Hebrides

So, the Hebrides dress.  I've alluded to the fact that this dress and the Orkney dress had a lot of problems.  A lot.

The first was that the fabric was extremely sheer and delicate, a fact I did not realize when I bought it.  Had I realized it, I may have just bought this print and doubled the yardage instead of getting a second print from the fabric line, but live and learn (and get Luvs).  The voile is so delicate that I accidentally put a small hole in the fabric near the hem that I had to darn almost right away, and the fabric had some small holes in them around the cut ends that weren't caused by the weaving process.  I had to make sure I cut around the imperfections, which added another layer of difficulty.  I initially thought I could get away with the sheerness, but after some draping in a brightly lit room, I concluded that it was going to need a lining of some kind.  I decided to interline with rayon bemberg.  Mistake number one.

I did not account for the vastly differing hands of the rayon bemberg and the cotton voile.  I should have used batiste or voile to interline (or just doubled my original yardage), but I was thinking how nice it would be to have a summer dress that didn't need a slip underneath.  I decided to use a spray stabilizer on the rayon to help it behave when I cut it together with the voile.  I pin-basted all the layers together, and then did more pin-basting as I cut things out, but I think perhaps I should have cut the two layers separately and put them together afterward.  Mistake number two, I guess.  Although, perhaps it wouldn't have made a difference.  The stabilizer helped some, but it also made it tricky to get the layers to stay together evenly since the rayon was stiff like taffeta after the stabilizer was on.  I ended up zigzagging the edges of each piece after it was cut and did the tucks and elastic right away after cutting because the fabric was shifting so much I was afraid I wouldn't be able to manage it if I stored the cut pieces for another day.

The back elastic is slightly blousy as a result.  I tried to put a pocket on the dress, but the voile (even doubled) was too delicate to be useful as a pocket, and the interlining didn't want to behave with the pocket and hung really oddly.  So I took the pocket off and hoped for the best.  It does annoy me slightly not to have pockets on my clothing, though.

I washed out the spray stabilizer (took a few washes to get it out) and then discovered I needed to separate the hems of the rayon and the voile because it looked weird when they were hemmed together.  And since this dress was interlined instead of lined, that was tricky.  I admit, it was kind of a hack job, because it was only after I had washed out the stabilizer that the problem became apparent.  Mistake number three.  I did a better job with the Orkney dress (as yet unblogged) because I could fix it before the bias tape was on, but it still isn't a perfect fix.  If I had to do it over again, I'd probably just have a free-hanging lining.

After all that, I tried it on only to discover that the shoulders were a bit tight.  I'm still not really sure why that is (possibly the doubling of the fabric and the way it lays over my shoulders as a result), but it did get better as I wore the dress during the day.  I think maybe the rayon was the culprit, and it does open up with wearing.  I did learn a ton of new things with this dress, and I'm glad I pushed through and made it.  It isn't a dress I would want to wear all the time, but it does feel like a special occasion dress.  I really love the print, and I did get a lot of compliments on it when I wore it to church on Sunday, so I think I will keep it, but just wear it for church or nicer occasions.  It is good to have a few things like that in the back drawer.

Just the facts:

Hebrides dress: Sarah York for Cloud 9 voile/batiste (Hawthorne Threads has this listed as voile, but fabric.com calls it batiste), basic white rayon bemberg from fabric.com, Simplicity 1080, bias tape, elastic

Shoes: Old Navy via ThredUp

Earrings: CVS

Necklace: flea market

And now for something completely different.

The skirt:

To wit, a navy blue twill skirt that is almost precisely the same as all the other twill skirts I've made in the past couple of years.  I almost didn't show these photos, they are so boring.

Except, this one was plagued with problems from the get-go.  First, is that fabric.com seriously stiffed me on the yardage.  I ordered a yard and a half and received a scant yard.  A fact I only discovered when I had cut out the main parts of the skirt and was getting ready to cut the pockets and waistband.  I was not.happy.  I called fabric.com and they sent me the extra half yard right away, but I had lost a lot of momentum on the project by the time it arrived.  

The second problem is that I decided to line this skirt with rayon bemberg from the stash, and I made a tragic cutting error in the back pieces on both the lining and the main fabric that shaved a large triangle off the corner of one side.  I was tired and not in a great frame of mind when I started cutting and realizing the yardage was too short really messed with me and I got sloppy.  I almost cried at that point, as it looked like I'd have to either junk the whole project or order more fabric, which I did not want to do.

I decided to persevere, however, and see if I could salvage it.  I made my seam allowances very small (the original ones are huge because I've been grading this pattern down over the past few years) and to eliminate one set of back darts.  I made it up with some trepidation, and then realized that I needed to put the second set of back darts in after all so I had to unpick a bit part of the waist band and redo it.

I also couldn't get the skirt length where I wanted it.  First it was too long, and now I think it is probably 1/2" shorter than is ideal, but I just can't stand to fiddle with this skirt any more.  It doesn't fit as well as I'd like and tends to shift around on my body a lot, so I'm sort of annoyed about it.  I guess it looks okay (better from the front than the back), but I didn't even keep this outfit on for the day when I took these photos.  I ended up changing into a dress instead.

I'm just not really into my separates right now, mostly because I can't stand the feedback from my clothing around my waist, especially in the heat, so I guess it is okay.  I also realized that I need to put darts back into my beloved feedsack blouse so it looks less like an oversize box on me.  (I had taken them out a few summers ago when my weight was ballooning and my middle was expanding and contracting constantly).  I still really like the blouse, and I actually prefer to wear it untucked with the skirt, but until I get the darts back into it, it just looks frumpy and big (believe me, it looks worse in person than in the photo):

I mean, I'll probably wear it at some point this summer, but I'm realizing I need to focus on dresses instead of separates.  I'm also not eager to make stuff that may or may not fit in a few months, as I'm still trying to lose weight.  My dresses are more forgiving in that way.  I'm reevaluating my fall sewing plans as a result.

Just the facts:

Midnight twill skirt: Robert Kaufman Hampton Twill in midnight, Anne Adams 9481 (heavy mods), zip, dress slide, snap, embroidered folk ribbon for hem tape, rayon bemberg lining, petersham interfacing for waistband

Feedsack blouse: me-made about 4 years ago

earrings: etsy

Shoes: chaste ballet by hush puppies, via ebay

Liberty #5

It is the last day of school today and I think my head is going to explode.  I've got a three page monthly calendar spreadsheet plus weekly pages for the rest of the summer just to keep track of everything.  Let's just say that the rest of June is almost full.  My kids are old enough now that they want to get together with their friends during breaks, and keeping track of two or three friends per kid, babysitter hours, summer school work, my husband's trips, and the regular summer stuff that we schedule, is making my head hurt.  I know, I know.  #firstworldproblems

But you don't come here to read about my personal chaos!  So on to today's sewing project: Liberty #5.  I realize the Liberty series is getting kind of ridiculous, but I named this dress when it was still in the planning stages and I can't seem to get another name in my head for it, so #5 it is!  (And I know I technically don't have a #4, since it got renamed)

Let me just say that I love this dress.  I love the color palette, I love the print, I love the fabric, and I love the way it feels to wear.  A win all around!

This is another of Robert Kaufman's London Calling lawn prints, from last year.  I had considered it last summer (and even got a swatch from fabric.com) but ended up going with several other prints instead.  I always liked this one, though, and by the time I decided I wanted to make it up into a dress, I couldn't find it anywhere except ebay!  Thankfully there was a seller there who was selling by the yard for a reasonable price.  

The back elastic is good on this one, and the fit in the shoulders is good.  I was distressed to discover, when I got dressed on Sunday (when I wore this) that my Orkney dress feels too tight in the shoulders/arms.  I think it is something to do with the underlining, and now I don't really know what to do about it.  I'll try it on again in a week or so when the weather cools and see if it is any better, but I'm not holding my breath.  Both the Orkney and Hebrides dresses have been plagued with problems from the start.

But back to the dress at hand.  It was 97 degrees on Sunday and I was comfortable and cool all day.  I did put on a light blue cardigan at church because the AC was on kind of high, but that was it.

I forget why I chose patch pockets on this dress--I think I was just looking for something different from my usual kanga pocket when I made it.  I have a pretty good variety of patch/kanga pockets in this rotation, I think.

Isn't the print pretty?  I love the range of blues.

Just the facts:

Liberty #5 dress: London Calling lawn from Robert Kaufman, Simplicity 1080, elastic, navy blue bias tape

Necklace: had since a child

Earrings: etsy

Shoes: Chaste Ballet by Hush Puppies via ebay

Picnic dress

What a beautiful day for a picnic

What a picnical day for a lark.

We will frolic all day

in the happiest way

and we won't get back home until dark.

(Mickey Mouse's Picnic, Simon and Schuster, 1950)

Summer is upon us!  We've had temps in the low 90s the last four or five days, and the humidity is ridiculous.  Welcome to summer in the city!  We made plans on Saturday to meet up at a local arboretum with another family from the kids' school, and given the heat, I knew I wanted to be in something easy.  We were also planning to picnic there, so out came the Picnic Dress!

I feel like I try to make some iteration of this dress every summer and every year (until now) I've not really succeeded.  It is amazingly difficult to find nice gingham that is 100% cotton.  This one is from Cotton+Steel (of course!) and is a little thicker than absolutely ideal, but I wore it all day in pretty yucky wet heat and was okay, so I think it will pass muster!  I did want something slightly smaller in scale, but the 1/2" gingham weave is growing on me.  I'm also happy that this is a woven gingham rather than a printed one.  I like the look of it better.

I do think the back elastic will need to be snugged in at some point, but keeping it slightly loose also means it is a little cooler in the heat.

I did have a bit of a think about the pockets on this one.  I realized on my flannel dresses that the bias cute kangaroo pocket kind of cuts the dress in half visually at a wide point on my body, and is perhaps not the most flattering, so I decided to go with bias cut patch pockets on this one.  I think it was the right call.  I'm planning to swap out the pockets on the flannel dresses for patch versions too.  (I'm actually going to remake one of them entirely because my plaid matching was so poor on the original one that it is embarrassing). 

I didn't get a good side shot of this dress, but I did match everything up on both sides and the shoulders--I'm pretty proud of myself for that!!  *pats back*

I really like it with the red shoes--they just make the whole outfit scream summer.

I went with red thread to topstitch on this dress, and I'm still not sure it was the best choice.  When you have a high contrast print like this one, you sort of have to choose between the two colors as to thread, and both were going to show a lot.  The red seemed to show less, I suppose.  I did struggle a little to get the pleats in the pockets to match--one pleat almost disappeared when I got the facing on.  I'm not sure why that keeps happening.

I pulled out my strawberry jewelry to wear with it and felt very summery indeed.

So, yay!  A successful gingham dress!

The kids had a great time, even if it was quite hot:

The arboretum was lovely, and had a lot more for the kids to do than some of the others we've tried around here.  It was a bit of a drive to get there, however, and there are lots of houses with lawns and green spaces on the way, and the kids kept pointing out the windows and exclaiming: "I see a park!  And another park!  And slides!"  We had to explain (repeatedly) that no, those were just people's lawns.  #urbankids

Just the facts:

Picnic dress: Cotton+Steel Basics gingham in red, Simplicity 1080 (redrafted), elastic, red bias tape

Shoes: SaltWater sandals

Earrings: ModCloth

Necklace: Etsy

Periwinkle Birch

I'm nothing if not original. *snort*  Meet the Periwinkle Birch dress.  Which is exactly like the navy Birch dress.  Except, you know, periwinkle.  Which makes it totally different, right?  

I wanted another rayon dress in my summer rotation, and I loved my Rifle and Co. rayon dresses so much in the spring, I thought it would be nice to pick another colorway of the Birch fabric.  I felt that the darker dresses from my spring were out of place with my summer palette, and also I wanted to save them for next spring.  I find I don't always have two rotations in a row worth of wearing in me.

No construction notes, just a straight up Simplicity 1080 (redrafted somewhat for my specs).  I put on patch pockets because of the rayon.  I did have a little fight with the fabric during the cutting, and I do wonder if I'd like another inch on the length, but it is a fine dress and I'm pleased with it.

I really like the bright colors for summer.  And yes, I'm still in a cardigan and stockings and boots this morning, but I think I will be out of stockings by afternoon at least.

I keep fiddling with the back elastic width, and when I get it right, I don't remember to write it down, so I always have to start from scratch!  It is true that the placement does depend a lot on the fabric--rayon needs a tighter back vs. medium weight cotton or lawn, for example.

Ye ol' patch pocket.  I think this dress would go with my royal blue cardigan as well.  And you can see how different the fit is with my navy cardigan as against the horrid white one I wore yesterday.  I ended up swapping it out for the navy one in the morning.  They are exactly the same size and brand, and from the same line.  I don't get it.

Troopa boots again.  They still need a tiny bit of breaking in, particularly across the wide part of of the toe box, but otherwise, not too bad wearing.  They are all leather, which I like.

I remembered these pretty blue and silver earrings that matched the medium blue leaves in the dress perfectly.  I found the earrings last summer at CVS of all places.   Also back to my purple glasses--I just really like the shape of these frames.  I had stopped wearing them for a few weeks in favor of the pink pair because the stem was irritating one of my ears terribly, but it seems better now.  I'm noticing that I really can't not wear glasses most of the day now.  I can still see without them, and read if I have to, but I can tell my eyes are working really hard when I do.  I'm getting middle-aged I guess.

I forgot to mention in my little Twilight ramble yesterday that I'm listening to all the soundtracks again and I'm really enjoying them so much more now.  When the soundtracks first came out, there were only a handful of songs across all the albums that I really liked (and have been on regular rotation on my playlists since); I've been kind of casting around for something different to listen to lately, and decided to give all the albums another shot.  They are quite excellent and I love all the songs now.  They suit my current mood perfectly.

I watched Queen of the Desert yesterday and thought it was okay.  I have an academic interest in the topic, as I wrote my senior thesis on T.E. Lawrence and spent an intense nine months immersed in his life and writings.  I thought the film was very visually interesting, the costumes beautiful, and the soundtrack evocative, but overall the story is uneven.  I didn't buy the initial love story at.all, and I thought the movie was trying just a little too hard to be David O. Lean's famous movie on Lawrence (which is entertaining, but not very factual).   I also thought that a casual moviegoer would have a hard time following what was going on unless very familiar with the period and the characters in question.  I'm pretty familiar with it, and I still had a hard time making sense of the story arc and passage of time.  There is a lot of assumed knowledge, I think (and a couple of glaring historical errors).  Still, I'm glad I watched it, if for no other reason than Robert Pattinson's portrayal of Lawrence.  It is not his best performance, and he's only a minor character, since the film is primarily about Gertrude Bell, but I think Pattinson's portrayal is probably truer to how Lawrence actually was than Peter O'Toole's dashing hero of the big screen.  Lawrence remains an enigma.

Just the facts:

Perwinkle Birch dress: Rifle and Co. for Cotton+Steel rayon, Simplicity 1080, vintage bias tape, elastic

Cardigan: H&M

Stockings: O-socks via sock dreams

Boots: Troopa by Steve Madden via ebay

Earrings: CVS

Necklace: had since a child

Bo Peep Dress

I took these photos before I left for school drop off yesterday and promptly went back inside to put on stockings and boots (I was already wearing a cardigan, as you'll see below).  It was 53 degrees and not going much above the low 60s.  I'm not complaining, but my summer rotation isn't really set up for this!  Things heat up a LOT next week, though.  I'm trying to restrain myself from making a double gauze tunic dress I have planned for the fall.  It doesn't go at all with my color palette this rotation, and it will be wearable for probably 3 days of it.  Don't worry, I'm not going to attempt it right now.  The kids are finishing school on Tuesday, there is a lot of stuff just swirling around me and in my brain, so I don't have the mental space to try a new pattern at the moment.

Back to the dress.  I should probably start by saying that I know this cardigan looks terrible with it.  It is too big on me, and the length is pretty awful for my frame.  I've been looking for a white or off-white cardigan for months now and it is amazingly difficult to find what I'm looking for--something cotton, a basic button up crew neck, not too long in the body.  I've bought these H&M cardigans before, but the sizing is all over the place depending on the color.  My navy and royal blue ones both fit differently from this white and my charcoal gray ones, and they are all the same size.  Fie on you, fast fashion retailers and your sloppy slopers.  But they are one of the few retailers offering 100% cotton cardigans in a somewhat nice shape, so there is that.  <le sigh>

The fabric is from Penny Rose, and I really like their stuff.  I made the girls' strawberry dresses from one of their lines last summer.  Many of their prints have a definite 1930s feel to them, but a lot of it is too juvenile for me to wear.  I decided to take a chance on this print, however, since you can only see what it is up close.  It has Little Bo Peep and some little sheep and flowers scattered in pattern.  I really liked the colors too (it came in a blue colorway that I was very tempted by, but wanted some more red for my summer)  I think it works!  

This is definitely a medium weight cotton, but it is pretty soft and has a decent hand to it.  It also is densely woven enough to repel some liquids--I managed to spill some coffee in my lap at breakfast in the morning and was able to get it off before I took these photos!  

I'm going to keep hunting for a better cardigan to go with this dress and several others I have for my summer that don't have a good match to them.  We have a trip planned to a cooler place this summer so I think I will need some additional layers even if it is disgustingly hot and humid here.

I also went back to Victory rolls this morning, although it didn't really turn out exactly right--I'm kind of out of practice.  I started watching Suite Française on Netflix last night (it is set in rural France in 1940; it is just okay) but I really like Michelle Williams' hair styles in it.  

This is what I actually wore for drop off yesterday morning:

Stockings, boots, cardigan.  Could have used a heavier weight one, but I didn't have time to dig one out this morning.  I recently found the boots on ebay after stalking the site for a few months and thought I wouldn't be able to wear them until the fall!  Ha!

I rewatched the whole Twilight saga again in the last week or two and enjoyed that very much.  I remember when the movies were first in theatres, I was having a baby almost every year at that point, so it became my kind of post-partum tradition there for a while.  My sister and I shared the obsession and I remember calling her after Eclipse came out to discuss it with her, and she made the comment that she thought that it was the best of the movies so far, and that Robert Pattinson and Kristen Stewart were to the point of just zipping into their Edward and Bella suits and getting on with it.  I think that is exactly true!  Eclipse is also the best book, in my opinion.  Breaking Dawn 1/2 is just the frosting on top of the Eclipse cake, if you ask me.

I even started re-reading the books.  They are hitting me slightly differently this time around, probably because I'm older, and in a different place in my life, but I'm still finding myself thinking a lot about them.  I'll be curious to know if my original thoughts still hold.  I'm about halfway through the first one right now.  

Ponchik wanted to do a photo together before we went back inside after getting off the bus.  She is such a goofball.

Just the facts:

Bo Peep dress: Penny Rose fabrics via fabric.com, Simplicity 1080 (redrafted), elastic, vintage bias tape

Cardigan: H&M

Necklace: my gram's

Earrings: flea market

Stockings: O-Socks from Sock Dreams

Boots: Troopa by Steve Madden via ebay

(sandals in earlier pics are saltwaters)

Déjà vu dress

I'm calling this one the Déjà vu dress because I made a blouse from the same fabric way last summer.  I remember writing that I had considering making a dress instead, but decided I needed another blouse instead.  I did wear the blouse a bit last summer, but I was on the way to outsville with my separates by then, so I decided not to keep it in the rotation for this year.  

I managed to find a dress length of the print earlier this spring because I really do like the print a lot, but the collection was from last year, so it was a little hard to find this particular one.  This is from the Robert Kaufman London Calling lawn collection, and the fabric has a really nice hand to it.  It is lovely and light in the heat, and doesn't wilt too badly in high humidity (of which we have a  LOT here).

I wore this dress for the first time on Saturday morning and ended up changing because I was too cold; it was in the low 60s most of the day and damp.  I also felt slightly uncomfortable, although I couldn't say why.  I did feel a bit of panic thinking I'd maybe made something that didn't fit right, but I wore it again on Monday and it felt fine, so I must have just been off on Saturday.

I like it with the red Salt Waters--I think the pops of red are nice.

I actually applied the bias tape to this dress twice.  My first attempt was with white bias, and it looked terrible--almost like a weird uniform or something.  I almost left it, but decided it might prevent me from wearing it, so I pulled it off and put on red instead.  It looks much better (I realize that the bias is only a little visible when I'm moving or sitting, but still).  An hour well spent, I'd say.

The print looks better up close:

I did a kanga pocket and doubled the fabric, as I've noticed that single layer pockets in lawn tend not to be able to hold up to anything, and I like to be able to at least put my house and car keys in my pockets.  I've been doubling the pockets since last fall when I figured this out.

A nice bright summer dress, I think!  The weather has been gloomy and damp, so it feels sort of strange to be wearing it now, but it looks like the heat will catch us up next week.

I also wanted to share a quick pic of the Blueberry dress with the pocket alteration: 

I'm really quite pleased with the kanga pocket (doubled, of course, being Cambridge lawn from Kaufman) and this dress still fits well.  It is a nice blank slate for some of my novelty summer jewelry.

Just the facts:

Déjà vu dress: Kaufman London Calling lawn, Simplicity 1080 (redrafted), elastic, vintage bias tape

Shoes: saltwater sandals in red

Necklace: etsy

Earrings: etsy

Cardigan: Gap via ThredUp