Volume 15: So Much Sewing! — Pin Cut Sew Studio

I somehow managed to do quite a bit of sewing these past two weeks, even though I’m working on a wedding dress. I have so much to share with you today!

Alterations with my Girls

Both my daughters had a pile of clothes that needed small alterations or mended, so we filmed a special guest edition of my “What Would Make Me Wear This” series on YouTube. It is a fun video, with hopefully some practical instruction, but with a healthy dose of hilarity. Watch it here.

Coming Soon

I have another fun video coming next week, along with something new in my shop that I am very excited about! Here’s a sneak peek:

Remember those collages I made awhile back out of vintage pattern art? I turned them into sets of greeting cards! I only ordered a limited number, but I already know I’ll need to order more pretty quickly. I’ll send you an email when I list them, so if you want one of the first batch, you can hurry over. That will be next Monday.

Wedding Dress Progress

The dress muslin is done, the pattern pieces are perfected and the design/construction details are all worked out! I’m so proud of how it’s gone so far and how I’ve been able to work through the technical skills to get the result she wanted.

I bought some very cheap satin and lining for my final muslin, just to mimic the actual fabrics we’ll be using. And I used some sheets for the skirt, so it’s a pretty wild looking mock up, haha.

We decided on a lace up for the bodice only (obviously, the loops and laces will be made from satin, and be thicker), and a zipper for the skirt. It will also have a big bow in the back. The corset style bodice has boning, which I did include in the muslin.

I think the main lesson I’ve learned with this is that it was important to mock it up in it’s entirety, with all the details, including boning and loops. On a normal garment, I don’t do this, but for something like this, I’m so glad I did because there are things I need to remember on the real thing. For example, the boning was too long and gets caught in the seam, making the lining not flip under — that sort of thing.

The fabric from Mood arrived over the weekend, so today’s order of business is to give my sewing room a thorough dust and vacuum and then I will get started!

Mother of the Bride

I don’t know if you’ve shopped for the term “mother of the bride dress” recently, but I think the retailers are living on a different planet than me lol. They’re all either very frumpy, full coverage “Queen mum” dresses, or they’re formal bridesmaids-like dresses with cleavage. And so many sequins! Neither is what I’m looking for, so I’m going to make my dress. Here’s where I’m headed:

I’ve been the happy recipient of some vintage patterns recently and in one box was this 1970s Oscar De La Renta design for Vogue. I posted this on Instagram the other day and a bunch of people said this was either their prom or wedding dress in the early 80s!! So fun. Imagine my surprise when I pulled out the pieces and that Vogue Special Design label fell out!

Anyway, I’ve made a muslin and gotten the bodice fitting properly. If I include the ruffle, I’ll make it about half the width, but I might leave it off. I will also make it tea length and exclude the bottom ruffle and I will leave off the bow in the back. I ordered the above swatches from Mood and I’m pretty torn! The florals are all Liberty lawns and the other one is a cotton lace backed with a navy challis. If you have thoughts, please share them!

Summer Sewing

Since I was done with the muslin and was waiting on the dress fabric, I had some time to whip up a summer top for myself. This is also from a vintage 80’s pattern and is just a basic woven tank. This fabric is from Califabrics and I have plenty left to make a skirt for summer too.

Tops are what’s missing in my Summer wardrobe, so I have a few more fabrics and patterns at the ready for when I have an afternoon to sew a few up. I think sometimes we think every garment sewing project needs to be something special, especially when we have really cool fabric to use. But, I’ve already worn this very basic tank twice this week, so I think that’s a lesson for me that simple clothes are the ones I wear the most. And the fabric packs a punch, so a simple design works.

Quilt Progress

I even had time to work on Layla’s quilt over the weekend. I added some flying geese around the sun burst blocks. You’ll see the full effect eventually, but the flying geese look pretty satisfying on their own. I used a paper piecing template I found for a couple bucks on Etsy and printed multiples of them.