It's here Stitchers! Lisa's first (full) make of 2024 and it's the Vogue 1982 ! Today Lisa breaks down her process from top to bottom which included basting anything and everything, which needle she needed for this specific project, and just what adjustments she made to make sure she absolutely loved herself in the dress! If you picked up this pattern make sure you connect with us on social and let us know if you stuck with the pattern as is or if you were like Lisa and changed it up.

=======

Ready to tap in to the visuals of Stitch Please? Then join our Patreon! For only $5 a month you can get all of the video versions of the pod. PLUS more goodies at higher patron levels. We couldn't do any of this without your support. Thank you!

=======

Lisa Woolfork is an associate professor of English specializing in African American literature and culture. Her teaching and research explore Black women writers, Black identity, trauma theory, and American slavery. She is the founder of Black Women Stitch, the sewing group where Black lives matter. She is also the host/producer of Stitch Please, a weekly audio podcast that centers on Black women, girls, and femmes in sewing. In the summer of 2017, she actively resisted the white supremacist marches in her community, Charlottesville, Virginia. The city became a symbol of lethal resurging white supremacist violence. She remains active in a variety of university and community initiatives, including the Community Engaged Scholars program. She believes in the power of creative liberation.

Instagram: Lisa Woolfork

Twitter: Lisa Woolfork

=======

======

Sign up for the Black Women Stitch quarterly newsletter

Check out our merch here

Leave a BACKSTITCH message and tell us about your favorite episode.

Join the Black Women Stitch Patreon

Check out our Amazon Store

Stay Connected:

YouTube: Black Women Stitch

Instagram: Black Women Stitch

Facebook: Stitch Please Podcast

Lisa Woolfork 0:10

Hello Stitchers! Welcome to Stitch Please, the official podcast of Black Women Stitch, the sewing group where Black lives matter. I'm your host, Lisa Woolfork. I'm a fourth generation sewing enthusiast, with more than 20 years of sewing experience. I am looking forward to today's conversation. So sit back, relax, and get ready to get your stitch together!

Lisa Woolfork 0:36

Hey friends, hey! I know you're enjoying the audio version of Stitch Please, and thanks so much for listening, but you're missing out on all the great stuff going on behind the scenes. That's why I'm inviting you to join our Black Women Stitch Patreon. For as little as $5 a month, you can see all the video versions of the podcast. Plus, you get some amazing swatch cards! You know how much I love these swatch cards. Look, look, see how cool these are? Oh wait, you can't see them because you are not yet on the Patreon. So when you join the Patreon, you'll be able to see this, me showing you these amazing cards. We also have some great perks at the other tiers, like discounts, swag, office hours and more. Don't be the last sewists in the group now! Head over to patreon.com/blackwomenstitch, or click the link in the show notes and become a Patreon supporter today! We truly cannot do this without you, so thank you SO much!

Another big decision was the cutting. I cut this fabric crossgrain, on purpose, to control the stretch of the fabric. This means that rather than having the fabric grainline be parallel to the selvage, which is something you are supposed to do and should do, because that pattern was designed to be laid out in that direction, so the fabric will lay in complement to the way the pieces cut. And so if you do it kind of willy-nilly, or you Tetris it, and you're cutting things on the bias, or you're just kind of putting it in there like pattern piece Jenga, it is very likely that the things you are doing, the pieces you are cutting, will be off grain. And over time, they're gonna warp and deteriorate, and your garment is not going to look the way it's supposed to look. So that's what I did. I took that piece, and rather than having it be on grain, I did it completely cross grade. So rather than have the selvage be parallel to the grain line, it was perpendicular. There was a lot of good benefits to this. The fabric was very wide, so it allowed me to lay the pieces out in such a way that they could all fit. So I think that I was able to get a better design, actually, because I can rotate it. It was a very abstract design that, like,–– almost like a Dali, you know? D-a-l-i, you know, the guy with the Melton clocks, and like you could turn a set of stairs to the counterclockwise, but it would be the same if it was clockwise, that kind of illusionist. The fabric looks a little bit like that. It's an urban–– not urban, it's just this, this lands–– not its landscape. It's a–– the fabric has a illusion of buildings in relation to one another, in a way that is horizontal and really interesting, but they're all different sizes. And so by rotating it, I was able to still capture that energy, which was really interesting. And it provides a kind of a visual path for your eye when you're looking at the dress. And so that's one of the reasons I love the fabric in the first place, but apparently didn't love it enough to ever use it! So here we are. It also allowed me to use the selvage edge as a decorative dress hem. The selvage edge was a kind of an off-white beige. And it complemented the fabric, although that color was not in the fabric at all. Another decision I made was to use the selvage of the cape fabric as the center back seam of the cape. I was trying to stabilize it, I was trying to kind of conserve fabric and not cut it, to kind of cut less than I needed to. That turned out to be a mistake because that selvage was not true. It was kind of frilly and wavy. And what your selvage edge is supposed to be, that tight bound edge, that is the most stable element of the fabric. But in synthetic fabrics, it doesn't always come out that way, and this was one of those examples. And so I would have been better off to cut off the selvage edge and then use that, but I ended up having to do a lot of finagling and unsewing and, you know, to get it right, but it worked out fine in the end. The thing that I think that helped this whole project to work was that I basted everything. I basted the entire dress together; I basted the cape together; I attached the cape to the dress; I attached the dress to the front cape and the sack. I did all of that! And I was still able to pull it on, pull it off. And that was one of the big changes that I made was to get rid of all the closures. This is why the fabric retailer and designer Nicole Elise says, "Fabric choice is everything!", because I was able to choose a fabric that allowed me to do something that's really not supposed to be possible. It is not good practice. I won't say it's not possible; anything is possible. It is not good practice to swap out a fabric option on a pattern envelope. If they are telling you that you should make your swimsuit out of spandex, and you say, "No. I like denim," and you make your swimsuit out of denim and then you can't put it on, or you can put it on, but you can't button it or pull it off. And, you know, and it's making you a little uncomfortable around the bikini area! This is because denim doesn't behave in the same way as spandex. There's no stretch; there's no wicking; there's no–– none of the other properties. There's no buoyancy. There's nothing that allows it to kind of be comfortable and suitable for swimwear. The same is true for a dress like this. There is a reason they want you to have the four-ply crepe. On Patreon here, I'm showing the pattern. And if you see the weight of the cape, and how it balances the weight of the dress hem, you can see that that's happening because of the weight of that fabric. And that fabric is a four-ply crepe. It's a jacquard; it is something that is on the heavy side that has a drape already built into the design, or there's already a certain weight built into the fabric itself. So, for me, to swap out the fabric is a huge modification, a huge gamble. And yet, I decided to do it, because honestly, I just did not feel like being bothered with all of the things that are required for fitting a pattern or fitting a woven dress pattern to my curvy body. I would rather have fabric that's more generous and merciful and stretches and makes me feel like, "Okay, my body can fit in this AND move!" That's what I made. That's what I chose. And I have no regrets. It worked out very nicely! I also was able to practice the continuous seam when I made the cape and attached–– the main modification I also made was to remove the lining, to remove both invisible zippers, and to convert the the center back seam, which would have had two invisible zippers, into one single seam. I placed the rear cape matching the rear center back of the dress. I applied the wrong side of the dress to the right side of the cape and stitched all the way until the end of that center back seam. I did the same for the other side. Then I turned them inside out or right side out. And you could see where the center back cape is covering now the center back bodice of the dress. I then matched those two center seams and just lifted the cape and sewed the cape to the back of the dress in the same way that I attached the cape to the center back. And it just made this really cool effect! It looks like the neckline is totally lined, and it stretches. So that was the really cool way that the fabric was–– allowed me to kind of make something that was more curvy-friendly and just easier to wear. In terms of modifications, I'm really excited because I was able to transform a dress that was made from woven fabric into one made with knit fabric. I was able to take a dress that had two invisible zippers into a dress that had no closures whatsoever. That means a dress that you would need someone to help you zip up at two layers is something you can slip on yourself, just like a T-shirt! I was able to also stay warm. The cape was incredibly warm! That was one of the fun outcomes of this dress was that when I was wearing it, I decided to add some contrast bias edging to the center of the cape, and it picked up the same dress fabric underneath. And so in terms of outcomes, there was some things that I did have to do differently. I had to hem the dress; I didn't want to. I had to hem the dress or it would not be longer than the cape. I did not have to hem the cape, and that was great. I did not have to hem the cape at all. That's one of the great things about this fabric is it doesn't ravel. And so you don't have to worry about it fraying or looking, you know, kind of worn and tattered, which can sometimes happen if you don't hem something. And because of the nature of the fabric, I wasn't worried about the fabric raveling or unraveling. And so I decided instead to just skip it, and skipping the hem was another happy, freeing moment that I would gladly repeat. I found the–– one of the best outcomes of the dress is that it was very warm and very comfortable. I am not one to go out in formal wear in the wintertime because there are very few gowns, beautiful gowns, that are also toasty warm. And so I was really happy to have seen this pattern that was not only beautiful and very dramatic and moved well, but that it was also something that was warm, comfortable and easy to wear. So at the end of the process, I'm really happy that I chose Vogue 1982 as my first make of the year. I really enjoyed it, I was really happy that I decided to choose a fabric that would be kind to myself. That felt really good. It felt like a nice message to give myself at the start of the year, that, "Hey, you can give yourself a break! You can do something nice for yourself. You don't have to do everything the hard way." And that felt really good. And that's a message that I want to continue to believe throughout the rest of 2024. Thanks so much for listening! Thank you all for being here. And we appreciate you very much. Come back next time, and we'll help you get your stitch together.

You've been listening to Stitch Please, the official podcast of Black Women Stitch, the sewing group where Black lives matter. We appreciate you joining us this week and every week for stories that center Black women, girls, and femmes in sewing. We invite you to join the Black Women Stitch Patreon community, with giving levels beginning at $5 a month. Your contributions help us bring the Stitch Please podcast to you every week. Thank you for listening, thank you for your support, and come back next week, and we'll help you get your stitch together!