Chambray Dress of Shame

Enter: The Chambray Dress of Shame:

I know, I know.  It's a fine dress.  Attractive, even.  I made it last week during a fit of hating everything in my closet and feeling blue after the letdown of Pascha and the intensity of solo parenting during Bright Week.  (Making stuff when I feel like this is usually a bad idea, I've found).  I had found the fabric online and loved the embroidered border.  I know border prints are kind of the catnip of the sewing world, but they normally don't do much for me.  This one, however, really appealed to me, and I thought I could make it work with my Dottie Angel pattern.  

It does work, but I just don't like the dress on me.  The chambray is nice and soft, but the shade is just a little too...I don't know.  It kind of reminds me of a dress I wore in the mid-1990s.  And not really in a good way.  I want to like it, because the border is really pretty, but I just don't.  

I did have enough fabric left over to cut out a dress for one of the girls, so at least it isn't a total waste.  I think it will be super cute for one of them (probably Ponchik).

I even used one of my new labels in this dress!  I found them on a roll from an etsy seller and they are just what I've been looking for.  I don't have any interest in "building a brand" (don't get me started on the Commodification of Everything and Everyone), and I don't like putting my name in things (for a variety of reasons), but I did want a little something to say that I made it.  So this is perfect.  I might add them to some of my other me-made garments later this spring.

I find myself singularly without crafty inspiration right now (I seem to hit this point often around this time of year; must be something about April).  I don't really want to sew my summer stuff right now, and the weather is totally crazy so I'm in heavy sweaters and medium weight dresses with tights and boots one day and light lawn dresses with bare legs and ballet flats the next.  So it goes.  I do actually have enough stuff to start my summer rotation without making anything else, so I might just wait a few weeks before I tackle anything else for me.  I have a few more dresses to make, plus a blouse and a skirt, but it can all wait.  I do like to have some things to work on during the summer months.  I need to get out of the habit of feeling like everything needs to be finished by the first day of the next rotation--I find I enjoy making stuff for the rotation in the middle too.  I do have a couple of things for the girls cut out and waiting for sewing, but those shouldn't take long and don't require a lot of brain work on my part.

That's all for a cold and rainy Tuesday!