Vogue 8425: The Bad Penny.

Vogue 8425 was my first sewing project after a more than 20 year hiatus from sewing. I started sewing it early in 2008. the high-waisted waistband was constructed from 14 pieces. i should've known.

the 14-piece waistband didn't fit me right no matter what. i added darts to both the skirt & waistband & of course with new darts, any waistband seam that was supposed to correspond with a skirt seam had to be adjusted as well. it was a losing battle & damn shame because the wool fabric was expensive.

about a year ago i was talking to another sewer about Vogue 8425 & she suggested i chop the waistband in half. it was a great idea, except that i should've just made a whole new plain waistband instead of trying to chop & fit a 14-piece waistband, which is why another year has passed.

i'm shutting lots of old doors these days to make room for new things to happen. Vogue 8425 was one of those old doors. i got rid of the 14-piece waistband altogether, kept most of the added skirt darts & drafted a standard waistband to attach to the skirt. i didn't have any heavyweight interfacing for the waistband, so i repurposed some white canvas from an old chef's coat i had & it worked great. so great, that from now on i'm going to use canvas to interface my waistbands.



the poor lining was a little bedraggled, but i took out all of the old gathering threads, pressed it & used my Greist gathering foot to make new gathers at the waistline



& finally, i used my new serger to finish the lower edge in preparation for hemming.



Vogue 8425. may she rest in peace.

expensively cheesy piece of crap.

image source: madehow

i finally bought an ironing board & i cannot believe how much i paid for it.

i will have you know that i did my research on this one- informed consumer searching for the best bang for my buck & all the rest of it- including garage-sale browsing for a used board. the garage sales didn't produce & i'll have to stop looking in people's garages now because the last thing i need after spending $$ on a new crap board, is to see a sturdy vintage board in great condition for $5 in someone's garage.

ironing boards come in 5 different categories: tabletop, lo-fi, med-fi, hi-fi & industrial.

let's break this down, shall we?

you can get a tabletop board for about $10, but these are no go for me because i need the clearance underneath to get at tucks & darts with my iron.

the lo-fi board will run you $17 - $20. i almost bought lo-fi, because it's only slightly more cheesy than the med-fi board (at half the price). the downside is that it's not the standard ironing board size (54x14") which means that pads/covers won't fit without some creative duct tape action. why bother with an additional pad/cover? because the one that comes with the board is about as effective as tissue paper, so you're basically ironing on metal. (pads/covers start at $17.)

then there's med-fi board which is what i got. these run between $35 and $50 & i'm sorry but i can't talk about this without a series of wtfs. it's an ironing board. for the love of god. it doesn't have a plug. it's not electrical or digital in any way. it doesn't have a spray bottle holder, iron rest or a place to hang your clothes. the quality is not that good. wtfwtfwtf. i could go on.

hi-fi boards. these are nice, but let me emphasize here that they are not *fabulous* & they should be because the pricing for these boards begins at around $100. --> for an ironing board.

lastly, there's industrial boards but i don't care about them.

i had a coupon for 20% off. the grand total (tax incl.) for a basic, standard-size ironing board plus additional foam pad and cover= $52.06.

for an ironing board.

i fondly remember my mom's ironing board which was built like a tank. i bruised my shins on that thing more times than i can count, but it was a trooper.

i could weep for my mom's old ironing board, but i won't.

it could sneak up on me, though.

& she's in.

using a combo of both tutorials, i managed to work out how to get the zipper in. first i had to adjust the length of the zipper by whipstitching a new zipper stop & cutting off the excess.



then i pinned the left side of the zipper to the left opening



4 rounds of basting, seam ripping x 3 & some major finagling of the fabric to get it on the right side of the (stupid) zipper foot & the invisible zipper is in.



i've already whined about how hard it is to press the tricky places without an ironing board, but if you look closely at these photos you can see what i'm talking about. i just couldn't get near enough to all those seams to press them well.

none of my neighbors have an ironing board, so i guess i'll just take it to dry cleaners & let them give it a good press.

what's left is all the finishing work & there's a lot of it. i think it's all handsewing from here on out.

violet behave.

this might be a good weekend to see how violet behaves.

avoiding the dreaded zipper?

perhaps.

the invisible zipper.

i'd planned on putting in the dreaded zipper this coming weekend, but it's an invisible zipper & it appears that you need an invisible zipper foot to sew an invisible zipper & i don't have one of those SIGH.

it's an invisible zipper because the lady at britex insisted on it & i'm not even kidding about that. she peered into my notions basket, looked at my pattern & my zipper &, without a word, pulled my zipper out of the basket & walked away with it (wth?)

so i followed her over to the zipper rack, where she put my regular zipper back & replaced it with an invisible zipper.

i protested something about aren't invisible zippers harder question mark, but she said no & then whipped some fabric out & showed me how to deal with the invisible zipper situation.

but all that was months ago & i don't remember any of it & now i'm at this point of having read that i need an invisible zipper foot that i don't have.

so i googled & it looks like this by Never Yawn



& this by The Sewing Divas



are tutorials for sewing an invisible zipper with a regular zipper foot.

i will report back.

recipe = fail.

honestly, i waste so much time. i had it in my head that i was bringing molasses spice cookies to LA, but i decided to switch it up.

these are chai cookies with cranberry apple & pumpkin butters. you can't taste the chai & they they are not delicious otherwise, so i'll be bringing molasses spice cookies. there's 2 hours of my life that i'll never get back.

several times this weekend, i was reminded of why i hate sewing -- the more i sew, the dumber i get.

i got the skirt lining in. it only took me the whole entire weekend, by hey. then i started on the dreaded zipper. i swear to you that before i started on the zipper i read everything i could get my hands on in terms of linings & zippers & you're supposed to sandwich the zipper in between the lining & the skirt.

there is no way in hell i can get at the zipper opening to baste it shut because the lining is in the way, so i had to rip part of the lining out & by that point i was so disgusted that i put the project away.

you know how they say a little knowledge is a dangerous thing?

like that.

in between, the beanie is coming right along.

beanie time.

i'm in detox mode from sewing, knitting & baking. i've lost interest in vogue 8425 (again), although i will probably try to get the lining in over the weekend. i also have to do a cookie test, because i'm bringing cookies down to socal for thanksgiving.

what i need right now is some speedy gratification. i love the burberry prorsum beanies (& when i pulled this photo i was reminded of how much i loved the whole collection)--

Burberry Prorsum
Fall 08
source: style.com

--so last night, i grabbed a partly-used skein of dark brown wool from my stash & cast on. i'm using a basic beanie pattern, elongating it like the burberry beanies & with a wide rib on bottom edge & just 1 cable up the middle.

painter's taping the lining pieces.

my idea about the lining sort of worked, but not totally. instead of cutting 4 separate pieces, i taped the front + side front pieces together, then the back + side back pieces.

that gave me more room to work with, but it still wasn't enough. so i chopped 2.5" from the hems.

it will be fine.

hopefully.

skirt lining.

when i bought the lining fabric for vogue 8425 i didn't know what i was doing. not that i know what i'm doing overall, but i'm just saying.

i have enough fabric to make a generic lining, but not enough for a custom lining ie laying the vogue 8425 pattern pieces out on the lining fabric along the grainline. 3 of the pattern pieces fit like they're supposed to, but the remaining 2 pieces will only fit if i open the fabric up & cut them against the grainline.

cutting against the grainline is a no-no, but i thought- how bad could it be? it's just the 2 pieces & besides, the lining is on the inside. it's not like anyone will ever see it.

but deep down i know this is not the time jerry-rig.

i was up at the crack this a.m., rushing around my neighborhood (which was festive with prop petitioners & people heading to the polling place) & i had an idea about how to get my custom lining cut out with all of the pieces going with the grainline. it involves jerry-rigging, but only by using painters tape to connect the pattern pieces.

i'm not sure if this is going to work, but i'm hopeful.

i don't know where hopeful came from, but it's a nice change of pace.

is hopeful spelled right?

hopeful.
hopefull.

state of suspension until the election is over with.

doing lots of reading & continuing to work on vogue 8425.

i redid the darts on the skirt because i thought they should be a little shorter. & since i took in the skirt by way of 2 darts, i also had to take in the waistband so that when i sewed it to the skirt everything would match up. this was trial & error again (i've spent so much time with my seam ripper on this project that it's completely dull) with the best result being 2 straight seams added to the left & right side-back pieces of the waistband.

lastly, i sewed the waistband to the skirt & since i had to match 8 seams (EIGHT!) i basted first. all of the seams matched pretty well on the basting attempt, so i made the stitching permanent.

the photo above shows the back & side-back seams. the most center seam on the waistband is the straight-seam alteration i was talking about & the seam below it is actually one of the darts on the skirt.

i've managed to do without an ironing board for many years, but they're pretty necessary for sewing projects-- there's only so far you can go on a flat table. i covered a shoe box with a towel to see if i could get at the darts & other tricky places that way, but it was only marginally helpful. i really need to give the skirt a good pressing before i put the lining in, so i'll probably ask the neighbors if they have one (although something tells me they don't.)

times like this i wished i lived in a house in suburbia, with a big dining room table for sewing & a *laundry room* with plenty of space to set up and store an ironing board.

dennis the menace has a laundry room, but it's 600 miles away.

SIGH.

vogue 8425 (cont.)

i pulled out vogue 8425 this weekend & got to work.

i sewed the piping into the front of the skirt, sewed the front of the skirt together & then i tackled the back which is in 4 pieces -- 2 side back pieces + 2 back pieces. basted those together & then basted the back of the skirt to the front & tried it on.

i don't know why i thought i wasn't going to have to make any alterations beyond the hem length. the shape of the skirt was all wrong for my body shape, so i spent hours trying to figure out what to do about that. in the end, it was pretty simple: i added some darts to the side back pieces & finally, i had a decent fit.



i didn't get a chance to make all the basting permanent because i ran out of time. but i accomplished a lot this weekend in terms of getting the right fit & that makes me really happy. i need another free weekend to stitch it together & to get to work on creating a lining from scratch.

after that-- the dreaded zipper.

waistband


skirt

8425 waistband completed.

it took me 3 tries with the seam ripper, but i got the piping into the waistband without the basting stitches showing & without wrinkles.



all 14 pieces of the waistband present & accounted for.

go me.

8,425 pieces.

it's been many, many years since i've sewed anything from a pattern & much of my experience has gone out the window. it took more hours than i'm comfortable admitting to get all the vogue #8425 pattern pieces placed correctly on the fabric.

my first mistake was pinning all the pattern pieces onto the fabric according to the master layout in the instructions without any regard to what was actually written on the individual pattern pieces. things like - place pattern upside down or place on fold. & i forgot all about the grainline arrows which means you place the pattern pieces so that the grainline arrows are parallel to the selvage. i'm sure this is so the finished garment "drapes well" or "hangs right" but it really sucked having to unpin/rotate/repin all those pattern pieces plus i was mad at myself for not remembering any of that.

but whatever. the whole thing turned out to be a huge stroke of luck because it forced me to carefully read all the notations on every pattern piece which is how i discovered that there there is a pretty serious error in the master layout instructions with regard to pattern piece #2. oy.

i eventually got everything straightened out & cut & i even started pinning some of the fabric together to make the waistband. but then i had to take a break because i don't entirely understand the instructions here. it seems i have more pieces of waistband than i need.



or maybe i'm just tired.

the other thing i did this weekend is make my own piping. because i am adding piping to vogue #8425. yes i am.

p.s. #2 re vogue #8425

maybe i'm just making the one on the right because if i shorten the one on the left won't the waistband be too big/much/whatever for a shorter skirt & throw the whole thing off balance?

p.s.

i'll be making the one on the left shortened to approximately the length of the one on the right. (snort)

i hate to sew. i have issues with new projects. i just bought vogue pattern #8425.