The Instant Gratification Dress

It always gets down to the end of summer and all I want to throw on is something very easy–pretty but easy to live in for an entire day. It was a hard summer to feel comfortable and pretty. My “wear more silk” strategy got put to the test, especially after realizing how much hand-washing I was doing. Sweat ruins silk. Too much washing changes silk. And then of course there’s coffee. (Confession: I spill coffee on everything. And I mean EVERYTHING.)

I wonder why I didn’t think of something like this sooner. I was so desperate for a new summer dress that I cut and sewed this in a weekend, and while we were moving. This might be the zillionth online version of this popular Tracy Reese pattern (Vogue 1224) and for good reason. It’s inexpensive (only requires about a yard and half), incredibly easy and fast to sew and easy to wear.

Normally I pass on prints, especially in knits, but I was taken with this bright watercolor floral from EOS. And the fabric turned out to be such lovely quality, a silky, soft and light rayon jersey. I’m on the verge of ordering more for a drapey maxi for next spring or PJs or… or any other excuse, it’s just that gorgeous.

Many reviewers of this dress didn’t like the skirt’s tight fit and sewed a larger size and lengthened it as well. I was a bit nervous about the fit as this was my first experience sewing a Vogue pattern for knits so as insurance I rounded up a size, too. But it ended up too big, almost swimming, so I serged off the extra width. I kept the original length–I rather like the design’s intended proportions–but I’ve got these short legs so it doesn’t look so mini.

There was one little thing that felt missing–drawstring tips, which I have been searching for high and low since making a knit jumpsuit with neckline drawstrings a couple of years ago. They seem quite rare.

I finally found these cool tips at a little online store, Fashionista Fabrics. They have a nice weight and shape but unfortunately use these microscopic screws to secure the drawstring, and are very resistant to screwing in and out. Anyone know of other sources? Or another term for these? (I searched for aglets, which are usually the tips of shoelaces and can be metal at times.)

It was still hovering near 100 at the start of October, my birthday month, which I always associate with pumpkins, and hay and browned trees and boots and scarves and warmed cider. Now I’m doing it like a true Texas gal.

Purple Silk Shorts by Burda. Process by Me.

Every garment has a Big Story, even if it’s small or rarely worn. This is what I love about sewing–it’s taking the narrative of fashion and making it very personal. Making something is such a stretched-out process of meditation–from research to finished garment. Sometimes I think about a person who loves this color, or a place I have been that feels like this fabric.

Or sometimes, as in the case of these silk shorts, the story becomes about the very process of craft.

Pattern: from Burda June 2010. Fabric: purple silk charmeuse leftover from my Lady Grey coat. I’d been wanting to make this pair since last summer so I added them to my multi-pattern project.

This is a really classic and easy-to-wear pattern. The shorts are slightly loose with a nice subtle contoured waistband that sits just below the waist, yoke pockets, and a fly. (The pattern had two styles with options for cuffs, back welt pockets, a front closing bow, or belt loops. I left off everything but the cuffs.)

Before cutting them I did a bit of zipper research. Rather than try and deciper the Martian Burda instructions, I compared various online tutorials and and the instructions in one of my sewing books. Most fly zip instructions include basting the center front, and I wanted to know if it was possible to do them without basting or even pins (partially to avoid stitch marks in silk and partially out of my experimenting curiosity).

So I turned to my favorite sllk crepe trousers and did a bit of examination of the pieces and possible sewing order. Then I cut a couple of templates in rayon scrap, using a similar fly front but with a very short crotch rise, adding a fly shield and making a few seam adjustments. I tried one sample with a cut-on fly facing and another with a sewn-on facing.

I was very pleased with the outcome of both–sewing a fly without basting is quite easy and just requires a few placement marks/notches. I transferred the pattern adjustments to my shorts and here was the final result from the outside:

From the inside (and still need to tie up the loose threads, oops!):

Things pretty much fell together after those exercises. And this was such a great feeling that I forgot to try them on till the end. And when I did, I realized I’d gone and done the ultimate sewing mishap: I’d completely traced and sewn the wrong (and much too small) size! In my past sewing life, this would’ve produced a seam-ripping frenzy, but I happily carried on hemming. At some point, I must have subconsciously felt these were less about an addition to my wardrobe and more about learning technique. I’d approached them almost as a sample-maker would–testing out the engineering and design, so to speak.

Now this got me thinking–how many garments (other than fast and unfinished muslins) had I made just as an exercise or practice, for the sake of practice, without the pressure of the end product? Very little, actually. Sewing tends to be goal-oriented, and coupled with a fear of waste, even the process of making muslins can have a certain goal-pressure around them. I liked how K.Line described muslins as a separate practice, a chance to learn, more like applied engineering.

Whatever your passions or hobbies, there is always more to know or learn, right? Even my most treasured writers filled notebooks with pure writing exercises to the end of their lives–which stretch fluidity in language, try out technique on smaller scales, and improve the process of self-editing. As I was putting these together, I thought, becoming a master at anything is not so much about skill acquisition but a willingness to keep practicing and learning and improving–these things eventually compound on each other and create experience and greater understanding. And those practices are valuable, even enjoyable, for their own sake.

The Endless Summer Wardrobe

Hello! I have been a bit radio silent here, haven’t I? We ran away to San Francisco. We never wanted to come back. Cool breezes, fog, rain. Novel! We came home fully relaxed, only to spend the next week packing boxes. Argh, moving. It was exciting at first–a bigger house to live in while we do some major upgrades to our teensy but beloved old craftsman home. Then a week of I-can’t-find-my-freaking *insert essential daily item* craziness. We only moved a few blocks away but still totally discombobulating.

While Austin’s weather is still hovering in the 100s, this week finally brought in some cooler days that don’t feel like they are hijacking our sanity. I’m not sure if it ever plans on raining here again. I’m counting five months without a drop.

I’ve been chipping away at my multi-pattern project when I’ve had space or time to sew. At last I’ve arrived at the stage where all my garments are ready to be assembled at the machine!

If you’re just arriving here, I’ve been working on eight patterns at once as an organizational strategy. I wanted to try a bit of an assembly-line style of garment-making. Most of these patterns are summer clothes and I’d hoped to be done just a wee bit sooner but obviously in our current state of weather, they’ll still get some wear.

Along the way I was heartened by Robin’s guest entry at Gertie’s blog. She wrote that organizing the same stages of tasks together builds motor skills. Things I did like adding seam allowances to every pattern at the same time, cutting a ton of fabric for four days, and fusing all the fabric at the same time definitely resulted in more muscle memory and speed, and less second-guessing of what I was doing. I know these patterns so well I think I could sew them backwards in my head.

I was quite proud of myself when I was able to bundle each cut project with all its requisite notions. One of the things that tends to get me backed up in projects is that I forget I need buttons or run out of thread and then have to wait for the mail or trudge to Joann’s.

Of course, since my process of preparing all these garments was taking so long and I am desperate for a summer wardrobe refresher, I shoved everything aside to sew up an instant gratification dress. You can see the dress on the floor in the above photo… I’m just waiting for (didn’t I just say this backs me up?) the right size elastic to finish it. Here’s another sneak peak:

All Kinds of Insanity

Way back in the 90s, you used to be able to find deadstock 70s clothes for next to nothing–denim, leather, all kinds of craziness. My friends and I frequented this big dingy warehouse of vintage gold in downtown Cincinnati. (Can’t remember the name, but I suspect it has been run off by the new art district gentrication since then.) We’d bring out-of-towners to witness the platforms: rows and rows of the clowniest patchwork 6-inch-high things, still with the tags on.

Sort of like these Jeffrey Campbell boots.

I confess to thinking at first, what total shoe insanity.

Dorothy finds her way home insanity.

Renaissance fair insanity.

My Pretty Pony insanity.

Let’s not leave out Colorado fashion insanity.

They come in at least 50 flavors. It was only after seeing them in person at Nordstrom today that I kinda fell for the insanity. Jeffrey Campbell shoes always looked a bit cheap to me, but the varieties I saw were lovely melty-soft suede.

And yet this little shoe crush bought up an issue I’ve been mulling as of late. Apparently they seem to be marketed as something of a “cult item”–have them in every color! sort of thing. I have a knee-jerk reaction to cult fashion. I know too well the insanity of women pushing each other to get at a particular sale item with Where The Wild Things Are googly eyes. Just today in Zara, a woman in this zombified state pushed me over a pair of rather boring olive rayon pants, and I almost pulled a “Detroit” on her. Just ask my husband what that means.

The one site that seems to sell the most of these boots even includes in their description of the shoe, “Get ready to fight it out, girls. It’s gonna get ugly in here!” I don’t like businesses that encourage manic-woman trampling, physical or virtual.

When it comes to something faddish, no matter how expensive or cheap, I often ask myself: did you like it before you found out how popular it was? (In this case, yes.) Nothing wrong with the influence of others, but hype is another thing–it tends to trample true desire. Then I ask myself an economical question: if these were $10, would you like them more or less? If they were $500 would you like them more or less? Both sides of the coin–perceived economy or luxury–are tricky values.

Still, I’m not yet over the lace-up platform bootie thing. I fell for it last year and bought two pairs of black lace-ups with the full intention of returning the pair I liked least. A highly unrecommended shopping practice if you are a shoe fanatic.

[Credit: patchwork, dorothy, renaissance, pretty pony, Colorado, colorblock)

oh and p.s. I know I’ve been lax in sewing posts. I made quite a bit of headway on my multi-pattern project before our much-needed holiday. I promise, I have some garments to show soon!

Taken By the Wind

Now and then I fall in love with gauzy bohemian style. Lately, my Stevie Nicks urges are invariably brought on by a Free People catalog (FP being the haute hippie child of Anthropologie, who decided to start sending me these catalogs last year).

FP is all about embroidered panels, fringe, layering, flowy flowers and all that–with nice, luxury materials. Maybe I just like the idea of a place where the sun always lingers in the early morning glow and one’s clothes and hair are backlit and shimmering.

Um, that would be California in most people’s minds, but surprisingly, the July catalog was shot in my very own Austin, home of the hippie cowboy image… (also known here back in the day as ‘space cowboy’).

The bohemia thing was easier to pull off in my younger years but now I have to think about the usefulness of silk chiffon snow-leopard-print bell-bottoms.

So I got suckered by this gorgeous sable-color-print silk chiffon fabric last month, paid a pretty penny for it. And I have no idea what to make with it. Maybe I just need to hang it as a curtain. Because that’s what chiffon does, right? Curtain about?

I looked everywhere for a type of dress pattern I could live with. Most of the ruffley, drapey patterns suitable for chiffon seem to come from the hippier side of the 70s, and all very difficult to pull off without looking like I’m 13. Any advice or style ideas for sheer drapey fabrics, with a womanly edge?

And while I’m at it, someone stop me from buying that gorgeous shawl on the top, which would possibly sit in the back of my wardrobe just like that ankle length white silk cape I had to have last year.

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