Feelin' Groovy - Simplicity 1609

for my latest dress i used my new favorite pattern.. as soon as i saw this pattern in an email Simplicity sent me i knew i had to buy it! hello, 1960s obsession!  so i swung by Hobby Lobby and bought it when they had their $0.99 Simplicity sale a while ago.  then came the task of finding the perfect fabric to use with the pattern.

i discovered this awesome bright floral print when my mom, my aunt, and i were shopping around in the new JoAnn they opened in KY in the small town we used to live in.  as soon as i saw it i knew it was perfect for the style of dress.

(hmm, not sure why the right picture is blurry. it def wasn't blurry in iPhoto.)

my original plan was to make the dress in the solid green view with the awesome collar.  i changed that plan when i saw this great fabric.  i knew a collar would be too much since the dress was already patterned.  my next version, though, i plan to make it with the collar.  with this pattern, i followed it to a 't'.

this pattern is very easy.  there are only four pattern pieces: back piece, front piece, back facing, and front facing.  my kind of pattern, not complicated.

when it came to the hem, i actually was able to take 3" or 4" off before hemming it.  once i cut the excess off, instead of doing a normal turned up hem, i decided to do a faced hem for the first time.  i simply took some leftover cream single fold bias tape i had an sewed it around the right side of the bottom of the dress.  once that was sewn on i pressed the bias tape down, then pressed it up against the inside of the dress so i could sew it in place.  very easy!  i am loving faced hems now!

once the dress was finished i added another little detail by sewing three white buttons on the front.  another thing i like about this pattern, is that when you sew things like buttons on it's easier because you have that front seam.

all-in-all, i really love this pattern and plan to use it quite a bit.  one change i would make though is getting the back neck to fit better.  for some reason the back neck sits out off my back.  should be an easy fix though by tweaking the back neckline darts.

after i had finished the dress i had fabric leftover and knew i couldn't just let it sit around.  so i decided to whip up a skirt.  for this skirt i used New Look 6053 i had in my pattern stash.

due to my farbic restraints i had to cut about 2"-3" off the pattern to make it fit.  since i had to cut some length off i did a faced hem using some leftover satin balnket binding i had.  i didn't have enough binding when it was folded in half, so i cut along the fold line and sewed one end of the two pieces together.  then the edge that was made by me cutting the piece apart i sewed that to the skirt bottom.  the other edge of the binding was already sealed so i was able to just sew it in place.

The Houndstooth Skirt

so i finished the houndstooth coat for class and i had at least a yard of fabric left over.  this as not on purpose, though.  my mom and i bought the amount the pattern called for, but my mom is short-waisted and as a result i had to shorten all the body pieces by at least 3 inches.  which left me with all the unexpected leftover fabric and lining.  no problems though, because i knew what i was going to do with it.  i decided i was going to make my mom a skirt.  which shows how much we think alike, because before i even mentioned anything about what i was going to do with the excess she goes, "you can make me a skirt."  well surprise, surprise i was already ahead of her!

so, for the skirt i used the same pattern from my first class assignment.  also, this time i knew how bad the fabric frayed so i was prepared.  since the skirt pieces were simple i cut them out using my rotary cutter and immediately serged all the edges once they were cut.  i even figured out how to serge the edges and turn to knife off so i didn't cut off any of my seam allowance.  this is amazing! =D

onto the skirt!

one modification i made to the pattern was by cutting the front piece into two separate pieces, instead of one, so i could get the pattern on the skirt to work out the way i wanted it to.  for the pattern on the skirt i wanted the to point down and to the sides.   so to do this i had to cut each skirt piece separately and flip and rotate my fabric.  luckily this worked out because there was really no right or wrong side to the fabric.  then, where i sewed the front pieces together down the center i did a topstitch on both sides of the middle seam.

another modification i made to the skirt was by adding a lining.  the skirt pattern is just the skirt pieces and the facing.  but i wanted to add a lining to prevent the skirt from riding up.  i simply cut the lining exactly form the pattern pieces.  i didn't worry about cutting the front in two pieces since it was on the inside and wouldn't make a difference.  i then sewed the lining pieces the way it called for but left the back open.  then it was time to attach everything to the waist.  to make this easier i basted the facing to the skirt before sewing the lining, facing, and skirt.  then i turned everything down and pressed so it would hold its shape.  due to the thickness of the fabric, though, the facing wouldn't stay down.  so to remedy this i did a topstitch BY HAND near the top.  i love the result, but boy did it take me a while, because i would get to a point and realize the stitches had started slanting up, so i had to pull it out an redo it.

once that was done i attached the lining around the zipper.  to do this i ironed under the edges of the lining and did a catch stitch to attach it to the zipper tape.  then i sewed up the back seam of the lining as close to the zipper as i could.  next the hem.

for the hem of the skirt i pressed up an inch and did a slipstitch to hold it in place.  for the lining i ironed up 1/2" and did a zig-zag stitch.  i could've been finished there, but i decided to do a bar/french tack to attach the lining to the skirt but still allow it to have free movement. this was the first time i had ever done a bar/french tack but i figured it out.  now the skirt is complete!

The Basic Skirt

hello all my wonderful readers!  i know, it's been a while since i last visited with y'all...but of course y'all know that's because I'm staying busy with school.  i'm taking four classes this semester: Design Fundamentals 1 and Basic Drawing (which are basically just art classes, b/c all we do is draw), Intro to Fashion, and Clothing Construction 1.  i have to say that Clothing Construction is my favorite!...but of course, right! in the class we have three projects to do: a skirt, a pair of pants, and a jacket.  we've turned in one project so far, the skirt...and it was easy peasy.

McCall's 3341

the only requirements for the skirt were that it had no waistband, had darts, and then we did an invisible zipper and blind hem.  this was my first time ever doing a blind hem!  i never attempted a blind hem b/c it always looked too complicated...boy was i wrong!  it's so stinkin' easy...especially when your machine does all the work for you!  now that the skirt is finished, it's on to pants!  which, by the way, i'm going to make some red stretch denim jeans!

the finished product

blind hem

Stripey Stripes

so for my latest dress i was inspired by the renfrew tank dress Andrea from foursquarewalls made.  i love how it's simple, yet sassy.  plus, i've been needing more dresses for summer so my wheels got to turnin'.

first off, i went to Girl Charlee to get some cute fabric for my new dress.  i saw plenty that i liked but the striped fabric Andrea used really caught my eye.  so i ordered two yards.  i'll say, too, that Heather is awesome at providing high quality products and delivering fast!

i found Tally's Treasury while doing a search for a pattern i wanted to use for my dress and from her post it inspired me to make a dress without a pattern.  so i went and grabbed one of my dresses that has a shape and fit that i love and traced that to make my new dress.  so simple!  why didn't i think of this before?! duh!

now that my farbic was in it was time to make my dress.  to start, since my fabric is striped, i took the extra time to make sure all my stripes lined up.  yeah it was a little tedious to do that but the end results were fantastic. 

since the skirt on the dress i traced was wider than my fabric i traced the bodice of the dress and freehanded a simple a-line skirt.  to hem the skirt i folded up the amount i wanted and used my good friend stitch witchery to hold it. 

once i tried the finished dress on i added side bust darts to get rid of the gaping.  to finish the neck and armhole edges i attempted to do the technique Andrea did on her dress, by adding a band of the fabric attached to the raw edges and sew in place.  it worked out great on the armholes, but it just made the neck edge gape more.  so i simply folded the banded edge under and used my good ol' stitch witchery to hold it in place. 

once the dress was finished i went back and added side pockets...using this great tut i found over at Tally's Treasury.  first time for side seam pockets!  i'm kind of obsessed now with doing side seam pockets since i know they are so easy! and for my pockets pattern i simply drew a shape along the edge of my paper and made it have a 6" opening.  voila!  that dress was simple enough!

and since i ordered two yards i had a little over 5/8 of a yard left over.  what did i do with it, you ask?  well i made a skirt of course!  two garments, two yards of fabric!!

for my skirt i just did a simple a-line cut.  i wanted to do a circle skirt but there wasn't enough fabric :(  once again, i took the time to line up my stripes and i inserted side seam pockets.  to finish it off i did a white elastic waistband.  i got lazy and for my skirt i didn't do a hem.