Green Cookie Book Dress

I spent a few hours on Saturday stitching away, and finished half my fall project list (yay!)--nothing like realizing that the clothing for the warm half of the fall is built around clothing you've haven't made yet!  Ha! 

I actually made this dress in August, during one of those disgustingly hot weeks.  I made a black linen kontorasson for my husband earlier that day, as he had been wearing a wool one in the heat, and was just about ready to expire from heat exhaustion.  He's worn it almost every day since, and I've still not managed to get a picture of it.  I made this dress as a kind of palette cleanser from the project, as the self-lined part of the vest about did me in.  

 (Please forgive my washed out self in these photos--I've been sick for weeks and spent Saturday night in the ER with a pill caught in my throat; I'm not at my best at the moment)

I had cut it out in early July, but then let it sit, as I was burned out on sewing, my measurements were expanding daily, and I just couldn't face another dress project.  I'm glad I waited, as I'm currently down 13 pounds, and pretty close to the measurements I was about a year ago (I'll do a proper STATurday post soon).  So this dress fits quite nicely at the moment.  Today was my first day to wear it, and the temps have dropped into a lovely range, and I even busted out a cardigan this morning!  Yay, fall!!

I didn't do much different to this dress in terms of construction, except for two things.  I made sure that the skirt length was a precise 27 inches, and I made the waist seam 7/8" wide and then sewed it down on the top to make a casing, which I threaded with some elastic to cinch the waist a bit.  I really like this effect--I don't have to wear a belt if I don't want to, and it magically fixes the bodice length issues I've been having for months.  I've done it on a few other dresses as a retrofit, and I like it a lot.  It is much easier to do while constructing the dress for a number of reasons, but I don't mind the retro fit if it helps it fit better.

I think I may have subtracted out the seam allowance on the back bodice on this version, so there is less fullness in the back (which is good--when I moved the zip from the back to the side, I left in the seam allowance, which made for a lot of wonk in the back)

Normal self-yoked pockets, using the Hollyburn pocket pattern piece--I seriously love these pockets.  I feel good about my inseam pocket technique now, but I just really like the look of these yoked ones.

The necklace was an etsy purchase over the summer that I've been saving for fall.  Unfortunately, the seller went out of business at the end of July, but she had a lot of quirky stuff.  My cuckoo-clock necklace came from her shop.

The dress looks good with a number of belts in my closet (particularly a reddish brown leather one that I've had for ages), and several cardigans, so I'm pretty happy with the versatility of it.  I'm happy with the fit and length, and the color is a nice three-season color (possibly even four season!)

This dress sort of makes me question whether I need to tweak my bodice sloper at all for the cut-on sleeve version.  I do think I'd like to fit an inset sleeve version, and I do have a raglan bodice I'd like to try out.  I'm thinking I may try it on the Boxcar dress I have planned.  I realized also that this bodice works best with a round neck--it just pulls weirdly with a v-neck or square neck.  Which is fine, as I have a mild preference for a round neck anyway.  

In other news, I finished my Historical Sew Monthly entry, and have three sewing projects to show in the next little while.  I started listening to The Word of Promise (New Testament) this morning on the way to drop off, and it is very well done.  I went ahead and ordered the Old Testament as well (I thought I had ordered the whole Bible, but what came in the mail was the New Testament discs), and am looking forward to many hours of listening to the Bible read aloud.  I'm not an aural learner at all, and I generally struggle to follow along with audio books, but this seems to be going well, since it is told in a kind of story-telling manner.  The text is directly from the Bible, but the different speakers are voiced by various actors and the narrator's voice is easy to listen to.

Just the facts:

Green Cookie Book dress: Cotton+Steel fabric, frankenpattern dress sloper (modified Emery bodice, Hollyburn pocket pattern, McCall's 4275 skirt pieces)

Navy cashmere/cotton cardigan: Banana Republic

Shoes: Dansko, via ebay

Acorn necklace: Weeping Grove (etsy)

Earrings: vintage, Christmas gift a few years ago