August Sewcial Bee - Late Season Strawberries

I've had so much fun looking at everyone's pictures in the Sewcial Bee Flickr group. So many beautiful garments and it seems like everyone had a good time.  Thanks so much to Gida Studio for a fun challenge for our second round of the Bee.

So what did I sew for the Bee?  Well just a little mash up of the bodice from Vogue 1027
and my favorite Lady Skater skirt.

My sewing time was limited for this round of the Bee so my mantra was "Keep it simple, Stupid." Guidelines were, use a TNT pattern, minimal or no closers, and for the love of god try to use a knit.  Luckily for me this bamboo knit from Harts.com fit perfectly into GidaStuido's garments inspired by food challenge. Yum strawberries!

I've been itching to make the Vogue 1027 dress again since posting back in May about my first version. It has gaping neckline problems that keep me from wearing it often.  Many of you kindly gave me suggestions for fixing the problem and I was eager to try some out. This is the technique I settled on and it worked great on this knit.
1. Ran a line of basting in the neck edge of the fronts.
2. Very slight gathered the neckline, just the tiniest bit.
3. Used some of the knit tricot stay tape over the basting line on the wrong side of the fabric.
4. Folded the edge over and used the coverstitch machine to finish the edge.

For the sleeve edges I sewed on the facings and then finished the edges with the coverstitch machine.  The facings were trimmed down to the stitching so you get a nice edge finish that doesn't flip out.

There were only 2 yards of this fabric so I couldn't use the huge circle skirt that comes with the Vogue pattern.  Instead the Lady Skater skirt was subbed in with 2 additional inches of length.  Similar look just a little more flirty.

Since I've made Lady Skater mash ups with both Vogue and New Look bodices a quick list of the differences between the patterns might be helpful to others.

Breakdown of the design differences...
Vogue 1027
- Bodice wrap only goes over half of the front
- Pleats on waist seam
- Cut on Kimono sleeve

New Look 6097
- Bodice wraps entire front
- Pleats at side seam
- Set in sleeves

Personally I feel that the Vogue bodice is a little "fancier" because it shows a bit more cleavage.  I love the kimono sleeve, but that does limit your sleeve options unless you're comfortable with pattern drafting. The New Look bodice is more casual because the neckline is not gonna dip as low due to the full bodice wrap.  Set in sleeves make it easy to swap out different lengths and the Lady Skater sleeves fit almost perfectly into the armholes.  So now you know....and knowing is half the battle.

Thanks again to everyone who participated in the Sewical bee.  For those of you who where busy, don't worry we'll do it again. :)