Wow. Where to begin. My last post was a Victorian costume from 2018?! Look, I don't have it in me to go back in time and fill you in on the last 7 years. If you're reading this I'm assuming you've followed me here from Instagram and if you've been there then you know I'm a mom now to two incredible human beings (Henry and Leonora) and you probably also know all the problems with that other app and the algorithm and A.I. slop and rage-bait and the death-of-the-hashtag and probably understand why I'm circling back around to blogging.
I'd like to say that I'm going to refresh this space and give it a facelift and bring it into the current decade, but let's be realistic. If your eyeballs are on fire because of my blog aesthetics.... I don't know... that sounds like a 'you' problem.
I'm here because I want to talk about sewing. I hope you are too. I might also talk about politics. Because everything is political and I am who I am. There's something refreshing about blogging where it kind of feels like inviting people into your home. Don't like the content? Fine, no one's asking you to live here. Did I mention I'm out of fucks? I'm out of fucks.
So Blogging 2.0 will involve worse photos and zero fucks.
Okaaaayyyy! Sewing. I identified a hole in my wardrobe this past holiday season. I have no winter appropriate dresses. It's not something I need often, but a couple of months ago I had a nice event to attend and then closely after that a funeral (I am of an age where having go-to funeral attire seems to be becoming a necessity. Sadly). And I didn't feel like I had anything appropriate to wear to either event. My main requirement was a dress with sleeves. Things kind of snowballed from there.
I had downloaded and printed the Closet Core Crew Celia dress pattern last fall and thought it would be a good starting place for what I had in mind. I was picturing something very 70's, because it's a vibe that never does me wrong. I of course had to draft my own long sleeve. I was picturing a bishop sleeve with a deep cuff to tie in the accent color. Something like.. well, what you see here. So I suppose it was a success!
I've taken photos with and without the removable belt. I like the way the belt ties in more of the green on my version, but I think I might like the overall silhouette better without the belt. I'm contemplating a hot-weather version of this dress -- sleeveless and no belt.
My first instinct was to use wool crepe for the dress -- god how delicious would that have been? Then I priced it and [insert hysterical laughter] in this economy?! Baby girl needed 5 + yards for this maxi goodness! And I'm not sure if y'all know this, but kids are not the same as goats -- don't be fooled by the name -- and they, in fact, cannot eat fabric scraps. It's a design flaw, if you ask me.
So we pivot. I've had a hostile relationship with polyester since the beginning of my sewing journey. Sometimes I think it's a one-sided feud, but then a polyester crosses my path and I think "no, this bitch has it out for me, too." But I thought this might be an opportunity to call a truce, and I bought this polyester crepe in both navy and pea green, from Mood. I actually think this was the perfect fabric for this project. And hot damn was it a sight more cost effective! The crepe is drapey but has weight to it, and is actually very breathable (these new-fangled polys aren't like the old gals). I still don't like polyester from a sustainability standpoint, however I don't plan on chucking this dress in a landfill either.
I decided to fully line the dress for opacity and also in case I wanted to wear hosiery (god forbid) in the future. It is a winter dress, after all. I bought the slinkiest, silkiest knit lining from Zelouf Fabrics. This stuff is yummy. Also absolutely bonkers to work with. I swear it was trying to escape my studio. I lined the bodice and skirt and left the sleeves unlined. This added a lot of weight to the dress, but it just moves and flows so beautifully! The pattern directions didn't account for a lining so it was one of those head scratcher, mental gymnastics situations. I tried my damndest to have it be completely sewn by machine, but fucked it up somewhere along the way and had to attach the zipper lining by hand. A sewing magician I am not.
I loved the length of this dress pre-hemming. The internet has long suspected I am a Tall Glass of Water, and, while I hate to destroy the illusion, the truth is I am a boringly average 5'6". Anyone shorter than this might want to go with a deeper hem, but if you're taller and want a true maxi - do take note. Therefore I decided to do a Very Narrow Hem (aka a baby hem). While the ongoing hostilities with Polyester were at a standstill during the majority of the making of this dress, I thought it best not to tempt its notoriously inflammatory nature (ha). There was no way I would be pressing a hem with this fabric. Likewise, my rolled hem presser foot has all the reliability of a meth head and cannot be trusted to accomplish even the most basic of tasks. It's not her fault. Addiction is a disease.
What is a girl to do? I used thin strips of tear-away stabilizer paper -- the kind used in embroidery -- to assist me in my baby-hemming sans iron or specialty presser foot, and it worked out beautifully! If you'd like to see the step-by-step process of this, it is saved under the Sewing Tips highlights in my Instagram Profile. I feel like I invented this, but I most definitely did not. At this point my sewing knowledge is like that illustration in "Cloudy With A Chance of Meatballs" of the Pea Soup Fog. There's random shit floating around in there but the original sources are long gone. For all I know I saw this on a Tik Tok at 10x speed and it imprinted somewhere in my cerebellum like some kind of parasitic worm, only to come forth and give me a nudge when I needed it most, while also whispering self-aggrandizing encouragement ("Oh my gawd, Sallie, you are such a freaking genius" -- my brain worm sounds like Nick Kroll doing his Lola voice).
Well this took a fun turn. Damn I missed my messy, unhinged, stream-of-conscious blog writing!
In typical winter-sewing-in-a-warm-climate fashion, by the time I finished making this dress it is already verging on too warm to wear it. Not to mention the utter lack of dress-appropriate events in my non-existent social calendar for the foreseeable future. But them's the breaks.
As of now, I don't have another sewing project waiting in the wings, but I'm sure inspiration will strike eventually. My post-kid sewing is far more sporadic and need-based than my pre-kid days, and I'm devoting a lot more of my precious creative time and energy to my painting practice. Which is all to say, I'm not sure when I'll be back with another make, or another post. So don't hold your breath!
Who knows, maybe I'll do this again in another 7 years?
xx
