Sew Distracted

Five Dress Patterns

I went to a four day sewing retreat at Papermaple Studio in New Orleans and had a fabulous time.  The studio was beautiful, spacious, well-equipped, and Leisa was incredibly knowledgeable and helpful.  I met some interesting ladies, all of whom were working on really lovely, and sometimes very special projects.  

I however worked on muslins, dress muslins to be specific.  I came home with four muslins, all in the final stages of fit, and I believe manageable for me to finish up on my own.  All of the patterns are for dresses I would make and wear over the summer, wearable shapes that I would probably make repeatedly.    I feel like I am in a good place to jump back into making my own clothes, and I also feel I learned a lot.  Leisa helped me to look at the fitting process in new ways, and I am very excited to move forward.

 

Alas I am traveling most of this month so you will not be seeing immediate progress.

 

I also did some sewing before I went to New Orleans, partially fitting and making up the Closet Core Cielo dress pattern.  

Admittedly I felt a little confused by the entire fitting process.  It had simply been too many years and even though I am more adept at fitting knitting patterns, somehow I just could not wrap my head around the process, so perhaps I was not quite as methodical as I could have been.  I did a quick muslin of the basic pattern, decided I needed to pinch out a pleat on the right side of the dress, from the neckline angled down.  You can see that in the pattern piece above, the green lines, which are all on one side of the center fold only.  

Once I drew that in, and pivoted the pleat out into the dart, it changed the angle of the shoulder and armscye, although it did not change the armscye or sleeve shaping at all.   You can see the repositioning in the blue line above.  I should have made another muslin.  But I did not.  I just went ahead and cut my first dress, rationalizing that I could spend an endless amount of time on muslins and I desperately needed summer clothes.   The final dress was not perfect, but it is wearable, and will get me through the summer.  I suspect I am more aware of the flaws than are most people, except perhaps for my closest and sharpest sewing friends.

Here is a (poor) picture of me in the first dress, a purple 65% linen, 35% cotton blend.  As you can see, I made my dress longer than the pattern illustration.  In fact I had to add about 5 inches in length to the pattern, all below the waist.  I love the shape of this dress, it is exactly the kind of loose, easy, dress that makes hot humid summer dressing tolerable.  

I did note a few problems, but that didn't stop me from making two more dresses.  The second dress is an Australian cotton print, and the third version, my favorite so far, is in a more loosely woven muted green linen check.   I did not go back and perfect the pattern before making these dresses.  As I stated, need trumped perfectionism.  Although I admit that the first time I put them on I was self conscious about my own failings, I promptly forgot that and was simply happy and comfortable. Generally, I hate making things under pressure, which is exactly what I did here.  I needed clothes and I whipped them out.  Now that I have my most basic wardrobe needs covered, I can spend time with my sewing, hopefully learning and improving as I go.  

 

Each project is a learning process, and I don't intend to get so wrapped up in perfectionism that I never wear anything.  I learned a lot about fitting the Cielo dress through making the three copies, more than I did from the muslin.  Then I learned more about fit by working on the four muslins in New Orleans.  Every project is a learning process.  I am sure there will be successes and failures.  If I have an excess of successes, I may grow tired of my three dresses, or I may not.  In the meantime, a part of me feels like a kid again. 

Re-Entry

Let’s try this again.

 

2020 was going to be the year I started sewing for myself.  And I did.  But as we all know 2020 did not end up being the year many of us anticipated, and many of my great intentions fizzled out before they ever really took hold.  Yet I am happy.  I sewed.  I sewed more than I have in more than a decade, and that, in and of itself, is worth celebrating.

 

Let’s get the accounting out of the way first:

I made two dresses for myself.

I made countless Covid-19 masks.

Although I looked at a lot of fabric online, only 15 yards actually came in.

45 yards of fabric were sewn.

 

That all feels good.  It is a small start, but a start nonetheless.

 

I made the first dress at a sewing retreat in March. At that time I refined the fit on my pattern and cut three dresses.  The pattern was copied from a dress in my closet.  When I left the retreat the second dress was complete except for hemming and I had every intention of finishing it.  In fact, I had every intention of doing a lot.  I had pulled fabric and patterns for 4 summer tunics and 3 more dresses. 

 

Then Covid-19 hit.  Life changed.  I had no reason to go anywhere and didn’t need another dress.  I lost all motivation.  Although I initially resisted, eventually I began sewing masks. That kept me busy through April and May perhaps even into June.  I had done something stupid and taken a fall in the garden, injuring my back.  There wasn’t much else I was doing. I took no photos, well, perhaps one of bias strips. 

Later in the summer I wanted to finish the second dress and I pulled it out.  But I found some issues and I could not wrap my head around them.  Although I had managed to assemble the dress nicely, the hem was incredibly wonky, barely and inch and half in places, 6 inches in others,  The lining did not match up.  I realized I had made a mistake. At the time I cut the dresses, I tried cutting double, which I never do, and this was especially problematic with the silk.  It may have worked better had I layered it with paper, but I did not.  At the time I just wanted to get it done, and of course I had excuses.  My back hurt (pre-fall, but I have a history of back issues), I was tired, and the cutting table I was using was not the right height for me, making all of the above worse. Never again.

 

I suspect that never making mistakes is impossible.  Learning from those mistakes however, is always a possibility.

 

Facing that mess of a dress made my head hurt, so I shoved it aside.  In December I was determined to finish.  This time it seemed easy.  In retrospect, it seems  my brain was not working well during the summer, when I was experiencing rapidly destabilizing atrial flutter and went into heart failure.  Perhaps it is best that I did not work on the dress at that time.  Lack of oxygen to my brain might have made things worse.

And so I am content.  In 2019 I sewed one garment for myself.  In 2020, I sewed two.  I have two dresses I love which can be worn once the weather warms up. The first dress, the purple Japanese print, was my test garment.  I loved the fabric, but I doubted whether I would love the dress itself, questioned whether it might in fact be a little “becky home-ecky”. In fact it pushes that boundary, but I wore it all summer and it made me happy.  I suspect I will grow tired of it before the palm print linen however, which has turned out to be a nicer dress.  But at the moment I remain thrilled. These are meant to be simple, casual, summer shifts.  Yes I lined them.  I find a simple china silk lining is often cool, and keeps the dress from clinging, which is hot as well as unattractive.  

 

I have another project in process, one which uses 7 yards of fabric and which should be finished this month.  I will try to keep you apprised. 

Purple Velvet

When I went to Style Fabrics in Kingston on Sunday to drop off the Elna for repair, I of course took a look  at the fabrics.  Most of the fabrics were cotton and were obviously aimed at a client base based more on quilters than garment-sewers.  This does not surprise me as it seems to be typical in this area. 

However there was one small section with some evening fabrics, which was dominated at this time of year by fabrics aimed at holiday outfits.  On one wall we saw a couple of silk and rayon velvets which were very nice.  They were fairly lightweight but with a nice soft hand.  A deep gray caught my eye first, but then I a saw a deep plum colored velvet, a little darker than a damson plum.  It was lovely.

It has been on my mind ever since. 

I thought of a dress, but what dress? 

The velvet dress from the November Burda world of fashion immediately came to mind.  I love the seaming on this dress and the godets, but I have major doubts about whether I can wear it.  I almost wrote a post about this dress.  You see, I have scoliosis (I have written about this before) and I am asymmetrical.  I always fear that the diagonal seaming on a dress like this will accent my own asymmetricalities and make me look even more crooked.  When I have tried garments on in the store this has been my experience, but it could also be a fitting issue, and it is possible that a well fitting garment might not have this effect.  But I haven't had the heart to try.

Or it is possible that the slope of the cuts could go the opposite direction.  Why do these garments usually seem to go from left to right? not right to left?  There must be a reason,

Either way it is irrelevant.  I cannot picture the velvet I saw in this dress, I wanted something simple but with a little interest in the bodice.

Then when I was looking though the pattern stash, in an attempt at making headway with organization, I noticed this pattern:

This has the requisite detail at the top and looks very simple and elegant.  The pattern is OOP from 2000 and I haven't made it, but I have always thought I might.

I wonder if it would work in velvet, I think it calls for silk crepe. 

I might have to buy the velvet just to drape it and see what I think.

No decision  yet, I have at least another week, probably 10 days, before the machine will be ready.  If the fabric is still there it was obviously meant to be.

What do you think?