Salvage (or not)

As in previous summers, I've struggled to find a dress pattern I liked (forget about loved).  The Anna dress was a clear winner this summer, but it isn't really a dress for everyday.  The Hinterland was a rank disaster, my knit dress hack from last summer feels too hot.  Hot flashes and knit cotton jersey are not a great mix in the summer.  The SewHouse7 Tea Dress wasn't for me (although I wonder about making it in a rayon challis, as I think I might like it better), and my very hacked and modified Simplicity 1080 annoys me.  I kept the Bluebird iteration because I can't seem to let it go, but it is my "I literally have nothing clean" dress, so not a distinct favorite.  

The Terrace dress from last summer is fine, I guess.  I let out the side and shoulder seams and cut off the pockets last month since it didn't fit well any longer (if it ever did, to be honest) and it fits better.  The Obi belt is a cool feature but I prefer the dress as a shift in the heat/humidity.  My Wildwood Sorrel is nice, but again, not for every day.  The Driftwood dress is just...okay.  The original iteration already went back in my bin to cut down for something else, and the second one is kind of languishing in my closet even though I've worn it a couple times.  I like the fabric, but am finding the print a bit much in dress form.  

Part of me wonders why I even care.  I have a lot of nice me-made and thrifted separates that are fine for church and every day wear.  But honestly, sometimes I just want the ease of a simple dress.  Maybe I just need to let it go.  I have one dressier dress (the Anna), a couple of church-appropriate dresses, and plenty of separates.  In any case, I'm out of steam for garment sewing this season and recently thrifted a white dress for the white summer feasts (at last!  This has been on my list for ages).  I've got a lot on my plate before school starts in a few weeks and can sweat through all my clothes in a week and still make the laundry cycle. Et finis.

Anyway, the Isla wrap dress was another dress that just didn't fit or suit.  I felt like a whale in it, and the waist tie annoyed me a LOT.  (Incidentally, that was what annoyed me most about my final S1080 iteration, and probably what I don't like about the Tea House dress).  Even though waist ties give a lot of flexibility, they can also bind uncomfortably as the day wears on.  

The bodice was a good fit, however, and I sort of liked the fabric, and didn't want to waste it.  (This summer has been a series of hard lessons about what I want to wear vs. what I enjoy looking at).  

My first thought was to just deconstruct it and cut a simple woven tee out of the skirt pieces, but after taking off the bodice, I wondered if the bodice could be worked into a top because I'm so short-waisted.  The length was okay with a very narrow hem, so I thought maybe it was a save.  

I wore it twice before deciding that the thing that annoyed me about the dress (the waist tie) was also annoying me in the top version.  I put the skirt pieces in my bin to reassess at a later date.   So not a success.  But it's okay.  

This summer has also been one of seriously purging the house; I missed it the last couple of summers because: Pandemic, and with six people, the house was uncomfortably full.  I do what I can in taking care about what comes into the house to begin with, but again, six people in a small row house with little storage and there are going to be problems no matter how you slice and dice it.  Particularly after remote schooling and 18 month lockdowns, etc.  So.many.puzzles.  It was also true that the kids had outgrown a bunch of toys and books, and so it was good to move those out to make better space for the things they do play with and read.  It was the summer to get rid of the "I might do something with this someday" bits and bobs, things I've held on to for a decade or more without looking at them, as well as assess and purge those places that are generally undisturbed in the house for years--you all have them, I'm sure.  

Those corners in a cabinet that hold the detritus of a house; detritus you stop seeing after a while, and maybe forget is there.  Stuff that was organized one way a decade ago but no longer reflects how you actually use the space or the stuff.  You know, that stuff.  The basement still has some unexamined corners that I intend to keep poking away at, and the kitchen needs to be gone through more carefully, but overall, it has been a good season.  The house feels lighter, I feel less burdened by chaos, and I think the kids are more contented, even though there was some dissent at first.  (But I might want that again someday!)  Thankfully, my kids are extremely used to my refrain of "we can't keep everything or we'll drown" and the regular sorting/purging of stuff and clothes they have outgrown.  

Now on to write some lectures about Marxism and apocalyptic millenarianism to present to the 12th graders this year!

Hinterland

I've been putting off this post because it feels like a failure.  I made the popular Hinterland dress earlier in the spring, and I really wanted to like it.  I did!  

But I just felt like 1995 was calling and wanted its dress back.  

It may have been my fabric choice--the Indian block print cotton was perhaps the wrong thing for the pattern, and a solid color may have felt differently, but who knows.

I think I cut a 12 on top and an 8 on the bottom, although I could have gone with a 6 for the bottom.  I didn't want much volume in the skirt and that seemed okay.  I will say that the bust *just* fits and I'm barely a B cup.  The pattern is drafted for a C-cup, and the 12 should have given me at least three inches of ease all around.  It's not tight, but there isn't a lot of extra room in the bust area.

I cut a faux button placket because the print seemed to need some breaking up.  I interfaced it with knit interfacing, which was about right for the fabric and structure.  It was a good experiment, and the buttons were a perfect match, but the whole dress was just not the right thing.

The good thing to come out of it was a decently fitting bodice block with inset sleeves that I can use to make a 3/4 sleeve button down woven top at some point.  

I did end up adding gussets under the sleeves for better range of motion and comfort across the back, and I think I did a forward shoulder adjustment (more on that in a future post).  

I did take it partially apart and remade it into a two piece ensemble for Birdie, who is thrilled with it.  

I changed out the buttons for yellow ones and she likes that very much!  I think it picks up the yellows better.  I could stand to take it up slightly more in the shoulders for better fit and may try to do that this week.

One of the side effects of all her health issues is that she can't tolerate binding around her middle, so she wears all her bottoms below her belly.  The peplum top is a good style for her in that way.  It does mean all her skirts look off in the hem (lower in front) and I realize I could hem it differently to make it look better, but she wears these clothes so briefly it hardly seems worth the effort.  But maybe I'm just lazy?  

In any case, I'm glad she loves the outfit, and that the fabric will get good use.  After several not-wins and sort-of successful remakes with sewing projects (about which more later), I was starting to feel rather wasteful.  I'm still purging the house and going through stuff, so there is this tension in me about stuff-usage.  I always have that to some extent, but it feels particularly acute right now.  I'm trying to let it go and take my own advice to get rid of things that I'm not going to get to any time soon.  It is tempting to hang on to everything because I could theoretically make use of it at some point, but I just don't have the space for what if projects.  The kids are home all this coming week, so we'll see how much I get done!

In garden news, look at my cute baseball-size watermelon! I'm thrilled to see it grow.  I put up additional trellises this week to support the expanding watermelon and cucumber vines and moved two potato plants into another planter since the first two seemed crowded.  Just have to keep hilling them now!  Fingers crossed for a good harvest.  

Lepidoptera dress

I know, I know, a lot of posting from me in the past week.  Can you stand another?  This is the butterfly dress I made from the Cotton+Steel lawn that I got the bolt end from fabric.com.

 The fabric was on crazy good sale (almost half price!) and I ended up getting more than three yards for the price of two.  I'm not exactly sure what drew me to this fabric, but I do like the colors very much, and it goes well with my teal-mint-lemon-orange-rust color palette this year.

 Not much to say about this one, because I pretty much followed the same script as my Woodland Birds dress: shorter sleeves, narrower skirt sweep, waist casing and tie, 1" hem.  I think I skipped the bias at the neckline on this too (as well as the Woodland version. 

Lawn and pre-made bias don't seem to play very well together over time).  I just made a baby hem around the neckline and sleeves by rolling it under a couple times and pinning.  Pesky, but a nice finish.

I dig it with my pale yellow amber necklace and coordinating earrings.  I'm finding this year I'm wearing my regular jewelry with my summer clothes, instead of my summery kitchy jewelry, and I'm liking it better, because it feels more like the winter parts of me that I miss in the summer.

I thrifted a short-waisted pointelle cotton sweater in a bright aqua-teal color that goes really well with this dress too.  I wore the combo for traveling and the pullover sweater was perfect--I'm not feeling any of my cardigans so much right now.  What is wrong with me?  (Answer: everything.  And nothing).

So, that's it for new makes for now.  I did make a linen Rose skirt for the fall that I'm saving to wear then, so will show that in a few months.

Emerald and Brussels Indigo Part II

I have a fix and a fail to share today.  The fail is the Made By Rae Emerald dress, from the Making Magazine #7.   I don't think the problem is down to the pattern--it is cute and well drafted.  I think I made a combination of strategic mistakes in fabric choice, cutting on the bias as instructed, and possibly choosing the wrong size.

So let's break it down.  First is fabric choice.  I've had this fabric in my stash probably the longest of anything currently in my bin.  I don't really have a stash per se, just a couple dress lengths of fabric that were bought for specific projects and scraps from other projects.  

So when I want to test a pattern, I either have to buy fabric for it, or make do with scraps from the bin.  Anyway.  I had five yards of this vintage rayon that was a scant 36" wide.  I had prewashed it at some point, and then didn't know what to do with it, because it was so thin, and it felt "precious" because it was vintage.  Pfft to that.  I'm tired of not using stuff because it is precious, and to be honest, I wasn't sure that the colorway was going to suit me anyway.  I tend to do better in cool-toned fabric, and this definitely is a warm color.

Second is cutting on the bias.  The pattern is drafted to be cut on the bias and seamed down the center, which is how I cut it.  The problem is two fold.  Because I used 36" wide fabric, I couldn't quite cut it on a true diagonal, and the fabric was so shifty that the second layer moved around a lot when I was cutting.  I even used straight scissors for cutting to make sure the fabric stayed straight, but it still happened.  I also realized after I had finished the dress and put it on that bias cut anything just doesn't look good on me.  My hips are quite round, and there is an indent where they come in toward my legs, which a bias cut bottom completely accentuates in a non-flattering way.  

This is where the third issue comes in.  I'm between sizes on Rae's chart for this dress--the S/M and L/XL sizes.  I knew from the finished measurements that I definitely needed a S/M on top, but I wasn't sure if I needed the extra ease on the bottom.  I measured another dress I like the fit of on the bottom and it was 46" at the widest point, and this dress was supposed to be a finished 48" hip in the S/M, so I decided to make a straight S/M instead of grading at the waist and hip to a L/XL.  For reference, my high bust is 35", full bust is 37", waist is 34-35" depending, hips are 45".  (And yes, I know, I'm up a bunch of inches from last year.  That 10 pounds had to go somewhere.  I'm working on it).

Here's what I like about the pattern.  I love the facings on the neckline and sleeves--I know, shocker right?  I'm always the girl who is converting facings to bias binding, but I decided to make this as close to drafted as possible, just to see how I liked it.  Because the facings are all topstitched down, they stay put and are a nice design feature.  I love the shape of the neckline--that soft v-neck is really nice.  

What I don't like: unfortunately, the pockets make the dress gape weirdly at the hips, so I had to cut them out, but I still don't like the fit because of the bias cut.  The dress was a pain to sew because the fabric kept wanting to warp along the bias, even with stay-stitching, and the hem facing was a total disaster.  I cut it off and put on bias tape instead. I don't think the 42" length was flattering on me, but cutting it 2" shorter (as I did when I cut off the hem facing) didn't really look better either.   So I think someone else can enjoy this dress who has a straighter figure than me.

I'm undecided about making it again and cutting it on the straight grain instead, which I think would fix a lot of problems.  I'd definitely grade out the hips, and maybe shorten the shoulder seam allowance slightly.  I cut a blouse version of this from a scrap of rayon challis I had to muslin it for fit.  I cut it on the straight grain, and took out the center seam and a lot of the extra ease (about 1 1/4" on the front and back) and I really like the look of it as a blouse. Trust me that it looks better on than flat.

 And finally, I fixed some things on my Brussels Indigo dress, and I'm happier with the bodice fit now.  I tapered the side seams from the waist to the underarm from 3/8"-1/2" and like that very well.  I also took up another inch in the hem, for a total of 3 1/4".  I could probably stand to lose another 1/2" on the hem, but I'm leaving it for now. 

I can't really raise the bust darts without major structural work, but I think they can pass as faux French darts for now.  Now to decide what to do with the purple Brussels linen I bought.  Should I make another M7353/Washi mashup or have another go at a straight grain Emerald?  Decisions, decisions. 

Simplicity 1887

I wish I could make sound effects on this blog post, because it would start out with a downward chime something like: wah, wah, wah.  (Even writing that out looks weird).  

I've had in mind to make up the Simplicity 1887 skirt for at least a year, largely on the strength of Masha's makes.  I had such good luck with M7353, also on her recommendation, that I thought this would be a good pattern for me.  It seemed reminiscent of my beloved Everyday Skirt pattern, but slimmer through the body, so I thought it was worth a shot.

*cue the ominous music*  I had in mind to cut my Folk Birds dress down to a skirt since the fall at least, but have been putting it off for a variety of reasons.  This week I decided to be brave, cut into my dress, and hope for the best.  I also decided that I was going to be okay if it turned out badly.

I should say first that these photos make the skirt look better than it really is.  The pattern is bananas.  There are some nice things about it--the deep yoked pockets, the shape of the skirt, and the surprisingly flattering pleats in the front.  But the waistband construction is completely bonkers, and the elastic application more so.  It was my first time making a shaped waistband, however, so the experience wasn't totally wasted.

First, my mods: Masha recommended sizing down to a 16, since our lower measurements are similar and she found a 16 worked well for her (I DM'd her on Instagram to ask for advice before cutting), and I think that was exactly right.  I added 2.5" to the skirt length because the drafted length would have been mid-thigh on me.  

I also lined it with some leftover bemberg from the stash, which added some construction complication to the already bonkers waistband.  I was expecting this to work like the Everyday skirt, which is clever and easy to put together.  Not so much.  My first mistake was not having enough fabric for the facing on the waistband, so I used lining instead (I interlined the waistband with some medium weight cotton for stability).  The inner lining makes the waistband slippery and was a pain in the neck to top stitch neatly.  After ripping out the stitches three or four times, I gave up.  Let's just say it's not my best work and don't look too closely at the details.  

The skirt also doesn't want to sit at my natural waist, so I feel like it is falling down every five minutes. I realize it is drafted to sit 1" below the natural waist, but this is not flattering on me, and I was hoping that by snugging the elastic, it would sit higher.  Nope.  Also: the elastic guides are completely wrong.  I used 4" less on each to start with and still cut off 3" at the end.  I probably should have used braided elastic instead of knit, since I think that is part of the fit problem--the knit elastic isn't "firm" enough to stay put.

Honestly, I think I could achieve the same look with the Everyday skirt by taking out the side panels (I have actually.  I made two skirts this way last winter, although I don't like either of them and they are in the naughty pile waiting to be remade into something else).  I like everything about this skirt except the waistband and where it sits on me, but that waistband is super irritating, so I know I won't enjoy wearing it.  Blerg.  

I almost didn't want to show these photos, but I think it is useful to show what doesn't work as well as what does.  Part of me wants to purchase the fabric again and have another go with a different pattern, but I'm not sure I have it in me.  My sew-jo is seriously missing in action, and this skirt was not particularly fun to make.  I have a knit dress cut out to try as soon as I have coordinating thread, but I'm not that excited about it.  Part of it is that it is still quite cold here, and I really don't have a lot of options to keep myself warm except for wool maxi skirt+wool sweater combination.  It's okay, but I confess that I'm bored of it, after three months.

Update: I unpicked the whole waistband and facing and removed the wonkus elastic.  I redid the top stitching and did the waistband construction just like an Everyday Skirt, which brought the elastic bit more to the back of the skirt (instead of having a weird bulge right to the front of my hips where I do not need bulk!) and also used braided elastic which is much firmer.  I'm so much happier with the fit now!  The skirt is great, and I'll be happy to wear it!  It isn't worth retaking the photos since the fit issues are subtle and don't show up in photos, but take my word for it.  

Update # 2: Nope, not a success.  I wore it for a day after I redid the elastics and I was literally pulling the skirt up every five minutes.  Drove me nuts.  So while I think it is flattering and (mostly) comfortable, the skirt is just not going to work for me.  But at least it looks nice inside and out now, and I'm happy to pass it along to someone else who it will suit better.

Dear Plaid Flannel...

Dear Plaid Flannel,

We need to break up.  We've had a good run, but it's over.  

It's not you, it's me.

xoxo

Sometimes a Frankenpattern works, sometimes it doesn't.  In point of fact, the actual Frankenpattern *did* work, it just doesn't look good on me.  Win some, lose some.

So, details: in late summer, I bought some very cheap plaid flannel from fabric.com with some slight misgivings, my previous experience with cheap plaid flannel being rather disastrous.  When it arrived, I was cautiously optimistic.  It washed well, seemed to hold its grain after, and I thought might actually work for the dress I intended, which was a woven M7353.

I set those plans aside when I attempted to make a different plaid flannel garment and had serious issues with keeping the fabric on grain.  In short, it was so difficult, I had to abandon the project before I even really got it entirely cut out.  I still don't really understand it--it was Kaufman Mammoth flannel, and I've never had much trouble with it before, and I was reusing from an earlier garment that I'd matched all along the side seams.  Humph.  

I also made an Everyday skirt out of some Kaufman Durango flannel (a checked plaid) that just didn't turn out.  I mean, it is finished, and the plaid matches, but the skirt looks really bad on me.  Really, really bad.  Not sure if it is the plaid, the heavy weight flannel, the colors in the flannel or what, but it was a complete disaster.

After all that, I wasn't in the mood to match plaid any time soon.

After my Washi successes, however, I wondered about putting the M7353 bodice on the Washi skirt, since I really liked how the skirt fit, and I like how the fitted dolman sleeves on the M7353 look.  I couldn't get the idea out of my head.  I figured since the dress had longer sleeve options, it had a reasonable chance of looking okay.

The combination also seemed like a great winter combination that could be warmed up further with additional layers.  I have some non-plaid flannel that I want to make a Christmas dress out of (I know, I know), but I didn't want to try a new frankenpattern on the good stuff, so I decided to start with the cheap plaid I bought in the late summer and set aside.  The colors of my plaid are lovely (a deep claret red, yellow, spruce green, and black), but as I began to work with it, I realized that it was very thin.  Very very thin.  Stark contrast to my snuggly Mammoth flannel.

I cut everything out flat, while watching the BBC Pride and Prejudice.  It was a good sewing companion that day.  I felt good about how the plaid matching was going, and was feeling a bit confident that I might even get a wearable dress in the end--for the win!

Except.  I had graded up the sleeves on the bodice another 1/4" from my usual woven adjustments, and I think that was mistake number one.  Mistake number too was making the back elastic a bit looser than on my previous Washi dresses (5" shorter than the back width instead of 6").  Mistake number three was the skirt length, which looked decidedly frumpy in this fabric.  

These are all things I can theoretically change--I could take in the sleeve seams, cinch in the elastic, take up the hem, etc.  But the other two problems are a bit more intractable.  Number one is that the flannel is really too thin to be useful on its own in cold weather, and that was the whole point of this dress.  Number two is that the color combination looks really really bad with my skin tone.  For some reason it reads brown on me, and brown is generally a bad idea.  So I'm not sure it is worth trying to fix any thing on this dress, given that.  I know, I could add layers, put my burgundy L'Enveloppe over it, add a cowl, break up the plaid near my face, yadda, yadda, but that starts to get fussy.

In truth, I haven't decided what to do yet.  I was so appalled by how bad it looked on me, I took it off immediately and put it out of sight.  I think this is one piece that Stasia would say: let it go.  But maybe I'll try it on again in a few weeks and reevaluate.  In any case, I couldn't bear to take photos in it, so hanger photos it is.

In the meantime, I wanted to document my mad plaid matching skillz (*snort*), particularly in this fabric, which was SUPER hard to work with.  I don't recall working with a harder fabric than this, and that includes rayon bemberg.  It went off grain constantly, the plaid lines weren't really completely straight, so matching was very difficult.  

Still, it was a good experiment: a chance to try something new and do something hard, and I'm glad I tried it. I think I'll just make a regular Washi in the "good" flannel.  (The "good" stuff has a washi tape design and there is something in me that gets a kick out of the idea of making a Washi washi dress).

I'm (Not) Feelin' It

I made a thing earlier this summer that I immediately regretted.  It was an impulse purchase of fabric, and I'm sorry to say, I didn't heed my better judgement.  Namely: DON'T SEW GARMENTS WITH ART GALLERY QUILTING COTTON!  I don't know how many times I have to learn this lesson.  Sheesh.

(For the record, I don't mind sewing with quilting cottons, but Art Gallery's quilt cotton is a different beast.  It behaves differently from other cottons and has a kind of poplin feel to it.  I always feel like I'm wearing paper).

I fell in love with the print in the spring, and had been saving up to get the knit substrate for a fall dress, but the cheapness of the quilting cotton version whispered my name.  I thought: I can make a simple blouse out of that!  (This was shortly after I converted my Blue Forest dress into a blouse, and I was feeling overly confident).  Famous last words.

I used my Dottie Pearl dress pattern as a block and just cut it shorter without bust tucks.  It came together very quickly, and I thought it was going quite well.

Until I put it on, and I immediately felt claustrophobic.  The armscyes are annoyingly tight and while it feels better after having it on for a few minutes, I still feel slightly sausage-y in it.  Which is not really the feeling I was going for with this blouse.  I don't really know what the problem is, as both of the dresses I made from this pattern don't have this issue.

I cut the length such that I could wear it untucked, but that means it wants to untuck constantly.  *le sigh*  I'm hoping the Brooks Blouse will work better for me.

So, not my best effort (and why you get phone photos in the bathroom mirror).  I've already cut it down for a shirt for Birdie and will post photos of that soon.  I have the knit substrate of this print waiting in my fabric pile for a fall dress.

The Creature

I honestly don't know what to call this dress, so we'll just go with The Creature, mkay?

This was an experiment in stash busting, and I think I like it!

Last summer, I bought a yard of navy blue linen to make a Portrait blouse and then decided I wasn't into them so I left the fabric in my bin.  Later in the year, I was gifted several substantial fabric remnants and this graphic piece was included.  I really loved the print and was sorry there wasn't more of it.  It was a little over a yard, so I figured I could squeak a girls' dress out of it.

As it happened, the two pieces ended up next to each other in my fabric bin and I thought they looked so well together that I considered making coordinating separates.  I didn't have enough linen for a proper skirt, however, and this particular colorway is discontinued.  I let the fabric sit a bit longer while I had a think about it.  Sometime last week, I suddenly thought of combining them into a dress!

Et voila!  My original idea was to put the print on the bottom and the linen on top, but I didn't have enough of the print to do that, so I switched them.  I had fumes of fabric left after cutting; it was close on the skirt especially.  The pockets are a bit shallower than usual as a result, but still plenty usable.  

I was mostly concerned that the graphic print wouldn't look well next to my face, but I think it is fine.  In the fall, a navy cardigan will pull it all together nicely, I think.

The linen is very light and breezy, so the dress does work for warmer weather.  The top is a mid-weight cotton, so not quite as cool, but not suffocating either.  I did have to piece the sleeves, as is usual when I make this pattern on a 44" wide fabric, and usually the join doesn't show much, but on this one it looked a bit odd, so I added a strip of bias tape on the join as a design element to hide it.  I think it actually gives the top some visual interest and breaks up the print nicely.  So win-win!

Nothing else to say really.  Just my M7353 with my now-standard woven adjustments.  It's quite comfortable and the arms fit well.  There's a bit of mechanical stretch in the garment, so that helps as well.

I watched Leap Year while I was cutting and sewing this dress.  The film was entirely predictable and I admit I fast-forwarded through some parts, but it was okay to have on in the background.  I mostly watched it for Matthew B. Goode, who was excellent in the film.  What can I say?  It was a rom-com.  Mental fluff.  We all need some from time to time, I think.

In random domestic news,

Sometimes my boys give me hope:

No, they aren't twins, but Boo is very tall for his age.  The girls are close in size to each other as well.  I'm constantly asked if I have two sets of twins.  (I think I'd be ready for the funny farm if so!)