Going to call it what it is: the cutie

I don't know what else to call this dress.

sewn in 2002 or 2003. Not my first quilting cotton dress, but reaaaaaaaal close

It's cute.

I've made it over and over again. I've worn a couple of them to shreds.

I'm 5'2" (158cm) and cute was the default mode for many years. 
shakes head. I'm 59.5 in years, so that's less interesting to me than it used to be. 

I blew through making this one, so no photos. It's cute.

There's not much to say about this dress. It's drafted from my bodice block, and it has a front button cut-on facing, a 60-64" circumference tube skirt gathered at a slightly higher waist, no darts, short sleeves that have a pretty high armscye, and patch pockets.

For coffee 'go' mugs.

The pieces all run the same direction this way. Particularly if you turn this upside down. Or stand on your head.

The skirt needs to be about 60" plus wide, so it needs to be in two pieces. One seam is the center front, the other is sorta buried in the gathers. The whole dress only takes 1.75 yds of 40-44" quilting cotton. 

 I have been buying for this in 2 yard lengths to be able to match the fronts. This is needed more or less depending on the pattern repeat size. 

The Sewing Woes has a 23" inch repeat, which is a beast and eats up yardage. Luckily it's mostly on grain, so I'm not digging myself a deep hole for later. 

I cut one front, iron the facing over, and then match it up on the yardage.

 I use the front piece and match the center front line with the piece flipped, make sure it's got enough fabric for it's facing, and then cut that.

I clip a notch at where that front facing folds over on the top facing.

When in doubt, I leave as much space around pieces for wiggle room. I can always trim back the excess.

Directions: I sew the collar facings to stabilize that open collar curve ASAP.

Then it's endless fiddling with making the front opening match up properly.

Unfortunately, the printing is not consistant across the Woes yardage, so I had to choose what I needed to be perfect and what I could live with.

My acceptable error rate is ......uh, I'm no Peter Lappin. 

http://malepatternboldness.blogspot.com/2018/07/how-do-you-like-my-octopus.html

 The rest just follows: shoulder seams, sleeves, side seams, attach skirt.

I add the pockets last.

I didn't try to match the bodice to the skirt. Too many gathers for that to make sense

i did get to use the nifty selvage on the facing on this one.

Sadly, the buttonholes have become the problem child of the sewing room.

This is the automatic buttonhole when I follow the directions.

Lots of picking and redoing. 
It took me many years to realized I would be much happier unpicking and redoing, rather than shrugging and moving forward with the errors. I do thank Peter Lappin's blog for that; it is worth the effort. Until it's not.

I did hit the button stash hard for these. 

These magenta kids don't all match each other. This is probably the only thing I will ever sew that they will go with, so I went with them. The yellow will audition again, I know.

I do love pawing through the buttons. 

I might have a lot of them. This is only one jar. (the 'cheezy plastic button' collection)

The Dickies is for scale, until I realize the square they are on is one inch, thus scaled. The three holes have been collecting in this one jar, from all the other bags and bags of buttons from every thrift store and estate sale I've ever been to. Okay, maybe I have too many buttons.

Maybe I have just enough.

Sewing Woes is done and ready for duty. 

Buttonhole Theory

Recently in Colette Pattern's Snippets Department, there was a whole lotta nonlove for the stuff that trips you up in sewing. From the things that are just hard to remember (which was to turn for french seams) to the the hard to avoid (staring at the moving needle when topstitching), there's always something that messes a body up.

I have several (shirt/pants open wrong way, kaff kaff) but one I have learned to work around is

The Failed Buttonhole.

The Bernina, the Damned One, can make an automatic buttonhole. It's never the same size from hole to hole in the same piece, so I just don't use it anymore.

I draw a box on the fabric, or sewing lines, and I do four turns with the zig zag set reasonably dense. Not super dense, but something that gived adequate coverage. And I do four turns, and sink the needle at the corners.

This is not to scale. I would never make a button hole with a hole that big, unless I was using the Bernina, the Damned One. Your Bernina may vary.  Do not say "Bernina" three times on a moonless night. Okay, maybe it just needs more tuning up than I have money for. Do not say I need a new machine three times on a moonless night.

The zig zag will not entirely match up. Perfect is the enemy of good. I should point out that this will look better than if I use the automatic button hole feature. 

I poke a hole in the opening with my seam ripper, and use cuticle scissors to trim to the ends. Then I grab the thing, pull the sides to open it up, and clean up the whiskers that linger.

If I can't draw on the fabric because there is too much texture, I will make a bound buttonhole, using iron on woven facing pulled through to the back. But that's another day.

Colleterie' Snippets on what trips you up in sewing