First Day of School Dress

This summer I cleaned out every closet in our house (sounds impressive, but there are only four closets total and they weren't so so messy). The best thing I unearthed along the way was this dress, all cut out and ready to be stitched. I wish all projects started at this stage - it really speeds things up! It's a lined dress (Butterick 5510) with a crossover bodice, empire waist, cap sleeves, bias-cut skirt and side zipper. I made it from a lightweight, sheer Indian print cotton and lined it with a basic pink cotton. The wonderful surprise was that the dress fits perfectly. Perhaps I altered the pattern when I cut it out a few years ago? I have no idea. Whatever the reason, there's no pooch above the tush in the back, the armholes are the proper size, it's not at all low-cut (key for middle school teaching!), and the zipper is laying flat as a pancake along my side. I think the bias skirt is part of the great fit, and I'm wondering if it's possible that I haven't made another bias-cut project ever? Could that really be?

I look forward to wearing this dress on the first day of school. Dresses convey that no-nonsense, all-business image I'm going for in the classroom! And that I try, unsuccessfully, to get away from in other aspects of my life!

What a hoot!

I love this simple little overall pattern and thought it would be a make a lovely back-to-school outfit in wildly patterned cotton corduroy. The styling easily accommodates a cloth-diapered bum and is a snap to put together. Speaking of snaps, the crotch is all snap tape. I'd like to find a supplier of snap tape who places the snaps further apart, though, since Jonah's father and daycare provider both cannot be troubled with all that fussiness. As I did not take the time to match the front pieces, there is one owl who is bisected in a rather tragic way - otherwise, I am very happy with the results!

Synthetic Synthesis

I have Complicated Feelings about polar fleece. My basic rule for fiber arts is, if it's worth making yourself, it's worth making out of natural fibers. This probably goes back to my mom's imposition of all-cotton undies as a child, reinforced by Elizabeth Zimmermann's vehemence on this topic ("For people allergic to wool, one's heart can only bleed" - Knitting Without Tears). And yet. Fleece is warm, stretchy, easy to care for, and in the winter, lets us keep the heat a lot lower in the apartment than I'd otherwise tolerate. It even repels baby spit-up, as I learned last winter!

With these contradictory emotions spinning in my head, I bought a very cheap remnant of sage-colored fleece at JoAnn's several months ago. After succeeding with my first hoodie, I decided to make another out of fleece. It was satisfying to repeat the same pattern just a few weeks later - I remembered to stitch closer to the zipper so that less of the tape would show, and I correctly made a flat felled seam (rather than a French seam) on the hood.

I also got to use up my grandma's vintage plaid bias tape, which has been hanging around the sewing basket I inherited from her for at least 20 years. This was one of those beautiful moments that reinforces all of your hoarding - I had *exactly* the right amount of tape to cover the zipper and make the ties for the matching cap (see below). Erma was smiling on me from heaven, clearly - and she was not such a smiley lady!

Another fun garnish was a sheep appliqué that I bought at the Droguerie, a fabulous French craft shop, in Strasbourg in July. I usually find appliqués tacky, but honestly, there is nothing tacky about the Droguerie. C'est très classe!

I also made a bomber cap with some of the leftover fleece (same pattern, Simplicity 5316). I am still feeling guilty that last winter, I sent Jonah to daycare without a hat that stayed on (I just really wanted him to wear the hat I'd knitted, you know? And I didn't have anything else...). So I spent some time in the sweltering August heat making this, to prevent any mishaps this coming winter:
I am sure these articles will look adorable on baby Jonah, but it would be cruel to dress him in fleece on a day like today. Hopefully I'll remember to take some pictures when the weather chills out a bit.

Funked Out Peasant Blouse

My sister said she'd buy me this Lila Tueller pattern for my birthday if I promised not to make it out of super-crazy fabrics. I may have broken my promise! I found it difficult to choose the right trio of fabrics for this top (perhaps the companionship of my impatient toddler added to this).

Now, about the pattern. I had a rough start. There are no directions for layout and cutting. The upper front piece is missing the notches that are shown on the directions. And the first sentence of the pattern contains an error about where to baste (it's at the lower edge, not the upper one). HOWEVER, it was all uphill from here. The top came together nicely and the details were clearly explained. It would have been nice for Ms. Tueller to do the math on the proper length of elastic for the neckline (so as to avoid waste) and the circumference of the blouse in different sizes, but I made notes on the pattern for my size so that I can refer to them next time around.
Here you can see the details at the top:
And here's the side zip, which does not bend or pooch at all! However, the stitching is a bit wobbly. And that's with more than 20 years of sewing experience, honors Home Ec. included, alas.

My individual touches: I didn't have elastic thread (and didn't realize at the time that I could buy it at my local hardware shop, rather than drive 30 minutes to JoAnn's!) so I made an inner casing with twill tape and ran 10" of 1/4" elastic through the casing. I did add elastic to the front under the bust, which is an option listed at the end of the pattern. This improved the fit quite a bit. I made a size 12 and it fits well - the directions explain that these sizes run very small, which is true since I'm usually a size 4 at the store.

Next time I'd like to make the top in closely matched neutrals for a more sophisticated, monochromatic look. I'd also choose really soft, thin fabrics so that I get more drape and less stiffness around my bust and elbow gathers.

Blouse in translation

Feeling ambitious, I requested a pattern book for my birthday that's written entirely in Japanese. Thanks to my mother-in-law for indulging this silliness! I immediately learned a few important things about Japanese sewing techniques when the book arrived (some of which you can find on this blog or this one):

1. Japanese pattern pieces are all printed on top of one another, in a crazy overlapping map of lines. For a book with 20+ patterns, there's just one page of pattern pieces. You have to recopy each piece onto tissue paper so that you can use it. Oh, and don't forget to add your own seam allowances!

2. Japanese sizes are very different from U.S. ones (no big surprise here). A size L fits me well. In America, though, I'm an S.

3. Only a few steps are illustrated in the pattern directions. The rest is left up the imagination. Rather like French cookbooks...

Feeling thoroughly intimidated, I decided to start with the simplest pattern in the book - a long-sleeve shirt with only three pieces. How hard could this really be, people?!

I spent an afternoon cutting out the three pattern pieces. Working with tracing paper and a good quality eraser reminded me of a particularly hellish 8th grade social studies project I once completed.

I learned to make my own bias tape from various web tutorials. I can't tell if this is what the pattern intended, however. Perhaps you could just use ribbon.

The only difficult thing about assembling the blouse was mitering the bias tape in different angles to accommodate the asymmetrical neckline and hem. This added quite a challenge, in my opinion.

I made this blouse out of white polka dotted cotton from JoAnn's (ick, I know). The trim is a conversion of our old kitchen curtains, which I got from Reprodepot a while back.

Happy hoodie

This hooded sweatshirt comes from Simplicity pattern 5316. It includes smart, careful details like bias tape along the neckline and zipper facing, elasticized cuffs and patch pockets. I used a teal 100% cotton interlock with lilac zipper and bias tape. Definitely a pattern worth making again and again. My only question is how to make the zipper fall straight down, since mine waggles a bit to the right.