Swishable Vogue 8997

Hello hello! Super happy to be typing up this blog post today. I had a really lovely week with two days at the Sewing For Pleasure show in Birmingham for work and a fab weekend with my two best friends, cake and some much needed shopping. Other exciting news? I photographed three new dresses so have plenty to share over the next few weeks. One of them is a gorgeous little black dress because this month The McCall Pattern Co have launched their new campaign – The Vogue Patterns Cocktail Hour!

You may remember the Vintage Sewalong from last year, which I took part in. Well this year is bigger and better with 26 bloggers making versions of the 20 Vogue patterns from the Cocktail Hour collection.

It’s such a good way to raise money for a fabulous charity. The Eve Appeal is the only UK national charity raising awareness and funding research in the five gynaecological cancers! And a donation from every pattern sold goes to help them continue their great work.

There’s a wonderful introductory post on the Sewdirect blog to help you pick your pattern and we’ve created a special bonus magazine to go with issue 38 of Love Sewing to share our tips and tricks for creating a polished evening look.

As is becoming a bit of a tradition for me, I wanted to make a dress for my Welcome in the supplement so I chose Vogue 8997! See Lizzy’s beautiful version here and for some instagram fun follow @glamagrrl

This fully lined princess seamed dress is a little bit vintage, has some clever design lines with its 8 panels and shaped waist seam and is a great pattern for achieving a beautiful fit. There are separate cup sizes and different length and sleeve options. I made view B in size 10 around the upper body with A-cup bust and graded to a size 12 at the waist.I resisted the urge to shorten the style and it turned out about right for me.

SWISH PIC!

To check everything over I essentially made a toile out of lining basted together with an easy to unpick stitch length (snap included). This meant if I’d nailed the sizing, I was well on my way to having a constructed garment but could still make necessary changes. My key change was moving the bust princess seam over by 1.5cm towards the centre at the bust point as I’m very small chested.

My fabric is a great quality crepe de chine from John Kaldor called “Olivia” that I picked up at Barry’s in Birmingham last year. The floral print is quite large (see the scale below) but I loved the shades of mink and fuchsia in there. The lining is a nude pink polyester that I keep a roll of at home. It’s perfect for blending in with almost any fabric so I recommend buying in bulk to keep in your stash.

The crepe didn’t fray too badly but the lining did so I still overlocked the exposed internal seams. I also used my overlocker to add a baby rolled hem on the crepe which was a fun new trick to try. It’s very subtle on a print like this. Here’s the video tutorial I used for my Singer machine.

Other little details were to add an invisible zip so obviously altered the steps a little to include this style closure. But the rest was super straightforward!

Join the 2017 sewalong by making a version yourself and sharing your make online using the hashtag #sipandsew (remembering to copy in @McCallpatternUK on Twitter or @McCallpatternUK on Instagram). You can also attend different activities throughout the year including in-store events, workshops and special cocktail parties.

BONUS GOOFY PIC!!

So will you be taking part in the Cocktail Hour sewalong? Follow the amazing blogger tour for more inspiration, starting with Winnie of Scruffy Badger Time!