The Orange Linen Dress

After making and wearing my dress for the Renaissance Festival, I decided I needed an orange dress for modern wear in my closet. Orange was a color I'd more or less ignored until this point. I had no orange clothing in my closet, and very little orange material in my fabric stash. It wasn't a color I thought I looked good in, or even liked. The orange wool Ren Fest dress, however, changed that opinion somewhat.

After the Ren Fest, I discovered some shades of orange were quite delightful, and I needed to add orange to my wardrobe. I had a gift card to Stonemountain and Daughter Fabrics burning a hole in my pocket, so I decided an orange fabric for a new fall dress was exactly what it needed to be used for.

I won the gift card back in April with the "Sew Bibs" Instagram challenge. I'm unaccustomed to winning anything in these online challenges/contests, so it was quite surprising to receive an email informing me I'd won one of the "Sew Bibs" prizes!

I hung onto the gift card for months, trying to decide what I wanted to use it on. Every couple of weeks I'd scroll through the Stonemountain and Daughter website to see what caught my fancy. There were so many pretty fabrics to choose from so I was afraid of making the wrong decision! I knew I wanted to use the gift card to get a special fabric - something I couldn't get locally - and I decided it would probably be best for me to wait to use the gift card until I had a specific project in mind.

The orange dress idea qualified as a "specific project" so I decided to see what sort of orange fabrics were to be had on the Stonemountain website. After looking through page after page of fabrics, I found the perfect orange material. A beautiful linen woven with green threads running one direction and orange running the other direction, so the color looked different depending on the angle you saw it at. It was different than any other fabric I'd seen before, and appeared to be a delightful, interesting, shade of orange on my computer screen, so I went ahead and ordered three yards of it.

When the fabric came it was just what I'd hoped it would be! My orange dress plans were ready to take shape!

I decided to use Simplicity 8916 to make my orange dress, and add sleeves to it (since I wanted a fall dress) using Simplicity 8506, view F.

When I initially saw Simplicity 8916 in the pattern book it did not appeal to me at all. The sample dress fits the model horribly, making the whole dress just look blaaah. I passed the pattern by without a second thought. Then someone in the McCall's and Simplicity Patterns Facebook group made the pattern and shared a picture of her finished dress. It fit her beautifully, completely changing my opinion on the design! I picked up the pattern at the very next pattern sale.

Now I knew the pattern would not fit me well right out of the envelope, so I went ahead and did a full bust adjustment first thing. I should have then made a quick bodice mock-up to make sure I'd added enough room to the bust and everything fit correctly, but I didn't. I went straight from pattern alterations to cutting out my final dress. As a result, the bodice fit isn't quite right, I should have done a larger full bust adjustment. Oh well. The fit isn't great, but it's decent enough I'll still wear the dress.

The other pattern adjustment I needed to make was for the sleeves. The sleeve add-on pattern comes with an armscye template to trace onto what ever bodice you will be adding the sleeves to.

I traced the new armscye onto my dress front and back bodice pieces and that was it. The sleeves went on easy-peasy!

My very favorite design feature of this dress is the closure method. It wraps across the back and ties in the front, making the fit very adjustable.

I have a soft spot for dresses which wrap across the back rather than the front.

Rather than knotting the ties in the front, I decided to fasten them with a slide buckle from my stash. A knot just felt too bulky, and I appreciate the interest a buckle adds.

The bodice is lined with a robin's egg blue cotton lawn, and the full circle skirt is finished off with robin's egg blue lace hem tape.

So, all-in-all, what do I think of my orange dress? Well, I love the color and the fabric. The fabric was definitely worth using my gift card on!

As for the pattern, I like the overall design, but I'll definitely make a few more fit adjustments if I use it again. It needs a larger full bust adjustment and I'd want to add a couple inches in length to the bodice as a whole so the waist actually hits me at my natural waist rather than at the bottom of my rib cage.

And that is my orange linen fall dress - the first orange dress in my closet, but not necessarily the last!

A Wrap Top for Getting Ready - Butterick B6285

I finished all the sewing I needed to do for my brother's wedding on Thursday. The wedding was on Sunday. That's right, I completed all necessary sewing several days in advance, no last minute sewing for this event!

On Friday I felt somewhat at loose ends with no wedding sewing to do! As I was thinking through what I should do with my new found free time, I realized I needed a shirt to wear while getting ready on Sunday. Something that would not need to be pulled off over my head when it was time to change into my bridesmaids' dress.

Sunday morning I needed to be at the wedding venue bright and early to get my hair and make-up done. Now I could have just worn a button-down shirt for getting ready that morning, but I don't like any of my button down shirts. None of them fit right. All are either too tight in the shoulders, or too tight in the bust, or both, and too big everywhere else. Very annoying.

And thus, on Friday afternoon, I decided I might as well make myself a shirt, which wouldn't have to be pulled over my head, to wear on Sunday morning. When I got home from work that evening I looked through my pattern collection to see what struck my fancy.

I decided the wrap top from Butterick B6285 would suit my purposes well, so I picked out a fabric from my stash, threw it in the washer to prewash, and cut out the pattern that night.

Arg, very bright, blinding, sunshine!

On Saturday, in between other necessary tasks, such as running errands and helping my sister with photo booth props, I leisurely cut out and sewed the shirt. By evening, I had a brand new wrap top.

Most knit tops are pretty quick and easy, slap-dash, affairs. This one, however, required construction methods more often seen in woven garments, such as darts, a full lining, and a bit of hand sewing to finish up. It was still a rather quick and easy top to make, the finished top is just "more" than I would expect a simple knit top to be - and I quite like it!

As this top is fully lined, it requires a *bit* of fabric - right around two and a half yards. Most of the cuts of knit fabric in my stash measure 1-2 yards, so this could have been problematic. However, I currently have such a scarily large fabric stash (Must. Not. Buy. Any. More. Fabric.), it turned out to be a non-issue. I had a 4 yard cut of a light weight magenta sweater knit (a 4 yard for $4 bundle obtained from Wa-lMart), which I decided would work for this top. It is very thin sweater knit, so doubled up it was the perfect weight for a late fall top - warm and snugly on that chilly November morning, but not too heavy. 

The back of the top is shaped with waist darts, giving a nice close fit, and there are no shoulder seams on this garment, just side seams and a center back seam. All the seam allowances are hidden between the two layers of fabric, so both the inside and the outside of the top look exactly the same. It could be fully reversible if you used two different fabrics.

My only complaint about this top is how short it is. I was not expecting it to be this short! Even with my highest-waisted skirts and pants the hem of the shirt doesn't meet the waistband of the bottoms. Thankfully, I can wrap the extra-wide waist ties of the top a bit lower than the hem of the top to make up for the length deficiency, but, if I make this pattern again, I will definitely be adding a few inches of length to the hem!

Will I be inclined to make this top again? I don't see why not! The neckline doesn't gape at all and feels very secure, something not always guaranteed with wrap tops. Even with the full lining it doesn't take long to sew up, and it really does give the most beautifully finished end garment. I really do want to try making a reversible version I think! 

My spur of the moment, lets make one more thing before the wedding, top turned out almost better than I expected! It was perfect for wearing to get my hair and make-up done that morning. No regrets, what so ever, about not just pulling an old button-down out of my closet for the occasion.

And a big thank-you to my friend Erentry for coming along early the day of the wedding to help set up, and allowing me to drag her outside into the blinding sunlight to photograph my new top and my hair in its freshly curled glory before I changed into my bridesmaids' dress!

There Was a Wedding

We added someone new to the family a few days ago.

My little brother got married last weekend.

The bride was stunning, the groom was handsome, the day was beautiful, and the couple seemed pretty darned crazy about each other.

The wedding day dawned sunny, warm, and beautiful - perfect for an outdoor fall wedding! The following day was icy cold and very snowy - Thank God that weather didn't appear 24 hours earlier!

The past few months have been a blur of wedding preparations. 

My sewing room was overtaken by all the wedding clothes in the two months leading up to the big event!

I altered the wedding dress and made the bridal veil for my new sister-in-law. On her wedding day the dress fit her beautifully and she looked like a princess. My brother cried when he saw her.

I made my mom's mother of the groom dress, 

And I thought she looked pretty darned spectacular on the wedding day as well.

My mom and I worked together to alter my sister's pretty floral dress for the wedding.

My mom hemmed the dress and I made a matching capelet to cover my sister's shoulders just in case the November day proved too cold for wearing a strapless sleeveless dress.

And finally, I made my own bridesmaids' dress - finished the week of the wedding.

The idea of making my own bridesmaids' dress was much less stressful than the idea of shopping for such a garment - so no regrets there!

All in all, everything went very well on the wedding day, and I couldn't be happier for my little brother and his wife! They are off on their honeymoon, and I'm recovering from the craziness of the last couple months - slightly at loose ends now that all the wedding sewing is done! 

For now I'm enjoying sewing whatever the heck I want, before I take on any more projects with deadlines. And, once I have access to the good pictures taken on the wedding day (rather than just my cell phone pictures), I'll blog a bit more in depth about most of the wedding-related sewing projects I did.

But for now - Congratulations to my brother and new sister! I'm beyond happy for the two of you!

Tiered Skirts, Flounces, Nostalgia, and Unseasonability

Just when it starts to get rather chilly outside. After it's already snowed once this fall. That's the perfect time to make a new summer dress, right?? It was just so pretty, I had to make it!

I have a soft spot for tiered peasant skirts. Back in middle school and high school I had a couple I wore regularly. They're just so fun and swishy!

Those elastic and drawstring waist skirts from my teenage years are wonderfully adjustable in size, so they still fit me. Though quite bedraggled now, I still wear those old skirts around home. They're just so comfortable - and swishy!

So, with this in mind, when Pattern Union put out a testing call for an elastic waist tiered maxi skirt, I couldn't resist testing it. The pattern made me feel nostalgic. I could use another comfy skirt in my wardrobe for hanging out at home!

Thus, I tested the Phoebe Maxi Skirt pattern and made myself a new peasant skirt from a plaid homespun cotton. (It reads brown in the photos but it really is a tiny maroon and navy plaid.)

I liked how the peasant skirt turned out, of course, and it has definitely been worn a fair amount since I finished it.

After the maxi skirt test wrapped up, the pattern designer announced she's drafted a bodice, which could be either made as a stand-alone top, or be paired with the skirt to make a dress. It was such a pretty, flouncy, bodice, I immediately volunteered to test it was well.

I'd recently found a beautiful red cotton cambric king size flat sheet at a thrift store. Such a lovely fabric, it was just the thing to make a summery maxi dress from!

So I made a second peasant skirt from that flat sheet, made up the new bodice as well, sewed the two together, and tried on my new dress.

I felt like a princess in it!

Perhaps it's not the most seasonally appropriate dress at the moment, but it sure is pretty, and comfortable!

Other than the overall general "prettiness" of the Phoebe Flounce bodice, the thing that really excited me is that it comes in three different cup sizes! There's bodice pieces for cup sizes A-C, sizes D-E, and F+. I fall into the middle size and it fits perfectly! No gaping armholes or straining buttons like I get with store bought tops or patterns I forget to adjust for my bust size. 

Speaking of buttons, I had 4 sweet flower shaped metal buttons, which I bought a couple years ago for a project I never got around to. They were the perfect finishing touch for this dress!

The details of this bodice make it special - the flounces, the button loops, the neck tie. All put together these things make the bodice look somewhat complicated to make. So I was pleasantly surprised when the bodice didn't actually take that long to assemble!

I had one afternoon and evening set aside to make this dress, and it went together in that time frame without issue!

The instructions are laid out in a clear, logical order, and before you know it the bodice is done, ready to attach to the skirt (or pants if you'd rather make a jumpsuit).

The finished dress feels both fun and elegant. I love it!

I'm hoping that maybe we'll get a few unseasonably warm days in the next month or so, because I really want to wear this dress for more than just some quick pictures!

The bodice pattern can be found here and the skirt pattern can be found here. I received both patterns free of charge in exchange for testing and providing feedback on them, but everything written in this blog post is my own opinion. I was not required to share anything about this pattern.