Happy Easter!

Don't bother telling me the title of this entry is two weeks late. That said, I grew up with two older sisters. I was the queen of hand-me-downs. My mother even says that I helped my sisters pick out their clothes because I knew I'd end up with them eventually. But my mom always made sure that, even though the bulk of my wardrobe was previously-worn, I got a few new things of my own every year. At the beginning of the school year, I'd get to pick out a few new things (including the all-important first-day-of-school outfit, which I usually also wore on the also important Picture Day). I would also get a new dress for Christmas and another for Easter. These, combined with whichever clothes in the big bags in the basement happened to fit, gave me quite a nice assortment of school clothes and church dresses to wear all year long.

I've tried, with varying amounts of success, to follow the tradition over the years. I do generally start every school year (when I'm in school) with a new outfit, and I frequently make myself a new winter dress in time for Christmas and a spring-summer type dress for Easter. This year, I decided I wanted an Easter dress. I had all the fabric by the Friday before Easter, so my plan was to wash it at my parents' house (the fabric is all 100% cotton, so pre-washing is a very good idea), then cut it out and maybe even start sewing while the rest of my laundry was being washed. I did get the fabric (and the rest of my clothes) washed, but a combination of other things coming up and my inherent laziness prevented the project from going any further that day.

Finally this weekend I ironed all the fabric--four different pieces--and started cutting out. I decided to use one of my favorite patterns (the one from which I previously cannibalized a sleeve piece) but with, as usual, some changes.
The v-shaped neckline is somewhat precariously low in its plunge. I wanted to fill it in a bit, but am not a fan of the dicky look. While brainstorming different options, I realized that the crossed-over bodice and wide midriff faux-sash reminded me of a kimono and obi. Since I had been wanting a dress out of a Japanese-type print anyway, I knew what I could do to raise the neckline a little. Kimonos are worn with several other light robes underneath, with the layers arranged to show neatly at the neckline. Therefore, my plan was to mimic this look.

I selected a purple fabric with a Japanese-style floral print reminiscent of the decorative washi papers I've used to cover boxes and eggs. In addition, I got two plain purple fabrics, one a light purple and the other a pinkish purple, and some white cotton.
As I was cutting out the pattern pieces, I primarily followed View C, which has the sleeves I wanted and is all one fabric. However, I cut the midriff section and tie ends out of the light purple. I mostly sewed the dress according to the pattern directions, with two exceptions: before overlapping the bodice pieces and basting, I cut (well, tore, actually) strips of the pinkish-
purple, folded and ironed them, and zig-zagged the unfinished edges, then sewed them along the front panel edges with 1/4" showing. This was done in order to add a contrast color, highlight the crossed-over nature of the bodice, and begin filling in the neckline.
1 5/8" from the top of the piece, I slanted the strip down to meet the shoulder seam which would be sewn at 5/8" from the top.

Also, although the pattern directs to lap the right side over the left, I switched it to left over right, after checking several images of Japanese women in kimono to see which way is correct for that look.

From this point, I proceeded as normal. After the dress was complete, I cut (well, tore, again, since that's the easiest way I know to get woven cotton into even strips when I don't have a pattern piece) strips of the light purple and white. I measured and placed the light purple so that a bare 1/8" would be exposed, and also tapered it toward the shoulder line in placing. The white was exposed 3/8", and also carried around the back of the neck.
These changes resulted in the point of the neckline being raised a full 1 1/4", while looking intentional and designed-in (dickies always look a little last-minute and unthought to me, which is why I wanted to avoid that solution). Also, the layered neckline allowed me to use a fabric that is really a little to yellow for my skin tone, because the final white layer is more flattering to me. he end result is a fun dress that I have made my own--and that I can bow in safely!
Oh, and I also used leftover fabric to make a head sash. In these pictures, I've tucked up the tied ends.

Sometimes, you just wanna wear feathers

My mom made most of my clothes when I was growing up. Well, many of them were originally made for my older sisters, but I ended up with them. That, however, is beside the point. The point is that when I would go to the fabric store to pick out my new skirts, dresses, etc., I almost always tried to find the fabric that was most similar to the picture on the front of the pattern envelope. Times have changed. Now I get an idea of what I want to make, think trough the patterns I have, and find the one that is closest to the basic shape I want. Wrong style of sleeves? No problem. I find a sleeve from another pattern and swap that in, until the finished product is what I want—which often has little relation to the picture on the front of any of the pattern envelopes. This is more or less what I mean by the tag “fun with patterns”. And this blog entry is going to show how I turned patterns for two evening gowns into one nightgown set.

For the second year in a row, I was fortunate enough to be voted as a calendar girl by the forums on a local website I frequent. No, not gonna provide a link…those of you who already know me from there don’t need the link, and since it’s not a sewing/craft/making stuff sort of forum, probably anyone else reading this wouldn’t really be interested in the site. Anyway, I chose February as my month, and decided to do something Valentine’s-y. Being a bitter old maid, I generally avoid such things, but I decided it would be good for me. Builds character. Besides, I’d been wanting an excuse to make a beautiful flowy negligee like in old movies.

For the actual nightgown, I decided something with a sweetheart neckline would be appropriately Valentine’s-ish. I remembered a pattern I had used for a previous Halloween costume. It’s a modern re-interpretation of a vintage pattern:

However, I’m more comfortable when wearing sleeves. So the sleeveless model wouldn’t do, but when worn with the robe I wanted, the rather full sleeves wouldn’t do, either. Another dress pattern I have come to love has sleeves that are basically a thin band—enough to make me feel covered, but not particularly noticeable or distracting from the general look:
Because this is just a nightgown, I decided it really wasn’t necessary to line it (the original dress pattern is fully lined). This did make it a little tricky doing the neckline. I ended up stitching a line at each of the corners, clipping, folding over the seam allowance, and stitching it down. Also, I wasn’t sure whether I would need a zipper. The original pattern has a back zip, and the zipper is definitely necessary in the previous dress I had made. However, I was making this gown in tricot, which has more stretch than the satin I had used before. If I did need a zipper, I wanted it on the left side, not the back. Fortunately, after stitching the right side and basting the left, I found that I could easily pull it on. No zip necessary!
For the robe, I used a pattern that I have had for several years, but have never yet used for the project for which it was purchased:
I also used tricot for the robe, but a very sheer pink tricot. Because of the sheerness, I used French seams throughout. The pattern calls for lining the bodice, but I didn’t. Other than that, I didn’t alter this pattern. However, after I finished sewing it, the real fun began! What is a classic flowy negligee if it isn’t dripping with feathers? I bought a few marabou boas from a local craft store…and then started puzzling over the best way to attach them to the edges. I wanted the feathers on the ends of the sleeves and the hem of the robe. I definitely did NOT want to stitch them on by hand. Finally, I thought of Liquid Stitch. I carefully applied the adhesive a few inches at a time, then pressed the boa in place with my fingers. It did get a little sticky, but was faster and easier than whipstitching it would have been! I found that half a boa was needed for each sleeve. For the bottom of the robe (which has a train), I used two boas. Because the bottom of the robe curves up into the front without a clear demarcation, I started at the center back and just glued until I ran out of boa. This way, I could be sure that the feathers would end at the same point on both sides.

To finish off the look, I needed appropriate footwear. A quick trip to a discount shoe store netted me a pair of cheap heels that needed only a little alteration. I cut the bows off the toes, then covered the whole toe-band in more marabou. This time I used a hot glue gun (and, yes, got more feathers stuck to my fingers).
The robe and the slippers are definitely costume items, rather than being particularly useful. However, the nightgown has earned its spot in my sleepwear collection!

Photo by Miriam Latour

A Nightmare Dress

No, the dress itself was not a nightmare to make. The title of this post just refers to the origin of the design. A friend of mine was feeling a little stressed about the prospect of making/finding the costumes for herself and her daughters for Halloween this year. I was feeling up for a challenge, so I took on one of the more intimidating costumes: the Sally dress. Here is the image my friend’s daughter provided for me:

The basic requirements for this dress were that it should look like the dress from the movie, both in color and fit, and that it should be made well enough to be worn more than once and be passed down to the younger sisters. Many commercially available costumes bore more of a resemblance to a circus tent—garishly colored and shapeless. My plan was to make the dress using patchwork and appliqué methods, using as a base pattern the design for a dress I made for Eve in The Diaries of Adam and Eve (performed at an extremely family-oriented theatre, hence the need for the title characters to wear clothing). Fortunately Sally had pretty much the same measurements as Eve, so that simplified matters somewhat!

First, I drew out the overall plan for the front and back, including using my 9th grade geometry skills to draw parallel grain lines on each section. The dress is bias cut, to allow for a nice fit without excess construction seams—there would be enough seams in this dress anyway! I traced each section, along with the grain lines and any placement markings, to individual pattern pieces, and added seam allowances where necessary.

Next, the fabric. There are a lot of pieces, and a lot of colors, and I didn’t want to waste money or fabric by buying strips of cloth for each color, and then end up with a bunch of extra. Plus, I wasn’t sure how well I could find fabrics of the right colors. So I bought a couple yards of unbleached 108” muslin and some dyes. After prewashing and drying the fabric, I laid out the pattern pieces roughly, and drew section lines (all lines I drew were either parallel or perpendicular to the selvedges). I also marked each section with a code indicating which color it should be, and sewed around the edges to prevent fraying. Then, armed with Dylon cold-water dyes and a number of white dollar-store wastebaskets, I set up a dye shop in my bathtub.

I chose the Dylon dyes because they seemed much better suited to multiple small batch dye jobs than the other dyes in the stores. Almost none of the sections were supposed to be the colors indicated on the dye packets, so I mixed powders, dyed lighter sections for shorter times than directed, and dyed and redyed darker sections. The sections I had the most difficulty with were the maroon and brown. I ended up getting some navy blue dye and overdying those sections to try to get them a little darker. The end results were not quite the colors from the movie, but coordinated well together and were still much better than the circus-y commercial dresses!

After cutting and marking the pieces, I drew swirls, stripes, and dots on several pieces (using a black permanent fabric marker), fused the brown dots and pink square to their sections, then taped my master plan of the front to a door by my sewing machine and got to work. If pressed, I could recreate the order in which the sections were sewn together, but for now I’ll just say it was a logical progression. The front went together very quickly and easily. The back was a little slower…because I’d forgotten to put notches on any of the pieces. Even so, it still went pretty quickly. When I sewed the front to the back at shoulders and sides, I left a section under the left arm where a zipper could easily be added, if necessary. Since this is a bias-cut dress, and bias needs to settle, I hung the dress overnight at this point.

The next day, I hung the dress on a door, set up my laptop nearby with the concept image displayed, grabbed my scissors, and started cutting. I have seen other versions of Sally’s dress where the lower edge was cut at angles and hemmed, but I felt that, A) that method looks awkward and bulky, rather than ragged and torn, and B) That method looks like a pain in the neck. So I just cut the hemline and sleeve edges, mimicking the concept image as closely as possible. After I finished cutting, I applied a healthy dose of Fray-Check to all raw edges. Fray-Check is supposed to be washable, but I did advise my friend that it may need to be re-applied in the future.

So, the dress is sewn, the edges are finished…should be done, right? Well, here’s where I started to get a little carried away. In the movie, the black thread used to sew the patches together is visible. Now, I did use black thread when I was sewing, but even if I had, say, zigzagged along the seams on the outside, tiny little black threads just wouldn’t show up. So I dug out some black yarn and a fairly large-holed sharp needle…and started hand-sewing big black stitches along the seams.

After a few, enough to get the idea across, I sent a picture to my sister and asked what she thought. She liked it, but said I’d better do the same thing across the rest of the seams. My fingers were a little sore by the time I was done, but it really did look good!

As I mentioned before, I left a spot in the left seam for a zipper, just in case. My plan was to try the dress on my friend’s daughter, then put in some darts and a zipper if she wanted it more fitted. However, I think I scared her off of that idea when she tried it on. I mentioned that the darts would probably give a slightly off-set appearance to some of the designs and seams. So Sally, weighing the designs against the fitting, opted not to have the darts.

So, lessons learned:
1. It is harder than I thought to get deep colors on cotton using cold-water dyes.
2. PUT NOTCHES IN THE PATTERN PIECES!
3. Maybe a thimble wouldn’t be such a bad idea next time I’m trying to stab worsted-weight yarn through muslin.
4. Probably would have been better to fit a plain muslin shell to Sally, then use that as the basis for the pattern. If I had incorporated the darts from the beginning, we could have had both the designs and the fitted look.

All in all, though, I like the dress!