Project 333: Spring/Summer

Christ is Risen!  Truly He is Risen!

Христос воскресе! Воистину воскресе!

Χριστὸς ἀνέστη! Ἀληθῶς ἀνέστη!

Crist aras! Crist sodhlice aras!

Christus is opgestaan! Hij is waarlijk opgestaan!

Happy Bright Monday!  Our Bright Monday started off with a bit of a bang, as my husband was involved in a fender bender on his way to the Bright Monday liturgy.  He is fine, the other driver is fine, but our (very old, very decrepit) Toyota Corolla is on its way to the great car graveyard in the sky.  Rest in peace, faithful friend.  We are going to try and get by on car shares and Uber for the next few months while we evaluate whether we need to replace the car.  Weekends are the toughest, as that is primarily when we need to drive and need two cars to accomodate my husband's clergy duties at church.  But.  It could have been much much worse, and we are grateful for all the mercy of the situation.

On to less serious things.  I never posted a winter rotation wrap up for Project 333, nor did I post about my spring rotation (and here it is almost May already!).  This was actually deliberate on my part, as I'm sort of experimenting with things right now.  I've noticed, after doing this rotation thing for a couple of years now that March and April are kind of miserable clothing months for me, and I realized that rotating out most of my winter wardrobe at the end of February had a lot to do with it.  

Our weather in March and April is completely bananas.  80 degrees and humid one day, down to below freezing the next.  Snow storms and torrential rains and everything in between.  It is epic.  My spring rotation just wasn't up to the task.  The problem is that by May, I do want some lighter things, but it usually isn't that warm for most of May (although, again, huge and extreme temperature shifts).  Some years I am still wearing boots and stockings the first week of June and other years it is sandals weather by then.  

What I did at the beginning of March was to rotate out the heaviest of my winter garments and to rotate in a few things from my spring that could be layered appropriately for the colder weather we were still having then.  I didn't put my parka away for the season until April, so it was plenty cold.  I also added a few heavy cotton sweaters to my closet from ThredUp, and found those to be extremely useful additions.  (I'm wearing one today with wool tights and a denim skirt, as we're back in the 40s again after about a week in the upper 60s/low 70s).  

I tried not to focus very much on the total number of garments in the closet or in the drawer.  My style continues to evolve away from the relaxed silhouette/quirky art teacher vibe I've been wearing the last few year, but I can't quite tell where to land yet.  I've been experimenting with different hem lines and silhouettes, trying to work out what makes me feel good in my clothes.  

I've been wearing a lot of separates this year, but one problem my Everyday skirts have is that the waistbands roll a lot during the day.  It makes me crazy and looks frumptastic.  I'm trying to work out why--I've decreased the height of the waistband to 1", which helped, but maybe I need to go down to 1/2", which makes the back elastic bit tricky.  I don't mind wearing a fitted waistband, but I have trouble getting those fitted well because my middle can fluctuate a bit during the day due to gastroparesis.  

The side profile of the Everyday Skirt also doesn't do me a lot of favors.  It makes me look much wider/thicker than I am, and that doesn't make me feel particularly good in my body either.  My sewing limitations are such that I know I have some fitting issues to overcome, but lack the skills to figure it out.  

There is also the perennial struggle of making new things when there are so many second hand clothes that could be thrifted instead, saving some waste and churn on the environment, but my proportions are such that finding RTW skirts that fit well are difficult.

I'm very much into slim skirts right now, but they can be hot in the summer (particularly the disgusting swamp the city becomes every summer) so I'm thrifting, trying to find something that will work for me (thank goodness ThredUp has a nice return policy!)  I'm also between sizes which is always challenging.  I have some navy yarn dye Brussels linen to make into some kind of skirt once I figure out a summer silhouette that feels good.

I didn't even bother to get or make a proper Pascha dress this year, because it just felt too hard.  None of my me-made dresses make me feel great.  I ended up wearing my basic navy knit dress with a new headscarf and a long navy cardigan and boots and calling it good.  As it happened, I would have been better off in my wools, as it was quite chilly, and the AC was on in the church to keep the clergy comfortable.  It was so cold all night!!

Blah-blah-blah, clothes are hard.  I'll let you know when I settle to something!  

Over and out.

Geranium Dresses

I don't remember when I first became aware of Made By Rae's Geranium dress for little girls, but I did decide to have a go with the pattern this spring as part of expanding my repertoire.  (Coincidentally, the pattern is quite similar to the Washi dress for adults)

My summer dress sewing for the girls has mostly been the little girl version of the Dottie Angel frock (a great summer dress pattern!) and the Lazy Daisy Jones girls dress pattern (also good, but works better for my girls cut at shirt length).  I usually make a birthday dress for each girl, as their birthdays bookend the warmer weather, and I was starting to think about Ponchik's birthday dress, since I will need to make it up soon.

I also had several of my old Dottie Angel frocks in the bin ready to be cut down for them, so I figured they were prime for testing out the Geranium pattern.  I measured both girls again and set to work.

First thing, however.  I do not love pdf patterns--all that taping!  And then the storage is a hassle.  Imagine my delight when I learned there is an online place that does cad printing for very little money!  They do have a minimum, so you need to print about three patterns to get there, but I wanted two copies of each dress plus the expansion pack, so I easily made it.  I had hoped to get Kinko's to print this for me, but they couldn't figure it out.  

I used a size 6 for Ponchik, which is on the border of too small.  As in, it fits perfectly right this second, but there is no room to grow and I think the neckline is a little high.  I'll cut a 7 for her birthday dress if I use this pattern again for her.  This is also the In Threes sweater that never seems to go away--I knit two of them for the girls' Pascha outfits like three springs ago?  At least.  This is the bigger of the two, and Ponchik is just growing out of it.  I'm going to make the girls some brownish ones for next fall.

I cut down That 1940s Dress from two summers ago--I was able to use the bottom half of the dress for the skirt without totally deconstructing the dress, so that was a speed bonus as well.  The cap sleeves are a little tricky if you aren't lining the dress (I wanted these to be cool and easy for summer, and this fabric is lawn), but I got there in the end.  I did a better job on Birdie's dress since I had a better sense of how to finish the curved edges by the time I got to her dress.

Not my best zipper insertion, but it will do for now.

Birdie's dress is a 7, and I cut it down the same way as the first one, preserving the side seams on the original skirt of the dress and just putting in the pleats from the pattern.  This is also the Rennie dress I wore quite a bit for two or three seasons and then decided I didn't want in my closet anymore.  I'm starting to have a complicated relationship with floral prints.  (#clothesarehard)  But the print is Alexander Henry and the fabric is pretty hearty, so it will be a good dress for both girls--I think Ponchik will be able to wear it when it is too small for Birdie, although both girls are so similar in size, I can't always count on the hand-me-down.

My only complaints about this pattern are that the bodice is tricky if you are finishing with bias (admittedly, this is my fault and not Rae's, as the dress is meant to be self-lined), and also I don't love that the girls can't get these on and off by themselves because of the zipper.  The Simplicity 8101 (DA frock) and Lazy Daisy Jones dresses (S8087) are easy for them to pop over their heads by themselves, so if I make a bunch of summer stuff for them (probably not this year, as I said earlier this week), I will go back to those patterns instead.  But the Geranium dress is good for a slightly nicer dress, and the girls always need one or two of those every summer too.  I haven't decided what to use for the birthday dresses yet, but it is nice to know that I can easily cut down one of my old dresses to work with this pattern too.

Yarn Along: April

~knitting~

I have three projects on needles right now (why just have one when you can have three?)  

The first is the emerald Stoker cowl sweater I started last month.  I'm about half way through the second sleeve and the body is finished and seamed at the shoulders.  I'll have a ton of seaming to do quite soon!  It's been a relatively quick knit, but I probably won't get to wear it this season.

The second is my very-slow-going Lightweight Pullover.  Honestly, all this stockinette in the round on small needles is very boring to me.  I'm thinking of pulling it out and starting something else, except I really like the pattern, and I'm pretty sure the finished sweater will be a useful one for me.

The final project is a gray beret that I'm making with some Swish yarn I bought a couple of years ago for no particular purpose.  I'm hoping to get the sizing right on this one.

~reading~

Lenten reading, mostly.

Father Stephen Freeman's book, Everywhere Present, which is a wonderfully deep little book on re-enchanting our world.  It is a more down-to-earth book about some of the things Charles Taylor and Matthew B. Crawford have written (and about which I have written at length).  I enjoy Fr. Stephen's writing style very much, as well as his very down-to-earth approach.  I'm very interested in spiritual writing that speaks to me where I live, and Fr. Freeman's book certainly does.

I also picked up An Inner Step Toward God again, after having abandoned the book half-way through two Lents ago.  It is wonderful as well.  The late Father Alexander Men is clearly in the weeds with people in their spiritual lives, and I appreciate that.  His personal prayers (reprinted in the middle of the book) are so beautiful.

I'm also reading (in small bites) St. John of Kronstadt's My Life in Christ, but it is slow going because of how the book is formatted.  Every little piece is small and digestible, but the book has no chapter breaks, so it feels like you never get anywhere with it.

I have some other books on marriage and family waiting in the wings, as well as a boat-load of research on the Saxon period to start combing through to develop the next book.

~watching~

BBC history documentaries on YouTube.  I've watched one on pre-historic Britain (in four parts), one on the Plantagenet family of Britain (in three parts), and a brilliant series with Lucy Worsley on domestic history (in four parts) that dovetails very nicely with my earlier reading of Judith Flanders and Elizabeth Wayland Babour.  Dr. Worsley's documentaries are fun and informative--I really enjoy her!  (Fair warning: there is a bit of inaccurate information about personal hygiene in the Tudor/Stuart period; Ruth Goodman has discussed the topic at length, as well as done period experiments on it.  But it was a minor quibble).  Plus an older documentary on the Saxon period.

I also saw the Oscar-nominated Darkest Hour this week and enjoyed it very much.  All the performances were stellar, and Gary Oldman deserved every nomination he got.  I'm planning to show it to the kids soon, since they are so interested in Churchill and this period of time.

Boo is also really into Richard III right now, so I showed him the documentary about the King in the Carpark (how they found his body) and he is working his way through the same documentary series I saw on the Plantagenets.  Piglet is playing the Dauphin in a scaled down production of Henry V at school later this spring and so we've been talking a bit about that period of time too.

~book news~

I'm sending out queries to agents now (almost no publishers accept direct submissions these days) and have received three rejections so far.  I'm sanguine about the process and expect a lot of rejections, so that is okay.  I sent out another round of queries this morning, and am starting to hear back from beta readers, so that is all to the good!

And a reminder for anyone who likes a historical story, my first book, Deliverance, is available through Amazon, both in paperback and kindle format.

Linking with Ginny for Yarn Along!

Wool Crepe Everyday Skirt

Let me tell you a tale of bottle green wool crepe.  When Sunni at a Fashionable Stitch shut down her fabric store, she had a great sale on her inventory to get rid of it.  This included a wonderful bottle green wool crepe that she had used to make a Hollyburn skirt.  At the time, I had recently made a Hollyburn, and thought I'd like a wool one too.  

The pattern is very fabric hungry, so I got the 3 yards it requires.  By the time the fabric arrived, I realized I didn't like the Hollyburn on me at all (too much volume!) and the crepe languished in my stash.  I'd pull it out occasionally, look at it and think about what to make with it, but I always put it back, the cost of the fabric a deterrent to casual use.

After doing some sketching on my Body Model croquis, I got interested in the idea of a winter jumper.  There are a lot of patterns available for pinafores right now, but my sketches were along the lines of a sleeveless Washi, so I decided to work with what I had.  *cue ominous music*  I squeezed a half bodice lining out of some rayon bemberg remnant and set to work.  The result was horrid.  So horrid in fact that I can't bring myself to show you a picture of it on my body, so you get to see it on a loveseat in my living room.  Ugh.  

I threw it in the naughty corner and sulked about the whole thing for a bit.  After I thought more rationally about it, I decided that I should make what I had originally intended for the fabric: a skirt.  I had cut my Washi carefully enough to preserve yardage (the fabric is 60" wide) and so had more than enough left over to cut an Everyday skirt.  The drape of the wool crepe seemed a poor fit with a more fitted pencil skirt, even though I'm really into slim skirts right now.  I took apart the original garment and stored it with my scraps in case I try it on a pencil skirt at some point.

I ordered additional bemberg to line it, since I figured it would make for a nicer finished skirt and set to work.  I remembered that lining my orange wool skirt was kind of a pain, and this time was no different.  The problem is the waist band construction isn't done in one piece.  It is clever for the insertion of the elastics, but it makes putting in a lining very tricky.  I also ran out of dark green thread and had to wait for more to arrive, only to find that when it arrived, it was slightly lighter than my previous green thread (even though they were supposed to be the same) and shows more on the hem and top stitching.  I stitched in the ditch on the waistband, and the gathering around the elastics hides it in the back, but the hem is rather obviously a different color.  I may take out the hem and blind stitch it instead.

That said, even though this was a tortuously slow make (more than 2 weeks start to finish because of waiting for supplies and time to sew), I think I like the finished skirt.  It isn't as warm as I thought it would be, but I think it will be a great spring/fall skirt. 

I did a 1" petersham interfaced waistband again, but also did a 1" elastic in the back.  I may end up taking that out and putting in the double line of elastics as on the spice cake skirt, since I like the fit better.  This one still feels slightly too big on me even though I've cinched it and cinched it.  1" braided elastic behaves so differently from 1/2" braided elastic and I don't really understand why.  It is 10" or less at this point and still feels too big.

  I also did the same pleated pattern as on the spice cake skirt and I really like it.  And even though the lining was a serious pain in the patootie, I'm glad it is there, because it just makes the skirt feel more luxe and professional.  That hem, tho.  I'm definitely going to fix it.

So while the make is a successful one, and I'm glad to have it in my closet, I need a little space from the process of making it before I'm ready to really wear it.  (Apologies for monotonous styling decisions--I took all the photos for this week's makes on the weekend and couldn't be bothered to completely change my clothes again.  Looks good with this shirt anyway!)

Rayon Staple Dress: A Journey

Right.  So here's a dress I'm still not sure about.  As part of my quest to find a TNT dress pattern for this season of my life, I had a dig through my pattern stash and remembered I had the Staple Dress from April Rhodes.  I'd never made it because I bought it when I was making Dottie Angel frocks all the time and it seemed too similar.  (Also, I tried to modify my DA pattern once on a rayon dress to mimic the look and let's just say it didn't go well).

So it was with fear and trembling that I embarked on this endeavour.  I have some rayon in my stash from last year that was from Pat Bravo's Indie Folk line.  It is gorgeous, but I don't want to use it on just anything.  Plus, I find it is hard to find patterns that marry up well with rayon challis. 

I was playing around with various options while sketching, and while I didn't ultimately combine the patterns, the result is similar in silhouette.

 I think what I really want for it is an Ogden cami dress (either knee or maxi-length) but I can't commit to the silhouette because I'm pretty sure that it won't look good on me because the top is blousy.  Also: I hate wearing a belt in the summer.  Or pretty much any time.  And I'm not a fan of strapless bras.

So the Staple dress.  I bought some super cheap printed rayon challis on fabric.com that mimicked the drape of my rayon and set to making a wearable muslin.  (Side note: why it is that rayon challis is either dirt cheap or stupidly expensive?  There doesn't seem to be a quality difference to me). 

Details.  I decided I needed a medium on top, but couldn't decide if I needed a large or extra-large on the bottom, as I'm right between the hip measurements, and measuring the pattern didn't particularly reassure me.  I ended up grading from an extra large at the hem to a medium just above the waist line and I think that was the right call, although honestly, I think the top is a bit blousy and I could stand to go down to a small on top.  (But then the shoulders might not fit well.   It's a slight squeeze in the sleeeves as is).  I also added 3" of length, because April must be much smaller than me.  As drafted it would have been 37" long.  (Although, I'm digging shorter lengths these days, so maybe it would have been okay).

My main problem was that the inseam pockets did not line up side to side.  At all.  As in, one of my pocket openings is barely functional because I had to trim so much off the pocket to make it work.  Rayon is pretty shifty, so perhaps the fault was mine when I made my markings, but I will keep it in mind if I make another one.  

My next problem was in the shirring.  I tried, I really did, but Berninas are not set up to shirr.  I tried it the way that Rae recommends (who also uses a Bernina, but a newer model than mine), I tried it the way the manual for my machine recommends and nada.  It just didn't work.  So I ripped it all out and started again.  I made a casing with some 1/2" bias tape on the inside, seamed in the middle, and then threaded two 1/4" elastics through the channel with some difficulty.  The reason I didn't just put the 1/4" elastic on the inside as instructed is that when I've done this in the past it always looks bad on me.  I thought perhaps the combination of a casing+double channel elastic might mimic the shirring a bit better.  I think it does, but it still feels like a hot mess to me.

So not a stunning success, but still a wearable garment that will be lovely and cool in the disgusting summer swamp I live in.  (And we are going somewhere even hotter in July--oh joy--so it should be good for that too).  I still don't know what to do with my Indie Folk rayon, but I think I'm just going to save it for now.  Better to get a dress pattern I truly love than waste my nice fabric just to make it up.

I mentioned over the weekend that I had a bunch of sewing fails in March.  What I'm not going to show you are: a Stasia dress that came out so tight I looked like a sausage casing in flamingo pink, a red calico Washi dress in a maxi length that just didn't suit me, a wool crepe jumper that was horrid beyond belief, and a knit Washi that is frumptastic on me.  Blerg.  

The Stasia dress pattern could be salvaged by going up a size, but honestly, I'm just ground down about sewing right now.  I have one more make to show you tomorrow (a relative success), and some things I made for the girls, but I gotta say: Sewing is not doing it for me right now.  I usually make most of my girls' clothes for the summer, and I do most of my sewing for that around now, but after making them each a shirt and a dress, I'm just done.  The process of making those garments was not fun, and I found myself gritting my teeth through each make, just trying to get it done.  On the upside, I was able to recycle two of my old dresses to make theirs, so at least there's that.

I ended up going on amazon and old navy and buying them what they need for the warm weather this year and I don't feel bad about it at all.  I've also been thrifting a lot for myself because I can't seem to find what I want to wear right now, and there is a lot less investment in trying on a thrifted garment that can be returned than getting fabric and notions, fitting a new pattern, taking the time to sew it all up and then find it doesn't really work for me.  I do regret the waste of those failed makes, but hopefully someone else will thrift them and love them instead.

Shelbourne Falls Emery Mashup

A few weeks ago, I decided to take the plunge and download a customized croquis of myself from My Body Model.  I've been dithering about it since it was released, and there was a little spring sale going on, so I decided to go for it.  I like the croquis better than the Gertie ones because I don't have to add anything to match my shape.

I then happily set to sketching, trying out some silhouettes for dresses with fabric I had in my bins that I wanted to make up for the warmer weather.  I don't have many summer dresses right now, so it seemed like a productive use of creative energy and fabric.  I did buy a bit of fabric too, but some of it was to test out some patterns I was trying out.  

This was my first one.  I've had the Emery pattern for a long time now, and the bodice was the basis for my Frankendress, of which there are many iterations on this blog between 2014-2016 or so when Dottie Angel frocks took over my sewing queue.  I've lost a lot of weight since then, and I also wanted to try a sleeveless dress since I almost always wear a cardigan over my dresses now anyway, so I went ahead and retraced the bodice and skirt (I had never actually made up the skirt that goes with the pattern) and set to fitting with an old sheet.  I fitted the bodice only, and made a straight size 12.

My muslin told me that I needed to take in the side seams quite a bit (I ended up taking an additional 5/8" at the top of the side seam and tapering to a 7/8" side seam at the bottom), and lower and shorten the bust and waist darts.  I remembered from before that the bust darts are drafted for a much perkier chest than mine, so I had already lowered and shortened them when I traced off, but I ended up shortening a total of 1" and lowering about 1/2".  The waist darts were about 1/2" shorter than drafted. #hounddogears

Okay.  So I took my courage in my hands and cut into this Denyse Schmidt fabric I found on etsy.  It isn't particularly rare or dear, but I always hate to risk fabric on an unknown venture.  I wasn't sure how the sleeveless bit would really look (cardigan notwithstanding, I have a long-standing issue with my upper arms.  I'm mostly over it).  I also worried about the pouf of the skirt.  (And we all know how I feel about that).

My fears were well-founded on the skirt.  I pleated it using the washi dress pleats as a guide, but I had to add at least two or three extra sets of pleats to either side of the center on both the front and the back, which gives you an idea of how much volume is in that skirt.  I probably should have traced off a size six instead to reduce the volume.  I tried on the dress and then couldn't get it off my body quickly enough.  NOPE.  I threw the dress in the corner for a time out and flagellated myself for my profligacy with fabric.  

The trouble is, I don't have a go-to dress pattern right now.  I'm over my Dottie Angel frocks, style-wise, and the Washi dress is fine as a cool weather layering piece, but I don't actually like the style much for summer.  (I found this out the hard way when I made a maxi version out of some pretty red calico I got in an instagram sale.  No matter, I'll cut the maxi down for one of the girls, but still.  Grr.)

I posted my angst about the dress fail on instagram and one of my friends made a comment about tweaking it to save it.  I honestly hadn't thought about it--I was so upset about the failure that I couldn't even think about wanting that fabric anywhere near my body.  After I calmed down a bit (INFP/J, what I can say??  All the feels, all the time), I decided to try cutting the skirt down to a slimmer profile. 

So I pulled out my trusty Anne Adams 9481 and set to work with my seam ripper.  I took apart the whole skirt, recut it smaller, and reattached it all the next day.  And whomp-whomp.  I wasn't thrilled.  The fit was good, the dress was pretty, but I still wasn't wowed.  Neverthless, I put it in my closet to save for warmer weather and a reassessment.

Well.  The weather is definitely warmer now, and I tried it on (whilst taking a bunch of photos of finished makes) and while I don't think this will be an everyday kind of dress for me, it will work nicely for an event I have to go to in May that requires a bit of dressing up.  So yay for that.  It's also a decent summer church dress, I think.  So I guess it gets to stay in the closet.  I might take up the hem another inch or so, but maybe not.  I can't quite decide.

I'm happy I took the time to fit this dress carefully, and I do have a well-fitting dress out of it, that I could replicate in a different fabric, so there's that.  I could see making it in a lightweight corduroy for fall or winter, perhaps, for a dressy cold-weather garment.  (Note to self: make a pincord version for Christmas next year).

So the experience was valuable, and I do have a wearable garment out of the process.  Just not the wearable garment I thought I would have.  But that's okay too.