Gertie Sews Jiffy Dresses and Simplicity 7812

 The top of this dress is from Gertie Sews Jiffy Dresses, and the bottom from Simplicity 7812. Love the front of the dress with the gathers, so pretty, but the back seems a little low and the shoulders feel like they are slipping down. My husband put a pin in the back and that seems to help. We'll see if I can get out of this unaided.

Another thing I've noticed with Gertie patterns are that they are made for people with small arms, I had to start stitching one inch below where it was indicated, luckily the seam was straight, not curved. She must use herself as the fit model with her long lean limbs! I'm the opposite, tall with short stout limbs...oh well have the perfect body for a power lifter!

McCall's 6558

 Here is the other peasant dress. I have sewn this before and I like both of the dresses.

No modifications to the pattern, and it's very easy to sew. Cute lemon earrings from Target, fabric from Gertie.

Butterick 6451

I guess I'm on a peasant dress kick. I've sewn two and purchased one. They are easy to make and wear but not much to talk about. The pattern is a good one and it doesn't need any alterations.

Getting rid of the rick-rack stash. I thought if I opened a fresh pack that I would have enough trim to go around once. It didn't, so I had to piece it with something that didn't quite match. I had some old packages that had four yards and that worked with no piecing. The fabric was from JoAnn's sale table about a year ago. Stay safe and hopeful!

McCall's 8036

 I do like this pattern, even though there are a few oddities about it. The top button does button, but it looks terrible and even on the pattern envelope it looks like it is pulling even on a thin model.

I added elastic to the sleeves because they were very baggy and floppy. If I sew this again I would shorten the sleeves one inch and reduce the width of the band size by half.

And there seems to be a little pulling at the bust and I normally don't have that happening. I think I really like the dress because of the color and the print (fabric purchased at SR Harris, Burnsville in the cotton sale section).

Floreat Dress

 This is the remake of the Floreat Dress. I chopped off the sleeves, added darts at the armhole and added the applique. This jacket was also in the donation pile, but I think it saves this dress.

Without the coat, and still not looking great. Below is the original make.

Matching crab apple trees at Lake Harriet in Minneapolis.

Simplicity 8833

 I got this fabric from the discount table at SR Harris and before I sewed it up I made a bunch of masks from the fabric. When I went to construct the garment there was a flaw in the fabric right in the front. Luckily, I had half of a cupcake left to applique it over the hole in the fabric, whew!

This pattern fits really good, normally I don't like dropped sleeves, but these are good because there is not an over abundance of fabric. My husband took some pictures with the matching masks but couldn't bear to post them because...YUCK!

New Look 6301

We went to the lake today to see the crab apple trees blooming and only the white ones had blossomed, not the pink ones...good excuse to go back. Here I am pretending that this is our house, it's so beautiful.

 I'm going to make this pattern again, it fits really well and it's easy to sew up. The armholes do have the normal problem for me, but other than that it's good!

McCall's 7970

This was pretty fun to sew even though I hate gathering. This time I did each panel separately because it would be easy to mix everything up. I went deep into the notions stash and used up a lot of Rick Rack purchased from church rummage sales.

 No changes to the pattern, this is right from the envelope. The fabric was from Hobby Lobby and when I pre-shrunk the fabric it did some bleeding. There just happened to be a laundry expert on TV and he recommend a color catcher, so we shall see if that works.

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.