Saturday, December 19, 2009

It's Snowing. I'm Sewing.

I owe this blog to Jaime. Last night was supposed to be her Mad Men themed holiday cookie exchange. Unfortunately, her little girl came down with a stomach plague earlier in the week, necessitating the postponement of the one holiday party I actually look forward to attending. Boo, stomach germs! Boo, puking. Boo!

As part of the party, invitees were instructed to come dressed in clothing inspired by Mad Men. I decided that this meant I should make something. I found someone's entry on the Sew Retro Blog and admired the dress made with Simplicity 3673. So, I decided to try it.

I used some suiting fabric that I had in my stash (leftover from when my mother in law worked for Jones New York...she had an unending supply of designer fabric remnants). I lined the top with leftover pieces of an Ikea Gaspa sheet (very silky smooth, and easier to work with than normal lining). I really should have lined the whole thing, to cover all the unfinished seams (don't have a serger yet), but the dress has 8 darts. That would have meant sewing all 8 darts twice. No thank you. I'm all about instant gratification and being lazy whenever possible.

Altogether, I spent several evenings working on the dress. I've learned that more complicated patterns are better split up in this way. I make fewer mistakes and am way more careful. There are still a few wonky points, but thanks to the super black fabric, you don't really notice them all that much.

A self portrait would be nice, but thanks to crappy winter lighting and a broken tripod, you get this:

Simplicity 3673

Rest assured, it fits rather well. Well done, me!

I spent this morning in my PJs, alternately sweeping up snow from my front steps (hello to the blizzard of 2009), playing with my dogs in the snowy yard, and working on another version of Simplicity 3835, the Built by Wendy top/tunic that everyone in the world of sewing has made at one time or another. I myself have made two other versions. This time, I decided that I wanted a casual bathing suit cover-up for my upcoming trip to Hawaii, so I went with the tunic length, but used the elastic neck instead of the zip up back. This meant that I was able to omit the center back seam, and just cut the back piece on the fold, which was nice, because I used a striped Kaffe Fasset cotton, and matching lines would have been irritating.

I experimented for the first time with french seams on this project (again, no serger for seam clean up). I used this tutorial. They were super easy, and look very nice.

Still, the neck elastic casing is a little messy, and I think I may have twisted the elastic during insertion, but eh, I'm only wearing this to the beach. It doesn't look too bad. It's very muumuuish, which is appropriate for Hawaii.

Simplicity 3835

I have plans to make another version of this in a different print. Maybe later tonight, between shoveling snow and eating these cookies that I made.

1 comment: