Vogue V1247

I should be sewing for my Burda Challenge, but instead I decided to be contrary and sew from one of my new Vogue patterns.  This is my first time sewing a Vogue pattern and I found the sizing very strange.  All the reviews for the V1247 top at patternreview say that it runs large, so I cut a 12 (instead of the 16 I should be based on my measurements and I think it’s about right – the 16 would have been unwearable! (I think this top looks much better in real life than in these photos, especially from the side, but I’m trying to keep a record of everything I sew on this blog, so posted the photos anyway.)

I do realise that it doesn’t really go with the trousers I’m wearing, but I needed a casual pair of trousers to try it with because that’s how I’m most likely to wear it.  It could possibly do with being a little smaller, but I can’t be bothered (I’ll probably type that a lot because I am very lazy at heart :)) to grade the pattern. I also should have taken more care to line up the fabric pattern across the pattern pieces but, if I’m honest, it never even occurred to me to do so. Fortunately, I think the fabric pattern is busy enough that I’ve got away with it. I think it might look nice with skinny jeans and these sandals I’ve posted about before.

I was hoping this might become a TNT top pattern because I’d like to have a couple of non-jersey TNT tops in my pattern stash – but that’s not to be.  I will probably make one more because I have a weird shaped remnant from a previous project and the small pattern pieces for this top might just fit on it.

I also made a wearable(?) muslin of the skirt from the same pattern.

I’m not entirely sure how I managed it, but I completely misread the finished garment measurements on the tissue and traced a 12 when I should have made at least a 14, or possibly even a 16. I managed to rescue the skirt by sewing 0.5cm side seams and eliminating the waistband.  Even after doing that, as you can see, I can only just get my hands in the pockets without pulling it far too tight at the hips.  As it is, I don’t really like the fabric for this (it was bought a few years ago for another project that I’m never going to make) because after pre-washing it looks quite cheap. It doesn’t look too bad in the photo, but in real life it definitely does, and it creases as soon as I look at it.  It’s a good enough skirt to go in my wardrobe – but whether or not it actually gets worn is another matter.  I’ll now have to re-trace the pattern in a larger size and give it another go.  I have this fabric that was planned for a pencil skirt, but I’ve realised that pencil skirts don’t really fit my lifestyle so I’ll use it for my second attempt at the Vogue skirt instead.

This was a difficult fabric to photograph. It’s a black herringbone suiting with gold glittery bits.  I really love it and I think it’ll suit the style of the skirt.  I’m quite excited to make it which is a good thing because I’m definitely not excited about tracing the pattern for a second time!

Stash update – 2.5m for the top (it didn’t use 2.5m but didn’t leave enough of a remnant to count) and 1m for the skirt.  That reduces my stash by 3.5m which is a good thing because of these:

I bought these last week.  They were both described as Ponta (Ponte?) Roma Jersey by the fabric store and are a heavy weight jersey without too much stretch.  The grey/black on the left is destined to be a Burda 11-2008-112 dress (as I posted about here when I made the muslin).

The red/black is hopefully going to be a Vogue V8764.

There was only 1.5m left on the bolt when I bought this which is not quite enough for this dress, but I’m hoping that maybe with a bit of judicious cutting I may be able to squeeze the shorter sleeved version out of the fabric. I need to muslin this dress first, because the smallest size on the pattern I bought is a 16 and I really don’t understand Vogue sizing yet.

As I bought 2m of the black/grey and 1.5m of the red/black these increase my stash by 3.5m so I’m still at 245m.