Information Gathering

For my birthday, Nicole gave me the most fantastic sewing book: Drape Drape by Hisako Sato. The design is phenomenal – all flowy-plus with many opportunities for sewing with jersey, my personal fabric fave.

The arguable downside is that the book is in Japanese. After the debacle of the last 2 weekends, wherein I spent more than 2 dozen hours sewing 2 bras, neither of which fit (again), you’d think I might want to take a break. Or at least sew a pattern whose directions I can get with somewhat other than pictorially.

With his poetic sense of metaphor, Scott suggested I aim to avoid potentially smashing with a hammer, the finger I have already gashed with a knife. (What a silver tongue.)

Just call me a masochist.

A host of posts on this book and the beauty of the one-piece Gather Dress No. 3 are compelling me to give it a go. Of course, it may be easier to learn Japanese that to make this dress – I’m not fooled by its one-pieced-ness. It’s gathered in 47 places (give or take).

On the plus side, it took no time at all to read the directions!

Drape Drape is one of those Euro-style pattern books that prints six different patterns, in six different colours, all one on top of the other on the same oversized page. Having finally seen one of these up close, I shrieked with laughter. Like inappropriately. On observing me (and the page), the unflappable poet said: That is utterly ridiculous. What are you making? A jet?

The beauty of needing nothing, while simultaneously knowing nothing, is that the state yields its own kind of liberty. Tonight, I’m going to try to trace this baby out. If that works, I’m going to try to find a fabric in my smallish stash that will drape well. If that works maybe I’ll aim to figure out what the pictures are trying to tell me.

You'll be pleased to know that Scott advised me to make a muslin. That conversation quickly degenerated into a pedantic, 15-minute discussion wherein he accused me of being pedantic for suggesting you can’t make a muslin out of a knit fabric. (By nature muslin is woven.) His final edict: Make the freakin' dress with cheap stretchy fabric so if you wreck it, it won’t be the end of the world.

What does he know?

To my sewing friends, I would so appreciate any answers, you might have, to the following questions:

• The Drape Drape dresses appear to be made in jersey – except the one I’m going to make (No. 3) which apparently has a zipper. I did find evidence that someone else has made it in jersey without the zipper, but that might not make my job any eaiser. Can anyone clarify the best fabrics to work with?

• The sizing is S, M, ML and L. I don’t have the slightest idea which one will fit me best, if at all. There aren’t any measurements. Are these dresses cut for boyish, tiny-breasted figures (like the photo models)? Can anyone tell me what measurements these sizes correspond to?

• Are gathers generally difficult for enthusiastic, beginning sewists? I mean those who are already nuts enough to make bras but who don't have a world of experience with draping and gathering.

• Do the photos provide adequate instruction on their own?

Crazy Update: I figured out where the sizing is, amazingly enough! Pg 33 (adjacent to, unsurprisingly, How to Make - a title graciously written in English!). You will not believe how insane resourceful I am - I went into Google Translate and discovered that the English - Japanese translation feature provides translation into characters! I have verified the cm measurements for S, M, ML and L. How great am I!? So fun.

Next Update: I'm most definitely a Large.

Next Update / Also a Question: Does anyone know if there are seam allowances built into the patterns. I doubt it entirely, but as I don't read Japanese... Any feedback would be great.

Dress-Off (Somehow this doesn't quite make the point...)

I know, I know, at this point I've given the cute little vintage dress far too much attention. In the words of my husband and photographer: I am so sick of this thing. Really.

I suppose, since it's out of my comfort zone, it's more intriguing to me than a stock basic. And, bien sur, it's given me so much enjoyment on the styling front, motivating the purchase of shoes and new ways of looking at the contradictions (hard/soft, prim/strong, old/new) in fashion.

So here are two looks for your review:

Dress: Sasson, vintage, Shoes: 9West
Dress Sasson, vintage, Shoes: Next, from Winners
Neither is a terribly flattering photo, but I personally feel that the gladiator is a) too flat and b) not quite as cherry red as it needs to be to suit the very bright red dress accent. So I'm voting for the prim shoe.

Now, the question remains, do I return the Gladiator? It's insanely comfortable, and it looks much more expensive than it was ($115.00). My friend Jennifer, who was with me when I bought them (and who's as iffy on the whole gladiator look as I am), decided that she too thinks they're a chic and wearable look.

Maybe I should ask: If you were going to return one pair of the 5 new shoes I've purchased this spring, which would it be and why?

Now, I promise, onto other looks...

More Instant Outfit

Here's a dress I picked up for $40.00 during the Christmas sales in Quebec City a couple of months ago. I love the colours and the pattern! I'm not generally a pattern wearer, so this dress makes me feel very a la mode. The fabric is a wool jersey and is thin enough (and appropriately shaped) that it looks great worn with skinny jeans too. I couldn't get a decent shot of the back, but the pattern is completely different on the flipside, with white, zigzaggy accents.

I wear it with dark chocolate tights and those pretty yet practical grey wedges I picked up last summer in Montreal at Lola & Emily:

Instant Outfit aka The Dress

In my post about basics last week, I neglected to mention the relative importance of dresses. It seems, when the winter weather is hideous, it's challenging to remember what one wears ad nauseum during the other 3 seasons.

I'm sure I don't have to up-sell you on why the dress is a perfect wardrobe staple: the clean lines, numerous elegant (or edgy or toned down) silhouettes to choose from, one-stop shopping with last-frontier appeal in that it can't easily be "androgynized". How retro-throwback was that last comment!? No doubt, in 5 minutes, guys are going to start wearing microfibre gowns and this post will serve as a quaint reminder of outmoded fashion conventions :-) (I'm taking bets the look comes from Gaultier...)

So here are a couple of pics of that new vintage Sasson dress I picked up at I Miss You. You may recall it's not my usual colour palette or shape, but I'm broadening my horizons. A propos of that, I don't really have any shoes that fit the bill. The ones I'm wearing here are simply a (duller than dishwater) placeholder. If anyone has any good ideas - I'd love to edgy it up or prim it down, if you know what I mean - please let me know.

PS More outfit posts on dresses to follow. And I've had a fascinating few days on the shopping front (I'm on vacation this week) with some purchase fever stories and pics on the way. Living vicariously through someone else's excessive spending has never been easier!