New Hawaiian Shirt Dress

 For the summer, Friday's at work are now Hawaiian Shirt days!   The problem:  I don't have a Hawaiian Shirt.  Eek!    

The solution:  I happened to have a lovely Hawaiian print cotton I planned to make into a dress anyway.  

With Sew Magazine, I fairly recently received a copy of New Look 6449.

I only had 3 yards of the cotton print and that's all the shirt dress calls for.  Easy!

I think it came out pretty cute.  I did place the shirt pocket a bit too high.  Mea Culpa.  The back yoke ended up being a bit tricky.  The collar wouldn't fit unless I pleated and stitched down the center back of the yoke.  The problem is when I did that, I didn't cut down the neckline itself to force the new lines of the yoke to fit better in the back.  The shoulder "scrunch up" a bit because of that but it's not a huge issue.   

I do like the deep pockets on the dress and the overall fit is good.  I also added a bit more at the skirt (maybe an extra 4" on either side of the front and back pieces) because I wanted a bit more of an a-line look going on.  I wore the dress today with leggings from April Cornell.  It ended up being very comfortable and I'm definitely going to wear the dress again.  

Probably should point out that my favorite aspect of the dress is really the sleeves.  Those little tabs are amazing.  :-)

Modern Sewing!

This is a very shaggy Abigail hiding where I had already taken off one cuff of the blue jeans.  :-)  I bought the jeans on sale for $3.49 at the store.   They were/are having a ridiculous sale because the entire store is about to undergo a remodel and they need to move EVERYTHING.  So, I saw these were my size and decided that, although I hate bell bottoms, I can just take the cuff off and put something else on the bottom.  Or make them into shorts if I royally screw up.  Either way, it's $3.49.  I can play with these without crying.  

I added some heavy blue knit to the bottom with a pink trim at the seam.  The blue knit has a lovely constellation pattern.  

Close up of the pattern on the fabric.  The jeans aren't perfect but they are wearable and make great Saturday laze around the house jeans.  I might take the trim off and replace it with a stretchy lace because the trim does not stretch and I have fat calves, unfortunately.  

My other recent modern sewing project was a pair of trousers for work.

I cannibalized the 1972 Simplicity Printed Pattern 5357 and made it into one single pattern cut rather than a front and back.  I also made it a bit bigger because the original pattern called for a knit.  The cut became more straight than curved towards the ankle because I really do not like bell bottoms.  I wore these to a meeting at work and then a work dinner.  :-)

Some 1510's and 1580's pieces will be coming shortly!   I'm working on a few Renaissance outfits and then my dirndl in the next couple of weeks.   

Butterick B5232 Jacket

http://butterick.mccall.com/b5232-products-7494.php?page_id=385

I was going through my patterns and came across this one that I bought a couple of years ago.  I was looking for a short summer jacket that I could wear to work.  Even though this is a "historical" pattern, view D is pretty much exactly what I was looking for.

It's a bit big on the dress dummy but that's because I have it at "corseted" measurements and not actual right now.  It fits me perfectly.  Although this is meant to be a late 1890's/early 1900's pattern, the fit of the jacket is really 1930's/1940's in look.  It's really cute and I can't wait to wear it tomorrow.

Some notes on the pattern:  If you do view D like I did, the lower sleeve and the side back are very similar in shape.  Make sure you keep those separate so you don't end up sewing the sleeve where the side back should be like I did.  Luckily, I caught it and it was only on the peachy/coral cotton - not on the silk lining.   The shoulders on the pattern were pretty clearly designed for a linebacker - you'll have to cut the armscye along the top and back to get it to fit correctly.

I didn't bother to read the directions - the pattern is pretty straightforward.  There are darts in the front and I just bag lined the jacket.  

The coral/peachy fabric is a really neat looking cotton (it almost looks like linen) that I got at Wally World (Walmart) for $3 a yard.  The lining is leftover silk from a project last year.  I plan on wearing this with a black dress tomorrow for work.  

Modern Sewing

I've been doing a bit of modern sewing lately due to work and just not liking my current summer wardrobe. So first, work clothing!

Both the purple sleeveless and the aqua sleeveless knit dresses are from Simplicity 9103.  I've used this pattern a few times now (my pink knit dress, my black knit dress, and I have a long purple one with sleeves from this pattern).  It is really simple and is very easy to dress up for work (jacket and scarf!).  I took out the leftover purple knit this morning for a new shrug and realized I had enough for an entire dress instead.  I shortened the pattern by only an inch for the "A" look just due to the amount of fabric I had.  It still comes to just above the knee - making it great for pretty much anything.  The dresses always come out well (okay, so I do edit them and make the neckline higher) and they are just comfortable to wear.  Plus, no ironing.  Woohoo!

The teal shrug is from Simplicity 1961.  It takes a ridiculous amount of fabric to make but it does look almost 1920's inspired on.  Seriously, the purple knit above took about half the amount of fabric as the teal shrug.  But the shrug looks really amazing on so...

In other mundane sewing, I decided to try something I saw on pinterest.  I have a ton of old t-shirts that I love but are now clearly ten years old.  So, I decided to try and revamp them by adding a bit of contrast.  This is the first victim.

I have a lot of fairy t-shirts that I've worn since college, really. I love them. However, the cut to clothing has changed and it's starting to show how old these t-shirts are. So, time to make them look new again.

I bought a remnant of purple knit from Joanns. So far, this purple knit has been quite versatile! Not only did I use it for the inserts to this t-shirt, but it also became bias trim cuffs for a jacket I was mending. I still have some leftover and it was only a 1/2 yard to begin with. I'm thinking it might be patches for future items.

The inserts really are just triangles cut to go into the sides of the t-shirt.  Taking apart the t-shirt at the sides was interesting.  They were serged.  I do have a serger but it's evil.  My singer has a stretch function and it works perfectly fine for knits.  Just taking apart the serged edges took a while.

However, once that was done, sewing the inserts in was a breeze! This is over the purple knit dress. I might make the next inserts more diamond shaped to have more of a drape at the sides.

Still, this works.  My summer wardrobe will have a bit of a longer life now.  :-)  

Sewing Evidence

It's not done, but this is my latest "work" dress.  I'll sew the buttons on tomorrow and iron the dress.   I messed up on it in several places - the back seam isn't right, the bodice facings were a nightmare, and the collar is a bit off.  However, the dress has pockets!  ;-)

EDIT:  I used McCall's Pattern M4769 for this dress.   I didn't have enough fabric to make the collar the same as the rest of the dress but I think the black collar looks okay.   Actually, I had so little of the print that I had to piece together the facings on the inside of the bodice.  On the inside of the skirt, I just used a strip of the black fabric.  The pockets are also out of the black fabric.  The print is sort of a Scandinavian looking print.  Dark gray background with black and gold designs. I got it at the thrift store for $4, I think.  I tried on the dress and it's a bit tight but I think that's because I tried it on over my purple knit dress.  :-)    (I don't know why it's showing up royal blue in the picture.  The knit dress -ie the sleeve edges- is a vivid purple.)

I made the skirt a bit wider at the hem than the pattern dictated.  The skirt looked too narrow to me otherwise.   I added 12 black buttons to the front of the dress and I think it will look really cute with a thin black belt when I find one.  :-)

Simple skirt for work

I was told today at 3:30 pm that I was to attend a briefing tomorrow at another agency's building. Given that a) I always wear something I've made to a briefing and b) I had a total of one afternoon/evening in which to plan something new, I went with simple is best. I got out my scraps of black velvet, my muslin, and some pretty black trim that I can't for the life of me remember why I got it in the first place.

I couldn't wear any of my old skirts I've made to the briefing (I've already worn one of them twice this month!) and I couldn't wear the dress I just made this week (I wore that to a briefing on Monday!), so I wanted something new. The scraps of black velvet were just enough to inch out a half circle skirt (hand drafted while waiting for American Idol to come on), a waistband, and pieces to lengthen the skirt. The lower part is actually additional scraps that I pieced together so the skirt was a bit longer than a mere 19" from my waist. To hide the piecing seam, I added the trim.