Whew! Nothing like
Me Made May to make remember that I still have a blog. Last year was really
busy (hence the radio silence) but there was lots of sewing going on. In fact that included a fashion show where I
sent six looks down the runway that I created.
But enough about the past, let’s talk about sewing!
Allie J has started hosting a social sewing series and to
kick everything off the theme for April was April Showers. This was perfect timing as in my sewing queue
I had a dress was the most obvious interpretation of the theme.
This is Sew House Seven’s Mississippi Ave
dress made out of raindrop print double gauze. I bought the PDF of this pattern
way back in August 2015 as part of the Sew Independent’s Sewing Indie Month
Bundle. It reminded a lot of a favorite
Anthropologie dress with the partial elastic waist but smooth front but I was
neck deep in fashion show sewing so I had to resist the temptation. Fast forward to April 2016 and it seemed like
the perfect spring dress. I found the
double gauze at my local Pacific Fabrics and while I knew I wanted to make a
dress out of it I finally decided that this was a pattern and fabric match made
in heaven.
Having never sewn a Sew House Seven pattern before I did
a quickie muslin of the bodice and kinda pulled it close to simulate how it
would look with elastic and gathered shoulders.
The fit seemed pretty good and my bra wasn’t peeking out so I decided to
move forward and cut the double gauze. Tracing
the pattern was quick since there’s not that many pieces and everything seemed
to line up pretty well. I appreciated that the cutting layout was set up with
directional prints in mind and with a few minor tweaks I was able to have
enough remaining fabric left over to make something else. To be fair I chose
not to cut out the shoulder ties or neck and armhole bias strips because I was
a little worried about bulk. Cutting my
fabric didn’t take much time at all so I was able to start sewing right away. I
sewed this dress up over a couple evenings.
I used my serger to finish my seams although it did start acting up a
couple times so a few edges look less than perfect. The waist on the dress is intended to be slightly
above the natural waist. My waist measurement is pretty small so next time I might
lower it an inch so it does sit on my natural waist.
I found some lovely Cotton + Steel lawn on another trip to
Pacific Fabrics that perfectly matches the occasional turquoise raindrop in the
print. I used this on my neck and
armhole bias facings. Next time I will cut
it a bit narrower and use it more as a binding.
On some of the curves it seemed a little excessively wide but nothing
that a bunch of steam from my iron couldn’t force into submission. I had some left over bias strip and cut that
in half lengthwise for the shoulder ties.
The bias will discourage fraying and allow me to skip tying knots at the
ends. This will make it a bit less bulky
under a close fitting cardigan.
Here in Seattle we’ve had a weirdly dry and warm April
but that wasn’t the case yesterday when I wore it for the first time. But even with the cool weather and my low
tolerance to cold I was plenty warm during the day without needing to add
tights. I can see wearing this dress a
lot – even during early fall. I also have fabric set aside to make another that
will be even easier to layer up and keep wearing all year.
I’ve been waiting until the very eve of Me Made May to
figure out this year’s challenge. I spent
a lot of time trying to decide how to make it a bit different from the past but
also fit into my everyday life. In the
end I accepted that my usual pledge would be more of a challenge this year so
it wasn’t necessary to come up with anything new. This has everything to do with my newish
puppy. Daily trips to the dog park don’t
really play nice with pretty dresses that you wish to keep clean. There’s always the chance of getting jumped
up on and considering the park has lake access odds are high that those paws
are muddy. So really I just want to
avoid wearing a me-made top and the same jeans every day, even if that means
multiple wardrobe changes throughout the day.
So here we go…
'I, Erin of fisforflamingo.blogspot.com &
@fisforflamingo (Instagram) sign up as a participant of Me-Made-May '16. I endeavor
to wear at least one handmade item each day and hopefully fully me-made two
days a week for the duration of May 2016.'
I’m really looking forward to checking out what everyone
else is up to this month and picking up tons of inspiration!
