I bought this Paris-themed fabric on-line quite a while ago because I thought it was adorable, and it was advertised as being double gauze. It has little Eiffel towers, cats, Arc de Triomphes, Sacre Coeurs (or some church anyway), and a bunch of other cute stuff all over. The selvedge says, "puti de pome, mice's design". It's Japanese, of course.
When it arrived, I was quite surprised to see that it's a waffle weave - you know, kind of like what long underwear might be made out of - except not knit. It's definitely double gauze, but I think it might be intended for dish towels, so it had been sitting on my shelves for a long time while I tried to figure out what to do with it.
I had just finished making this skirt and was looking around my sewing room for something to make a shirt to go with it. My eyes landed on the Paris fabric. I'm not crazy about the skirt. I used some beautiful Essex linen, but I've decided now that that's probably better for quilting than for apparel. It's just too stiff, and I really wanted this pleated skirt to have a nice drape. Since that didn't quite work out, I decided to take a risk with both the shirt pattern and fabric. If the waffle-weave looked funny in a clothing item, oh well.
I think it turned out alright. You probably can't even see the waffle-weave in the photos. The skirt is another one from this book:
(ISBN 978-4-529-04816-3)
Like I said, I think the pleats would have come out better in a drapy-ier fabric. I also ended up having to cut about 5 inches off the length which I took note of for next time, since I barely had enough fabric. But, I was very happy with the waist fit. I'm pretty sure it's the first thing I've made for Addie that doesn't have at least some elastic in the waist, so I was worried the waist would be too big. I didn't make any adjustments to the size 120, and it fits perfectly.
The shirt is kind of funky in the back. I'm still trying to decide if it's cool or weird. It was fun to make because it was different. Basically, the back doesn't fasten closed at all from the hem to the tie at the neck, but the pieces do overlap with a nice curve to give some coverage. Unless she's standing straight, it pretty much gapes open on Addie. I guess that will make it all that much cooler on a hot day. It's from this book:
(ISBN978-4-579-11289-0)
I made the size 120 for everything except the length which I made a size 110. Last night, I finally cut something out from one of my new books. I even cut out the interfacing and attached it to the pieces, so I'm ready to start sewing.
My kids are all headed back to school today after a week's vacation. I have to wake them up shortly, and I'm sure it will be a struggle. For me, it's been great for the past week to only have to worry about getting myself up and ready in the morning, so I'm sad vacation is over, too. It's going to be a busy week at work, since we have a big software deployment going on on Wednesday. Crossing my fingers that it goes well because, if it doesn't, I don't know when I'll get to sew again.
Oh, and speaking of France, have you seen the French blog, Japan Couture Addicts? One of my readers turned me on to it. Thanks, Nelissa! It's very active, and you can see all kinds of examples of things people have sewn from Japanese patterns and then trace that back to which book they used. I don't know about you, but it's so inspiring to see the apparel made up by real people. I've even gone back and given patterns a second look that I didn't like originally because I loved what someone made from them.
My French is pretty rusty, and we certainly never learned any sewing terms, but it's definitely better than my Japanese (in which I now can read four words; back, front, adult, child). I usually just look at the pictures anyway. A couple of times, I've resorted to using Google Translate. It cracks me up. It's not much better than trying to read it in French. Apparently the word for "boss" and "pattern" is the same, so it can be pretty entertaining.
