The folks at Vogue have their minds back

Yes, I know I have been giving the BMV crowd a hard time lately but this latest spring collection has some beauties. 

Some very wearable little numbers.

My first look, disregarding all the figure type advice, picks are these:

Not sure what has agitated this girl but she should relax, this is a good easy-to-sew dress. In the meantime she should just ask to see the manager.

A good simple summer dress, good back detail with pleats in the yoke so it would be comfy, not illustrated here of course. It's late I should be in bed anyway.

Many tunics in this collection. Her face looks like she has just heard her credit card was about to be cut up or her husband was sleeping with her sister, but the top looks good. There is always a bright side. I have a ton of bright linens I was going to make into lined fitted summer dresses and now I will make them into pullover tops. That would make me smile.

Soo Doris Day and so me. Of course they say the box figure shouldn't wear it but that must be a mistake. I even have this much bright pink knit. Dare me.

The photo shot is of a belted grey coat but this one's for me. I have recently purchased 17 almost right coat patterns waiting for this one to appear and it is completely right for my SWAP plans. Anyone want some un-used raincoat patterns, the expensive kind?

This is the sister. She is saying "You're kidding right? The guy is a tool." Nevertheless this is an A-one easy, sharp, cheater peplum top. Just enjoy a good pattern ladies.

Those new Vogues

I have been waiting for new patterns to think about and almost missed out on the notice for the latest batch - they went into my Spam folder! Made me wonder if Someone has been fiddling with my computer.


I must confess that there was less here that I immediately want to sew - correction - less here than suits my life right now. 


Of course many of these are holiday dresses and I am not sure if I will need one that fancy this year. My school does just a lunch, but my husband's company used to have a big black tie affair and it was always worth dressing up for that. However they have recently been bought out, by a very good company, but one with clearly different priorities. The social committee has been disbanded and I am hearing very non-black tie words like "voucher". 


It's not looking good brocade-wise.


It seems like most of my holiday dressing is going to involve aprons not ball gowns, and I am going to be spending more time walking in the hall at my daughter's trying to get a burp up than on the dance floor.


So although there are several evening dresses I would like to make, I am not sure I will have anywhere to wear them. Strapless, I seem to remember, doesn't work so well with burp spit ups.


That said there are a few I am considering be putting into the old online cart, and a few I would have sewn, and here they are:

I usually don't do the oversize thing but this is a white shirt and would work with my narrow pants and maybe a skirt - I will probably negotiate a length between the short and the long version, but will not be doing the diaper thing at the back unless I try it and it surprises me.

This dress I like, and would use some of my double-knit collection unless I find some suede I like. I remember these blouson dresses from early in my career, but what I can't remember is if they suited me or not. I will ponder this for a really long time. What do you think?

Now these two I would sew if my life changes:

Evening suits are a good idea. Good for those times you have to do a work function at night, like a fundraising dinner and someone corporate has bought a table and you get asked at the last minute because who they really invited cancelled, and you need to look evenesque but not sleazy. I am also thinking through how this might look in a wool or something (subtle colour block - greys and black?). It has potential and if I were more creative I would see what that was.


Finally:

I completely love this and am sure it is not me, except maybe in personality. To wear this I need someone to organize an evening wedding where there is a major cocktail thing going on and good music and I can dance until I am the last person left. This is a completely a dancing dress, and definitely the kind of thing you wear only once. But still worth it. It does not have "voucher-from-work" written all over it however.


So that's it. What did I miss?

New fall Vogues - calling Kay Unger

Well.


I was looking forward to some new fall dresses since I am in major dress mode, but none of the offerings appeal to me. All these yards and yards of twisted knits all over the body, until I see it on real people and am convinced, this seems like too much. Ruching seems to be the thing this season but in tight dresses like this you need to have a skinny bod or be prepared to wear five pairs of Spanx under it. Yes, this is definitely a five pair dress, please tell me I am wrong.

I have seen a lot of ruched satin at weddings, enough in fact to think twice about wrapping this figure up in it.


I never am comfortable in lots of stuff flapping around, I am a busy person and move around a lot and it just seems to get in the way. I wouldn't feel like me in this stuff.


One Anne Klein is nice but it is very similar to what I have. 

Where is Kay Unger in this collection? You can always count on her for elegant.


And I love the back of this jacket, but what is with the no closures? Listen if you don't need to do your jacket up you don't need a jacket. There are a few closureless numbers here and I don't get it. Maybe to wear over a cocktail dress while you run from the taxi, which means I would wear this once every eight years for ten minutes.

Now on to what I really like.


There are some interesting casual patterns, which is a welcome change, and as I am trying to focus on clothes I would wear everyday I will be picking these ones up:

Drapey cowl necklines were my favourite look this summer and this top would suit me. I might even go crazy and do unfinished edges. Anything is possible at this stage.

There are some extremely dopey fabric suggestions for this one, like sweatshirt fleece, but this is a very nice collar and on my definite list for a turn-into-coat pattern if nothing else shows up.

I have a definite shortage of pleather in my wardrobe and since my DC son has now moved to East Village in NYC I am wondering if I should step it up with a few black type outfits to blend in when I visit. Might not be the venue for my good old loud prints.

If I had made these pants I wouldn't be happy with them, but the jacket is interesting. The idea of knit sleeves is appealing. I will have to think about what I would wear underneath it. However as I have been holding onto about a yard of wool rib knit for 17 years, which would be great for sleeves, this one is under consideration.

I hardly ever sew bags, I find them fiddly when I look at the instructions and besides there are too many clothes I want to make. However this looks easy and stylish. I try never to turn down easy and stylish.

Now what do you like?

New Vogues and frank talk

Since I am on the DL this seems like a good time to add my own comments to the discourse on the new Vogues. 

I have been reading sewers I respect about the virtues of the new VP magazine. So I went out and bought it for myself since I sprained my ankle (if that makes sense) rather than waiting for the new patterns to go up on the Vogue website, which they did about three hours after I brought the magazine home. Not to worry, the articles are very good, thanks for putting me onto that ladies.


Anyway more elegant people than me have made their picks and have selected the most beautiful dresses - most of which I would like to make, but won't unless my life venues get an upgrade. 


There was a time not too long ago when snappy dresses were part of the work uniform but teaching at a university requires more comfort - all that walking around desks and standing in the halls talking to anyone who comes by for hours and hours - you want to look neat and sharp but it's not exactly life on the runway.


Back to the patterns.


Forced to humility by the Tom Jones shirt I have decided to select for my own personal list not what I most admire, but what I actually think I will wear. I think this is the first time I have ever looked at new patterns and purchases this way. And I am 57.


This approach has eliminated my actual favourite, which wouldn't look at all the same on this long waisted, actually non-waisted, body, although this might change if I start doing more with my online WW points tracking system than just click on the number of glasses of water I drink. We will see. I am still stuck on the "nothing tastes as good as thin feels part". I am just not so sure about that.

It is an incredible dress - on someone else.


What I am really considering are things that I know will be very comfortable and therefore most worn.


Hands up all of you who wore the same knit dress about 400 times more often than anything else they made last season.


So I have decided that this dress, which I love, love, love in this sort of shiny poplin with these cute as anything sleeves, would work for me. Although I would ditch the giant, flower bouquet belt, and go for something slimmer and probably purchased. I mean even if you had a tiny waist, do you really think you as a person could tie a perfect bow out of essentially a rectangle of cotton poplin every time you put this dress on?

I also am seriously considering this Vena Cava (get it) dress, because of course it would be comfortable, it has neat sleeves and I have some African cotton I really like that I have been waiting to use in the right pattern. This may be the one:

Also since my recent traumatization with a top that swamped my lower body, and the rescue effect of a raised waist, I am thinking of these pants in some of that black linen I bought for a rainy day about three rainy seasons ago. 

What do you think?