danny Meyer restaurant bills itself as a Roman style trattoria.  The chef has managed to retain the familial integrity of recipes like bucatini all'amatriciana and tonnarelli a cacio e pepe while transforming them into refined restaurant fare.  I am not sure how he does it because those are some pretty basic budget-friendly pastas!  The space is great--much like an idealized farm house with buckets of fresh sunflowers, checkered table linens, ironwork, etc.

Risotteria
This West Village favorite finally moved to the Upper West Side.   The risottos (20+ on the menu) are perfectly creamy while still properly al dente.  I love the no-fuss atmosphere and affordable prices.

RiverPark
The bridal shower was at Chef Tom Colicchio's private event space at RiverPark -- a glass cube overlooking the East River.  The luncheon menu was farm-to-table fare:  perfect fried chicken and waffles, zingy bloody marys, ricotta and rhubarb toasts, and mignardises for dessert.

Buttermilk Channel
We were in Red Hook for a show so decided to try out this Carroll Gardens favorite. The food was a bit too heavy for me (my entrée salad was dripping in lamb fat), but it was a great evening. We closed down the restaurant at 1am after making friends with the couple sitting next to us.  They graciously treated us to champagne and dessert and we chatted for over an hour and a half about the Supreme Court same-sex marriage decision, NY real estate (favorite topic of NYers), and everything under the sun!  All the while watching a rat scurry back and forth on the sidewalk.  A true NYC evening. ;)

RTW Fast Interrupted

I might as well come out with it.  I broke my Goodbye Valentino RTW Fast.

I was chugging along just fine these past five months with no temptations.  Sure, I never found time to make a Linden sweatshirt or some basic knit tops, but I had enough clothes and determination to not be tempted.

Cue: work stress, life stress, no sleep, and an awesome and much-needed vacation to Alaska.

Result: I bought two activewear tops, a sweatshirt and one horrendously ugly pair of Lululemon pants.

So, how did I let this happen?   It was the perfect retail therapy storm and I should have seen it brewing.  After working late into the evening most nights the week before our first wedding of the season (Atlanta), I came home to my sewing machine and burned the midnight oil trying to finish the Anna.

I threw the towel in at 2am the night before leaving when I  realized that that the skirt seams didn't match up with the bodice pleats. This was AFTER I had french seamed 7 seams (x2 for the lining). Exhausted, I went to sleep in tears!  Yes, I cried over the dress and a thousand other things.  It was the classic "why [I] still can't have it all" pity party.

I wore my guipure lace Laurel dress to the wedding (originally worn at our rehearsal dinner)

Since the wedding was Sunday evening, we flew home at 6am on Monday.  I was on the road again within hours for a presentation at my company's Boston office.  Tuesday evening, with my presentation finished and a mountain of work waiting, I *somehow* found myself at the Boston Eddie Bauer outlet. I couldn't resist the 40% off sale and scooped up a Linden-style sweatshirt, long sleeve activewear hoodie, and short-sleeved workout top.

I felt a little guilty about breaking the Fast, but I was too exhausted to care.  These were all items I had wanted to sew, but never prioritized.

I returned to NYC on Thursday at 3am with just enough time to pack for Alaska.  In Vancouver on Friday morning, I spied the flagship Lululemon store across the street from our hotel and emerged with what is quite possibly the ugliest pair of pants on earth.  Lululemon's "Hot to Street" pants were on final clearance and I know why.



What was I thinking???  A bit too HOT for me...

With 10 wonderful days of vacation under my belt--including one 16 hour stretch of uninterrupted sleep--I'm ready to renew my commitment to the Fast and finish the Anna.

I leave you with a few pictures from our Alaskan adventures.

Harding Icefield Trail (Seward, Alaska)

Wearing my EB hoodie just before we trekked on the Mendenhall Glacier (Juneau, Alaska)

INSIDE an ICE CAVE on the Mendenhall Glacier (Juneau, Alaska)

                         

Adventures with "Anna": Muslins

Our first wedding of the season is next month and I have a lot of sewing to do to make the deadline.  I am planning to make the By Hand London Anna Dress.

Since this is my first time making the Anna, I started with a muslin to check the fit.  According to my measurements, I am a size (34) in the bust, (28) in the waist, and (39) in the hips.  For muslin #1, I cut a straight size 6, which corresponds to a 34-27-37.

The front actually looks pretty good:

Muslin #1 Front

But, you can tell from the sides that this muslin will not be the last!  The pleats are cutting straight into the center of my chest and the side seams are not straight. Clearly, I cut a size too small.

I had read in Sarah Veblen's Perfect Fit to blend between the sizes if your measurements don't conform to the bust-hip-waist of a particular size. In my haste to blaze through muslin-making, I completely ignored Veblen's sage advice.  After showing muslin #1 to my instructor Sharon, she sent me back to the pattern paper to blend the sizes.  I was all over the charts with the results of the blended pattern paper, from a size 6 in the bust to size 10 to account for my (apparently large) rib cage.

Retaped pattern pieces with new stitching lines

Sharon encouraged me to mark my stitching lines on the new muslin and give myself a full 1 inch seam allowance for further adjustments, as opposed to the standard 5/8. She also stressed the importance of stay-stitching the neckline (even for a muslin!) and drawing in the center front line.

To fit muslin #2, we only pinned the shoulder seams, leaving open the sides and not sewing/pinning the front pleats or back darts. With muslin #2 on me, Sharon moved the front pleats to a more pleasing place and adjusted the shoulders so that the shoulder seam is in harmony with the curvature of my shoulder bone.  Then she created new side seams by pinning me in.  We made lots of notations on muslin #2, in preparation for muslin #3.  I learned from the fitting that my left shoulder is higher than my right.  Who knew?

Muslin #2

Below is muslin #3 (!!)  SO MUCH BETTER!

Muslin #3 Front

Muslin #3 Side

For the sake of comparison, check out the side seam lines on muslin #1 vs. muslin #3!

Phhew! I'm now ready to use muslin #4 to sew up a wearable muslin. Stay tuned!

Wardrobe Planning for the Season of Love

With the Hallmark DAY of love behind us, I am starting to look forward to the real SEASON of love...WEDDING SEASON!

So far, we have three weddings to attend this year:  Georgia in May, Nantucket in July, and Alabama in September.  Here's what I have on the drawing board for my wedding guest wardrobe:

Dress # 1:

Pattern: Gertie's bombshell dress or bombshell bustier with silk organza maxi skirt.

Fabric: I am using my prized Thai silk, purchased on a work trip to Bangkok in 2013. 



Progress:
I have already muslined the bustier and cut and basted the underlining to the silk fashion fabric.  

Dress # 2:



Pattern: Anna dress

Fabric:  Baby blue lace from Metro, with ivory crepe de chine lining.

Progress:  None.  

Dress #3:




Pattern:  Gertie's Bombshell bustier + midi skirt

Fabric:  TBD --  Cashmerette's Jenny posted about this silk gazar fabric from B&J and I couldn't help but fall in love with it!  I went to B&J last weekend to check it out in person and am *thinking* of splurging on it for the midi skirt.  

Progress:  None.