The Solution to I HAVE NOTHING TO WEAR!!!

Recently I quickly realized as the temperatures warmed up that I had pretty much nothing to wear that was suitable for work.  In the past in my life as a stay at home come spring it was pretty much the "season of no pants" until the temps dropped again in fall.  So I have a closet that is positively jam packed full of dresses and not much else save for a few blouses that are, ahem, a bit too snug and/or short on me.  Only now that I'm working in an environment that requires pants I noticed a pretty huge deficit in my warm weather wardrobe so over the last several weeks I've been slowly plugging away at filling that hole.  The sewist's solution to "I HAVE NOTHING TO WEAR!!!!"? Obviously grab some fabric, a pattern and head to the sewing machine!

You'll have seen pictures of these "solutions" on my Instagram already possibly, but I thought I'd share them here too with a bit more detail.

First I made Kymy's Dolman Top from Everything Your Mama Made.  I LIVE in this top.  The jersey was an inexpensive fabric from Fabricland and it's light weight and perfect.  I made the banded version so that it's more tunic length than tee shirt length because there is nothing more annoying than feeling like my shirt is too short when I'm reaching up to put a motor back on a shelf.  Kind of hard to pull a shirt down when your hands are full and you're on a ladder.  LOL!  I think the only change I made to this one from the pattern was the neckline.  I made it a touch narrower and scooped it a touch lower than the pattern (good thing too or it would've been way to high even for a boat neck!).  Then instead of turning and topstitching I cut a strip of fabric and bound the neckline.  I feel it gives it a cleaner, neater finish.

Next up was Sew Over It's Lulu top.  This pattern came out earlier in the spring.  I chose a gauzy cotton for it and then decided I really didn't like the fabric a whole lot and wished I stuck with my initial choice which was a bit more structured lightweight denim-y polka dot print.  I was feeling like I was overheating at the time in the fabric store and after standing at the cutting table for what felt like forever waiting my turn I suddenly changed my mind and grabbed the gauzy fabric that was right beside the table and set my first choice aside.  Buyers remorse set in pretty quickly, but I decided to sew it up anyways.  I need to do a bit of an alteration with the pattern for next time but I'm not sure what.  I think it may need a tiny broad back adjustment.  Also I'm still not sure how I feel about the fabric itself, but it is definitely comfy and cool so that is a big bonus!

Then since two short sleeve shirts don't quite cut it - they have to go in the laundry once in a while - I just made another tee last week.  This one was made using a print jersey I picked up last fall on sale from Craftsy.  It's a really nice quality and so soft.  It's a bit thicker than maybe optimal for summer, but not too bad, plus birdies!!  I love them!  I still have almost three metres of it left to make a shirt of some sort for fall/winter too!  The pattern I used was the Cowl Neck from Patterns by Moo oops! Apparently now called Sewing Geek.  I think I've had this pattern on my computer since the very early days of PDF patterns.  I've had it for several years anyways and just never bothered to do anything with it.  Not sure why because I sewed this one exactly as designed just blending between sizes at the hip and I'm pretty darn pleased with it.

Not sure what's next for me.  As per usual I've got eleventy billion different projects in the wings and just slightly less on the go.  I've got a Corriedale batt I'm in the midst of spinning, I have a stack of patterns and fabric waiting for something to happen to them, I'm partway through my Untangling Knots Anaheim Cardi and need to make my dress for the annual Outfit Along.  So, you know, its pretty much same old, same old here.  LOL

#sewtogetherforsummer

So it's been awhile but I'm back with a new project!  I've actually done some other sewing too, but I'll tell you about that another day.  Today I want to talk about my #sewtogetherforsummer shirtdress!

#sewtogetherforsummer just finished yesterday, but for the past three months sewists around the globe have been sewing up shirtdresses as a part of the Instagram based sew along hosted by Sarah @sewsarahsmith, Susy @sewing_in_spain and Monika @rocco.sienna.  It's been an inspiring and motivating three months of seeing all the different patterns and variations being made up.

For my part I was consumed with indecision on which pattern to choose.  It was a toss up between either Sew Over It's Vintage Shirtdress or Cashmerette's Harrison Shirtdress.  I got as far as printing each pattern off and assembling the PDF sheets together, but that was it.  I just couldn't make up my mind, couldn't find fabric that spoke to me and honestly figured it was going to just be another case of good intentions gone astray for me.

Then the Penny Dress was released to the Sew Over It PDF Pattern Club at the end of the first week of June. I've never bought a pattern, printed it off, assembled it and bought fabric so quickly in my life.  It was THE PERFECT PATTERN.  I love the way it looks on Lisa Comfort in the official photos!

I whipped home from work, fabric in hand, threw it in the washer and dryer then set to work cutting it out.  I started by cutting the bodice, then quickly realized something had gone terribly, terribly wrong and I didn't have enough fabric for the skirt.  I was so incredibly frustrated.  I had no way of getting to the fabric store until Monday at the earliest and there went my weekend plans of making a new dress.  URGH...  whilst I was busy berating myself for obviously not following the lay out plans as carefully as I should have an email came out with the errata for the fabric requirements.  So that Monday I was like a woman possessed.  Zipped over to the fabric store after work, grabbed another 2.5 metres of fabric for the skirt, got home and did the whole pre-wash and dry thing and got the skirt cut out. I wasn't about to be deterred by something like insufficient yardage.  I even made self-covered buttons for it.

Of course life being busy life I didn't get a chance to sew again until Sunday, but I knew it was going to go together easily and be such a great make.  Except it wasn't.  Don't get me wrong.  It sewed together like a dream.   All I had left after a short couple hours of work was hems and buttons. (Remember those buttons?  Turns out they were about twice as big as they needed to be for the button placket.  Arggghhh.) So I tried the dress on and pinned the bodice shut.  OH. MY. EVER-LOVING WORD.  It was possibly the most unflattering make I've ever made.

I looked nothing like I envisioned in it.  I felt miserable and a whole lot of bitter negative self talk was going on in my head for the rest of the day and into the next.  I was so distraught and discouraged. And then at some point I remembered something I'd heard Stasia Savasuk say on a podcast interview a few months back.  It was something a long the lines of "It's not you.  It's the pants.  Change the damn pants."  And that thought kept running through my head, slowly silencing all the negativity.  It isn't me the problem.  Technically it's not even the dress that's the problem.  It's the style of the dress that was the problem for my figure.

I'm not happy about it, but like it or not I no longer have the small waisted hour glass figure I once had.  My hip/waist ratio is pretty indistinguishable and the dress cut right across the widest part of my apple shaped body.  The elasticated waist only served to emphasize it making me look much larger than I am.  I needed to selvage what looked like a frumpy old lady dress and make it into something I'd be happy with.  While I pondered things I made a new set of covered buttons.

Then I continued my mission by taking the elastic out and tried it on again.  It was like a tent, but taking the elastic out brought the waistline down to a much better spot on my body (it's amazing how much a little bit will fix things!).  I could already see there was potential for the dress after all so I went ahead the other morning and before work I took the bodice off the skirt and cut off fabric from the sides of the bodice tapering down from the armhole to waist.  I then took the one piece skirt and carefully cut down the sides of the skirt.  I basted the bodice and tried it on and it was already 100 times better.  I took close to eight inches off the total circumference of the waistline and it made a world of difference.

Yesterday morning I set to work stitching.  Because I had side seams now I figured I might as well add pockets while I was at it!  I only had about fifteen minutes to work on it, so I chose to do button holes first.  After work I attached bodice to skirt and did the hem.  With much trepidation I tried it on again and fell in love.  The fit is now exactly how I like it, it skims over curves instead of cutting across them and I think it's new modified version is the perfect shirt dress for what I wanted!  I'm so happy with it and want to make another of my version right away! I wish I'd taken photos of the initial dress so that I could show you the before and after, but I didn't take them because at the time I felt so awful I didn't want to be seen by anyone in it.

I've seen loads of gorgeous Penny dresses made as designed by loads of different women of different shapes and that's great.  It is a lovely pattern done with the quality that I've come to expect from Sew Over It and I'm still really happy that I bought the pattern and made it.  I can even see the benefit of having made it the way it was designed in the first place.  It may not have been the silhouette for me but it taught me a thing or two about acceptance of my self and as silly as it may sound I feel somewhat empowered by coming out on the other side of it all feeling fantastic about my self and about my skills as a seamstress.  To top it all off I snuck in just under the wire for the #sewtogetherforsummer sew along finishing at 6:20pm of yesterday's deadline!

Continuing on with My #sewoveritsummer

I've checked another project off my list and made myself a summer version of the Heather Dress and I couldn't be happier about it!  I practically lived in my quilted jersey version this past fall and winter so I knew I wanted to make a short sleeve one for warmer weather.  It's the perfect dress for just throwing on.  No fuss, no muss.  Dress it up, dress it down.  It doesn't matter, it just feels great wearing it.  And pockets.  Oh those pockets.  I do love me some big pockets!

There's not too much to say about this one that I didn't already say when I made my winter one.  I sewed it pretty much directly from the envelope (Ok, printer since it was a PDF) and shortened the hemline about 2" before hemming it.  I did add a bit of stabilizing clear elastic along the shoulder seams because I was using a lightweight knit but those are the only changes I did to it from the original design/instructions.

I have my eye on a really pretty grey and yellow print jersey at the local Fabricland that I really want to make another Heather with, but it's going to have to go on sale or they're going to have to put out another 50% off email coupon before I take the plunge on buying it, because I refuse to spend $20/metre for a dress especially given right now I rarely have the opportunity to wear a dress since my weekday wardrobe consists of jeans and steel toes... And yet I keep making dresses and buying fabric for dresses and dreaming of dresses.  Huh.  Logic was possibly never my strong point! LOL

I'm not sure what project to tackle next.  Perhaps I'll grab my list, close my eyes, point and see what I land on!

Combining Two Crafty Loves

I'm back with another Sew Over It garment.  What did I tell you?  It's going to be a #sewoveritsummer LOL

This time it's a Betty and I've combined two of my crafty loves into one dress.  Last summer when I found the Cotton and Steel yarn ball fabric from the Cat Lady collection on Craftsy I had to snap it up.  It was a ridiculous purchase in which although the sale price was great, the shipping was insane.  It was before Craftsy lowered their shipping costs and I paid more in shipping then I did for the fabric.  But hello!  Fabric.  With yarn on it!!!!!!  Sometimes you just need to be a bit frivolous and ridiculous.

I knew the minute I saw the fabric that it was destined to be a Betty dress.  I've never made Betty before so first things first.  I whipped up a muslin.  And then I did nothing.  I needed to do some alterations and I was perplexed how.  I just could not wrap my head around it so there it sat.  Untouched until a few weeks ago when I decided it was silly to just let it languish and come hell or high water I was going to get it figured out.  

Really the biggest problem was gaping in the V at the back.  I knew that if I pinched out the excess into a dart it solved it, but who wants darts there?  So on my pattern I created the dart where the gaping was then rotated it into the back waist darts.  Problem solved.  I also made the neckline a little deeper and a little less wide, widened the shoulders a smidge, did a sloped shoulder adjustment and finally added a bit of length to the bottom of the bodice.  Sewed up another muslin and was quite pleased with the fit, so cut out and sewed up the dress.  Of course my muslin was playing tricks on me and once the dress was finished I tried it on and gaping was happening everywhere.  Damn it.

I ended up fudging things a bit rather than go back to the drawing board and cut a new bodice because I was pretty tight on fabric at this point as is.  I took up almost an inch in the shoulders and shaved a little off the side seams and that has solved the problems for the most part, except I now have bust darts pointing way off course and some weird bunching at the lower armscye.  I am not going to quibble though.  I'm willing to bet only a seamstress would even look at the darts at all and if they're rude enough to point out that they are looking at my bust that closely then I'm really not interested in talking to them anyways! Ha ha!  In retrospect it occurs to me that perhaps a lot of my problems would have been solved if I'd gone down a size... sadly that didn't occur to me until after the fact.  

On the plus side of things, this is number three for my #2017MakeNine!  More bonuses are that I added pockets (used my favourite pockets which are from the Emery Dress pattern), my invisible zip went in without a hitch (thank you double sided tape - where have you been all my life?!?!) and most importantly I LOVE my new dress!  

Spring Sewing Plans or #sewoveritsummer

The other day I as I sat pairing fabrics and patterns in my head I thought it might be better if I actually wrote them down on a list so they wouldn't get lost in my mental filing cabinet.

Of course I'm being unrealistic in my goals here, because goodness knows that a) I rarely sit down to my sewing machine anymore and b) I still have knitting goal lists floating about that I wrote out about ten years ago and never did a single project of because if nothing else I am fickle.  Today's MUST DO project is not necessarily going to still be next week's MUST DO project.

I noticed a few things about this list besides my delusions of productivity.  I have a heck of a lot fabric.  I should not be buying more.  And yet... well.  Don't judge. There are much worse vices I could have.  The next thing I noticed was that out of 18 projects, ten of them involve Sew Over It patterns (actually there's an 11th needs to be added to the list.  I realized just now that I have the perfect fabric for the newly released Eve dress... Eve wasn't out when I wrote the list and I had totally forgotten about the fabric that I have in mind for it.  I definitely need to get my hands on that pattern!)

In light of the patterns, I thought maybe I should just go ahead and declare 2017 a #sewoveritsummer  because my wardrobe is going to be overwhelmingly designed by Sew Over It.

Would you believe that I already have one of my makes done?  Last week I picked up some rayon voile at the fabric store and thought it would be perfect for Susie although the details of the collar do get a little lost in the print.  My two Susie blouses I made last year were so well loved, but the fit needed a bit of tweaking so I knew I had to tackle that before I did anything.  I was pretty sure that I needed to do a broad back adjustment because while my blouses from last year are fine when I'm wearing them and not moving my arms, the minute I move my arms it feels tight across the upper back, and getting out of them just about requires the jaws of life to extricate me.  In my search for information I came across a video that made the adjustment really easy to do.  I extended the back sleeve a bit too to match up with the side seam and it was exactly what I needed.  I did a half inch adjustment on either side, which was a touch on the generous side, but at least I know what I need to do now and my blouse is totally wearable and very comfortable.  I also gently curved the hemline for a shirt tail hem rather than more straight across feeling that is a more flattering look.  (although I realize that I neglected to get any photos of the bottom of the top so you'll just have to imagine it!)

The rayon voile is super comfortable to wear, but was a bit of a beast to cut out and sew.  It was so darn slippery and wanted to slide away at every turn, but I managed to get it on grain with a bit of patience and determination (and more than just a bit of flouncing and bad words).

I was really excited to have a new spring top just in time for some sunshine and warm weather yesterday!

I also finished a Betty dress yesterday, it's been mostly done since Easter weekend, but still needed hemming.  I got put off a bit when it got really cold last weekend and then decided to be full fledged winter, complete with snow again for a few days.  But the sunshine inspired me yesterday and my machine was already threaded with blue from my blouse so I did a quick machine hem on the Betty before turning the machine off for the day.  I'll try and get pictures soon of it!