My Birthday Dress

Not to be confused with my birthday suit :-)

Last year I made this dress in honor of my 10th wedding anniversary.

I love how easy this dress is to wear.  It is a lengthened version of my Pamela's Patterns Perfect T-Shirt and has the comfort of, well, a t-shirt.  I have wanted to make something similar ever since.

I celebrated my 50th birthday in October and decided I needed a new dress for an evening out with my husband.  I chose a simple princess line fit-and-flare dress which I have made a number of times out of wovens.  This time I decided to try it from a knit, eliminating the zipper to make this a pull-on affair.

The fabric is a tissue-weight knit from Vogue Fabrics.  The fabric is unusual in that sections of it are more sheer than others.  It is sheer enough in areas that it needed to be lined.

I used a nude, 4-way-stretch piece for the lining.  To hide the seam allowances, I underlined each dress section individually and then treated them as one.  I machine stitched the seams with a zigzag stitch and then finished them with the serger (the method I often prefer for sewing knits).  I like how the princess seams disappear in the fabric's pattern but still provide lots of nice shaping and fit. 

The sleeve hems gave me trouble.  I first tried a method I heard Sandra Betzina talk about recently in a workshop.  She stay stitches 1/2-inch from the cut edge, folds along the stitching line and zigzags just above the fold, trimming the extra fabric away after stitching.  This fabric was too unstable (even when I stitched over stabilizer).  Next I tried fusing a lightweight bias tape to the hem edge.  I solved the stability problem but now the hem stuck out in a stiff manner.  I had enough fabric left to recut the sleeves.  This time I cut the hem on a fold, making a double-layered sleeve.  I sewed the under arm seam then folded along the hem line and treated both layers as one.  This compromised the sheerness of the sleeve a bit but made for a lovely, bulk-free hem that looks very nice.

The neckline was bound with a fabric strip cut on the crosswise grain.

Already this has become a favorite, worn with a little jacket for cooler days.

My husband and I rarely exchange gifts, so imagine my surprise when I walked into my sewing room on my birthday morning and found a beautiful Alabama Chanin jacket draped on my dressform.  It was this one that I tried on when I visited their studio last November:

After I blogged about that experience, including a picture of this jacket, he contacted them and arranged to have this sent to him.  Then he held onto it for nearly a year before surprising me with it for my landmark birthday.  What a keeper (both the husband and the jacket).  I am really grateful for this beautiful heirloom piece.  It has been almost exactly one year since I traveled to Alabama for that wonderful weekend workshop.  The dress I started then is nearing completion -- it is in the construction phase, and I hope it will be finished in the next couple of weeks.  When I started that dress I proclaimed it a year-long project, and it will be just about that.  I can't wait to share it with you.

An A-Line Dress for Summer

Christine Jonson’s A Line Dress is one of those deceiving little numbers.  It might not look like much on my dress form but on the body it transforms into something truly special.  I never fail to get compliments on this dress when I wear it out in public.  The dress is made from a knit which makes it as comfortable to wear as a nightgown.  The fit is fairly close in the upper body area and then flares just the right amount to skim over any “trouble spots”.   The dress can be made with or without the diagonal contrast section, an element I particularly like, but pay close attention when matching the two bands at the side seams.  The neckline and armholes are simply turned and stitched, making this a very simple dress to put together.

I hope everyone reading this is enjoying some summer sewing (if it is summer where you live J).  I’m still working on some swimwear and hope to have something to show for my efforts soon.   I’ve also been busy planning for and making samples of the crafts I’m going to teach in a couple of weeks at my church’s Vacation Bible School (I love this job).   I’d love to hear what you’ve got on your worktable.

Pique for Summer

Summertime and the living is easy. . . .  I think summer is made for wearing dresses, and dresses are the things I like to sew the very best when the temperature rises.  I've got a pretty good collection now of simple, slip-them-on-and-you're-dressed items, and I'll be sharing some pictures and thoughts over the next few weeks.

I'm starting out with a short sheath dress, one of the very first garments I made with Pattern Master Boutique software.  This dress was drafted to my personal measurements, but the pattern catalogs are full of other similar patterns.  This one has bust darts as well as waist darts.

The fabric is a darling pique print with umbrellas in blues and greens.  I used a lime green linen to pipe the armholes and neckline.  The hem was also piped, out of necessity, when I discovered the length was a bit on the short side.  I made a facing for the hem and stitched the piping into the 1/4" seam that I allotted, leaving the maximum length possible.  The lining is bemberg rayon.

Tomorrow I am off to see Natalie Chanin give a lecture at the Textile Museum in DC and will write a full report a little later in the week.  Until then. . . .