Easter Dress 2017

Hello! Welcome back and happy belated Easter! I am so pleased to have a hand made Easter dress this year, which is something I haven't had since I was very wee. This is my first handmade Easter dress that I have made myself! There are few things more satisfying than having a custom garment for a specific event.  Sewing is super cool guys.

For this project, I chose the fabric before I had a specific pattern in mind.  It's a navy floral rayon from Joanne's. My philosophy for spring/ summer projects is, when in doubt, go with rayon. It is definitely one of my favorite fabrics. I've not found anything quite as floaty, breathable, and soft.

I loved the idea of a dress with a tie at the front, similar to the Sew Over It's Pussy Bow Blouse. Unfortunately that pattern doesn't include a dress version.  I'm sure I could have altered that pattern fairly easily to make it into a dress, (Lisa has done this multiple times) but I am very lazy. It finally occurred to me to look at my pattern stash, at which point I realized I already owned exactly what I was looking for: Simplicity 8216, and I'm pretty sure I got it on sale for a dollar. Note to self: remember that you have a stash.

I made view B which is a a dress version with cropped sleeves. I only made a couple of minor alterations to the pattern. I made it in a size 14, but due to the straight shift shape, it was a little snug around my bum. Luckily I was able to take the bottom seam allowance down to 3/8 and it fit much better. This view also called for an elasticated waist, which I had put in originally, but I was not very happy with it. The elastic channel hit me a couple of inches lower than than my natural waist, which made it creep up to my smallest point. That created a lot of volume at the top of the dress that I didn't want, and it also drew up the bottom of the dress, which was already a little shorter than I wanted. I ripped out the elastic, and decided the wear it with a belt, because that is much easier.

I made one more minor change, which was to swap the buttonholes for snaps on the cuffs.  Because the cuffs are so narrow, my buttonhole foot kept getting hung on the bulk of the seam allowances. Unpicking a botched buttonhole makes snaps look like a magical cure-all, which they kind of are.

I am very happy with how this dress turned out. I like making things that are casual for every day, but it's nice have something a little dressier in the mix. I was worried about the length of the dress initially, as I prefer a midi length, this seemed very short by comparison. However, the more I wore it, the more comfortable I felt. Also my mom said it looked fine. You can't go wrong if your hem length is mother approved.

Also, special thanks to my dad for helping me get all these artsy shots!

A Grey Striped Agnes

I finished this project awhile ago, but for some reason forgot to blog about it.  For several weeks. *Ahem* Better late than never, right?

If you are at all familiar with the indie pattern and sewing community, you already know about Tilly and the Buttons.  Just in case you don't (it's okay, you don't have to pretend), this is one of their more popular patterns. The Agnes top! I had made one of these previously, and I loved it so much, I decided to hack my next one into a dress!

Since Tilly is so awesome, she has instructions on how to do this hack on her blog, here.  I pretty much followed her instructions to the letter.  The only thing I changed was that I did not cut a skirt front and back, but instead cut on the fold and stitched down one side.  I did this mostly because I was worried about not having enough room in my bum area and I wanted to have as wide a piece of fabric is possible.  If I'd had wider fabric, I probably could have made my skirt fuller, but I'm happy with how it turned out.

The original bodice pattern (or shirt if you're making it un-hacked) has options for ruching on the neckline and the sleeves.  Since this fabric is pretty frilly, I decided to go ahead with the frilly sleeves, but I kept the neckline plain.  The texture of the dimensional scallops on this fabric made it a little tricky to work with, so I am really glad I was able to get the stripe centered without having any of my scallop nubs cut off.

I did have a few issues with this project.  The texture of the fabric, while lovely, was super annoying while I was sewing it up. It made matching my stripes difficult.  I give myself a C- for stripe matching on this one.  This skirt is also uneven with the bodice, because I accidentally cut a hole in the bodice with my serger...oops.  I cried a little, stitched up the hole, covered it with a belt, and called it a day!

Over all, I am super happy with this project.  I want a closet full of jersey dresses to have as secret pajamas.  If you have been sewing a little while, but are feeling squeamish about working with jersey, the Agnes pattern is a great one to start with.  It's super simple yet flattering, and Tilly provides really great instructions with all of her patterns.

As a side note, I just wanted to say that sewing has really caused me to change up my style, in a good way.  I used to never ever wear skirts or dresses, because in my mind, skirts meant dressing up, which meant church or special occasions.  I also could never find skirts that were quite what I wanted to wear.  They were either too short, or too frumpy.  Too young or too old.  I can now make things I will actually wear every day.  It feels amazing to visualize something in your head and have it come out exactly how you want.  Sewing is basically magic.