April Rhodes Date Night Dress (aka muumuu)

I planned to ease myself back into sewing when I returned from Arizona.  I thought this dress would be the way to do it.  It's listed as easy, for beginners, and only has three pieces (front, back, sleeve) and no darts.  Initially I bought the pattern together with this amazing 1970's flowered rayon at Pacific Fabrics, intending to use the fabric to make the slip that comes with the pattern.  I had eyed the dress online, and read through some of the reviews. 

When I realised the slip is extremely basic, I changed my mind and thought I'd just make the dress itself.  I didn't recall anything particular from the reviews, although if I had I might have shortened the dress a bit - most people rave about it! 

The rayon is a wonderful, no-stretch woven with a great drape, and was actually a bit difficult to cut - my floor is sometimes quite slippery and it makes cutting slippery fabrics twice as hard as it would be on a table.  (And yes, I am cutting everything on the floor these days...love the impromptu setup...not...but at least I get loads of natural light that way.)  Since I had planned to make the slip, I had just barely enough fabric for the dress, which obviously uses quite a lot more with its huge, long shapeless skirt.  I cut a S based on my bust measurement and should have cut an XS. I had measured the length and double checked the pattern, which says finished length is 27", but I didn't realise that was a front measure instead of a back measure.  I could have saved some fabric if I had noticed that as the pattern piece itself was really long, and in fact the finished dress came halfway down my calves prior to hemming. 

The pattern was hard to get used to.  As a "super-beginner" pattern, it has color pictures denoting what to do and walks you through every step of a french seam...on each seam.  And that didn't help me at all, too much information?  I still did one sleeve inside out, and the side seams inside out, and didn't notice!  I will blame being sick - recovered from a feverish laryngitis and clearly still pretty dizzy, which is why it took nearly a week to get this baby put together. 

So seams notwithstanding, when I finally tried it on I realised my worry about the pattern (it seemed huge) was spot on - it was a huge shapeless muumuu.  I don't wear belts so I had zero interest in belting it.  I love the fabric and didn't want to waste all those french seams...I knew I had seen a shirt version somewhere - here it is: Jenna's shirt version, and I knew right away that was the way to salvage this.  So I went ahead and redid my entire sleeve the right way, and then experimented with narrowing the sleeves, but that didn't work and I took it out.  I ended up cutting the dress to make a shirt, just guessing about where I wanted it, and then I took a pie shaped piece out of each side seam (total 2" out at the bottom, I'd guess.)

I know everyone has liked this pattern.  Most people also seem to agree that it truly is beginner friendly.  My issues, other than the drawn-out detail on french seams, was that every hem is rolled.  The sleeves have a rolled hem.  The hem itself should be rolled.  And the technique for doing this is one that has consistently failed me - to fold at 1/2" and iron, then fold that in again and iron the smaller fold, then tuck them together, before you pin and sew.  I might just be bad at rolling hems of all types, but it seemed like a crappy technique to call "beginner."

This dress is a bit out of my comfort range, because of the flowy sleeves and the generally flowy dress.  I can see on other people that it is not inherently totally shapeless like it was on me, but my first try with it doesn't convince me to make it again.  I do, however, quite like the top that I ended up with.

Papercut Anima lounge pants

I made it about 4 weeks in Arizona without sewing.  I planned endlessly.  But I did not sew.  Then I caved in, of course.  I wanted something that would reliably arrive on time and so I settled on the Anima pants since they were a pdf and I knew any knit would work.  I was curious about them.  And Mood even ships to the middle of nowhere in about 48 hours (amazing!  But the hospital hid my package from me for a further four days...)  However when I was buying supplies in Flagstaff I was "not in the mood" to buy the elastic.  I can't harp too much on how stupid of a decision this was.  Everything would have gone smoothly if I had taken the extra 15 seconds to walk that box of elastic over to the checkout counter...

My fabric from Mood is a boring-appearing double faced cotton jersey.  One side is almost terry cloth like (I put that on the outside) and the other layer is ultra soft cotton.  The ultra soft side is prettier but I was going for ultimate lounge-potential.  (As you can see in my pictures, I will not win any style awards if I walk around in public in these.)

I cut a size XS, which is my usual in Papercut.  In this pattern your waist measurement can be modified when you cut the elastic, and I cut it a bit longer than the recommended 27.5 inches because it was so stiff.  I remembered what Sonja had written in her review and I shortened these by about 3 inches (the height of one of those advertising postcards in magazines...I didn't have a measuring tape.)  I am 5'4" and the fabric was too thick for me to desire a bunch of folds at the ankles.  In fact I think an XXS would have been reasonable because they are pretty roomy, and the extra fabric created by the pockets adds a lot of bulk in my thicker fabric.

I sewed these up on a friend's Kenmore sewing machine.  It was amazing.  The machine looked similar to my Janome but with lots more options.  If I had time to read the manual I might have been tempted to try some of the faux-overlocking stitches.  I cut these pants out at lunchtime, and I sewed them before dinner.  Total time was about 2.5 hours.  That was up to the point of installing the elastic, of course.  I was very sad not to get to finish them (I wanted to take exotic pictures on the mesa...) but I had to wait til I got back to Seattle and got some elastic.

I'm not sure if it's the only kind of 2" elastic but the stuff I have always found is disgusting.  It's very rough, hard to stretch, and I would never want it against my skin.  It is better in the Minoru but not very pleasant in a pair of lounge pants.  I have seen softer elastic in other sizes.  Is elastic best sourced online?

Anyway so I finally settled in to do the waistband and it seemed very very wrong to me that the elastic is supposed to be sewn to the edge of the band - when it's flipped that will be a rough edge on the bottom inside of the waistband.  I distrustfully left a 1cm band of fabric at the edge.  When I flipped the elastic over I thought I could tuck that underneath.  I was quickly disabused of this notion.  The work of pulling that monster elastic straight, while keeping my poor 20$ Necchi sewing, was itself too much.  Not to mention that it was no longer topstitching or stitching in the ditch at all.   I left the extra fabric loose and followed the instructions.  (Maybe I should have done this from the beginning?)  Now my waistband was a little narrower and I was topstitching straight on the elastic.  I added the two decorative layers as well.  The instructions say to make sure you dont stitch on the elastic in this step, but for me it didn't matter since I did not want the drawstring or the buttonholes and had skipped them.

In fact, these are rather high waisted on me.  So when I flip over the waistband it is very comfortable and has this nice frill...

These are so ugly on me that I'm not immediately convinced to make more, but in a slightly lighter weight fabric, and with an XXS they might be less bulky and unflattering.  Also that waistband really doesn't match the fabric - it's almost painfully stiff, and the fabric is sooo soft.  It would be a lot of work to take out, but I may consider doing that anyway and putting in a 1.5 inch soft elastic instead, which would also lower the waistband a bit (it's too high for lounge pants.)   Despite the gripes, they are comfortable.  

Papercut La Sylphide Dress in raw silk

This is one of the projects that came all the way from New Zealand.  I cut out the XS before I left, with no changes to the pattern.  Since returning from Switzerland I've been on a sewing bender.  I have to say that I miss the peace of sewing the Georgia and taking a month to do it.  On one hand I really want to get all these languishing projects completed, but on the other hand, I don't have a burning desire to own all these dresses...I am starting to appreciate taking more time with each project, instead of rushing through them, as well as actually picking projects that I really want to wear for a specific purpose.  That has definitely been my goal and my mindset for this year.

Unfortunately, a lot of projects from New Zealand have come with me and they predate my new mindset.  So I still want to get them done, preferably now now now!  (Not known for having patience.)  It seems best to finish them and learn from them before I move on to some more difficult, and slower, challenges. 

I liked the fit of the La Sylphide shirt, but I hated the bow.  So I cut it off.  I wasn't sure how that would work for a neckline.  The raw silk that I got is from a seller on etsy and is hand-dyed with organic materials.  This does mean that there is some colour variation and that ironing it can leach the colour a bit.  It is amazing to work with - it irons easily, behaves exactly as you want, and has a lovely drape.  In fact as I came around to that neckline...I thought that bow might have been less annoying in this fabric.  Oops. 

I paid extra care to the little space between the top of the placket and the neckpiece, and manage to get everything topstitched without a gap - I had a lot of trouble with that gap in the first version and I know other people did too and just camoflaged it with the bow.  This time around I also finished all my seams by zig-zagging the seam allowance together.  For some reason I hadn't thought to do that in the past except on knits, and it created a great finish.  I french seamed the skirt and the shoulders, but the silk is really too thick for that to work anywhere else. The buttonholes were a bit of stress as the last time I tried to buttonhole on the Necchi it created a thread-birdsnest. I practiced a bit first and they actually went really smoothly.  Unfortunately I ignored the button placement instructions and I think that mine don't look well placed- I left irregular spaces and I think I'll put a tiny snap at the widest part of the bust to make sure it stays together.  I'm not too concerned about that though, I'm happy with how this came out. 

I knew the fit was spot on from making the shirt, and in the end this has turned out a really fabulous dress!