Interchange

Mix-n-match wardrobes are a useful thing as they tend to avoid things like closet orphans and the like.  In my observation, however, as with capsule wardrobes, these mix-n-match pieces tend to be neutrals in white, taupe, gray, or black.  Not really my jam.

Setting aside the fact that those colors make me look like death, they just don't suit my aesthetic.  But I do try to make pieces that work within a palette so that most of my closet goes with everything.  And although I didn't set out to make a mix-n-match set, I ended up with a nice one!

When I was deciding what to make with that Indian block print voile I bought last fall, I went back to the same etsy seller to have a browse.  As you do.  In browsing her shop, I found a few more prints I liked and bought dress lengths of three of them since the shipping was free and the price-per-yard was good.  

Admittedly, I don't wear prints like I once did, but I liked the hand of the fabric and thought it would be cool in the heat.  (I guess that means I'm no longer a printy-utilitarian and have turned more straight utilitarian).  

On the screen, the print looked more violet and green, but it turned out to be that lovely beet-purple and green turquoise that are in my color palette.  By the time I got to sewing this fabric, I had made several dresses from new patterns, and hadn't really found a dress pattern that sang to me, so I decided to make a two-piece set that I could wear as a dress or separates.  (As an aside, I seem to keep trying to find a magic dress pattern and mostly failing--I had one spectacular win this spring--but I just don't reach for dresses much outside of Sunday mornings.  Maybe that is a sign I should stop looking?  I dunno).

I made my simple woven tee pattern for the top and the Free Range skirt hack for the bottom.  My only complaint is that I have to wear a slip with the skirt because it doesn't hang well otherwise, but that is minor.  I've tried to make things that don't require slips because the nylon just makes me hot, but the voile is thin enough that it is okay.  

The print top goes very well with my beet linen skirt, and after wearing the matching 3/4 sleeve top as a two-piece dress a bunch, I sort of wanted a short-sleeve version for the heat.  The Peppermint wrap top I made in the fall didn't fit me by the spring (and frankly, wasn't a great fit for me style-wise), but I couldn't figure out how to reconfigure it to make it wearable.  

I tried a bunch of things to restyle it but to no avail.  I ended up unpicking the entire top twice before giving up and deciding to make a pieced simple tee, which was what I really wanted anyway.  I wasn't sure I'd like the finished piece, since the piecing is very, uh, piecemeal (ha!) but I do! 

I've worn it a lot since finishing it. It's a bit hard to see in the photos, but I did some decorative top-stitching to make the piecing look more interesting, so there is a wide zig-zag down the center panel, and two triangles that radiate out from the side panels. It looks good with the voile skirt and several others in my closet, but I also like it as a two-piece dress with the beet skirt. So 4+ outfits out of everything! (Plus using up almost every scrap of that beet linen--super happy about that).

In other news, the water pipe that connects our house to the main is broken and we have to have a major plumbing repair this week.  The water department shut our water off on Friday morning and we had to wait until Saturday afternoon for the plumber to make a temporary connection to our awesome next door neighbor so that we can have water until the main fix is accomplished.  I'm very grateful to have discovered the leak when I did, since it came in under the front steps in our basement, where there is little to damage.  I don't go back in that corner often but had to retrieve something from back there when I noticed the standing water (almost 3" in the corner!  The floor slopes slightly toward the street so it pooled at the front of the house under the steps by the old coal access).  

The upshot is we now have an outside bib on the back of the house--something we've talked about doing for years but never got around to--so I'll be able to water the garden much more easily once this is all over.  My awkward hose-attached-to-kitchen-sink-running-out-the-back-door setup was getting a bit old. 

While the wheels of the water department churned a bit slowly, once we determined the issue and who was responsible, we were able to find an emergency plumber right away. They are working on the permits and will hopefully fix it all this week.  Thank God for small mercies!  On reflection, I do think that pipe has been struggling for some time, as our water pressure is greatly improved with the neighbor's water, and that pipe may be the original one from 100 years ago.  

But enough about that!  Our berries are producing well (although the blueberries are still immature) and I'm still fighting the good fight against the aggressive birds.  Double netting has helped, but I still lost two berries yesterday to the thieves.  The summer heat has arrived, so I'm trying to keep up with watering but trying to avoid waterlogging the strawberries--such a careful balance!  The watermelon has a tiny watermelon on it, about the size of an olive, plus another nascent one, so we'll see what we get.  

The plumbers have just arrived to start breaking up the sidewalk, so off we go!

Workhorses

At some point in the late spring, I realized that my warm weather uniform had become a linen tee and linen Free Range skirt hack.  I find the woven tees a lot cooler in the disgusting heat, and the linen skirts are an easy addition.  I have a few regular knit T-shirts I'm wearing, but mostly these tees are my go-to.  So I made a few in May and have been wearing them nonstop since. 

This version is my favorite. The linen top is Abyss handkerchief linen, and while I was unsure about the colorway (I have a complicated relationship with navy), it is a much richer and more interesting color than it photographed. The hand of the fabric is almost buttery, and it is one of the nicest linens I've worked with.

The pattern is my super-Frankenpatterned simple top.  It is a blend of the Sorrel dress bodice, the Portrait blouse, and something else that I can't remember at the moment.  The 3/4 sleeve piece is from the Carson dress, but I'm probably going to redraft it sometime soon because I don't love how the sleeve head fits onto the grown-on sleeve cap.  It's a fabric-efficient pattern; I can get 3/4 sleeves with bias binding out of one wide yard, and this cap sleeve version can be cut from 1/2 a wide yard, but no bias binding.

The agave linen I used on the skirt goes with almost everything.  It's a great strange neutral.  I squeaked the skirt out of 1 yard, cut extremely carefully.  There were fumes of fabric left.   

It's been pretty hot the last little while here, so I'm extra grateful for these workhorse pieces!

Moar beets

I guess I should log this linen skirt before the weather makes it seem totally weird to post.  I bought three yards of this color linen back in August, when I was buying for one of my sewing school students and my dad's birthday shirt (also need to blog that!)  The shipping from fabrics-store.com is high enough that it is worth making a substantial order.  It happened that all three colors coordinated quite well!

Beet appears to have been a limited run color, as I hadn't seen it before and not since. It is similar to Tawny Port or Wild Cherry; to be precise, it is exactly the color of beet juice.  The photos don't do the color justice--it is saturated and interestingly tonal, depending on the light.  It's not quite purple or red but somewhere in between.  Three yards was more than enough for a dress, although I dithered a long while about what to make.

I had initially bought it to make a 3/4 sleeve Terrace dress, but after making the Redwood one, decided I didn't want another in my wardrobe. So it sat. Once I got into the whirl of trying new patterns, I made up the Peppermint wrap top, cutting carefully to preserve yardage as much as possible.

 

The wrap top is fine, but it isn't something I want to wear regularly.  I've been wearing my drop-shoulder linen tops so much, it seemed like a good idea to make another one out of the remaining yardage.  After carefully cutting out the top, I realized I could eke out a Free Range Skirt hack as well, so I carefully cut out the skirt from the rest.  

I shortened the skirt by about 4" from the lengthen/shorten line to make the yardage work, and only had to piece a little bit of the waistband facing, so I consider it a great use of three yards! 

While I'm at it, I took some detail pictures of the gusset on this shirt, as it is the first one I made intending to add the gusset from the start.  

This is the underside of the sleeve, and you can see the triangular piece inserted there.  The gusset is actually a diamond shape, although you can use an oval petal type shape too.  The main thing is to figure out how much room you need in the underarm and cut a corresponding size.  On this one, I cut them 6" long by 3" wide.

I'm still working out how to finish these as neatly as possible.  I sew them in on a 1/4" seam and then zig-zag the edges, which is fine.  I've been doing French seams on these shirts, but it is difficult to make it work on the gusset part.  I'll figure it out eventually; I did do French seams on one of the shifts I made, including the gusset, but it was kind of dumb luck that it turned out well.

This is what it looks like from the outside when you pull the sleeve straight up.  The gusset can also be pieced down the middle if fabric is short.  

I wasn't planning to wear these together, but I actually love them as a two-piece dress.  I had hoped my spruce noil Remy and matching Free Range skirt would go together similarly well, but I think I need to shorten the skirt to knee length before I will be completely happy with it.  I don't think ensemble this counts for #dresslikeacrayon, though.  Still working on that one!

In praise of gussets

Sometimes the old ways are better.  Actually, the old ways are often better because they've been tested and tried over a long period of time and hold true. 

Take the lowly gusset.  A small triangle of fabric, applied to the underside of a sleeve.  It doesn't seem like much--such a small scrap!  But oh, what a difference it makes to comfort and fit in a woven sleeve!  I've always wondered why I struggled to get dolman sleeves to feel comfortable in a woven fabric.  

I like the look, but not the restricted arm movement.  Ditto for most inset sleeves.  These guns need room to move!  But I am finding myself drawn to wovens more often these days, and so it was worth finding a fix.

Enter the shift.  In 2016, I completed a full 18th century working woman's outfit--the equivalent of jeans and a t-shirt.  It includes a shift, stays, pockets, modesty petticoat skirt, 2 regular petticoat skirts, a short gown, fichu, stockings/garters, cap and Berege hat.  When I made the shift, it was after much trial and error with the geometric period drawings; in the end, I modified the American Duchess 8161 shift pattern to fit onto a half width of linen so I could cut two out of the yardage I had.

One of them didn't fit well at the time, so I gave it to a friend who wears it for a night gown and loves it.  Mine was in the box with all my other 18th century trappings, but I got it out in September to try as a nightgown for myself.  I was experimenting again with 18th century silhouettes, and wondering how to get more linen into my life. 

I loved wearing the shift so much that I bought another length of bleached linen from the doggie bag section of Fabrics-store.com and set to work.  Unfortunately, enough time had passed that I forgot a few things I did to maximize fabric usage, so I only got one full-length shift out, plus a top.  But oh, that new shift is even better, if that is possible.  Making two in a row reminded me about the brilliance that is the sleeve gusset. 

So when a Frankenpattern experiment with dolman sleeves turned out badly, I tried a gusset, and it fixed the sleeve fit (but not the rest of the problems with the make, so I'm trying to recut it into something else today). 

 

I immediately applied the same to my dawn linen and arctic linen dropped shoulder tops, which fit well but pulled slightly under the arm, restricting movement.  The gussets totally fixed the problem, and they are possibly the most comfortable tops I own right now.  The top is a mosh of several patterns: the Sorrel Dress bodice, the Potrait blouse, Coco dress, and Carson dress.  The bodice is mostly Sorrel, with some shaping at the bottom from the Portrait blouse; the neckline is Coco, and the sleeve is Carson.  A true Frankenpattern!

Free Range

I'm mostly a skirts and dresses gal, but every now and again, I find myself wanting to wear pants.  And am not able to find anything that fits my proportions properly.  I have one pair of skinny jeans with a flat waistband that is just okay, but the fit in the seat still leaves a lot to be desired.  Since this is my year of Sew House 7, I figured I might as well give the Free Range Slacks a whirl.  I'm trying new things, and since the Remy was basically designed for the Free Range Slacks, I figured, why not?

Trying it out on My Body Model

After stalking the Instagram hashtag for a few weeks, and dithering about which view to make, I finally decided to go with the straight leg version, as I was kind of crushing on the silhouette, even though I know it isn't my best look.  Then I dithered a while about the fabric, before going with the Brussels Washer Linen Yarn Dye in black.  Again, not a color I would normally gravitate toward, but I saw another blogger with similiar coloring to mine make the pants in that substrate/color and thought it read nicely on her. 

Straight leg with Remy Raglan

The sewing was relatively straight forward, and like all my Sew House 7 makes so far, I find Peggy always has some clever construction bit that I've never done before.  This pattern was no different, as the yoked pocket is constructed without a facing, which greatly reduces bulk in the front, a nice feature on a pant with an elasticized waist.  I also liked that there were a lot of seam lines to make adjustments if need be (although in truth, I needed no modifications except for length).

I made a straight size 12 (I was between a 12 and 14 on the size chart, but a look at the finished measurements convinced me that I was better off sizing down).  I ended up with a 2" hem instead of the 1" specified, and possibly could have gone another 1/2" or so, but cropped pants are so tricky!

The waistband construction is to make a casing with waistband facing and insert the elastic, but I like the Elemental Skirt elastic application because it prevents the elastic from bunching or rolling around, so I did that instead, and then sewed down the edge of the casing as instructed.  I originally tried turning the edge under as with the Elemental skirt, but it looked weird on this pattern.  

The fit is superb, I have plenty of room in the seat, the rise is great, and I felt really great in these pants, for about three wears.  In my quest for skirt unicorns, I had wondered about converting this pattern to a skirt, and had done so with some wonderful silky noil. 

You'll notice that I shortened the 3/4 sleeves on my Sphinx Remy to short sleeves.  I figured I'd get more wear out of it in the summer, when I actually wanted to wear it, but was too hot in anything but short sleeves.  I did the same to my white one and am reasonably pleased with the results.

After wearing the noil skirt several times (stay tuned for pics), I decided I would be happier if the pants were turned into a skirt.  It didn't hurt that the weather stayed gross well into October and I found the pants slightly stuffy, which was not my intention for this make.  

I'm not sure I got the length quite right, but it is just below the knee, and similar in silhouette to the purple skirt from last week.  It's not my favorite thing, but I'll wear it.  I don't know if converting the pants was the right thing, but I'm also not sure that I would have continued to wear them, so it's hard to say.  Maybe just call me Meg?  Perhaps the slim leg option might be a better silhouette for me, as evidenced by my playing around on My Body Model:

But maybe I just need to embrace the fact that I don't enjoy wearing pants all that much.  On the upside, I do really like this pattern as a skirt (another unicorn!), and I will use the clever yoked pocket application in other contexts too, so nothing is wasted.

The top is a true Frankenpattern in handkerchief linen, part of Juliana's Sewing to Keep Breathing campaign.*   I used the Sorrel dress bodice for the shoulders and the Portrait blouse for the waist shaping and length, the Coco dress for the boat neckline, and the Carson dress for the sleeve.  And I got it out of a yard.  The color is amazingly rich.  I plan to make a robin-egg blue one today.

  

*On a personal note.  Things are pretty tough right now.  My dad was diagnosed with lung cancer last week, having never smoked a day in his life, and is in hospital on a lot of oxygen.  They are trying to get him stable and move him to the oncology unit to map the tumor and give a round of radiation so that he can maybe go home in a week or so.  Through Divine Providence, he's at one of the best hospitals in the world, and I'm grateful for all the ways that we see God's hand in this, but it is also agonizing.  Please continue to lift us up.

School Colors

I mentioned that I made a kelly green knit dress on the same pattern as the teal one in August, I think.  I saved it for the first day of school since it was exactly the green of our school color.  I had to do a meet and greet with new families, so it was good to have something highly visible on!  

 This dress was much more successful than the teal dress, I'm happy to report.  It also is a bit more saturated than it photographed, mores the pity, as it really is a gorgeous shade of green.

The teal dress is out of the telio cotton knit that is slightly heavier than the KnitFabric.com mystery cotton knit, and so the whole thing drags a little from my shoulders, and the ties are too heavy.  I need to fix it now that I made the green dress ties differently.

Not much to report on construction; I used the fit tweaks I made on the failed yellow dress to make the bodice and skirt slightly roomier, cut 3" ties at twice length (they are twice as long as the skirt), and rounded the neckline slightly, but not much else.  It's a good dress and I'm glad to have it in my closet. 

#sewnshownseated

 

 

 

We've been assigned to a more ethnically Russian parish in the past year and a half, and I was recently reminded that Russians dress up more than Americans, particularly for church.  I had forgotten, being away from Russia for so many years.  I'm never a schlub, but I clearly need to up my church dress game, especially as a clergy wife.  And stop wearing Birkenstocks to church.  

#sewnshownseated

Which left me with a connudrum.  I have fine shoes for cold weather, but usually wear comfortable sandals in summer because we stand for almost 2 hours on Sunday morning (plus another 40 minutes or so Saturday nights), and my feet are terrible.  I can't wear even a low heel on a regular basis in that setting because of my neuroma, so I've been casting around for solutions.

I bought these shoes, which I never thought I'd like, but I actually do, and while I wouldn't want to do any serious city walking in them, they will do for summer church services.  They have a big toe box, unusual for this style, and the ankle strap is light and flexible. 

They are extremely flat with no arch support, and I did need a little bit of moleskin along the back edge but I have bone spurs on my heels and arches for days, so that's no surprise.  Forgive the swollen legs and feet; the humidity is still pretty intense. #pittingedemaisnofun

It seems like I have a lot of balls in the air just now, so I'd better get back to juggling!