Dots and Stripes

You're welcome, but these should be on the outside of the envelope.

I think this is the first time in awhile I've opened a McVoguericity (the One Company to Rule Them All?) pattern and cut into it. I tend to read the directions and look at the layout and then fold them back up and make something else.

I cut the 16 because booooooty

Not suitable for plaids, stripes....WELL!

Challenge ACCEPTED.

(saving the plaid for later)

That neckline is way too wide

So I slashed and brought it in

Checked it against my recent successful neckline/shoulder seam

Drew a new neckline in green Mr Sketch (mmm minty!)

Cut it

Trued it up with the back bodice

And let's just say I messed around with the grain directions.

Except when I didn't

My working plan. Patterns are cheap - this didn't even get to the sketchbook level.

I used a yard and a half of each and goofed around a lot. This was an evening.

A fun evening. Really. Listened to "Science AF" with Jesse Klein and Dave Ciaccio. A science podcast by improv comedians who really like science. http://www.scienceafpod.com/scienceaf

Lots of f-bombs. Not for the kids.

Oooh. Tent stripe? Oh.

Not exactly the same turquoise bluish green. I didn't check this until I was taking photos.

Oh.

Matching the pieces up precisely was not an option after my slapdash cutting job. I had about an inch of slop width, and I put that at the sides, choosing to line up the center line as straight as possible. The original pattern has a bend there, as mentioned.

Looks okay.

It should look eye-catching, not stomach turning.

Now, this is the trick I learned, pattern testing for Cake Patterns

(MISS YOU STEPH C)

when you want to get something exactly where you want it, and also want to sew it together on a seam edge.

I could pin it and top stitch the pieces together. 

But I don't want that flappy edge.

So...

You line up the pieces, with the raw edges ironed over to their finished seam allowances.

Keeping them in proper relation to each other, you're going to iron them in place

I do love this stuff.

Wonder Tape is great, but it won't hold well enough on anything with a texture, 

and fusibles will fail well enough, you can pull them apart and re-iron them.

And then I open it up and stitch the seam line (the crease)

I pin them on the dress form to take a long look.

I will be honest: there are a lot of dresses that just stop here. The Infinity War novelty cotton dress dropped dead here recently. It's now a top, and you may see it eventually.

I am old enough to know when to say when.

But this isn't it.

I didn't like their pockets, so I drafted my own.

I could have made much cooler ones, but I was going to run out of fabric. 

Action shot

And then I decided I wanted facings for the rounded cuts by the hem.

Which required pinning the dress to the ironing board to work out.

(dress dangling upside down onto floor not shown)

I used the printed selvage down the back seam (another reason to straighten that out)

The floor shows it off well. I tried to alternate the dots and stripes from quadrant to quadrant. The hem facings  are not in the original pattern, and I like them better. 

I need to stress here: I did not follow proper bias/ongrain alternating. The dots are ongrain, the stripes are on bias. In a year or two, this is going to look like hell.

This is NOT heritage sewing.

And I will have worn it to bits by them.

And I wore it to work today.

It was a little heavy for 90F, but the skirt (which is a little long for me) swishes nicely. The hem side curve facings, plus a 1.5 " hem really gives it some body.

And for once, everyone in the family and at the job liked it.

So I guess this is the most sedate dress of the summer, even with Tent Stripes. And Pom Poms

I am entering it in the Pattern Review Stripes and Dots challenge, just in time.

If you like to vote, you can vote for me.

Or you can vote for someone else. Or not at all.

But remember, if you live in the USA, you had damn well better vote in November.

Not a link.

Another story from the House Of Dud

Sometimes whatever I do just turns into a fail. They tend to run in packs, these failures, and it gets pretty demoralizing. "Who the hell am I, what do I think I'm doing writing about sewing when I can't even: blah blah blah.

And then there's the actual item itself. Do I consider making it into something else, and consign it to the UFO tub or do I just recycle it? And is this a scrap pile recycle, or a hard 'send it in the bag to the thrift' expulsion?

No, I didn't forget the seam allowances. I graded up 7 friggin inches for my spacious behind. And no, just no.

Or could I burn it in some ritual sacrifice? Sigh. No. I'd have to pull the nylon zipper out so I wouldn't be making some toxic stuff to accidentally breathe in; because when you burn a failure, you are always downwind. Always.

This is when I turn to mending. Generally, if it's in the mending pile, it's not carrying a heavy weight of expectations. And I am better at mending that most things. 

Edgar Martinez Day is coming up. I bought this back in the days before children, when I weighed as much as a sack of dog food.

I also smoked like a chimney; it was not all good times.

Going to have to open the whole seam out to widen it for my adult frame. That's what I said and that's what I'm calling it now. The sleeve gusset is just not enough.

Making another shirt for the blond one.  This is the same pattern I made the purple plaid jacket from. Apparently I did not write about the plaid shirt jacket, cause I can't find it on here. How can this be? It was EPIC.

He's just taller, not wider, and it's short sleeved. This is an easy peasy make, from some hoarded linen (two years? It was foisted on me at Pacific Fabrics and I could not stop myself from buying it because POLKA DOTS).

He makes the next one.

Dignified Pullover Garment: actual sew

It does look more interesting in the tech drawing, but every black object does photograph badly

model L/16

The actual sew is very quick, maybe an hour. It's just big pieces that don't have to be lined up precisely, and the interior finishes can all be serged. There aren't many of them, none of them are curved or eased, so lots of finishes would work. For my sister, I tend to bind them. A little showmanship goes a long way.

I love Pic Monkey collages

Almost all of those pieces are single cuts, except for the sleeve and one of the bands.

I used a middle weight mystery knit from JoAnn's, figuring I'd get a wearable muslin.

Yes, these are the directions. All of them.

The entire collar construction is not only skipped, it is mostly obscured in diagram 6.

I came up with a numbering system to keep the pieces straight, and spent a little time lining them up to see if they fit.

This is where I screw up every time. I ruined a beautiful piece of cotton making a Burda blouse years ago and not making sure I'd cut the right pieces and that they fit together BEFORE I started cutting my fabric. I had a very hard time making it work, and in the end, I had to cut it down and out of my size. A most beautiful and elegant child's blouse.

Lucky for me, in this case piece 1 was two inches too wide, not too narrow. Maybe it has a pleat in it? Maybe it doesn't? I call it my error, not the book's. 

Once again, I've made something that doesn't photograph well.

It's easier to see what's going on with it inside out. I left off the cuffs and the bottom bands, because at that point I was looking at a dress, and I need a top.

Either could be the front. Can you tell that the narrower sections were cut on the crossgrain? Not really, but I tried to get some variation in it. This is a knit backed with some netting, so it's a bit scratchy, and has ...pretty much NO stretch.

This top would be cool in a stripe/print blocked variation, and would work in a woven if I open the upper chest an inch. NOT the neckline.
I smell plaid.

I should rename the blog I Smell Plaid, I Taste Polka Dots.

The cowl (the black and white section here) stands on one side and lies flat as a part of the seam on the opposite. In this midweight knit, it does stand up a bit. You could interline it to get it to stand taller, or cut it on the bias to get it to flop.

I cut a large, I'm a 38" chest with mom arms. The armsceye are fine, the shoulder seam does dive over the edge but it's not tugging or bagging. 

Not that you can see this in this photo.

It's hitting me, without the bands, at the lower derriere. I will make another one of these, but I will do a FBA for my sister, enlarge the arms, and maybe bring in the shoulders. The sleeve should be a little wider if it's going to sit off the shoulder.

This is a common sleeve construction in the Miyake patterns I have.

from Ebay

And it often leads to puckering at the top of the sleevehead, where the curve meets the flat. 

from Ebay

I had a better Ebay example photo, but it's wandered off again. Hanging these shirts exacerbates the problem and adds another bubble at the top.

 Widen that sleeve head and I see some serious plaid misuse after the holidays.