Two Dresses, One Update.

Since the last update I've obtained some key items to advance my attire making. With each purchase I told Dana, "This is the best thing ever" so I'm pretty excited about all of them.
1. Rotary Cutter and board. Oh. My. God. Why on earth was I cutting out my fabric with scissors?? This is the best invention ever. (maybe not ever) I save so much time-and back pain-from these! The part of sewing I hate is the cutting, its time consuming, not exciting, not creative, just tedious. That pain is a thing of the past, I get dress pieces cut out in roughly a quater of the time. It's wonderful. (with coupons I think they cost me $25 total)
2. Invisible zipper foot. Now my zippers look a lot less like crap. Awesome. ($4 from Amazon, $10 with speedy shipping)
3. Dressform. Instead of stabbing myself several times, bleeding and just generally getting over projects real fast I can throw some fabric on this headless, armless plastic and foam lady standing next to my kitchen table and pin to fit her (my) measurements. ($100-well worth it)
Nice Job Erin!

So, on to my projects.

Project Number One:Simplicity 2209. (I feel stupid, I cannot for the life of me figure out how to flip this image.. oh well...)

I made my first attempt with silk, with less than perfect results. Its very slippery and ...distorty (?) Of course I had a couple glasses of wine to add to the mixture, but cutting out silk is not an easy task with scissors (this was prior to my rotary purchase). I picked a super easy pattern and it would have been a piece of cake except for the slippery nature and the easily shredding of the silk. But alas, I still think I made a really cute dress.

 

(I think this is my little teapot impression??) I made a size 10. It's a little tight in the booby area, but the nature of the silk might have meant I took the darts in a smidge too much. I wasn't thinking and forgot to add pockets, bummer. Overall, I love the print, I love the pattern, I will wear it but I'm just a little disappointed with my execution. 

The fabric was on sale and the end of a bolt so it only cost $8. The pattern was $1 and the zipper was kicking around my sewing box, so total project, $9!

Project Number Two:Modified Butterick 5601. (can't flip this one either.. I'm a dummy)

I used the bodice from this dress but gave it a much fuller skirt. Super, super easy pattern. I used my yellow eyelet fabric with a white muslin lining. I was afraid it was going to come out too little girlish, but I think it just came out super cute. I love this dress.

Check out the back!

 This dress came together without any troubles, until Saturday morning-it was already finished-I decided I wanted to make the bodice a little tighter fitting. I planned on wearing this dress on Saturday to Bremi's engagement party and I knew I was taking a risk taking the zipper out and the second I started to do it all I could think was, "this was a mistake." I put a freaking zipper in this dress 4 times, FOUR!? After I took it out, I put it back in and, time crunched me-went to put it on to see how the fit was without stitching the bottom of the zipper-so the zippy part fell right off. GAH! After a little break, where I had a mini meltdown in the shower, I came back to put another zipper in. Ripped out the first one, put the second one in, twisted. At this point mimosas and pastries had arrived thanks to Dan and Brighid and I had decided I was done. I put a different dress on, and then sauntered over to the cute yellow dress I had made speccifically for the day, calmly ripped out one side of the zipper and fixed it. Triumphantly, I wore the dress with those adorable sandals Dana got me and had a lovely day.

Next in the lineup is a simple sundress I've had in the back of my mind for a few weeks. That's on my plate for today (along with chopping the shaggy mess of hair off my head.)

Another (mostly) Successful Endeavor!

This is the Cynthia Rowley 2178 dress in view A that I had been planning to make for Bremi's Engagement Party, and it's done!

 

 This dress was a fairly easy to make. The pleating and gathers on the skirt held me up for a bit, it didn't help that I accidentally made the dress reversed...   All the reviews I read were suggesting that the strap was too long and the bodice too short, however, I thought they were probably just trying to make the dress sit differently on them then it was supposed to, and I still think that. I made it exactly like the pattern suggested and I thought everything was perfect. The only issue I found was the interfaced ring of fabric for the bottom inside of the skirt was too short, I just took the skirt in a bit and voila, problem solved.

I chose the green linen fabric because I loved the color and I thought linen would be a nice summer dress material. For this dress however, I think the linen is too think for the shoulder tie, a little too bulky for my liking. 

I love everything about this dress, but its a size too big. I went by the measurements suggested, like I always do, and once more, too big. Unfortunately I was trying it on throughout the process and thought the sizing was spot on until I put the finished product on (at which point I was over the project and not in the mood to take the zipper out to take in the bodice, I'll probably do it in the future... maybe..). Regardless, I feel like I'll still wear this dress this summer.

I'm actually about to start another dress as a contender for said party in a yellow eyelet fabric for the D version of this dress, this time one size smaller. Its frustrating because I feel like my skills for making things is pretty swell, it's just the sizing I'm struggling with (it's really hard to pin to fit a dress yourself when it's on your body!). This problem will be solved within the week though because I bought myself a dressform today, for a reasonable price too-$100.74 from Amazon-free shipping. I've been thinking about buying one for awhile and finally just did it. I'm excited!

So far, favorite thing I have ever made!

Voila! Here it is, the dress I will live in this summer. I'm pretty in love.

I used the bodice from Simplicity 3823 with some alterations. I made a size 12 and it was HUGE! I ended up taking it in about 2 or 3 inches (I'm glad I tried it on midway, next time I'll make an 8). I also shortened the midriff by about 2 inches, I just didn't like the look of a long midriff. The back pieces called for boning, which I didn't have so I skipped it. This made the back droop a bit but I just put 2 cute tucks in the back instead.

You can also see the cute pink flower buttons I put in for the halter (and the rash my baby skin was getting from leaning against the house). For the skirt bottom I just cut 2 rectangles of fabric 20in by 30in, and gave them some gathers and pockets, I need to have pockets. I shortened the zipper from the 12 inches it called for to about 8 inches-to just above the pocket. I've made dresses before with pockets and side zippers and its a pain in the ass, I wasn't in the mood for it. Because I needed to take in a lot of fabric on the sides, I wasn't thinking about how that would effect the zipper and that backfired in my face. The top edge of the dress, under my right arm, doesn't line up, but it's the only imperfection and its small, so I'm over it. (I still struggle a bit with zippers and I've yet to purchase an actual zipper foot... oh well.) I was able to fully line this dress with no problem, the fabric is so awesome but it was sheer so I just lined it with white muslin, its still very lightweight.

I was planning on making the green linen dress these past two days but I spent Tuesday getting all the tedious prep done for it and all I could think about was this adorable pink, orange and grey polka dot fabric! So I jumped projects. I wanted to use the fabric for something I would get to wear a lot, so a simple sundress it was! I am really really happy with the way it came out! I took my time, learned the value of baste stitching and trying it on first before actually stitching it (and then having to spend some quality time with my seam ripper) and I made sure it fit me well so I would actually wear it. After all is said and done, it cost me about $20. (Woohoo!!)