Vanessa Pouzet La Boheme skirt review

I saw this and I was so sucked in!  I have needed ("needed") skirts lately after many years not wearing skirts, and trying to figure out what I want in a skirt has been a challenge.  Well, this was it.  I read all the blog posts.  The two in English insisted that it's easy and also one of them said she has written English instructions and sent them to Vanessa - but my email asking about these never got a reply. Like everyone who speaks a few romance languages I can piece together some French, but it doesn't make the sewing process easier.

Overall I would say the instructions made sense to me, but I glossed over them, and my errors and dramas are more likely due to me than to the instructions failing.  

I cut size 38 from a lightweight cotton I had been saving for a Wilder Gown (the ONLY FABRIC in my stash that I had in 3m).  I cut 3" off the bottom.  My notes suggested I would want to take off anything from 3" to 15 cm and I went with the minimum.

The almost mistake I made is that you cut two identical side pieces AND 2 snail pieces - I initially thought just one, but I did have enough fabric for the second.  PLUS two full width waist pieces, but the truth is the length of those doesn't matter as much. The shape of all these pieces is what eats up fabric, and that's a harbinger of the sewing experience.  

I found the sewing to be exhausting.  However, I was having an exhausting week, and this skirt which really is about a 3hr effort took me a week and was FULL of drama.  I planned to french seam the whole thing.  No prob, seamed the back, applied the waistband just to avoid stay stitching - ALREADY I was setting myself up to fail.

The hem of the ruffle - either don't hem this, or use a skinny rolled hem foot.  I don't have that foot for my Pfaff.  I am going to fix this.  So I did a manual skinny rolled hem.  It sucked. It doesn't look that great.  It took forever because it's many meters of sewing and on a constant curve.  This skirt is all about sustained sewing.  You only actually go to the sewing machine something like 5 times, but each time you are sewing many meters long and it's funny how tiring that is.  So then I french seamed the ruffle (it's not actually a ruffle, it just behaves that way due to the grain it's cut on, so clever!) to the skirt, this was a BAD CHOICE.  I realised after all that, that I didn't have a way to finish the upper side of the skirt.  In fact I was upset because I thought the ruffle should go all the way to the waist.  I think the instructions do specifically instruct you to do the following: 

-(don't sew on the waistband first)

-sew the ruffle to the skirt 

-overlock or finish that seam all the way from waist to waist 

-iron it upwards towards the skirt

-topstitch

Then you can apply the waistband.  

If that's not what the instructions say, they should.  

I kept trying this skirt on and being grumpy and realising it looked really good despite all this drama.  And that was when I faced a trying fact of life and sewing: sometimes you just need to do a muslin.  This was my muslin.  Thank god for my friend who I send clothes to....no muslin ever goes to waste.  So before I finished the skirt I was piecing together the next one in my mind.  Other key feature: linen so I don't have to finish the hem.  And I will shorten it another 3". 

 

The rest of the skirt was simple, you have been instructed to fold the SA up already on the waistband and you just topstitch it all together, then make a buttonhole wherever you want so that one waistband goes through the other.  I did put some interfacing on my buttonhole area before I shut the waistband.  And yes, I love the finished skirt, at least the idea of it.  In fact I don't think the ruffle should go all the way to the waist, it would add some annoying flopping around near the top, whereas the way it's drafted the front lies flat.  On mine I will add Pomona pockets.  I have even managed to go to The Fabric Store in person (!!) and swanned around through all the linen until I settled on a dark fir green, so that will happen soon.  I'm happy with the size, there is a great amount of overlap, and the ruffle on the underlayer sort of holds the top layer in place so they are less likely to split open - even when they do I think you can't see much higher than my knees.

Wanted tee by Vanessa Pouzet

I think tshirts are the most satisfying thing I sew.  I knew I'm supposed to love getting deep into major projects.  But the truth is that tshirts are the thing I wear, and when I can wear me-made ones I prefer them every time.  Other, more complicated makes, usually end up being experimental.  I like the challenge but I don't need the item in my wardrobe.  If the experiment doesn't totally succeed then I'm far too likely to give it away.

Anyway that's all to say I always need more tshirt patterns and I drooled over this amazing Vanessa Pouzet top when it came out.  I like her designs but most of them are not very practical for me and I also get sad at the very idea of trying to read french patterns.  However a tshirt is straightforward, so although the pattern is in French, you don't need more than the diagrams.

This first version is a scrap from The Fabric Store which is purple on one side and black rib on the other. It's a merino-poly blend and is very warm and has good recovery.  I was going to do black and in my head that couldn't be changed...which is why the neckband ended up black.  It makes it hard to match things in my wardrobe as purple/black aren't a combo that I wear much.  But it does layer under scrubs very nicely.  Unfortunately I still wish I had made it black.

I cut a size 36, although I also traced 38 as a backup.  My measure: 33-27-37, and I'm 5'4".  I'm starting to bounce back from my habit of cutting things too big which was going on all last year. This rebound likely will eventually lead to cutting things too small.  We shall see. 

I thought that maybe the neck would be too low in the front.
In fact it's more like it's a touch wide and carries over into my armpits.  This also makes it slightly less bra friendly.

So I took out 2 cm of the centre front, including of the neck band, and then re-added the same amount as a strip down the side.  I considered changing the armscye as well but left it for now.  I am still really nervous about making changes to patterns!  I might be better off using fewer patterns and learning how to modify them better.

Plus we made pancakes on the beach...

I was surprised how much the front neck gathers when it's just sitting around, but when I wear it, it looks fine.  I think this was a small fix that I prefer - I can barely tell the difference except it doesn't feel like the shirt is sliding down into my armpits.  The second fabric is a very lightweight cotton/cashmere/something else blend and is glorious.  Unfortunately, I was sewing this when I had a friend over and I didn't pay painstaking attention to the neckband, which is necessary.  Therefore, it's not got very nice corners.  Please don't stare.  I managed to somehow salvage the mess and I'm happy.

The first of these two tops was the beginning of about 2 weeks tshirt sewing like a sweatshop, and the second one was the end of the two weeks when I had already had a knit-free few days and just wanted to finish one last tshirt!