The Enviro Chessboard Dress

It's taken a bit longer than I wanted to get around to posting this dress. Making it was easy, but because of a useless phone and internet company who shall remain nameless but are the second largest telecommunications company in Australia and start with an O have left us without home phone and internet for a week and counting, so I have to visit neighbours if I want to do anything more than check an email. Lack of internet should give me more time for sewing, though, so there may be a backlog of projects to post once our internet issues are sorted.

The pattern is the absolutely lovely Project Runway 2444, which everyone should own. It has gorgeous double diagonal bust darts extending up from the centre waist, giving a classic and elegant feel, and diagonal pleats in the skirt. Being a project runway pattern it has a number of variations, and my version includes the cape collar. The dress even has pockets! More dresses should have pockets, they're so useful.

 This fabric is a vintage find, I'm not certain but I think it might date from the 1950s. So this dress is part of my 2015 vintage sewing pledge which A Stitching Odyssey is running. I pledged both to make vintage clothes and use vintage fabrics, six of each for some crazy reason, so this dress is one of my vintage fabric makes for the year. The dress itself does also have a vintage feel, but it's not a vintage pattern or vintage-inspired pattern, so it doesn't count for that part of the pledge.

 These two photos show the close-up of the cape collar and the diagonal darts. I was happy it turned out as well as it did - although the print is a grid, when I folded it to cut the pattern pieces out it didn't sit evenly. I checked that the edges were aligned, unfolded and refolded it, measured it, and it was still a bit uneven. Honestly, there's some weird magic going on with the fabric. The bodice piece is even horizontally, but was slightly off-kilter vertically. I covered it up as best I could by stitching the collar knot down on what should be the centre, so the unevenness isn't obvious unless you look closely.


Also, don't look to closely at the zip, the stitching isn't fantastic. Nothing like a fabric with clear lines to show up a crappy sewing job! As for the name of the dress, well the fabric with its crosshatched squares of green, black, and white does look like some sort of strange chessboard. And the green made me think of either mould or the environment, and the environment is a much nicer reference point than mould.

The fabric is quite weighty and thick, giving a good amount of body to the dress. I think this pattern works best with a weightier fabric, either a heavy cotton like this or a solid satin for something fancy. The other thing I like about this dress is that it feels grown up, like I'm a real adult - or at least playing at being one!

I tend not to make patterns multiple times, but this is the second time I've made this one and probably won't be the last. It really is a great and versatile pattern, and worth buying if you don't already own it.

Dustbowl Dress

Ok. First, a quick introduction. I've been sewing my own clothes for many years, and have thought on and off about starting a blog, and now have finally decided to take the plunge. I'm new to all this, so please be kind!

It's currently summer down here in Australia, and it's been pretty warm. I found this fabric at Rozelle Markets (so much great vintage/second hand stuff there!) and thought its airy softness was perfect for a summer dress. I looked through the patterns I had to see if there was anything that suited this fabric, and came across Simplicity 2995. It's a Project Runway pattern, so there's a lot of flexibility and options to work with. In the end, I largely based this dress on the bottom right version (see the bottom picture), although where the bodice lines are simply stitching, mine are separate pieces.

 As the name of the post suggests, this dress has a 1930s influence to it. I adjusted the pattern slightly by loosening it, taking full advantage of the drape of the fabric. As you can see in the pictures, any bit of breeze moves this fabric, giving it a lovely and lively flow. The colour, print, and cut of the dress really seemed like something a character in a Steinbeck novel would wear, so it is the Dustbowl Dress.

 The loose fit at the back keeps it nice and cool, but the tie waist keeps a bit of shape in the dress. I should also say the fabric is very thin (another thing that would have been common in the 30s!) so the dress does need to be worn with a full slip, but that just adds to the old-world style of it.

I tried to roll my hair up in a 1930s style for the photos, but you can kinda see that it's falling out a bit on the right-hand side here! Oh well, the dress is meant to be the focus anyway, isn't it.

 These sleeves were a little terrifying to do! I wanted something a little different, but not so different that it would overwhelm the dress. I settled on a curved hem up to the centre of the sleeve. It took a lot of time and effort, hand basting, machine stitching, and some redoing to get it right, but it worked in the end. And the final look is, for me, perfect. Although next time I should probably decide how I want the sleeves to look before cutting them out, rather than just playing around until I find something I like.

And here's the original pattern, Simplicity 2995, with a close-up of the bodice piecing. I've also posted about this on Burdastyle http://www.burdastyle.com/projects/dustbowl-dress

So thanks for reading my first blog post!