It’s the only way to live/In cars

July 27, 2017 ErinLeave a comment

Once again I reflexively reached for the bodice from Simplicity 2389 and that BurdaStyle Heidi skirt:

This one is Liberty print—a piece of fabric I have had for a long time. I think this pattern is from 2009, but I’m not sure; it could be earlier.

Ironically, it was purging so many dresses that finally led me to cut into this long-hoarded fabric … even the fabrics that I loved the most (yeah, looking at you, popsicle print) only gave me a kind of “happy to have known you” feeling as I packed them up to ship them to new wearers.

So with this empirical evidence reassuring me that it is unlikely that I will wish I’d saved some special fabric for some theoretically ‘better’ use*, snip snip went the scissors into this Liberty!

I’ve worn this a couple times so far and it has made me very happy. Beep!

(Oh, and speaking of the Dress Purge of 2017 … there are a few dresses left, but August 6 I will be sending whatever hasn’t been purchased off to Goodwill and tallying up the totals.)

(*also it looks like this fabric is still available from third-party sellers in a different colorway)

Hey! Another Version of that Same Damn Dress

September 20, 2016 Erin1 Comment

Oh look, it’s the bodice from Simplicity 2389 and that BurdaStyle Heidi skirt again! (Readers stifle yawns, reach reflexively for their mobile devices.)

This time it’s in this beautiful gray dotted swiss that I’ve had for so long that I can’t even remember where I bought it. I’ve been holding on to it FOREVER because I thought it would need to be lined, but it turns out no, it doesn’t. Here, have a closer look:

It’s like chambray, but dotted swiss! Two of my favorite fabrics mashed together!

Here’s the pocket/zipper view:

Why yes, that is gray-and-white seersucker piping! You can also just see that the pockets are lined in this very nice sheer gray voile.

Here’s the pocket-in-progress:

Here’s the same piping on the shoulder seam:

And finally, the back:

I didn’t even press this before putting it on the dress form, which is a miracle, if you ask me. But the fabric is very soft and light and so it seems that wrinkles take a look at it and say “yeah, no, I think I’ll try the next dress down, thanks anyway.” (Okay maybe there are a few wrinkles at the sleeve and skirt hems …)

I’ve managed to eke out a couple other dresses recently—I’ll try to get them posted soon.

& another stunt dress

September 17, 2015 ErinLeave a comment

So a couple weekends ago I made another stunt dress:

//embedr.flickr.com/assets/client-code.jsThis fabric is called “Symbolic Elegance” and is “from the ‘Ampersand’ collection by Ampersand Design Studio for Windham Fabrics,” according to eQuilter, where I bought it. The pattern is the only one I’ve been making lately: Simplicity 2389 with the modified Heidi skirt.

Why is this a stunt dress? Because I’m wearing it in the Kickstarter video for Wordnik (you folks know I run Wordnik, right?) Here’s a link — play the video and you can see me wearing this dress.

The goal of this Kickstarter is to find a million missing words of English — words not in traditional dictionaries — and add them to Wordnik.

Here’s the bodice, with piping:

And the pockets (with piping):

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And the back (no piping visible):

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If you have a minute to share our Kickstarter campaign, it would be much appreciated! We’re at >40% of our goal, but it’s a long way to the finish line!

Gray Gardens

August 23, 2015 Erin5 Comments

Hey, it’s another Simplicity 2389!

I think this fabric is called Flower Field (maybe?) and is Kokka Trefle? A few minutes’ desultory Googling hasn’t turned up a picture. It feels like Kokka’s linen/cotton mix and I know I bought it from Superbuzzy in 2013 (thanks to saving every fabric invoice in my inbox). Here’s the full front view:

And here’s the center front, with an attempt at matching the pattern across the front seam:

And of course the shoulder piping:

The zipper/pocket (also with piping):

And the back:

I say “Simplicity 2389” but it’s really the Simplicity 2389 with the modified Heidi skirt, as usual. As you might imagine after seeing so many of these hybrids in a row, I really really like this dress. (And I have a few more coming to post.) It’s just so darn easy to make and wear, and I haven’t really run out of interesting (to me, at least) combinations of print and piping (even self.jpgping).

But last week I found myself thinking about a simple, V-neck bodice with a six-gore pocketed skirt, probably in dark denim. I’d like it for rainy cold SF days (I’m betting/hoping that we may have more than a couple of those this winter), so perhaps the tide is turning?

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I'm With the Bandana

July 12, 2015 Erin3 Comments

Been a while since I posted a new dress, huh? Here’s one that’s been waiting patiently in pieces for ages:

This is in some black bandana print so old that I can’t remember when or where I bought it. It is not great fabric — it’s pretty stiff and there were plenty of print faults and slubs. Not sure why I was all excited about sewing with it, but I think playing with the print motifs was part of it:

Here’s a closer look at the bodice matching:

Here’s the back — I was really interested in having the back bodice look as much like a standalone bandana as possible:

Matched the motif across the skirt panels too (this is the altered Burdastyle Heidi skirt, again again again, I really should do a separate post detailing all the changes I’ve put it through):

And the piped pocket and zipper:

I bought a bunch of invisible zippers with very lightweight, almost knit tapes in Vancouver and they’re a bit trickier to sew with than I thought. As in, I’ve already broken two of them. I’m hoping it’s more “practice makes perfect” and not “you bought a bunch of lemons”. This one went it more or less okay, though. (Fingers crossed.)

I still have some orange bandana fabric yet to make up, probably the last piece of my epic 2008 Japan fabric binge.

(If you like odd bandanas you will almost certainly like the Calamityware Bad Bandana project.)

Oh, and if you missed it, I wrote about answering customer-service email on The Pastry Box! Very exciting, I know.

Everyone loves a parade

May 8, 2015 Erin7 Comments

For some reason (can’t think why) this fabric reminds me of ticker-tape parades:

It is, as you may have already guessed, another Simplicity 2389 bodice with a Heidi skirt. It’s a slightly grabby fabric — you can see it’s hitching a little on my dress form. Either that, or the center front seam is a little wobbly (also possible).

I made ZERO attempt to match the print, as I’m sure you can tell. I’m not sure if the fat self.jpgping shows up all that well in the above picture, but it’s there.

Oh wait, here it is:

And here you can see it (maybe?) on the pocket:

And the other pocket (and the zipper):

And the back:

The fabric is some silk-cotton Marc Jacobs that I bought ages ago — I bought it in bright orange, too. I think I photographed the wrong side but whatevs:

I do love silk-cotton when I can get it; it’s all the best parts of cotton and silk — easy to sew with like cotton and fancy like silk.

If you want to see me wearing it, you can do so here.

YAWD (yet another winterish dress)

April 27, 2015 Erin3 Comments

I made another dress like this one, right down to also using Liberty Lantana fabric:

The name of this particular print is “Haberdashery”, and I fell in love with the weird faux-patchwork:

(“Haberdashery” is a fairly stupid name to call a Liberty print, because it is nigh-unGoogleable, but here it is at Shaukat iffen you need some. Looks like it comes in a nice bright blue, too.)

And OF COURSE there is piping:

And on the pockets:

Here’s the zipper (bonus piping view):

And the back:

I forgot to take a picture, but the neck facing is the same plaid as in the flower print (or near-enough as makes no nevermind). (Because that’s the sort of thing that makes me weirdly happy.)

This variation has a much longer skirt, nearly tea-length, so that it looks better (in my head) with ankle boots. (Does it actually look better? Who knows.) If you want to see how it looks on, I wore it to give this talk.

Another winter dress

January 10, 2015 Erin7 Comments

Here’s another January-appropriate dress, although I made this back in October, to wear to talk at Pop!Tech. (That there is a video link.)

Specifics: it’s Liberty Lantana, but I don’t remember the pattern name — if you search for Liberty Lantana on eBay this one always comes up. (Lantana is the winter-perfect cotton/wool blend. Super soft, nicely warm, and wrinkle-resistant. Probably my favorite Liberty fabric type.) It’s the Simplicity 2389 bodice with the (heavily modified) Burdastyle Heidi skirt.

For colder weather I’ve been wearing this with a long-sleeved black t-shirt under it. And by “colder weather,” (sorry non-Californians) I mean around low 50s F. Below you can see the colorway — it’s mostly black, with a bunch of blue-y grays and a little warm taupe.

I used the extra-fat piping cord to make this piping. It’s very satisfying.

Here’s the zipper & pocket (also piped) in a washed out photo. (Honestly, #nofilter, my phone is just not that great.)

And the back, with my dress form at a jaunty (not to say off-kilter) angle.

I’ve taken a little break from this pattern but it’s calling to me again. The bodice is probably one of the most comfortable I’ve ever worn, and even those tricky-looking shoulders sew up easily. I’m thinking the next version will probably have a longer skirt (this one is knee length) and we’ll see how that proportion looks. I have some more Lantana …

A dress for a wedding (not a wedding dress) plus bonus kiltwearing

October 20, 2014 Erin6 Comments

Haven’t posted in a while … there’s a backlog of new dresses and old patterns with new stories, but a shortage of TIME to post them in!

This picture, of course, takes priority, as it involves a kilt — that’s my handsome-yet-goofy younger brother in the McKean tartan with all the trimmings, ready to walk my little sister down the aisle at her lovely wedding in Brooklyn last weekend. (Don’t ask me which variant of the McKean/McIan tartan this is, it could also be some kind of McDonald? Genealogy is complimacated.)

She asked me to stand up for her as well (that’s why I’m holding a sheaf of lavender, that’s not a customary accessory of mine) and asked me to wear navy blue. (Of course I did not own a navy blue dress of any kind whatsoever.)

After a few false starts, I finally just made THE SAME OLD DRESS I’VE BEEN MAKING FOR THE LAST FOUR MONTHS. Here’s a post where you can see the lines of the dress. It’s the Simplicity 2389 bodice with the (heavily modified) Burdastyle Heidi skirt. And now I have a navy dress.

I don’t own navy shoes, because navy shoes never match anything else that’s navy, so the silver ankle-straps were left over from that part of the early 2000s where I was going to a lot of weddings. I forgot how painful they were — note my “let me just relieve the pressure on this foot here” stance — so they were exchanged for flats at the earliest possible point of the proceedings.

At the shoulder you can kind of maybe partly see that I did do piping for this one as well — self-bias piping with nice fat cord. The fabric is a kind of faille so the corded piping has a nice bias twist to it, very satisfying (if nearly invisible).

It was a very happy day. Hope your days have been happy, too.

Hearts and Bones

July 28, 2014 Erin11 Comments

I finished this dress up last weekend:

This here is the part I like best. I was going to do plain red piping, but the reds didn’t match. (And neither did the maroons or blues. I have more piping than a Scottish funeral.)

The striped piping is from Britex. Every time I go in I have this little surge of hope that they’ve decided to carry even more patterned cotton piping, and then I see that the choices are basically pinstripes, leopard, and neon. I’ve bought all the stripey ones; I’m just not really a leopard-print kinda gal; but I’m sure someday I will manage to avoid the gorge-rising nausea upon seeing neon colors that the early 1980s left me with and you will see some fluorescent pink piping here in these pages.

Here’s an off-center and slightly unfocused front view!

I suppose at this point I should mention that the bodice is Simplicity 2389 (again) and the skirt (for a change) is BurdaStyle Heidi with some alterations.

What alterations? Well, I added 6″ to the skirt center back and front, and lengthened the skirt by about 8″ to ensure a deep, deep hem. I really like this version of the Heidi skirt — it’s very comfortable, and for some reason manages to cohere with the 1940s bodice and feel modern at the same time.

I piped the back yoke seam this time, too:

Except I forgot that the yoke has to meet the facing at center back and had to kludge in a little bit more piping. Also, the back facing DID NOT want to turn nicely over that piping bit, so I finally just said “this is a design feature” and left it at that.

Here you can see the piping meeting at the underarm (probably another reason that piping the back is not as good an idea as it might seem), as well as the pocket piping and the zipper:

The whole back view (I’m not sure what was up with the lighting when I took these, weekends have been fairly sunny lately):

This voile is lighter than I’m used to, so I thought I might have to line it. Instead I settled for a heavier slip than usual and cutting the pocket lining and neck facing from this weird pale pale pink linen/cotton voile I had lying around. Since I’m mostly pale pale pink too, it seems to work. I have another one cut out where the fabric really was translucent, so I ended up underlining it in black voile, which is creating a kind of goth-flavored mallard color effect (that fabric is teal).

I ended up wearing this to a Javascript conference last week — I hesitated a tiny bit about wearing something so flat-out girly, as the gender ratio at these things approaches that of your typical offshore oil rig and/or professional football team (only with more ironically-worn mustaches and skinnier jeans). But it wasn’t as if I was going to magically become any less of an outlier in a plain denim dress (choice #2) than I was in this one, and since I hadn’t really worn it yet (and really wanted to), on it went.

Honestly, since I’m not looking for a job, I have a whole lot less risk in wearing something super-girly at tech conferences. And if I wear something like this, I can set some kind of upper bar and make other people look moderate in comparison, and gradually move the whole bar of “conference wear” further in my direction, right? That’s the plan, anyhow.

It was a total luxury to be able to go to this conference, by the way. I’ve been dabbling in Node.js for a bit and have finally reached the stage where a tiny archipelago of scattered knowledge is emerging from the receding seawaters of my ignorance. However, I am still looking for navigable channels between the islands, and a conference is one of the fastest ways I know of to connect the dots.

There’s something about going into a talk where you know nothing about anything in the description, grabbing onto the first idea tossed out by the presenter that connects to anything you know, and following along, knot by knot and intersection by intersection, until you have a lovely net with which to catch the entire topic.

Usually when I learn anything new it’s like taking the Tube in London: I get on at one subterranean stop and clamber back up the light in a completely different place, and couldn’t for the life of me say how to get back to the first stop overland. Going to a conference is like riding around on the top of a bus: I can finally see how all the different neighborhoods join up and how to walk between them. And coding is such a lovely city …

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A Dress A Day

A dress, nearly every day.

Tag: Simplicity_2389

It’s the only way to live/In cars

Hey! Another Version of that Same Damn Dress

& another stunt dress

Gray Gardens

I'm With the Bandana

Everyone loves a parade

YAWD (yet another winterish dress)

Another winter dress

A dress for a wedding (not a wedding dress) plus bonus kiltwearing

Hearts and Bones