Turquoise: There’s only room for ONE Sundress Jacket gang in this town, see, and it ain’t you.
White: You know, you’re half right. Don’t worry, you can always go play with the romper kiddies at the beach. (ominous pause) After we’re done with you.
Green/Red (in chorus): Jackets off, girls! Take ’em down!
I did some traveling in February, which meant (as usual) I had a minor flurry of sewing in January. Three dresses made it into the “finished” column:
Another Isca, this time in a precious length of Liberty Lantana (the print is called Adriatic).
I’m very happy with the color of the buttons:
And, of course, the piped pockets (that’s a ruler in the pocket — although I am happy to see you):
I also finally, finally, made the Tilly and the Buttons Zadie dress that I bought yonks ago and cut out in … 2022? I like the color-blocking:
This is some heavy ponte knit that I bought in Belgium in 2020, and it’s very comfortable; my intention was for this to be a good “airplane dress” for my long flight, but I think I need to tweak the pattern a bit before it’s really airplane-worthy. The pockets need to be deeper, and it’s a little short through the torso for me. I also think the skirt might need to be a tinch longer, as well. It hits me right at the knee, and I think about two inches more would do it.
Sewing the ponte was easy … unsewing the ponte was NOT. When I make this again I’m going to be much more careful, especially with those soft pleats at the front. I got one of them slightly off and, well, let’s just say that it’s still slightly off, and will remain slightly off for the rest of time.
As long as I had my double needle setup handy (and still in need of an airplane dress, because I was still going on an airplane), I decided to make another Cashmerette Turner. (The nice thing about blogging is that I could re-read that last post and make the fixes that I thought I should.)
I admit, I could have taken more care in matching the print at the waistband (because I didn’t take any care, basically). As a reminder, I altered the Turner pattern to have a rounder neck and changed the skirt from a two-piece to a six-gore skirt, to make it easier to add these pockets:
This fabric is an incredibly soft, heavy jersey from PaaPii in Finland; I bought mine from an Etsy seller but it’s still available in another color on their website. This stuff cannot wrinkle—I had 20 hours of travel in this dress and it still looked pristine at the end (making the contrast with my travel-wearied body even more apparent). Very comfortable, too!
Here’s the neckband, if you like that sort of thing:
Three dresses in January seems like a lot but I didn’t sew a darn thing in February (two weeks of travel, then two weeks of recovering from travel). I did buy a reasonable amount (for me) of fabric on my trip, though, so let’s see what happens in March!
Early last year I claimed that 2023 was going to be ‘the year of the shirtdress’ and, for once, I was right.
The biggest winner in the shirtdress sweepstakes (prize: Erin makes a lot of you) was the Isca dress from Marilla Walker, which I made a dozen times:
After those three, they kind of came in a rush:
Did I have time to sew anything else, you might ask? Well, yes. I also made two (and a half) of the Matilda shirtdresses:
I also made two of my favorite Farrow jumpers, one at the beginning of 2023 and one a few weeks ago, both in basically the same color.
I also made one (heavily modified) Simplicity 7512:
The most challenging thing I made this year was absolutely the Hove jacket from In The Folds:
The other thing I made in 2023 and use almost every day (and which gets the most comments of anything I wear, by far) is this project:
It’s not technically sewing, but 2023 is also the year I made my first pair of footwear! I splurged on the (totally worth it) Rachel Sees Snail Shoes sandalmaking workshop:
Absent on picture day: the Peppermint Pocket Skirt in black and white gingham seersucker (which I’ve actually not even worn yet); a complete failure of a shirtdress that will have to be broken down for parts (but might be tried again in a different fabric and/or size); an attempt at the Tilly and the Buttons Zadie dress in ponte (I made a mistake and ripping stitches in ponte is the ABSOLUTE WORST).
Which one do you like the most? (Pass over the ones you don’t like in silence.)
I’m excessively pleased with this new variation of the Isca shirtdress. This is my third iteration (see #1, #2). The biggest change from the last version is that I swapped out the sleeves for a band sleeve (following Gertie’s great instructions) and somehow it lightens the whole mood? I made the band sleeves about 3 inches wide at the top which takes them darn near to flutter-sleeve territory, but not quite.
The fabric is Nani Iro Grace, in a linen/cotton—I don’t think it’s available any longer, but you can still get a few colorways of the gauze, which I’ve sewn with as well.
Don’t get me wrong—just because I’ve made a lot of changes (collar, sleeves, pockets …) to this pattern doesn’t mean I don’t think it’s a good pattern! It just means that I have very particular tastes. I like to think of these variations like a cover song. If it’s done right, it brings something to the original without taking anything essential away.
I’ve already picked out the fabric for the next round, it’s a rainbow stripe. I will probably change the armscye a bit to move it in at the top of the shoulder and up underneath the arm, but otherwise I’m pretty happy with my cover version!
Hey, look, it’s another shirtdress!
This is Simplicity 7512, which I’ve probably bought three copies of in various sizes, and then never made any of them because I disliked the way the skirt was put together. But then I realized that I could just … change that, and so behold my preferred pockets:
Here’s the pocket with a big ol’ ruler in it, for scale:
Here’s the zipper view; I actually couldn’t remember the last time I put in an invisible zipper:
I was a bit distracted and completely forgot to do my usual collar adjustment (based on the Fashion Incubator method) but it turned out mostly okay. (Tana lawn forgives a lot.)
For some reason I thought I’d bought this Liberty from The Fabric Store but maybe not? I don’t see anything in my receipts folder. I’m convinced it’s Liberty, but a quick image search doesn’t turn up anything.
I haven’t worn this a full day yet, but I could barely bring myself to take it off after I did the final try-on … it’s just delightfully comfortable. I don’t remember similar versions I’ve made before being as comfortable?
The other thing I like about this dress is that I’ve loved this style for … oh, since about I knew it existed. I bought a similar dress (a “Villager” knockoff) at the old Maxwell Street flea market in Chicago, in what probably was the last year there even was a Maxwell Street market. It was hanging on a chain-link fence, between vendors selling (what I now realize were probably stolen) tools and packs and packs of white tube socks. I wore it nearly to death, despite it being absolutely not sufficiently warm for Chicago nine months of the year (and despite it having no pockets).
When I first started wearing this style there was at least a little irony involved—I was a young person, wearing an old person’s dress. Now I am an old(er) person, still wearing the same dress (albeit with larger dimensions all around), and the irony has … evaporated? Depleted? Perhaps irony has a half-life, like radioactivity? I am looking for other examples of “irony depletion”, if you have them; not the phenomenon in which someone pretends to be something and then becomes that thing, but examples where time bridges an ironic distance. Maybe when punk bands play a cover of some easy-listening 70s tune and now, whoops, it’s almost 50 years later and now it’s their well-loved classic? Stuff like that. Anyway, you know where the comments are, have at it.
I’m gonna make this dress a LOT, I can feel it. Brace yourselves!
Before the holidays I did a wearable muslin of the Marilla Walker Isca shirtdress. I had very high hopes—the reviews were good, the diagonal bodice line had me dreaming of stripey wonders, and, of course, pockets!
I made it up in some nice brushed blue/black check shirting (no idea where this fabric came from, I feel like I’ve had it forever). The directions were excellent, especially given the unusual shoulder construction, and the fit was pretty good. The only alteration I made was to change the pointed collar to a rounded one.
The only problem was the pockets were too shallow. I kept losing things out of them when I sat down. Now, I don’t have very many requirements for pockets, but one hard and fast rule I do have is that things need to stay in them until I take them out.
Obviously I could just fix it in round two, but I really didn’t want to give up on the muslin, which had turned out more on the ‘wearable’ side than the ‘muslin’ side. But I didn’t have enough fabric to recut the front skirt (nor did I have enough ‘want to do it’ to recut the front skirt).
I did, however, have enough fabric to cut a few bias bands and enough ‘want to do it’ to undo just enough of the waist and side seams to shove them in:
The inner piping is where the original pocket edge ended; I sewed the new strip to the pocket edge (sewing in the ditch of the piping), then attached piping to the raw edge of the new strip. I used a strip of black hem facing tape to finish the inside of the bias strip (because I didn’t have enough of the check fabric to do so).
Here’s a closer view (the inner piping is fatter than the outer piping because, uh, things that are closer look bigger and also because I ran out of that size of piping cord):
And one with an iPad mini in it, for scale:
I also shortened the skirt by about three inches (did I unpick the original foldover hem and then redo it? Ha, no, I just folded it up and sewed it down, as my reserves of ‘want to do it’ were running quite low at this point).
The only other thing I wish I had enough fabric to change are the sleeves: I feel like that diagonal line of the bodice would be really cool if it extended to a little cap sleeve. I looked at a bunch of “draft a cap sleeve” instructions but … not enough fabric, and even my spiffy new LIGHT UP SEAM RIPPER didn’t inspire me to take off these (perfectly serviceable) set-in sleeves and see if I could recut them into caps.
I have some (lol “some” I have ENORMOUS QUANTITIES) of stripey fabric that I think will be good for the next round. There are a couple more projects in the queue before I will get there, but in the meantime, I can now wear this one!
“Yes, Erin, we’ve heard this before,” you say, and you’d be right—I don’t want to go back and search, but I’m pretty sure I’ve declared several previous Years of the Shirtdress, and then made … one. If that.
This time, though … that above is my third Matilda shirtdress, and I’m planning on making quite a few more. I actually bought the original non-curve-sized Matilda pattern yonks ago, realized how much work it was going to be to curvenize it (that’s the technical term), and it promptly went to the bottom of the pile. So when the curve version came out I was pretty enthusiastic, and the pile got shuffled somewhat.
I’ve since made it three times; this is the latest iteration. I will post the other two anon, but I wanted to get this posted sooner, because … well, I like it!
It’s not perfect by any means; the collar is a bit wonky on the left-hand edge (I might be able to just re-press it tho):
I like lots of things about this pattern: first off, the pockets are a good size, and patch pockets so very easy. The sleeve bands are fun, too:
I’m looking forward to really playing around with stripes and plaids next, because this pattern goes together really well.
There were some changes made: I had to raise the bust point a bit (but the pattern designer actually has a great tutorial for this). I think the collar stand is too tall, so I shortened it (and I might narrow the collar, too). I’d love to try this with a flat (Peter Pan) collar, but I haven’t wrapped my mind around that change yet. I also did the waistband buttonholes horizontally, instead of vertically, because that just feels better? Idk. Because this fabric is lightweight, I used hem binding instead of the ‘fold twice and sew’ method because I wanted a little extra weight. Next go-round I’m going to only use this (very good) fusible interfacing for the collar stand and front bands, and use organza for the waistband and the collar.
The pattern instructions want you to sew the bands to the front, flip them to the back, and then topstitch, but I am not nearly patient enough for that nonsense, so I did it the opposite way around. (This review has better instructions than that, search the page for ‘reverse method’.) With the reverse method you’re topstitching on the edge that needs to be sewn down, so you can focus on the topstitching bit, and not the “am I catching the loose edge on the side of the dress I can’t see” bit.
This fabric is (I think) Liberty Mark Tana lawn; I mean, it’s definitely the Mark pattern, I just can’t find a record of this colorway. I’m not usually a navy-blue person (I ended up using all my navy thread sewing this, and had to cheat with a little bit of a blue-purple in places). I figured this would be a good test run for whether this fabric works in Tana lawn, because I really like the print and it is SO BUSY that any little bobbles would be hidden, a kind of Where’s Waldo, but for sewing mistakes. It is also still kind of coldish here so I can wear this over a long-sleeved black tee and leggings. (Mixing navy and black is how you can tell the real fashion pros from the wannabees, right?)
On the easy-to-wear scale, where 10 is “pajamas you’ve had for >5 years” and 0 is “actual suit of armor” this is a solid 7. It hangs nicely, there’s good arm mobility with sleeve bands, the pockets are well-placed and ample, and the fit is trim without being constricting.
I won’t kid you—any shirtdress pattern is just going to be a lot of work. This one has a lot of pieces, and buttonholes, and interfacing, and a collar and and and … it’s definitely a “one bite at a time” pattern and not a “cut out Saturday morning, wear it Saturday night” pattern. I tried keeping track of how long it took me to complete each stage, and I’m pretty sure this was a 5-8 hour sew (for comparison, a dress like this is usually a 3-4 hour sew). Plus I generally like to approach buttonholes well-rested, after a light stretching session, and properly caffeinated ….
You might notice a new background to the pics—I’m now nicely settled in to my new sewing space! That’s a new dress form, too (her name is Dot, for obvious reasons). My previous dress form (RIP) was bought in the last century and succumbed to terminal foam-disintegration disease. That white drawer-thingy next to the dress in the first picture? That’s full of bias tape. Full, I tell you. (It’s not a problem, I’m sure I’ll use it all up before I die …)
Stay tuned for more Matildas, perhaps an Isca, and a vintage shirtdress! Really!
Well, my move is complete (…ish, so many more boxes of books to unpack!) and since the world is on fire, it’s time to tally up the dress purchases and send out the donations!
You lovely people bought 38 dresses (there are 39 marked off on the spreadsheet but I discovered one had a grease spot and needed to go to the ragbag instead) for a grand total of US$760.
I decided to split the donation into three parts, one for trans rights, one for abortion funds, and one for Ukraine.
Thanks for helping me find new homes for these dresses and send a little money to the folks fighting for us all to be safe and free.
The fabric above is from MaaiDesign in Australia (the actual fabric designer is Alicia Marshall from Winding Road Design Studio), and I CANNOT WAIT for it to arrive. I have been obsessing about gingko fabric basically forever (really, forever) and this is better than I could have hoped for, to wit:
Plus the shipping was … reasonable? for something coming from Australia?
Since we’re moving (imminently!) I had a fabric purchase moratorium in place but I made an emergency declaration and managed to get this one in under the wire. I may be throwing the parcel into the last box to be sealed (well, depending on shipping speed) but I was not going to miss out on ACTUAL GINGKO FABRIC.
Also, while you’re here: quick purge update! There are still a few dresses left, and since I realistically can’t buy any more fabric until at least June, I’ll be donating all the proceeds of the purge (net of shipping) to relief efforts for Ukraine and trans rights orgs. So grab the last dresses while you can, I’ll officially declare the purge done on 1 May!
First: I’ve updated the list to include photos for some of the dresses that didn’t have any. (The photos are on Flickr; I’ve only linked the full front view of the dress so check the photostream for side/back/pocket views.)
Also, someone asked if I would mind if they bought a dress to alter or use for the fabric. Nope! Once a dress is yours, it’s yours! You can cover it in glitter, turn it into tea cosies, incorporate it into your collages—whatever else makes you happy. 🙂
If you have asked for a dress and haven’t seen a payment request from Paypal, please check your spam folders, or log into Paypal and check your messages there. At this point everyone who has requested a dress should have received a funds request, and packages have been sent for everyone who has sent funds (if you want a tracking #, just email me).
Also, in the last purge I had some fabric up on Etsy; a few people have asked if I’m listing any fabric at the moment. I’m not listing fabric now, but I have been listing non-handmade items (dresses/skirts/shoes/scarves, etc.) on Poshmark.
A Dress A Day 
