Month: December 2013

Party Dress!

Erin13 Comments

My company party was last night and I made a new dress for it:
2013 party dress

The bodice is good ol’ 1577 again, and the skirt is adapted from Advance 2751. The fabric is a bronzy-coppery coated poly denim, which I don’t think I would have ever picked up except that it was on super-super-sale at Fabric Outlet in the Mission last week, and because I already bought this other laminated denim I didn’t know what to do with, so I thought I could kill two birds with one stone and have both a wearable party dress AND a muslin. Woot!

The fabric is REALLY heavy but despite that is very easy to sew with, and although I used a press cloth I don’t think I really needed one — there was no transfer to my (hot) iron or the ironing board.

Next time I will probably make the patch pocket a bit deeper, and possibly extend it to the side seam (might have to see what that does to the zipper):
2013 party dress pocket

Speaking of zippers:
2013 party dress zipper

I just did my standard finish-the-neck with bias tape:
2013 party dress bodice

Here’s the sleeve binding — also, since the fabric is so heavy and plasticky, I didn’t feel the need to zig-zag the seam allowances as I usually do:
2013 party dress sleeve binding

And here’s the back:
2013 party dress back

This is a pretty weird dress, even by my standards, but I kind of love it. I wore it with black tights and black ankle boots and a black cardigan, and a heavy black necklace, and was really comfortable all night, which I’m usually not in party clothes.

One of the things we were celebrating (besides having fun working together) was the launch of our new discovery reading app in the App Store … if you have an iPad running iOS 7 or later, would you consider downloading it and giving it a try? It’s free, it will help you find cool new articles about topics and concepts interesting to you (as well as articles shared by your friends on Twitter and Facebook and top news) and if you need a recommendation other than mine, Bono said it was his new favorite app. (!)

The Reverb App

I’m already planning to wear this dress again for New Year’s Eve …

Would you like to see a new dress?

Erin18 Comments

I hope so, because I have one:

folklore dress

This is the bodice from my old friend Simplicity 1577, sans collar — I finally traced the darn thing off and even added an inch to the length. I don’t know why, but I seem to have more length from my shoulder-to-waist than previously. (Is that even possible? I thought I was supposed to be shrinking with age.) The skirt is from that “W3” pattern from a million years ago.

Here’s the back:

folklore dress back

Here’s the sleeve binding (the hem facing is the same color):

folklore dress sleeve binding

And the zipper, which is 1) terrible and 2) on the wrong side! I was pretty sick with the flu over Thanksgiving but couldn’t face the thought of a four-day weekend with no sewing in it … but people, I have to tell you: do NOT operate sewing patterns while under the influence of cold medicine.

folklore dress bad zipper

Luckily it doesn’t affect the wearability of the dress, I just have had one or two bad moments where I couldn’t figure out why something was off. Perhaps I’ll switch up my zipper sides from now on, just to give myself a little cognitive agility? (Probably not.)

This fabric was from Superbuzzy — I bought it last spring, right as it got a little too warm for a deep teal dress. But now the weather is perfect, and it also has a little bit of a Christmassy feel, I think.

Sorry for the blog hiatus — I still need to move this blog to a new host, as it’s starting to get so large that my current host is groaning. But I should be able to squeeze a post or two in while I’m packing the boxes!