Review: Built By Wendy: Dresses

I was really impressed by Built by Wendy Dresses: The Sew U Guide to Making a Girl's Best Frock. I really liked her Sew U book that came out back in 2006, so I was excited to see that she had a new one, concentrating exclusively on DRESSES. Whoo-hoo!

There are three dress patterns (sheath, shift, and dirndl) and twenty-five variations, most of which are cute (although they skew a little young). And the pattern sizing has changed from the first book, with the new book including an XL size (up to a 41" bust).

This would be a good book for a dedicated beginner. By "dedicated beginner," I mean someone who is slightly more patient than average (or maybe just slightly more patient than ME), who is thoughtful and careful, and who has sufficient motivation to spend more than one weekend putting a dress together. I estimate that it would take one weekend's worth of time (for a beginner) just to get the patterns traced and altered, one weekend to cut out the pattern and begin construction, and one weekend (or long evening) to do the finishing work. This is definitely a book for someone who will enjoy the planning and the process as much as the finished item.

However, if you worked your way carefully through the projects in this book, there would be very little that would faze you at the end. She covers pattern alterations, collars, clipping curves, sewing on buttons, seam finishing, facings and linings ... and of course, pockets, although welt pockets are not included -- even Wendy says they're on the difficult side, so she left them out. Zippers are given a slightly hand-wavy treatment, but since there are roughly one gazillion zipper tutorials floating around the web, I don't think that's a problem.

I get a lot of emails that basically read "I bought a sewing machine NOW WHAT??" I think this book is the new answer to "NOW WHAT??"

I did not make this dress

Thanks to Robin for pointing out this eBay listing to me -- this totally looks like something I'd make, doesn't it? I didn't, unless Future Me gets that time machine I've been noodling on (I have very elaborate diagrams, drawn on a cocktail napkin; the problem is finding a battery the size of a chest freezer and made of highly purified unobtainium) and goes back to 1960-something (and, evidently, loses her iron). The spooky thing is that it's totally my size ...

Hmm. Anyway, if you buy this dress (click here), would you check and see if the hem is finished with bias tape and the notches are clipped in instead of out? That would help me figure out if Future Me ever made it back. Thanks!

Here, Kitty Kitty

Ang at Dorothea's Closet Vintage has this adorable kitten-print dress up for sale ...




It's got a little hurt going on -- it was part of a theater group's costume collection, so there are some repairs that wouldn't be visible from the opera circle but that would be if you wore it in "real life."

I used to have a problem with buying "hurt" dresses, especially at thrift stores. I would fall in love with them and want to fix them and make them all better, but what generally happened is that they fell into a laundry basket and gradually turned into vintage compost, because I hate mending.

So I will buy hurts now only on a few conditions -- if I want to use the buttons for something else, for example, or if the fabric is so fantastic that I have grand plans of scanning it and reproducing it (perhaps with the help of our friends at Spoonflower). This dress doesn't have any buttons, but I do think someone might want to buy it just for the fabric. So cute!

While I'm thinking big, I wish we had some kind of international print registry, where manufacturers would list their designs with various licenses. I know (or think I know) that there are big trade shows where you can see prints, and that some prints are licensed exclusively to one designer, or to one designer who does childrenswear and another who does swimwear, or whatever, but wouldn't it be fantastic if you could get, online, a listing of all giant artichoke prints (for example), available to download and have printed yourself for a small fee? I would gladly pay $10 (on top of whatever it cost me to print the fabric) for the right to print some yardage of some prints from years ago, and it's not like the manufacturers are making any $$ off those prints now!

Maybe I should go talk to Kathleen about this idea. :-)

Anyway, if you love cats, dresses, and don't mind a few small mends here and there, this is the dress for you. (Click on the image above to visit bigger pictures on Ang's site, then hit the "back" button on that page to get the listing information.)

And How

I know I keep harping on and on about how tired I am of winter, but one of the reasons for said fatigue is that I have been wearing basically the EXACT SAME THING for several months: a circle skirt (with a waistband), tights, t-shirt, and cardigan sweater. This is fine, mostly: it's comfortable, you can have lots of fun with skirt prints and bright tights, it's warm and layerable, and so and so forth. BUT I AM TIRED OF SKIRTS AND WANT TO WEAR SOME DRESSES PLS OK?

I have a few dresses that are good for winter, nice wool, corduroy, heavy cotton and so on, but my favorite kind of dress is in a nice light cotton, preferably in a conversation print. Something with short sleeves, and a little collar, and which does not require any more accessorizing than finding a pair of shoes.

A dress like, say, this one, which I was DESPONDENT to find is not in my size, at Lanetz Living (click on the image to visit the site):




So. I NEED this. I've started a search for it, and with any luck (and/or bribery, if you have a copy of this one you don't need) someday I WILL MAKE THIS. YES. I WILL.

(And what's with ALL THE CAPS? I think I am falling under the influence of THIS.)

Also -- I'm a little worried about the expressions on the faces of the women in this picture. I think that Blue-Stripe Woman has just announced her intention of going over and slapping the bedickens out of someone, and White-Dress Woman is both worried about the emergent crazy of Blue-Stripe Woman and really, really hoping that the slapping will actually happen.