Month: June 2013

The Hundred Dresses: Day 8

Erin18 Comments

This is a new dress — I’ve never posted one from this pattern before, I don’t think.

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It’s from this pattern, which as far as I can tell is Australian. (Also, I am amazed by the namespacing of this pattern line: one letter of the alphabet, and one number? That is some concision right there.) Also, it’s labeled “Woman” just in case you needed a hint, or to enforce strict gender performance, not sure which.

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This is a fantastic Saturday dress, by which I mean you can get up at a reasonable (not ungodly) hour on a Saturday morning, sew this thing up, and wear it out for a late brunch. (Not that I’ve done that more than say, twice, so far. Stay tuned.) It’s ridiculously simple. And I love this little shoulder detail, which I’ve never seen before, and which sold me on the pattern:
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Such a nice way to do bust fullness. Also, it’s very comfortable.

Another thing I like about this pattern is the skirt: two side pleats, then gathers to the side seam, but the center front is flat. This is great for ease of wear without too much bulk. Here’s my (mostly) matched plaids at the waist.

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And the side zipper:

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And the back. You can tell this was a lick-and-a-prayer ironing job, can’t you?

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I wore this yesterday, with turquoise Keds that matched this blue, and a bright orange sweater (okay, and blue glasses and an orange watch, for maximum matchy-matchyness). For some reason, this getup gets LOTS of comments (Even more when I wear it while riding my orange bike). Mostly they were of the “that’s from the fifties/sixties, right?” type comments, but I was also asked (twice!) if I were in town for the Early Childhood Development conference (not that there’s anything wrong with that) and also “Those are some good colors!” which was followed up by a “you lookin’ good, baby!” (Usually being told “you lookin’ good, baby” makes me want to pull out my nail-studded Louisville Slugger from the Bag of Holding, but this guy was so nattily dressed himself, and had such a distinct Grandpa Aura that I just said “thank you, sir,” and went on my merry way.)

The only thing that bugs me about this dress is the neck facing — I’ve tried a real facing and I’ve tried bias tape facing and I’m not happy with either. I think I will have to experiment a bit more. Suggestions?

The Hundred Dresses: Day 7

Erin7 Comments

Getting a slow start on a Sunday … but this is one of my favorite dresses:

blue seersucker Vogue 9929

It’s another Vogue 9929, of course. I like the way the bias binding stripes worked out on this one:

blue seersucker Vogue 9929

 

And the zipper’s not too bad:

blue seersucker Vogue 9929

 

And here’s the back:

blue seersucker Vogue 9929

I’m pretty sure I bought this fabric at the Oakland White Elephant sale, a few years back. it was a remnant length but I couldn’t resist it — I love dark seersuckers — and I’m so glad I grabbed it.

Probably my favorite thing about this dress is how versatile it is. I’ve worn it with blue, maroon, pink, yellow, and gray cardigans, and in every weather from 40 degrees (with kneesocks and brown boots) to 80 degrees (with gray Keds and not much else).

And there’s a Hundred-Dresses-the-book update, too — it was mentioned in the Wall Street Journal and the Boston Globe over the weekend! (both are paywalled, sadly) Official publication date is Tuesday …

 

 

The Hundred Dresses: Day 6

Erin7 Comments

Six days! Woot! (Which made me go search out this half-remembered novel, which I think now I will have to re-read.)

I had high hopes for this pattern:

Butterick 9542

 

It just seemed so … head of the PTA, if you know what I mean. No-nonsense yet somehow soft.

This is what it turned out like:

gray Butterick 9542 front view

It might have been my fabric choice … this is a little less “head of the PTA” and a little more “candy striper in the depression ward.” The fabric is nicer closer up:

 
gray Butterick 9542 bodice view
 
I even made covered buttons!

gray Butterick 9542 covered buttons view

And because I knew I couldn’t get the pockets to match stripes perfectly, I tried a little embroidered distraction:

gray Butterick 9542 pocket distraction view

And I carefully put in a waist hook, a detail I usually gloss over by promising myself that I’ll just wear a belt:

gray Butterick 9542 waist hook view

Here’s the back view:

gray Butterick 9542 back view

And a closeup of the back collar, which I’m not happy with — I didn’t turn & press it quite right:

Gray Butterick 9542, back collar view

Even with the slightly institutional air and the wonky collar, I would probably wear this a bit more often if the skirt were a bit fuller. It looked plenty full in the illustration, but it’s just narrow enough that I think I’m going to tear that front placket fold if I wear it riding my bike, and when I sit down it pulls, too (not fun).

So the search for the perfect shirtdress continues …

The Hundred Dresses: Day 5

Erin8 Comments

Ready for day five? Vroom!

Cars 1577 front view

This is a 1577; it’s from fabric I bought in Japan; and the cars on the collar are upside-down:
Cars 1577 collar

Which I’ve decided I like, in a way.

I wore this on Wednesday and really liked it (that was its first outing). I wore it with plain black Keds and a bright orange v-neck cardigan from Lands End Canvas.

The pocket linings and collar facing are just plain black cotton:
Cars 1577 pocket -- lining
Cars 1577 collar

Side zip? Why yes, there is one!
Cars 1577 side zip

And the back:
Cars 1577 back, take 2

As always, the 1577 is so easy to wear (probably because I make the pockets extra big). This fabric is a little bit heavier than quilting cotton (think light denim weight) and so this version seems a little sturdier.

Every time I make one of these, I think, “why don’t I make this dress all the time?” So maybe I’ll cut another one out in the next couple of weeks or so …

The Hundred Dresses: Day 4

Erin7 Comments

Day 4’s dress is very, very pink:
pink Liberty 9929 front view

Another 9929 (I TOLD you there would be more, and I’m not done yet) and it’s a bonus dress, in that it’s made of leftover fabric from a previous dress (a Heidi, although I can’t find a pic of it now). It’s Liberty, as well.

Here’s a closer-up view of the bodice:
pink Liberty 9929 bodice view

I haven’t been able to track down the name of this Liberty fabric. Anyone know offhand?

Here’s the side zip, which should redeem yesterday’s muddle:
pink Liberty 9929 side zip

And the back:

back Liberty pink 9929

 

I totally forgot to take a picture of the pocket linings for this one! I am pretty sure that it’s a pale.jpgnk bandana print, though, since this is Liberty twill, not lawn, which would make it too heavy for self-pocketing.

I made this for the recent TEDxMidwest conference, which was a BLAST. So much fun. I wanted to make two new dresses for it, but I ran out of time. My philosophy for dress-wearing when I have to be on stage is “BE AS BRIGHT AS POSSIBLE”. (I only found one pic — here — sorry it’s not a clearer one.)

Liberty twill is really great for 9929s — just heavy enough to hang right, not so heavy that the dress feels stiff. I wish Liberty would bring twill back … please?

The Hundred Dresses: Day 3

Erin17 Comments

Let’s get right to it, shall we? Day 3 of the Hundred Dresses blogathon:

yellow stripe 9929 front view 2

Obviously, another 9929. (You’ll be seeing a lot of these.)

Here’s the back:
yellow stripe 9929 back view

You can probably just see that the yellow stripe is not completely flush with the edge of the hem. (I decided that I did not care.)

The side zip on this was a nightmare. The zipper broke, I had to take it out and put it in again, and … well, it was just UNFUN. So that is my excuse for why it is badly placed and why the waist seam doesn’t match up:

yellow stripe 9929 terrible zip view

 

What I like most about this dress is how nice it looks with red:
Yellow stripe 9929 -- front w/belt

The lighter stripes aren’t white, but a very pale gray, so I really like the red with it, it feels sophisticated to me for some inexplicable reason.  I bought this fabric from Fabric.com but it’s sold out now; there’s an olive/ivory colorway still available that’s really nice.

The pocket lining is from this shirting that I’ve been using as pocket linings for YEARS. It was so pretty yet really wrong for any pattern I ever tried to set it up with. But so right for pocket linings, because it has this subtle texture that feels really nice when you have your hands in your pockets.

yellow stripe 9929 pocket lining view

And of course it’s not really visible in this photo, but there’s a tonal thing going on with the gray of the pocket lining and the gray of the stripe. Trust me, it’s there. I pay an inordinate amount of attention to these things.
I’ve been really into stripey fabrics lately. (I’m not sure if it’s the influence of living so close to Alcatraz now or what.) There are a lot of stripes in the fabric hoard right now, and I’ve been ogling some more. There’s this Japanese fabric that is so perfectly Japan-does-France that it hurts … Anyway, how about y’all? Are you pro- or anti-stripe? (And remember, the idea that horizontal stripes broaden anything other than the mind is pure hokum, says SCIENCE.)

The Hundred Dresses: Day 2

Erin24 Comments

Well, one day down in the hundred dresses for The Hundred Dresses march! Does anyone else have “Ninety-Nine Bottles of Beer” stuck in their heads? Just me?

This dress had a sneak preview back in February, both as background in a sewing-room shot, and as a pocket view — it’s an Echino fabric 9929:
Echino garden 9929 front view

 

Here are a couple more close-up views of the bodice:
Echino garden 9929 bodice view 2

and the binding:
Echino garden 9929 binding view

and the border on the skirt:

Echino garden 9929 skirt border

And the side zip, which needs a little bit of repair already — I didn’t backstitch enough above the zipper, and it’s coming undone. That stretch of seam above the zipper is always a big stress point in my dresses. I’m never sure whether to reinforce it, or start the zipper higher, or what. Suggestions?

Echino garden 9929 side zip view

And the pocket:
Echino garden 9929 pocket lining view

And the back:

Echino garden 9929 back view

 

I’ve worn this a couple of times, and it’s a gratifying experience. Some of my dresses have something I privately call the LGG factor, where LGG stands for “little girl glee”. Basically, a high-LGG dress is one that gets waves and compliments from the under-eight set, and this is definitely a high-LGG dress.  (I would also call this a “Garden Party” dress, one of the hundred dress types in the book …)

Weirdly, although there are so many colors in this dress, I have trouble cardigan-matching it. Nothing I have is exactly that turquoise in the birds’ wings, which is the color I’d like to match … so I default to the bright pink.

The Hundred Dresses: Day 1

Erin25 Comments

So as y’all might already know, I have a new book coming out next week. It’s called The Hundred Dresses, and it’s all about dress archetypes. (It’s illustrated by the amazing Donna Mehalko.)

The book was inspired by the Eleanor Estes classic, also called The Hundred Dresses — and probably the #1 question I’ve gotten about my “Hundred” is whether it’s about dresses I’ve sewn myself. “Oh, no,” I said, “It’s about classic dresses, like the Flapper and the Airship Hostess! Anyway, I’m sure I don’t have a hundred dresses …”

And then I went and counted.

So it turns out that yes, I do have a hundred dresses that I’ve made myself, if I dig deep into the archives and also include some poor neglected “someday I’ll fix this” things that have never seen the light of day. So for the next hundred days, I’ll be back to posting a literal dress a day.

Ready? On to day 1!

stripe McCalls 3528 front view

This is McCalls 3528, and yes, it is very, very moire, isn’t it? Don’t look at it too long. It’s also extremely bulky, because it features GATHERED BOX PLEATS. Yep, there is a LOT of fabric there. (The fabric is a nice heavy shirting, not sure where I got it from.)

stripe McCalls 3528 front view

It looks like I might have not gotten the nap right on this one either, because the light hits it differently, depending on which side you look at. Oh well. The stripes match okay — that’s the important part, right?

I haven’t worn this very often because it’s a teeeeeensy bit big in the waist and the thought of taking all those pleats out, re-balancing them, re-GATHERING them, and then putting the dress back together just makes me want to lie down and take a nap.  It would be less work (or at least, FEEL like less work) to make it all over again from scratch, especially since the fabric (or a facsimile thereof) isn’t that hard to find.

So that’s Day 1, Dress 1! Stay tuned for more!