A Plain Dress

I haven't had much time or inclination lately to do a lot of sewing.  But on Wednesday I got the bug, and I had a free day.  So I made up a dress I've been thinking about for a long time:  a lengthened version of the Dixie DIY Ballet Dress I've made 3 times already (one of which I never even blogged).

When I made my last Girl Charlee order over the summer, I bought 3 yards of Olive Green Solid cotton/spandex.  My aim was to make a dress similar to one I had about 20 years ago (yikes!) and wore to death - just a simple, olive green, mid-calf length t-shirt dress.  This fabric was billed on the GC site as midweight, but of course it's not that heavy.  Can you tell I'm getting discouraged with their offerings?  So many times the fabrics I've received have not been what I thought I would be getting.  But I digress . . .

I read a lot of reviews before buying the Ballet Dress pattern that said the sleeves were quite wide. I  know that Dixie updated the pattern a while ago and slimmed them down.  But I decided to use the 3/4 sleeve pattern from the Renfrew tee, mostly because I had never bothered to trace the longer sleeve from the Ballet Dress pattern and the Renfrew sleeve was sitting there, ready to go.  I did walk the sleeve cap around the armscye before cutting, to make sure the two would go together, and it's a perfect fit!

To lengthen the skirt, I extended the center front and side seam lines by a lot - 14 inches, because I wasn't really sure how much longer I wanted it to be.  After the dress was put together, I ended up chopping off three inches, then turning the hem back by 1.25".  I fused Fine Fusible Knit Stay Tape to the hemline before turning it back, just to see how I liked it.  And it did give me a nice, firm yet flexible edge for hemming.  I chose to do a zigzag hem rather than coverstitch because I had a little bit of thread left from another project that was almost the same color.

The rest of the dress was constructed entirely on the serger.  The only other change I made was to lengthen the neckline binding like I did before, to 19.5".  I see in my notes from that dress that I ought to have increased my swayback adjustment, but didn't remember until after the dress was done!

The shape of the dress is just what I had in mind.  I only wish the fabric were a little heavier; it clings to all my lumpy bits and is more revealing than I'm comfortable with.  I chose the least revealing photo, and I'm wearing tights and a slip underneath:

Still, it's a good dress for layering with my knitwear, like this:

Outfit details:  Sweater:  Evie by Kim Hargreaves; belt:  Loft, old; boots:  Born Tatiana, old; scarf:  Vera Neumann, super old!

This is one of my collection of vintage Vera scarves.  I've probably got about 45 of them at this point.  I just love her artwork.  This one is quite large, and all silk.

Lately it seems all I want to do is knit, and I've succumbed to a bout of Start-it-itis.  But I did manage to finish something, and took photos today while I had this dress on, so I'll be sharing that one tomorrow.

Do you guys ever try to recreate garments you had years ago?  I usually shy away from any of the styles I wore in the '90s, but the original dress (from Tweeds mail-order catalog - anybody else remember that?) was such a simple shape, it's really pretty timeless.  I'd like to do this dress in other colors, if I can find some heavier knits to work with.

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.

The 1958 Sweater

It's been done for almost a week, and yesterday I finally took some time to do a little photo shoot.  Strap on your seat belts - it's going to be a long ride!!  I couldn't decide which picture I liked best, so I'm putting them all up!

I am thrilled with this sweater.  The fit is just perfect.  It's not the softest yarn out there, but it's comfortable.  It wasn't the most fun to knit with, but it sure does give nice stitch definition.  I won't bore you with the details again - here's the Ravelry page with all the particulars.

So here I am, in my best faux-vintage get-up.  I apologize for the photos being a little dark.  That's just the way it goes in Chicago in the winter!  I had every light in the place on, and I took these at noon!

I was trying to mimic the poses the model in the magazine was doing.  Here she is, with one of my vintage Vera scarves, this one from the early 1960s:

I like that pose because you can see my cute little kitten heels.  And how do you like my faux beehive?  This is about as beehivy as my hair will get, discounting the fact that it usually looks like something is nesting in there anyway since I'm not a fan of brushing it!

And how about that skirt?  That, folks, is a magic skirt.  No matter how much or little I weigh, it still fits and looks great!  I made it probably around winter of 2000 from a pattern from Burda magazine, to which I subscribed for a couple of years way back when.  Sadly, when we moved to Chicago 3 years ago, I thought I probably wouldn't get into sewing again and got rid of all the magazines AND the patterns I had traced from them!  URGH!  I would love to make this skirt  again.  It has interesting sideways darts at the front:

And take a look at the way I used to do "invisible" zippers.  I've learned to do it properly this year!

But this skirt is fully lined and even has a back vent, of which I'm quite proud:

Here's one final look at the sweater, because I want you to notice the nice leather buttons I found:

I have a feeling I'll be making at least one more sweater from that particular magazine . . .

Some knitting. Sort of.

I've finished all the pieces for Jewel, and have steamed them.  I even bought some buttons.  Now they are sitting on my ironing board waiting for me to sew the whole thing together.

Sad, lonely knitting.

But I just can't get myself motivated to do it.  I blame it on the weather.  I'm probably exaggerating, but it seems as if it's been two solid weeks of rain, grey skies and cool temperatures.  All I want to do is curl up in bed.

In wishing for spring, I was thinking about how much I like the color combination of navy blue and pink, a la this Vera scarf:

Vintage Vera Neumann scarf
silk, 1960s

 . . . and the ladybug.  Isn't she cute?

So I dug out one of the two OPI polishes I own (if you don't count all the "black labels" I'm slowly getting rid of):  Dating a Royal.

OPI Dating a Royal

I bought this several months ago, when I was dying for the China Glaze Anchors Away collection to be released so I could have First Mate.  But when I got it home I decided it was a poor substitute and never tried it out.  The other day, I saw mention of it on some website or other (honestly, I look at dozens every day and can't keep track!) saying it was a jelly.  What??!!  I love jellies!!  And sure enough, it's gorgeous!  Perhaps I ought to mention that I still haven't gotten around to trying First Mate, so I'm not sure how they compare.

After basecoat, two coats of Dating a Royal, a coat of Seche Vite and ten minutes, I broke out another new Bundle Monster plate, BM224, and China Glaze Admire:

Admire is a pink metallic, but I couldn't get it to photograph as pink.  I blame the murky Chicago light.  And by the way, isn't that little candle adorable?  My BFF gave me a set of five, each with a different flower.  I put them in our guest room because they look cute with the duvet in there!

Kristen commented yesterday wondering how the stamps work.  There are lots of great tutorials to be found on YouTube - just search Konad.  There is also a non-video demo here that shows the technique very simply (scroll about halfway down the page to see it).

Not much of a surprise

Well, I just couldn't hack it.  Knitting those socks on that tiny circular needle just about did me in, and after the first couple rows of the main pattern, I switched back to my trusty bamboo DPNs:

Primavera Socks

I'm really happy with the way these are turning out - the colors are giving the very subtle striped effect I was expecting.  In looking up the pattern in my projects on Ravelry, I got a little giggle.  The first time I made these, three years ago, was also the first time I ever used TOFUtsies, and I wasn't too crazy about it then.  But now it is one of my favorite sock yarns, and I'm a little dismayed that I'm having a hard time finding it.  It's easy enough to find online, but none of the LYSs I frequent seem to carry it.  For me, sock yarn is usually an impulse purchase in a yarn shop.  Like the other day, when I bought these:

Mmmmm . . . pink!

We had driven over to Oak Park with Mom, so she could visit the first apartment she ever lived in when she moved to the US in 1956; it's still there!  We ended up getting really hungry, and I found a little place for lunch that just happened to be opposite Knot Just Knits.  Of course, fifteen minutes later, I was walking out with these lovelies.  And Mom walked out with four balls of the same, two in pale blue and two in a lilac purple.

And what was I wearing on my nails as all this was taking place?

Essie Cute as a Button

I'm on day three of this mani - something of a record for me - and it still looks fresh.  I have one tiny little  nick on my right index finger, but it's probably not visible to anyone but me.  This is three coats, and it still isn't completely opaque, but I like it.  A bright, cheerful coral.  It's probably going to get Konaded today . . .

And I'm holding on to a Vera Neumann scarf I acquired recently.  This one probably dates to the mid-1960s.  It has the most adorable border of hand-drawn fringe:

My newest Vera

I'm not quite sure how large my collection is now . . . maybe I should count.