Dresses and skirts

Frolicked about in my yard last week taking pictures while it wasn't raining or cloudy :)

red plaid dress and a silly face

yellow gingham chantilly

can't really see the dress, but I'm cute, haha

relatively normal skirt in the front...

fancy lace up bustle in the back!

the ivory lace skirt i never wear cause my slip is too tight

more red plaid, half circle skirt and jacket

the stripe are horizontal in front and vertical in back :)

finally moving on

The pink and grey plaid shirt is finally finished! There are a few things about it I would have tried harder to make perfect (like the very weirdly fitting sleeve caps) if it were a fabric I loved, instead of just liked, but in general I'm pretty pleased with it. I used simplicity 8399 (from 1968), with a few alterations.

I took in one inch from both the front and back pieces between the arm and waist, and added back waist darts so it didn't hang like a pillowcase (ha ha).

And most exciting, I made my very first fabric covered buttons! I used a kit from my local fabric store, and it worked quite well. The buttonholes ended up right on the grey block of the plaid, so I used that part for the buttons to match. One of the back pieces didn't want to stick, so I had to take pliers to it. It got a little mangled, but I just used that one for the bottom, as it will be hidden when the shirt is tucked in.

I'm pretty happy with the pattern matching on the front too (I didn't even try to match the side seem or the shoulders, maybe next time). I was nervous about putting in a collar, but it was actually quite easy.

And that's it! I even finally got a tripod, so taking pictures of finished projects no longer involves a stack of boxes on the kitchen table and hope that they won't fall over. Tomorrow, on to a black gingham Sencha.

progress, finally

With Betty-the-Janome happily back in her place on my coffee table, I'm finally making progress on the pink and grey plaid shirt. I catch: I can't seem to care about it. I know I need more shirts, and that it will be very cute, etc, but all I can think about are pretty dresses with matching half jackets, fourties trousers, sweet little tops in brightly coloured silks. Spring is popping up all over, and it's whispering to me to make gingham dresses, not flannel shirts. Unfortunately, all of the projects I'm excited about have either the pattern or the fabric (or both) still in the post, so I'll just have to bide my time.

shapeless box of a shirt

So far, I have the darts, side, and shoulder seams sewn and edged in bias tape, with the sleeves about to be put in. I'm a little nervous about those; not only have I not set in sleeves since grade nine home ec, but after unthinkingly taking in the side seam on the blouse body, my sleeve hole is two inches smaller than it started out being. Pinning that much out of the arm seam made for awkwardly snug sleeves, so I'm going to try either gathers or tucks in the sleeve cap to take up the extra slack. With some luck it will look like an interesting design feature instead of a slapdash fix, ha ha. My first attempt at pattern matching didn't work very well, I will have to read up on it in my lovely new sewing books before trying it again.

side seam pattern matching = fail

After that I guess I'm done for the night, as I realised when I went to cut it out that I'm right out of interfacing for the collar and button strips. Oh dear, that means it's off to the fabric store for me tomorrow morning, with all their pretty spring fabrics... and a fifty percent off everything sale... Somehow I think I'll be coming home with more than interfacing ;).

As far as me-made-march goes, I've been good about remembering to do it, but not so much about the photographing. Days 6, 7, and 11 somehow got missed, but here's the rest of the week:

day 8/12

Me made pink peasant skirt, with black/white striped shirt on day 8, black/pink striped shirt on day 12.

day 9

Me made pink ruffle shirt, with a lovely pink skirt from the now closed In The Starlight website.

day 10

Me made red peasant top with me made grey corduroy jumper skirt.

And next week I'll try to remember pictures every day, and hopefully some new wardrobe additions to show off :).