Simplicity 8504

I was intending to wear this dress on Christmas, but when I sewed it up I thought it would be a good idea to leave out the sleeve lining. Don't do this, it's what keeps the sleeve up! When I put the dress on the sleeves were just hanging there and were very long. I tried adding elastic and that didn't work. Much later I cut off about three inches of the upper and lower sleeve and sewed it all back together, but it doesn't look like it should.

The skirt is cut very narrow, just like the drawings show, so add more if you usually need to. Also, make the matching belt if you have enough fabric, it would really make the dress look better.

This ended up being my Easter dress, yes, it was snowing. I have packed away my cut-out winter patterns and have started sewing summer things now. I'm sewing masks too, but my max is ten per day, I don't want to feel like I'm forced into making masks and strangely enough want to be thinking good thoughts when I sew them.

Today it might get up to sixty, but I will have to clear the gardens of leaves before doing anymore sewing.

Hope you and your families are still healthy and happy and not too stressed out!

BurdaStyle 3/2018 #125

This dress I do like and I didn't really have any fitting issues. I did make the skirt a little wider to fit the hips, but in hind sight you would not need to do this because there is plenty of room.

When I was cutting the fabric for the skirt I cut it wrong (the stripes going across like it was one piece) and had to order more from JoAnn. Have you ever noticed how hit or miss ordering fabric from their website is? In a nutshell, it's terrible!

Had a little warm spell, but right now the water in the birdbath is frozen.

Advance 9718

 I was going to wear this today. I put it on and it did fit, but it just looked sad and frumpy, and the buttons were in the wrong place too! When I said it fit, it was just okay, once again the shoulders were too wide and I needed to pinch out some size in the armhole by the bust.

Normally I do have a good understanding when it comes to matching the fabric to the design style of the dress. This was way off from the beginning. The fabric was a scuba knit from JoAnn (love the fabric, wish they still had it) and the pattern should have been sewn in a stable cotton or linen fabric. This will be sent to the thrift store in hopes that it might work for someone else.

BurdaStyle 6562

I needed something easy to sew after my last project (coming soon). This took about seven hours sewing time. I didn't realize the pattern had drop shoulders and using the flat method of sewing in sleeves would have worked better. 

This is about the most form fitting dress that I am still comfortable wearing. It's made from a really nice ponte from Vogue Fabrics , when we used to have the sewing Expo in Minneapolis. If I were to make this again I would like to do something different with the sleeves and just shorten the tucks a wee bit in the skirt.

Hope everybody is staying well and enjoying sewing and other hobbies. Spring may be coming to Minneapolis, it will be nice to be outside cleaning up the garden beds once things dry out. Our house has cedar siding, so every year I need to do touch up painting (yuck), hope I can get some paint mixed up! Since I'm a home-body this hasn't been too much of a change for me. I do miss sports, Final Four, Figure Skating, Baseball, Tennis and the Olympics. I also miss going out to eat or going to a brewery. My husband is outgoing so he is having a harder time with things, even though he is still working. It's kind of interesting in that if you are a shy person working in corporate America you were the one to have to conform and become more outgoing, maybe people will be more sensitive to different personalities and the strengths each bring to the table...maybe not, oh well we shall see!

Simplicity 9011 and Burdastyle 8/2014 #142

 I hope you all are well and keeping the faith. Sending those thoughts and prayers out to the world. I'm lucky that my husband is working in a grocery and my friend is working in a liquor store, so they both have been picking up items to keep us going, and they are staying healthy in the process, even though they are "old". Happy!

On to sewing and the dress I just made, thank goodness not another wadder. I was going to use the BurdaStyle pattern and even had traced it, but I tried on the tissue and it was way too tight. I used the Simplicity pattern designed for knit patterns and just made it bigger and added a zip.

In hindsight this was the better choice because the Burda pattern had more seams that needed matching and it was hard enough with the Simplicity pattern and my limited amount of fabric.
I added piping on the sleeves because of this.

The Simplicity pattern (without the flounce) will make a great knit dress.

This is my little kitty and we just found out Thursday that he most likely has cancer, so sad I could cry a river...but he is here now, so I need to be thankful for that. I seems like most people in the sewing community love their animal so much.

One Out of Four Ain't Bad

This is Simplicity 8786, This dress fits okay, it is a little short waisted, but I don't really mind that. This is a remake of a wadder, I used the skirt and the sleeves from that dress. Don't know if it was worth the effort. I would like to use the pattern as shown, I think it would be very slimming if any one might need that like me!

This dress looks really good from the front! The back is just straight with darts. I should know by now that that does not work for me. I either need to add a waist seam or have a larger flare. The back is a little tight too, but that's one of my normal corrections to a pattern (that I didn't make). I'm going to keep this one, maybe I'll lose some of my winter weight. Ha, ha!

I went on a independent pattern splurge on black Friday, and this was one of them. Who would think there would be any fitting issues in a dress like this. Well, if I stand perfectly still there would be no issues. It seemed tight in the upper bust, back and sleeves. I would like to make this again, but I would take one of my TNT patterns and re-draw the cutting lines. One warning to shorter people, both of these patterns are long. I'm 5'8" and the floreat dress almost touched the ground in the front. Another reason I don't like this dress is the color, it looks lighter on and it blends with my skin tone and it looks like a nightgown.

Right now I'm kind of down on independent pattern companies, because I don't make muslins and it's really hit or miss on how they fit. I do like Hot Patterns, because they fit me right out of the envelope.

 This is Vogue 8938 and I've sewn this before, I even tried it on before I started cutting. This is a comfortable and warm day dress, the one dress that I actually like.

Vogue 9697 and Simplicity 3642

It's a franken-pattern, Yeah! I wanted to use two different fabrics from the stash, so I choose Vogue 9697 for the top and Simplicity 3642 for the skirt. The Vogue pattern is close-fitting and that does not work for me so I choose the Simplicity pattern for the bottom. If any one still has the Vogue pattern take note that on the bottom piece, the instructions said stretch to fit. I had to stretch it about four inches, which is way wrong! Had to rip that out and cut the pattern pieces that much longer. Aargh!

 I can wear petite sizes when it comes to my arms and legs, even though I'm 5'8". That's why the sleeves are too long, not going to fix. I like my new dress even though it's not perfect.

Simplicity 8944

 Not looking too happy here, it's the weather, not the new jumper! This was so easy to sew and the pattern fit perfectly.

 It's a little more fitted on the top than the pattern shows, but I like it better this way. There is still enough ease to wear a light sweater underneath.

My one goof-up was that the plaid does not match in the back, luckily it is a subtle print, so not very noticeable. I was going to use an exposed zip to help the problem, but I did not have a zipper that would work for that application, so I just moved forward with the invisible zipper.

Hot Patterns 1201

As you know I love Hot Patterns, and this is another winner in my book. I've had this corduroy in my stash for such a long time and the reason I wanted to sew it up now is because of the hand painted jewelry that I just got from Etsy.

I tried to use another pattern and I could just not get it to fit the fabric, so I pressed that pattern and put it back into the envelope and got out this pattern. Only the front and back fit! Yikes! As I was going through some fabric, I found this gold denim for the side panels, perfect.

Normally, I start out with the size 16, but with this I cut size 18 and graded out on the hips, with
this style dress I wanted it loose-fitting. This is also one of the easiest dresses to sew.
I would recommend it!

Butterick 6704

This was my Christmas dress even though it was purple. The picture on the pattern was done in purple so that was burned in my brain! I do like sewing with velvet, except for the cutting out part.

 I made the dress a little longer and changed up the sleeves because the ones shown with the pattern did not fit.

The fabric is from Joann's and the strange part that the fabric was on sale because it was Halloween. Maybe I'm missing something. Anyway, two thumbs up for this pattern.

Simplicity 9010

Another one of those flannel dresses. This one fit just fine, I did add a bit to the hips because I don't like anything tight. For the back I used an exposed zip instead of a keyhole opening and I like that better.

This is the very similar Burda pattern that I blogged about awhile ago. Even though they are so much alike I like the longer version because it is more flattering on me.

Burda 6288

Yes, Another flannel dress. It does keep me warm indoors, but outdoors it is freezing cold! This is the BurdaStyle pattern that I purchased at Joann's, I think the same dress was in the magazine, but sometimes you are just not in the mood to trace the pattern. This fits really well without any adjustments.

 Butterick 6450 is very similar, but I have that cut out in summer fabric and I didn't feel like sewing that first to get to the pattern. I just did that with the New Look wrap dress pattern. The spring version fits well, so it's on to the winter version.

Hot Patterns 1186

 I thought I had blogged this, but I couldn't find it anywhere! I love Hot Patterns because they fit. This is made from a corduroy that is heavily embroidered. Instead of inserting the pockets in the side seams I lined them and top-stitched them to the fabric.

I purchased some hot pink feathers to put on the bottom, but those need to be removed to wash, so haven't figured that out yet. For awhile I kept them on the porch to air out and the cat got into it and was dragging hot pink feathers around. It was so funny!

McCall's 4950

Another flannel "nightgown" dress. I'm kind of surprised this fit so well because the pattern was a size 12 and I had to increase it to a size 16. I purchased a sizing tool from Canada, but I haven't taken all the time it needs to watch the videos and actually do it. I pulled out one of my patterns that fits well and used that as a guide.

 I also wish that the design details showed up better, but I think the only way to accomplish that would to use a solid fabric. The neck is also a little wide and I didn't even touch that when sizing.