More Body Thoughts

The last couple of years, my internal thermostat has been off.  Way off.  I've always run a bit cold, but it seems I'm running even colder now (like my core is cold somehow).  But I notice in the past couple of weeks, as the weather has fluctuated between the high 40s and mid-80s, sometimes within a single day, I'm a bit warm.  I'm still running pretty cold overall, but when I'm warm, I can't get cool.  (And conversely, when I'm cold, I can't get warm).  It's super annoying to have a body that can't regulate itself. 

All that is to say, I find myself in my familiar conundrum for this time of year: what the heck am I going to wear now it is too warm for boots and sweaters??

At the risk of rank melodrama, a lot of my warm weather clothing hurts my feelings. 

Lemme 'splain. 

Last Friday, I took a ruler and a pair of scissors to my red M7353 (my Pascha dress last year, sadly neglected this year) and cut off the sleeves and shortened it quite a bit.  I had already taken up the hem in the hopes that I would want to wear it shorter, but it still languished in my closet.  I couldn't even bring myself to wear it on Pascha.  Part of the problem is that a red dress is just so very...red.  Part of it is that I'm not really in love with the M7353 anymore, although I couldn't say why.  It's a flattering style on me, and comfortable, but I just feel very "meh" in it.

I put it on and took a couple of pictures, and while I wouldn't say I felt awesome in the altered dress, I did feel different in my body in that moment.  A bit more...powerful, perhaps.  Like: See?  I have arms and legs.  Get over it.  I've spent a lot of my adult life feeling ashamed about my body.  There are a myriad of reasons for this, most of which I'm not going to share publicly, but suffice to say, I'm climbing a mountain of baggage to work through it.

Powerful is not a word I would use to describe my feelings about my body lately.  I have not felt awesome in my body.  I had a couple of pieces in my late winter/early spring rotation that felt great, but as the weather has turned a bit more balmy, I find I'm at loose ends with it all.  All my Everyday Skirts make me feel bloated and whale-like, and I only have my two fitted denim skirts for warmer weather.  (And frankly, one of the denim skirts has major fit issues that I can't figure out).

I love the color of this skirt, and it looks great as long as I don't move at all in it.  Otherwise, it poofs and the waistband rolls, and I'm generally fussing with it all.the.livelong.day.  Pretty much the story of my Everyday skirts right now.

I'm between sizes in ready-to-wear and most of my me-made clothes are sloppy.  It's a weird place to be--having almost no clothes I want to wear (and fit well), and really no idea of what to make or buy to replace them.

Stasia Savasuk would say to just try things until something clicks, and to use my power words to feel good about it, but I'm struggling.  I've learned to use my words about what I do in the past year or so: "I'm a writer, I work from home," but I'm still working on the body stuff: My body is strong, my body is good, my body has housed five humans. The clothes are wrong, not my body.

But at the end of the day, the body that confronts me in the mirror is not a body I recognize.  The seven or eight pounds I gained last summer continue to hang around, and I fear I'm just continuing to gain.  I hate that I give the number on the scale so much power over me.  It's just a number.  The questions I should be asking are: do I feel strong in this?  Does this feel quirky?  Does it feel whimsical and interesting?  Powerful?  Does it make my today body feel loved and appreciated?

I've also been having a think about why I only feel good in my body when it feels "small" to me.  Sometimes this is literal--the size tag on the garment is small (or a lower number), sometimes it is more ephemeral--I just "feel" small in something.  Because big feels wrong somehow.  Why is that?  Why do I have this voice in my head telling me that it is wrong to take up too much space in the world?  What is "too much" anyway?  Why is "big" or expansive (by whatever definition) somehow less dignified or worthy?

Today I pulled out every piece of clothing I own and put it on.  (Well, most of it).  I looked at it in the mirror and assessed how everything felt on my body, and how things fit and looked.  Turns out that a big chunk of it needs to go.  Some of it just didn't fit me that well (either too big or too small, or too poofy, or needed more alteration than I am willing to make), and some of it just didn't suit my aesthetic.  With 40 staring me in the face, I find my tastes are changing rapidly.  Which is fine, because my bins were feeling a bit full.  The price of going through a transition within yourself is that it often manifests in the closet somehow.

It's not really about the clothes.  But it is, because we all have to get dressed every day.  So I'm going to give myself some grace about the flux of fabric through my hands these past months, and be grateful that I was able to wear all of it, many times, and look with curiosity to what this next phase will bring, sartorially and otherwise.

Yarn Along: May

~knitting~

I finished my Stoker pullover sweater and....it doesn't fit.  It blocked out really big, and putting it through the dryer didn't really help that much.  The color does me no favors, and I just don't like it.  Blerg.

I finished a little gray hat, which fits just as I want it to.  I made the smallest size for once, and made the crown height shorter, and that seems to be the right combo for the way I like to wear these.

The Lightweight Pullover is progressing apace.  I nearly pulled it out to make an Owls pullover, but decided to keep on keeping on, and I'm glad I did.  I'm past the torture part (the 9" collar and raglan increases) and now just working the body.  I think it will be nice for late fall, assuming it fits well.

~reading~

I finished a bunch of Lenten reading right before Pascha, namely Father Alexander Men's Inner Step Toward God (very good), plus dipping into Meditations for Holy Week.  I read a chapter or two in The Benedict Option as well.  

I started in on St. John Chryostom's Marriage and Family Life after devouring Philip Sherrard's Christianity and Eros.  Sherrard's book is slim but dense, and his third essay is kind of bonkers, but the other three are well worth the price of admission.

After reading a snippet of The Wilderness Journal somewhere else, I decided to give that book a go next.  I say that with hesitation, as I did not care for her last book at all, but I'm willing to be open-minded about this one, based on what I read so far.  

I have a book by Czesław Miłosz waiting on my stack as well.

~sewing~

I made a couple of lawn dresses for Birdie from some of my old dresses, a begged-for strawberry dress (four years running now), plus a birthday dress for Ponchik (photos coming soon).  

I reused the pockets from my dress, which worked a treat.

This fabric (below) was my absolute favorite of all the Liberty lawn knock off dresses I've made, but I had to come to terms with the fact that a) the style no longer suits me and b) the dress itself was a bit long in the teeth after four seasons heavy wearing.  It was still good enough in the middle to cut down for a little girl dress, however, so I'm glad to be able to see this fabric on my girls for a few more summers!  I cut it long and it has 1" of hem that can be let down, plus the elastic could be let out.

Reused the pockets on this one too.

I made a strawberry dress for Birdie out of some Penny Rose fabric several summers ago, and she was super sad when it didn't fit anymore, so now I've had to come up with a new strawberry dress a couple years running.  Last year's strawberry dress went into Ponchik's drawer this year.  Birdie was super sad about it and asked for another.  So here is iteration number 3!!

It's pretty cute if I do say so myself. (I used Simplicity 8101 for all three dresses because a) they are easy and fast to make, and are super easy to cut down my old dresses for and b) the girls can dress themselves in these dresses, unlike the Geranium which requires a bit of input from me).  I also think the S8101 is a better play dress.

I also made another plain denim skirt for me, out of the leftovers from my Maudie skirt.  On the left is the Maudie skirt, on the right the new one.  It is slightly shorter and bit more pegged at the hem.

I lined the pockets with my favorite Liberty knock off lawn (that I remade Birdie's dress out of).  There are fumes of both fabrics left now.

I ended up having to take in both skirts last week, since the Maudie skirt had gotten too big, and the new one drooped weirdly in the back because of poor fit on the backside.  

Both fit much better now.  I also did a few alterations to some other things in my closet, but I'm not super happy with them.  My skirt situation needs some serious attention.  

~writing~

I'm still querying agents for the manuscript, and starting to work with feedback from beta readers.  (I plan to have another round of beta reading in June).  I sent off a query to FSG, which was terrifying. #punchingabovemyweight  #wayabove

~watching~

All kinds of random stuff I've seen before because I need comfort watching and nothing new is especially appealing.  I'm looking forward to The Spanish Princess on Starz later this month.  I have a couple of foreign films in my queue that I really do want to see, but I haven't been in the right headspace to absorb them properly, so I'm waiting to watch them.

Although!  I did go to an actual movie theater on Tuesday to see Avengers: End Game.  It was worth every penny--I won't spoil it for anyone, but it is a completely satisfying ending to the long story arc that the MCU has been working on all these years.  Well done!!

That's all for me!  Linking with Ginny for Yarn Along.

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.