Vogue 2657

A friend of mine, who knows I sew, recently unearthed a big box of vintage patterns and asked if I would be interested in them, as she no longer sews. Um, yes! She and her mother had fabulous taste, and were even mostly my size! There was an impressive collection of Designer Vogue patterns, all in very good condition, although many of them had been cut. She must have had a fabulous wardrobe! Anyway, I decided to use Vogue 2657 as the vest for the Wardrobe Basics SAL.

The pattern is a Valentino design, and includes full, high waisted pants a la Katherine Hepburn, a tie waist collarless jacket and this cute waist length vest with princess seaming and a deep U shaped neckline. It is self-lined and topstitched.

I used the leftover ponte knit from my pants. There was only about 3/4 yard left, so there wasn't enough for a lining as well. I decided that I was OK with that, and just turned under the neckline and armholes and used my coverstitch machine to hem everything. For the button placket, I extended the front to form a foldover facing, which I interfaced to support the buttonholes.

I decided to use white to topstitch for contrast. I think it adds a little drama to an otherwise very simple garment.

The back has a center back seam, which adds some shape at the back waist and prevents any neckline gaposis. The ponte is very forgiving fit-wise, although I did add to the princess seam and side seam for a little FBA. I only added about 1 1/2 inches all around, since I wanted a close fit.

I wore my vest with my Vogue 8747 white shirt and my McCalls 5592 white jeans. For some color, I am wearing red patent pumps (my current favorite shoes). I also think this vest will be great with some brightly colored pants, or with jeans and a colored blouse. 

Ottobre 06/2009-7 & 03/2010-23

After the sewing of the Rapunzel dress, I was really looking forward to putting together this little man shirt made from easy to tame cotton.

This is Logan's Woody costume. He'll wear this with RTW jeans and a purchased cowboy hat. The  vest is from the 06/2009 issue of Ottobre. It's actually a baby pattern and not graded up to Logan's size, but I just added a couple of inches to the length and an inch to the width at center back, and it is perfect. I actually traced, altered, cut and sewed the entire vest at Sewing Summit in the BabyLock sewing room. It was so fun!

The outer fabric is quilting cotton and I lined the vest with flannel for warmth, and bound the front edges with bias strips. In the cartoon, it looks like Woody's vest has a rope-like trim, but I thought this striped fabric on the bias would approximate that look well and give me a nice clean and easy finish.
The shirt is from the 03/2010 issue of Ottobre. I've made it before here.This time I chose a flannel back homespun purchased at Cottonwood Fabrics in Sandy. (Thanks to Sewing Geek for recommending them!) The reason I chose this particular shirt pattern was two fold. I really like the slim fit that it has, particularly for wear under a vest. I also appreciate that it is a seriously simplified version of a man shirt.

The collar does not have a separate stand, rather is shaped to approximate one, and the button bands are cut on and folded over.  Even though this is a costume, I used Pam's shirt crisp interfacing for the collar and cuffs. It is so wonderful to work with, and particularly with this one piece collar, I needed the flexible stability it gives.

The cuffs are one piece fold-over, and the placket is a continuous lap. I did cut the lap binding on the bias, which the pattern didn't call for. I always like a little give in my continuous lap binding. I think it make for easier sewing.
So, true confessions time. When I cut out this shirt, I THOUGHT I had carefully aligned the dominant stripe in the plaid so that I could match it.

But I didn't. And it threw the whole shirt off grain. See how it looks like the back is sloping upwards? Yeah, off grain. So, one side seam is perfectly matched and the other is totally off. I'm so glad this is a subtle plaid, or I would be remaking this shirt. As it is, I'm just going to be unhappy with it. And naturally, he'll decide this is his favorite shirt and wear it every day. Sigh. Just a costume, right? At least the vest covers the back.