Just under the wire

Hello! As usual, I've been gone a while. I've got about 12 unblogged makes to post, but I've been really bad about getting pictures. Rather than catching you up on all of those, however, I'm posting my very latest make, hot off the presses. The July theme over at The Monthly Stitch is "spots and stripes," so I forced myself to finish this one today so I could blog about it there. 

The bodice is my tried and true Simplicity 4070, without the fitting issues under the bust that plagued my last one. The skirt is my go-to circle skirt. (Note to self: I maybe need to take a break from circle skirts, especially with shifty fabrics. It took forever to even out this hem, and then even longer to sew it. Ugh.)

Complaints aside, I really like the way this dress moves and think I'll really enjoy wearing it. I should probably shorten the straps just a bit, though, but...that seems unlikely at this point. 

I got the fabric at Vogue Fabrics in Evanston, IL. It's my new go-to store since Hancock Fabrics closed. Their quality is okay, but their prices definitely can't be beat! This was a splurge at $4/yard!

Looking at these pictures now...I'm really loving the fit of this one! To be totally honest, I've been having some body image issues lately. While I didn't really like my face in any of the other pictures I took, I do like how this looks on my body! That's one of the joys of sewing your own clothes, huh?

I think this is a first for me - on-theme for the Monthly Stitch, and on-theme for the Stashbusting Sewalong! What have you been making lately? Anything you finished just under the wire?

Pinterest knock-off, for real this time

My latest creation is finally here!

[Please forgive the wrinkles, this survived several days of wear and a stint on the floor, oops.]

A while back, I was gushing about this pin:

When I was more committed to stash-busting, I'd made what I considered at the time to be a pretty okay knock-off. I like that dress and wear it a lot, but it still wasn't quite what I was looking for. Since then, I've been searching high and low for a better match to the fabric in the original dress (and one that would go with a jean jacket), and finally, gloriously, Hancock Fabrics saved the day! 

This is my tried-and-true fitted version of Simplicity 4070. I've finally got the fit close to perfect, but I can mix up the skirts enough to make it look different each time (I hope).

I didn't bother with pattern matching because I only bought 1.5 yards of this and there just wasn't enough left (which is also the reason for the A-line skirt rather than a gathered or pleated one). I got this for a decent sale price ($8/yard), but it's still more than I typically spend on fabric. Like I've said before, I'm still learning, and am way too scared to invest a bunch of money in something that might not work well. Luckily, I think this one does. :)

[Again, sorry for the wrinkles! That...does not look good, but the hem IS straight, I promise!]

The straps on the original version keep falling down (as do pretty much all straps ever), so I decided to cross them, which I think is a fun little detail. 

Other than the fact that this seems to need constant pressing, I really really like it! The pin is officially knocked off.

Me-made May, Week 4

We're nearing the end, guys! As much as I've enjoyed this month, I'm also getting a LITTLE tired of my me-mades and am ready to break out some other wardrobe favorites for June. We'll see what happens this week/weekend, but I just might have one or two more me-mades to add to the rotation for the final week (if I can figure out that silly Cynthia Rowley 2250)!

Day 19: My New Summer Dress
Day 20: Tania culottes part 2, altered RTW shirt, RTW denim jacket
Day 21: More denim jacket love, self-drafted maxi (I cannot get enough of this dress, despite a couple of issues I've realized that I need to fix after so many wears)

Day 22: Tania culottes part 1, RTW jacket and cardigan
Day 23: Self-drafted dress (which I'm still wearing despite the issues because I LOVE it with that mint cardigan). Switched up the belt for a better look, I think.

Day 24: Repeat of day 21, but I forgot to take pictures because I was visiting friends out of town. :)

Day 25: Tania culottes part 2, but shortened! After seeing the pictures from Monday, and realizing that the back wasn't even at all, I decided to chop off quite a bit of this skirt. I just felt that it was looking far too dowdy, and who wants that? Had a moment of panic that I'd cut it too short in some places, but I think I finally got it right, and I like it a lot more now!

Day 26: Did not leave the house nor bother to get dressed, oops. Still way ahead of my 5 days out of 7, though!

What about you guys - if you've been participating this month, are you ready for it to be over?

New Summer Dress

I did it - I made one of the dresses I talked about in my last post!

In that post, I said that I was DYING over this outfit and wanted to try to knock it off: 

Well, my look obviously looks NOTHING like this, but I still love it! (That being said, if I find some blue floral fabric like that, I am snapping it up RIGHT away to make another one of these.) Part of my love for this dress is due to the fact that this is my first completed make from a commercial (big 4) pattern! I did try it on with my jean jacket, but it didn't really work, so I switched it up with this new ivory cardigan instead.

[I swear I'm not pissed in these photos. I still haven't perfected posing and smiling for these photo shoots. But isn't the mural awesome?!]

I used Simplicity 4070, view A for the bodice, along with some small-print floral quilting cotton. The skirt is self-drafted with soft box pleats some heavy knit fabric from my stash  (with probably enough left over for a skirt on another dress!). 

I obviously added some straps, which are still a bit too long, and used some heavy cotton lining I recently bought. Despite the heavy knit skirt and lining, I think this will be a very light, wearable dress for summer. 

I used a double needle for the hem, but didn't get it quite right since I couldn't figure out how to keep the threads from twisting. I do think it makes for an interesting detail, though. I used white thread because I didn't have a blue that matched closely enough - I thought complete contrast was better than not-quite-matching, though I might go back and redo that at some point.

I don't have a good close-up of the detailing, but I am SUPER proud of the topstitching on this make. (And though they look like polka dots in this picture, they're actually little flowers.)

Other than that, I cut a straight size 18, and it fit pretty well right from the pattern. The only issue I had was with some underarm gaping, which I think you can tell from these pictures that I fixed pretty well. :) This happens to me with a LOT of store-bought tops I buy, and it bugs the heck out of me. Luckily, I can fix it pretty well myself these days. For this dress, rather than ripping the whole thing apart, I just added some underarm dart-type things, which smoothed out very nicely. 

I definitely think this will be a go-to pattern in the future, especially once I modify the pattern pieces a little to match where I took this dress in.

(There are no pretty pictures of the inside, because it's really not all that pretty. The one picture I had of the back was also really blurry. I think my zip insertion is still a bit wonky, but the friend who took these pictures assured me that it looks fine, so yay for that!)

I know a lot of people have some very strong opinions on using quilting cotton for garments, but I figure it's good for me to get some practice with whatever's lying around. Once I make my way through my stash and allow myself to really start buying again, maybe I'll sing a different tune. What are your thoughts on the debate?

Sewing plans

As always, my eyes are bigger than my stomach (or in this case, my plans are more ambitious than the time I have to finish them), but I have been seriously lusting over some outfits lately. The first two are indie patterns - the By Hand London Anna dress, and Megan Nielsen's Cascade skirt. However, since I'm on my self-imposed stash busting diet, I kind of feel guilty shelling out the cash (and adding to my stash) for these two patterns. I thought maybe I could recreate some similar looks for this summer, and once my cash flow is a little better, support both of these indie designers with some other pattern purchases. 

For the Anna dress, I'm thinking some good substitutes for the bodice might be: 

New Look 6156 (View A)

Pros: Similar shape, boat neck, solid back
Cons: No sleeves (but shouldn't be too hard to extend them, right?)

Butterick 5880

You can't really tell on this line drawing, but when it's sewn, the bodice actually looks really similar to the Anna bodice. 

Pros: Sleeves, boat neck (minus those little cutouts), similar overall shape, solid back
Cons: Different bust darts

Butterick 5605 (View C)

Pros: Sleeves, somewhat similar bodice/bust shaping (in the pictures of the made garments)
Cons: Now that I look at the line drawings, the bust shaping isn't all the similar, and it doesn't have quite the boat neck that the Anna does. The cutout back and the sleeves would also have to be redrafted a bit.

Now that I look at this one a bit more...what was I thinking? It's definitely not a contender.

I think I'll try #2 for this one and see how it goes. If it sucks, well, lesson learned, right?

I'm thinking (crazily) of trying to self-draft the Cascade skirt...or, you know, just shell out the $12, I haven't really decided yet. (That being said, I DID just get an offer accepted on a house, so every cent counts!)

(This has been a little rambly, sorry about that!) The last look I've been lusting over is one I saw on Pinterest a while back: 

 

As with everyone else in the northern hemisphere right now, I'm totally in love with florals. While I would love to find that exact same print, I should probably make more of an effort to keep to my resolutions. I found some navy quilting cotton with a (small) floral print in my mom's stash, so I think I'm going to attempt to make the bodice out of one of those two, using Simplicity 4070:

Maybe view E with some straps? (I thought I had a million patterns with a sweetheart neckline, but apparently that is not the case. This is really my only stash pattern that comes close.)

I know I don't have enough of that quilting cotton for a whole dress in this fabric, so I was thinking of doing the bodice in that and the skirt in a solid navy I have in my stash - I think it's a heavier knit, so a waist stay would probably come in handy here. What do you think, is this a good match?

What're your upcoming sewing plans?