Category: Erin_Sewing

The Hundred Dresses: Day 60

Erin11 Comments

Another Vogue 8728 — you’ve seen this one before, too. I do so love a broken plaid:

broken plaid Vogue 8728

I only wish I had this fabric with the dark/light sections reversed. That would be even better.

broken plaid Vogue 8728 bodice

I’m particularly fond of this stony gray.

broken plaid Vogue 8728 side zip

The placement of the blank bits on the back was accidental but I like how they balance each other out …

broken plaid Vogue 8728 back

I vaguely remember that I made this dress for a traveling occasion (not sure which one) and ended up hemming it in a hotel room (maybe?). In any case, I’m going to use that dim recollection as an excuse to post my traveling sewing kit:

Sewing Kit #5 (complete kit)

This is the one I toss in my suitcase when I’m traveling. I was going to tell you how big it is but you can see the seam gauge ruler right there. Here it is outside the bag:

Sewing Kit #1

The Sharpie is for, well, Sharpie-ing, and the dental floss is really handy for sewing on coat buttons that inconveniently pop off. I used to carry buttonhole twist but I hated carrying a whole spool and I usually had the wrong color, anyway. (The Sharpie comes in handy for coloring the dental floss that’s visible once you’ve sewn on the button.) Here are the little Altoid tins opened: safety pins, random button assortment for close-enough matches, and a little bit of fusible tape … just in case.

Sewing Kit #3 (the tins)

And of course the pins and needles:

Sewing Kit #4 (the pins)

Do you have a portable sewing kit? What’s in it?

The Hundred Dresses: Day 59

Erin6 Comments

Another Vogue 8728, this time in bright pink dotted swiss:

pink dotted swiss Vogue 8728

I posted this dress a couple of years ago — I wore it on my 40th birthday. It really is THAT PINK:
pink dotted swiss Vogue 8728 bodice
Here’s the side zip:
pink dotted swiss Vogue 8728 side zip
And the back:
pink dotted swiss Vogue 8728 back 2

I really do love dotted swiss, but I haven’t made up any other dresses in it since this one. (And I have at *least* three other pieces, and maybe five …) I’m thinking maybe that Simplicity pattern from the other day might be a good candidate …

And in The-Hundred-Dresses-the-book news, thanks very much to Jessica at Bed Knobs and Baubles for her very nice review!

The Hundred Dresses: Day 58

Erin2 Comments

Don’t worry, there aren’t 8728 Vogue 8728s. This one dates from October 2011:

alphabet Vogue 8728 front

 

I think this may be my most recent alphabet-print dress. I have lots and lots of alphabet-print FABRIC still, but I haven’t felt the need to make any of it up recently. Perhaps because I give fewer dictionary-themed talks these days?

The bodice (the type’s not quite so sharp on this one):
alphabet Vogue 8728 bodice

Pretty decent zipper:
alphabet Vogue 8728 side zip

And the back:
alphabet Vogue 8728 back

Today’s Vogue 8728 comes with a bonus helping of Supreme Court Justice:

We meet again

(You can get the full story here.)

The Hundred Dresses (the book) is now up to eight Amazon reviews … but it’s always nice to have more, if you’ve read the book and want to have your say!

The Hundred Dresses: Day 56

Erin4 Comments

I hope you’re aren’t tired of Vogue 8728 just yet … this one is my absolute favorite one:

Liberty Mark Vogue 8728

 

I’ve posted about this one before … it’s Liberty Mark.

Liberty Mark Vogue 8728 bodice

 

I even have a pair of shoes in Liberty Mark that match this dress.

Liberty Mark Vogue 8728 side zip

 

Looking at this dress makes me so happy. I think I might wear it again this week.

Liberty Mark Vogue 8728 back

I have a skirt made from this fabric as well, if by “have” you mean “it’s waiting at the bottom of the fix-it pile and will probably turn into crude oil before I get to it.” I also have a tiny bit of this fabric left over (might have to hit up that Shaukat link up above) in this colorway, and some in a bright pink poplin (that was part of the Liberty/Target collaboration, and that I found completely by accident in a NYC fabric store).

 

The Hundred Dresses: Day 53

Erin2 Comments

Another Vogue 8728:

Liberty Vogue 8728

This isn’t my favorite of the 8728s, but it’s the one I wear the most. It’s really versatile.
Liberty Vogue 8728 bodice

I usually wear this (wait for it) with a cardigan, but it also looks nice over a thin long-sleeved scoopneck t-shirt and leggings (and ballet flats), or by itself with bare legs and black sandals. If I wear it with leggings it looks better with a longer, more vest-like sweater.
Liberty Vogue 8728 side zip

I end up wearing this with a black or a red cardigan although I’m always on the lookout for a cardigan in *exactly* this shade of grayish teal. If you know of one, shout out, okay?
Liberty Vogue 8728 back

This fabric is Liberty, but I can’t find/remember the style name …

 

The Hundred Dresses: Day 52

Erin3 Comments

And now for a little flashback … remember the Vogue 8728?

Liberty Mike Vogue 8728

This is in a Liberty print called “Mike” (and I just bought some more in the gray colorway, because I really love this print). Don’t you? (It also comes in a bright green …)
Liberty Mike Vogue 8728 bodice

Here’s the side zip:
Liberty Mike Vogue 8728 side zip

And the back:
Liberty Mike Vogue 8728 back

I haven’t been wearing these 8728s that much lately — I’m not sure why. I might have OD’d a little on them last year, I made a LOT of them (<–foreshadowing) and wore them constantly. They are really easy to wear — throw on a cardigan and flats, or a cardigan and boots, or a cardigan and [insert footwear here] and you are good to go.

I’m always on the lookout for a good simple dress pattern that makes up well in lightweight cottons, is amenable to being worn with round-neck cardigans, and allows for capacious pockets. (Someday I will take a photo of everything I’ve carried in my pockets all day …) (Please feel free to send your candidates c/o this address.)

The Hundred Dresses: Day 51

Erin9 Comments

If you’ve ever wondered what Vogue 9929 would look like in Tetris fabric, consider your curiosity satisfied:
Spoonflower Tetris Vogue 9929

After realizing that there was probably no way to salvage yesterday’s dress, I decided to try for Tetris Dress 2. This time I prewashed the fabric with dye fixative, and I think the results are MUCH better:
Spoonflower Tetris Vogue 9929 bodice

You’re still never going to get a deep deep black from digitally printed fabric, I think. But that lessens the contrast (SLIGHTLY) with my not-especially-invisible purple zipper:
Spoonflower Tetris Vogue 9929 zipper

I used hem facing tape to help weigh down the hem, which was necessary because the fabric’s a bit lightweight. (And a Tetris dress should have a solid hem, don’t you think?)
Spoonflower Tetris Vogue 9929 hem 3

Here you can see it finished:
Spoonflower Tetris Vogue 9929 hem

And … the back:
Spoonflower Tetris Vogue 9929 back

 

I would say that this is probably my last Tetris dress for a while, but who knows? I should also mention here that I do not make these dresses commercially, but if you do a quick Etsy search you should find several people who WILL sell you a Tetris dress of your very own!

(Disclosure … Spoonflower uses the Wordnik APIs — you can read more about it here — but no money changes hands and I was a customer of Spoonflower before they began using the Wordnik API.)

The Hundred Dresses: Day 50

Erin5 Comments

So, remember the Tetris Dress? In case you don’t remember … back in 2006 I idly remarked that someday I’d love to have Tetris fabric, so that I could make a border-print Tetris dress. Then, in 2009, the extremely awesome (and cool) Jenny at Chronically Uncool made some Tetris fabric with Spoonflower. A few months later … this dress happened.
Tetris Dress full view

I should really go check how many people find my blog after googling “Tetris dress”, shouldn’t I? It’s still one of the dresses I get the most emails about. (I wore it to give a short talk at the Web 2.0 Summit.)
Tetris Dress bodice

Here’s a closer look at the very-80s-blue front facings:
Tetris dress front facing

Here’s the back … I almost didn’t get that yellowy-greeny piece to clear the middle back seam.
Tetris dress back bodice

This pattern is Vogue 9670, which I’ve made quite a few times. Here’s the side zipper:
Tetris dress side zip

The bright blue pockets:
Tetris dress pocket lining

And, of course, the most important part — the border.
Tetris dress hem

I don’t wear this that much anymore, because the fabric wasn’t entirely colorfast … there’s fading on the skirt:
Tetris dress skirt

And on the bodice:
Tetris dress fading

And especially at the front waist seam:
Tetris dress fading #2

Now when I buy digitally-printed fabric I wash it first with this color fixative stuff from Dharma (it is extremely poisonous and has a super-scary label, but it works …) and I haven’t had as many problems with fading since trying this trick. (I don’t do a separate soak, just running it through the regular wash seems to do the trick.)

I miss wearing this dress, though, because it always gets a great reaction (and standing offers of demonstrations of affection, it seems). Is there anyone who doesn’t love Tetris?

(And … we’re halfway done with a-hundred-dresses-for-The-Hundred-Dresses! If you’re just joining us, please check out the links to the book here.)