scorched

Hey everyone! I am currently sitting, staring at my computer at 9:30 pm on a Saturday night (because my social life is off the hook). I think I've written these first couple of sentences a dozen of times, only to delete each one. I told myself that I wasn't allowed to write about the weather, or the fact that February seems to have gone by very very  fast, and as a result I'm finding myself with absolutely nothing to say. It's at times like this that I wonder if we're given a finite quantity of creativity in our lives, and if I've squandered all mine on dramatic readings of Us Weekly performed for my cat...

To be fair, those readings have been some of my finest work, but don't expect Mister Muscles to back me up on that because he's a tough critic!

Well, since it seems like the insides of my brain currently consists of one, long, obnoxious, fart sound, I'm gonna take the liberty of skipping the niceties and jumping right into the sewing talk. Trust me, it's better for everyone this way. Besides, I have a lot to say about this silly, flowy, voluminous dress!

This was my February make for the Mood Sewing Network (you can read that post here, which is probably way more informative than this post is going to be).  I had initially planned on making a spring jacket, which is much needed in my wardrobe, however our crazy 'winter' turned unexpectedly balmy for a week or two there and I just couldn't muster the enthusiasm to sew outer wear.  So instead I made what is essentially my ideal spring dress. Of course, it has since returned to being cold and drizzly, and now I'm really wishing I had that jacket - so back to the front of the queue it goes!

This dress was made using this White and Gray Striped Linen-Blended Woven from Mood online.  I'm not totally sure why this fabric caught my eye, as it certainly isn't the sort of rambunctious print I usually gravitate towards when I'm buying fabric with my Mood allowance. But I do know that when I saw it I thought of light and airy spring dresses with a sort of folksy, bohemian, Ladies of the Canyon kind of vibe.  The kind of thing you wear with minimal sandals and lots of jewelry (bonus points if you're lucky enough to own some genuine turquoise...) and long, flowing locks. The finished look might veer more towards 'a man's sleep shirt from the 19th century' or faintly Laura Ingles Wilder, but I'm actually pretty cool with that too! 

I'm going to reveal something incredibly nerdy about myself right about now - when I was a kid (and probably a little older than would have been considered 'cool'... like, oh, say 15) I was in love with American Girl dolls. My favorite doll was/is Kirsten (R.I.P. Kirsten, as you are no longer available) who was the 'pioneer doll.'  I mean, pioneers are pretty badass! I even had matching dresses so I could dress up like my doll and pretend that I, too, was a pioneer girl. Well. I would be lying if I said that this dress doesn't make me feel a bit like my 8 year old self, playing dress-ups with my Kirsten doll. And after doing that google image search I'm realizing just how much it resembles Kirsten's nightgown (which I also had in my size). Sigh. I mean, aren't we all just trying to satisfy our inner 8 year old? 

Another fun fact - my nieces are just getting to the age where they are getting into American Girl dolls, and I swear, this past Christmas I was almost as excited as they were to receive their first doll! I literally had to stop myself from being like, "here, let me show you how to brush their hair..."

But I was trying to write about sewing here (see above, re: brain = fart sound). So I saw this fabric, I decided I wanted to make a folksy, springy dress, and I chose a pattern, like you do.  This is Burda 10/2010 #122, the same pattern I used to make my green dress. I love that green dress so hard that it only made sense to add another version to my closet.  However there were a few changes I wanted to make. For clarity sake, I'm gonna go with the list format:

•  Lengthen the entire dress by about 3 inches. The curved hem makes for some scandalous thigh moments on my green dress, so this length is much more modest.
• Narrow the shoulders by 1/2 inch (using this method). My green dress actually fits very comfortably through my shoulders, but optically I feel like it makes my shoulders look wide(er). Since this is such a roomy dress I felt like I could get away with narrowing the shoulder so the shoulder seam sits in a bit more, which I find visually more flattering on me.
• Used a different method to sew the front placket because when I followed the instructions from Burda on my first version of this dress I felt like the placket got really gross. I don't remember now exactly what I did, I just kind of made it up as I went along. I'm sure if you were to have watched me sewing the placket it would have been like watching a chimp perform brain surgery. No offense to any primate surgeons out there - but it was definitely touch and go there for awhile! But we got there in the end. I'm actually really pleased with my placket on this version.
• I used the same wide, gathered sleeve pattern that I made for my first version, but this time I added 1/2 inch to the overall length, and changed the sleeve to an exaggerated bishops sleeve, so it's a little bit longer in length at the back of the arm than it is at the front.
• I omitted a lot of the topstitching and interfacing on this version because I wanted a very soft, rumply look.
• And finally, I left off the pockets. I'm generally a fan of pockets in dresses when they fit into the overall design of the dress, but I often think in-seam pockets seem like an afterthought, and they always flap around uncomfortably when you wear the dress. So out they go!

Perhaps the change I'm most pleased with is the sleeve adjustment I made.  The bishop sleeve really does fall in a very lovely way around the arm, which I think is really key for making this kind of poet sleeve work.  And it's just really fun to wear! I'm actually already imagining other patterns I can slip some bishop sleeves onto, and next time they're going to be even more exaggerated! Puffy sleeves for all!

Perhaps after all this rambling you're wondering why I would title this post 'scorched' (or maybe you've just caught on that my post titles are only tenuously related to what I'm talking about and you've just learned to ignore them, in which case, who can blame you?) Well! That has to do with a little lesson I learned about my new iron. Oh, I never told you I got a new iron? Well I did! For Christmas I got a Sapporo gravity feed iron and it makes me feel legit. I also love knowing that I will never have to buy another iron - or at least not for many many years (fingers crossed anyway, appliances are always susceptible to giving up the ghost, but from what I can tell, these things are lifetime companions). Although it hasn't been all sunshine and roses with my new iron. There's definitely been an... adjustment period (we're still getting to know one another). This thing is just way more serious than any other sewing appliance I own! Take, for instance, the sewing of this dress. While working I decided I needed a cup of tea, which of course turned into a snack, and then I sat down to check my email, and read some blogs... Anyway! An indeterminate amount of time later I returned to my sewing room only to find that in my negligence I had flung my work-in-progress across my ironing board, leaving the corner of the dress to rest against the iron! Now, as I've said, this iron ain't your mama's Rowenta! This sucker gets hot. And the whole base gets hot, not just the underside. Also, there's no auto shut-off like there was on my old conventional iron, which means the entire time I was lolly-gagging about, my dress (which I had just painstakingly manhandled a beautiful front placket for with all the precision of a chimp surgeon) was being scorched. I've never had an iron burn anything I was working on before! While I did want to cry when I saw the ugly, brown scorch mark on the front of my new dress, in retrospect I actually feel really lucky that I didn't start a fire! 

So! I would like to offer myself up as lesson to the sewing community! Do as I say, not as I Do! Learn from my mistakes, dear ones! Take care with your works in progress, and beware hot, powerful, irons!

And this picture is for Nick, who really liked the scale of me in amongst all these palmettos and tropical greenery. 

Until next time friends!

xx

flower power

Well guys, spring has definitely sprung around these parts! And I for one could not be happier about it! This week also marks the end of what was a really busy couple of months for me at work, and I finally seem to have shaken off the respiratory infection that had been plaguing me (thanks antibiotics!) Yay!! So all in all, we're in high spirits around these parts!

What with the warming weather and more free time to actually enjoy it, I seem to have one thing and one thing only on my mind - silk dresses. Making them. Wearing them. Living in them for the next nine months... That and long, lazy, bike rides. Preferably paired together. At sunset. Sigh... paints quite a picture, doesn't it?

For this months Mood Sewing Network make I was irresistibly drawn to this gorgeous floral crepe de chine from Mood Fabrics online. Silk crepe de chine is one of my all-time favorite fabrics to sew with, and to wear. It has a bit more 'grip' than many of it's slippery silk counterparts, making it easy to handle, but it still has that lovely, fluid drape that you want from lighter weight silks.  And it's breathable, which is an absolute must in my hot and humid climate.

I absolutely adored the floral print of this fabric! It's so bright and playful, it made me instantly happy! I find the color palette to be sort of unusual and unexpected (magenta and poppy red, royal purple and inky black, viridian green and chartreuse... all on a soft, off-white background). It also reminded me a bit of vintage prints, but I couldn't decide what decade - 30's? 40's? 70's?? Maybe 70's-does-40's? (The consensus on the Mood blog was 70's-does-40's, which incidentally, is one of my favorite time period mash-ups!)  I don't normally go for a vintage look, but there was something so timelessly feminine about this print that was just calling me.

I thought it would be nice to pair this fabric with a pattern that also had a bit of a vintage vibe, without going totally overt, and felt like By Hand London's Anna dress totally fit the bill. I love this pattern - it's like all the best parts of being a woman rolled into one dress! This is my second time making the Anna dress (here's my first). For this version I opted for the v-neck and the shorter hem. However, rather than just chopping the pattern off at the knees, I kept the hem width of the maxi-version and adjusted the skirt panel pieces to compensate. This way I maintained maximum skirt swing-y-ness (very important for those warm breezes!)

Trust me on this one, this pattern hack sounds way more complicated than it actually was. I'm not saying that what I did was the right way to go about this - but, hell, it worked. Which is really all I care about. What I did was lay tracing paper over the skirt panel pieces, trace off the waist seam and grainline, and make a mark along the grainline the length that I wanted my new skirt pieces to be (I did 27 inches). Then I slid the tracing paper down, along the grainline, until my new hem mark lined up with the original maxi hem line, traced the maxi hem line and connected that to the waist seam, ignoring the original side seams. Done and done! 

One of the reasons I went with this silhouette and skirt length is because it's reminiscent of one of my all-time favorite handmade dresses, my purple linen Simplicity 1880. I love that dress. It's the dress I grab when I want to look pretty, and it's been my go-to dress for such a variety of occasions - weddings, parties, holidays, work events, and just regular old work days. That dress is a work horse. So I felt like it was time that I listen to my own closet and try to get more dresses like that in there! As I was sewing this dress up I could tell that it was definitely going to be giving my purple dress a run for it's money as my new go-to dress! I've already worn it to an opening at my gallery this past weekend and it was, as I suspected, perfect. It took me all the way through prepping for the opening (which entails buying assloads of beer, wine and ice, lugging it around and filling coolers, climbing up ladders to adjust lights, cleaning, hauling trash, etc. etc. etc...) to the opening itself, where I'm greeting people, serving wine, making chit-chat, and generally playing hostess. And you know what, I got so many compliments on this dress! She's a winner!!

I reinforced the v-neck with silk organza strips, which helped a little with gape-age, however there is still more gape than I would like. Perhaps I should have eased the v-neck to the silk organza a bit? Ah well - ya live, ya learn.

I also lined the entire dress with silk habotai, because the floral fabric was ever-so-slightly sheer. Silk habotai (or china silk) is a wonderful lining fabric, especially if you're like me and like to keep your silk dresses silky - inside and out! The habotai I used was from my stash, but Mood has an awesome collection online in, like, every color imaginable. And I don't know about the fabric stores where you live, but silk habotai at my local fabric store is sooo much more expensive than what they sell it for at Mood - that's including shipping, and there is much less variety. But probably the most economical source for silk habotai (and, really, any silk fabric) is Dharma Trading. Of course everything there comes in either white or black, but if you feel like getting crafty with some dye, you can make it any color your heart desires!

And because I always like to learn new tricks, even on patterns that I've made before, I decided to try my hand at using my machine's blind hem foot for the floral silk. Can you believe I've never used that little gadget before?! That's one of the reasons I love sewing - there's always something new to learn! I'm not totally sure if this type of hem was ideal for this type of skirt and fabric, but eh... it worked (moral of this post). Anyway, I love how clean the hem turned out, and it saved me so much more time than if I had hand-picked it myself. For the skirt lining I just used my serger's rolled hem function. I always feel like I'm cheating when I do this, but it's just so quick and easy, it's hard to resist!

Let's talk real quick about caring for silk garments. I feel like this is something (or maybe one of many things?) that always intimidates people from buying, sewing and wearing silk. You guys may have noticed that I sew with silk a lot, and, as I said, silk crepe de chine is my number one favorite fabric of all time. I wouldn't be sewing all these silk clothes if I wasn't actually wearing them, and with wearing your clothes, comes washing your clothes (unless, of course, that's not your thing, in which case, you do you...) For the record - I never go to the dry cleaners. I can't afford it, and I don't like all the icky chemicals. I wash all my silks at home. In the washing machine. The key is to prewash your silks the same way you intend to care for the finished garment. So I usually wash on cold and hang dry. Occasionally I'll throw my silk in the dryer (I did that for the habotai lining of this garment) and it works out just fine, but typically I won't continue to care for my finished silk garment this way. Although every so often one of my silkies accidentally ends up in the dryer, and it usually fares okay. In her recent post about silk jersey, Lauren noted that the color and sheen can dull a bit when you wash and dry your silks. This definitely can happen, though it's not too dramatic, and in my experience, this mostly occurs in the dryer, which is why I usually hang dry. But I'm all for throwing your silks in the dryer if that's more convenient for you, just make sure to do that when you prewash too!

And for any of you non-sewers out there, this is also how I care for store bought silk clothes as well - machine wash cold and hang dry. Silk is an amazing fiber, and not nearly as delicate as people think.

Well, there you have it! I can't wait to wear this dress on the balmy summer nights that I know are right around the corner! What sort of fabrics have you thinking of warm weather?

polka dots

It's really starting to warm up here. Today was one of those stupidly pretty days that makes you ride extra slow on your bike, wave at complete strangers and smile indulgently at screaming children in the supermarket. I had a dentist appointment today and even that couldn't dampen my spirits! And the icing on the cake has got to be all the jasmine thats blooming like crazy all over the place. The streets are heavy with their fragrance and I find myself taking detours on my ride home from work just to sniff them out.

Isn't springtime just the best?

I finished up this blouse, McCall's 6436, earlier this week and I can already see it becoming a transitional wardrobe staple. In fact, the outfit you see here is pretty much my uniform these days (which means I need to make myself some new button-up shirts stat!) The fabric is an airy fairy silk habotai that I dyed this pale minty shade and then hand-painted with purple polka dots. It sewed up beautifully into this shirt, and I only had to use my glue-stick trick once!

You may have seen this pattern earlier this week on the ever so lovely Miss Heather Lou. Isn't her version just fantastic? Totally classic. Her chic, classic white shirt is what I always envisioned I would make, until my impatience got the better of me and I decided not to wait and buy a classic solid silk crepe, but to take the plunge with the habotai I had in my stash. But having Heather go first gave me fair warning about some of the peculiarities with this pattern. Mainly - the sleeves. I ran into the same problem she had with the sleeve head being far too large for the armhole. I'm pretty certain this is a drafting error, and not a user error, since we both had the exact same issue. However, since she gave me the heads up I was more than prepared to gather my sleeves and give them a gentle "puff". I actually think the puff sleeve works really well stylistically with the irregular polka dot print, so it was a pleasant surprise. 

I ended up switching all the interfacing to silk organza, rather than the batiste I was originally going to use. Y'all were so kind giving me your thoughts on the matter and telling me you didn't notice any 'brightness issues' with the batiste interfacing, but, as many of you pointed out, if I thought it was going to bother me I had better go with the organza. In the end it didn't add too much extra time onto my sewing, and I am glad I made the switch. The color difference, though hardly noticeable before in the photos, is really non-existant with the organza. Plus, silk organza is just kind of nice in shirts like these, isn't it?

Lately I feel like there has been a lot of talk around the sewing blogland about perfection.  Sunni wrote an excellent post on her belief that 'perfect fit' is a myth. The post, and the comments that followed, were really interesting and totally worth a read (if you haven't already).  And I often hear fellow seamstresses talk about how they are willing to rip something out a million times until they get it perfect.  Now, I gave up on perfection in all areas of my life a long time ago, but all these conversations did get me thinking about what my standards are in sewing. How do I measure the success or failure, technically speaking, of a garment? 

The conclusion I came to is perhaps greatly influenced by the fact that I was raised in a family full of teachers, or maybe it's from my own past as a teacher, but I realized that what I look for most in my sewn garments is whether or not they show improvement. 

"Shows Improvement". Wasn't that such a downer when you saw that scribbled across an essay or in a note on your report card when you were a student? Usually accompanied by some distasteful letter grade like a "C" or "B-"? But the thing is, showing improvement is really the most important thing! It means you're paying attention, learning from your mistakes, and applying your knowledge on future projects. And continually learning is always my main goal in sewing. And in life, too.

I really felt like this shirt was an example of "shows improvement".  I've been sewing a lot of tricky narrow hems with silk recently, and I finally feel like I'm seeing progress - hems that are satisfactorily tiny with neat, even stitches. Even my edgestitching, while not 'perfect', is getting, well, edgier. And I recently used this technique (found through Gertie's blog post on the subject) to make my collar points, and I have to say, they are the sharpest, pointiest collar points I have ever made! So while this shirt is far from perfect, it is an accomplishment that I'm proud of.

Now I'm off to make about 3 billion more! Well, maybe not of this McCall's pattern, but do I spy an Archer in my future..? Yes. Yes I do.

xx

the girl from ipanema

the colors of this outfit make me feel very tropical! where's my umbrella drink??

i worked on this blouse veerrry verrry slowly over my blog break. its my third (and final) of the rachel comey patterns i bought back in october, v1170. i'm not really sure why i didn't buy the fourth pattern from her that was available at the time. i think its because i really don't have much use for dresses in all reality. and also because those crazy style lines got totally lost on me in the leopard print. looking at it again, i actually think its quite cute. much more so than the new one - which is a bit unfortunate - but who knows! maybe that one will grow on me too! weirder things have happened...

this is another fabric from tessuti that i bought a while back. its a silk habutai called summer in italy and it was like sewing with butterfly wings. no seriously! this stuff seriously is so delicate and has no weight at all that i'd be holding it in my hands and i seriously couldn't feel it!  its very sheer, and very beautiful, i think. all the edges are  painstakingly hand rolled - which was no small feat because those sleeve ties are veeery curvy! i'll admit that my curved hand rolled hem started out pretty frightful - but by the last tie i got it looking pretty neat. the front of this blouse is cut on the bias, which added an extra element of delicate flimsiness! i was actually thinking of doing a post on my tips for working with extra delicate fabric like this - would anyone be interested?

i'm not going to sugar coat this - this is a bit of a strange blouse. i know a lot of you are on the fence about these rachel comey patterns, and i do understand why. this one was my least favorite of the bunch. its just a bit awkward to wear. there's a lot of fabric in odd places - like the armpits. actually the fullness of this top is controlled by gathers in the underarm which i find a bit strange. i actually played around trying to put pleats and gathers in other areas to reign in some of the fabric but it just made it worse. this top works best the way it was designed.

that being said - i'm actually quite surprised how much i like the way it looks in the pictures! maybe it was just worse in my head? if any of you were tinkering with the idea of sewing this blouse up, here are a few of my tips:

• use a very very flimsy, drapey, droopy fabric (like my beautiful silk habutai!!). when i made my muslin of this top out of cotton it was really truly ugly. like, really. no exaggeration. a fabric with any stiffness will make the drapey bits stand away from your body in a really unflattering way. if silk scares you, something like a cotton voile would work too.
• follow the gathering guides precisely for the underarm gathers. too much gathering and you won't be able to tie your sleeves. too little gathering and you get weirdly saggy armpits. and not in like a cool, dolman sleeve way. trust me.
• fyi - this blouse is loose and boxy. making it from a sheer drapey fabric helps it seem not as much so. but regardless of that, it looks best tucked in.

just some views of the back button placket and the hand rolled hem - which will never see the light of day **sniff**

this top will probably not get a ton of wear. not because i don't like it, because i really do think its a pretty blouse (and it looks great with this oddly colored anthropologie skirt i've had forever and had no idea what to pair it with!) but because its actually very very delicate. between the sheer fabric and the hand sewing i'm a bit afraid that this blouse might not hold up too well with too many washes and wears. so it'll just get paraded out for the more special occasions! no harm with that...

this was the final make from my spring wardrobe. i'm pretty excited to get started on my summer wardrobe - especially since the humidity decided to set in today! hello texas summer! come on in, stay awhile (i know you will)...

xx

feeling zen-like

not one of my most inspired haiku's (pfft!! as if i have haiku standards!!) but still... hiya haiku! nice to see ya!

that title is a lie. but ya know, whaddyagonnado? sometimes you just need to tell yourself those little white lies. "feeling globular" just doesn't inspire normal human functioning, does it? but "feeling zen-like" well! now we're talking... see! talking! human function! where was i??

i'm back! i've managed to make it through my stressful april and i'm now seeing the light on the other side which is may! please be good to me may! please oh please oh please!! it was actually a bit of a challenge to stay away from the computer. in the little bouts of free time i've had over the last 2 or 3 weeks i've had to remind myself to limit my computer time. turn the thing off. step away from the mouse. its for your own good. this didn't always work since i was also determined to stay up to date on my blog readers (i don't know what it is, but an overflowing reader makes me more stressed out than an overflowing email inbox!)

but this self-imposed blog break doesn't mean that i haven't been thinking about sewing or blogging. au contraire!! part of the break was to help me organize my thoughts and get some action plans made up for the upcoming months. chief among these was preparing for me-made-may and the colette spring/summer palette challenge.

so where am i with all of this? hmmm. well when i say "organize" i mean "form coherent thoughts" so... don't get your hopes up...

lets start with me-made-may shall we?

my "mmm" oath reads a little sumpin like this:

i, sallie of sallieoh.blogspot.com, sign up as a participant of me-made-may '12. i endeavor to wear one self-made article of clothing, and to mix and match said articles of clothing to the best of my ability, each day for the duration of may 2012.

so here's the tizzy - i have a pretty good self-made wardrobe built up at this point. its not great, but it does get a lot of wear. i plan on building onto this wardrobe (particularly my summer wardrobe) throughout the month. so that should be fun. but what i really want to get out of this challenge is a chance to remix my current wardrobe. i think by setting the boundary of having to wear a self-made article of clothing every stinking day i might be forced to get a wee bit creative. also, this is a chance for me to show off some of the things i've made before i started this blog - which are all generally poorly sewn but for some reason i love them. so that should be fun! stay tuned!

now! the colette spring/summer palette challenge! i approached this a bit different than i did for the fall one. in the fall i picked some images that were inspiring me and then tried to fit my fabric/garment choices around that. this time i tried to pay attention to what fabrics i was being drawn to and edit them to find a coherent theme, curating patterns to go along with them in the process. and this is what i came up with:

what can i say? i'm feeling blue! maybe its my yearning for some beach time - or something else, but i'm really craving cooling hues.  also, as a sort of continuation of my mini spring wardrobe, i'm also really trying to incorporate more prints into my wardrobe along with some classic solids. prints are the spice of a wardrobe's life, in my humblest of opinion, and so far my closet is like the cafeteria at a retirement home...bland.

i'll check back in soon with a more complete rundown of my plans and patterns and such and such! also, i have a newly finished garment to show off that i'm trying to get photographed either today or tomorrow - aaaaand  the me-made-may madness starts this tuesday!! ya'll are gonna get so sick of me...

till then,

xx

27

happy birthday to me

i live in a tree

my na-ame is sallie

happy birthday to me!

yeah ok. my birthday was actually yesterday. i was too busy doing birthday stuff to blog. sometimes its gotta take a back seat, ya know? and here is my birthday dress!! don't you just wanna eat that floral print from tessuti?? i do. uh oh. sallie. don't eat the dress...

and look at that!! a smile! it must be a birthday miracle...

i wore this dress to a lovely wedding this past weekend for some truly lovely people. i don't know when it happened - but give me a pretty dress, a pretty wedding, pretty people, and a pretty good helping of champagne and i turn into one big old sentimental fool!

the wedding was really wonderful. it was out near kyle, tx. if that means anything to you then you're golden. i'm pretty geographically challenged even in the best scenarios so i kept stopping in the middle of admiring the beautiful landscape and saying "wait! just where the hell are we??!?" it didn't help that i couldn't get a straight answer out of anyone either. at first i was told i was somewhere in between houston and austin. then austin and san antonio. then i was basically outside of austin.

so that place - somewhere near-ish austin. in the region of texas... it was damn beautiful! we spent the weekend camping and then spruced ourselves up for the wedding and danced the night away! sunday was my birthday which was spent driving back to galveston and taking a looong loooonnngggg nap!

i had wanted to take these pictures out where we were camping (wherever that was...) because it was just so freaking idyllic what with the wildflowers and the bluebells and herds of caribbean goats... no really. i actually had a rather unnerving incident with a ram where he stared me down pretty intensely - on my birthday!!! (did i mention my birthday was yesterday??) this is important because i'm an aries - the ram!!! do you think he recognized me as one of his own??!?

oh yeah, but i didn't because, you know, i got caught up with celebrating. so you just get regular old galveston pictures.

oh yeah - so this dress! rachel comey for vogue patterns (v1209) made up in a tessuti silk.

well! i'm very glad a made a muslin. i did all the things i said i was going to do in my muslin post: i cut a bigger size, i let the bias hang, i added 2 inches of length and la-dee-da-dee-dee... all was going fine and dandy. until i got to the lining. lordy.

i mean really anytime i try and sew on a deadline i'm basically asking for some 2am drama rama. and thats what i got. i don't know what the deal was with this pattern. its cute as a button - don't get me wrong - but its a funky funky pattern. i'm usually one to own up to my own mistakes, but i really don't think this was my fault! i cut the lining the same size i cut my dress, and the dress without the lining fit great. so after installing the lining i go to try it on and... so tight!! like. child size tight. like it would not budge below my armpits.

i'm still not sure what the deal was - i didn't do anything wrong!! anyway i had a sad little breakdown in the wee hours of the morning where i weighed what seemed like my only two choices. either cut the lining out of the dress entirely (my fashion fabric is totally opaque - so it didn't really need a lining) or unpick the seams and see what that does. i decided to go for the latter. so i unpicked all my pretty french seams and re-sewed them at 1/4 inch. the lining fits - and comfortably - but the silk fabric is now a bit delicate. i think at some point the lining will need to be replaced - but i'm going to wait till i bust a seam to do that...

oh! and perhaps you're wondering how that zipper inserted into the bias seams worked out?

what zipper?!?!? muahahahhahahaha!!! that invisible zipper is invisible ya'll!!! okay well maybe not entirely invisible - but its very neat and there's no funny buckling of fabric. sunni's tutorial did me right. oh so right.

i wore my dress with my leather jacket when the night got a little bit chilly. they look good together. almost like they were made for each other (wink!)

and because i can... here's a lovey-dovey photobooth set for you from the wedding. whoever started doing photobooths at weddings was a genius.

well i'm off to stretch out the birthday goodness for a few more hours/days/weeks!!

xx

i love it when things go as planned

... but this is not one of those times...

say hi to lucille! she's the sweetest puppy dog in the world...and wouldn't leave me alone...

this is my muslin for my birthday dress (v1209). man am i glad i made a muslin! i sewed this baby up in a straight size 6, because, what can i say? i felt like a 6! what?! you never base your sizing on your feelings??

well last time i made a vogue pattern i felt like the sizing on the pattern envelope was for the birds and just figured out which size to cut by the finished garment measurements printed on the pattern pieces. thats all well and good, except this time there weren't any finished garment measurements printed on the pattern. so! i went with my feelings...

apparently i feel a bit skinnier than i am, because this dress is tight! not so tight that i'm going to bust a seam, but tight enough that my husband says i look goood and i take that to mean its verging on public indecency! tmi??

funny thing is - its pretty much falling off my shoulders and gaps like its nobody's business in the back. so i just tapered it to a size 8 from the armpits down because if i do an 8 at the top it'll fall down to my boobs and i'll get arrested for public indecency for other reasons!

i also took a little tuck out of the back "v" to shorten it so it doesn't gap so much.

while we're on the subject of public indecency... can we talk about how short this dress is? this is before the 5/8" hem it suggests. just putting all the goods out there, aren't we rachel comey?

another reason i vow to always make a muslin - check out that zipper. holy. cannoli. that is one effed up zipper. the side zip gets inserted into some wacky bias seams. while part of the craziness of this zipper has to do with the fact that the dress is tight and pulling it weird, the other part of it is that bias seams and zippers don't like each other.

also, check out that crazy side seam! twisting all over the place! note to self - let the dress hang before sewing up the side seam...

i have to admit that i was a bit nervous about how this style would work on me - whether it would be flattering or just... ghastly. this is the other reason i think muslins are so important; besides walking yourself through the construction of the dress and getting to see what all the little weirdnesses are in the pattern, you also get to check out how the style works on you before you commit to your nice fabric.

i'm pleased to say that i like this dress. even with all the rippling and tugging and twisting thats going on with this muslin - i think its a cute dress. but its gonna need some work!!!

so here's the changes i'll be making to v1209:

• cut a larger size for crying out loud!!
• take a 1 inch tuck out of the back "v" to shorten it
• staystitch the living daylights out of the neckline
• add 2 inches of length all around - i mean seriously...
• let the damn thing hang to work out those bias seams
• use this tutorial for a pucker free zipper

wish me luck!

xx

color story

leeeeaaaattthhhhheeerrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr

well here she is! (definitely a she) my draped leather jacket. this may be one of my favorite garments i've ever made. it just feels so good to wear! i wanted to wait to take these pictures until i finished this skirt (one of my "bonus" projects from my spring wardrobe). sometimes i get the outfit and the blog pictures in my mind and that alone dictates what i sew. for example: this exact outfit combination had to be paired with this particular abandoned-easter-egg-building with creepy blacked-out windows (once a strip club?). please tell me i'm not the only one that does this (the outfit/blog/picture planning - not posing like a dorkasaurus in front of sketchy abandoned buildings in shady parts of town. i know i'm not the only one that does that!)...

so...i figured a simple gathered dirndl skirt... should be able to whip it out one evening after work, right? no. no thats not right at all. because apparently i can tackle leather and hand tailoring and boning and all those things people think are "advanced" like it ain't no thang - but when it comes to the most basic skirt construction i'm totally flummoxed. flummoxed people!

i won't bore you with the details. just know that there were broken needles involved, a lot of swearing, and i kinda want to cry if i look at the waistband for too long. but no matter, thats what belts are for, amiright?! when its all said and done i actually don't particularly care that i've got a crooked waistband because really, this skirt is so fun to wear!!! all swishy and light. plus i really love the color. the entire time i was sewing it i was trying to place what the color reminded me of. well the entire time that wasn't consumed with shouting expletives! anyway, i kept conjuring up some flavor that i've linked to summer as a kid. and finally i placed it - its the exact color of watermelon bubblegum (bubblicious brand)! it may not look like it in the pictures, but trust me, watermelon bubblegum. these sensory associations don't lie. memories are so weird... now i think i can smell it...

i decided to take a page out of my sister's book and paired my leather jacket and silk skirt with a simple white t-shirt. well, my version of a white t-shirt. i made this about a year ago, its one of the patterns from the japanese drape drape books. not sure which one and frankly i'm too lazy to get up, walk over to my bookshelf, and thumb through them to find out (its friday, guys). so if anyone is burning of curiosity just shout it out in the comments and i guess i can take the five steps to figure it out for you...

regardless, its obviously a drapey t-shirt. i made it out of some slubby linen knit type stuff. and thats my bra underneath it. i'm probably wearing underpants underneath my skirt too. i think...

edit: haha!! i just realized it looks like i'm wearing a teeny purple hat in this picture... good god, what was i thinking...

okay, i'm obviously in a bit of a goofy mood and should probably cut it off here before this really starts going down the toilet (pffft! toilets!) i've already typed more random sentences about my underwear and i want to quit while i still have the good sense to delete them.

truthfully, i think i'm out of things to say since i already covered so much of the construction stuff in my last post. have no fear though, i have some up close detail shots of the jacket innards and stitchery and such coming, but i gotta space out the good stuff!

xx