Tobin James Dress

It's raining and drizzly outside, and I have another hour until I need to leave for Sunday School.  I realized I have not written on my blog since before my trip, so it's about time!  I will be catching up with Uganda pictures, but that will be another day.  Today I bring you my Tobin James Dress!

This is the Etra Pattern from Tina Givens.  I don't usually make something in exactly the same colors as the envelope, but this time I was falling in love with that mustard linen.  When I saw the similar color at Joanns several months ago, I had to get it.  I decided to use an eggplant color (actually more of a dark red violet) for the trim.  So in that respect, I guess I did not use EXACTLY the same colors.

TG patterns usually leave a lot to be desired in the drafting department, but this one had no problems.  Well, I say no problems if you don't count the bottom trim.  Since the sides of the dress end at an angle, it's better if you cut the joining part of your strips at an angle as well.  Of course, if you don't, it gives you a different look, which might be your preference.

The one thing I always change in TG patterns is the pocket. I don't like her pocket shape since the top of the pocket seems to flap over.  If you are stitching the pocket to the front fabric as a design feature, then this shape of pocket will work, otherwise, I trim off the top "hump" of the pocket.

When I first saw the picture for this dress, I thought the black part was an underskirt or separate layer.  It is just trim sewn on, so the picture is a bit deceiving.  Also, the picture looks like it has an asymmetrical hem, but in reality, the hem is straight.  There are strings on the inside so that you can draw up one or both sides to get a different look.  Maybe that is what they have done here.

I'm calling this my Tobin James dress because I got this little sun emblem last year when we visited Tobin James Winery.  It is their logo.  When I decided to make this dress, I knew I had to incorporate it somehow.  I love how this design feature turned out.









I really like how comfortable this dress is and the sleeves really do fit well.  I often have trouble with sleeves being either too tight. or too loose at the lower arm.  These fit the way I like.  The neckline was too low and I raised it about an inch or maybe more.  I will raise it even more next time.  This fabric is medium to heavier weight linen, so I think I will use a lighter weight linen next time.  It is a lot of fabric.



On this pattern I cut a small at the shoulders and drew the underarm seam out to a medium.  I made no other fit adjustments.   I did try to add a dart, but I did not leave enough room for the dart leg, so I ended up easing in an extra inch of length in the front.  I'm not sure if it is needed, but next time I will try for the dart.











In addition to raising the neckline, I thought the neckline was too plain, and the gold, even though it is in my color pallet,  looked too blah against my skin. As an afterthought, I added a bias binding inside the neckline.  The inside edge is stitched, but raw.

I used the same finish on the hem strip.

Here is the dress with the ties done up on the sides.




I'm wearing this dress to church today, but when one of our friends came to pick up DH this morning, he commented "nice nightgown."  Hmmm...

Sugar Slip

This week I've been working on the Tina Givens Sugar Slip.  It should not take a week to do this, but it did.  First of all,  I did not have enough Fabric.  The pattern called for 1-1/8 yard, so I got 1.25 to be sure.  Well, I think I needed 3 yards!  Most of Tina Givens skirt patterns are cut with a bell shape, which uses most of the width of the fabric.  So, even though my fabric was 50-54" wide, I'm sure that even 60" wide still would have taken more - and I made the small size!

















I made mine out of a pretty dotted swiss that I got at Vogue Fabrics on my recent trip to Chicago - so obviously, I was not going back to get more fabric.  I did have some white batiste (also from Vogue Fabrics but online several years ago) that I used to cut out the top half of the back, the back facing (which for some reason she calls "interfacing" and the back of the pockets.  You can see here that I stitched and serged the two sections together.  Unfortunately, the batiste is not as white as the dotted swiss, but I am planning on wearing this under other garments, so it should be OK.  (you ca't really see the difference in color in the picture.




















And, as you can see in this photo, it is a bit see-through - so it DEFINITELY will be worn under other things!

When I was serving the side seam, I accidentally nicked my fabric.  Arghh.  I put a little fray check on it, but it still looked bad.  Ended up making a tab and sewing it over the cut.  I made it big enough to look purposeful.










I like the way this pattern has you sew the facings to the front and back before you sew the two together.  However, it's really tricky to sew around the straps on the inside without catching them.  I think this is because the measurements are off.  Either the straps need to be more narrow, or the bodice needs to be wider where they attach.  Before trimming, there was only scant 1/4" seam allowance space along side the straps where they attach.

Here's another pattern snafu.  The pockets.  They are ridiculously large on the top and go above where they attach at the sides.  This makes an upper part that keeps falling down when the garment is warn.  I saw this immediately when I put the dress on the dress form.  I decided to cut the upper part off of the pocket and re-sew it.  Problem solved.

The pattern instructions have you do all the gathering on the sides and sew the rolled hem last.  I think it is much easier to sew the rolled hem before doing the gathering.  It took me a while to learn how to use the rolled hem foot with my machine, but I love what a nice clean finish it gives.  I did still have a couple of places where I had to re-insert the fabric into the foot, but I'm determined to master this one day!








Another problem was that the lines drawn on the pattern do not match the line drawing for view B, which was the one I made.  You are to gather the side seams at the hem and also a diagonal line on the pattern.  The diagonal lines are what were off.  They had diagonal lines going from the side and CF, but that is not what is shown in the line drawing.  Also, the diagonal lines on the sides are not nearly in far enough to the CF, so those needed to be redrawn.  Even still, they probably should have gone up even higher and angled down closer to the CF at the hem.

Tina Givens Gypsy Jacket

The Gypsy Jacket is finished, and I do have a lot to say about it :-)

This is only the second Tina Givens pattern I have actually made, although I own several now.  Her website is like eye candy for me and I love seeing the details (on the ones  you can see) on the clothes.  To really get a good idea of how the garments are worn and accessorized, you want to visit her designer website, and the Facebook page.  That said, you are not going to get any of these directions in her patterns.  In fact, the patterns do not even have the same names as the ones she sells.  However, as many have said on the  SG thread, there are a lot of “design opportunities” in her patterns.  Let me add that there are also a lot of fit and pattern making opportunities.  Hmmmm…..

Fit - basically, there is no fit in TG patterns.  I will have to say that by using her measurement guidelines, I fit into a small and it fits me in the shoulders.  Now, on this pattern, the shoulders go straight across.  No one has shoulders that go straight across, so I had to draw in the slope of the shoulders.  Also , these patterns must be drafted for an A cup, so if you want any shaping at all, you will need to do a FBA.  I did NOT on this pattern because I knew it was so loose fitting.  However, if I want to make it again, I will so that it does not pull up in the front.  Even though this fits in the shoulders, that’s where this ends.  I could wear this if I were 9 months pregnant.  Both the front and the back are way-oversized.  I would have to say that TG patterns are not well-drafted in the least, but I do like her aesthetic.

Sleeves:  There is no notch for the top of the sleeve and there is quite a bit to be eased in.  The shape of the sleeve head is a little odd and caused more curvature in the front and back and less at the top.  I will probably redraw this if I make it again.

Pattern:  These patterns come with minimal and sometimes missing instructions.  For example, there are two bands in the front.  The pattern says to cut 2 on the bias, but does not tell you how wide or how long to cut them.  You have to read the pattern to see where they are going, measure the back facing piece and length of the front piece and go from there.  There was a problem with this pattern, and I understand that this is typical on her patterns.  The side front and side back pieces are off by more 3/4 to 1 inch.  The curved part does not line up at all with the concave curve on the CB and CF pieces.  This is something you would have to measure yourself and see how much you need to adjust.  I added 3/4 to both CF and CB, and could have gone a bit more. Another problem was that the shoulder seams are cut straight across, perpendicular to the CB line.  I added some slope, but I should have done more.

Instructions:  as I said earlier, they leave a lot out.  Also, things are out of order.  For example, they have you measure and prepare the ruffle before you have even sewn the side seams.  Then you set that aside and sew it on later.  There are hand-drawn diagrams, and sometimes these are helpful, and sometimes confusing.  A lot is left up to your own interpretation.   

Fabric:  This pattern calls for a woven such as linen.  I used a double knit I had in my stash instead.  This also meant that I did not have to cut strips on the bias, but needed to allow enough length to cut them on the width of the fabric.  Instead of cutting 1” strips of self fabric for the ties, I used ribbon.  The ruffle calls for a layer of main fabric and a layer of gauze.  I used lace and tulle instead of the gauze.  

The ruffle.  Be aware if you make this pattern that one 8” cut the width of the fabric will not be enough.  I made the small, and one width did not give me any more than an “ease” allowance,  Not a ruffle at all.  This is good in this fabric since the over layers of ruffle I made are ruffle enough (You cut 2 widths of each of those).  Even though I chose a taupe colored lace, it looked like a bright ivory against this fabric.  That is why I decided to layer it with an dark gold tulle.  This is the first time I have worked with tulle.  Well, I looked like I had a tutu on when I first finished that ruffle!  Not the look I was going for.  The first thing I did to combat this was to hand stitch the seam allowance to the upper part of the bodice.  This helped a lot.  Next, I pressed the ruffle.  Be VERY CAREFUL when pressing tulle.  You need to use a press cloth and low heat.  Even doing this, I did melt a hole into a little piece of the tulle ruffle.  After pressing, I put a couple of clappers on top of the fabric to let it cool completely before removing.

Details:  I added some extra details.  I added some vintage lace to the side front pieces at different heights.

There is hand ruffled tulle with topstitching around the neckline.  I used Coats and Clark button and craft thread doubled and an embroidery needle to do all of the hand stitching.  When I did the hand stitching around the bottom of the bodice, I had to use pliers to pull the needle through all of the layers.

My little bird is sitting prettily on a cherry blossom branch in the back.

As noted before, I used ribbon instead of self-fabric ties.

I wanted this to be a comfy but cute jacket, and I think it is.  I’m not really sure of my choice to use the tulle as I am afraid that it will be too delicate.  If it should rip, I’m not sure how I would repair it as it will be beyond my patience point to take apart the whole skirt on this thing and do it over.

I would like to try this again in linen, but I would make several changes to improve the fit. Even when something is not "fitted" it still needs to fit and not hang terribly.  Even though the fit is not great on this jacket, I think I will still wear it.  I wore it to church today and got lots of compliments.  In fact, one lady (who I don't even know) saw me walk by the kitchen and said "Wow!  You belong in a magazine"  Yes, that made my day :-)