dresses, a skirt, and blatantly ripped off ideas

I finally cracked open one of my fourties era patterns, and made some dresses out of what was supposed to be a night dress. I'm so scandalous, haha.

black cotton lawn (and newly strawberry hair)

ties in the back, don't mind the wrinkles

It was originally floor length, but I hacked a bunch of the skirt off to make a better sun dress. other than that this is exactly how it came out of the envelope. Loose fitted garments are so much easier to make!

dopey look and a big gate

it was rather windy, haha

While I had been planning the black version of this dress for months, the pink one was completely spur of the moment. I saw the fabric in my local craft store and had to make it up right away. Originally I thought of it as a trial run for that pattern before cutting into my real, well thought out black version, which of course resulted in me wearing this one about three times as often. Why are the unintentional projects always the ones that end up most loved? At least in my closet :).

standing in the bush/shade to photograph pale fabric

hello bush, such a nice day to run around in the yard, isn't it?

In fact, I liked the pink rose dress so much that I had to go back and get the same fabric in the green colourway. And a larger rose print in blue! The blue needs to be some sort of, as yet undecided on, outrageous shirt, but even before I got out of the store, I knew the green was going to be this tiered skirt. Yay for comfy elastic waists, and garments made entirely of rectangles! It was so simple that the Japanese pattern book I got the pattern from didn't even have pattern pieces for it, just the dimensions of the rectangles and how many of each. It has a little self fabric bow at the waist to indicate which is the front, but I didn't get a picture of it.

On my sewing table (dining room table, really) right now is a black batiste Violet, and an asymmetrical lolita skirt that will probably be shelved for a while, as the fabric is too warm to wear right now anyway. Also, I just discovered the delightful Cindy at Cation Designs, and her wonderful idea to use sheets (especially kids superhero sheets) to make dresses. Needless to say, I now have a selection of retro geek sheets in the mail, and can't wait to make them into the cutest dresses! The only catch being that I refuse to wear nerdy paraphernalia unless I can have an intelligent conversation about it, so now my love of sewing has combined rather unexpectedly with my love of comics, as I must at least start reading about each superhero before the dresses get made. What a tragedy ;).

knits!

I was inspired by all the pictures around the internet of people's Renfrews, so I got a copy of the pattern, got a bunch of jersey, and got over my inherent fear of knits!

My  first try had my usual adjustments (lengthen above the waist, swayback), and it was great for figuring out what settings my machine needed for knits and getting confidence with construction. However, there was way way too much ease for my liking in the size 10 the envelope said I should be using. Enter another round of tracing and altering and generally fiddling with the pattern, and I have this:

This time it is a size 6, 1" added above the waist, 6" (!)  hacked off the bottom (I like my shirts to end near the waist, apparently), 1 1/2" swayback adjustment, and a shortened waist band to account for the new seamline width.

I used the leftover pink bamboo rayon from the first (semi-failed) version for the waist and sleeve bands, as it was conveniently an exact colour match (at least I'm consistent in my colour lust, haha).

It didn't occur to make a pattern matching attempt until it was already all cut out, der. Maybe I'll remember when I'm working with the blue/black version of this fabric that's in my stash.

So there you go, knits aren't half as tricky as I had feared, and I have a new pattern obsession. This one got whipped off yesterday in between going to buy more hair dye and lazzing about with my man, and I've already finished another one in purple!

Doesn't exactly match my hair, haha, but similar!

I plan on trying out all of the neckline options, and possibly patterning some new ones if I get gutsy, but the sleeves will probably stay short; I always seem to overheat wearing long sleeves, and am actually contemplating how I might make this sleeveless.

Anyway, there's already a pretty blue version with the scoop neck option, sitting cut out and ready to go on my table, but that may have to wait until after some gaming. Wouldn't want to be TOO productive :P.

...And the jacket

The sun-dress has a matching jacket, which I actually finished on wednesday night, but didn't get pictures of until right now.

I coordinate, fancy

I'm quite pleased with how it turned out, and the pattern was so simple (a few hours from start to finish, not bad at all) that I may have to make a few more in other colours. Cool summer nights, you shall not thwart my dress wearing! Ha ha.

bonus picture of the back

This dress and jacket where my first experiment with using french seams. Why did this take me so long?! So neat, so pretty, so much less work than encasing everything in bias tape. Thanks to Gertie for her great french seam tutorial, or I would still be doing straight seams the sucker way.

back jacket seam and darts

Snow day = Productivity

Work told me not to bother coming in, as they will likely close early anyway because of the snow (eight inches and counting). Which gave me time to finish this lovely new sun-dress.

 

ooh, so summery

Made from a crisp light cotton from Hawaii (c.o. my step-mother, after many years in her stash) and some lightish cotton twill from the remainder bin. The bodice is lined with a white cotton broadcloth I had lying around. The pattern is a re-released vintage design I had been itching to try out.

love the original illustrations!

No real alterations needed, although I left out the neck strap interfacing and the featherlight boning in the bodice back.