Hey there! If you’re reading to check up on my progress with my featured project, then good news! That’s what I’m writing about today!
Before I talk about my plans for tackling this dress, I have to admit that I don’t know much about sewing garments. For my senior project in high school I made a great looking party dress, and while I’ve spent a bit of time sewing since then, I haven’t made a garment from a pattern in over 4 years now, so I’ve got a lot of re-learning to do. Plus, I’ve never used a Vogue pattern before! I’m actually a little ashamed of my lack of sewing expertise at this point. The good news is that I know where to find the right information.
One of the most resourceful sewing blogs I follow is that of the Coletterie. Once upon a time I was in a book store with a gift card staring down The Colette Sewing Handbook, but neglected to buy it because there were other books I needed to buy as gifts. I had truly regretted this decision to put others before myself, that is, until I realized that they have so many great tutorials and information all over www.coletterie.com and have a ridiculously useful email newsletter full of handy sewing tips. I strongly recommend visiting this website if you feel you’ve got some learning to do when it comes to sewing, and especially sewing garments. Here’s a few pages from the site that are really helping me through this tough learning period:
- Grainline: Understanding Terms – This page discusses much of the vocabulary you’ll need to learn to better understand what you’re looking at when you’re staring at your first pattern, with very helpful imagery.
- Fabric Series: Fabric Terms and Building Your Sewing Vocabulary – Two very informative pages. If there’s a sewing term you still don’t understand, you’re probably going to find the definition on one of these pages.
- How to put a garment together – This page from the Coletterie contains images of a wonderful vintage leaflet with some very useful tips for the new seamstress, originally uploaded by a blog featuring scans of brilliant vintage graphic designs, Millie Motts.
In the past, I always rushed into the sewing portion of my projects out of excitement and immediately messed something up for lack of planning. This is why instead of rushing into making this dress from a pattern I’m still deciphering, I’ll first get to work on a muslin. This is going to take me a little while. I won’t have my muslin fabric before next week’s featured project post, so I’m planning something extra special for that day instead! Thanks for reading!
