Better Late Than Never - Catching Up to #30days of Dresses

I definitely meant to do my post on how the second half of #30daysofdresses went but then completely forgot to do it.  Here we are 3/4 of the way through August and I've suddenly remembered it, so better late than never here it is!  But first, I want to share a new project with you that I sewed up in the last two weeks as well as a sneaky peak at a few projects I have coming up on the Minerva Blog this fall!

So let's get started!  First up is my new dress, the very popular Chalk and Notch Fringe Dress.  I wasn't sure I really liked the style for me when the pattern first came out.  I had only seen it on women who were definitely not my body type, so it was hard to imagine how it would look on me.  At some point they re-released the pattern with a larger size range from what I gather, so that there wasn't just a standard A/B cup bodice, but also a C/D cup bodice, and I started seeing more and more curvy sewists in the dress.  Of course being the ever fickle sewist I am, I was suddenly obsessed with the pattern despite having not given it a second glance for the longest time. So I decided to give it a go for myself.

I did need to add length of course to the bodice, but then forgot to take length off the skirt, so it does fall somewhat longer in the hemline than I think the designer would have intended.  I'm not sure I'll take the skirt off and shorten it or if I'll just leave it as is, with a mental note to shorten it next time I make the pattern.  I chose to make View A with the buttons and sleeve tabs in a size 18 C/D.  The only modification I made was to lengthen the bodice.  The dress is very simple to sew, but I took my time, sewing it in little chunks of time here and there.

I'm loving my new method of sewing in small chunks.  I find it so much more relaxing and enjoyable than trying to get things done all in a rush!  So much so that I'm planning to take part in the Instagram challenge of #seweverydayseptember that was proposed by Sheona of Sewisfaction. It'll be a great reminder to myself to slow things down and even doing a small sewing related task every day is good enough!

Anyway, back to the dress.  I sewed it using a rayon challis that I had purchased from
Fabricland earlier in the summer.  They had it in a navy colour way that I really wanted, but sadly didn't have near enough fabric left on the bolt, so I went with the black instead.  I can still pair it with my favourite red Lotta from Stockholm clogs, so I was happy.  (Does anyone else base the majority of their fabric purchases on a favourite pair of shoes?)  I can also wear it with my black pair of course but why when I can wear red?

I'm pretty happy with the dress.  It's comfy and has pockets (who doesn't love a good pocket?).  I'm just not sure about the length.  Should I shorten it?  What would you do?

This was one of the dresses I had planned to make in July for #30daysofdresses, but that didn't happen obviously. Neither did the Kielo Wrap Dress I had planned. (I should get on that one soon!) I did sew two other dresses though, so that was pretty good I thought!  Unfortunately I can't show them to you yet because they are for the Minerva Blog and won't be up for a while yet, but I thought I'd show you a sneaky peak of them today.

Now, lets take a step back in time for a moment to July and the #30daysofdresses challenge.  I'm happy to say I did it!  There were only a few times that I chose to wear my Samara Pants* instead of a dress but other than that one pattern, all other days saw me wearing me-made dresses.  There were lots of repeats.  Turns out I don't have thirty dresses in my wardrobe and quite frankly I'm ok with that.  It was quite evident that there were some dresses I obviously love more than others because they were on heavy repeat rotation throughout the month, whereas others I was happy to just wear once or twice throughout. I thought that I might immediately go back to pants and shorts as soon as the month was over, but I've found myself still wearing dresses far more often than pants. Possibly in preparation for winter when it'll feel too cold to even contemplate a dress unless I absolutely have to... lol   I was pretty pleased that I managed to document it all on Instagram too except for one day that I forgot until I was already in my pjs.  It was a repeat day anyway, so I felt it really didn't matter. (for those curious, it was my SOI Heather Dress).

So if you're still reading after this marathon post, I'll leave you with a look at how the rest of the month panned out for me.  I've put the links to the patterns below (clockwise from top left)

Halla Patterns Agnes

Violet Fields Ginger

Sew Over It Doris

P4P Sunshine / Sweetheart Mash Up

ITS Samara Pants / Crystal Cove Cami

Sis Boom Jenny Dress

Halla Patterns Agnes

Sew Over It Betty

By Hand London Anna

By Hand London Anna

ITS Samara Pants / Crystal Cove Cami

Halla Patterns Agnes

P4P Sunshine / Sweetheart Mash Up

Sew Over It Penny

I'm going to sign off now, because I've got some housework that desperately needs doing and another project I'm working on right now for Minerva that is calling my name and two boys that are claiming they are starving and "WHEN IS IT GOING TO EVER BE LUNCH MOM???"

#ITSSUMMERCLASSICS

So you all know by now how much I love Itch to Stitch* patterns.  I've tested countless patterns before their release and if I don't have time to test, I almost always purchase the pattern myself at some point after the release.  I swear that Kennis Wong, the designer, creates her patterns just for me because I never really have any alterations to do besides adding some length usually or the odd tweak here and there if I'm making pants.  But I hear a lot of people say that about her patterns so I guess they're not really just for me.  LOL!

We're doing something fun over in the Itch to Stitch group on Facebook until August 7th where makers have been asked to highlight their favourite ITS patterns for summer and hashtag it #ITSSUMMERCLASSICS.  I've definitely enjoyed putting together some collages of my wardrobe staples.  It's funny to see them put together like that because I don't necessarily think about the patterns when I reach for a garment out of my closet, but you can definitely tell which patterns I love the most... hello Crystal Cove Cami and Samara Pants!  I'm looking at you!!!

I thought I would share my various collages I put together here on the blog too, so you can see what my favourites are.  So here we go!  First up is Cami's and Tanks - from top left to right the patterns are:

Crystal Cove Cami

Lago Tank

Vienna Tank

Crystal Cove Cami (modified to have a straight back and wider straps)

Isidro Top

Crystal Cove Cami (same mods as above)

Lago Tank

Crystal Cove Cami

And then of course tops and tees:

Kosice Top

Nottingham Top

Isidro

Plitvice

Isidro

Moving right along we have the Samara Pants.  Oh how I love this pattern so much!  I made three pairs back to back and I wear them all the time.  They have the swish of a skirt and the practicality of pants (no inadvertent wardrobe malfunctions in the wind! LOL).  

The tops that I've paired them with in these photos are all Itch to Stitch too.  From left to right they are:

Cartagena Cami

Plitvice

Crystal Cove Cami (my modified version from above)

Let's go on to the dresses now.  While ITS has quite a few dress patterns in the shop, (a lot of which I own!) for some reason I've only made two of them so far.  Odd.  Must remedy that.  The Marbella is my absolute favourite dress in the summer.  I made it a few years ago and it's my summer time go to.  It has an anchor print that despite the fact I live on the prairies, I get seasick at the sight of a boat and have no sailing experience what so ever I am inexplicably drawn to.  Pairing it with my red Lotta from Stockholm peep toe low woods always makes me feel like a million bucks.  It just screams summertime to me. 

And then there is the Petaluma Dress

Last but not least lets talk shorts.  I have the Hermosa Shorts that I just made recently that I'm looking forward to making a second pair of as soon as I get the chance! Also ages ago I made the Liana jeans but oops! Within a few months I had managed to shrink them and they ended up way too short to wear. (I'm the world's worst laundry do-er.  I can shrink just about anything!)  So I cut them off and made shorts out of them because I wasn't going to waste all that effort of making jeans.  Once altered to shorts,  I then proceeded to live in them!  

I hope you've enjoyed my Itch to Stitch pattern selections for beating the heat of summer!  Don't forget you can always take advantage of bundle pricing in the Itch to Stitch shop if you're wanting to stock up on patterns.  No codes are necessary so the discounts will show in your cart automatically.  One small note that I feel I should address is that as you may be aware, I am an affiliate for Itch to Stitch, but this is not something I take lightly.  ITS is the only company I am an affiliate with at this time as I feel very strongly that it is important that I truly believe in a product I'm going to recommend and that it is something I am happy to use myself over and over again.  So yes, if you purchase through my affiliate links, I do receive a small commission, but you can rest assured that all opinions I present here on my blog are open,  honest and of my own.