Caroline in LA sends in her interpretation of McCalls 5137, taking the picture outside in her back yard, in accordance with tradition. Doesn't it look fab? She's unsure how much she'll wear it, since her silk turned out to be polyester (I hate it when that happens, but occasionally a store clerk will get huffy about me trying to set their fabric on fire — strictly to test fabric content, I assure you — so I've been taken in by the poly masquerading as silk before). I love the necklace, too — I think it's the perfect length for this neckline. I made one just that length, only in orange (I know, the orange thing is getting out of hand) to wear with mine.

I know a lot of you have asked to see this on a Real Life Person (and Caroline certainly is, or else AI has advanced TREMENDOUSLY in recent months) and so I hope this helps. I'll still try to get someone to take a picture of me on one of the days that I'll be wearing my versions this week … like today. So if you see someone in this dress, wandering around Midtown today, that's probably me, or someone who committed an act of violence to obtain said dress. Either way, stop that person and say "hi," okay?

I admit it. This dress pushed all my buttons, right to the point where I pushed the "Buy It Now" button (from Stellablue Vintage Sewing). Collar? Check. Sleeves other than set-in? Check. Hip pockets? Insouciant hat on the pattern envelope? Check and check.

The kicker? Showing it in that green tweed. Do they even make nice green tweed anymore? I never see any. Which is a shame, because I have some buttons that would go really well with it … might even have a matching belt buckle, too.

This below is one that I didn't buy, although — see? the green? — it was very tempting. I just know that I've reached my quota for a while on interesting neckline patterns. The sad truth is that a lot of them I'm just too lazy to sew … but if you have a bit more gumption, go to it! It's only $7.50!

I threatened to do one that was mostly orange, and here it is. How wrong is it that all my "what shoes go with these dresses?" problems could be solved if only I could find a pair of orange espadrilles? Quite wrong.

Also wrong is me not matching the stripes on the front band, but, you know, with clashing prints this busy I expect not very many people will even notice. (As the saying goes, "If they're nice they won't notice, and if they notice they're not nice.") The stripes were not on the grain — they are printed on the bias, so even though the band looks cut on the bias, it's not. Does that make sense? I hope so. It's a very lightweight voile from Hancock's — I thought it was on sale over Memorial Day but it was in fact just hanging out next to the sale fabric, hoping to have some of the sale frenzy rub off on it. Which is of course exactly what happened; by the time I got to the cutting table I was already too deeply invested to mind that it wasn't forty percent off. These two fabrics were designed to coordinate, or at least they were in the same "collection," which, I have to say, feels more than a little bit like cheating, considering the last dresses either had fabrics created more than a couple decades apart, or that were sourced, by hand, from different countries. (It was nice not to have to look at the colors under every light bulb in the house, though, to make sure they really matched. Which I do even though I have full-spectrum fluorescents in the sewing room.)

Here is a closer view of the bodice:

And here, for those who requested it, the back view:

The skirt is a bit hung up on the dressform on the right side.

I think this is the last one, even though I have some red, turquoise, and dark blue paisley that matches EXACTLY with a turquoise scribble print … we'll just have to see.

Just a reminder that NEXT Sunday I will be at the Housing Works Bookstore all afternoon for the Literary Magazine Fair. All literary magazines $2, proceeds support Housing Works! Come by in a dress and I will give you a pen (while supplies last). And if anyone has made any sightings of orange wedge espadrilles in the NYC area, would you let me know?

I'm a big fan of the dress that is its own accessory. Not just because I'm scarf-impaired (which, sadly, is the case), but because it's impossible to forget to pack the scarf if it's part of the dress.

(Of course, if I always remembered to pack everything I needed for a trip, the lingerie department of Lord & Taylor would miss their monthly quota on a regular basis, and I would have roughly 200 fewer half-slips than I actually do.)

I love the check shown here, but I think I'd make this in (what else) a scarf print, just to really rub it in. I'd draw the line at trimming the edges of the scarf-part with fringe, though.

Robin sent me a link to this pattern on eBay. The dress is certainly cute, but the stole is really something else. Something that I'm not sure needs to actually exist … look closely; the ends of the stole are joined by what looks like bamboo rings to two dangling purse-pouches. With pockets on the outside. I suppose they're technicallly reticules, but they remind me of nothing so much as this:

I know there's a lot of clothing that lets you conceal weapons but I'm not aware of a lot of clothing that can be USED as a weapon. I mean, directly as a weapon, not like this:

I suppose it could be worse. The stole-purse-weapon-thing could be knitted …

I know, I know, I set the deadline for the book cover contest for a MONTH ago (more, actually) but, you know, my life got in the way. And I had to figure out how to do a cgi form with my webhost. Which wasn't difficult, but it was a hurdle …

Anyway, of all the submissions, here are the finalists. Now it's your turn to vote! Fill out the form below, and choose which cover you like best. The criteria? Whether it's a good dress and whether it makes you want to pick up the book. The person who submitted the cover AND one person selected at random from all the voters will win their choice of one of these titles (so you can vote for a book you don't actually want to have).

Mommy Dressing — Isn't this dress SWANK?

Rosie Dunne — Cute. Plaid. Irish.

Technique of the Love Affair — The dress alone would make you an expert at flirtation …

The Cinnamon Peeler — I love the embellishment and the silhouette.

Agatha Christie 1950s Omnibus — Even if she had to kill for this dress, it was worth it.

[Form removed; entry deadline has passed.]

I will use your email address ONLY to tell you if you have won the contest. I will not send you spam! Please vote ONLY ONCE — I fear for my inbox if there's ballot-stuffing.

Voting ends at 12:01 a.m. Saturday morning June 3rd! I'll try to have everything tallied up by the end of the following week.

I love this dress from Lucitebox Vintage … even though it looks exactly like the skirt is looking right back at you! It reminds me of some kind of Japanese anime character. In fact, I'm almost certain that there has to be some manga or anime somewhere that features an anthropomorphic item of clothing. Probably one that used to belong to some magical (and magically large-breasted) Japanese schoolgirl. (If you know about this, and send me links, please keep them SFW. Thanks!)

In fact, this dress made me think of this:

I'm sure you all see the resemblance.

This dress is a very wearable size (B40/W30) and is only $55! That's not bad for something that includes a built-in surveillance device. (I suppose if you wanted a hidden camera you could replace the black buttons with light gray ones.) And you really can't beat that collar, although I would be tempted to add black buttons to the collar points, to repeat the motif of the skirt …

Martin Hardee sent me this great picture he took of his daughter Blair Hardee, on an obvious dress pilgrimage to Doris Day's handprints outside Grauman's Chinese Theater.

Okay, so it was more of a COINCIDENCE than a pilgrimage, but sometimes the significance of an event is apparent only well after the fact, right?

I think this would be a fun meme … send me pictures of yourself in a dress next to any kind of Doris Day iconography (although the handprints are hard to beat — check out the prints made by her stilettos, too! Ouch!) and I will post them here. Remember: What Would Doris Wear?

This one is a little more restrained, or at least it seems to me. The bodice and skirt are made from some of the fabric I bought in China, and the front band, sleeves, and hem band are the fabric I bought from Kitty Craft in Korea. I barely had enough of the contrast fabric for the bands, so I lined them in the bodice fabric instead, which actually turned out to be a nice effect.

This went together incredibly quickly the second time (which was why I was able to make two in a day!) and I didn't make many changes. I put the sleeve bands on flat (MUCH easier) and I put in two pockets, instead of one (I've been conditioned to only put in one pocket, since most of my dresses have a zipper on one side. This dress, no zipper! So two pockets.)

I think I will make one more (not today!) and then I'll be done. For a while. I can seriously see myself wearing a variant this dress every day, and that, while amusing, might make me tire of it too quickly. I have to ration myself!

Here's the bodice, to see the contrast a bit better:

And here's the skirt, to see the other band:

The next will have more orange, I promise!

Okay, this is hot off the machine, unpressed, threads dangling, and I haven't hemmed or slipstitched the facings yet. But — here it is! I made that pattern, and I'm quite pleased with it!

My thrifty Scots nature won't let me make a "real" muslin — one where I just grab any old piece of fabric that's to hand, and try something out. Oh, no, I have to make something that if it works out okay, I would actually wear, but if it turns into a giant mass of frustration and bollixed seams, I won't cry bitter tears over because I wasted good fabric. So I spend so much time (probably more than it would take me to just make real muslins) finding fabric that I like, but that I don't looooooove. Remnant tables are good for this. So is letting fabric that you loooooved several years ago marinate in a big pile of other fabric, until you can't remember what you were so excited about. It's like seeing an old crush after too much time has passed. Yes, he was an okay guy, but was he really worth those hours of crushing? (Sadly, no.)

This check/plaid is from a big estate sale I went to last summer, and the Hawaiian-themed toile is from the remnant table at Vogue Fabrics. It was supposed to be a skirt, but then I couldn't think of anything clever to do with it, skirt-wise. I don't know why these Duro-clones I keep making are all in black and white — maybe it's like those red plastic thingumbobs they sell to quilters, that block out the fabric colors so you can see if the tones go well together.

Here it is up close:

Of course, the next time I make this (which might be tonight, I'm pretty excited about this pattern) I don't think I'll double the sleeve facings, the way they are here. If I did it in silk, I would, but cotton is heavy enough on its own, or could be finished with just a wide bias strip. I may actually cut these short and turn them under to finish them. That way I'll have the weight without the bulk. And the vee is pretty deep — I might easestitch both the facing and the vee, instead of just the facing, to tighten it up a bit and keep it from gapping. Otherwise, it went together well, with a minimum of swearing and ripping. The sleeves, though — next time I will sew them together flat, and then join the underarm seam, because sewing tubes without a free arm is not fun (that was most of the swearing, and all of the ripping).

And as long as I'm posting versions of that McCalls pattern, Gigi (from The Sewing Divas sent me her lovely take on the short-sleeved, all-one-fabric version (and yes, the rule is that if you make this dress you have to take pictures of it in your back yard):

Okay, now, when are you going to make one? And what shoes should I wear with this? I was thinking my flat black ankle-strap sandals, but it might call for a pair of heels to make the skirt look right. I'm starting to think wedge espadrilles aren't a totally sucky idea …