cynthia of yore

I love the photos of myself where I'm trying to be candid and coy, but it just looks like I'm sleeping while standing up. Oh, the riveting process of blog modeling! Honkchoo.

The pattern here is a Cynthia Rowley design from Simplicity 2215. Gah, commercial pattern. Printed on tissue! I've had this pattern forever (i.e. <2 years) but chose to ignore it once I witnessed Cynthia Rowley being mean to Mondo on Project Runway. Old news. I'm over it. I had sewer's block a couple weeks ago so went digging through my pattern collection to try to see my old patterns in a new light. This pattern comes with an option for a dress, a button-down sleeveless shirt, and a pleated skirt. The "design elements" include an option for fringed edges (no joke) and an asymmetrically pleated skirt.

Dang, girl, those are some shoes. Not sure I understand the styling connection there. What would Nina Garcia say? What would she say about MY outfit?! Ha, yikes, I don't wanna know.

I made the dress view A as written, except I made my skirt pleats symmetrical. I thought they might look sloppy otherwise. If you've found this blog post because you're hoping to make the collared shirt from this pattern, I will tell you that there is no collar stand to the collared shirt. If you care about that sort of thing. Which I do. I think. I wish they would make details more clear before you purchase a whole pattern.

This project was refreshing for me, actually. It was very straightforward, and I felt like I hadn't made anything in this style lately. I guess I've been making a lot of bullshit jersey dresses (behind the blog scenes), so it was satisfying to work with a stable woven cotton that pressed and folded like a dream. I haven't made a Simplicity pattern from start to finish in almost a year now. I typically sew with indie patterns or McCall's because they're more hip and fresh, yea, maybe? This dress here is not very hip and fresh, but I thought it might look delightfully French or something. I did worry that the high neckline, adorableness of the buttons, and blue color would make me look like an Amish schoolgirl. To remedy this a bit, I lowered the neckline about an inch and shortened the hem to above-knee length. Jury's still out.

This fabric is from the (gasp) home decor fabric section at JoAnn. It's 100% cotton that looks like, uh, a curtain. I originally intended it to be a bottom of some sort. The fabric is pretty structured for a bodice, but I thought I'd try it anyway because it was the only fabric in my stash that was woven, non-wool, and in a quantity above one yard. Someone needs to go shoppppping. I made a size 12 but it ended up being too big, so I shaved down the side seams. It's still roomy in the bust and under the bust, but you can only tell when I slouch. Which is always.

This pattern is drafted to have a fully lined bodice and unlined skirt. I used lightweight cotton print scraps from Fabric.com for the lining. I never used to bother adding fun fabrics in hidden details of my sewn garments, but it truly does make the whole thing more enjoyable to sew and wear. Why's that?

It can be tricky to fully line a sleeveless bodice with a zipper, and you have to decide which edge(s) you're going to hand-sew or how else to master the origami to keep all the seams hidden. On this particular pattern, they sacrifice the zipper opening and have you treat the bodice and lining as one when attaching the zipper. I realize after the fact that I'm not a fan of this, because I hate the look of the inside of a zipper when it's not covered up. It spoils the clean beauty of the lined bodice. You can see my crooked stitching from where I improvised a hand-picked zipper, and see the serger thread I refused to switch from white to navy. Ick. Yuck.

Boooooo. The outside looks okay, though, despite how I used a regular zipper when I much prefer invisible. Again, dismal stash! Feel sorry for me!

I think this dress will look best when layered up for fall. I couldn't resist wearing my new Franco Sarto wedge boots (here, only in black) in this photo shoot, though I'm not normally the type to wear boots with bare legs and I know it looks kind of hokey. I'm just excited to wear real leather on my feet instead of Payless plastic! I'm trying to become a grown up who makes investments in quality items, you see. A grownup who makes dresses that look like school uniforms? Yeah, well, oh well. 

Have you revisited an old(ish) pattern lately?

sew bossy

The word "bossy" is funny to me. I haven't used it to describe anyone since elementary school, back when most kids didn't understand social graces and were total egocentric maniacs. Bossy girls were the worst girls (especially if they were bossy AND braggy). As a calm, quiet kid, I was often getting barked at by the bossy types.

But lemme just say the term has lessened in severity in my mind because I've actually had great bosses in my professional life. And when it comes to SEW BOSSY girls, they're totally the best girls. Bloggers Closet Case Files and Oonaballoona jump-started this idea when they swapped mystery packages of fabric and patterns and "bossed" each other into sewing them up for themselves. They have since invited other bloggers to play along in the Sew Bossy Initiative, which you can read more about on Heather's blog here. It's really just a way to bond with our beloved bloggers and challenge ourselves to sew something we wouldn't necessarily have chosen otherwise.

I've always enjoyed following the projects made by Sophie, the byootiful sewing ninja mama behind Cirque-du-Bebe, but I totally bubbled up with admiration and adoration for her during our Project Sewn adventures together. In the beginning I predicted she'd win the whole thing, and of course she did! She has such a keen eye for beautiful fabrics and prints, and her style is bold, sweet, fun, classic, sassy and refined all at the same time. So when she asked if I wanted to get a lil' bossy and swap projects with her, I knew I was in good hands. And yes, the woman delivered:

Sophie sent me the goods all the way from Brisbane, Australia. In a package covered with puffy alligator stickers! The fabric she sent is a floral print silk from the fabric store where she works (lucky ducky job). It honestly scared the sh*t out of me because I've never worked with silk before so I figured it would end in disaster. Turns out all you need is a sharp microtex needle, a rotary cutter and a LOT of fabric starch.

The pattern is the Pattern Runway Coffee Date Dress. Pattern Runway is also an Australian-based company that sells PDFs of their cute patterns via Etsy. If you've been paying attention to Pattern Runway's recent releases, then you probably recognize this pattern + fabric combo:

HEY, samesies! This is a first for me: sewing a dress in the same fabric as the sample dress on the pattern model. I mean, when do you ever get that opportunity? Turns out the Pattern Runway HQ is located just an hour away from Brisbane, so the designer and Sophie seem to shop the same sweet spots. The colors are obviously very different from each other in these photos; in real life, the fabric is much less pink and glowy than you see on the model, and a little brighter and less red than you see on me. 

You'll also notice I scooped out the neckline, which I find more flattering with my face shape and a little less puritan. Changing the neckline ended up being quite the ordeal because I'm really a pretty haphazard seamstress, but I'll gloss over that mess. I mostly followed the pattern but finished the neckline with bias tape instead of a facing. I also didn't blind-stitch the hem because this silk is so thin and delicate that my hand stitching on the wide hem quickly started looking like a hot bubbly mess.

Love these pockets.

I actually made a muslin of this dress first, because I wasn't going to blindly cut into the fancy silk that flew all the way across the open sea to reach me. I made a size 38 in the bodice and waist and graded out to a 42 in the hips. I was worried about the straight skirt but the whole thing actually fit pretty well from the get-go.

On my final version I did remove a sizable wedge of fabric from the center front bodice, because all that pleating otherwise formed a droopy sack of fabric in the middle of my bosom. Now that's how you score dates, ladies. 

I've never sewn or worn a skirt vent like this before, but I like that it doesn't flash any thigh when I walk. Have you ever walked behind a woman whose slip is sticking out of the vent of her skirt, or the back slit of her skirt is cut so high that it's a little scandalous? Anyway, no fear here with the clever fabric pyramid attached from within:

This is the color of the dress in more direct sunlight, and you can tell the fabric is pretty sheer. I will definitely wear a slip with this in public.

The dress actually has back shoulder darts! Hallelujah for us broader backed gals. Why is that so rare these days?

The waistband sits a little higher than I normally like (I think it was my fault due to my bodice alteration), and the skirt may be a weeeeee bit short for work, but otherwise I'm pretty pleased with how the dress turned out. I'm grateful to Sophie for sending me such a lovely package and bossing me into sewing florals and sewing silk for the first time. What a peach! 

And of course, thanks to Heather and Oona for hosting the Sew Bossy Initiative. I hope we made them proud.

In honor of my Pattern Runway dress, I had the newest episode of Project Runway playing on my living room TV while I was taking these photos. I kept getting distracted and watching the screen while my camera timer was going off. I caught my genuine reaction to one of the designs, in a series of eight continuous shots, so I had to post it as a GIF. I didn't realize I was so expressive when looking at crazy fashion:

The contestants would probably have the same reaction to the things I sew, too, ha.

Run, don't walk, over to Sophie's blog to see what I bossed her into sewing: HERE. SHE'S SO CUTE OMG

weddin' goin' dress

As a dressmaker (is that an up-to-date word for someone who doesn't do this professionally?), I am a firm believer that sewing a new dress is required any time I attend someone's wedding. No question. Mostly because a wedding is usually a reunion of sorts where I see all my friends and/or family at once, so I have to be ready to appease all the "Did you make that?" inquiries. And because it's one of the few formal occasions I get to attend all year, so I enjoy the excuse of working with shinier, silkier fabrics. And of course there's just that modern mentality that most women have regarding special occasions, which is that they don't want to be "seen" wearing something they have worn before.

My boyfriend's cousin got married in Baltimore last weekend (congrats Jordan!) so I had to make a new dress to wear. It was an obligation to myself. What you see here is actually my third attempt. As I mentioned in my previous post, I almost finished a Colette Chantilly dress and realized in the home stretch that it added 8 million pounds to my frame (tooooo many gathers at the chest and waist). Then I tried to recreate the silhouette I used for my pleated sundress for Project Sewn. Who knows what happened but the chest was too tight and my fabric too heavy. SO I cut into dress #3 and hoped it'd be wearable at the very least. 

This is a frankenpattern. It was a relatively informal garden wedding so I didn't want to get too fancy. I knew I wanted a wrap bodice but a non-wrap skirt, so I used the bodice front and back of Butterick See & Sew 5546 (my other version seen here) and the circley skirt of McCalls 6599 (version seen here). I used the sash from the Butterick pattern but instead of sewing it to the dress and weaving it through one of the sides, it's just a free belt that is tied in a bow and held up with thread loops. I used Suzanne's video tutorial for making the thread loops (found at the end of her post here). Speaking of Suzanne, where's she been lately anyways?! Not like I'm one to talk about bloggy silence.

I drafted some tulip sleeves using this tutorial. They look cute and hang flat on the dress as is, but the bottom layer tends to scrunch up on my arms while I'm wearing it. Not sure if I should have laid the sleeve parts differently, or just made them larger. Womp.

The fabric is a soft silky polyester something from JoAnn. That was a rare awesome shopping trip, because I stumbled across like four different cute geometric prints in apparel fabrics that I actually liked. I'm glad I wasn't wearing nice fabric (or nice shoes -- but I don't own nice shoes) the night of the wedding, because it started pouring rain in the middle of the outdoor dance party and we all got happily soaked and muddied up to the sweet tunes of J. Timberlake.

The thing I forgot about the stupid McCall's skirt was that it's supposed to sit on your lower waist, not your natural waist. So, thinking it was going to be knee-length otherwise, I immediately chopped off two generous inches from the hem before attaching the skirt to the waist of my bodice. ...Which meant that it hiked the skirt up an additional two or more inches. Ooof. If I could do this dress over, I'd definitely make it a bit longer, especially for a grandma-friendly festivity, but I decided to brave it because I had no other options. I did wear a camisole at the wedding, however. This low neckline is for the internet's eyes only. ;) ;) Here we be IRL, hot and frizzy and me without jewelry because I forgot to pack it:

Corey's wearing the floral shirt I made him. I lazily didn't make his collar buttons functional, thinking he wouldn't ever need them, so when he went to put on his tie he couldn't undo the buttons. Ha, sorry. But dudes aren't supposed to wear a short sleeved shirt and a tie anyways, right? Would you call him a Dwight Schrute or a fashion daredevil?

Do you tend to make a new dress to wear to every new wedding? I'm sure if there were enough weddings in one summer, I wouldn't. Well, who knows. I DO love making dresses...

project sewn: signature style

The last challenge! I've made it to the top three of Project Sewn and I can't thank you all enough for voting for my looks and being true sweetheartz. I hope that the whole series has inspired some of you to sew more for yourselves or start creating in general, as that's what it's intended to do. What has been your favorite theme so far?

The guideline for this week's theme "Signature Style" was: "Design a look for yourself that is all you---your look, your style, what you love to make and wear." Perfect. I love making and wearing things that I love to make and wear. 

As you probably know, I kinda only wear dresses and skirts (see here, here and here for evidence). Casual dresses mostly, made in solids, stripes/plaids or geometric prints. Feminine silhouettes but nothing frilly. No embellishments, no ruffles, no ric rac. Pink is limited. Kinda preppy and modest, but also kinda cool (maybe?). Fitted waistline required, fitted skirts discouraged (less so lately, though). Must be beltable. Must pair well with a cardigan or cropped jacket. If it's not neutral, it's probably blue, red, or something in that color family. Must be able to be cut, sewn and finished in about a week or else I'll get bored. If it's not office-appropriate (i.e. knee-ish--length and cardiganable), it must be appropriate for my low-key social life that involves going to a lot of ethnic restaurants, drinking beer at microbreweries, sitting in my friends' living rooms, and walking around parks or whatever.

I've never written out my style requirements before, but it's easier to do now that I've made it most the way through my first Me-Made-May. Seeing the weekly collections of photos and hearing the feedback in the comments gives me a better understanding of what kind of clothes I most like to wear and how other people interpret my style. 

This dress seems to hits all my key style points. I love it, anyway, so that says something. Is it epic enough for a Project Sewn finale? Maybe not, but it's going to get worn and enjoyed a helluva lot. I started with Vogue 8665, a pattern I made recently in red ponte knit. I chopped it at the waistline and added a quarter-ish circle skirt. For more stripey fun, I added a 3" thick band of horizontal stripes at the hem. I was worried about how the straight grain of the band would interact with the off-grain circleness of the skirt, but it didn't freak out too much and actually added some needed structure and weight. It swings like a bell when I wear it.

The fabric is pinstripe chambray from the Michael Levine online fabric store (found here). It's labeled as black and white, but altogether it looks gray, of course, which is exactly what I wanted. Gray looks great with yellow belts, and red belts, black belts, and even brown belts. I think I'm set.

I lowered the back neckline by a few inches because the only matching zipper I had wasn't long enough otherwise. It probably would have been fine as is since the skirt is full, but I do like the look of the lower back.

I used a regular zipper but decided to hand-pick it instead of fiddling with trying to get straight machine stitches all the way around. The little hand stitches sank into the fabric so they're basically invisible, even if the zipper itself is not.

I didn't re-read the pattern instructions so I don't remember how it has you finish the neckline and armholes, but bias tape made the most sense to me. Of course I used red bias tape. Of course!

So that's my final look! If you're feelin' it, please head over to Project Sewn and vote. This is my final solicitation for votes, I promise.

Thanks everyone!

project sewn: sundress challenge

An enormous thank you to everyone who voted for my outfit for the Black & White theme on week one of Project Sewn. I actually won the first round! The first challenge was certainly nerve-wracking, as I had no idea what to expect from my fellow contestants and didn't know how the readers/voters would respond to our different styles. Well, I still don't have a clue, but that's the fun of it, yes? I'm just doing the best I can. I really appreciate your support!

So onward we sew. Here is my entry for round two. The challenge was to sew a sundress.

It sounds more straight forward compared to the theme of "black and white," since we only had to sew one specific kind of garment. But geez, the process of deciding what kind of sundress to sew was still a doozy. This is one of the 1,000 reasons I would never aspire to be on the real Project Runway show (besides the fact that, yaknow, I'm not a fashion designer): it would be impossible for me to decide on a design and fabric in the 30 or whatever minutes they're given. For this challenge I spent a minimum of three evenings frying out my eyeballs on Pinterest, Burdastyle, fashion blogs and online boutiques, trying to find inspiration but mostly getting over(or under)whelmed and frustrated.

Once I finally came up with the pintucked bodice design idea and figured out how I would do it, I then agonized over fabric choice. At one point I was just sitting on the floor of my sewing room, buried up to my waist in different dress-weight fabrics, whining with indecisiveness. It was actually my boyfriend Corey who immediately pulled out this vintage floral cotton and said I had to use it. I rarely wear florals so I didn't even consider it, but I'm glad he convinced me because the fabric really is quite beautiful and I think it's a successful look overall. It was part of the large vintage fabric haul I received from the generous woman who was cleaning out her mom's house (story here). That stash has served me well. 

To make it, I started with the bodice lining pieces of Simplicity 2250, a Cynthia Rowley dress pattern, because it had the princess seams and subtle sweetheart shape I was looking for. I first made my pintucks on a large rectangle of fabric, and then cut the middle bodice pattern piece from that. I really love this detail, though I know it gets a little lost and disjointed in the busy print. It's pretty effective in real life, though, so I stand by it. I may try it again on a solid chambray or something...ooh.

The skirt portion is made from --what else-- the Colette Beignet skirt pattern, altered in my usual way to eliminate the button-up front. It definitely took some tweaking to get the princess seams of the Simplicity bodice to align with the skirt seams, but I'm pretty happy with the fit overall. I was tempted to make a big floofy circle skirt at first, but the fabric and bodice shape was already pretty feminine so I decided to make a sleeker skirt to help balance it out. And now I'm protected from gusts of wind! Believe me... I love my floaty skirts, but it is no fun to have to keep those in check when you're trotting down the stairs as the subway comes rushing into the station. I feel like I owe the fine people of Philadelphia a public apology for my ongoing circle and wrap skirt indecencies. And the city of Philadelphia owes me an apology for having a particularly windy Market Street.

The dress is fully lined, which I kind of made up as I went. The skirt portion is rayon bemberg with French seams. I hemmed the skirt shell with red bias tape and a hand-sewn blind stitch. It's super invisible on this print!

I couldn't get the dress fully zipped on my mannequin, even with the smallest torso set, because her cup size is bigger than mine. RUDE, Singer, rude. 

So that's my sundress! Check out the rest of the entries in this week's round of Project Sewn and be sure to vote on your favorite. Thanks again, sweet peas.

wrapped up in dotz

The days get warmer and my hems get longer. Bye tights, bye thighs. Hello, inner schoolmarm. It's for the best, really. And we all know how brutal the office A/C can be. What's the deal with that, man.

I decided I needed some more office-appropriate garments to incorporate into my springy wardrobe. I have exhausted my two Beignet skirts and other winter-weights, so I'm starting to feel that "what-the-haaiiiil-do-I-wear" anxiety every morning now. Jersey wrap dress time was nigh. I sit on my bum at a computer all day (doing valiant non-profit work and saving lives, of course), so I welcome the opportunity to look "professional"-ish while feeling like I'm in a fancy bathrobe.

The pattern is probably the second pattern I purchased after deciding to start sewing again in 2011. It's Butterick 5546, one of those easy "See & Sew" patterns that sits on display on the back wall of JoAnn's -- I guess to try to lure in the nonchalant passersby. I did make this pattern when I first bought it, also in a jersey, pre-blog, pre-serger, pre-knowledge of ANYTHING, and I accidentally reversed the direction of the wrap and have snapped a bunch of the stitches because my zig zag tension was way too tight. Anyway, here's Round Deux. All I did this time was lengthen it three inches. Gee, I realize I haven't made a new pattern in awhile -- I'm on total repeat mode these days. 

My hair is covering the detail at the shoulders, so here's a shot of my mannequin's cleavage -- I mean, the dress' pleats:

One of the ties slips through the dress side seam from the inside to be wrapped around the waist:

The jersey fabric is perfect in every way: richly-hued (more maroon than the orangey-ness in the detail shots), whimsical, springy and drapey. It was sent to me as a thank you from Amy Alan for reviewing her Craftsy class (oh, did you forget? You can STILL get 50% off her Beginner Serging class through this link here). It's like she knew that maroon was one of the three serger thread colors I already owned. Brilliant much? And because of her class, I knew how to overlock this fabric perfectly. Well, uh, as perfect as I am patient.

On the selvedge of the fabric it says "Matchmaster Prints by Antex of California Pattern." I googled Antex of California and it seems like it's a knitting mill that's actually in California. I just hope upon hope that that means this fabric was actually milled in the USA, though I guess it's possible it was just printed here? Amy said she bought the fabric at Mill End in Portland, which used to be a fabric mill in the early 20th century. If my assumptions about this fabric are correct, it would mean that my dress was resourced and made (almost) ENTIRELY in the United States, which would make me unbelievably chuffed... and mean I was one step closer to completing one of my sewing goals for 2013. Talk about cheap labor, though. No one paid me squat.

I had planned to talk more about my coverstitch machine in this post since I used it to hem all angles of this entire dress, but I still feel like I need to be more prepared to give a proper overview of the machine's functionality. To the one person who cares (Lisa G), I swear I'm working on it!

Speaking of goals for 2013, I had also hoped to participate in Me-Made-May for the first time. And sure enough, I'm feeling ready! So I officially pledge...

I, Andrea of foursquarewalls, sign up as a participant of Me-Made-May '13. I endeavor to wear at least one handmade garment each day for the duration of May 2013.

Who's with me?! OK, better get sewing.