Tag Archives | summer clothes

Going for a Test Drive: Sewaholic Cambie

By on May 6, 2012 in Dresses, Summer Style
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Last month I was on a top-secret sewing mission. Not as rigorously top-secret as Sidney Bristow going undercover in a Balkan mob but I can dream. (In college I harbored fantasies of working for the CIA… I think I read Harriet the Spy too many times as a kid.) It was a fun mission nonetheless–I had the pleasure of being a super spy tester for Sewaholic’s new pattern, the Cambie dress.

So far I’ve only made the Lonsdale dress, but it fit so well that I’ve really looked forward to trying other Sewaholic patterns, and I leapt at the chance to try this out.

My first impulse was to get all rocknroll on the dress, possibly contrast with all the femininity in some kind of animal print. Then Derek talked me into the hat. I HAD to design the dress around the hat.

It was the week before Easter, and I was reminiscing over all the wonderful Easter Sunday church clothes my mother made for us girls. And dreaming of sipping mint juleps on a lovely Sunday afternoon in the garden.

My friend Stephanie and I decided to make a day of playing dress-up and took off to the East Side to catch some light and street shots. “Everyone dresses pretty funky over there, no one will really think we’re out of place,” she assured me.

Hehe, we were not exactly invisible. There is something about girls in their summer clothes… That and the fact that we were running around with all this camera equipment. I think our waiter at the restaurant afterward thought we were doing a magazine editorial, because he asked for credit. (Thank you, Paul!) A lovely elderly gentleman stopped us while we were sitting on a bench and exclaimed, “You young ladies are so pretty. Y’all remind me of summers in Mississippi. Those dresses… those dresses are like the ones the ladies and my mama all wore on Sunday afternoons. Takes me back. Brings a smile to my face.” (Insert a big fat Texas drawl in there, and you will hear the essence of Southern graciousness.)

Just so Y’ALL can see what she was wearing.

It was so much fun to have a friend behind the camera because, gee, I’m actually laughing and dancing in most of them! She’d just seen a flamenco performance the night before so I was taking cues.

So, details, details. This dress is actually my second version! I made another out of a simple cotton jacquard so that I could give honest tester feedback by following the testing instructions, with one of the recommended fabrics. I put some photos up on Flickr so you can get an idea of what it looks like with the waistband and in a more structured fabric.

Fabric: Absolutely delicious, couldn’t-stop-stalking cotton/silk voile with a delicate watercolor floral. So soft to the touch. Despite this being a sheer fabric, the voile was actually a dream to sew. It unravelled like a beast, though, so I needed to work fast to finish the seams. The lining is a nude silk habotai.

(I should probably mention that Tasia didn’t recommend sheer fabrics for the a-line version… but I didn’t mind a bit of pocket show-through. It sorta blends.)

Pattern & Fit Changes: My muslin fit almost perfectly, but I wanted to take out some of the width around the hips. On both front and back pieces I took redrew the side seams about 1/2″ in from hem up to the hipline, and graded back out to 0 the waist. This took out 2 inches total from the hip and hem width. Some of you may notice that the pockets of the a-line skirt version and the waistband are almost identical to those on the Lonsdale. I almost took the waistband out of the Lonsdale and wanted to try doing so on this dress. This was actually a very simple modification. To keep the length and the waistline in the right spot, I lengthened both the bodice and skirt waistline by 1/2″, re-shaped the darts, and walked the pieces together to be sure the waist seams matched.

Anyone thinking of making this? I’m convinced this pattern will make a lot of happy dresses and makers, especially for those of you who like a bit of frou. I’m pretty happy because I think I’ve just found myself a good starting block, tnt, what have you… I’m already dreaming of a strapless version with a few bodice changes….

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The Silk Tank, or How to Stay Away from Plastic Flip-flops

By on May 31, 2011 in Summer Style
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It took me a long time to adjust, both physically and psychologically, to the intense heat and sun of the Texas summer. I’m a native midwesterner and before Austin we moved around northern Europe, so the perfect wardrobe in my imagination was a very constructed urban sophisticated look better suited to Londoners. I never had more than one pair of sandals, and snuffed plastic flip-flops, which are standard Austin uniform. I had to let my ideals go and embrace a looser and freer style.

Now Austin is infamously laid back. Sartorial for men here is an occasional button-down to go with one’s shorts. But I have to find a way to stay theatrical and even glamorous-feeling–that’s the challenge. It’s too easy to “dude it” here.

I’ve always loved silk but used to consider it somewhat of a luxury. A couple of summers ago, I bought a few silk pieces, like a sleeveless lightweight crepe dress (which I’m wearing here under the jacket), a flowy charmeuse wrap skirt, and a crepe jumpsuit–and ended up nearly wearing them out. Now I go out of my way to wear silk in the summer. Sure, cotton is great and rayon/viscose can be silk-like, but there’s something about silk… it’s feels so weightless and cool on the skin.

So I’m on a mission to make a few basic tops in silk–my red charmeuse tank is a good excuse not to reach for one of my raggedy Old Navy ones. I should really throw those away….

The fabric was left over from a recent lining and wanted something really simple and breezy, in a kind of a-line shape. Kwik Sew 3795 was a good place to start. I liked the a-line of the pattern but it was very low cut so I had to raise the armholes about 2 inches. You can’t see it here, but the original armhole falls below the bustline. I’m still not sure about the neckline–I think I like a narrower u-shape, and will fiddle with this line before I make another.

The pattern also calls for bias binding on the armholes and neckline but I wanted something dressier and wondered if there was a way to work out a simple facing and googled around. Of course, it seems like I keep finding my sewing solutions over at Sherry’s blog, which has the exact tutorial I needed: sewing an all-in-one facing for neckline and armhole.

Thank goodness for easy projects. Overall, from re-drawing the pattern to cutting and sewing, it took about 4-5 hours. That’s fast for me.

The truth is, most days I just feel like throwing on a tank and some kind of loose trousers. I just want weightlessness–not a lot of straps, no binding clothes or shoes. I can barely handle a neck scarf, no matter how light it is.

I got the idea to pair red and coral from a recent Lucky mag. I’m pretty obsessed with coral in all its shades–it’s turned out to me the perfect summer color for me and when I saw these silk crepe Sonia Rykiel trousers I leapt at them. I’m still trying to figure out if I can wear the carrot pant style; these are so high-waisted and billowy and have massive belt loops. Obviously one has not found the right belt yet because they are falling down!

I’m sure some of you find seasonal dressing pretty natural and would love to hear stories from others who’ve made major climate-moves. I’d wear knee-high lace-up suede boots year round if I could–I’m like a Celt in the desert.

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