Sewing Studying

Now that I have my new friend, I needed to do some hard core studying.  Somehow I stumbled upon Gertie's blog: Blog For Better Sewing.  I proceeded to read it, in it's entirety, from Gertie's very first blog post until the current post.  I was hooked.  Gertie's blog started by working her way through the original 1952 book Vogue's New Book for Better Sewing.  The book taught her all sorts of vintage styles of sewing, and her blog includes a lot of information and background on sewing/clothing from the 50s and 60s.  True to my old soul, I immediately fell in love with everything to do with her blog.  I learned a ton from reading it "back to front", things I can pride myself in that I do in a vintage technique.  I also learned plenty of sewing lingo and know that there is a great resource ready and waiting for when my skills are in line with some of Gertie's tutorials.

When I decided to learn how to sew, I knew if I went about making pillowcases that I would get bored and give up.  So I hit the ground running with a plan to make a dress.  A GORGEOUS dress.  I decided maybe to get myself familiar with my precious new machine I would first make a petticoat for my dress.  Gertie has a tutorial for a modern crinoline, which is an every day wearable petticoat just fluffy enough to give a dress a nice shape, but not so fluffy that it's costume-y.  I have to say, this was kind of cool being my first project just because it's essentially a self drafted pattern.  Working with organza wasn't, by any means, easy though.  My petticoat has since mostly fallen apart due to some "gentle" pug assistance, particularly with claws against the lace on my hem.  I'll fix it at some point.  Anyway, I made the slip piece with pink rayon, which I later also used to line the bodice of the corresponding dress.  The layers are hot pink organza trimmed with hot pink lace.  It actually wasn't my first completed project.  When I added the second layer and put it on, it was more tea length on me than knee length.  So I set it aside for a while.  Like, until my dress was done, basically.  Here is an odd picture of the slip in process:

looks kinda like lady bits

I do love the feel of rayon, and making the fluffy parts out of organza definitely help make it comfortable to wear all day and sit on.  The blogosphere has told me that tulle is itchy.  Well, no one wants that now do they?  The slip definitely makes me feel superfeminine and swingy when I wear it.  So much fun.  I think there will be more of these in my future, and probably even fluffier versions.  Here is the slip finished, before I brought up the length:

ignore the fabric on the left. that was my next project.

So there you have it.  My first project, but not my first finished project.