It Feels Like Spring

The clocks have sprung forward an hour.  It's light longer and here on the East Coast it's been a relatively mild winter.  I, for one, haven't missed the snow piles or the bitterly cold days. So it's with a happy heart that I'm emerging from the darkness of winter and thinking of Spring.

My company has updated it's work from home policy and we're now required to be in the office 4 days a month. Since I absolutely HATE carting my laptop back and forth, I'm going to be in the office 2 days a week from now until at least October/November...which has made me want to sew some new garments.

I've been looking at the spring/summer offerings online, saving pics of items that caught my eyes.  These two interpretations of the same dress sparked an interest.

Probably because I've made it before and this dress is still hanging in my closet. 

It's from an out of print, Simplicity 2894 pattern. When I made it in 2017, I had planned to make more.  That never happened but I really want to make a few this year because it was an easy to wear, very comfortable dress.  I have several printed linens that would look amazing in this silhouette.  Of course I will maximize it since my ankles don't look as good as they did in 2017. 

I've been thinking about what I want to sew for spring.  Again it won't be a garment a week because I don't have the need even with going back to my office.  However, I'd like to add some different dress silhouettes to work with the dresses I made last year.  I'd also like to add some tops/blouses and toppers to wear over jeans. Realistically it doesn't get dress warm until late May/early June so a couple of those would be nice to add to my wardrobe too. 

Those are my thoughts as we roll further into March with Spring on the horizon...

...as always more later!

The Dreaming of Spring Dress

...is finally complete!

Front View:

Close-up of the belt band:

Dress with jacket:

And here are the specs:

Pattern:
TNT Dress Pattern

Fabrics:
1 yard creamy vanilla silk crepe from Fabric Mart
1.5 yards ltwt yellow wool crepe from Metro Textiles
1/2 yard of floral yellow silk georgette from Fabric Mart (this has been marinating in the collection for several years!)

Notions:
2.5 yards of vanilla lining from Ebad Fabrics
22" invisible zipper
3 yards of a lace hem tape
2.5 yards of lace trim
2 yards of silk organza

All of the construction details can be found in these posts from March! Yikes, this dress has been sitting for a minute! This was a very involved dress with alot of construction parts...and as you know it was held up by the invisible zipper insertion but it was a great dress to wear to work! It's actually the first dress in the Sunshine Yellow Dress and Jacket Collection. So I guess I did work on some of the collection last weekend after all!!!

However, there is a huge oops with the insertion of the invisible zipper:

After I put it in and discovered this, I just wanted to cry. After all of the work that went into the dress, the thought of ripping out the zipper was too much for me to bear. I KNOW I should take it apart and redo it...I just CAN'T! I keep thinking that if I had used a centered zipper this would not have happened. So, I will wear this dress with my little white jacquard jacket...never to take the jacket off. I will now have to practice inserting an invisible zipper using Els technique.

Here's a view of the dress and jacket back...see how it covers the oops...and please, please do not emulate this bad behaviour! Cause I really should take it out and do it again...y'know what I mean!

Well live and learn...*sigh*

Dreaming of Spring - Part 2

First a picture of me wearing the dress with the back basted together:

This is where the dress stands now. It's missing hems, a zipper and several other finishing details. After working on it for 8 hours today and probably 8 hours yesterday...I am ready to let it sit until my next available time to sew.

The bodice:

Construction on the bodice was done using the typical sequence I normally follow when sewing my TNT dress pattern. The only technique of note was that after sewing the lining to the bodice top, clipping the curves, and edgestitching the facing...I trimmed the seam to a 1/4" to eliminate seam show through.

I also need to add that working with these fabrics has been a truly wonderful experience. I sew with wool crepe all the time since it is a personal favorite but I've rarely used the 4 ply silk crepe and the silk georgette. So not only am I pleased at how the dress is progressing, I am also very pleased with the fabrics ease of use.

Next, the bodice was attached to the band:

Last night I left the dress skirt with the fashion fabric and the lining basted together. Today, I hemmed the lining and added a piece of lace trim to the hem. I also added lace seam tape to the skirt's bottom. I am using that for the hem finish rather than the rayon seam tape I normally use.

Here is a back view of the seaming detail on the dress skirt. The dress back is basted together for this shot.

I also added ribbons to allow the dress to hang correctly on the hanger. They are basted in now and will be part of the final finishing details.

As I originally stated, I still have about another 8 hours of work to finish this up, but right now the dress looks exactly how I envisioned it and I'm very pleased. I had no intentions of wearing it until the middle of April, when the weather warmed up, so this was a good place to stop tonight before I got too tired.

I have officially ended winter sewing with this dress. This one and the next dress (the striped cotton from Metro Textiles) are definitely spring/summer garments. Someone asked if this is my Easter dress...no, it isn't. Since "The Little Prince" will only be 3 1/2 weeks old Easter weekend, we are not going to church. We're having a quiet dinner at home...this is just going to be a very pretty work dress! *LOL*

More later!

Dreaming of spring - Part 1

I have had a wonderful day...I spent the morning with my grandson and then after his mother left with him for a drs appointment, I sat and read the last 20 pages of a novel that I had been trying to finish up for a couple of days.

Around 1ish, I started working on the dress...yes, "Dreaming of Spring" is a variation on my TNT dress which was inspired by the Barrie Pace dress from two posts back. Of course, during the planning stages, I thought of something a little different than the inspiration dress, something a little more me. Also since I spent several days, dreaming about the dress, I ended up thinking through all of the construction steps.

So this afternoon I started with the piece that would be the most challenging to make...the center band. After going through several variations during the planning stages, I decided on a pleated band made from the floral silk georgette.

To accomplish the look I wanted, I cut the band 10" wide x 56" long. Then I placed marks 1" apart on either end of the band.

The pleats were pinned together and then sewn down 1/2" apart

Pressed flat

And finally pinned to a wool crepe piece cut in the same dimensions as the silk georgette piece and sewn together. I then serge finished the piece. The pleated piece is bigger than the circumference of the dress top and skirt because I wanted to make sure that I had enough. I'm also thinking of doing something special to the waistline finish...not sure if it will work because I have to put the entire dress together before I find out.


The other part of the dress that I worked on today was the dress skirt. My first issue was how to get the pieces out of the 1.5 yard piece of wool crepe that I had...yes, that yellow piece was a remnant...and caused me to work out some serious design inspiration to mask the fact that I needed just a little more fabric to cover my backside! *LOL*

The solution was to piece the back of the dress:

Once that was change was made...and I really liked the way it looked...it was time to add the silk organza underlining. See that's the problem with daydreaming a dress...you think through all of the possibilities... Since I have a few straight wool crepe skirts that are underlined with silk organza that wear like iron during my workday, I wanted to include this extra layer in this dress to make it as wrinkle proof.

I first learned about the silk organza tip on the now defunct Sewing World from Kathryn. There was also a tip shared on how to apply the silk organza to make sure that it was on-grain...of course I can't remember now who posted it. If someone does, could you please leave that info in the comments section!

However, I have refined the original tip. I now lay my fashion fabric piece on my cutting board and add the silk organza to the top of the piece. Then I pin it down. The original tip has you using alot of pins, and I mean ALOT. But I've found that if I put it on the board and pin in the strategic places, then baste the silk organza to the fashion fabric without removing it from the cutting board...I don't have any grain issues. Also my cutting board is not the same size as my cutting table so I can rotate it around as I'm basting the two pieces together...all of this helps to keep the pieces stable and on grain.

The lining was cut out next using the fabric pieces. My last sewing for the evening was to construct the lining and the skirt and then baste the two pieces together. Tomorrow I will work on the top and assembling the dress.

So more later!

Dreaming of Spring

This will be my weekend:



I will wake up bright and early tomorrow morning and dedicate myself to turning this into a garment. It is an ivory 4 ply silk crepe, a silk floral georgette and a ltwt wool crepe. I feel like I'm sewing with the grown-ups using such extraordinary fabric. I can't believe this fabric lives at my house...*sigh* but enough of that.

I'm off to clean the crap that's accumulated on my sewing table this week off and get myself ready to sew. I've worked out my sewing sequence. I've made some notes and I'm ready!

More later!