Summer dress 2022 ideas

This dress has it's moments, but I'm not making it again

It would be nicer in a knit

back 8813 tilton

front 8813 tilton

This Marci Tilton.8813

https://sewing.patternreview.com/Patterns/54078 The reviews consistently state: 
"does it look like the photo/drawing on the pattern envelope? No, but..." and they give four or five stars routinely. 

https://erniekdesigns.blogspot.com/2018/08/plant-flag-and-declare-victory-over.html

 I love the one dress I made from this, but it was a panic to assemble, I had to edit it pretty severely, and it took a lot of fabric. This plaid is a lightweight shirting plaid, from District Fabric  https://districtfabric.com/espresso-plaid-shirting/

Pao has made it a staple of her wardrobe, https://projectminima.blogspot.com/2018/05/wearing-that-french-housedress.html

but it needs..... a drapy fabric to really shine. Like a knit

The dress staple of my wardrobe has been the self proclaimed Cutie

Four pattern pieces, five if you count the neck facing, and the skirt is just whatever yardage you have leftover.

There are many more of them, most of them are twenty pounds ago. I'm wearing the Modern Sewing Woes model while I'm taking this photo

Check out the gapping in the front. The middle one popped a couple times 

Oh man. I am 63. I am not feeling cute. I have this pattern down, but something different is calling.

New ideas have issues, too.

This could work, but  it needs the bodice fabric to be cut on the bias to get the cut on sleeve to do that sweet drop, and a lot of novelty cotton doesn't read well on the bias (frankly a lot is based on a straight grid repeat, vs a half step down or to the right).

I'm also still team Shirt Dress, even though every one of them I have sewn in the last ten years has gone right into the thrift store bag.

So pretty much what I'm doing is mending and making some more short sleeve shirts

Between the Rue tshirt and my pop culture tshirt interests, I'm team ringer shirt lately

Which..... could be an idea.

But this was what I ended up making

"Which we will get to in a bit"

 

This is a tank dress

This is a terribly drawn set of illustrations, but I am so .....beside myself with irritation that I am just going to express it through 'art'.

You will need a sloper/bodice block. And some paper. And a pencil. Or a crayon.

This is not rocket science . If you have ever sewn anything, you already have the materials on hand.

Free slopers keep slipping off the internet, but you probably have a simple bodice pattern that looks a lot like this. No, I do not need a bust dart that big. I need a wider block.

The purple lines are the ones you're going to draw on your paper, around your bodice. The green line is the lower front neck. You can draw the one you like the best.

You will make some allowances for wearing ease (I mean, we're making a dress length tank top here, there's no real art to it) and you want to be able to pull it over your head, so add a couple of inches around your bust line/chest for width. Expand the neck opening, you probably have a pullover top that has a neckline you love. Use that for this part. 

Extend those lines down to the skirt length you are looking for. 

If you are bootylicious, add more. 

If you are not, do what you will.

This is my rough layout on two pieces of folded yardage, and those diagonal lines show where you're going to cut your bias facing strips for the armholes and neckline. 

You could also cut an all in one facing, as recently demo'd on Threads' website.

 I even gave you a pocket for the side seam. Add it where your hand wants to go (reach for pocket, measure how far that is from your armpit, mark on side seam).

And you're welcome. 

*author's message

Neat little awkwardly placed seam line, at no extra charge!

Book Report: Stripes and Russian Dressmaking Book

all illustrations from from  isbn: 978-5-386-05463-2 

Sewing does transcend language.

I have no Russian reading skills. I do not know the title of this book, I found it through the Seattle Public Library by keyword: dressmaking.  It's a flat pattern drafting book, pretty much like Armstrong or Kopp or Lo. The isbn is: 978-5-386-05463-2

No matter what language, that's a collar draft illustration

I did find a neat set of illustrations that deal with stripe matching. Cause I love me some stripes, I'm sharing those illustrations. These are not mine. Wish I were this smart, but I'm not.

Contrasting a balanced and unbalanced seam in stripes

balancing striped darts by shifting those darts 

moving darts to mirror striped effects in a bodice

THESE are going up on the design board!

New Pattern Coming Soon

Yes, this is a pattern.

And as I always say, it's not the drawing, it's the instructions.....

(back to the lab. Welding masks anyone?)

Now with wood trim

And later that day, it was done.

I derped up, as the kids say, and the skirt was too short! I had to use my saved out piece to add two inches around the bottom (I could have used the bias trim I always cut, but this way I got that nice crossgrain effect. Maybe next time I use the table saw....

Pockets will come tomorrow. Time to parent and go to bed.