Your Best friend Knows What She's Talking About - The Sweater Dress

When your best friend tells you that an article of clothing you are considering buying isn't all that flattering, you should probably listen. Don't buy that piece of clothing! Did I listen? No, I'm stubborn. This is how I wound up bringing home this purple sweater dress from Goodwill sometime last year. (Yikes, as of 10 hours ago 2015 is last year! Where did it go? I didn't get near as much done as I wanted to!)

My best friend was right. This dress was cute, and would work great on plenty of other people, it just wasn't quite right for me. I never wore it. I love the idea of sweater dresses (thus I bought this one), but they never work out quite like I picture in my head. I should have listened to my best friend. Instead I was stubborn and this dress hung unworn in my closet. Finally I came up with an idea to make it wearable.

Lately I've been really wanting a long cardigan/open front sweatshirt type thing. A few days ago it hit me, I could turn the unworn sweater dress into a long cardigan! First I fixed the where the lattice looking design had come apart on the bodice.

A needle with some purple thread and that was done. Next, I cut it open down the front.

Then I needed to finish off those newly cut edges. After considering a few ideas I decided I wanted the edges to be bound with a contrasting fabric, something that would add some interest to the sweater. I found this long black velvet skirt my sister had outgrown. 

I cut it into 3 inch strips.

I sewed the strips of velvet together end to end, then folded them in half length-wise, and sewed the velvet to the unfinished sweater edges.

Then, just because, I sewed a row of decorative stitches along the edge of the velvet.

The velvet wasn't laying quite right at the neck, it kept flopping in ways I didn't want it to flop. So I sent some elastic through the velvet (which made a convenient casing) to hold the neckline/collar in place, and add a slight ruching effect.  

Finally, as a finishing touch I added a covered hook and eye at the waist.

 Then it was done! My unwearable sweater dress turned wearable cardigan was the perfect thing to wear New Years Eve, festive but comfortable!

So, moral of the story, when your best friend tells you something isn't the most flattering on you, believe her, you won't wear the garment. That is, unless you turn it into something else awesomely wearable first!

Happy New Year! Have an awesome, wonderful, and blessed 2016!

My Little Sister's Christmas Dress

Some dress design ideas form because of fabric, others form when I find the perfect pattern. My little sister's Christmas dress was a combination of both.

A few months back I found a queen sized, red damask striped, cotton sheet at a thrift store. The fabric was wonderfully soft and drapey. So I got it, thinking in the back of my mind that it would make a great Christmas dress. It then sat in my fabric stash, nearly forgotten about. Until I saw this pattern.

The Amaryllis dress pattern was perfect for the red sheet fabric! There was only one issue, the pattern only went up to a size 8. Too small for my sister. Dang. After playing around with a few different ideas, I decided to get the pattern anyway. I sized it up by tracing the bodice pieces onto a thick plastic bag (I wasn't home at the time, so no big paper to trace the pattern onto.) Then, I traced a bodice pattern of the correct size over that. I combined the two; then I had my pattern. The overskirt was just a basic circle skirt, and the underskirt just a rectangle. So no need to size up those pieces. I just added a bit of length where needed.

I only made a few changes to the dress from there. First, I decided to have the dress buttoned closed in the front, rather than tied closed like the pattern said, so that it would match my skirt.

Along with fastening in the front, the dress was also supposed to be tied closed in the back, under the over skirt. This meant the underskirt would be open in the back. With as much as my sister likes to jump and spin around I was afraid an open underskirt would lead to a wardrobe malfunction. So, I made the underskirt and waistband a few inches bigger than the pattern said, sewed up the back, then added elastic at the waist.

This worked great! The dress goes on just like a skirt, the bodice goes over the head, sort of like a halter top, then the dress buttons in the front.

I think my sister's favorite part of the dress is the circle overskirt. She's been asking me to make her a circle skirt for quite some time now. It's perfect for dancing in! My favorite part? The fabric the overskirt is lined in. A jewel toned and metallic gold quilting calico. My grandma gave it to me, and I only had a yard. So what would I use it for? I was very happy that it worked for part of this dress! It complimented the red sateen perfectly, and added a bit of body to the skirt. I really liked the print of the fabric though, and didn't want it all to be hidden on the inside of the dress, so with the scraps I made some bias tape to bind the bodice with. (the third change I made to this pattern, it didn't call for, or really need, a binding.)

I really like how the binding adds some interest and highlights the lines of the bodice.

I'm really happy with how this dress came out, and my sister loves it. She's worn it several times already, so it must be comfortable. Now, hopefully the next dress I make her gets just as enthusiastic of a response!

My Favorite Skirt Pattern

Merry Christmas! I have had a great week of celebrating Jesus' birth with my family. My brother has been home, we put up and decorated our Christmas tree, we went to the Christmas Eve candlelit service, and just enjoyed hanging out and being a family. Meanwhile, I was also franticly sewing trying to get gifts finished. (They were all finished, wrapped, and under the tree by 2 am Christmas Eve/Christmas Day.)
Between finishing the gifts that had to be done for last Saturday and starting the gifts for Christmas at home, I whipped up a Christmas Skirt for myself.

This is the third skirt of this style that I've made myself. Last winter I made this one from brown taffeta.

It has gotten a lot of wear! I only had one regret from it, I forgot to add pockets. A few months later I made one from dark purple linen. This time I was smart and added pockets. Thus, the purple skirt has gotten even more wear than the brown one. I even took it along and wore it several times in Guatemala.

Well, several months ago I found this gorgeous red cotton damask at Wal-Mart. I immediately had a plan for it so bought all they had, which was sadly only 2 yards. I checked the other 2 Wal-Marts in town, hoping they would have more. Nope. No such luck. 2 yards was not near enough for the project I had in mind.

So, in the back of my mind I planned to turn the fabric into a Christmas skirt for myself, and there is no better skirt to make than this pretty, comfortable, button front, zipper-less, maxi skirt. Here's the funny thing, this is the third time I've made this skirt and I still don't actually have a pattern for it. Every time I start with this pattern, Simplicity 1500.

I lengthen the skirt, eliminate the center front seam, narrow the skirt slightly at the bottom so it doesn't take up too much fabric, then widen the front panel about 8 inches at the top, so that the skirt will fit over my hips easily. I do the same with the front waistband. The width of the back panel stays the same, it just gets lengthened to match the front.

 This sounds like a lot of work, but I have it all figured out now, so really it's not. Somehow every time I don't think to take pictures, or trace out the finished cut out pieces so that I have a pattern for next time.  Oh well, maybe next time.

Due to a slight fabric shortage, for this red skirt I had to add an panel (cut off-grain) down the center front to get enough width.

Thankfully, due to the placement of the front pleat, it's not *too* noticeable.

This skirt closes like my black one does, the waistband folds over itself and buttons into place. This makes the pleat down the front of the skirt.

While I was making this skirt I got a little worried, it was bright red, what would I be able to wear it with?? An awful lot surprisingly! Over the past week I've worn it 4 different times for Christmas festivities, each time with a different shirt. This skirt was definitely worth making!

Merry Christmas! Have a blessed new year!

My Little Sister's Bustle Dress

My little sister. She's something else. A bouncy, exuberant, strong, not afraid to get dirty, country kid, with a definite girly side, a very girly, fashion (including historical fashion)  loving side.

We went to Joann's to get some fabric for the next historical dress I was going to make her. (Which I of course already had a time period picked out for). She saw this pink and tan fabric. I suggested it would be perfect for the dress I was going to make her, she said no. In her opinion this fabric was perfect for a bustle (1870's and 80's) dress, and that's what she wanted from it.

Well, I have a really hard time saying no to my sister, so we got the fabric and I got to looking through pictures of children's 1880's dresses. Some of them are pretty elaborate.

 

This one is a child-sized copy of a woman's dress. This was a very common theme through out most of the 19th century, and before.

This was one of my favorite girls' dresses, unfortunately I didn't have quite enough fabric to re-create it, and I wasn't sure how it would look in a print rather than a solid.

Then I came across this one from 1886, made from cotton (which is what the pink fabric was, many of the other dresses I looked at were originally made from silk or wool) I loved all the lace and buttons on this dress. So I found a princess-seamed bodice pattern, lengthened it to be a dropped waist, made a few other alterations, and got to work. After using several yards of lace, My little sister had her bustle gown.

She was especially happy with the bustle of her new dress, it was just what she wanted!

Now for her dress to have a bustle, she of course needed bustle petticoat. So in an hour or so I whipped up a rather un-historical, but definitely bustled petticoat.

I started out with a circular, ruffled table cloth from a thrift store.

I cut it off to length I needed.

I made a waistband, then gathered the bottom, ruffley, part of the table cloth into it. Since this was supposed to be a bustle petticoat I only gathered the back of it, leaving the front of the petticoat flat.

To add a bit more "oomph" to the back of the petticoat I added a small bustle pad, sewn in at the waistband.

The result? A petticoat that gave the new dress a silhouette appropriate to the era.

My little sister is happy, so I'll call this dress a success!

The Completely Handsewn 1840's Dress - Done!

It's finished, it's actually completely, 100% done! It took hours upon hours, countless stitches, and lots of patience, but my completely handsewn, 1840's fan front, made from a sheet, dress is done!

The pattern was a combination of two of the patterns from Janet Arnold's Patterns of Fashion 1. I sized up the 1840's dress pattern and the 1850's fan front bodice pattern. After multiple mock ups, I had my pattern and was ready to sew the actual dress!

Whilst it was being sewn this dress came everywhere with me, the Heritage Festival, two different camping trips, to work, to friends houses, yep, literally everywhere. Heck, I even worked on it while sitting in traffic on couple different occasions. It was actually rather fun to have a sewing project I could work on any time any place. Hand sewing can be rather convenient!

When I first blogged about this dress I mentioned the plan was to have it done for October's Historical Sew Monthly challenge, unfortunately that didn't happen, but not for lack of trying! I sewed like crazy the last two days of October. at any given time I had 2-5 needles all threaded and ready to be used.

Well, even though it didn't get done for the sewing secrets challenge, this dress still has a few secrets.

This dress fastens up the front (so I can easily put it on by myself). Up at the top of the dress this is obvious, as it fastens with buttons, like my inspiration dress.

  

The lower bodice fastens with hooks and eyes, but how about the skirt? Well, it's called a dog-leg closure. The skirt fastens off-center and is fastened to the bodice with more hooks and eyes.

When the dress is worn this can't be seen, thus making it one of the dress's secrets.

The other secret is one that is extremely practical, that I'm very excited about. Yep, it's a pocket, hidden in one of the side seams. The perfect place for my phone and pocket knife. (also the pocket is made from a scrape of far from historical looking fabric, but shhh, that's a secret)

To keep the inside hem of the dress as clean as possible, the hem is finished the historically accurate way, with a hem facing. The perfect use for some thick cotton I had no idea what to do with!

The skirt is gathered to fit the bodice with cartridge pleats, they take a lot of time to make (five rows of even hand stitches), but I love the overall look when they're done!

In fact, I'm pretty in love with this entire dress now that's it's done. It's not perfect, it could fit a bit better in the upper back, the lower bodice closure could be a bit more hidden, but over all, I'm pretty proud of it. I set out to handsew a dress, and I managed to not use the sewing machine once!

What the item is:

1840's fan-front dress

The Challenge:

#12 Re-do

 What Challenge/s are you re-doing?:

#5 Practicality. This is a very practical, every-day style, dress of the era. Plus, the front opening makes it very practical to get on and off.

#6 Out of your comfort zone. Sizing up an actual pattern from the past? Definitely out of my comfort zone!

#8 Heirlooms and Heritage. Some of my ancestors immigrated to America in the mid 1840's, which is the era this dress is from.

#9 Brown. Well, it's tan, that counts as brown

#10 Sewing Secrets. The hidden dogleg closure, the hidden pocket, plus I'll count the fabric source, a queen sized sheet, as a secret.

#11 Silver Screen. I was inspired to make this dress because of the fan front dresses in Jane Eyre.

 Fabric:

A queen sized flat sheet, found at Goodwill for $4

Cotton broadcloth for lining

 Pattern:

My own from the 1840's and 1850's day dress patterns found in Patterns of Fashion 1.

 Year:

1845-1850

Notions:

Cotton Yarn, Cotton/poly cord, hooks and eyes, all-purpose thread, cotton thread, vintage porcelain buttons.

 How historically accurate is it?

The sheet is a poly/cotton blend, but everything else is accurate, so at least 90%

 Hours to complete:

A lot, an aweful lot. 1 month of sewing every chance I got, 2 of occasional sewing

 First worn:

11/23, the day I finished it!

Total cost:

$4 for the fabric, then $10-15 for the notions and lining. So in total, less than $20

Now, will I ever completely handsew a dress again? Probably, but not for a while! My next historical dress (hopefully a regency gown to go with my spencer jacket), will most likely have some rather unhistorical, machine sewn seams. I'm ok with that. 

Was it worth completely handsewing this dress? Yes. I'm happy with how it turned out, and now I know I can completely handsew a dress if I want to, all the way down to the button holes. (I'd never handsewn button holes before.) Also, thanks to the techniques I learned with this dress, my next, partially machine sewn, dress will be a bit more historically accurate than it other wise would have been!