Frankenpatterning again...

I've had a hard time finding a warm weather dress pattern I like; the Emerald I made in the spring is just okay, and I'm not sure I want to keep fiddling with a pattern that isn't well suited to my proportions.  After my toile of the Tea House dress, I had the idea of using the elements of it that I liked (the wrap around sash, cut on sleeves and midi length) and adapting it for a knit. I have a RTW midi dress that I like the look and fit of very much but not the fiber content, and wanted to replicate the look in a better fiber substrate.  So this dress is the result of those two things coming together, with a lot of stops in between to tweak the details.  It does seem like a winner.  My husband likes it very much, so that's all the better! 

(A note about the pictures: the ones in the garden were taken before I opened up the neckline, the ones inside taken after.  The fit difference is subtle, but I thought it would be nice to show both sets).

I started with the Emerald top for the bodice, and put the McCall's 7353 skirt on it, since I like the way the pockets are installed.  I used the sash pattern from the Tea House dress.  I narrowed the skirt to match the width of my original alteration to the Emerald top, taking out about 1/2".  I also added 1" to the top and bottom of the skirt, and 3/4" to the top to give myself a large seam allowance at the waist. The fabric is the Telio Perla that I used for my burgundy skirt.  I still can't get over how much the hand of that fabric changes with washing.

 I had originally thought to install elastic at the waist and use the belt for show only, but the waist line was too high, and the whole thing ended up looking quite strange, and not at all the silhouette I wanted. So I pulled out the elastic, unpicked the bodice from the skirt and cut the extra 1" off the top of the skirt. 

 

 

 

The next problem was with the pockets, which gaped badly and pulled the skirt weirdly across the hips, so I cut them off and seamed the edges which fixed the pulling across the hips.  It is probably because I took out the 1/2"; I can't decide whether the pockets are worth it in this dress, to be honest.

I also recut the neckline wider, as my original neckline looked slightly odd, and it was pulling at the sides.  Releasing some of that and rebinding the neck made the whole thing behave better and pushed the sleeve caps a little further down on my biceps, which also looks better.

I used the Emerald facings for the sleeve openings, but used a simple binding for the neckline rather than the facing (although I wish I had done a proper facing on it).  I also faced the hem, mostly because I like the look of it better, and I think it lies flatter than a regular knit hem.  It wouldn't be hard to adapt the sleeves to 3/4 or long sleeves, but I'm short on warm weather dresses at the moment.

This dress was a great traveling garment, and I wore it on the plane to and from California.  The slightly longer length kept my legs covered on the cold plane, but it was still comfortable for sitting in a narrow seat for many hours.

After seeing Whitney's Woolfork yellow linen dress, I got sort of obsessed about having a yellow summer dress too.  I have SAD in the summer time instead of winter, and I'll take whatever dose of cheery I can get!

The daffodil linen Whitney used was a little dear for my budget (although it is a perfect yellow!), and the Woolfork is fabric hungry (almost 5 yards!), so I decided to try for a yellow knit, with a few tweaks to the Emerald-M7353 mashup.  

 

 I ordered the fabric from the same place as my yellow, green, and teal skirts, but I decided to try the light yellow instead of the medium, thinking it might work better with my skin tone for a solid yellow dress.  In retrospect, I should have gone with the same medium yellow as my skirt, as the light yellow is just this side of neon instead of buttercup.  (It is hard to tell in these photos, but trust me when I say it is VERY bright yellow). Yellow is so tricky!  I love it, but I have to have a very particular shade of yellow if I want to wear it next to my face and not look ill. This shade was not it and I'm mad at myself about it.  Moving on...

My tweaks to this version were to add the width back to the skirt that I took out, and to widen the Emerald top portion to match (which in turn widened the neckline a bit more).  I did all the facings this time and the fit is better on this one, with just a tad more ease throughout.  I could have managed pockets but I was rushing to finish it before our California trip, so I didn't bother.  It's just as well, as I'll be cutting this dress down for undergarments.  

The fit is good, however, and I've got a green dress cut out with the fitting changes using the same green knit as my skirt.  My kids' school color is kelly green, so I'm excited to wear the green one for school events!  (Pics to come when I've finished the thing)

Cultural Visual Ideals

Over the years, I've nattered on quite a lot about body image in this space, and I think it is worth revisiting every now and again.  Three years ago, My Body Model launched their app, which is produces custom croquis (pronounced kroh-key) according to the measurements inputted into the algorithym.  There are some tweaks you can make for individual body quirks like bust height and the bulge below the hips at the top of the thighs and some other proportional things. 

The advantage of a croquis that looks like me is that I can draw out garments before making them to see what they look like on my body.  My proportions are far from industry standard--industry standard being a woman 9 heads high and slim enough to not need things like internal organs.  Just what we consider the cultural visual ideal here in late post-modern capitalism.  The average woman is 7 heads high and there is no "standard" for the other measurements.  But I digress.  As usual.

 

Earlier this summer, I started sketching garments I already owned or had made in previous seasons, as an idle exercise.  It turned out to be quite useful as it helped me see what I already had, what I was actually wearing/wanted to wear, etc.  I even used it as a packing tool to put together a cohesive suitcase.

Suitcase options...

At some point, Birdie noticed these sketches, and I gave her a page to draw on once when we were waiting somewhere.  She has been drawing and coloring since then, happily making up garments and coloring them as it suits her.  Ponchik has gotten in on the action as well, and, surprisingly, so has Boo.  Boo is designing superhero uniforms (natch).

By Birdie

 

By Ponchik

After a few days of much concentrated coloring and designing (it was a great way for the girls to pass time on the long plane ride to California), I realized the value of giving them croquis of me.  Or more precisely, of my body shape, which is definitely not shaped like Black Widow or a fashion model.  It normalizes my shape for them, I think.  I thought about making croquis of them, so they would be designing on their own bodies, but the app is a little pricey for such an endeavor, so I think I'll stick with the files I already have.

By Boo

I suppose it is just a drop of sand in the ocean of cultural imaging, but put enough sand together and you just might have an island. 

California Queen

Or something.  

Where to begin?  We just returned from California to visit family, so I'm a bit jet-lagged and behind on everything.  At least I did the wash before I left CA. 

With my gorgeous sister-in-law at a rare restaurant treat.  Even rarer? It was adults only!

The time there gave me a lot to think about in terms of the choices we make about how we live in our homes, what makes for true flourishing, both as a family unit and more generally speaking.  I'm not yet ready to write about it, but it might even coalesce into a novel, who knows?

I did a bunch of sewing in the week or two leading up to the trip that I haven't shared yet, so might as well get to it!  Spoiler alert: three wins and a meh.

 

 

The first win is a white handkerchief linen Remy Raglan (no surprise there) that I lurve.  I added an inch to the length because I had a yard and a half to work with, and I think it is perfect. 

The cotton ball in my ear is for a freak swimmer's ear infection at the beginning of July.  Somehow without swimming?

I was going on the experience of another Remy I made for the fall that I also had slightly more yardage to work with and made an inch longer.  Both versions are now 1.25" shorter than pattern length.   I'll show the other one when the weather cools.

I was able to get the yardage on a doggie bag remnant from Fabrics-store.com, so the price was very nice, and the fabric is beautiful and light.  

There is still a bit of sizing in the fabric, despite a prewash and hot dry, so I expect it to get that delightfully rumpled look with time and wearing.  It has the added bonus of being a great dress layer in lieu of a cardigan, so it is quite versatile!

The second win is another Elemental skirt (again, no surprise!) that I've been wearing almost constantly since I finished it.  Unfortunately, I only have a terrible locker room photo from the rec center where the kids swim, but you get the idea.  The shade is pretty close to my linen Rose hack skirt from last year (and the  Remy I made with the same linen this year).  I used the same etsy seller for the knit fabric (it is seriously nice stuff!).  I've bought several colorways from her now, and am really impressed with the color saturation and hand of the fabric.  It is slightly more to the blue end of the teal spectrum, but it looks good with my Mosaic Emerald from last year, as well as the color-blocked one in Biking Red, so that's great!  (I was hoping it would be a match for the Sphinx for a #dresslikeacrayon outfit, but the tone is just slightly off)

Still getting unpacked and into the right time zone, so moving slowly today. Hope to show the other finished projects next week!