My version of a dress riffing on a detail on a Rachel Comey dress

Rachel Comey vogue 1585 copyright 2018 McCall Pattern Company Inc

When I am stuck, I go through my pattern boxes. 

I bought this one when Joann's had the $4 Vogue pattern sales (that's a story all in itself)

and I realized the part I liked what this flange over gathers.

and it just worked itself out on paper.

borrowed the main piece from a known object

The usual process photos that i won't identify very well, using a lawn I've had in my stash since Clinton started Funkadelic.

I just never found a thing that suited it, or i wasn't ready to wear it. Either one.

My hems have gotten deeper. Progress.

there's some flipping and pinning and flipping

I am absolutely terrible at taking photos of myself, but I am worse at getting other people to take photos that aren't even WORSE

The other photos are equally poor, but this doesn't feature hot pink compression sox.

I have a pair that match this dress. I'm wearing them right now.

If you are old, and it gets hot, compression knee highs are your best friend ever. And it has been hot.

More notes.

Cause there will be a second one. I set fabric aside for a Style arc Sydney dress that is happy to have a better choice (and I have added the center panel pockets from the Sydney to this).

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"

 

Summing up summer sewing and summarizing autumn's: more of the same stuff from last year

Summer sewing is starting to skip a season. 

 I have rebuilt this dress collar twice, and am going to try a third

This dress was started last summer in August 2020, worn once, redone, worn once again, and hated the way the stand collar felt. So I ripped it out and am going to scrap together a collar similar to the Italian spread collar that Peter Lappin has been working on. For next summer.

Peter Lappin, from Instagram

This Felix dress is stalled, as the print I made for it on Spoonflower just doesn't work with the big print (cute idea, wrong color) . So I have a different solid fabric for it, but .... it's going to need picking apart and...well, it hasn't been warm lately. It's not raining, it's just cloudy and cool. So after all the redrafting and tracing I did to make this pattern work better.... it's going to be a next 2022 summer dress. Like the Tokyobots dress was 2020, finished in 2021.

Hair touching selfie style. The whole building is in shades of depressing beige and gray.
Dune: office planet 

Shown above: made and worn pants. Same one piece baggy pants, now in brussels washer cotton/rayon, which is a fabric that will not wear well in the long run as pants, but will be comfy and beige in the short run.

Shirt! Made shirt! Made some REALLY AWFUL BUTTONHOLES and that was awful. The test ones on the faux placket with the Bernette buttonhole device were beautiful, and when we got to the actual placket, totally stalled out. Nothing to make you really feel your sewing oats than failing at buttonholes.  I'm going to use spring snaps on every damn shirt from here on out (and you'll notice the pullover shirt does not need buttons or fasteners FOR THIS VERY REASON.

Bought new to me corduroy jacket, considered replacing ring snaps (which jingle) with spring snaps (that don't) and just sold the jacket. Ring Snaps are off my list now. Having supply issues with Gold Star and KAMsnaps regarding size and material, but isn't everyone everywhere having trouble finding things? I am pretty sure I will survive.

More darts in RTW jeans. Seems to be my specialty.

Fun with zippers? Replaced zipper; hated it, replaced that zipper with different zipper. Did it for each jacket.

 

BT's jacket

Doug's jacket

The key thing I learned this summer is that I need to handbaste a zipper with thread. Not pins, or clips, but thread. And be very cautious about sewing it in with the machine.

I think they are lovely. Certainly sworn and sweated over.

Mending crotch of pants that has needed mending for longer than I should admit (so I won't)

Pre ironed facing foldover, so fewer fiddling

It's the basting buddy.

Made work jacket. This replaces work jacket I used to own, smoked in, and gave up on it's ever not smelling like an ashtray. It is boring and poly crepe, just like previous edition, big enough to wear over regular clothes on work nights. And it has SNAPS because buttonhole fail. Eventually it will be made out of wool crepe, and have welt button holes.

Miyake shirt still in time out pile.

And the dresses are arriving. Actually I am almost done.

So that's been the sewing. Oh, traced off a pattern from a pair of Em's pants, mended pair with part of the other. That's another post, when I make the new pair from the pattern I made.

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.