The Motherdress

I'm a bit behind this month--we celebrated Ponchik's birthday a week ago and I've been AWOL from the blog since early May.  What can I say?  Two birthdays, an anniversary, Ascension, general May madness.  It got away from me. 

First up is Ponchik's birthday dress.  I may have created a monster, as she asked me for a birthday dress months ago and was super specific about it.  A cupcake dress.  

I honestly thought it would be easy to find cupcake fabric.  Not so much.  I spent way too much time looking at a handful of terrible fabrics in a lot of different online stores and not liking any of them.  They were either weird colors to wear, too photorealistic for clothing, or just strange looking patterns.  I finally found this older Kaufman print on etsy and snapped up two yards quick-like.  The dress itself was a snap to sew, since I've made it many times before.  I had to grade it out a bit from last year, but that was it.  Ponchik was super happy with it!

She also requests strange desserts, with things like strawberry and pumpkin in them.  Together.  I don't know either.  I gently suggested that perhaps a chocolate cake would be better?  She said yes, please, so I made her cake almost exactly like Boo's, except the layers came out a bit more even.  

For Mother's Day, I requested a dress length of cotton-linen chambray from Robert Kaufman and received it.  I sewed it up quickly on Saturday and wore it on Sunday last.  It is a delightful dress, I must say.  (I hasten to add that these terrible photos were taken at 3:30 in the afternoon after 2 hours driving, several hours of liturgy and coffee hour to boot.  Hence the wrinkles and rumples.  The sleeves are not too tight, despite the look).  I always seem to be looking for a good chambray dress at this time of year.  (Hence the Chambray Dress of Shame and the failed rescue of the same last spring).

I used my M7353 again, with my adjustments for woven fabric, but I also added 1/4" to the bottom edge of the back sleeve this time, which was just perfect in this fabric.  The rayon I used last time had a lot more mechanical stretch than this fabric, so I needed a bit more room for my guns, er, biceps.

I finished all the edges with zig-zag stitch, and used bias binding to encase the waist seam nicely.  So the insides are pretty good for this dress.  Bias binding on the neckline and hemline.  One package did the neck, waist, and hem nicely.

The fabric has a slight sheen to it, which gives the dress a little something-something, I think.  The sleeves are always a bit rumpled looking, but I can live with that.  I wore it again today with a long drop necklace and delicate earrings and liked it very well that way too.  I also discovered I don't need a slip with it, which is another win.  I think this one might make it into my summer rotation.

The linen gives it a nice swish and cool feeling.

The shoes were a random good ebay find after the second hand dansko clogs fell apart on me.  I'm always looking for closed toed sandals for warm weather.  These are perfect.

I kind of think this is the dress I meant to make last fall when my Summer Jazz dress failed.

I must highly recommend the movie Austenland, which I watched with great delight last Friday night.  I've become a big JJ Feild fan lately (mostly after his wonderful work on the Revolutionary War show TURN as Major John Andre) and he is so good in Austenland.  The movie is so funny (painfully so at times).  And I loved the ending.  Just right.  (The director is part of the creative team that put Napoleon Dynamite together, so you know it has to be good).

I watched the new version of Howard's End recently and thoroughly enjoyed it.  Great British cast, a wonderful adaptation, high production values and good costuming.  Matthew McFayden is a treat and Hayley Atwell is so good in it.  (I find it interesting that this is their third collaboration together).

I also went to an actual movie theater to see Avengers: Infinity War this morning, and it was good.  (I didn't want to put off seeing it too much longer since it was getting hard to avoid hearing spoilers about the film!)  I am disappointed about where a few plot lines ended up, but not surprised.  I also left with more questions than I had going in, so I'm super eager to see where the next movie will go.  I have some ideas, but I won't spoil the movie for anyone who hasn't seen it yet.