Almost Fall Easy Summer Dress

Remember when I said I had an idea for taking my copy of the summer RTW dress and making it with jersey? A couple of weeks ago I pulled it off, and I love how it turned out!

This is me, attempting an Oona-esque shot.

I used the skirt from the Easy Summer Dress, and then adapted my Wendy Mullin Sew U Home Stretch bodice by turning it into a deep V-neck. With the right bra, this neckline is a bit dangerous (mrow).

That's right, I'm dangerous. Watch out.

 The fabric is from GorgeousFabrics.com, but it is sadly out of stock. It's a thick, slightly sweatery jersey and I fell for the colors (more magenta, please). I hope it can be a good transition dress as it's starting to cool off here in the Midwest. As I was cutting it out, I got really excited about the stripey action in the selvedge. I wanted to use it somehow (hem? neck? create some kind of cording?) and finally decided to use it to bind the sleeves and neck. I wasn't sure how this would work as it had ZERO stretch, but I like the way it turned out.

Button is covering the joint.

So not much more to say about this one, except that my Sew U Home Stretch book has certainly turned into a good investment. It's my go-to whenever I want to create something new with knit/jersey. What about you? What are starting to sew for fall?

I'll leave you with my figurehead shot. I'm a ship!

A Quartet of Easy Summer Dresses

I am having a generally lovely summer and  I hope all of you are, too. I haven't had much time to blog, but I'm on Instagram now (code name PoldaPop), and if you want to see what I'm up to, I post regularly there. I'm on a kick to post a photo a day under the hashtags #sewdailyphoto and #whatIsewedtoday.

A couple months back I posted about a dress that my best friend and I have been passing back and forth for at least a decade. I think I actually bought the dress new around 1996 or 1997. This past winter, I finally made a pattern of it and it's been my dress of choice for the summer. In addition to the purple one, I now have two more!

This one is a chevron rayon challis I bought with a coupon from Hancock Fabrics.

See how well it goes with my new bag and new shoes?

The second one is a Joel Dewberry print that I just love:

Same shoes and bag!

I did a bit of tweaking to the pattern to make the waist a tiny bit more fitted (took it in about 1.5" in the waist). This dress doesn't have any closures so the test is whether or not you can get the dress on past your bust. Since my bust consists primarily of foam padding, it works.

This is a perfect summer dress: it's light and airy, I can run after the kids and ride my bike in it, and I can dress is up with nice shoes or kick around with flip flops. I can make it up in 2.5 hours from cutting to finishing, so it's an easy make. And I can squeeze it out of 2 yards of fabric if I cut the back bodice piece with a center back seam (and cut the halves out separately). Win.

The third member of the quartet is one that I made for a client. This is a rayon challis from Anna Maria Horner. BTW, I am so happy that some of the big names in quilting cotton design  now have their prints in some apparel fabric like rayon challis and voile, too.

And the fourth member of the quartet was actually made by my best friend when I was back visiting her in June. I brought the pattern with me and gifted her some fabric so that she could learn to make it herself. I show that off when I get the picture from her, (HINT HINT, Malinda). Here's the fabric so that you've got something to ogle:

Joel Dewberry Bungalow Dahlia in Honeysuckle

I may be done with this dress pattern for a while or I might try to make a version from jersey, maybe sleeveless. I can probably use my TNT Sew U Home Stretch bodice. Hmmmm, I'm off to dig through my jersey stash!

Self-Drafted Dress

I blogged about the jacket from this outfit a few days ago, but in my typical long-wind-y-ness, I had to break the post in two to talk about the dress.

The dress is ridiculously easy to make: no closures, bias tape to face neckline, serged rolled hem, four darts, four pieces total (unless you don't have enough fabric and you have to cut the front and back bodice with a center seam, ahem). I copied a dress I wore a lot in my late 20's that I eventually gifted to my best friend who's been wearing it for the last 10 years. I borrowed the dress back and made her a new version for Christmas using my trusted Patternmaking for Perfect Fit book by Steffani Lincecum to make the pattern. I then made one for myself with some adjustments. When I tried the dress on to see if I wanted to make any fit changes, it felt way too baby-dollish for this mama.

And when I put on a belt, the belt sat about 1.5" lower than the waist on the dress.

So I took care of those lengths and got this dress:

I used a rayon challis and I love how cool and drapey it is. This will feel wonderful when the temperature is in the 90's this summer.

And for someone who wears a lot of pencil skirts, it's nice to be able to twirl every now and again!

The fabric was so lightweight that my test hem was a mess. I used a technique from Angela Wolf's Craftsy Creative Serging class (highly recommend) and pressed the hem under 1/2" so that I could serge a rolled hem through a double layer of fabric. This took care of the messy stitches. I just trimmed away the excess fabric carefully with sharp scissors.

I'll be looking for some cute rayon challis prints this summer to make a few more of these (they only take about 90 minutes to make now that I have the pattern) and I'd like to try the dress with a poplin, too. I think I've found this summer's go-to easy make, and it's not even summer yet!

Multiplication by Duplication

One of my favorite requests from clients is to replicate an existing garment.  I enjoy doing this because I know the new garment will be a favorite because the client has already road-tested the style and fit, AND because there usually aren't any tricky fitting issues that come up in the process.  I use the method described in Steffani Lincecum's book Patternmaking for a Perfect Fit (I was pleased to note that Sunni of A Fashionable Stitch also recommends this book).  I'm also in the process of taking Kenneth King's Jean-ius Craftsy Course, so I'll have another method in my arsenal soon.

And can I just say how excited I am to copy my favorite jeans????!!  I bought my favs for $10 from Burlington Coat Factory.  The quality of the denim isn't great, so they only made it about a year, but I LOVE them.  Can't wait to have another pair in good quality denim (or 3 . . . and maybe one in stretch wool instead of denim . . .).

You can check out some of the other garments I've replicated here and here.  My latest request was to copy two favorite knit tops.  The first was a simple peplum top from Old Navy:

The only real change my client Susan wanted to make was to have the sleeves swapped to elbow-length.  

The biggest challenge in copying an existing garment is accuracy, which is fun for me because I get to unleash that meticulous, picky side of my personality (instead of inflicting it on my family, friends, or home).

Pinning side seam and waist seams

Pinning through onto paper (I iron the filler paper from shipped packages),
and I find it helps to wiggle the pin a bit to make the hole in the paper a bit bigger.

Connecting dots and adding seam allowance

Susan chose a jersey fabric that we found on Fabric.com for the peplum top, from Michael Miller's Heaven and Helsinki stretch jersey line.

I have the top paired with a jersey skirt I made for another client.

The second top was a black swing top with asymmetrical side seam inserts.  The original top suffered a bleach accident.  Susan wanted the sides changed so that they became symmetrical.  She chose a black bamboo/rayon jersey from Vogue Fabrics and a funky print jersey from Mood.  I didn't get a picture of the original, but here are the copies:

I have to say that this process still feels like making magic to me.  I'm always anxious that it won't work or won't fit well and (so far) it always does.  One of these days I'm going to get around to replicating my own fabric top, a poplin blouse I bought from Anthropologie about 10 years ago . . .