Saturday, October 11, 2014

Ooh-la-la~Garters!

In March I had the great pleasure of visiting Marcy Tilton's Art Barn, the home base of her online fabric store.  It takes several hours to get there, it's way the heck out in the sticks!

As you can imagine, my sewing pals and I were in pig heaven; scooping up all kinds of fabrics and dreaming about how to use them.  You could hardly fit our combined booty in the huge SUV we drove up in!  

One of my really shameless picks was a quilted, shiny black fabric.  The composition was either not available or I can't remember, it's some type of synthetic.  It is shot with tiny strands of silver that you almost can't see.  It's not that I needed this fabric, it's not an everyday kind of fabric.

The minute I saw it I thought of one of my favorite Marcy patterns, V8709, a pattern I go to often.  I could see it made into a longer vest from this pattern.  I had seen one that Marcy made several years ago and thought it looked great.

I'm sorry to say that Vogue either discontinued this pattern or it is out of stock.  I thought they had discontinued it but the site now says, "out of stock", whatever that means.

I've made this several times in various weights and lengths.  It was originally a shorter jacket/shirt which I have lengthened for coats, coat dresses and now a vest.



I like that the upper back is cut on the bias, giving it a bit of give and some variation in the design.



I bought this garter belt closure tape in a wonderful warehouse type fabric store in San Jose, Fabrics R Us.  You never know what you're going to find there.  I hope this stuff is there the next time I go because I want MORE!



One of the things I love about this pattern is the pocket design.  These guys not only hold everything you would need for an evening out but they add so much contour and shape to the garment.  



If you can ever lay your hands on this pattern I wholeheartedly recommend you buy it.  So versatile.

I'm having fun wearing this.  When people see the garter closure they do a double take...then I blush.