Fair Isle Hazel

Well, even though I had my camera with me last night, I didn't remember to take a single picture at the beautiful beach house we visited.  So it's a good thing I'd taken some "just-in-case" snaps before we left!

Here's my new dress, along with the accessories I wore with it:

I'm really happy with how the dress turned out, but it ended up being kind of a pain getting there.  My first two Hazels were underlined because of the types of fabrics I used.  This fabric was more opaque than the others, so I didn't need the underlining for modesty's sake, and decided that going without it would give me a lighter, hot-weather Hazel.  But this is quilting cotton:  its mildly stretchy nature caused my bodice to have a looser fit than my last dress (also of quilting cotton) because I didn't have the underlining to stabilize it.  I ended up having to take the back in by 1/4" at each side of the zipper to eliminate bagginess in the bust.  I had really thought that the stay-stitching would lend enough stability, but this time it ended up not being the case.

I also had a terrible time with the zipper.  I used a different brand from what I'm used to, and it just didn't want to stay pressed flat, causing me to stitch into the teeth.  I had to pick it out and redo it FOUR times!  So by the time I'd finished the dress, I was really ready to be finished!

I paid attention to the pattern and made sure the design was centered in the bodice and that the horizontal motifs lined up at the side seams.  There's a little jog at the center back seam but otherwise everything is lined up.  I'm very happy with the outcome and think this fabric works really well for this pattern.

I knew it would be cooling off in the evening, so I took along an old safari-style jacket and hat.  I really like how the outfit came together:

And here's a closer look at my accessories:

hat from Anthropologie (old), bangles from J. Crew (old) and Sam Edelman Trina sandals

I'm totally in love with these sandals.  I'd been coveting them for a while, so when they went on sale a month or so ago, I went for it.  The heel is metallic silver!  And they're actually quite comfortable.  And of course, they go with my leopard mani ;-)

I know I said this before, but I think I am actually ready to set this pattern aside for now.  Hubby has requested a summer shirt, so that's next on my list. 

One Trick Pony

After a lot of thought and vacillation, a decision has been made.

The Awesome Fabric is well on its way to becoming another Hazel dress, rather than a Lonsdale.

I am at peace with this decision, and have already pulled some great pieces to accessorize it.

And because I bought enough for the Lonsdale (which is twice the amount needed for a Hazel) I'm thinking the leftover can become a cropped Victoria Blazer . . .

Hazel of the Maasai Mara

While I was making my first Hazel dress, I was already planning the second.  I knew I had to try the pattern out with a stripe to take advantage of the interesting bodice design.  So I got onto the Hawthorn Threads website and started scrolling through all the striped fabrics they had.  I found a lot of fabrics I liked, but I absolutely fell in love with one - a faux ikat stripe in blue, green and white.

Now, I'm a lover of ikat fabrics from way back.  When I was in graduate school in the late '80s, I acquired a number of garments made of Guatemalan ikat, including but not limited to:  a bucket hat; a reversible bomber-type jacket with double ikat on one side and single ikat on the other; a couple of fanny packs; and last but most definitely not least, double ikat Hammer Pants.  What can I say?   My fashion choices have, at times, been questionable.

All this is to say that I'm glad ikat is a trend at the moment, even if a lot of what we're seeing is ikat-like prints and not true ikat fabric.  And apparently I've been living under a rock, because it took me until now to discover the Dear Stella Maasai Mara collection, from which my Hazel fabric hails.  This collection was from spring 2012 - now I'm worried I won't be able to get all the prints I want!  And I'm not sure what any of them have to do with a Kenyan game preserve, but they're lovely nonetheless.

Because the background of the fabric is white, I chose to underline this dress as well to keep the seam allowances from showing through.  The bodice is underlined in cotton batiste, but I used a lightweight muslin on the skirt because I wanted something a little more substantial.  I'll admit though that the finished dress is a little on the heavy side.  But the good news is that I don't have to wear a slip if I choose not to.

This time, in order to reduce the bulk a little, I finished my seam allowances with a three-thread overlock instead of my usual four.  I'm really happy with how that worked out and will try to remember to do it that way in the future.  And because my underlining was white and my thread was also white, everything is very clean and neat on the inside, even though it's just serged.  I also really love how easy it is to catch-stitch the hem to the underlining so that it's completely invisible on the outside.

Because I already had all my fitting issues worked out and had just made this pattern less than two weeks ago, it felt like a very easy project.  Still, I worked on it slowly, doing a little bit each day over the span of a week.  Well, actually that's not accurate - there were a couple days when I didn't work on it at all, so let's say five days.  I did add the 2" in length I felt was lacking from the skirt before - something to keep in mind if you make this pattern and you don't want your skirt too short.  I'm only 5'4".

And now here's the good stuff:  I had a lot of fun playing off this Maasai Mara theme.  What does one do in the Maasai Mara?  Go on safari, of course!

Look at that lion!!

Yes.  We have a pith helmet in our home.

Here's a better look at the bodice and the angles the stripes made.  I'm very happy with how this one turned out!

And minus the binoculars, here are the accessories for this fun photo-shoot:

Fake leopard sandals.  Real pith helmet.  And I didn't have time to actually do my nails, but I was planning on using this polish from the China Glaze On Safari collection from last fall - how perfect is that?  Both the name and the color!  Incidentally, this is probably my favorite blue polish.

As much as I love both my Hazel dresses, I think I'm done with the pattern for now.   But expect to see some projects using other fabrics from this Dear Stella line soon!

Hazel Pix, now with more outfits!

I decided to go ahead and grey wall it after all.  We're not going out today as Hubby has lots of work to do and I want to get started on my PJs.  But the sun came out for a little bit so I wanted to take advantage of it!

Speaking of Hubby:  he hadn't seen this dress yet, either on the hanger or on me.  When I put it on today to take pictures, he said, "WOW!  That's a great dress!  I really like the V thing in front.  You did a really professional job!"   Awwwww!!  His contract is up for renewal next week (a.k.a. our anniversary!); I think I'll sign him on for another year, don't you think? 

When I first put the dress on the other day, I was a little disappointed because it seemed like I might have to do a sway-back adjustment - I even lamented about it to a few friends.  (My reluctance to admit I need said adjustment is a topic for another day.)  But today when I put the dress on, it sat in the right place!  I have no idea what the deal is.  Anyway, here's how it looks on my body:

And here are some shots from the side and back to show the fit - pretty darn good if I do say so myself!  Although you can see that my right shoulder and shoulder blade are lower than the left.  Afraid I can't do anything about that!

And here's a closer-up shot of the bodice, again, to give a better look at the fit:

One thing I forgot to mention in my post about the SBA is that I was surprised that doing the adjustment also took care of the poofiness that was happening under the bust in the center of my stomach.  That's a problem I was having on the Peony dress before I gave up on it, so I do plan to revisit that pattern.

Before I move on to the outfits, I want to mention a few more things about the fit, just because these are things I would have loved to read about from other sewers before making the dress - but it seems that more people had to do a FBA on this one than needed the SBA.

Because Colette Patterns are designed for a very different body shape than mine, I have a hard time figuring out what size to make.  I also find that the size numbers are less in line with what I'm used to:  for instance, in Sewaholic Patterns I use a size 6, and in RTW I often need a size 4 or 6 on top.   For this pattern, my bust measurement falls under size 0, but I just couldn't bring myself to believe that was the right size for me.  I did my first muslin in a size 4, and it was too big.  Size 2 with the SBA ended up being almost right - I did have to take in a little at the side seams.  So for reference:

My measurements are:  33" bust, 28" waist, 40" low hip (my widest point)
Size 2 Colette body measurements:  34" bust, 26" waist, 37" hip
Hazel size 2 finished measurements:  35.25" bust, 26.5" waist, 42.25" hem

The skirt is straight; my hip measurement puts me in a size 10 on the envelope.  I wanted my skirt to be slightly full but not too much, so I cut a size 8 skirt with a finished hem of 45.25", giving me about 4.5" of positive ease in the low hip/high thigh.

I have not taken any measurements of my finished dress (though perhaps I ought to), but you can see that I have a nice, close fit at the bust without being constricted and the waist is not too tight - I even have some wiggle room there.  I could easily eat a nice big meal in this dress and still feel comfortable.

Also of note is the fact that I made this dress specifically to fit my most padded bra, which I've always thought takes my B-cup up to a C and which adds about an inch in circumference. 

And finally:  I really think the drawing on the envelope is misleading.  It makes the bodice look much longer in comparison to the skirt than it actually is - I say this after having looked at gazillions of finished Hazels on Flickr.  So this would be one of those patterns that you'd have to say, "No, it did not look like the envelope picture" if you were doing a Pattern Review.


OK, enough analyzing.  Now some outfits!

While I was working on the dress, I kept thinking how well it would go with my beloved Miette sweater, so I'll show you that one first.  I paired it with two different pairs of shoes:

Hazel with Miette sweater and old Boden sandals.

I like that look a lot, but here's the same thing with yellow sandals:

Hazel with Miette sweater and Frye Wanda T-Straps in Lemon.

Then I remembered I had an old Boden sweater and matching sandals that have both turquoise and yellow, in addition to purple and brown:

Hazel with Boden sweater and sandals.  And CHEVRONS!

I think I bought that sweater around 2005 or so - I remember wearing this while I was substitute teaching for a colleague who was on maternity leave.  Who knew I was so far ahead of my time?!

And finally - this surprised me by being my favorite look.  Although since I've always loved turquoise and red together, I shouldn't have been so surprised:

Hazel with Boden sweater and Frye Wanda Ankle Straps in Poppy.

Yeah, I love my Fryes!  I'm cracking myself up in that picture because I was thinking of Rachel's recent fantastic post with modeling tips, but realizing that I only have two poses:  one hand on the hip, or both hands at my sides!  Seriously, no matter what I was doing, as soon as the beeper for the camera timer starts to go off, the hand goes to the hip!  So I tried a different pose for fun:

So, after making these outfits, I'm loving the dress more.  I'm thinking of one more outfit which will involve a lovely vintage necklace and bracelet and my finished Cameo sweater - I'm so close to being done!

Hazel Construction Notes

I put the finishing touches on my Hazel dress this morning, but before I model it, I wanted to post some notes about the construction.  I did a lot of things on this dress that were new to me, so I want to keep a record of it!  And maybe it will be useful information for some of you as well!

I spent five days working on this dress - for me, that's a lot.  The construction is not difficult, but I had decided in advance that I would only work on it a little each day, to try to avoid the mistakes and sloppiness that come with fatigue.  I've got to say, I really enjoyed taking my time on this and just savoring the work!

On Sunday, I finished tracing the pattern and then cut out the pieces.  Since I'd chosen an eyelet fabric, I needed to underline it - which meant cutting out all the pieces twice.

On Monday, I began the process of attaching the underlining to the outer fabric.  My outer fabric is a cotton/poly blend that I bought at Hancock Fabrics a few months ago specifically for this dress, and specifically to make myself try underlining something!  This was my first time, and just like everyone says, it really isn't difficult.  I used a lightweight cotton/poly shirting from my stash in very pale yellow.  I probably would have been better off using something lighter since my outer fabric is on the heavy side, but it was nice to get this piece out of the stash, and I think the colors go together nicely.

I was able to get all the pieces except the skirt back and one of the fronts attached to their underlinings before my bobbin thread ran out.  I decided that was a good place to stop for the day, so I picked it up again on Tuesday.  Once all my pieces were underlined, I continued with the construction and put together the skirt, bodice and straps.  I had cut out pockets, but in the end I decided against them since the dress was already kind of bulky.

On Wednesday, my first task was to do the gathering of the skirt.  I really hate gathering, but I had decided in advance that I would try out Colette's method (outlined in the instructions) of sewing rows of stitching at 3/8", 5/8" and 7/8" - which of course means that once the piece is gathered and sewn to the bodice, the bottom 2 rows of stitching must be taken out.  I was curious if this would help me get a more even gather, and I feel that it did. 

As an aside - do you see my pins?  I've been trying to convert myself from being a Parallel Pinner to being a Perpendicular Pinner!  It's hard to change a habit like that after so many years!

Another thing I've started doing is machine basting my gathered piece to my flat piece before doing a smaller stitch.  You know, like you're supposed to!  I always used to skip the basting, but I've really come to believe that basting is my friend. 

I was proud of myself that I did the gathering stitches in a contrasting color (red), which made them much easier to pick out afterwards.  Here you can see the yellow I used to attach the underlining, the red gathering stitches, and the blue seam.

Two lines of blue stitching:  one basting, and one shorter stitch.

On Wednesday, I also attached the zipper.  I used Sunni's method (from her Craftsy class) of basting in the zipper with fusible web - this method is really working well for me.  I did find that the 22" zipper called for on the pattern envelope was way too long for the opening given on the actual pattern - next time I'll probably buy an 18" zipper.  No problem though, I just sewed my own stop and cut off the rest.

As usual, I finished all the edges with my serger.  I've been having a little trouble with Sergio lately, but I think it's sorted now, thank goodness!  I can no longer imagine life without him!

 
Once I had the zipper in, I was able to try on the dress, and was surprised that the bodice was a tiny bit loose!  I had been worried it would be a little tight because my fabrics were so bulky.  I ended up shaving off 1/8" at the side seams, starting from the underarm and angling to nothing at the waist, since the bodice was already attached to the skirt and the zipper was in!  I was a good girl and immediately noted the changes on my pattern as well, and made the same change to the facing pieces.  Hard to believe that 1/8" at the side could make such a difference, but when you add it up, it's 1/2" overall - pretty significant!

I had the dickens of a time attaching the straps - I probably spent close to an hour yesterday positioning them with pins, trying the dress on, taking it off, basting the straps, trying it on again, picking out the stitches, repeating the process.  Finally I decided to set it aside until today when I was fresh.

This morning, I had a brainstorm:  part of the problem with trying to attach the straps was that I didn't have enough hands to hold the dress up while trying to position them!  So I basted the straps onto the back, then put on the dress and pinned it right to my bra so it would stay up on its own.  That left me free to pin the straps in place just where they needed to be.  My right shoulder is about 1/2' lower than my left, so I really wanted to make sure I got them each the correct length.

I had also noticed when I was trying on my muslin that my bra straps lined up with the seam at the back of the bodice, so I attached them there rather than using the markings from the pattern.  I think it's so great to have a strappy sundress like this that completely covers up my bra straps!

Placing those straps was probably the hardest part of making this dress!  But once I had them basted on, I knew I was almost finished.  I attached my facing with no trouble at all, and took Lisa's recommendation to use pick stitch to do the understitching.  It really felt nice to do the final bits of work by hand - meditative!  And I always have a hard time with understitching by machine, so this was easier for me.

When I had the dress on for placing the straps, I also checked the length.  As written, this dress is shorter than I'd usually choose - and that's with the added length of a size 8 skirt attached to my size 2 bodice.  Next time I will add a couple inches on so I can do a proper hem.  Since I hadn't thought of it this time though, I sewed some cream cotton voile binding left over from my first quilt to the bottom edge, then folded that back and hand catch-stitched the hem to the underlining.  This ended up being a good solution for this fabric:  a double-folded hem would just have been too bulky with this embroidered fabric.

And here it is, inside and out:

It looks quite nice on, although I can't really say it's my most favorite thing I've ever made (my floral coat takes that prize!)  I chose the eyelet in part because I wanted to be in on the trend, but I don't really think it's the best choice for showing off the style lines of this design.  And while there are imperfections here and there, both in fit and in construction, I'm pretty proud of the work I did and the time and care I put into this dress.  And I feel really good for having tried a couple of things that were intimidating me:  the SBA and underlining.  So now I feel like I can move forward and continue honing these new skills on Hazel Dress #2, for which I've already purchased fabric.

With any luck, I'll have time and light enough in the next couple days to take some pictures.  I've already been thinking of outfits and shoes to go with this dress!

Over the Moon! (plus lots of name-dropping)

I made a muslin, y'all!  A real, proper muslin of a bodice!  And not only that:  the muslin was made from a pattern I altered with a SBA (Small Bust Adjustment)!  Wooot!  Can you tell I'm proud of myself?!  Baby's first SBA!

Let me back up a little.  A few months ago I came across a lovely new blog via the Colette Patterns group on Flickr, Blanca Pate, written by the equally lovely Amanda.  Let me just interject that not only do I love Amanda's style, I also love her attitude toward sewing - she seems to take her time and focus on creating a beautiful finished garment that is "just so"  -  inside and out.  I should take a leaf from her book  . . .

Anyway, Amanda had made a Hazel sundress, and it caught my eye.  It was a pattern that I had loved from afar since its release, but had always assumed wouldn't work for me because of, you know, "the girls" (or rather, lack thereof).  I clicked through to Amanda's post about her dress anyway, and:  "Wait a minute!  What?!  She did a SBA?!?!?!  You can do that with this pattern?!?"  Seriously, it had never occurred to me!  The following week found me at the Needle Shop, buying the pattern.  And since I was there, I picked up Lily too.

And then . . . nothing.  I wasn't really sure how to proceed.  I consulted my books regarding the SBA; I googled and googled looking for information.  But nowhere could I find instructions for doing bust adjustments on Dior darts (a.k.a side bust darts).  Plain old darts, sure.  Princess seams: easy.  But put the two together and I was baffled!  Amanda had very kindly directed me to this post by Symondezyn on doing a FBA for this pattern, but even after reading through it a few times, I still couldn't quite wrap my head around it.

I put the project on the back burner for a while, and then shortly before we left for SF, I decided to trace out the pattern and just give it a try.  I'd read all the reviews I could find; some said the bodice fit was loose, others felt it was on the small side.  Because I span several sizes in Colette, I decided to start at size 4, although my chest measurement puts me in a size 0 and my waist comes in at a size 6.  Also, my limited experience with Colette patterns has lead me to believe that they're drafted for women whose "apex" is front and center.  My "apices" kind of veer off to the side, so I wanted to give them some room. 

Anyhow, I got as far as doing the SBA on the tracing and cutting out my fabric, and then it sat some more.  But the other day, prompted by Miss Lulu's commitment to dealing with her UFO pile, I decided to get back to it.  I sewed up my adjusted size 4 bodice muslin and was surprised that the fit wasn't really too bad.  It was just a tad large overall, so I decided to make a second muslin one size down.  Yep, you read that right:  TWO muslins!  I'm killin'!

This afternoon, after finishing all my chores, I sat down with it again.  I retraced the pattern in a size 2, then made my markings and shifted the front piece for the SBA:

The overlap is about 3/16" - so I guess that's a SBA of 3/8" because you're taking that off twice?  I still don't quite get that part!

Shifting the pieces takes the seam lines out of true (see upper left corner):

It was easier for me to retrace the whole thing with the seamlines trued before proceeding.  Once I'd done that, I walked this and the adjoining piece together to figure out how much length I needed to remove:

Then I re-traced the whole thing one more time so I'd have a nice, neat pattern piece to work from.

I ended up not shaving any of the curve off the side bodice, because it wasn't that pronounced to begin with.  It just looked right to me.

You can see that on all my pieces, I drew in the seam lines, which made it a lot easier to walk the seams and be accurate.

Once my pattern was adjusted I cut it out and sewed it up, then gave it a nice press.  I really wasn't expecting it to fit well, mostly because I didn't make any adjustments for my larger waist.  I figured I'd tackle one adjustment at a time, and the waist is much easier to deal with - I can do that at the side seams.

So imagine my surprise and elation when it fit PERFECTLY!  Well, at least across the front, which is the problematic part.  I'll have to get Hubby to pin the back closed for me over the weekend so I can get a true assessment of the fit.    But hey - even if it's a little off, the major hurtle has been jumped.

And I was quite surprised to see when I held it together in the back that even the waist is a good fit.  I'm a little long-waisted, so this hits about an inch and half above my waist - an area that I believe measures larger than my natural waist - so, go figure.  I did try to take flat pattern measurements of the bodice at the bust (to no avail) but forgot to do it at the waist, so I was kind of flying blind.  But it all worked out.

So what have I learned?  Well, SBAs aren't really as difficult and tricky as I'd been imagining, and the small investment of time gives a big pay-off.  Also, a muslin is a very useful thing.  I may be changing my ways . . .  at least for more fitted garments like this.

So now I have a small dilemma.  I had planned to work on my PJs over the weekend for Karen's Pyjama Party - are you guys in?  But now I'm feeling that I'd like to work up a first go of this dress!  Meanwhile, I have three finished garments I need to photograph so I can show you guys:  one I finished before the trip and two I've made since coming back.  I'm planning on wearing the first one to a jazz concert tonight, so I may get a pic of it today.  We're finally having some decent weather around here!

Put down your pencils.

Work on the pencil skirt is ongoing.  After assembling most of the shell on Thursday, I decided that I wanted to pick out the back seam and do it again.  The problem though with finding a very close match between thread and fabric is that it can be difficult to see your stitches to pick them out!  By the time I'd gotten to that point, it was late afternoon and there wasn't enough light to see what I was doing, so I set it aside.

On Friday, I decided that what I really needed right away was some dark brown narrow-leg pants.  It's an item I'd been feeling I was missing for quite a while:  there have been so many times in the last months that I've wanted to wear a top, but felt I needed these pants to make the perfect outfit.  While I was at Vogue last week getting the fabric and notions for the pencil skirt I happened to find some stretch cotton twill in the exact shade of brown I'd been wanting, so I snapped up two yards.  On Friday, I washed it up and made it into my third pair of Clovers.

These aren't any different than the first two pairs I made.  I made the longer length, without the pockets,  using the pattern adjustments I'd made in my muslin.  The only difference this time was that I used the invisible zipper foot on my new sewing machine.  And WOW!  That thing makes a big difference:

And it makes it so easy.  I did discover though that I don't like the normal zipper foot on the Janome at all.  It's quite a bit wider than the one on my Kenmore, which made sewing the seam below the zipper difficult.

Yesterday I finally got around to "fixing" a top I'd bought on sale at Anthropologie maybe three years ago.  I bought it because the fabric is a design by Vera Neumann (whose scarves I collect and love).  I don't think the shape is fantastic for me (it does come with a waist tie, but I opted not to wear it today) but the fabric is so pretty, and it goes with my new pants!  However, like a lot of my tops from Anthropologie, the shoulders were way too high, so the neckline hung too low.  Because we had a lot of sun yesterday morning, I got out my seam ripper and unpicked the binding around the neck, then took each shoulder in by an inch (half inch front and back) and restitched the binding on.  It's still not a perfect fit, but it's a lot better than it was, and I think I'm more likely to wear it now.

I know - it makes me look preggers.

I'm not bothering to show any details of the Clovers because you've all seen a million pairs of these pants by now!  For me, and with my alterations, these are both comfy and flattering.  The only thing I don't like, and haven't yet figured out how to fix, is the amount of bulk where the right waistband seam meets the side seam.  No matter how much fabric I trim away, it's always bulgy there.  Any ideas?

I wore this outfit to go have coffee with Alicia this morning, but since it was chilly, I also had to put on a sweater:

And my new Meandering Vines scarf.  As I was taking pictures, the sunlight was coming and going.  The complete outfit shot was super sunny:

Oooh, the mother ship is here!

There has also been a good bit of progress on the Exeter sweater.  I'm hoping to do an update some time this week.  I've also got a house that could really use a good cleaning.  So I think work on The Pencil is at a temporary standstill.  Good thing I don't really need a pencil skirt.

Better Late than Never!

Remember back in June when Alicia and I went to Vogue and ended up each getting a remnant of the same border print?  We promised a co-blog project, each of us making a different project with our fabric.  We've both finally finished, and yesterday we had a nice outing to a yarn shop and then lunch, and we both wore our new garments.  Niecey-poo was kind enough to snap a couple of pictures for us.

We were laughing because we'd had a couple of funny outtakes before we got this picture!

I love Alicia's skirt so much, and I'm not the only one - when we were in the yarn shop, a girl actually came up to her and asked her how she made it!  So flattering.

I ended up making the Lisette Portfolio top, and I must say, I'm kind of in love with it!  Much more than I was expecting to be.  I had hoped to make the tunic length, but the fabric wasn't wide enough to make the print work, so I had to go with the top.  I was worried that it would be too cropped, but with a narrow hem, I think it came out just right.  I wore it with my red Clover pants, but I also like it with jeans.

I made this over 2 days right before Niecey-poo came, and took a bunch of great in-progress shots.  But somehow, they all got lost in the demise of my old computer.  I tried to take a few shots of the blouse itself yesterday morning, but it was very cloudy so they're not great.

 

 

front

back

I spent a long time on this top, and was very careful with all my details.  Consequently, I think it's one of the best things I've ever made.  I finished all the seams except the center back by serging both layers together.  But I'm most proud of my stitch-in-the-ditch around the neck.  That's a technique I find really difficult, so I did it very slowly, sometimes even hand-cranking at the curves, and got a result I'm very pleased with.  I decided to go with a machine-stitched hem because my thread was a good match, and I didn't think it would detract from the overall look.

finished seam and hem

front inset

This fabric was so nice to work with.  It's very lightweight - I'd call it a lawn.  The label just said cotton, but Alicia thinks there might be a little silk in it, and I agree with her.  It has a very nice drape that's almost floaty, and it doesn't press as crisply as a cotton would.  I love it so much, when I found three more remnants of it at another location of Vogue, I bought them!

For details on Alicia's skirt, head on over to Iron-On Maiden!