Christmas Dress

This is what I wore for Christmas Mass 2018!  :-)   The dress is out of a plaid silk and the jacket is out of black cotton velor.  The jacket closed well but it turned out the bodice of the dress was a bit too big and closing the jacket meant the neckline of the dress bunched up.   So...open jacket it is!

Patterns:


McCall's M6953 - The dress pattern
McCall's M7315  - The base to make the bolero

Dress:

The only real changes I made to the pattern were to make the bodice an inch longer and make the skirt a bit fuller.   Other than that, the pattern is pretty much exactly the same.   I'm glad I made the bodice longer - it's a bit short and I could have probably gotten away with an inch and a half.   I wanted a full skirt because I have a lovely black petticoat to go with the dress. 

The dress is made out of silk I got from Fabric Mart a few months ago.   It was on sale for $9.99 a yard.   It was sold as dupioni, I think, but it's really more of a shantung.   The bodice is lined in striped white cotton and interlined in duck.  I didn't bother reading the directions - the pattern pieces are all pretty basic- so I don't know if the pattern calls for an interlining or not.  However, if you do make this pattern, having the interlining in a heavier material helps a lot.  The only notion I used for the dress was a 22" long black invisible zipper.

Bolero:

I wanted black velvet but the cotton velor was on sale so...cotton velor it is!  I used the dress pattern M7315 as a base because I loved the side dart and I am terrible at drafting side darts.  However, the pattern proved to be nothing but trouble.  I knew something was wrong when I looked at the sleeve.  The sleeve pattern for M7315 for a size 12 (I went up from my normal size because jacket) is only 14" across at it's widest point.  That's including the seam allowance.   Ummm.....

Yeah.  No.   My bicep is about 17" snuggly.  The shoulder (ie, going around the armpit and over the shoulder) is 19"~.  There was no way the sleeve would fit.  Still, I was curious if they meant this to be an off the shoulder number or something else was going on. 

The first mock up looked abysmal.  I couldn't fit it past the "end of the t-shirt sleeve" length on my arms.  I took the sleeve off figuring something like that would happen and marked the mock up with a new armsyce (it was a good inch and a half off).   The mock up already had the curved front and the solid back that should have worked.   It did but it was just a bit too short.

Once I made all the changes, I tried a new mock up and it looked like it would work.  However, I didn't try it over the finished dress.   Turns out that the neckline of the bolero would be too tight over the dress and cause a bunch of bunching.   I ended up leaving the bolero unhooked like in the photo.

The bolero is lined in what I think is a poly blend satin lining...thing?   It was €3 a meter at the thrift store and I think it was one of the Ralph Lauren fabrics so I didn't ask too many questions.  It's lining. 

Anyway, that was the last project of 2018!   Hopefully, I'll sew a lot more in 2019 now that the sewing room is pretty much finished.

Christmas Projects!

This year, I made both my Mom's and my Sister in Law's Christmas presents. I noticed last year that my Mom really liked the Christmas Quilt I made my Sister in Law; so I thought to make Mom one this year. It's a very, very simple quilt but I really love the look of it - and so did Mom! She said it was her favorite Christmas present and she's been using it almost non-stop. (My brother has really bad allergies and it helps to keep the house cool so the rest of us just bundle up indoors.)

Mom loves cardinals and poinsettias - so those are the main themes of the quilt.  It's a bunch of 8" square blocks that I cut out.  I sewed five of them together to make a line.  I would then place the first line down on the quilt batting (which is something like velcro to cotton quilting fabrics, I swear!) and put the second line upside down on top of the first.  I then sewed down the bottom the line and flipped the second line down to create the first two lines of the quilt.   I hope that makes sense!   It doesn't make for a very neat looking stitched back but it does work really, really well for sewing down all the quilt blocks quickly.   

The back of the quilt is a lucky find - I saw this fabulous winter bird print at Joann's and knew it had to go on the back of Mom's quilt.   It's basically all her favorite birds in an already "quilt block" look.   The edges are a red stripe that matched the stripes in the backing.   

Mom thought this was professionally done until I told her I made it.  :-)  She wasn't sure when I had the time to make it (Grad school & work have been eating up time like crazy!) but it's not a complicated quilt and some of the squares I cut out last year.   

I've been hoarding Christmas remnants from Joann's.  Since Joann's always has at least 50% off their remnants, it makes for a nice, cheap way to get a ton of gorgeous fabrics without spending a ton.  Whenever I saw a fabric I thought Mom might like, I just added it to the "pile".   

The other gift I made was a short cloak for my Sister in Law.  She's been coming to more and more events with me and loves it.   However, last year, I managed to make her dress but not any outerwear.  This year, she wants to wear the same dress - which is perfectly okay- but I figured I'd start on some 18th C esque outerwear. 

The cape is based on 18th C designs.  It's a full circle short cape out of sage green cotton velvet.  I lined it in that flannel backed satin -which, despite being dead dino with a bit of cotton, I love!   It does help to keep warm.   The cape is edged in faux white fur.  Even sewing it, it's the kind you have to come up and "pet" to know that it's not actual rabbit fur.   She loved it.  

...Mom almost stole it.  :-)  Really, if anyone wants a very simple but lovely project to try, I'd recommend an 18th C short cape.  This took a little over a 1 1/2 of fabric.  I pieced together the remnants (scraps) left by the circle to make the hood.  The remnants are vaguely triangular in shape - you just cut them into triangles, sew them together to make squares, and you have the two sides for your hood.  For the back, I saved the scrap from the neckhole of the cape and gathered that scrap around the edge.  I then used it to cover the small hole at the back of the hood.  I've seen this done with other velvets in the 18th C because gathering velvet tightly never looks pretty.  There was a small hole at the back of the hood - where I gathered the back "point" (upper edge, back) - and I covered it with the scrap from the neckhole.   

New Christmas Shirt!

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I found this snowman turtleneck shirt at my local thrift store - tags still attached.  I hated the style but I LOVE the print.  It's just snowmen and snowflakes but the print was cute.  Since the shirt was $4, I figured I could "remake" it into something a bit more stylish.  I recut the turtleneck and made it into something much cuter.  

The snowmen print!

The original "Grandma" Turtleneck

I don't like turtlenecks and try to not buy them.  However, I figured I could cut this up and make it into a normalish looking blouse instead.    First, I turned the turtleneck inside out and put it on the dress dummy.

I then drew some lines with my frixion markers to get an idea of where I'd eventually want the lines for the blouse.  I then took the side seams apart, took the sleeves off, and took the lower sleeve seam and sleeve hem apart.  

What it ended up looking like

The new lines marked out

After that, I added gores out of a matching brick red knit and a creamy lace knit.  I bought the material to match at Joanns, on sale.  I think it was about $6 extra.   The gores went into the lower part of the sleeves for a flared sleeve and the sides of the blouse so it would swing out a bit.   I stitched everything back together after cutting out the new neckline and trimming under the arms to make the blouse fit better.  

The end result

Side view so you can see the lace gores

It ended up being both comfortable and rather cute.   I wore it to work today for our Christmas party.