Painted Roses Rescue

Good news first.  I think I like this dress again. #rayonrescues

I ironed the heck out of it to put the hem back to rights and to get the creases out from the bust tucks in the front and elastic in the back.  I also took out the side seams to almost nothing to give the dress some additional ease, especially around my ribs, where it had gotten unaccountably tight after I changed the sleeves.  I'm still puzzling over why this happened, as it isn't a problem on my Menagerie dress, and the slopers are very similar.  After that, I put in the waist casing.  

For reference, my method was to measure down 4.5" from the armscye on both sides, and draw a line straight across on both sides of the inside of the dress in chalk.  I used that line as my guide to sew on the 7/8" wide bias tape and then inserted the 1/2" elastic.  I used a knit elastic on this one, as I was out of the soft stuff I usually use, but it feels okay against my ribs.  The braided elastic is what was too tight for this purpose.

I had already taken up the sleeves to 3/4 length a few weeks ago, so it was a relatively quick fix.  It is still not the most comfortable dress I own, but it is definitely wearable, and because rayon stretches over time, it is getting more comfortable as the day wears on.  I think the straight lines of the skirt and low volume of the fabric keeps the dress from feeling maternity-ish.  (At least, that's what I'm going to tell myself).

So I think it is okay.  I also made the happy discovery that rayon doesn't need a slip if I don't have on tights or stockings underneath.  Hooray!  I pretty much wear a slip every day, and while I generally don't mind, it is supposed to get to the mid-80s today, and I'd just as soon have one less layer on.

The bad news is that the lovely new-to-me clogs I had on yesterday literally fell apart on the way home from school.  The sole on one split in half and the heel just starting chunking away as I walked.  I've worn them exactly three times since I bought them second hand off ebay last month.  I'm bummed in the extreme, as I was looking forward to wearing them all summer.  I had a pair almost identical to them a few years ago that I wore out, and was happy to find a replacement that was so similar.  I think the pair must have been sitting in a hot closet for a long time to make the soles so brittle like that, because the shoes were in almost pristine condition when I received them.

On the other hand, I did find a replacement pair of my lace up sandals, pictured above (they are exactly the same as the pair I wore out and wore a lot on this blog over the years), so there's that.  They are also second hand, but in really good shape.  I really prefer a closed toe shoe in the summer but it is hard to find something that doesn't hurt my feet or look orthopedic. I'm not quite ready for SAS shoes yet. 😯

In other news, the cake was a big hit. I put raspberry jam between the two layers of cake and we had chocolate ice cream with it.  Boo was happy, I think.  He got several Marvel-themed Lego sets, so I'm going to spend some time putting the last one together for him this morning (he can't do complicated sets himself yet but likes to play with the finished product).  

I started watching the AMC series Turn: Washington's Spies this week while sewing (after a failed attempt to get into it a year ago) and am enjoying it.  I really like Jamie Bell (even more so after his excellent work in Film Stars Don't Die in Liverpool--go watch it right now.  It is that good).  

My main question about the AMC series is the accents are all over the place.  Half the cast is British and half is American, and there is a complete mosh of accents.  I get that during the 18th century, people would have still had British accents, but there isn't even continuity in families--Abraham has a northern British accent (that is sometimes very pronounced) but his father, an American actor, has a generic American accent.  But I'm nit-picking.  The writing is quite good, and I'm enjoying the multi-threaded storylines.  I have a few quibbles with the costumer--please, for the love of Pete, put a shift under those stays!--but otherwise the look of the show is good.