Marfy Scuba Dress

I've been doing more sewing than blogging lately, which is probably a very good thing.  I fell in love with Marfy 3507, and decided I had to make it in a neoprene/scuba fabric.  I wanted a print rather than just a plain color and I found an unusual gray floral print at Elliott Berman Textiles.   



I'm not usually a floral person unless it's large and somewhat abstract, and this was small/medium and very traditional.  The style is traditional as well, a coat dress, but the zippers definitely update it.  I did a lot of alteration, and ended up making a trial garment which I didn't hem but is otherwise finished, out of a heavy dark green knit.  I adjusted the front waist size smaller and went on to begin anew with the neoprene.

I was pleasantly surprised to find that the fabric was a dream to sew.  It's got body galore, and pretty much did whatever I wanted it to.  No ravelling, no 'squirming' around, it just stayed put.  It did require understitching on the collar and front edges. I used Pam's Pro-Tricot Fusible Interfacing on the collar and the lapel point areas, and that was all the interfacing it needed.  

 

 You can probably see that I used some interesting zippers for this dress.  These are Coats & Clark's Cutwork Zippers and they were very easy to apply.  The only problem I had was that they only came in 2 sizes, 7" and 22".

I ended up using the 7" zippers instead of flaps for the faux pockets.  They worked perfectly. 
However, the 22" zipper was too short to be both as high as I needed it at the neckline and as low as it needed to go on the skirt hem to make the dress really wearable.   So, I took another zipper and installed it from the bottom up, stitching the lower one over the upper when I got to the join.  It's not really noticeable when worn, especially with the somewhat busy fabric.  I like to have it unzipped from the bottom for a few inches for walking ease. 

The dress fits like a glove and is very comfortable, if also really, really warm to wear.  It will be a great winter dress, although as soon as we were done with the photos, I knew I wouldn't be wearing these shoes with it.

  The color is not good on the side view, but I thought the shaping was important to see.  I think this is a great basic pattern and it would be very easy to add a buttonhole extension to it, although the zippers are fun.  Once the alteration work has been done, I like to reuse a pattern if I can.

Rice! I Need More Rice!

Yeah, well, now that I have a nice phone app to do blog posts, I tried dropping my phone into the fish pond.  It doesn't help.  So, it is now taken apart and sitting in a bowl of rice after I dried it out as much as I could, first with a linen tea towel (the best, as we fabric lovers know) and then with a hair dryer on no-heat.  Sigh.

I'm hoping for the best, and after some research and questioning my brother (the IT guy) about it, next time I do this (never I hope!) I will try this method, using alcohol to first displace the water in the phone, and then drying it out in rice.  Can't hurt, and apparently has been the go-to method for underwater cameras for years.  Who knew?

A small bit of sewing content:  I thought I finished the patternwork on the Marfy 3507 dress last night, but of course this morning I realized I had forgotten a couple things I wanted to check.  It's always a good idea to sleep on it when it's a big project.  My brain sometimes seems to work better when I'm asleep than awake.  Sad, isn't it?  Anyway, I'm almost ready to do a muslin.  I think I have a suitable not-too-stretchy knit to use that will somewhat mimic the neoprene, which I don't have yet, so basically I'm guessing.  Oh well, onward and upward.

I will say I  hope you have a blessed holiday weekend, whatever holiday you're celebrating.  They're all very inter-related, which I find very nice.  I will be singing tonight at Good Friday services, and again Sunday for Easter, then having my family over for Easter Dinner.  Should be fun, especially if it stays warm.

My daffodils have recovered pretty well after being snowed on immediately after they bloomed, and the first tulip is out today!

Pattern Work

I'm beginning to alter the pattern for a Marfy dress I'm going to make. It's from the new 2014/15 catalog, #3507, and as soon as I saw it in the catalog,I knew I had to have it. I've been thinking if a neoprene dress since a trip to Chicago with Mardel. We saw some wonderful examples at Barney's, and when Elliott Berman had some, AND it's their 50% off birthday sale, I simply had to get the fabric. Here's the pattern as it comes,
partly unfolded,
and laid out to check.
Pattern alterations are never any fun. We would all like to just have the pattern come out of the package perfectly sized for us, ready to cut. Well, at least in my case, that's never going to happen. I will shorten above the bust, enlarge the bust, do a swayback alteration which will add a CB seam, and probably enlarge the sleeves slightly, as they are exactly my size now, with no ease. It would be okay for this fabric as is, but I think a little ease it's a good thing generally. Wish me luck! I'm trying an app that lets me blog from my phone, so I'm hoping it will mean more posts from me.

Thanks to becki-c, I now have the correct pattern illustration, too!