I love the little details on this dress, especially the completely gratuitous button closure on the bodice. That would be a perfect solution to the (literally, hand-to-God) BOXES of fabulous single buttons that I have. I believe my sewing room is like the elephant burial ground, but for single buttons. If one falls off a garment anywhere in the western hemisphere, it rolls its way somehow to me. I find buttons the way some people find pennies, and I need to find projects to showcase them that don't involve bracelets, handbags, or (shudder) art vests. Of course, in the hierarchy of needs, this comes way, way under "just get a damn dress sewn, already" so I'm afraid I would buy this pattern and then it would always get pushed aside for something quicker to sew. And it's $28. That's a bit steep, even for something as nice as this. It's B34 at So Vintage Patterns; click on the image to check it out.

The Plaid Dress

Strong sun, that bleach

The curtains of my room, can you not render

Colourless this dress I wear?–

This violent plaid

Of purple angers and red shames; the yellow stripe

Of thin but valid treacheries; the flashy green of kind deeds done

Through indolence high judgments given here in haste;

The recurring checker of the serious breach of taste?

No more uncoloured than unmade,

I fear, can be this garment that I may not doff;

Confession does not strip it off,

To send me homeward eased and bare;

All through the formal, unoffending evening, under the clean

Bright hair,

Lining the subtle gown. . .it is not seen,

But it is there.

–Edna St. Vincent Millay

Part of the joy of making my own dresses is that I'm not just wearing the dress, I'm wearing the process. I'm wearing choosing the fabric. (This past weekend my young son went with me to the fabric store, and picked out some fabric for me. Will I think of him saying "Mama! This one would make a GREAT dress!" every time I wear whatever I make from it? Damn straight I will.) I'm wearing choosing and altering the pattern, I'm wearing the mental gymnastics involved in cutting it out and putting it together, I'm wearing whatever sleep was forgone to get it done and I'm wearing whatever I was singing along to on my iPod. I'm wearing my husband's grandmother's sewing machine and how I think about her sewing while I'm sewing. All that goes into the dress. It's the terroir of the dress, if you will.

Even when I don't sew what I'm wearing, I prefer my clothes to have complicated backstories. Like, "I bought this shirt at Jim Smiley's, when he was in New Orleans, before he moved to New York." Or "This coat was $13 at Nordstrom Rack!" or "My sister-in-law gave it to me and she has the best taste!" or "It was my mother's, she wore it in college." How can "I ordered it from the J. Crew catalog" compare?

In fact, sometimes I feel it's not the dress so much as it's the idea of the dress. (Okay, I feel this way all the time.) This is a kind of corollary to the "if it doesn't make you happy, don't wear it" rule–if there's no idea behind the dress, don't wear it. You don't want fast-food, assembly-line, prefab-McMansion clothing, not just because it's boring and soulless and blah, but because there are no ideas behind it. Nobody smiled making it, or envisioned you wearing it, just like nobody outside the TV commercials smiles about making you a Whopper Jr.

When you have enough psychic energy built up into the dress, how it actually LOOKS can be less important than how it feels.

This is an excerpt from a letter:

Did I tell you in my last letter that I had a new dress, a real party dress with low neck and short sleeves and quite a train? It is pale blue, trimmed with chiffon of the same color. I have worn it only once, but then I felt that Solomon in all his glory was not to be compared with me! Anyway, he never had a dress like mine! …

The writer of the letter? Helen Keller. Who, obviously, must have been taking more joy in the idea of the dress than in any rational assessment of it in the mirror.

So, even if you don't sew, try to build some process into your own clothing. Find a local alterations place and have your dresses altered for a better fit. Take along someone you love when you go shopping, and take time for a real conversation. Buy clothing when you travel, so you can think "Oh! I bought this in Baltimore!" (or Portland, or Albuquerque …) Post a picture to your blog and ask for feedback, or just rip out the catalog picture and tape it to the bathroom mirror for a week. Imagine yourself in the dress before you buy it. Who will you be seeing? What will you be doing? What will you be laughing about? Set yourself a challenge — can you think of wearing something ten different places? With ten different people? I'm not saying you should overthink every $59 dress from H&M, but a well-planned dinner party is always nicer than a drive-thru meal. Try to have more scintillating parties, and fewer hamburger wrappers floating around the car.

I suppose at some point I will have posted every midriff-band pattern in the world, and then I will have to find a new thing to obsess over. (Madelene sent me the link to this one, which is very nice.) I think the shoulders are a mite too wide on this one, and of course I dislike the sleeves or lack thereof, but that's easily fixable.

If I were going to make this up, it would have to be in a printed silk, heavily interfaced for the midriff band. I'd ditch the facings for the surplice top and do bias trim, instead; getting those facings to lie flat as you sew on the band is a pain and a half. This would also be good in stretch velvet, made a size smaller than usual. If you were the mother of the bride you could probably get away with pastel satin. I would probably ditch the tie belt, but I don't think I'd replace it with what looks like (from the smaller illustration) a kilt pin with dangling charms. Every once in a while one of the fashion magazines advises "pin a jeweled brooch at your waist! It's charming!" when it's not charming, it's a health hazard. You would (I assume, having had the good sense not to Try This At Home) scratch up the underside of your arm, snag your handbag constantly, and pull all your sweaters. No, thanks.

I wish I understood the hair and color choices in this photo, too. I like that goldy-beige color quite a bit (even if it is undeniably upholsteryish) but somehow on the model it looks just plain weird. And why didn't they have time to brush out her hot-rollered hair? Were they under attack from the McCall's people? Did they run out of Cokes? The world is full of mystery.

Click on the image to go to the eBay listing for this pattern.

Okay, does everyone agree with me that these were the worst dresses ever worn at the Oscars? C'mon, people! It's like you weren't even TRYING.

Look at this one, for instance. Charlize Theron is so beautiful, most days, that it takes an army of makeup artists and serious prosthetics to make her look *ordinary*. But in this dress she looks as if the one role she really wanted last year was that of Zaphod Beeblebrox. (Matt Dillon was pissed to be seated behind her, he couldn't see a damn thing.) And origami, I might add, while a beautiful and worthwhile art form, should be limited to paper. Those big foldy X's across the front make her look like a railroad crossing sign. Or some kind of cryptic pirate "Here Be Treasure" X. (I'm sure none of you will be surprised that this is Galliano for Dior.) And she couldn't get her roots touched up for the big night?

Of course, at least you could tell Ms. Theron was there. A large group of other gown-wearers decided that it was "pretend to be invisible and/or naked" night, and trotted out the whitey-beigey-nude skin-tone dresses. Reese, Uma, Jennifer Garner, Naomi Watts … it didn't work, guys! We can still see you! I'm not even linking to your pictures, the dresses were so boring.

The black-dress brigade was okay. Rachel Weisz's was the best of the lot, which is no mean feat when you're seven months pregnant. (Although I suppose it's easier when you can call Narcisco Rodriguez and say "hey, I have this thing, would you mind whipping me up a little something? Ta ever so …") Hillary Swank did not need a train; Felicity Huffman needed quite a bit of double-sided tape.

And then, of course, were the colors. I loved the yellow of Michelle Williams's dress; I just wasn't sure it should have been worn by her. But the cut was adorable. Helena Bonham Carter was in a very fitting electrified-corpse blue; too bad the cut of the dress was pure "Prom Night 1988"–perhaps that was part of the horror theme? Works for me. Jennifer Lopez … I love that color green. Unfortunately, when you wear it in a dress that is styled like a theater curtain over your hips, it loses nearly all of its charm. All it wanted was a drop-down banner that said "Coming Attractions!" Maggie Gyllenhaal was definitely channeling Slave-Girl Leia. And not in the good way, if there is in fact any good way to do that. (And if there is a good way to do that, please don't tell me. Tell Maggie. Not that it will do her any good NOW, but maybe she'll pass the message along in case Chloe Sevigny gets any ideas.)

The folks who were trying looked pretty good — Amy Adams's dress was super-cute, and it had pockets! (Carolina Herrera, of course.) Too bad she was mugging like crazy. I know it gets boring making the same "I'm so glad to be here!" face a gazillion times, but that doesn't mean you get to amuse yourself by practicing your "manic" and "hysterical giggling" faces. Keira Knightley was a little too matronly (one-shoulder, heavy jewels, dark color), but at least it was pretty. The best dress of the night, though, had to be Salma Hayek. That color! That alone did it.

(By the way, am I the only one who has a "if I ever go to the Oscars" dress planned in her head? Mine would have a huge portrait collar around a sweetheart neckline, and be form-fitting to the knees, then bell out (to balance the collar). I just go back and forth on the color. It would have to be something odd, of course. Because the only way I'd ever be there would be for something odd, like being the subject of the Best Documentary Feature, so I'd have to do a weird color just to get photographed at all! Please spill your own personal imaginary Oscar dresses in the comments, okay?)

I've been looking for a pattern like this for a long time — square-necked in front, but not in back, kimono sleeves, and full or slim skirt options. Now, it's mine, and in my size even (I'm so lazy about grading).

I like the idea of doing this in a seersucker stripe, or I might go Lydia's colorblocking route with this one, and have the bodice panel be a solid color against a print. Or, if you planned it right, this would be great in a fabric with a big floral motif. Center one in the bodice panel, and let the rest fall naturally across the sleeves and back. And, of course, anything with a center panel like this just demands contrast piping!

I found it at Stellablue Vintage Sewing, which is well worth checking out …

Isn't this pretty? Pretty, when it comes to dresses, is underrated. There's way too much attention to sexy, and not enough to pretty. Sexy always seems like a proposition, a prologue, while pretty can be enjoyed for its own sake. I say, take care of the pretty, and the sexy will take care of itself. This is firmly in the range of pretty, but it's not unalluring, by any means. I love the color, and the pattern, and the twisty bias trim. It's Marc by Marc Jacobs (as opposed to, what? Howie by Marc Jacobs? I know they need to distinguish their lower-priced lines, but can't they call it something less tautological?) and it's really cute. And it's one of the few dresses I've seen lately with short sleeves! Why is everything sleeveless, or worse, strapless? (I blame the seemingly all-powerful sequined-shrug industry.) I'll even overlook the (very slight) puff to the sleeves. Marc (as iopine pointed out in the comments of my puffy-sleeves rant) does do nice puffed sleeves.

This is giving me good ideas for some of the silk I bought in China, honestly. I am having trouble deciding what to do with it (other than DURO DURO DURO) but this general shape seems very nice for spring, and the bias trim is a nice detail and gets rid of the need for facings and hems, my two least-favorite things to sew! And I think the bands at the hem and the waist aren't over seams, but are just appliquéd — I'd like to take a look at this in person, and find out.

It's at Nordstrom for $358 (gulp — but it is silk twill) click on the image to see the buy-it page.

I just wanted to make sure that you all noticed two new additions to the linky goodness on the right-hand side of the page: Idiom Savant and Gothic Charm School. Both are wonderful ways to while away the lengthy hours between postings here!

One warning: neither should be read while drinking anything you might not want to have come out your nose.

Also, ladies? Jerry (the savant of Idiom Savant) is single. (I know, I can't understand it, either. I guess his parents forgot to invite ALL the local fairies to his christening.)

Suggestions for the blogroll always appreciated.

Why on earth does anyone over the age of six ever wear puffed sleeves? I can't think of anything less flattering or more irritating or more infantilizing, short of a hospital gown.

Look at these helpless young women, forced to endure these horrors. You see how they're both looking off to the side? They're waiting until their "handler" is distracted, so they can make a run for it. And the first thing they'll do, once they're over the fence and have outrun the dogs, is rip off those sleeves. Even if they have to use a razor blade "sterilized" in a match flame.

Anyway, if these sleeves don't make you cringe like watching someone take a needle in the eye, click on the image. You can buy it for less than $7, including shipping, as long as you're willing to sign over your immortal soul. What? I feel that strongly about the evil of these sleeves. (Picture me making the sign of the cross in an ostantatious manner.)

This dress, above, is this dress:

And it works! It worked so well, in fact, that now I want to sew it over and over again (this happens to me a lot — when I have a hammer, everything looks like a nail).

I think I'll sew it in this, next:

(Except mine is lawn, not the twill in this photo, which I ganked from the internet because I am too lazy to photograph more than one thing of an evening.)

So we can consider the concept as proved, and move on to implementation. It actually went together wonderfully; all the seams matched without too much tsuris, and I only had to resort to the first tier of expletives to get the zipper in. I did forget to put a pocket in the side skirt seam, but that's an easy alteration on this dress as it has a back zip, not a side one. I let out the side seams by 2/3 inch, total, and it fits EXACTLY.

I'm still not sold on the color of this dress (is it orchid? lavender? ashes of roses?) even though I wore this on television (!, and no, it wasn't for Dress A Day) last night, with a yellow vee-neck cardigan sweater. I'm thinking I might have looked like a big Easter egg, but I'm too chicken (no pun intended) to go watch the TiVo and see.

Even though I made it up in a solid, I think this is really a pattern for prints, if I can match the skirt seams well. The large expanse across the bodice is better for showing off a gorgeous print than a fussy vee, collared, or buttoned neckline would be. And after I finish making up the car print, I have another one in mind …. I wonder how many of these I can make before it gets silly?