Happy Easter!!!

Since, where I am, we are on lockdown, I decided this Easter to bring out the decorations as much as possible.  The tablecloth is a piece of barkcloth my Mom gave to me a bit ago.  I love the color and know enough about barkcloth that I am not cutting that up.  Instead, I just hemmed the edges.  

The chair covers are one of those thrift store disappointments turned into a lucky find.   I bought what I thought was 3 meters of linen for €10 back in February at my favorite thrift store.   When I unfolded it completely when I got home, rather than a small bit of embroidering near the hem, there were three large cut out and embroidered pieces in the middle of the fabric.  I threw the fabric to the corner until I decided I wanted to have a nice Easter dinner outside.

I realized the cutouts in the linen just happened to be the same shape as the back of the chairs.  I drafted a patter, cut everything out, sewed it up, and have two nice white linen chair covers for the garden chairs.  

The bunny on a top hat was just fun.  I bought that when I went out to get hand sanitizer.

Not the greatest picture but it works!   This is the dress I made out of some silk blend I got at Fabric Mart.  The lining in the body and the cuffs is also silk.   

The pattern is McCalls' 4061 and is from 1974.

I had to edit it a bit because the original pattern was just a bit too small.   I also drafted my own sleeves because I never like the pattern sleeves - no one needs that much ease!!!!   

The dress itself was pretty simple and straight forward.  I messed up the collar a bit but the rest of the dress came out well.  I think it might work slightly better with a knit material instead.

I hope everyone had a happy and safe Easter!!!

Easter Dress!

For my Easter dress this year, I used McCall's 7804 with a linen cotton blend I bought at Fabric Mart.  The dress is actually even nicer than the photos and a LOT of fun to wear.  It's a pull over so it's a bit loose but very, very comfortable.

The pattern pieces were straight forward and I didn't bother with directions.  The only real change I made was I forgot to cut out the back facing piece so I just zigzagged the back neck hem.  No biggie.   

The bib front can be a bit tricky but I just ironed everything in the middle of putting the dress together and it came out fine.  I also used a frixon marker to mark where the neck opening should be and sewed around that before cutting.  That seemed to help a lot.

The lace at the bottom hem is a vintage lace I had in my stash.  I wanted a bit of lace added to the dress but nothing too overly frilly.  

Overall, I'm going to use this pattern again.  The dress is comfy and looks nice on.  I might try the longer version of the pattern - I almost did with this fabric but I didn't feel like cutting out three curved flounces, each on a fold, and then gathering that up when I already had to gather the skirt itself to the waist.  Too much gathering.  

Easter Dress!

I saw the lovely totally acetate cherry blossom brocade at Joanns back in February, I believe, and had to have it. I bought about five yards with the intent to make an Easter dress. I finally decided on a style for said dress in late March and needed some pink organza (silk!) to match the brocade.

My inspiration for making my Easter dress was from this image of a 1950's/early 1960's pattern:

I looked through my own patterns and realized a good dress pattern base is Simplicity 3673. I used style C - which is the wider skirt version of the pattern. I've used this pattern before but that was pre-weight loss. Luckily, the way the pattern is designed, it's only four pieces and very easy to trace the smaller size from the bigger one I cut out.

The bodice, shown above, is what I changed the most. I cut the organza so it would be a cross over style by extending from the center fold over and keeping the armscye where it was. I also made the strap wider for the organza to get a bit of a gather at the shoulder. I cut the bodice under front out of the cherry blossom but also changed the neckline of it slightly so you just get a whisper of it from under the organza.  In the picture, the blue line is mostly the original brocade front bodice pattern and the actual edge is what I used for the organza.

Another change was with the skirt back. There is one picture of the skirt back in the pattern with only two darts and others with three. The pattern piece calls for three but with three darts on each side in the back, the skirt will not match up to the bodice back at the side seams. The bodice back isn't supposed to be gathered. So, to make it fit, I took out the middle of the three back darts and it works perfectly.

Overall, I love my new dress and I even got compliments on it at Church. :-)

Easter Dress!

Better and more pictures later!

I used Simplicity 1961 for the pink knit jacket and Simplicity 9103 for the cream knit dress. I used the jacket pattern as is - no changes. I just cut it out of some pink knit I've been wanting for months at Joann's and followed the directions - sort of. I've made up this jacket a couple of times before. It's a nice, 3/4 sleeve knit jacket that works well both for work clothing and with just jeans.

The dress pattern is my favorite modern clothing dress pattern. It's ridiculously simple. I made the sleeveless version and made it shorter than the pattern because I wanted it above the knee. It's only a little over a yard of fabric but the dress is so versatile. I also added lace to the hem.

The lace top is loosely based on the dress pattern. I used it for the armholes and the neckline. However, it goes out at the sides and has a slight handkerchief hem.

I machine stitched everything using the stretch settings on my Singer Heavy Duty machine. It's much slower than the serger but the serger refused to behave...again.