Wednesday, November 28, 2007

Mixing It Up!

Over the last couple of years, I have shifted from sewing styles devoutly from vintage patterns to sewing them with contemporary twists, but I continue to appreciate and respect original vintage pattern styles in their purest form.

In experimenting with contemporary from vintage patterns, I have also begun to coordinate hand knit and crocheted projects with garments I have been sewing all this year.

In this project, I mixed feminine and masculine attributes. Since I re-entered the Knowlton School of Architecture at Ohio State this fall, I have taken it all a step further by adding a dash of architectural perspective to my garment work. The result is a fresh culmination particularly in this corset ensemble!



As for the details:

The shirt (yes shirt, not blouse!) is from current Vogue pattern 8287. I tailored it in Swiss pima cotton satin batiste and stitched it using machine-felled seams for masculine-style detailing. I have it heavily starched at the cleaners which assists in maintaining the masculine integrity as well as stabilizing the un-linked French cuffs.

For the shirt, I used the inside method of inside flat-felled seam construction per Vogue 1975:


The Skirt I modified from a circa 1945 Vogue pattern in silk and rayon Chinese brocade.

The Corset is based on a design in Vogue Knitting Holiday 2004. I substituted the original pattern's yarn recommendation (Karat, by Skacel) with Alchemy Yarns of Transformation bamboo in pewter and rather than the plastic feather boning Vogue advises, I used my 1/4" spiral steel boning. The bamboo yarn is crocheted around each bone and the infill is patterned in Tunisian Simple Stitch.
Of course, the satin ribbon lacing is 100% silk!

Machine Felled details:


Brocade detail:


This ensemble is on Patternreview.com here: