Vogue 1321 Donna Karan Red Shibori Coat

This post is slightly cheating as the coat was made way back in 2013 from some fabulous fabric hand dyed by a group of local quilters (Cheryl Comfort, Catherine McDonald and Chris Tait). I was motivated to write this blog post because one of the sewers I follow has this pattern on a shortlist for her winter coat and there is only one review for it on Pattern Review.

Even though this coat is now six years old it is still a favourite and attracts lots of comments. On its first outing it went for a show and tell visit to the fabric dyers at Crafty Christchurch where it was photographed by a journalist from our local free lifestyle magazine Metropol and even featured in a tiny picture on the events page. If I was really dedicated to documenting my sewing I would still have a copy of the magazine picture posted in my scrapbook but alas I am not and the magazine has long since left the building.

The finished garment

The photos on the dress form were taken a few years ago (pre-blog) when I had a long session of photographing my me-made clothes as a record of my sewing adventures, as I realised how much I enjoyed flicking through the photo album of my embroidery yet hadn't bothered photographing my sewing.  The photographs of the coat being worn were taken a couple of weeks ago on a very sunny Saturday.

The fabric

The fabrics are a hand-dyed red with a matching indigo shibori overdyed fabric. Two one metre pieces of fabric were purchased at the 2012 Crafty Christchurch event in the Geodome in Hagley Park. When I decided to make this coat the original fabric was posted to one of the quilters to get some more dyed to match as I needed three metres of each fabric. I also bought a metre piece of indigo dyed fabric to make a belt but then used a purchased belt already in my possession.

The overdyed fabric is used for the coat skirt with the plain red being the upper body, sleeves and facings. The fabrics were difficult to photograph to show their true colours. The pictures of the finished garment give a better colour representation.

Only Catherine McDonald (Mallee Textiles) of the original group of quilters still dyes fabric for sale, which is a shame as they created some fabulous fabrics.

The hand-dyed cotton was underlined with an heirloom cotton batting that is almost like flannelette but more loosely woven.  The lining is a navy blue coloured silk twill.

The pattern

Vogue's description is very loose fitting, unlined, double breasted coat has front extending into collar, shoulder pads, dropped shoulders, top stitched darts,side front pockets and seams, stitched hems, three-piece sleeves with button tab, thread loops, raw edge finish and overlapped seams. Purchased belt.

The suggested fabrics are: lightweight melton, boiled wool, wool double knit. Lining to cover the shoulder pads and for the pockets: china silk, crepe de chine.

With my normal disregard for the designer I made my coat in a lovely cotton fabric, sewed the seams as normal right side together and added a lining.

The pattern alterations

As Vogue indicates in the description this pattern is very loose fitting. For me this means entirely too big and the size to make is chosen based on the finished garment measurements printed on the pattern. The size 10 provided the amount of ease I wanted whilst based on the pattern sizing I should have sewn size 16. The finished garment measurements for the size 10 are bust 43½"; waist 38"; and hip 58½". This supposedly fits someone with a bust of 32½"; waist 25" and hip 34½". No wonder a belt is needed.

My pattern back and front on top of the original pattern tissue

The other alterations were to lengthen the bodice 1" above the lengthen and shorten line. Use fisheye darts for the front and back outer garment pieces instead of the open darts ending at the waistline. Double the size of the darts in the front collar from ⅝" to 1¼" to reduce the width slightly.

As I wanted to use two fabrics, one for the upper body and one for the skirt a line was marked on each of the pattern pieces with the seam allowance being added directly on the fabric as it was cut out.

New pattern pieces were made for the front lining from the front pattern piece minus the front facing. The back pattern piece was used as is but placed on the fabric fold with extra fabric at centre back to make a pleat for ease of movement. The side front pattern piece was used for both the outer garment fabric and the lining.

The sewing

The sewing instructions assume you are using a fabric that doesn't fray and that the coat is unlined. As neither of these is true for my coat I followed the sewing instructions but adapted them where necessary. Seams were sewn right sides together rather than overlapped, darts were sewn together not slashed and overlapped.

As the coat was lined I didn't bother binding the edges of the pockets but I did make belt loops of the appropriate size for my RTW belt. The pattern description mentions thread loops which appear to be for the belt but the pattern directions don't mention the making of thread loops. For my wide belt thread loops would have been inadequate, proper fabric belt loops were needed!

The lining fabric was perfect for the covered snaps which were extremely easy to make using the pattern instructions. Ingenious to put both circles of fabric over the ball half of the snap, then snap the ball and socket sections together so the circles of silk are held perfectly in place whilst you draw up the gathers and fasten off - one circle for each half of the snap.  The hole in the silk was made using an awl rather than cutting the silk.

In conclusion

This was a fabulous garment to sew that has stood the test of time and still brings me joy. Now that I have been reminded about this pattern I quite fancy it in a nice wool as per the suggested fabrics but lengthened a few inches to lower calf length.

Vogue 9243 Twirling Rebecca Taylor Dress

I impulsively purchased a linen top in what to me is a pale orange colour (they call it vanilla), that has an extreme high low hem. The high is so high it makes it a cropped top but I envisaged it being worn over the orange dress in my imaginary orange summer wardrobe. I wanted to use Vogue 9243 for my orange dress but then I bought a sleeveless knit dress for a work event (no time to make anything) which left me pondering an alternative fabric - enter this lovely Rebecca Taylor ponte like knit.

The orange wardrobe may become a Stitcher's Guild SWAP 2020, a yearly wardrobe sewing contest to sew eleven garments that all work together. This year the rules are extremely permissive which is what tempts me but I'm not very motivated by deadlines in my sewing life. SWAP sewing happens over a four month period, beginning during my Christmas holiday so eleven garments should be extremely doable. All I need to do is commit!!

The finished garment

This dress is fantabulous for twirling, as well as feeling lovely and swishy when you walk. For the twirling action shots a large area of garden was needed and I wasn't entirely steady on my feet but it was fun.

Excuse the closed eyes the sun was blinding (but the best light for photographs)

The fabric

The Rebecca Taylor cotton poly knit has a lovely brushed back that makes it snuggly to wear but on the downside not suitable for a really hot summer's day. The fabric came from Silhouette Patterns and was bought to be paired with some leather (also from Silhouette Patterns) to make a trench like coat. The leather is more of a black brown colour than I anticipated and the Rebecca Taylor knit was completely the wrong colour so on to plan B...

The pattern

Vogue 9243 is copyrighted 1985 so an oldie but a goodie. A few years before I got back into sewing I had a big clear out of my patterns and most of them went to my local Bernina Sewing Centre. The ones I kept were mostly Vogue Designer patterns as well as a few other Vogue patterns that I felt were classics. This is one of the survivors.

It was a very interesting exercise to look at the pile of patterns and decide which to keep and which to discard especially to find the vast majority of those retained were Vogue. Nowadays I hardly even look at the offerings from the other big four pattern companies.

Discussing the age of the pattern with a colleague and the fact that it had survived a cull she immediately guessed it was a Vogue pattern. What is it about the Vogue patterns that make them keepers?

The dress is described as a semi-fitted and flared pullover dress, below mid-calf or lower calf, has back neck slit with button/loop, low cutaway armholes and side pockets. Narrow hem. Purchased belt.

Suggested fabrics are: Jersey, stable knits, light weight linen, crepe-de-chine and silk likely Jacquard. So for once I followed instructions as the Rebecca Taylor fabric is a very stable knit.

The pattern alterations

I overlaid the V9243 pattern pieces, matching at the waistline, with my TNT knit dress (a Silhouette Patterns combination of #195 Sweater Set and #2010 Yoga Skirt) and used that for the upper part of the dress merging back into V9243 size 10 below the french dart. The shoulder seam width is as per the original V9243, but the neckline was lowered slightly. The pattern was also lengthened 4".

Vogue 9243 compared to the TNT knit dress pattern

Vogue 9243 original pattern compared to the Twirling Rebecca Taylor Dress

This pattern would be fine to use for a woven version but there was too much ease for a knit fabric.

The sewing

Yet another extremely quick sew on the overlocker, apart from the hem and stay stitching around the neckline and armholes. The neckline and armholes were turned under at the stay stitching line and sewn down. As this was a knit the back neck slit with button loop was unnecessary.

I wasn't sure how the pockets would work in this knit so I only added one pocket on the right hand side really just as a place for my handkerchief to go. The pocket has proved quite stable so if the pattern is made again I might go mad and have two pockets.

The orange wardrobe part II

The week's workday wardrobe was planned around black/white and orange. None of these garments featured in my orange summer wardrobe so when I do start sewing that plan I will have no shortage of other clothes to mix in.

Monday to Thursday, left to right: Style Arc Maris Orange silk linen top with WORLD Two Wrongs Trouser Black White Mosaic; Witchery Vivid Coral Detail Swing Knit Dress; Witchery Vivid Coral Rib Elbow Sleeve Knit Top with same WORLD trousers as Monday; V9243 Twirling RT dress with Minx C Reed Clothing Vanilla Short Angel Wings linen top; all week I wore the Ulysses Horizontal Hold trench coat with an orange bucket bag, CODA orange paper brooch and United Nude Solid Fold mono shoes

The Witchery Vivd Coral Detail Swing knit dress was purchased for a work event after I spied it in the Witchery shop at Wellington airport. It looked fabulous paired with my blue jacket, CODA orange paper brooch and Vic Matiē Theo navy shoes. Unfortunately I didn't take a picture of it, the closest I got was an outfit earlier in the same week, with a carefully staged selfie in the bathroom at work!