Tag Archives: finished projects

March 24, 2013 · 2:50 pm

Fleece Pants, Episode 3 (part II)

Fleece Leggings

Sick of fleece pants yet? Yeah? Too bad. It snowed every day this week, except for the bright sunny days with windchills in the -30s C. This is not what I want from the end of March, peeps.

At the end of Episode 3, I mentioned that Syo wanted fleece leggings. Well, not long after that I made the mistake of taking my children to the fabric store, and Syo managed to persuade me to buy her a metre of wolf-patterned fleece. At full price, no less. Oi. Kid has mad parent-guilting skillz. And very long eyelashes.

Very skinny fleecepants

Attempting to be mindful of the lessons of fleece stretch, I knew I would need to size up a bit for this pair. I went back to my original tracing of Kwik Sew 1670 and undid the tuck I had made in the pattern piece when it became obvious after the first pair that they were way oversized. I added some extra height at the CB, and some extra length along the crotch. And enough extra length in the leg to work for Tyo, probably. And (gulping) I cut them out.

And, well, I should’ve gone up a size. (it has, after all, been almost a year since I traced out this size for Syo, and while she’s not sprouting like a weed the way Tyo is these days, she still is getting bigger.) D’oh. Fortunately for me, Syo is extra-super-determined to wear this pair, and she’s very tolerant of tight. I can’t imagine where she might’ve picked that up from. *whistles*

Rear view

Print mixing to do Oona proud, I tell ya.

Half-ass waistband

Because I didn’t want to lose any height at the waist, I did only a single, very narrow fold-over at the waist elastic. It’s not a lovely finish inside, but it’s plush-back elastic so it’s pretty comfy, anyway, and I’m quite glad I didn’t use up any more height.

Rise

Unlike the purple fleece sweatpants, though, these are a hit. Like a big hit. Like a super-duper-can’t-peel-them-off-her-to-wash hit.

So I have a theory for future tight-fleece-pants-sizing adventures. I hypothesize that zero ease, or at most 10% negative ease, is probably about the max stretch ratio for fleece. So next time, I’m going to pick a size by measuring the thigh of the person who will be wearing them, and then measuring the pattern. Well, at least for fleece leggings, where that would be super simple. I’m still thinking about the yoga pants…

For those of you who are bored stiff of fleece pants, I did steal a few minutes to work on my stalled mail-order dress. I ripped off the yoke and shortened the waist. Everywhere but right at the cf. there are some funny things about this pattern, peeps. But it’s coming, I’m liking it much better. I just need to recut the skirt, but that won’t happen until

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Tagged as finished projects, Fleece Pants, For Syo, Jalie 2920

March 17, 2013 · 7:29 pm

Fleece Pants, Episode 3: Syo

Booyeah

Otherwise known as, “just because I have to be different.”

Although Syo has thoroughly enjoyed her Jalie 3022 shorts, she has no interest in flared yoga-pants, fleece or otherwise. She is a child of the skinny jean era. So I wasn’t planning on making her a pair. But, she has been asking for a pair of old-fashioned sweatpants, to wear to her hip hop dance class, where several moves seem to require tugging on sweatpants.

Simplicity 3714

So instead, I pulled out Simplicity 3714, which sweater I had previously made. This time, I was going for the pants. Although I maintain that the half-bunnyhug is one of the cutest things my children have ever refused to wear. Now, it’s not entirely clear from the photo, but this, too, is a flared pattern. Not as obviously as the yoga pants, of course, but really, wtf was I thinking? Don’t answer that. I was thinking “I’m going to gather the ankle anyway, what does it matter?” and “I can just trim a bit off below the knee. It’ll be fine.”

And they are, I guess.

Simplicity

The fabric is a purple fleece I found at Value Village sometime last winter. Actually, it’s one of two pieces I found of the same fleece, on two separate occasions. Syo immediately laid claim to both, and the larger one is still serving as a blanket on her bed.

I cut the size 8 (which the pattern was conveniently already cut out to, saving me the effort of tracing), and added a bit of length (not that Syo is particularly long-legged), and for my peace of mind added a bit of height to the CB and shaved a bit off at the CF. And I made them up. Not a lot of thought, artifice, or anything. As a stunt, I topstitched both the inseam and outseam, which was really more effort than pants like this deserve.

Grommets for waist tie to come through.

The most complicated thing I did was interface the waistband with a knit interfacing, mostly as a support for grommets for a waistband drawstring. Speaking of which, I need to get a real drawstring, not just some flattened out bias tape. I wonder if I can find purple twill tape?

Fleece sweatpants

They seem to fit the bill, anyway although she pretty much never wears them except to dance class, and I suspect will never wear them for anything else once she’s done.

Next, though, she wants fleece leggings.

Ulp.

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Tagged as finished projects, Fleece Pants, For Syo, Simplicity 3714

March 9, 2013 · 5:22 pm

Lots of little leggings

Jalie 2920 Leggings

Jalie 2920 is getting a lot of love around here. Maybe because a pattern with just one piece is about my speed these days. Stylish helpfully traced the sizes for her girls out, so when I had a smidgeon of downtime I found myself cranking out a couple. If I spent half an hour on either of these I’d be surprised. I feel a bit bad because I probably should’ve left the fabric for Stylish to practice on… but there’s enough left to make a couple more pairs, anyway.

I’m a little bit perplexed with this pattern, though. I get that it’s designed to stretch in length as well as width, and for snug, extra-stretchy fabrics… well, I dunno. This purple is NOT such a fabric. I mean, it’s a pretty nice, beefy knit. The amount of stretch is good. But it’s definitely not a four-way stretch. When tracing, I had Stylish give lots of extra room in the leg length, to compensate for this. I used the longest lengths here, and I’m glad I did. The Waif’s are a little long, but she seems to grow up rather than out, so that’s probably a good thing, and Fyon’s are spot on. And that’s five or six extra inches beyond the pattern’s “proper” lengths. Well, the length dictated by their heights, anyway. The Waif’s pair are a size 2(F), lengthened to the five length and then beyond. It’s the first time I’ve ever seen her in a pair of pants that wasn’t way loose and baggy on her.

The Waif, Tyo, and Fyon in their new leggings

This was after I had attempted to make myself another set of leggings from some luverly denim-look knit I’ve been sitting on and petting since I acquired it around New Year’s. The whole bolt at my local Fabricland recently got marked down to half price and I’m having a hard time not rushing in and buying up the whole damn thing. I used the same Jalie 2920 as for my black leggings. However, peeps, this is where those stretch gauges on the patterns become important. This stuff is stretchy, but not leggings-type stretchy. Length was not an issue, but while I could wriggle into them, well, um, let’s just say that it was putting undue stress on the fabric. D’oh.

Fortunately, as with the fleece pants, I have a suitable candidate with a derriere just a little bit smaller than my own handy in the house, so Tyo now has her first pair of jeggings. I guess I had better enjoy that while it lasts… we just had to buy her a whole new crop of skinny jeans, as the ones she got in September are getting too snug. (This is why I don’t make her jeans very often any more). The time until her hips surpass mine may be measured in months rather than years at this point. Oh, you cursed curvaceous pears.

I guess I just need to get some more denim-look knit for myself. /sniffle.

Anyone else addicted to deadly simple projects? I swear I’ll do something actually interesting one of these days…

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Tagged as finished projects, For Fyon, For the Waif, For Tyo, Jalie 2920

March 2, 2013 · 10:55 pm

Fleece Pants, Episode 2: The Sister-in-Law Edition

Sister-in-Law Fleece Pants

Mere moments after I unveiled my first attempt at fleece pants, my Stylish sister-in-law determined that she had to have her own pair. There was just enough of the same purple-grey heavy fleece left, so I set her to tracing out the pattern in her own size. She really is a trooper—she tackled tracing her first Jalie pattern with only a minimum of “OMG WHICH LINE AM I ON?” and had her pair cut out in record time.

Unfortunately, in her efficiency (and my distraction), a couple of problems we should have foreseen came home to roost. The first one being, she traced the pattern in her real size, not upsizing. (This makes sense in that she will probably want to make the pattern out of something not fleece at some point, of course.) And, I had intended to perform a rather larger version of the Gigi alteration* I did on the kids’ shorts made from this pattern last summer.

What I should’ve done on Stylish’s pants pattern, too.

However, this kind of slipped our minds in the excitement of cutting and pinning.

Stylish tackled the stitching and even topstitching (much facilitated by using the blind hem foot as an adjustable edge-stitching guide on the Memory Craft. Which, I should say, has generally excellent attachments, although I am not fond of its zipper foot.), and got the hang of it quite quickly, with only a little confusion over the construction order. (Did I mention this was her first pair of pants ever?)

Unfortunately, when we got to the try-on point (and I’ll refer you back to my Pink Suite post if you need construction details, or just go to the Jalie website and read the instructions yourself), the same issue that I had was happening: dangerously low rise, especially (actually, only) in the derriere.

Some quick thinking was in order. The pants were stitched up, lacking only the waistband. Unpicking fleece… um, not happening. Obviously we had to alter the waistband.

Jalie 3022 Last-ditch waistband alteration. AKA “What I did instead.”

So we did.

And, while it may not be the most elegant solution (and no, I don’t have a good shot of how it looks… I didn’t really want to pester my SIL to allow me to post photos of her butt on the internet), it works, and she has worn them every bit as much as I have over the winter.

So Stylish!

And she has already bought fleece for her next pair…

*Gigi is the pet name of the incredibly sweet lady who is the mother of both Osiris and Stylish. She also has a marked pear-shape, which she passed on to Stylish, and even Osiris in modified form (he has a very curvy butt for a guy). Tyo is well on her way to developing this shape as well, although in Syo’s case it seems to be a bit moderated.

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Tagged as finished projects, Fleece Pants, Jalie, Jalie 3022, Stylish Sews

February 24, 2013 · 8:40 am

Oonapants!! (Phase 1)

Oonapants!

A little while back, I was bemoaning the dearth of fun woolly tights, both in my wardrobe and in the world in general. Several people reminded me that funky leggings could probably suffice, in a pinch, and reminded me of Oona’s prowess in this department.

Kwik Sew 1288

Well, this idea niggled and wriggled, and the next thing I know I’ve traced out an old Kwik Sew leggings pattern (adding a snotload of length and shortening the rise in front only) and I’m diving through my stash for anything resembling funky knits. Keep in mind I rarely wear prints, much less wild and funky ones, and haven’t worn leggings since about 1992.

I eventually hunted up this blue fern frond spandex, probably originally swimsuit material, picked up at Value Village a while back. I had been thinking a stretch cheongsam, but, well, Oonapants called.

Back view

No sooner had I finished them, however, Syo (who, as mentioned, is a leggings purist at the moment), required her own pair. This was fairly easy to whip up, and she launched into wearing them with a wild abandon that would do Oona proud. Myself, I’m having a bit more trouble. They don’t coordinate with any of my dresses, most of which are wild and crazy (or just fluffy) enough on their own. Eventually, I figured I could try wearing them with my black tunic (the storebought inspiration for my Ariadne pattern, by the way), but I still feel like my hips need a bit more emphasis, or at least coverage. I feel top-heavy in just the tunic, not my favourite look.

Funkypants

My head filled with the vision of a simple, short-skirted dress in a simple black (stretch) twill. Now THAT I have in stash. Next thing I know, I’m perusing my patterns with a very specific image in my head: a short black sheath dress, preferably with cut-on capped sleeves and princess seams.

Gertie’s wiggle dress. I am lazy so I totally stole Oona’s photo here, too. Click for source

Eventually, I narrowed it down to the Wiggle Dress from Gertie’s New Book For Better Sewing, which I have traced out. But with shorter everything—shorter sleeves, shorter skirt, shorter body. I have traced out the pattern, but I think I had better get back to my long-neglected plaid dress first.

If I don’t get completely distracted by fleece pants in the meantime… (note to self. Must get photos of fleece pants that aren’t grainy and awful.)

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Tagged as finished projects, For Syo, Kwik Sew 1288, Kwik Sew 1670

February 16, 2013 · 5:09 pm

Absolutely NOT the #Oonapants

Leggings

In fact, in the world of leggings, if Oonapants are at one (wild, crazy) end of the spectrum, these leggings are at the other. The sober, staid, boring end. But, I needed black leggings for a dance performance last night, and I’ve had this fabric earmarked for something of the sort for well over a year now, so leggings it was.

This has to be one of the fastest pattern-purchase-to-wearable-clothing projects I’ve done in a LONG time. The Crafty Sister-in-Law enticed me out in the morning with a jaunt to Value Village (a whole ‘nother sad tale of enablement, to be related at a future date…), and we decided on a whim to check out the next in our grand tour of the Saskatoon Garment District,* a humble little shop with the rather grand title of “Academy of Fashion Design.”

This shop is one I’ve been meaning to check out for several years, since my mom nosed them out as retailers of Jalie patterns. They are also, as the name suggests, a design school, as well as a Singer retailer/repair shop. They seem to specialize in dance/figure-skating and rodeo fabrics, although they have a little bit of everything. Behind the doors is a long, narrow cavern of fabrics, dotted with treadle sewing machines and French mannequins. I have to say, this is the most at home I’ve felt in a fabric shop, maybe ever. Maybe the prodigious mess reminded me of my own sewing room, or maybe it was the old machines dotting the place, usually half-buried in drifts of fabric. They have a little bit of everything, including the only stretch denim I’ve seen in person outside of Fabricland. And the girl minding the shop… well, I don’t know if she HAS a sewing blog, but peeps, she totally has the vibe. She felt like one of us.

Anyway, I picked up Jalie 2920, a pattern for leggings and stirrup tights. The more ~~obsessive~~ keen-memoried among you may recall that I already have a leggings pattern or two, including one traced out in my size, which I’ve teased you with glimpses of in the past. But, well, I confess shortly after I cut out the blue (as yet un-blogged) leggings, I lost the pattern piece; presumably it got folded up and stuffed in an envelope with something else, because I sure as hell can’t find it. And I have the Kwik Sew ones around Syo’s size, but, well, I was craving more variety in sizes, in particular a size that could be adapted for the Waif, who is nearing five but still has the width of a rather slender toddler. And, well, Jalie.

Ooo

So I bought the pattern, scurried home, and, after a minor panic when my tracing paper went missing, traced it out. I’m either a size R or S in Jalie sizing, but I went with the S, thinking that over-stretched leggings are not a good look for anyone. Having worn them for a couple of days, this may not have been the best idea… there’s a touch of looseness in the thigh that isn’t quite right.

As I traced, though, confusion set in. I added about three inches to the length (towards the low end for me and Jalie, but when I measured out the inseam of the pattern, I was alarmed to discover it still measured a measly 26″. I don’t do less than 32″, peeps. But then I spied a second pattern piece, meant to be combined with the end of the leg. I had ignored it, thinking it was just for the stirrup version, but maybe it was required for both? I don’t know. I was confused. Anyway, I added it on, roughly seven inches. That seemed to bring things into about the right ball park, right?

Loooooong

Erm, not so right. Those four-way stretch fabrics that stretch in length as well as width. Hrmph. So I will have to cut some off, although figuring out how much to cut off will be the trick. Still, too long is ever so much better than too short. Ever so much.

Derriere

I had to cut out both legs separately as my previous leggings for Syo had whittled my good jersey into some rather peculiar shapes. I was meticulous about flipping the pattern so that both sides would be mirror image… unfortunately I apparently also flipped my fabric when I was moving it, because both legs wound up cut out with the right side of the fabric on the same side. Fortunately for me, on this particular knit it’s almost impossible to tell the difference… anyone who can is, ah, WAY too close.

Hmm

I made a slight adjustment to the rise, which may be typical of me and Jalie patterns, lowering the front by about an inch but keeping the back as is. I know the rest of you are all over the high-waisted leggings… Not that I have any intention of sharing my leggings waistband with the public, but I’ll still take hip bulges (which I have anyway) over waist-bulges.

And really, that’s a lot more talking about a terribly boring pair of black leggings than is really merited.

*New Yorkers and other people from real cities with real garment districts, you can snicker politely into your sleeves. The “Saskatoon Garment District” is three smallish fabric shops (and a thrift shop that carries fabric and patterns) that happen to be located within a few blocks of each other downtown.

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Tagged as finished projects, Jalie 2920, knit, Oonapants

January 17, 2013 · 8:36 pm

Christmas Shirts

A Shirt for my Sweetie

The Muse of Creative Titles has deserted me, sorry. Well, really, there was pretty much zero creativity in this whole project. I made the two prime men in my life, my husband and my father, shirts for Christmas. It occurs to me that perhaps I should’ve made one for my brother, but, well, he’s in Australia. He gets heat for Christmas. Every year.

A shirt for my Father

Since I was stressed for both time and mental energy, I followed the pattern, the Colette Negroni, to the point of slavishness. I made a size M for the hubs and a size L for my Dad. I was terrified that both would be too small, but both turned out pretty much perfect. I made zero pattern alterations (since I used the short-sleeve version. I hadn’t bought enough fabric for long sleeves for either version, because I am braindead; I would’ve lengthened the sleeves on both if I were doing long sleeves) and used fabric I had picked up ages ago, a grey and black linens with (probably unfortunately) a bit of stretch. And yes, plenty of that good ol’ linen wrinkliness. I had actually chosen the pattern and the fabric for my husband ages ago, as the short-sleeved version of the Negroni has the exact style details of a linen shirt my husband bought during our one and only (and very overwhelming) trip to New York, back in… well, we didn’t need passports to do it, let’s leave it at that. Which shirt he’s subsequently worn to death.

Collar closeup. I did the little loop as per the pattern; I probably wouldn’t do it again. It doesn’t seem like it’d ever be functional.

Unfortunately, the odds of me getting actual modeled shots from either giftee are pretty much nil, so, you get stuck with boring hanger shots. Most of which are of the grey shirt for my Dad, since, well, photographing black.

Sleeve hem

I used an extra-long triple stitch for the topstitching.

Sleeve cap

I flat-felled the shoulder seams according to the pattern’s instructions. The first set turned out quite badly, the second set somewhat better. I’m not sure I’m completely in love with the method, but like I said, zero mental energy for researching creative techniques. It’s certainly adequate. (And I have a long history of attempting to flat-fell shirts and giving up in disgust and going with the serge-and-topstitch method.)

Front facing

My Dad’s shirt had to feature one detail that my husband’s never do—a pocket. I didn’t do two out of fear of having to make them match, but I knew he’d want one to pop his glasses into. Which he did, within moments of putting on the shirt. So, win. I do like the method for finishing the top of the pocket, and the little triangles to secure the top corners. I should’ve used a template for the pocket, though, it was not as well-shaped as it should’ve been.

I made round-ended buttonholes, the kind a buttonholer puts in, using a setting on the Janome Memorycraft, just because I could. And, well, my buttonholer generally ends up being precisely not where I am most of the time. Like most of my sewing supplies these days, since they’re spread out across three different houses. /sigh.

And that, as they say, is that, and probably more detail than either shirt really deserves. I think they were both well-received, though. So I am satisfied. And I promise I’ll have something more fun to blog about soon! 🙂

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Tagged as Colette Patterns, finished projects, men's sewing, Negroni, shirts

January 5, 2013 · 10:08 am

A Finished Object by 8:00 am

On a Saturday.

Obviously my handstitching is not very good before 8:00 am.

Having my sewing stuff spread out between three different places is inconvenient for many reasons (although it’s helpful for minimizing the appearance of how much actual stuff there actually is…). Not least of which, I only had one pin cushion (the darling little mousie I won from 3 Hours Past yonks ago), which obviously can only live at one place at a time. At home, I was making do with a little stuffed eyeball originally made for a kid’s class project.

An inadequate pincushion

I love my children.

Despite being satisfyingly quirky/creepy, especially when stuck full of pins, the eyeball has two drawbacks as a pin cushion. It’s pretty tiny, first off, so the number of pins it can comfortably house is small, but worse, some combination of the fabric it’s made with and the fabric it’s stuffed with make it quite hard to shove pins into. Not ideal.

So when I wanted to use some of the new glass-headed silk pins (It’s also Steph’s fault that I’m completely addicted to these now, by the way) I picked up at the local fabric store’s New Years sale, I needed someplace a bit more spacious to put them. This black and yellow cotton is from a small piece of stuff my Grandma gave me a while back. I like the idea of having that as a pincushion I’ll use for ages and ages. In fact, the only thing I’m regretting is not hunting down some sawdust for a proper stuffing. But Steph’s mousie has just regular stuffing, too, and has held up just fine—the nicest thing about the sawdust is it’s heavier, so doesn’t skitter away when you try to poke a pin in it. And I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t’ve been able to find stuffing before 8:00 am.

All of which is a LOT more than I planned to write about a silly little pin-cushion.

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December 31, 2012 · 9:40 pm

A Tiramisu for New Year

Tiramisu!

In a fit of “OMG I’m done my Christmas sewing!” euphoria, I traced out the Cake Patterns Tiramisu the evening of Christmas Day and made it up (except for the hem) the evening of Boxing Day. I’ve been running so crazily so long, having a few hours where we’re not supposed to be doingsomethingrightnow feels incredibly luxurious. Or possibly wasteful. Then I went to The Farm (which is liking Going Home, but with about five times as much nostalgia), so it languished for the better part of a week. But finally, tonight, I got to it. Yes, it’s New Years’ Eve and I’m at home sewing. We might watch a movie with the kids in a bit. Big party people, we are.

From Eaton’s Department Store

I used my teal wool Eaton’s jersey, in large part because I had enough of it (although, as it turns out, a fair bit of it had moth holes so there wasn’t as much usable fabric as I might’ve hoped. Poopy moths, anyway. There was enough, just barely) I’ve never worked with a wool jersey before. It was lovely, as wool generally is, I guess. Not too stretchy.

Tiramisu on me!

I cut, as per my measurements, the size 30D (you have no idea how much joy that number gives me, even though I know it’s not particularly related to actual bra size…). I do like Steph’s sizing system—for the first time ever I could customize a pattern to match my actual measurements.

I made only two alterations, my usual swayback alteration and shortening the bust after an initial try on. I think I caused more issues than I solved, though: one or the other of the alterations was too big, and the underbust seam is now about 1/2″ too high. BUT—the shoulder seam pulls well to the back; if I tug it forward to sit in the right place, there’s about the right amount of length in the front. Which makes me think that the issue was the shortening in the back. Which is why in muslin-making-ville they tell you to make one alteration at a time, so the two don’t confound each other. Number of times I’ve taken this advice? Probably 0. I did take the side-seams in a tiny bit, and might take a bit more off yet depending on how things stretch out with wearing. I’d be tempted to add a bit of elastic to the upper and lower midriff seams for next time, but maybe that’d be overkill.

Many views of Tiramisu

Other than that, and some funkiness at the front crossover area (probably also caused by tugging/not enough length), it’s a lovely dress. No complaints about the pattern. I was tempted to ignore Steph’s grainine on the skirt pieces since I’m not using a stripe, but the allure of having them fit nicely on the folded fabric proved too strong.

The length is great, and it’s insanely comfortable. Like,PJ comfortable. Which I guess is standard for knit dresses, but I don’t have many knit dresses. I was iffy about the pockets—last time I tried inseam pockets on an A-line skirt, the look was not so good. But they don’t bother me, and I can tell they’ll be super awesome for actual wearing (although I had probably better not put too much in them…)

So yeah. Win. Aside from the problems I created for myself, anyway…

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Tagged as Cake Patterns, finished projects, Sewing Cake, Tiramisu

December 24, 2012 · 11:17 pm

A Christmas Dress

Simplicity 8498. I would love to add some crazy braid along the front seaming.

It actually happened. It involved staying up late, not finishing several other things, and some seriously slipshod stitching, but my Simplicity 8498 (AKA Simplicity 3833) got made!

I changed my mind on the fabric—I had planned on a teal plaid cotton. But that really felt like a summer dress and, well, Australia this ain’t.* So I dug through my stash some more and turned up about 2m of this gold brocade drapery fabric, absolutely clamouring to become View 3 from the original envelope. It’s not any warmer, mind you, but somehow it feels more “right” for the season.

Making this took some doing. First off, given the time constraints, I didn’t have the time to trace and alter my pattern properly. So I made my small plethora of usual alterations by dint of folding, pinning, and occasionally chalking out the changes directly on the fabric. Also my pattern is a size 14 (NEW SIZING!), which is a size larger than I usually make; I trimmed 1/4″ off of each seam after cutting, except for the few pieces on the fold, which I overhung the edge the same amount. Not the most scientific grading method ever.

Simplicity 8498

This post, along with some slapdash tissue fitting, suggested that I wouldn’t need to shorten the upper bodice as I usually do, but measuring the back piece confirmed that the distance to the waist is still the full Simplicity standard. So I took my 1″ tuck below the bust but above the waist. On the back I added a swayback adjustment. I squared the shoulders the “proper” way, by raising the outside rather than dropping the inside, since I was pretty sure I didn’t need to raise the bust point even a little bit.

I carefully re-attached the lower portion of the skirt pieces (which had been trimmed away by some previous stitcher, but fortunately saved) using scraps of cheap iron-on interfacing. It took considerably wriggling to get all the pieces on my 2 (ish) m of fabric, but somehow I did it, although I won’t swear that all the skirt pieces are perfectly on grain. (I’m not convinced the original pattern grain-lines were the most logical, either, for that matter).

I only made one major style alteration: I knew I would feel dowdy and choked if I kept even the lower of the high necklines, so instead I made a squarish scoop neckline. In hindsight, I think it rather resembles the neckline in this similar-era dress, actually, though I didn’t explicitly set out to copy it. I lowered it over 2″ and it’s still not even what I would call low-cut.

Multi-view. The back fit is actually much better than it looks here, since I’m twisting funny. My ass probably really is that narrow, however.

There’s not much to say about the construction. It was simple, fast, and completely lacking in finesse. I did manage a decent (not awesome) lapped zipper in the back, facilitated by the fact that I had extra-wide seam-allowances to play with. Even after I had trimmed off the amount of excess I thought I would need to remove, I still wound up taking in the side-seams each an extra 1cm (for a total around the dress of 4cm)… I suspect I am not really respecting the intended fit of a shift dress, but I like it this way, which in the end trumps period authenticity in my books. I have a bit of a love/hate relationship with the shift-dress shape, which is why you haven’t seen a whole lot (any?) of them in my sewing thus far. I really like how the fit of this turned out, though. Even if it is a little more sheath than shift. Also, I love how these late 60s/70s patterns do long. I didn’t even lengthen the skirt (after removing 1″ above the waist, remember), and I could still take a 2″ hem at the bottom. Win.

It is nice being able to understitch all around the separate arm- and neck facings, but they still seem bulky and awkward to me where they overlap. The darts wound up at pretty much the exact right position, perhaps a smidge high but no worse than I typically end up with. (I have a hard time with dart placement, I think stemming from the fact that my “bust apex” and my nipple are not in the same location.)

I really miss my dedicated photo-space. Finding an un-cluttered space with enough distance to set up the tripod in out current, limited digs is, um, tricky to say the least. None of these photos are as awesome as I feel like the dress looks in real life… not sure if that’s a reflection on poor photography or my own vanity. At least they aren’t iPhone photos, as I finally found my camera charger. Actually, Osiris found it. In the wall-socket where I left it. Apparently it’s been there the whole time. I’m blaming the poor light in our bedroom—I think I mistook it for the telephone plug in.

So, the dress has been worn to one Christmas dinner already, with at least one more to go. It appears we will get away with only two turkeys this time. Up side of shift dress style, no issues with a restrictive waistband when indulging in conspicuous consumption. It’s not exactly the right style to become a wardrobe staple—maybe in another version—but I am definitely satisfied. 🙂

Insert Obligatory Winter Scene Here.

*Let’s just say that I kinda hope my brother doesn’t call from Adelaide, because I may very well cuss him out out of sheer bitterness. Real Saskatchewan winter has finally arrived, with daytime highs not exceeding -20C and windchills pulling everything below -30C, and I am realizing how thoroughly pampered I have been by the last five years of pansy-ass Southern Alberta winters.

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Filed under Sewing

Tagged as 60s, finished projects, shift dress, Simplicity 8498