Fashion Plate: Poppy In for a Visit Dress

This week's inspiration is ModCloth's Poppy In for a Visit Dress.  It's made in such a simple fabric.  I chose this red stripe fabric from fabric.com, though this same fabric is in about a bazillion other colors.  My pattern choice is only marginally close to the inspiration.  I have long-coveted the Belladone dress from Deer & Doe, but have yet to purchase and make the dress.  The dress has a back cutout and pockets and a floaty skirt and and and...  I love it!  I enjoy playing with pattern placement when I'm working with stripes and this is something I hope to do more of this year.  I seem to have a lack of stripey fabric in my stash, however.

I'm back with the Fashion Plates.  I didn't intend to take a hiatus, I just lost my creative mojo.  I'm hoping it's back for a while.  My time is in short supply these days with work and running and other obligations.  I don't think I've sewn a stitch in at least a week.  I'm going to have to make a deal with myself to sew at least one seam a day to have something like progress on things.  Life:  Why you so hard?


Happy Tuesday!

FO: On the Job Dress

"On The Job" Dress

 

Just the Facts:
Fabric:  about 2.5 yards each of quilting cotton and poly/cotton broadcloth from JoAnn's  $11.75
Notions:  Thread from stash, zipper
Pattern:  Simplicity 3673, View C 
Year:  1950s reprint
Time to Complete:  I stopped keeping track
First Worn:  December 9, 2013
Wear Again:  yes again and again and again
Total Cost:  $15.00 including the pattern 

 

This dress has actually been finished for a couple weeks.  I made two attempts at taking FO photos and I'm not really thrilled with either effort.  I am, however, totally in love with this dress.  I spent so much time making it exactly right.  I wanted pockets.  I added pockets.  I wanted a collar.  I made a collar.  I wanted sleeves.  Yup.  Got some sleeves.  I think with a couple-few more tweaks, this will be a great contender for a TNT dress pattern.

 

The fabric is navy with green geometric patterning.  It's circles and diamonds.  I thought the fabric was quite light and possibly sheer and wanted to underline it.  This created a fabric that I think is the perfect weight.  I wanted to line the fashion fabric with batiste, but couldn't find one in navy blue.  I went with the poly/cotton blend because I actually liked the hand for underlining.  

 

The skirt isn't twirlable as much as I try.  It's only a four gore skirt.  The waist shaping is achieved by sewing 6 darts per front and back.

 

I got one hand in my pocket and the other hand's in the other pocket.  Alanis would not be pleased with my rendition of her song.

 

I did move the bust gathers in a half inch and they ended up in the proper location on the boob line.  That is always a plus.  :) The pockets I put on this dress are my favorite so far.  They are completely invisible.  I used the pocket piece from Simplicity 2444 and pinned the pocket to the skirt front when I was holding the pattern pieces against myself.  Totally unscientific, but it worked.

 

This dress certainly gives the illusion I have actual curves.  I tend to think I'm quite celery-shaped.

 

I think this photo is accurate of the fabric color.  From a distance, the colors blend so nicely that it creates a lovely shade of teal.  

 

This is part of photo session take 2.  You have no idea how cold I was.  The frost had just melted off the ground.

 

 

See?  Cold.  I am showing off my fancy new gold shoes!  Off topic:  I bought a pair of black satin pumps from Dilliards years ago.  I love those shoes so much.  I went looking for another pair of shoes from the same company, but I wanted a nice neutral gold tone.  These are the perfect new shoes to go with my (almost) perfect new dress.

 

I used the cap sleeve from Simplicity 2444 as well.  Heavily modified, of course.  That's my style lately--modifying the crap out of things.  Let me explain how I modified the sleeves to fit my arms.

 

First I got a new piece of freezer paper.  I drew a slash line at the half way point.  Keep in mind that the back of the sleeve is longer.  That's why the line looks "off."

 

You can see here that I made myself some notes on the pattern piece.  I previously adjusted the armscye and the sleeve had to be adjusted by that much as well.  Actually, if you are mixing pattern pieces over different companies, it's a good idea to measure your armscye and sleeve cap to make sure they "match" before sewing them together.  Just like it sounds, I take a flexible tape measure and measure each pattern piece.  It is normal for the sleeve cap to be slightly larger (1/2" or so) because you ease the cap to the shoulder.

Anyway, back to the point.  I adjusted my armscye by 3/4", so I needed to add that much to my sleeve cap.  I put little marks on each side to reflect that adjustment.  Then I carefully spread my cut point until it matched the finished measurement I needed.  I ended up with a sleeve measuring 15.25" including the seam allowance.  I taped the slash down so it wouldn't move while I traced my old sleeve onto the clean sheet of paper.  I had to true up the bottom of the sleeve and mark the new grainlines and that's it.  Easy peasy.

 

Here's my new sleeve, nice and pretty.

 

Notes are good.  I will be making this S2444 eventually and I want to make sure I don't make more work for myself down the line.

 

My pretty pocket.  I cut both both pocket pieces out of the navy broadcloth.

  

I serged all my edges.  Don't they look lovely?

  

The dress zips up the back with a lapped zipper.  The way one sews in a lapped zipper requires one to baste the zipper opening closed first.  As I stitched further down the 22" zipper, the fabric biased more and more as I fed it through my machine.  I don't know how to keep that from happening again.  You can tell the lap is obviously biased, but I can't see back there, so whatevs.

 

I understitched my collar to keep the seam allowance down and to keep that nice collar stand.

As far as how it looks compared to the look I was going for?  I give myself an A-.  I missed some of the design details with this attempt, but the dress is a definite win overall.  What do you think?

 

Fashion Plate: Fruit Cart Dress

Make This Look: ModCloth Fruit Cart Dress by ellelittle featuring dresses

ModCloth has this style dress in several different fabrics.  I chose the Fruit Cart Dress for this week's Fashion Plate.  To create this style, grab yourself a copy of McCall's 6350 (now out of print, but still widely available) and 3 yards of Michael Miller's Farmer's Market Apple Dot fabric.  The ModCloth version has shirred side backs, which you can easily recreate.  You will need to double the width of those pieces because shirring reduces the width by approximately half.  Then you can just follow any shirring tutorial, such as this one by Flossie Teacakes.  I just love the sweetheart neckline on this dress next to the apple print.  It's just perfect!

Fashion Plate: Diner Delight Dress

Make This Look: Diner Delight Dress by ellelittle featuring dresses

I love houndstooth and I think this Michael Miller fabric is so classy! There are lots of colors available in the basics collection if the red sells out. The good thing is that this fabric is regularly stocked and reorderable, so check around if you can't wait for it to come back in stock from fabric.com. I've chosen Simplicity 2444 again for the sillouhette of the dress.  ModCloth's Diner Delight Dress does have a waistband.  That detail is easy enough to add on your own.  I was going to order the MM fabric in teal, but there's only 1 yard left!  Sad panda.

Hopefully it will be back in stock soon!

Any ModCloth items you want to challenge me to find fabric and patterns for?  Link 'em to me!

Fashion Plate: When the Night Comes in Emerald

Make This Look: When the Night Comes in Emerald by ellelittle featuring an emerald dress

Here's another ModCloth knockoff:  When the Night Comes in Emerald by BB Dakota.  Using a less poufy skirted version of McCall's 6466, a floral lace, and emerald green kona cotton, you can be ready when your night comes!  This could be a perfect option for your holiday parties.  I find everyone wears black or red at parties, but very few wear green.  What's up with that?  I love this dress.

I'm ellelittle on Polyvore too if you want to find me!

FO: Clowning Around Hazel

"Clowning Around Hazel"

 

Just the Facts:
Fabric:  44" of a poly/cotton given to me by a quilter FREE!
Notions:  Thread, zipper, and interfacing, all from stash $1.00
Pattern:  Colette Hazel
Year:  modern ~2012 I think
Time to Complete:  about 5 hours over a few days
First Worn:  September 29, 2013
Wear Again:  probably
Total Cost:  $1.00; yeah, I'ma go with that

 

 I think this is going to be my last hazel for a while.  This is my fourth one in 5? 6? weeks.  I do love this pattern, but it is time to branch out.  It was really windy out when I was taking the pictures, so excuse all the crazy hairs in advance.   :)

 

This fabric is part of that quilter's destash that I blogged about a couple weeks ago.  This was 42" or 44" of a poly/cotton (I'm guessing) fabric.  The fabric is very similar to the blue and white striped Hazel I made last month.  I'm still so in love with that first Hazel.  Perfect fabric and pattern pairing and I wear that dress at least once every two weeks.  Anyway...  I cut the skirt with vertical stripes and the other pieces horizontal.

 

I'm not in love with the horizontal stripes on the back.  I kinda think that was a mistake, but such is life.  I think it just makes the pattern a little too busy.

 

I also wish I had taken more notice of where I was putting the skirt pieces on the fabric for cutting.  There is just the tiniest stripe of blue on the sides and it is similar for the back.  

 

Oh.  The fabric is a bright green and navy blue.  I HATE the way these colors look on me together.  It just feels so clownish.  That's why I'm feeling so meh about the FO.  I wish I could love it, but win some, lose some.  Whatcha gonna do?  The colors really remind me of the Riddler from Batman.

 

I like this Simpsons version.  And it's really good illustration when you can identify what cartoon this is from based on the illustration style.

 

And I just might have found my Halloween costume for this year.

 

Back on topic...my bust darts are a little wonky on this one.  I have some points going on.  I also have a couple firsts in this project.  This is my first garment using my new serger!  I bought the Brother 1034D.  It wasn't my first choice, but it had a lot of reviews and I really couldn't spend $400-500 for the one I really wanted with fewer Amazon reviews.  I have to call Brother about a missing spool cap thingy.  It was a giant pain in the ass to get the serger out of the box because it comes prethreaded with regular sized spools of thread, which had become all tangled together from the missing spool cap thingy.  /rant  I found it fairly easy to thread once I got through the tangled mess.  There are diagrams right on the machine that show the step-by-step threading process.  It took a few seams to figure out the tension, but that's good too now.  Yay!  New toys are fun no matter your age.

Another first was a lapped zipper I installed with the use of the Craftsy class "Mastering Zipper Techniques."  It's free, so click over there and learn some new zipper techniques.  My lapped zipper kind of sucks.  I worked so hard to get all my stripes matched up, which I did, only to have the whole thing turn weird when I added the facings.  So annoying.  It was perfect.  I had it all zipped up at the top and looking good and feeling proud.  :( Stupid facings.  It was another nightmare with those facings too.  Because I used a lapped zipper, I couldn't put the facings in as per the pattern instructions.  I ended up folding the zipper edge of the facing in to match the seam allowance and stitched the facing on as usual from there.  After I had the facing attached at the top and before understitching, I pinned the facing edge to the zipper edge and stitched down the sides, matching the stitching from my lapped zipper.  I stopped at the waist seam though.  Hopefully you were able to follow that.  I like the look of the lapped zipper and I will be using that style again for sure.

 

Gawd I hate this color combo on me.  So much that I decided I needed ONE MORE COLOR!

 

This color is not accurate at all, but I thought the colors were fun and wanted to include them anyway.

  

You know how everyone has a certain garment they love and they buy one in every color?  This cardigan is mine.  I bought them about 10 years ago.  I have 6 or 7.  They are falling apart though and this makes me sad.  It's a silk cardigan that looks like cotton.  From Express.  Remember when the clothes at Express were actually things you could wear to work M-F?  I miss those days.  My wardrobe used to be 1/3 Express and 1/3 J. Crew.  Not anymore.

  

I'll leave you with the silly picture of me attempting to button this damn cardigan.  It takes me at least three tries to button it, but those buttons don't come undone once I do!

That's it for this post.  I FINALLY! finished making my pattern adjustments to the Laurel top and I am ready to cut out my fashion fabric.  I hope I have enough fabric leftover to make bias tape for the neckline.  I didn't take that into consideration when I bought the fabric.

I just realized I barely squeezed in another FO for the month.  Go me!

Fashion Plate: Dimmer Party Dress

Make this Look: Dimmer Party Dress by ellelittle featuring lined dresses

I decided to give this Polyvore thing a shot.  I found this really cute dress on ModCloth, the Dimmer Party Dress.  I thought the fabric was familiar and sure enough, it's the Scary Lighting fabric by Michael Miller.  Fabric.com happens to be sold out of this colorway, but I'm sure you can find it somewher else.  The sillouette I thought this dress most resembled is New Look 6910.  You'll have to add the pockets and collar to the dress, but the princess seams and A-line shape is right there.  I love this dress!  This fabric is stealthy Halloween too.  There ARE bats there, but they blend in so elegantly!  This is my first attempt at Polyvore.  What do you think?  I'm also taking suggestions at the label.  I love Make This Look, but that is a tumblr already and I don't want to steal.  You Can Make This?  maybe?

FO: Cherry Blossoms Dress

I'm just churning 'em out!  It took me probably 6 hours to put this together, most of which was spent lollygagging about on my day off.  It must have taken me 3 hours to sew on the straps, put in the zipper, and finish the hem.  Craziness.  The hazel is so easy to make, especially since this is my second version and I already identified the adjustments I need.  I'm going to start using the sew weekly format for giving the details of my projects.  I like it!  I also like prints (more than I did a couple weeks ago...)!!

"Cherry Blossoms"

(totally should have shopped that band-aid out...oops)

Just the Facts:
Fabric:  1.5 yards of a quilting cotton from JoAnn's (purchased at the same time as the fabric for my Sew Weekly Reunion project.  Funny how fabric comes in pairs, isn't it?) $7.94
Notions:  Thread, invisible zipper, and interfacing, all from stash $2.00
Pattern:  Colette Hazel
Year:  modern ~2012 I think
Time to Complete:  about 6 hours over two days
First Worn:  September 3, 2013
Wear Again:  Yes!
Total Cost:  $9.94

 My hair is wet.  Deal with it!  This shot provides a decent view of the side seam pockets on this dress pattern.  I am so amazed with how quickly I can put one of these dresses together.  It's 10 pattern pieces and takes such a small amount of fabric.  Colette is just killing me dead with all the awesome.

 

Another thing that doesn't exactly kill me, but still makes me weirdly happy are pinked edges.  This is what I trimmed off the strap edges.  I used to sit at my grandmother's sewing table and cut paper with her pinking shears when I was a child.  And now I know why those pinking shears don't work as well as they used to.

 Posing for pictures is so weird.  I always manage to look like a giant goofball in at least half the photos!  "Let's see what the oddest way I can think to contort my body looks like!!"  You can't tell from these photos at all, but there are little rainbow thingies on the fabric and I put some of them in different directions than others.  I know exactly how that happens too.  I put the pattern pieces that need to be on the fold face-up on the fabric and some of them really need to be face-down (or I flip my fabric, but that won't happen).

Fabric close-up!

 

Sorry that one is so blurry.  Self-timer is not my friend.  This photo could pass for a close-up impressionist painting, no?  Maybe a Renoir? 

You can tell that the straps are just a touch too long.  It's something I just know is going to happen.  My straps seem to grow as the day goes by.  I'll take the straps in about 1/2" before I wear this the next time.

So that's my latest creation.  I'm glad I live in Florida and have a few more months of good weather left this year.  This month, I am really going to push myself to make a draft of the Clover pants and finish making the adjustments to my Laurel shirt.  The fashion fabrics I chose for both of those matches even.  Hooray for a new outfit!

Have a great week, 

~elle