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)

Color-Blocking for Friends (and Self-Enabling While Doing So)

I mentioned that I did a bit of sewing for a friend?  It was not commissioned work, just some things I made for her because we've been talking about sewing and clothes for a long time, and she has three very young kids and limited sewing time for herself.  I knew she needed a few things for summer, so I decided to make her some!  Surprise sewing is a thing, right?  I should add that we live several hours apart in different states, so it was an interesting set of projects for me!  (And probably not the last--it was quite satisfying to make these things).

First was a blue skirt, made from my Indigo dress of last summer.  I had tried to wear it a couple times this spring and knew it was a no-go.  That pattern is really not working well for my style, and after the Miss Frizzle comment from a passerby (she meant well, but still), I just couldn't.

Anyway, I had some of the fabric left over, and I knew that the skirt part of the dress would be a good starting point for the style that my friend was interested in.  She is about five inches taller than me, and her measurements are different, so I let out the very deep hem and was glad of my measuring mistake last summer.  (#serendipity)  I added two straight panels to the side seams to give the garment the proper amount of fit and ease, and then popped an elastic-backed waistband on it, using my Rose skirt hack as a guide.  The end result is bit more like my Everday pink clay skirt alteration, but it achieved the desired silhouette, so I don't really care how I got there!  And yay for repurposing good fabric!  I knew it would be a great fit for my friend's wardrobe, and crossed my fingers that it would fit her (it did!)

Next I set my sights on making a boxy cropped top for her.  She made a bunch of Shirt No. 1s a while back, but I knew she was unhappy with some aspects of the fit, so I decided to try the Colette Sorbetto with the Washi cap sleeve applied, but I also wanted to try the hacked Emerald top, with some adjustments for good fit. 

The Sorbetto has bust darts and the Emerald doesn't, so I wasn't sure what was going to provide the best fit and comfort.  I got a little bit overambitious with my linen scraps on the Sorbetto, but I think the end result is somewhat interesting anyway.  My friend likes it, so that's what counts!

The Emerald I had intended to make entirely out of pink clay linen scraps from my skirt, but saw the very tiny red brick remnant from a dress that came out too small last year, and decided to try a bit of color blocking with that as well.  I fiddled around with what I had left and came up with a solid geometric block, and was able to squeeze out the one sleeve facing and pieced together the front facing.  There are fumes of that original scrap left. 

Ta-da!  So pretty!  (And the shirt is nice too!)  After making her Emerald, and loving the color-blocked look of it, I decided to make myself one but with more red and less pink (since that pink doesn't look super great next to my face).  Sometimes I enable myself when I make stuff for other people!  *facepalm*

I ordered another yard of the red brick linen and used up the last long scrap of pink clay linen on a stripe down the side. 

I originally thought to mimic the color blocking on my friend's with a horizontal stripe across the middle, but I didn't like the way the narrow strip looked, and I didn't have enough fabric to do without piecing in any case.  I sort of like the slightly more subdued single stripe on this one.  I could probably stand to go 1/2" shorter on the hem, so will keep that in mind for next time. 

There are some little pieces left, but I'll probably pass them to Birdie for her little projects, since they are charm block size and there are maybe six of them.  A good use of two yards of fabric, if you ask me!  It's also a nice color coordination for many different skirts in my closet, and I think will work with my fall linen skirts too, so win-win there, because it can stay pretty hot here well into September, and sometimes October is warm too. 

I'm mostly trying not to think about my sewing quantity right now, as it is functioning as a mental health booster with my kids underfoot all the time.  Under the circumstances, I think that beats a super-lean closet.  It's also stupidly hot this summer, and my laundry cycles have gotten long as my kitchen time has grown with the ongoing shortages and so forth.  So there's that.  Chalk it up to one of the many hidden costs of the pandemic, I guess. 

White Linen Emerald

I did some non-selfish sewing for a friend recently, and in getting out fabric for it, I went through my bin.  I found a tiny remnant of some handkerchief white linen I bought back in 2014 to make an 18th century shift.  I messed up the first iteration and ended up starting again with the bleached IL019 linen from fabrics-store.com and an actual pattern, but I kept my messed up pieces because the linen was so fine.  (Word to the wise on the fabric link: I'm not entirely convinced this is the same fabric I bought before, because I'm pretty sure what I bought was 100% linen, but since my receipt link takes me to this listing, I can't be sure).  

I used some of it to line the inside of my 18th century stays, and just had a bit left.  It was the bit from the top of the shift, and one of the many things I'd messed up was cutting the neckline (I was using a period-appropriate diagram to cut the shift that has you cut everything in squares and rectangles to make most use of the fabric, but I somehow missed the note about fabric width differences, so all the proportions were wildly off.  I blame averaging 2-3 hours of sleep at the time). 

In any case, the neckline came out way too wide, and what was left after lining my stays was a folded rectangle of fabric with a too-wide but shallow neckline cut out. 

In glancing at it, I realized there might just be enough to get an Emerald out if I cut the facings from something else.  It was a squeak, to be sure, and I had to make the shirt 1" shorter than my other versions, which made me nervous, but I soldiered on.  There are fumes of fabric left, not even enough to pass on to Birdie for her little projects.

I initially thought to make facings from the leftover linen from my shift, but the textures and weights were so different I thought it would look weird.  I had some white bemberg, but was leery of using it after making facings from rayon for my remnant Emerald. 

I also have a yard or two of mystery white cotton fabric that is very smooth and tightly woven that I bought a long time ago for something or other, but never made.  I used a bit of it to make the pocket bags for my Gzhel skirt, and decided it would work well for the facings on this blouse too, since it was light and sheer.  (I think this fabric is lawn, and it is probably from the Robert Kaufman Cambridge line, but can't be sure.  I wish I did know, as it is a really nice substrate and I would try to find other colors). 

My only complaint about this shirt was the amount of time it took me to make it, not because it was complicated, or had problems, but because I had a run of days where the minute I tried to sew anything, something came up with the kids that needed my attention.  (call it #thatlockdownlife). I pretty much had to sew this shirt one seam at a time.  Which is not generally how I roll.  But once I finally got it done, I was happy with the result.

I did have a slight panic when I put it on yesterday, before I had my skirt on.  The 90s called; they want their clothes back!  But then I got my skirt on and realized it was fine.  I could probably use just a smidge more room across the bust, but I made French seams at the sides and shoulders because of the fineness of the linen, so it would be a bit of a Job to unpick and let out slightly. 

It's fine, really.  I'm wearing white tops a bit more this summer, so it will be good to have one more to rotate through in this heat and humidity! 

You can see our container garden is doing fairly well!  The tomato plants are bursting with fruit, and at least two are going to be ready for harvest today or tomorrow. 

The cukes have female flowers, so hopefully they will mature in the next week or so.  Still waiting for flowers on the bean plants, but they were planted from seed, so it's early yet.  Our volunteer wild strawberry seems to have some nascent flowers too, so perhaps we'll get a fruit off it this year!  (I'm going to try some strawberry roots in a tiered pot next to the big containers, just to see if we can get fruit.  We had transplanted raspberry plants in one of the big containers but all three died of heat and transplant shock, so it would be nice to have some fruiting plants this year.  It's all a big experiment anyway).

A Tetrad of Emeralds

Oh summer clothes.  So hard to be comfortable and not wilted-feeling.  I'm mostly into separates, and I have a few thrifted t-shirts that are fine, but almost all need to be tucked in to look good (wahh!)  Sometimes it is just too hot and humid for that mess.

So, I got a bit brave this spring and decided to experiment with a new-to-me silhouette: the boxy cropped top.  (No, not like that. More like this).  Last year, Rae made a few Emerald tops and I loved them so much that I saved my pattern just for that purpose, as the dress had been an epic fail for my figure.  I made a hasty toile to get the fit right, since the sizing chart was really off for me, and then didn't actually make a wearable top last year. 

Until now!  I revisited my toile and made the changes on my flat pattern and made sure it all worked, and also chopped off a bunch of length to get it to Ashton crop top length.  (For the record, I cut all these tops on the straight grain, eliminated the center seam, and took several inches out of the center front and back for a closer fit.  The hem is straight across, about 10" below the undearm, and I cut a 2"-ish facing for all the blouses.  The sleeve facings are brilliant, in my opinion, and the best part of the pattern). 

I wasn't sure I would like it, but I actually do!  It is breezy and cool, comfortable, and while perhaps not the most singularly flattering thing I wear, it does work for summer.  I made four and have worn three of them several times already. 

The first was a minty one, in Mosaic linen from fabrics-store.com.  It is probably my favorite, to be honest.  It's just so fresh.  I roller-skated in it while visiting my parents last week and it was delightful. 

The second was a butterfly lawn one, out of leftover fabric from a dress I've yet to show.  I received the bolt end from fabric.com, so I had a lot of extra to play with (I made a matching mask too--somebody stop me!)  

 

It is perhaps a little bit too much into scrubs territory, but I like it okay.  It goes with several of my skirts.

The third and fourth were eked out of the selvedges of my teal skirt, as I had cut it carefully to preserve yardage for future use.  I ended up getting a skirt and these two blouses plus a mask out of two yards!

I had the idea of using up the remnant of Rifle and Co. rayon from my Menagerie dress, and had enough for a contrast panel only, so I sketched out a few iterations and Boo helped me pick this one.  There are literally fumes of that fabric left.  (Ditto the linen, for that matter).

The rayon facings were a bit fussy to do in rayon (especially when combined with linen), but it is okay.  I decided to let the sleeve facings peek out a bit for some additional contrast on the sleeve edges.

The other blouse is just plain, and I like it quite a bit.  It goes with several skirts as well.  It was ridiculously hot that day, and while I wouldn't say I was cool, I was a lot more comfortable than I usually am in that kind of heat.